Balancing the Triangle

Yesterday evening a few of us gathered on Zoom for our Vision Evening. I shared some of what God has been speaking to the church during the last few months and how that relates to our core values which we presented just over a year ago.

Every church and every believer operates through three key relationships: our upward relationship with God, our inward relationship with other Christians and our outward relationship with the world that doesn’t know Jesus. For us at Dewsbury Elim, these relationships are expressed through our core values: Loving God (Up), Loving our Family (In), Loving Dewsbury & Beyond (Out).

It’s helpful to illustrate these relationships with a triangle, as suggested by 3DM.

A healthy church and a healthy disciple has these three relationships in balance. Most churches are strong on two of the three, with one being weaker. We want to develop a healthy balance between Up, In and Out.

It’s easy to become what Mike Breen describes as a “two-dimensional church,” where one out of these three is somewhat neglected. Emphasis on Up and In but not Out will result in a church with strong worship and fellowship but poor witness; Up and Out will mean strong worship and witness but poor fellowship; In and Out will mean strong witness and fellowship but poor worship.

As a church we are on a journey to bring these three relationships – these three core values – into balance with one another. To do this we need to identify our strengths and our weaknesses, so that we can address those weaknesses.

This isn’t just about the church though, it’s about us as individual disciples. What would your triangle look like? Are you strong on Up and In but weak on Out? Do you excel in evangelism and worship but struggle with relating to other Christians?

Let’s work together to make sure that we are not a two-dimensional church and that we are not two-dimensional Christians!