What makes for a healthy church or ministry?

I have been watching for an answer.

I have been watching for what assists good long-term pastoral care, both from clergy and congregation members. Also watching what makes some people great mentors and disciplers - the sort of people that others want to be around.

My conclusion is not unexpected. There is no single thing.

The Bible clearly states the important things: being an upright person of integrity, who is seen to continue to grow in the faith; a person who gives wise counsel and one who serve others by helping them serve the Lord.

I could easily write pages on each of these things.

But there is another factor that I have noticed that comes not so much from Biblical revelation but from observation.

So often the best pastors, mentors and disciplers have what some people call a 'light touch' or a 'lightness of being'. It shows up in their ability to put people at ease. They bring a spirit of playfulness to relationships, so that they enable others to laugh. What such people do is reduce the amount of anxiety in a situation or set of relationships.

This attitude is not a disregard for the significance of circumstances or a trivialising of the situations. Rather such people have an ability to reduce the tension that clouds other people's ability to think and relate appropriately.

All human interactions, even those between Christians in church, have the potential to be strained, and create anxiety.

I have noticed that heightened anxiety always makes matters worse. It gets the situation out of perspective and promotes bad decision-making and reduce the options available for resolution. It can even excuse sinful behaviour.

Anxiety-reducing people not only help the situation and relationship at hand, but I have also noticed that they teach those who are prone to anxiety another, better, way of responding to situations. And they do this teaching without it even being noticed.

A word of personal confession: because as Christians we so often engage in big, deep issues with others I find it so easy to intensify the matter and this increases anxiety levels, with unhelpful consequences. For example an anxious presence can make what is intended to be a support in choosing the godly way forward sound like bullying or coercion.

My suggestion is that we seek ways of becoming a less anxious presence. Not in a way that is dismissive of the matter, but assists in helping people to maturity through a less anxious means.