Healthy Church

Pastor Ken Werlein kicks off the new Healthy Church sermon series in 1 Corinthians 12, addressing the question head-on that many people carry but rarely say out loud: I love God, but I'm done with the church. Ken reminds us that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to one of the messiest, most dysfunctional churches in history—and still called them the Body of Christ. From that image, Ken builds three convictions: you need the Body, the Body needs you, and it's time to get into circulation. Nobody was ever hurt more by the church than Jesus—and nobody loves it more. His challenge to close: don't spend your life protecting your point. Get some crayon on the wall.

Michael McDowell takes us into 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul goes after the underlying habits making the church sick before he ever addresses the conflict. The first is assuming life is always supposed to go up and to the right—but Paul holds up a cross and says this is the source of health. The second is "my way or the highway"—the self-centeredness that poisons marriages, workplaces, and churches alike. A healthy church isn't one that avoids the downward path of the cross. It's one that walks toward it—and finds resurrection power on the other side.