Igreja Intencional: Edificando seu ministério sobre o Evangelho

by Mark Dever

Muitos líderes eclesiásticos afirmam que a igreja será relevante somente quando seus métodos forem adequados à cultura de sua época. Assim, diversos livros foram publicados visando fornecer métodos inovadores e prometendo resultados imediatos. Este não é mais um deles. Mark Dever e Paul Alexander buscam mostrar que a igreja é relevante quando faz aquilo que Deus tencionou que fizesse originalmente.

As ideias aqui apresentadas foram testadas por mais de uma década na Igreja Batista de Capitol Hill, em Washington, D.C., EUA., porém, devido a sua simplicidade, podem ser implementadas em igrejas de qualquer tamanho e em qualquer lugar. Este livro, ajudará líderes a serem intencionais na vida prática de sua comunidade e a trabalharem deliberadamente para que suas congregações sejam edificadas no evangelho e cresçam de forma saudável.

Genres: Ecclesiology, Church, Theology, Christian, Leadership, Church Ministry, Christianity

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Mark E. Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Since his ordination to the ministry in 1985, Dr. Dever has served on the pastoral staffs of four churches, the second being a church he planted in Massachusetts. Prior to moving to Washington in 1994, Dr. Dever taught for the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University while serving two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church.

In an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America, Dr. Dever serves as the executive director for 9Marks (formerly The Center for Church Reform, CCR) in Washington, D.C. 9Marks encourages pastors of local churches look to the Bible for instruction on how to organize and lead their churches. Dr. Dever also teaches periodically at various conferences, speaking everywhere from South Africa to Brazil to the United Kingdom to Alabama. Feeling a deep burden for student ministry, Dr. Dever often addresses student ministry groups at campuses throughout the country. He has also taught at a number of seminaries, including Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Dr. Dever’s scholarly interests include Puritanism and ecclesiology.

Dr. Dever currently serves as a trustee of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; he also serves as a member of the board, vice-chairman, and chairman of the Forum for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. From 1995 until 2001, he served on the steering committee for Founders Ministries, a pastoral movement for biblical teaching and healthy church life within the Southern Baptist Convention. As Guest Senate Chaplain for two weeks in 1995, Dr. Dever opened the daily sessions of the United States Senate in prayer. He is a member of the American Society of Church History and the Tyndale Fellowship. He also held the J.B. Lightfoot Scholarship at Cambridge University from 1989 to 1991.

Reviews

[Brian Whittaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be coming back to this book time and time again. It provides an excellent overview of what a gospel-driven church ought to look like, from the role of the pastor, church membership, the Sunday services, as well as choosing elders and leading elders meetings. It combines well both practical tips for what ministry looks like on the ground (e.g. circulating a memo to elders before the meeting, the senior pastor not always chairing the elders meeting) as well as the theological convictions which drive the principles.

One to dip into again in the future.

[Samuel Kassing · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

When this book is good it’s really good. And when it’s average it’s just that.

This is an ordinary means of grace book for Baptist ministers. Essentially it’s a “how to” book for taking your typical SBC church to a 9Marks church.

I appreciate Dever’s pastoral wisdom, his candor and the emphasis on the common means of grace. If you’re thinking through a ministry paradigm this is a helpful book.

[Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dever’s thoughts on the day to days of leading a church. He took the time to dive into the weeds for churches and pastors who may not be sure how or where to begin. God is a God of order, not chaos, and the church exists to serve Him so it is fitting that His church should be deliberate. This is a great place to learn how to glorify God by structuring His church to reflect Him.

[Neil Kruger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not just another book trying to argue for a ministry method that will guarantee success. Rather, the church, according to the simple preaching of God's Word should be deliberately Godward-focused and outward-focused.

I was helped by the many practical insights. Much of the book emphasizes church leadership and is therefore directed towards pastors and elders. This is another key emphasis as it conforms to the Bible's emphasis on the responsibility that church leaders have to direct and shepherd the people of God. Not only do we need strong leaders, but faithful ones, and leaders that express humility.

This book is primarily suitable reading for those in church leadership. It would be a fine introduction for those eagerly seeking the office of overseer. But is has application beyond leadership and is in fact very useful to the layperson to understand how he is to aid church leadership in ministry and what it means to maintain what is most important in the goal of the church - to feed and edify God's people and to proclaim the gospel to a dying world.

[Patrick Lacson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wise counsel from a seasoned pastor on developing a philosophy of how to do church. A ministry paradigm that is biblical and practical. Dever and Alexander are careful not to go beyond what is written by stating that their advice is not found in the Bible, but they have found it works and practical in their local church.

I don’t agree with everything in this book. However, Dever and Alexander have helped me to think carefully about the philosophy of ministry of the local church. You will glean much if you’re an aspiring elder, church planter, or seasoned pastor looking to train new elders.

[Luke Schmeltzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent companion to Dever's Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, wherein he flushes out what the 9Marks ministry philosophy looks like in practice. It originated in the work of one of his pastoral interns compiling Dever's answers to the questions visiting pastors always seem to ask about running a healthy church, so it was helpful to answer many of my own questions about how the 9Marks convictions looked in the local church.

[Michael Goforth · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve read Dever’s, “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” but you’re not sure how to apply it, grab this book. (Or wait until August 2021 and get the new edition)

This has been somewhat of a handbook for me the last several years of ministry and my copy has ink on nearly every page. It is rooted in Scripture and immensely practical. If you’re in ministry, you need to read this.

[Jake Auton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may have been the best book I read for my undergraduate degree. It is amazing! Dever has some excellent wisdom that can be used to help any church at any location in any point in time. The short chapters are extremely helpful. The organization was excellent. Dever was very clear and direct with his point, making the discussion easy to understand and follow. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

[Cory Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended a SBTS class that CHBC hosted that included a weekender. This book was described as a weekend we in book form, super thankful for it. This was my second time reading it and worthy of reading again.

[Joel Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. Classic Dever. I’m only halfway through this book but I am almost done 9 marks of a healthy church (have to read both for school) so finishing this would just be going over the exact same content. This book is a condensed version of the 9 marks one but I actually found ‘Deliberate Church’ more enjoyable to read.

[Jeff Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The topic of church organization and polity all too often lends itself to dry, technical treatments. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to read Mark Dever and Paul Alexander’s book The Deliberate Church. This work is written not just for pastors and seminarians, but also for the average Christian who is interested in fostering the growth of a healthy church.

In a realm seemingly dominated by pragmatism and tradition, The Deliberate Church carries a refreshing emphasis on the centrality of Scripture and the Gospel. Not everyone will agree with everything in this book, but for everything they might dispute, they have to deal with a biblical argument. Christ is the Lord of his Church – and surely this fact has implications for how that Church organizes itself and conducts its business. Dever and Alexander have written an entire book that seeks to reflect this perspective.

WHAT IS A “DELIBERATE CHURCH”?

Dever and Alexander begin with the observation that when one starts to erect a building, is it necessary to know what kind of building is being built. Therefore, the process of building is going to be different, depending on the kind of building. So – when it comes to building an organization or institution, such as the church, it must be asked: “What is this that we are building?”

From this question comes Dever and Alexander’s answer:

A church is not a Fortune 500 company. It’s not simply another nonprofit organization, nor is it a social club. In fact, a healthy church is unlike any organization that man has ever devised, because man didn’t devise it. It only makes sense, then, to revisit God’s Word to figure out what exactly he wants us to be building.

“Deliberate” was the word the authors chose to describe the resulting approach to church methodology, founded on four principles. First, theology drives method – one’s conception of the Gospel will have practical implications for how one shares it. Second, God’s methods determine ours – if the Gospel is God’s appointed means to build his church, the methods by which it is planted, watered, and cultivated must similarly take their authority from God’s direction. Third, the Gospel both enables and informs our participation in God’s purposes – not only must the Gospel first do its work in a person for them to even be able to enter the Kingdom, it provides the framework and parameters for service in that Kingdom. Fourth, faithfulness to the Gospel must be our measure of success, not results – only God can give growth and create, and so Christians are called to successfully deliver the message and not to ensure results by their own power.

GUARD THE FRONT DOOR

Many Christians today see neither need nor any biblical support for having a formal membership in the church. To some, it seems like an importation of secular practice. To others, it seems unduly restrictive and insular for an institution that seeks to be open to newcomers. They will often point to the lack of any explicit reference to a church “membership list” for biblical support in denying formal membership.

Against this prevailing trend, the authors make a compelling case for formal church membership. This argument was, personally, one of the most useful elements of the book, and one that I hope someday to put to practical use in a church context. They point to the case of church discipline recorded in 1 Cor. 5, where a sexually immoral man was to be expelled from among the congregation. This implies a visible demarcation between the congregation and the world – there had to be something from which this man could be expelled! This implication is made all the more clear in Paul’s second letter, where he refers to the punishment inflicted by the “majority” (2 Cor. 2:6, NIV) as having been adequate. For the term “majority” to have any meaning, there has to have been a defined number from which those who acted formed the greater part. Elsewhere, Paul refers to a list of widows (1 Tim. 5:9), and Christ keeps a book of all His people in heaven (Rev. 21:27). Furthermore, though Dever and Alexander do not make use of this example, God’s repeated commands to Moses to conduct censuses of Israel (Exod. 30:12; Num. 1:2; 26:2) shows that God has mandated numbering his people in the past, as a means of setting them apart from the world around them and organizing them for service.

The need for membership underlines a very important point: if the church is to be separate and distinct from the world, there must exist an enforcement mechanism to hold its members accountable. That mechanism is church discipline, a topic which is itself a key emphasis of the book. Dever and Alexander devote an entire chapter to this necessary function, and in so doing they make an interesting point – that discipline, to be effective, must contain both “formative” and “corrective” elements. Teaching, preaching, accountability relationships, pastoral ministry and visitation all contribute to the spiritual health of the church, and like good diet and exercise to a physical body can prevent many later diseases and problems. This needs to be understood as being church discipline. There is also a need, however, for corrective discipline in those cases where formative discipline is insufficient. For the sake of the church’s health, and the purity of its witness before an unbelieving world, Dever and Alexander stress that sometimes a person must be disciplined by the church for their behavior. Moreover, though this is not discussed in the book, a body whose mission is to reflect a holy God in an unholy world must regard its purity and holiness as a simple matter of obedience and faithfulness to God – and tolerance of evil in its midst as being a sinful affront to his character.

How does this relate to formal church membership? The highest penalty of church discipline, that of excommunication, assumes a clear and defined body from which an offender may be excluded. A formal membership list would be the most straightforward practical measure to make this possible. Furthermore, pastors and elders will one day be held accountable for those under their care (Heb. 13:17). How responsible is it, then, for a pastor to allow his congregation to be some amorphous, undefined group whose makeup and composition he may or may not actually understand? A good pastor knows which sheep are actually his, and church membership is a practical means to make this possible.

BIBLICAL ELDERSHIP

Dever and Alexander’s entire concept is built on the foundation of a particular kind of ecclesiological polity – one that could be succinctly described as a plural-elder-led congregational model of church government. Understanding this polity is crucial for understanding The Deliberate Church. Fully nine of twenty-one chapters in the book are devoted to explaining and practically working out this form of leadership.

Dever and Alexander’s concept of eldership seems to borrow heavily from a Presbyterian view of local church government, but differs in two key respects: they do not accept the Presbyterian concept of a ruling body over local churches composed of all the church elders meeting in assembly, and they deny the common Presbyterian distinction between “teaching elders” and “ruling elders.” Instead, Dever and Alexander stress the necessity of the church elder(s) identifying, training, and nominating potential elders, all of whom must be able to teach, and all to be approved by congregational vote. These elders are then, as a body, held accountable by the congregation as a whole rather than by a denominational governing body.

It must be understood that in Dever and Alexander’s thinking, the terms “elder,” “pastor,” “bishop,” and “overseer” are interchangeable, at most referring to different aspects of the same position of church leadership. They point to the interchangeable use of these terms in Acts for justification of this concept. An elder is a pastor, and vice versa. Furthermore, it is to be understood that these elders are plural – though a single pastor/elder is often a reality, it is not the biblical ideal, and so a key part of pastoral ministry is thus identifying and raising up potential elders in the congregation. Elders differ from the other biblical church officers – the deacons – in that they are called to be able to perform the teaching ministry and exercise spiritual leadership of the church. Deacons administer the practical and material needs of the church; elders administer the spiritual needs, those being the ministries of teaching and preaching and pastoral care.

Seminary education is not a prerequisite for elders. Indeed, the authors advocate for the involvement of lay (“non-staff”) elders, preferably as a majority among the eldership. These elders might be called “lay pastors” in other ecclesial or denominational contexts.

There are many outstanding advantages to this model. First, and most important, the Bible does appear to support the idea of a plurality of elders in every church. Second, having multiple elders spreads responsibility and provides mutual support and accountability. Third, having lay elders avoids the problem of a “professional” ministry leading the church, as many of the “pastors” are in fact laymen. Fourth, it brings a wide variety of skills and gifts into the pastoral leadership of the church that an individual alone simply cannot provide.

One potential drawback of the model – division and disunity among the leadership – is clearly recognized and addressed strongly in the book. Dever and Alexander stress the vital importance of the character qualifications for potential elders (1 Tim. 3:1-7, Tit. 1:5-9). They also give considerable attention to the method for carrying out elders’ meetings, with an eye toward promoting unity – even going so far as to suggest circulating memos in advance of meetings to bring non-staff elders up to speed on issues that the staff elders are already acquainted with.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEACONS?

The book’s only major weakness can thus be seen in light of this attention to elders. Dever and Alexander make a careful case for plural eldership and lay out a very practical method for making the concept work in the local congregation. By contrast, the ministry of deacons seems neglected. There are a few pages devoted to them and their ministry, but many questions are left unresolved. Is the church administrator, mentioned several times in the book, one of the elders, or a deacon? If the elders and deacons collectively pass the budget back and forth to work out details, who handles the “deconfliction” between the two bodies? Is there a head deacon? If so, is he also an elder? Does one of the elders sit in on diaconal meetings and provide spiritual direction? Since Dever and Alexander take the position that the Bible restricts eldership to men only, what is their view on women as deacons (deaconesses)? These tantalizing questions are not addressed or answered.

Dever and Alexander are right to address the all-too-common scene of the deacons of a Baptist church acting as a de facto board of “elders,” and clarifying the differences between the two offices is an emphasis badly needed in Baptist circles today. Yet the diaconal office as it functions in practice seems lost in this realignment. Given that the care of the church’s administrative and practical needs can grow to a point which threatens the gospel ministry of the elders (cf. Acts 6:1-7), and the bewildering array of material challenges faced by a church in the modern world, the diaconate deserved much more space than it received. While this did not detract from the overall value of this very useful book, it was an opportunity lost.

CONCLUSION

Healthy churches do not just happen. Church health, when defined biblically in terms of faithfulness to God’s Word and character, is integrally tied to church organization and administration. Dever and Alexander recognize this truth, and weave it throughout every part of the book.

What is so interesting when reading The Deliberate Church is the stark difference between its paradigm and the wisdom of the unbelieving world. Secular business strives to specialize and stovepipe areas of expertise. A “deliberate church” seeks to develop a body of elders who are generalists, collectively responsible for ministry and able to assume one another’s place. The world values compromise and tolerance as the key to peace, prosperity, and unity. Dever and Alexander point to an uncompromising Christ and the dividing line of God’s Word as the only true basis of a united and peaceful church.

The Deliberate Church forces the reader to rethink their presuppositions and assumptions about how to “do” church. It drives the reader to the Bible to ask, “Does the Bible actually have something to say about this?” This fact alone is worth the reading of the book.

This book is highly recommended for any Christian, but for those in pastoral ministry (as pastors/elders, missionaries, or church planters) as well as those in administrative leadership positions in the church (such as deacons), this is an absolute must-read.

[Wes F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent study, thoroughly based on God's Word, of what a local church should be & how it might be most effectively organized & led. Good, solid insights & recommendations for consideration.

[John Steinhauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

A necessity for any church leader, regardless of denomination or ministry philosophy. Refreshingly returns to the Word for how a healthy church is built and governed. For a layperson like myself, it’s a great reference for what to look for in a healthy church or how to contribute to the health of a church you’re already in. I’ll definitely be referring to this regularly in the future.

[David Velasquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

La iglesia deliberante es un libro que nos hace recordar que la Palabra de Dios y el evangelio son suficientes para crear el pueblo de Dios (la iglesia), edificarlo, informar sus métodos, y expandir su obra por el mundo. No es un libro innovador. Los autores describen su intención al escribir este libro de esta manera: “nuestra meta es tomar la iglesia hacia el futuro recordándole como debería ser originalmente. Pensamos que la iglesia será catapultada hacia el futuro solo cuando la cosa más notable, acerca de su vida congregacional, sea su gobierno cuidadoso y poderosa conducción dirigidos por la antiquísima y probada Palabra de Dios.”

El libro es extremadamente práctico, especialmente para aquellos que han leído el otro libro de Mark Dever 'Las nueve marcas de una iglesia saludable' y quieren saber cómo implementar lo aprendido en sus iglesias. Ante todo es un libro que anima al lector (se presume que sería un pastor o líder) que piense de forma deliberante o intencional acerca de cada aspecto de la vida de la iglesia para conformarlo a la Escritura con el fin de glorificar a Dios. Esto incluye cómo se reciben y se despiden miembros, cómo se enseñan y practican las ordenanzas, cómo se llevan y organizan los diferentes cultos y reuniones, y cómo se reconocen ancianos y cómo estos desarrollan sus funciones bíblicas, etc…

Algunos leerán este libro y no estarán de acuerdo con algunas de las prácticas o conclusiones de los autores, pero sin duda este libro hará que todos piensen como nunca antes en porqué hacen lo que hacen en sus respectivas iglesias. Hará que vuelvan a las Escrituras y qué consideren cómo el evangelio puede modelarse y comunicarse de mejor manera en el contexto de la iglesia local. No hay nada que perder y mucho que ganar al leer este libro.

[Wallace Vieira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Livro bom sobre o modo de ser igreja. É praticamente um relato de como a igreja americana situada na capital do EUA funciona, dentro de um contexto conservador Batista. O livro tem sua utilidade, é interessante ver como os "presbíteros" conduzem a igreja. Assuntos como evangelização, receber novos membros, a disciplina eclesiástica, as ordenanças são bastantes interessantes. As duas primeiras sessões do livro pode servir a qualquer contexto da igreja Brasileira, salvo alguns casos. As sessões três e quatro o autor traz uma nova modalidade de lideres para dentro da igreja, os "presbíteros", e aqui neste ponto ele começa a explicar como escolher esses presbíteros entre outros fatores relacionados com o presbitério.

Enfim, no que diz respeito ao modo operante da igreja o livro é bom, pode ser um bom guia ou parâmetro para quem deseja começar um trabalho de plantação de igreja ou revitalizar um trabalho, ou até mesmo direcionar um ministério que já esteja funcionando.

[Ryan Linkous · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some helpful ideas about how to do church biblically and simply, not using a modern paradigm for church growth.

The pitfalls of this book are when Dever's own traditional Southern Baptistness comes out. It's not always bad, just sometimes strange particularly when it comes to church leadership structure. He has 4 levels of pastors and thinks that elders should be on a rotation. He also uses deacons as leaders for pretty much any task in the church which seems to limit the scope. He advocates for pastors to not have a specialty (children's ministry, youth ministry, etc.), but it seems biblical for deacons to have the general duty to serve the needs to the body.

[Courtney Mosier Warren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall the idea was average (3 stars) but the writing made it below average. I found it to be dry and often scattered. It felt like a very long description on how Mark Denver organizes things and less about how to make deliberate choices to help people grow in the Gospel.

[Jeremy Mueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a like toolshed. It contains countless practicals sections on building the ministry of a local church. For those in ministry, seeking to be in ministry, or those looking to understand the ministry outworkings of another, this book is for you.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my favorite quotes:
The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

Ours is a ministry of magnification—making God’s glory appear to the eyes of the world as big as it really is by bringing it into closer view and sharper focus in the form of the local church.

The Word builds the Church. Our power is not in having small groups, or meeting the felt needs of our target audience, or using the right evangelism program, or having funny skits, or providing plenteous parking, or targeting our ministries to postmoderns. Our power is in our unique message—the Gospel (Greek, euangelion)—not in our innovations.

Do you measure success by results, or by faithfulness to God’s Word?

only one thing that’s biblically necessary for building the church, and that’s the preached Word of God.

One of the most practical things you can do for your own personal prayer life, and for the prayer lives of other church members, is to assemble a church membership directory (with pictures, if possible) so that everyone in the church can be praying through it a page a day.

Members need to know that spiritual maturity is not simply about their quiet times, but about their love for other believers, and their concrete expressions of that love.

The best way to lose your place of influence as a pastor is to be in a hurry, forcing radical (even if biblical) change before people are ready to follow you and own it.

But if you define success in terms of faithfulness, then you are in a position to persevere, because you are released from the demand of immediately observable results, freeing you for faithfulness to the Gospel’s message and methods, leaving numbers to the Lord.

when we assume the Gospel instead of clarifying it, people who profess Christianity but don’t understand or obey the Gospel are cordially allowed to presume their own conversion without examining themselves for evidence of it—which may amount to nothing more than a blissful damnation.

Three of the most important ways you can cultivate trust in your leadership among the congregation are expositional preaching, personal relationships, and humility.

That is the nature of the church—it is a godly web of mutually sanctifying familial relationships.

The Gospel is inherently and irreducibly confrontational. It cuts against our perceived righteousness and self-sufficiency, demanding that we forsake cherished sin and trust in someone else to justify us.

Requiring people to sign a church covenant lets them know that they will be expected not only to believe the statement of faith, but to live it out.

we want to ensure that they understand both the Gospel and the church biblically, and that they develop a track record of faithfulness in church attendance and Gospel application before we give them formal or public entrée into the spiritual lives of other members.
think about the biblical reasons for allowing Scripture alone to evaluate and structure our corporate worship gatherings.

Carving out time in our Sunday morning services to read Scripture aloud, without comment, every week, makes a statement about the value we place on God’s Word.

five elements of worship (read, preach, pray, sing, and see the Word)

There is actually much wisdom and edification in employing a variety of musical styles so that people’s musical tastes broaden over time with wider exposure to different musical genres and time periods.

Edification—building people up—happens when people are encouraged to understand and apply the Gospel more biblically, not necessarily when they are led into an emotional experience or encouraged to identify temporary emotional expressiveness

The best of the hymns and the best of the more modern worship choruses are those that direct our focus away from ourselves and onto the character and Gospel of God.

Everything teaches, whether you intend it to or not.

Sunday morning service - this is where we read, preach, pray, sing, and see the Word of God together every week.

Member meetings - Another important measure to take is to distribute the agenda a week in advance so that people can look it over, pray through it, and even air their concerns with you or the chairman in private so that the public meeting is not peppered with thoughtless, divisive, or combative questions.

When we have baptisms at our church, we place them at the end of the morning service because that is when the maximum number of members and visitors will be present to observe.

The ultimate goal of building this kind of community—one built on distinctively Christian love that flows from the distinctively Christian Gospel—is to display God’s glory throughout our surrounding neighborhoods, our cities, and ultimately the world.

The covenantal, careful, corporate, cross-cultural, and cross-generational love that is to characterize the church and glorify God is at the same time intended to evangelize the world.

A steady diet of performances by soloists or even choirs can have the unintended effect of undermining the corporate, participative nature of our musical worship.

Fewer instruments on stage or even off to the side means fewer things in front of us competing for our attention and applause.

the absence of a fully wired worship band will help prevent the smog of performance from clouding the atmosphere of worship.

We use a piano, a guitar, and four vocalists, all positioned off to the side so that our attention isn’t

drawn to them, and all lightly amplified so that they don’t drown out the voices of the congregation.

Our leading vocalists simply stand to the side and sing into a moderately amplified microphone so that there is a strong lead for the congregation to follow.

variety in worship songs and styles helps prevent people from becoming militantly entrenched in a certain style or period of music. Best of all, musical variety teaches us to glean spiritual profit from many different kinds of songs.

Under a more general paradigm of ministry, all the pastors share all the ministry. Cultivating this healthy sense of shared ownership is good. But the fragmentation that specialized ministries introduce often leads pastors to become possessive over their particular area of service.

retaining a more general paradigm of ministry cultivates unity among the pastoral staff, reduces the chance of ministry being perceived as a professional career, and minimizes the splintering of ministries, pastoral teams, and congregations. But it seems that specialized ministry is almost all there is out there.

some staff will also be elders in most situations—at the very minimum, the senior pastor will be an elder, and so will an associate pastor

The elders decide on the destination. The staff drive the bus. The deacons make sure we’ve got enough gas to get there.

If we want the unity of our church to be fundamentally built on the Word, then the unity of our elders must be built on the Word.

each elder will pray a one- or two-sentence prayer of praise. This is part of how the elders are being intentional about devoting themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:1-4).

Praying for the sheep together as a gathered group of under-shepherds is an excellent way to promote the spiritual health of the congregation, to keep each other as elders accountable to faithfulness in prayer for the congregation, and to lead by example.

Encourage your elders over the coming weeks to memorize Ephesians 1:15-23; 3:16-19; Philippians 1:9-11; Colossians 1:9-14; 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13; and 2 Thessalonians 1:11 12. Lead by example, and pray that these qualities and habits would be characteristic and increasing in the corporate life and testimony of your church.

Read Ephesians 3:16-19. What makes this such a good prayer to pray for a local church?

Read Colossians 1:9-14. Try to memorize this passage by reciting it and praying it once a day for three weeks. Memorize another prayer passage each week for a month.

As we carry out this commitment to the Word and prayer among the gathered elders, we will be encouraging them to trust not in programs or personalities, not in advertisements or physical amenities, but rather in the powerful Word of God and in the promise of His life-giving Spirit.

Prepare and distribute elder packets a week in advance. This will require all the elders to have any memos written a week ahead of time as well,

Our practice is to put the losses, additions, and care list all on a single sheet of paper, along with a note regarding total membership prior to additions and potential membership should all additions pass.

It will also be helpful on this front to revise the church membership directory monthly, or at least quarterly, depending on how much your membership changes.

The elders will also meet with the deacons in leadership meetings, which happen one week before the members’ meeting. This way, whether a member asks an elder or a deacon, all the officers of the church are on the same page, and everyone will be more likely to give the same answers and present a united front to the congregation.

The healthiest way for a pastor to view himself in the elders’ meetings is as a sort of first among equals.

If we are to be imitators of God (Eph. 5:1), then our churches will reflect something of that same outward-looking focus. Part of being a healthy church means not being satisfied with self-absorption. Yes, we are right to show concern for the purity and corporate testimony of our churches. But being outward-looking—looking for opportunities to be a blessing to other individuals, other churches, and other countries—is part of corporate maturity as a church body.

If God decides to bless your church with spiritual maturity and numerical growth, work among your own congregation to cultivate a culture in which helping other churches is a priority.

We need to be teaching people that a biblical church is about much more than simply meeting our felt needs for purpose, significance, fellowship, and mutual understanding. It is about the glory of God in the Gospel of Christ.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both authors Mark Dever and Paul Alexander have written a helpful book for pastors and church leaders on doing church ministry according to the Bible and centered on the Gospel. As the book states on page 28, “The Gospel alone shapes and evaluate must both shape and evaluate any ministry method we use.” This is a great antidote to the seeker sensitive church method or other marketing gimmick that is driven more by man-centered pragmatisms instead of the Word of God. I love how this book is both biblical and practical since I believe there is a real need of resources on practical ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Too often one find two kinds of extreme: practical works without it being biblical or biblical works on the church without a deeper practical picture of what does it look like. Dever and Alexander writes from being biblically informed and years of wisdom and experience which through their 9 Marks ministry have greatly helped many other local churches including the one I minister at.


The work begins with a very encouraging introduction. The main body of the book is divided into four section with each containing about a half a dozen chapters. Section 1 is on gathering the church while section 2 is on when the church gathers with section 3 on gathering elders and finally section 4 is on when the elders gather. The book ends with an encouraging conclusion that is fitting to be a chapter in its own right followed by an appendix on church membership interview form.

Perhaps the section of the book that I benefited the most from is section 4 on elders’ meeting. I wished I read this book much earlier in the beginning of my ministry as that would have made me think more consciously of what a leadership meeting would be like. But then I also believe in the sovereignty of God that it is meant to be that I read this book the time I did and would have benefited the most at this moment in time than I would probably have appreciated what I was reading during the beginning of my ministry. Dever gave a good advice of emailing the leadership agenda a week in advance and also giving packets with sealed envelope with elder’s name on it to reinforce the seriousness and confidentiality of the meeting. I also appreciated Dever’s point of having a time of Bible and prayers before the business of the meeting. I thought it was helpful to see the meeting organized in Dever’s church in the order of membership, administration, ministry, missions, communication with deacons and between elders, etc. I thought it was good for Dever to say that the meeting ought to be encouraging and the suggestion of having a board to write down what elders were encouraged with at the church; it was a good advice for me to hear as ministry can easily become critical in a ungodly way since we are dealing with sin and sinners.

There were many other precious insights from this book. For instance I enjoyed chapter 9’s discussion of the roles of different gatherings. It was extremely helpful to hear how Mark Dever’s church Capitol Hill Baptist Church go about doing there various gatherings throughout the week and the purpose of each one. Also as an expository preacher I take a long time in preparing my sermon and I often wonder if I’m taking too much time studying. Yet as a pastor I also meet a lot with our people and sometimes it feels like I’m burning both ends of the candle. Here I was encouraged with Mark Dever writing that young pastors spending about twenty five hours a week studying and prepping for Sunday Sermon is normal. That greatly encouraged me. Section three of the book on raising elders was very helpful especially with Dever’s point that “recognize before training” elders is a better model than just trying to train one up from scratch. I’ll admit I have made this mistake in ministry and while I have always gone slow to recognize people for offices nevertheless the training from scratch approach I used to do drained a lot of time, money and my own personal pain. The qualification quadrants on page 141 was also helpful.

I went through this book as part of a discipling tool with one of our deacons as preparation for him to serve our church. It was immensely beneficial for both of us and we learned things together. I recommend this work for pastors, elders, deacons, other church leaders and church interns. If you are not any of the above this work would also be edifying to read as well as being given as a gift to those in church leadership who have a desire to lead the church according to God’s Word.

[Nathan Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book under the new edition entitled Building Healthy Churches. Mark Dever and Paul Alexander. They combined many principles from Nine Marks of a Healthy Church to make a practical volume of how to implement those principles into the life of any church. One of the major principles from the outset is the prioritization of the gospel-centered biblical message for the growth of the church, over any other programs, methods, or models. Concepts like leadership accountability structures and communication methods are discussed at length, a major point being that all leadership should be capable teachers to some capacity. This book contains great ideas for how to unify the various teams of the church without disposing of delegation altogether. They discussed some great mentorship program concepts, scalable to different sized churches. Finally, they discuss discernment of truly important hills to die on around commonly divisive issues in the church, and how the gospel-centered biblical message, combined with a well-oiled leadership team, will help to present a unified front when waves of conflict approach the church.

[Vincent Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book on church ministry that wonderfully combines both theology and practical applications. It emphasizes the importance of church being grounded Scripturally in practice, keeping a biblical basis for the things that are done. Alexander and Dever share practical examples from their own church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and will serve to be a blessing to those who pick up the book. In a society that is so filled with creating the right program or the right niche through entertainment, self-centered, crowd pleasingness, this books grounds the work of the church in pleasing God, and the church functioning to display God's wisdom and glory to the world. Questions are provided after sections to stimulate deeper thought after certain topics are addressed. Would highly recommend this book!

[Tim Goldsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Dever's book looks at the foundations for ministry, evangelism and church practice. This is a book that really runs through the "How to's" for gathering a church, building better services, getting good leadership & having effective meetings.
From my perspective this is a helpful reference tool, but wasn't a great fit, because it can't help but be written in the American context and more particularly the baptist context. For an Anglican, I simply couldn't take on some of Dever's suggestions. That said, I disagree with some of is conclusions anyway, particularly when it comes to the "regulatory principle", which I think Dever appears to apply & ignore depending on whether or not it suits his purposes sometimes.
A helpful read with some thoughtful insights, but certainly not the final word.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is - in part - Mark Dever’s response to the church growth movement. It serves this purpose very well. Pastor Dever drives home the importance of staying true to Scripture over and above pragmatism, while simultaneously providing practical insights for the ministry of the church.

One of the most beneficial aspects of the book are his insistence on patience and humility. These two things - both because of human nature and because of the culture we live in - are severely lacking in modern American Evangelicalism.

It isn’t a perfect book; there are a few ideas I take exception with (especially his approach to Deacons). However, I would generally recommend the book as a helpful alternative to all of the pragmatic, man-centered church growth strategy so prevalent in our day.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a practical, ground-up look at a healthy church. Elements of church structure and operation may not seem the most interesting concepts to read about, but they are vital to the health of a local church. I highly recommend "9 Marks of a Healthy Church," and this book is a perfect companion to it. The first communicates the vision and direction and the second helps see how to get there.

Pastors are responsible to care and watch for all the flock they serve. At the very least, this book will help pastors identify holes in their pastoral care and give some practical advice on how to fill them in.

[Jacob Sabin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were many wonderful truths The Deliberate Church had to offer, the premise being the most important: to build your church/ministry on the gospel. Since the book was coming from pastors in the Southern Baptist tradition (I am not knocking the Southern Baptists), there are some aspects to how they do ministry I respectfully have a difference of opinion on. I will give it a 3 for the books overall goal, but it is not necessarily a book I plan to reread in the future. The heart of it though is what is most important and no believer, regardless of their denomination background, would be able to dispute the importance of it.

[Brian Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good complement to Dever's Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. While that more famous book describes those nine marks, this book prescribes how to make those nine marks a reality in a church that is coming from a less-than-healthy condition. Therefore, this book is quite practical. The general advice is to make changes deliberately. The changes that are suggested are not gimmicks, nor are they changes for change's sake. They are changes that will make a church more aligned with Scripture.

[Finished reading on April 5, 2016.]

[David Meiklejohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about how to run a church based on biblical principles rather than the latest management fads. Up to a point this is quite decent, but the author goes into quite a lot of detail on things like elders meetings and so on where he doesn’t have much in the way of biblical basis so just tells you what he thinks.
A good source of detailed ideas on how to run a church though, helpful for pastors and the like.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book aims to do what the authors intend for it to do. It provides helpful nuts and bolts practical suggestions for pastors as they consider how to build ministry on the Gospel. I personal found the sections focused on staff meetings, elder meetings, and budgeting to be very helpful. For readers of other 9Marks books you will find much repeated (which isn't bad) but the practical suggestions I found to make the book helpful for my pastoral ministry.

[Joshua Reichard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a great read if you are a new pastor or are interesting in a short read about church life. Dever is a studied, practiced, and wise man who has spent most of his life seeking to conform the church back to scripture. Though I would disagree with minor things overall I think Dever has done a magnificent job at shaping the church to the NT church. Thankful for Mark Dever.