Your Role in Creating a Healthy Church Podcast | Part 2

How do you help make your church healthy? 💭

In this powerful conclusion to our two-part series, Pastor Chris Franke of HFF Church in Oklahoma City explores your personal role in building a Jesus-centered, Spirit-led, and servant-hearted church.

Healthy churches don’t happen by accident — they’re built by people, not programs. And the truth is, the church will only ever be as healthy as the people who make it up.

🔑 This Episode Covers:

1️⃣ Serve Faithfully & Humbly Jesus said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” (Mark 10:45) A healthy church is led by servants, not celebrities — by people who care more about washing feet than building platforms.

2️⃣ Walk in Fruit, Not Just Gifts Many want the gifts of the Spirit, but few cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22–23) reminds us that true transformation happens when love, patience, kindness, and self-control define our lives — not just our ministries.

3️⃣ Stop Complaining — Start Contributing If you see something missing in your church, fill the gap instead of fueling the gossip. Be the solution God can use to bring healing, maturity, and revival.

Healthy churches are not perfect churches — they’re repentant churches. They’re families on mission, walking in humility, fruitfulness, and unity.

So before saying, “My church isn’t healthy,” ask yourself:

“Am I bringing health to it — or am I part of what’s keeping it sick?”

🎧 Welcome to the Hopeful Heretic Podcast (HHP) Join Pastor Chris Franke and others from around the country as we talk all things Bible, church, and family. We may be right. We may be heretical. But that’s for you to decide.

📍 Join us for Saturday Church in OKC every Saturday morning at 10:30am 🌐 Visit https://hff.church

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to the podcast.
Last week, we started the two-part series on your role in creating a healthy church.
We're to be participants, not consumers.
We're to be rooted in the word, not in man's opinion.
We're to be building relationships that should heal and not hurt.
Healthy churches don't just happen by accident.

(00:22):
They're built by people for people.
Welcome to the HHP Podcast.
My name is Chris Franke and I am the Senior Pastor of HFF Church in Oklahoma City.
Join me and others from around the country as we talk all things Bible, church, and family.
We may be right.
We may be heretical, but that's for you to decide.

(00:43):
Drop a like, a share, a comment, subscribe, and let's get to it.
So the Barna Group has shown us that recently the younger generation is returning to church.
While it has become popular for many years for people to take issues with the church and the leadership of the church,
we see that the younger people are looking for more structure.

(01:04):
Some of the older people have been rooted in bitterness for the failures of men and they have lacked the ability to forgive them or to engage in a way that they could help change the trajectory of the church.
And so today we're going to continue to look at what your role is in creating a healthy church because it's super easy for people to just be judgmental and to say, well, this is what the church should do.

(01:30):
And this is what the Bible says.
Well, unfortunately, the Bible says you're actually supposed to do something about it, not just talk about it.
And so a lot of people who talk about why they don't like the church or why this doesn't work for me, they actually are just operating in their own narcissism and they need to be in a place where they stop talking.
And they start engaging.
So today we're going to look at the final couple of bullet points on what you can do for your role in creating a healthy church.

(01:59):
You can serve faithfully and humbly.
Mark 10, 45, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve."
It becomes abundantly clear when people are serving for position and power, not because they want to further advance the kingdom.
This happens all the time, whether it would be pastors or elders of churches or whether it would be team leads or deacons or directors over children's programs.

(02:29):
But ultimately, the church only functions in a healthy environment when we realize that the position and the power is all delegated from God and we are to be servants.
A healthy church isn't measured by the amount of bottoms and seats.
It's measured by the amount of servanthood in the church.
If every believer had served the way that Jesus had served, then every church would thrive in the mission of multiplying the kingdom, feeding the widows and the poor and the orphans, supporting those in ministry.

(03:00):
You don't have to preach to serve.
In fact, a lot of times as a guy who has been preaching the last three years or so and been in different pastoral ministries, the more you preach, the more you come under condemnation from other people.
That's not what the Bible says, or I disagree with you.
Or, you know, when they can't disagree with the biblical word they take in, they attack you personally, what you look like, all that type of stuff.

(03:25):
Preaching is not the goal of the church.
Serving is the goal of the church.
You can greet people, you can mentor people, you can clean, you can pray.
But I have learned something over many years of being in ministries and churches all over the country.
The people who won't take the trash out won't serve the people as pastors.

(03:49):
The people who won't mop the floor can't be bothered to sit at a hospital bed.
Every act of service strengthens the body and edifies the body.
And when people are only interested in edifying themselves, they shouldn't be in a position to influence the body.
If you see something that's lacking in your church, stop complaining about it and actually contribute to it.

(04:13):
Be a solution versus being a sounding board.
I'm so thankful for our church community because so many people just step into roles when I feel like I'm failing to meet all of them.
They contribute and they're the solution when maybe I don't have one.

(04:33):
Let us walk in fruit, not just in gifts.
So many people want the gifts of the Spirit.
So many people want to be a pastor, an office, a gift, or they want the healing or tongues is super controversial.
But you can't have the gifts without the fruit.
Otherwise, they're not the gifts of God, they're the gifts of the adversary.

(04:55):
Galatians 5 22 through 23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
These gifts help us build ministry.
But the fruit builds the character that sustains us and lets us know that God is in it.
A church that's filled with gifts, but lacking in fruit becomes a toxic church.

(05:21):
A gift, a church filled with fruit, but humble about its gifts becomes transformational.
You can bring health when you walk in the Spirit daily.
When you're patient in trials, kind in conflict, gentle in correction, self-control in your temptation, and operating in your role by producing the fruit, your role in this family is supposed to produce.

(05:51):
So which fruit of the Spirit do you need to grow in right now?
How can you model that fruit to others?
Because again, your fruit is not for you.
Your fruit is so that other people could eat and they could be nourished to multiply fruit from their trees for other people.
This is how the kingdom works.
Be fruitful and multiply.

(06:13):
This isn't just a sex talk.
Be fruitful and multiply.
The first commandment in the scripture says, "It doesn't mean how obedient or observant you might be.
If you are not bearing fruit and multiplying the good fruit in people's lives, then you're part of the problem, not the solution."
A healthy church isn't built overnight.

(06:36):
You overcoming the generational traumas and cycles in your life isn't done overnight, but it is built moment by moment, person by person.
When every believer decides to live biblically, to love humbly, to serve faithfully, revival in the hearts and the minds of people grows quickly and it will last powerfully.

(06:59):
So before you say, "My church isn't healthy," or "This church isn't healthy," I want you to ask yourself, am I bringing health to the church or am I part of the unhealthy part?
Because the church isn't them, it's us.
It's not those people, it's us.

(07:21):
It's you, it's me, the bride of Christ.
Christ is the head of the church, preparing itself for Christ's return.
And we need everybody.
If this podcast has blessed you, please consider supporting by visiting our website and making a donation.
For more resources, blogs, podcasts, please visit us at hff.church.

(07:46):
Looking for a church home?
Join us for Saturday Church in OKC every Saturday morning, starting at 1030.
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