CATALYSE - HEALTHY CHURCHES PRIORITY

There are 6 strategic priorities for the next five years. In total, there are 16 initiatives to implement key projects for these priorities.

Today we hear Pastor Dinah Lee’s CATALYSE story. She is the CATALYSE champion for our Healthy Churches priority.

1. Please share your perspective as a CATALYSE champion

From the time our first international church was pioneered in 1989, we have always been marked with a passionate vision in our hearts to win the world. As we take stock of all our churches that we have since planted, it is apparent that the values, vision and philosophy of our local churches across the globe have varied intensity.

HIM is not an association of independent local churches merely related by name and doctrine. We are a closely-knitted connectional church planting movement sharing an identical spiritual DNA. Hence, we believe that all our churches and particularly, our leaders should bear that same intensity of our vision, values and philosophy.

With a growing presence in over 40 countries, it is fundamental for HIM to minimise the variance and to help our churches across the globe become consistently healthy. It is also crucial to examine church health from a holistic perspective.

2. What do you hope to see at the end of 2015?

Our goal is to grow healthy churches that embody our core values and distinctive. With efforts devoted to this strategic focus and an on-going evaluation (from our pastors) of the effectiveness of our various initiatives, we look forward to our churches growing consistently healthy and multiplying while fully reflecting our distinctive vision, values and philosophy.

3. Explain a little about the Priority of From Variable to Consistently Healthy Churches

There are three initiatives to support this priority.

• The first is to identify and document our distinctive. With this clearly in place, this initiative will proceed to develop generic training materials to assist local pastors in the implementation of our distinctive in their local church context. We also aim to provide our pastors with practical guidance in the implementation. This initiative will monitor these implementation efforts and continually improve the training resources. It is also crucial to distinguish principles from the methods as we do not intend to constrain innovative out-workings of our values and philosophy.

• The second is to develop a Church Health Assessment System that incorporates measurement of qualitative health indicators such as passion for our vision and values. We can possibly use established church health tools such as the Natural Church Development (NCD) as a base model. Building upon such an assessment system, the initiative will work out a health check kit which will provide generic recommendations to address common church health issues amongst our churches. It will also provide pointers to optimise external training without compromising on our vision, values and philosophy.

• The third is to rejuvenate a growing passion for vision and values at every level in the local church, beginning with local pastors and the leadership. It is vital for every leader at the movement, regional and national level to ensure holistic wellness in our inner life. This is foundational before we can nurture that passion through various key corporate gatherings, down to the one-on-one personal discipleship.

4. How do you feel about CATALYSE?

I pray that CATALYSE will kick start many positive and healthy changes that have been long overdue. This is not another project to keep us busy nor make any (already) busy leader busier.
I hope we will become the catalysts that the Lord would want us to be.

To me, CATALYSE is about galvanising members and leaders in HIM to first pursue the heart of God as we seek to mature as a movement.

5. How can we pray for (HIM)and support CATALYSE

Positive awareness of CATALYSE in our local churches in every continent.
Leaders aligning our members to issues beyond the immediate locality and helping individuals see that we are a communion of churches.

Do intercede for our 16 initiative teams working together across the globe.

Thank you pastor for taking time to share your insights with us.

For more information write to us at

spt@byhim.org

HIM Corporate Communications