In psychiatry, researchers study not just the manifestations and causes of mental dysfunction or illness, but also ‘wellness,’ that which helps the patient become ‘more well.’ In education and business, for students and for companies respectively, increasingly the emphasis is to explore and develop strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses. In analyzing developing countries, debt relief agencies now include positive attributes in assessments, rather than just focusing on or measuring the bad ones as in previous models.
These shifts do not suggest that one should ignore glaring weaknesses and problems inherent in whatever system you are working with. They do suggest that the focus should not be exclusively on ‘what is wrong?’ They suggest a healthy, useful place for asking ‘what is right?’ Using another medical example, doctors know that referring a patient to a pathologist does not lead to good health.
I believe we have made a parallel mistake in our assessments of churches….
Read the rest of my article on Church Wellness.