Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (4th Edition) (9Marks)

When it comes to prescriptive books on ecclesiology, this book is the bomb. One would be hard-pressed to find anything better, if there even is anything better. Mark Dever, pastors of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, has written a masterpiece. I have watched this book evolve over the years and it just gets better and better with each successive volume.This book transformed my view of how to "do" church into what I am convinced is how the Bible prescribes and represents how the local church ought to conduct itself. It is highly applicable for every church, from the church of 10 people to the church of thousands. Why? Because it's biblical and God has the same program for every church.I have led numerous elders through this book as a book study so that they can understand a biblical ecclesiology and I have watched it transform the effective of their ministry. Some of them have had ideas they have inherited from growing up, some have had ideas from the 1980s/1990s church growth formulas, others have come out of other denominational backgrounds, but all have grown leaps and bounds from thoughtfully going through this book.I cannot recommend it enough.

Great book. A must read for every Christian. It is a practical book about those aspects we need to make sure to keep in our local Churches. I consider useful how he applies concepts like expositional preaching and Biblical Theology in such a practical way. Easy to read and the explanations are appropriate for pastors as well as laymen.

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Nine Marks of a Healthy Church is an appropriate title for the contents of this book and its direct and simple approach to church life.

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This book is enlightening and challenging. Encourages critical thinking about faith and commitment to the church. Highly recommend!

What makes a church healthy? That’s a good question and it should be one that everyone serious about their faith - and their respective churches - should be asking themselves. This book, “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church”, sets out to answer that question in detail and it does a good job of doing so. It is applicable to just about any Christian church or organization, regardless of denomination or theological leaning.This book is not intended to solve every issue a church will face. Conflicts between members occur in every congregation and there are misunderstandings that crop up. There are other crises that can occur that require a church to make some hard decisions too. Dealing with these types of situations or completely avoiding them is not the point of this book. What this book tries to convey is what to look for - or what to address - in a congregation so that it is healthy and able to withstand the problems that inevitably do arise.The basis of this book can be reduced down to a single general idea: having a Biblical approach and world view of every aspect of life with regard to the church. Looking at the table of contents at the chapter titles it is immediately very clear that basing everything on Biblical concepts and teaching is what it’s all about: “Expositional Teaching”, “Gospel Doctrine”, “A Biblical Understanding of Conversion and Evangelism”, “A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership”, “Biblical Church Discipline”, “A Biblical Concern for Discipleship and Growth”, “Biblical Church Leadership”, “A Biblical Understanding and Practice of Prayer”, and “A Biblical Understanding and Practice of Missions”.In presenting these nine chapters, one each for the nine points being made, the author lays out a strong case for each with plenty of references to Scripture and clear explanations of each point in the light of that Scripture. This is not a collection of “nice ideas” that the author cooked up on his own, but there is a very clear Biblical foundation here.What I like about this book is that it is not combative or argumentative, but rather it is written like a very well-researched paper that presents a strong case. It does require some effort to read because the writing is scholarly in places, and that’s all right. I never get the feel that the author is “talking down” to readers but is instead writing to adults with an interest in the material (and I’d hope that’s the case anyway).This is a solid book and should be required reading for anyone involved in church leadership in any capacity, missions work, or someone thinking about work in a ministry field. It’s very well-written and is on point.