A healthy sense of focus

Sherri BrownCommunications, GBC

Churches across Georgia are committing to becoming “Healthy Kingdom Churches” like Lakeside Church in Milledgeville. Since beginning the HKC journey, the church has already seen significant growth including increasing Sunday school attendance by 40 percent, adding a staff position, increasing evangelism outreach, and going to a three-Sunday schools, two-worships schedule to accommodate growth.

Bruce Knighton has been at the church since the beginning – back when worship was in the funeral home.

Lakeside Church in Milledgeville began 15 years ago with a core group of about 50.

“For about the first four months we met in a funeral home because it was cheap space,” Knighton explained. The church took off and it wasn’t long before they were making plans for a church building.

Today, Lakeside is a thriving, growing congregation. But no one wanted to take that for granted and two years ago church members voted to begin the Healthy Kingdom Church journey.

“Lakeside is a healthy church, but that doesn’t imply we’re perfect or that we’ve arrived,” said Tim Oliver, pastor of Lakeside Church for the last five years.

Lakeside became one of the first of the Georgia Baptist churches to begin the HKC process.

“Through the HKC diagnostic tools, we were deemed a pretty healthy church, but we realized we could still benefit from the process,” Oliver said. The church started their journey – the term used for the multi-year process – in February 2006.

The HKC journey is based on the ten Bible-based qualities of church health identified by GBC Executive Director J. Robert White in his book, Healthy Kingdom Churches.

“HKC is a facilitator-guided process of hearing what God wants a church to do,” said Greg Abercrombie, HKC specialist with the Georgia Baptist Convention. “Facilitators average 16 visits to the church to work with the pastor and the HKC team. We’ve found that the planning phase takes between 12 and 16 months and the implementation phase is one to three years.”

At Lakeside, members chose five areas to address strategically: Sunday school, evangelistic outreach, discipleship, adding staff, and expanding facilities.

“This was the direction that we sensed the Lord was leading us. We formed a goal team for each point and now we’re working through those,” Oliver said. “The huge benefit that HKC provides a congregation is that it forces the church and the pastor to invest serious time in seeking the Lord through praying and reading Scripture. What more can you want as a pastor?”

Just two years into the journey, Lakeside has already seen significant growth, Oliver said. Sunday school average attendance has increased by nearly 40 percent, a staff position has been added, evangelism outreach participation has increased, and the church recently voted to go to a three-Sunday schools, two-worships schedule to accommodate current and future growth.

The long-range planning committee at Lakeside has begun looking at how to expand the current facilities.

“We’ve already seen that the HKC journey has equipped us to address these areas and move forward,” Oliver said. “We would not be at this place [in our church life] otherwise.”

Abercrombie hears that often from pastors in the HKC journey.

“HKC brings a sense of focus to the church. There is an excitement. Churches that have completed the journey become focused and have a renewed excitement about ministry and missions,” he said. “Any church can be healthier to the glory of God.”