Mark Dever: What is a Healthy Church?

I have had some good conversations and reflections on Mark Dever’s What is A Healthy Church? Dever is a reformed Baptist and the pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C.

What is A Healthy Church? is the condensed, prayer-of-jabez-sized, version of 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. It is good marketing by Crossway Books. Instead of me spending $15 dollars on the 200+ page 9 Marks books, I spent $10 on the 100 page What is A Healthy Church? book. Anyway, Devers presents his nine marks of a healthy church. He prioritizes the nine marks into two categories – Three Essential Marks and Six Important Marks. Unlike the Natural Church Development (NCD)’s Eight Key Qualities which are based on researching growing/healthy churches, Dever takes a more biblical/theological view of the healthy church. While Dever’s results differ from NCD, I found it to be a helpful complement.

Here are the nine marks:
Essentials Marks
1) Expositional preaching
2) Biblical theology
3) A biblical understanding of the gospel

Important Marks
4) A biblical understanding of conversion
5) A biblical understanding of evangelism
6) A biblical understanding of membership
7) Biblical church discipline
8) Biblical discipleship and growth
9) Biblical church leadership

When compared to NCD’s Eight Qualities of Growing Churches:
1) Empowering Leadership2) Gift-oriented Ministry3) Passionate Spirituality4) Functional Structures5) Inspiring Worship Service6) Holistic Small Groups7) Need-oriented Evangelism8) Loving Relationships

You can readily see the differences. Dever and NCD only share three commonalities (leadership, evangelism and discipleship) and they would disagree on how they define those three.

Of particular interest to me was the first mark – expositional preaching. I am sure that this will cause many eyebrows to raise. While many of us who value the authority of Scripture, see the importance of expositional preaching (i.e. verse by verse preaching) as important, I don’t know if I could call it essential.

Dever does make some good arguments for expositional preaching. He says that if a preacher starts with a theme and then collects verse to explain that theme, then the preacher and the congregation will only grow to the level of the knowledge of the preacher. True. He goes on to say that those kind of churches run the risk of being conformed to the image of the pastor and not to the image of God. Ouch! …but true again.

However, Dever adds that if a preacher devotes himself (I am sure Dever would not say “herself”) to expositional preaching, then both he and his congregation can grow and learn together as they allow God to speak through the text. True again.

I am currently in an expository series through the book of 1 Corinthians (www.cornerstoneamericus.com/sermons) and I see the value of verse-by-verse preaching. It has been a wonderful adventure. Dever is right on…but, a few things are missing in Dever’s approach to preaching.

I see three categories of preaching: 1) expository, 2) strategic, 3) prophetic and I believe the later two are just as essential for healthy churches.

Strategic preaching is used when a leader wants to launch a new ministry or emphasize a certain aspect of church life. I preached a strategic message called “Don’t Be a Sissy” when we launched our Men’s Fraternity. Strategic messages can also be expository in nature. I did a three week series in Philemon in order to cast a vision of transformation.

Prophetic preaching is altogether missing from Dever and it is perhaps the most common preaching in Pentecostal/charismatic oriented church. Prophetic preaching is speaking a particular message to a particular people at a particular time under God’s direction. These are messages that are born out of the Spirit’s guidance. It is typical for preachers who are given to prophet preaching to say something like, “I had something else planned, but God gave me this message.”

I find all three categories important (essential?) in the life of the church, but I would applaud Dever for his passion of expositional preaching. We need to temper strategic and prophetic preaching with regular rounds of expositional preaching. I have committed myself to this, because I have seen to many churches that are driven by topical preaching (whether strategic or prophetic) get funky and weird! (Those are the theological terms for people who are not biblically grounded.) It is easy to see churches that run off on some kind of biblical tangent, because they are not regularly study, preaching, proclaiming and living the whole biblical text. Funky and weird church typically preach (and live) from the verses they have underlined in the Bible. Expository preaching causes you to see and live all that God has revealed in the Scripture.

Worship: New & Old

I recently read Mark Noll's article "Singing the Word of God" in the recent issue of Christian History. The issue is devoted to Bach, who was a committed Lutheran. Noll gave a little background on Luther's approach to music in the church. Luther who is known as the catalyst of the reformation believed strongly in the use of music and "good hymns" in the life of the church. Luther wrote, "the printers do well if they publish a lot of good hymns and make them attractive to the people with all sorts of ornamentation, so that they may move them to joy in faith and to gladly sing." Luther desired good hymn s, good music packaged in an attractive way so that people would be moved to faith. Sounds like a lot of church leaders today (myself included) who desire culturally appropriate music that connects with people so that they can connect with God.

For Luther, church music was not entertainment, but was a prime source of communicating and celebrating faith in Christ. One researcher noted that the congregation singing in protestant churches led to the survival of reformed faith in Europe. Luther was a leader in the need for good hymns and musical instruments in congregational worship. Noll writes, "Luther thought it was biblical to use every form of God-honoring expression to praise the God of grace, just so long as that praise did not violate biblical truth." Luther desired contemporary music that was biblically solid. Sounds familiar. Other protestant movements were a bit more restrictive in terms of the variety of instruments that could be used for worship; Luther was not.

Luther wrote hymns. The American edition of Luther's Works contains 37 hymns, the most enduring of which is "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Noll calls it a "Christ-centered paraphrase of Psalm 46." For Luther, worship music was for the glory of God and the instruction of the saints. Hymns like "Mighty Fortress" boldly declares biblical truth. Some contemporary praise music today lacks the same theological substance. I am not anti-praise-song. I can sing "o God I love you" or "holy holy holy" a million times. I mean if the angels can sing it over and over, then why can't I?

Sunday our worship leader introduced a new song, "In Christ Alone." Not the Michael English song, but the Stuart Townend song. Our worship leader said that he searched his hymn books to find the song, but it wasn't there. When I googled it, I found that it is a new hymn (isn't that a paradox) written in 2001. ST is a British worship leader and he wanted to write a modern hymn, this one came as he was meditating on the power of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. When we did it in worship Sunday it was powerful. Our worship leader did a great job of having the a female lead the first stanza and a male vocalist lead the second and then the entire group of singers came in on the third stanza…the resurrection. It was moving and powerful. Here are the lyrics. I think Luther would be proud.

In Christ Alone
by Stuart Townend & Keith Getty

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

You can listen to it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8welVgKX8Qo&mode=related&search=

You can watch a video with Stuart Townend here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvV6oUajxAY

You can get the four guitar chords for the song here http://www.e-chords.com/guitartab.asp?idmusica=96380

Christian or Christ Follower?

As if we in the church world have nothing else to talk about... there has been an ongoing discussion in the blogosphere about the use of the term "Christ follower" in place of the more common term "Christian." This simple video parody of the now famous PC vs. Mac commercial shows why the term "Christ follower" is much hipper than using the oft sited word "Christian." So let's all change our Christian….i mean…Christ follower vocabulary!

I first heard the term "Christ follower" used by Bill Hybels. I assume he coined the phrase. And because Hybels is connected to the coining of the phrase a number of watchdog groups have posted blogs exposing the dangers of changing the age-old term "Christian." Once again tradition has clashed with missional thinking. I personally do not have a preference. I find the term "Christ follower" to be a bit awkward, but I have used it from time to time. But really, what is the big deal. If both ways of identifying a Christian/Christ follower communicates the same thing, then who really cares. Oh, I guess these nit-picking bloggers who don't like anyone who is not like them care, but the rest of us just laugh.

Beach Retreat & Text Messaging During a Sermon

Yesterday night (Sunday) I spoke at our beach retreat. Jenni, the boys, and a few of our youth went to the beach with our friends at Victory Worship Center in Americus. I talked on eating the Book (the Bible), a message that I preached in at Cornerstone Church in July. (You can hear the July sermon on our website at www.cornerstoneamericus.com/sermons)

I tried something different during the message. I asked the youth and adults to text me with feedback using their cell phones. I asked for feedback regarding the Scriptures, the message or me. I told them to text me with comments, questions or observations. I thought it was a great way to use a youth-friendly communication tool to allow them to interact with the message I preached.Here are the notes from my talk:

Eat This Book
Revelation 10:1,8-10

Revelation 10:1 ESV Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.

[8] Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” [9] So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” [10] And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.

The angel = Jesus
The scroll = the Bible

We are called not only to read the Bible, but to eat it.
1) It is a sacred book.
2) It is God’s story.
3) It is written to y’all. (eat in community)
4) It is for your transformation.

I received 18 text messages during my 30 minute talk. The time and message is in bold. I did withhold names from those messages that included a name. My comments are below the text messages. Obviously, I did not text back a reply to each text message. I am just now replying to their comments and questions.

10:31pm What gave you this idea?
I got the idea from Earl Creps. He taught at the Assembly of God Theological Seminary and has traveled and talked about leadership and reaching out to the next generation. He spoke at the chapel service at a Christian college and had the students text him while he was speaking. His website is http://www.earlcreps.com/

10:31 pm I think you’re a great speaker. Ive learned boatloads from you over the past year…
Thanks Sarah! I really appreciate all that you did during the retreat. You are a blessing.

10:39 pm I will remember that the 3 right answers are usually God, Jesus, or Bible.
I am glad I can help. It is funny but true. When a Bible study leader asks a question, the answer is either God, Jesus or Bible at least 50% of the time!

10:40 pm You did this in church not too long ago.
I preached a longer version of this message on July 2nd at Cornerstone. You can hear the longer vision on our website at www.cornerstoneamericus.com/sermons If you have an iPod, you can subscribe to our podcast on the website too!

10:43 pm I should eat and read instead of just reading it.
Yep. Reading is to download information. Eating is for living. Eat away!

10:46 pm I took the little scroll from the angels nad and at it. It tasted is sweet as honey in my mouth but when I had eaten it my stomach turned sour. THIS VERSE MADE ME THINK ABOUT IT BUT I WANT TO CONSUME IT TOO!
You know I failed to talk about this part of the text, but eating God’s book will at times turn your stomach sour. There are part of the Scripture that don’t make us instantly happy. It is like eating broccoli (with no cheese). It doesn’t taste so good, but it is good for you! Jesus says some things that make my stomach turn. Things like take up your cross and follow me. Cross means death. No fun, but it is good.

10:49 pm I didn’t know people died just to get the bible published in English and that makes the bible seem even more holy to me. So thanks for that information.
Yeah guys like John Huss were burned at the stake for working to translate the Bible into English. Amazing. There are people that love the Scriptures so dearly that they were willing to give their lives so that other people could “eat” it. It is a holy thing.

Read more about John Huss here: http://www.theopedia.com/John_Huss

10:51 pm I really like ‘god doesn’t have grandchildren, only sons and daughters.’
I wish I can claim that as my own idea, but that is a recycled thought. I have heard it from a number of sources. Nevertheless it is true. All teenagers must reach a point in their lives when they own their faith, when they no longer just take mom and dad’s word on it. Jesus has to become theirJesus and the Bible must become their book.

10:51 pm The little book taste good.
Yep. So eat it. Chew on it. Think about it. Talk to God about it. Digest it. Let it become a part of your life. Live it.

10:54 pm Thanks
You are welcome...

10:54 pm How do you get to a place where you wanna read the Bible after you have been a Christian a long time, and it is a chore.
Man, what a great question! I think all Christians hit a wall in reading Scripture where it doesn’t taste at all like honey. There are times when it becomes a chore for all us…me included. What I have found helpful is to read from different translations. I currently use the ESV (English Standard Version). I also recommend the NIV (New International Version), the NLT (the New Living Translation) and The Message Bible. A new translation helps to bring some freshness to Bible reading. Also, don’t get in a hurry. Take your time reading the Scripture and don’t get down on yourself if you miss a day or two-- or even a week or two – in your Scripture reading.

10:55 pm The three concepts get the bible then open it and then eat it.
That is so easy, even a Caveman can do it! It works for Geico and hearing from God.

10:56 pm the message made me think about how sometimes when I don’t read or “eat” my bible I seem to be in a worse mood and fed than if I make the decision to spend time in the word
Yeah….eating changes your mood. If I eat nothing, but junk food…I get a little cranky. When I eat a healthy balanced diet ( like my mamma told me to do) I feel better…healthier. It is the same when it comes to eating God’s word. I haven’t really thought about it until I read your comment. Great observation.

10:56 pm I am going to eat some everyday
Good! Eat a way and remember to share with your friends.

10:57 pm Hey that was a great message I think u broke it down pretty good I haven’t looked at it like that before. It was good
I am glad that I was able to show you something familiar in a new way. I appreciate the encouragement.

10:58 pm Hey Mr. Derek this is my first year comin to the retreat I got saved this weekend it feels alsum. Well I know this has nothing to do with wat you said but I thought I would let you know! C ya
Dude that is alsum (awesome?)! I am happy to hear that God has saved you and I am proud that you are stepping out and telling people. Here is a few helpful suggestions to keep your passion for Jesus:

1) Get a Bible for yourself and eat it
2) Talk to God regularly…not just when you want to ask him for stuff
3) Hang out with other Christians particularly at Church and with the youth group
4) Don’t be ashamed to tell other people that you are now a follower of Jesus. Some people may laugh or ignore you, but most will respect you.


In all I got 18 messages over 30 minutes. It was great to read all this great feedback. Y’all are great!