Mark Dever: What Is A Heathy Church?

May 28, 2008

Here’s another book that Mark Dever was giving away at The Whiteboard Sessions. This is an expanded version of his original pamphlet, and a condensed version of his larger work, 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.

At 126 pages, What Is A Healthy Church? is quite accessible for those who don’t have a lot of time on their hands, but would still like to hear what Dever has to say about church health.

The book is divided into three main sections.

  1. What is a healthy church?
  2. Essential marks of a healthy church
  3. Important marks of a healthy church

In the introduction, Dever asks the reader what you are looking for in a church. Any time you are looking for a new church home you invariably come up with a set of criteria by which you judge those churches you visit. The author is asking us to evaluate those criteria to see if they are biblically based and God centered, or self centered.

What is a healthy church?

In this first section Dever defines the role of the church in the believer’s life, noting that the church is a family, a fellowship, and a body. He argues that if one claims to be a Christian, but shows no desire for community with other believers, you should question whether you are truly a Christian or not.

A true Christian builds his life into the lives of other believers through the concrete fellowship of a local church.

Since the church is a body of God’s people, if we are striving to live the Christian life and love God and others, as Jesus commanded us, then we should care about the health of the local church. Here is his final definition of a healthy church.

A healthy church is a congregation that increasingly reflects God’s character as his character has been revealed in his Word.

Essential marks of a healthy church

In the second section of the book, Dever lays out three marks of a healthy church that he identifies as essential to the church’s health. Without these things, you have a sick church in need of serious medical attention that can only be given by the great physician.

Expositional preaching is the first essential mark. This means taking a passage of Scripture, explaining what the text says and what it means, then applying that meaning to lives of the listeners. The real strength of this style of preaching is, as Dever notes, that

expositional preaching is not so much about how a preacher says what he says, but about how a preacher decides what to say.

The reason this is of essential importance to the health of the church is that God uses his Word to grow his people. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mark Dever on church polity

May 24, 2008

I’ve read the first of the three books that were being given away by Mark Dever at The Whiteboard Sessions. The title of this small work (61 pages) is: A Display Of God’s Glory – Basics of Church Structure – Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism & Membership.

This is the first book I’ve read by Mark Dever and I maybe shouldn’t have started with this one. I was looking forward very much to reading his book on church health, and I still will, but now I have a bad taste in my mouth for his writings.

The premise of this book is stated on page 2 in the introduction.

When we say that church polity can be found in the pages of the New Testament, that does not mean that we assume the correctness of our own practices and then go in search of ways to justify them biblically. Rather, our goal must be to look at the Bible, recognize some basic aspects of structure and organization that are taught there, and then organize our churches according to the Bible’s teaching.

This is much easier said than done. Actually setting aside one’s closely held beliefs and going to Scripture free from preconceived notions and ideas, is probably the hardest task we face with regard to studying the Bible. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Dever accomplished his opening resolution.

Deacons

Chapter one deals with the subject of Deacons. I was with the author as he defined the function and role of the deacon according to Scripture. He even pointed out the widespread use of the word throughout the New Testament. On page 13 though I started to question things. He makes this statement.

That deacons are commanded to be the “husband of one wife” does not preclude the service of women in diaconal positions. The example of Phoebe in Romans 16:1, the use of “deacon” words elsewhere of women in the Scriptures, and to a lesser degree, the long history of deaconnesses in Baptist churches, has led our own church happily to embrace the ministry of women serving us as deacons.

Now to be fair, I had previously somewhat agreed with this position. When I read it though, it struck me as wrong. Paul actually gives Timothy more instruction concerning deacons and their wives, than he does for elders. Yet Dever later goes on to insist that women cannot be elders. So when Paul says that an elder must be the husband of one wife, that means no women elders, but when he says a deacon must be the husband of one wife, and that his wife should behave in a certain way, that means it’s OK for women to be deacons? I don’t follow that logic.

Earlier in the chapter Dever pointed out that Jesus and Paul both used the “deacon words” about themselves, and he doesn’t seem to believe that either of them was serving in the role of deacon. Read the rest of this entry »

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Reflections on the Whiteboard Sessions

May 24, 2008

As I stated in my last post, I attended The Whiteboard Sessions this thursday. I had discovered this conference several months ago and brought it up at an elders meeting, hoping that many of them would want to attend. Alas, it was just myself and Rusty (our “teaching” elder, a.k.a. “the pastor”). So much for leadership development.

A couple days prior to the event he asked a young man in our congregation if he would like to go. At the last minute he decided he did, even though he wanted to be back in time for his sister’s performance at the highschool that same night. Long story short, we left early and missed the last two speakers, Perry Noble (who pastors a church in a rural county not unlike our own), and Ed Stetzer (a church planter and missionary sort). I can’t say that I was happy about that.

What I did hear at the conference was great. I didn’t care for all the speakers, but I did particularly enjoy Darrin Patrick from Acts 29. I didn’t anticipate his topic, personal idolatry, but it was a message that I needed to hear.

Mark Dever I thought was pretty good. He was giving away three small books to everyone in attendance. I’ve already read one of them and will post a review shortly.

Overall, I learned some things, some from the speakers, some from the experience, about church leadership.

I’ll admit to being a little disheartened concerning the leadership in my own church. I’m convicted though that I haven’t prayed as I should that God would intervene and grow our elders. I’ve been striving in my own strength trying to herd them in the direction I think they should be moving.

Resolved: To spend time every morning in prayer for the elders and deacons in our church, that the Lord would work in their lives to either grow them and create a strong desire to serve in their office, or remove them from the office and raise someone else up.

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The Whiteboard Sessions

May 21, 2008

After church this evening, Rusty (my pastor) and I will be heading east. It’s about a 5 hour drive to Reston, VA where we’ll be spending our day Thursday at The Whiteboard Sessions. The conference is one day only with eight speakers each given 30 minutes to develop one idea.

Here’s part of the official description from the website.

We’ve invited 8 of the most inspiring leaders in ministry to share one compelling idea in just 30 minutes each. They come from different ministry circles and use a variety of methods, but they all have one thing in common: a love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a desire to see lost people reached.

I’m especially looking forward to hearing Ed Stetzer, Mark Dever, and Darrin Patrick speak. Ed Stetzer has done a lot of church planting and pastor training in missional contexts, which is something I’m very interested in. Mark Dever is pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in DC, and is a highly respected (by people I respect) author and speaker. Darrin Patrick is another church planter, he founded The Journey in St. Louis, MO, and he serves as Vice President of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network.

This should be an exciting day of worshiping with, and learning from these men. Rusty and I are hoping to take away and idea or two that we can bring home and implement in our church. I’ve been praying about how we can better serve our members so they grow spiritually and become missionaries in our town.

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