Comments on: Book Alert: What Is a Healthy Church?

By: 2007 Year in Review Analysis and Compilation « Provocations & Pantings

2007 Year in Review Analysis and Compilation « Provocations & Pantings — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:40:50 +0000

[...] What Is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever [...]

By: Timmy Brister

Timmy Brister — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:58:00 +0000

George,

That’s a very good point. Christian love is not only a defining mark of the Church, but it is a defining mark of true believers. While that may sound obvious, we cannot assume anything these days!

By: george

george — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:06:11 +0000

I think Dever is on to something with this book, but I also think it’s greatly lacking because he doesn’t mention biblical love. No church is healthy without biblical love. I realize he’s not making every mark of a healthy church, but it doesn’t matter if you have his 9 marks is there is not love (1 Cor 13), something that he doesn’t really touch on to my recollection.

By: Timmy Brister

Timmy Brister — Thu, 31 May 2007 01:31:31 +0000

David,

I am not sure. It seems too short to be a rehasing of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, but it might be a condensed version in a gift format or those smaller hardbacks (what are they called again?). Crossway seems to be in a habit of late of taking some of Piper’s larger works and condensing them in smaller, bite-size pieces, and I wonder if this is the same kind of thing going on here (notice the summary only mentions three marks instead of the nine). I would read the one you have first because it is foundational to what IX Marks is all about. Now that you have brought this up, I would be interested in seeing the difference between the two books.

By: ThirstyDavid

ThirstyDavid — Thu, 31 May 2007 01:25:15 +0000

This looks similar to Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, which I just got and haven’t yet read. Is this a rehashing of the same themes, or something entirely new?

By: bretta

bretta — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:50:15 +0000

Thanks, Timmy…we’ll check it out!

By: Timmy Brister

Timmy Brister — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:32:39 +0000

Bretta,

If you enjoyed his book, you might want to check out their website. It is chock full of articles, MP3’s, and helpful advice on developing healthy churches. it is 9marks.org.

By: bretta

bretta — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:04:28 +0000

I’ve just been reading 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. Good stuff!
Makes me “sad” though as I see some major health issues at the church we have attended the past 16 years…not that we didn’t know those issues existed, just didn’t have a “label” to put on them or scripture to back up our uneasy feelings…

By: Timmy Brister

Timmy Brister — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:27:35 +0000

Good stuff Andrew. BTW, I am about to post something on conferences, and I would like your take on it. If you get a chance, give it a look.

By: Andrew Lindsey

Andrew Lindsey — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:15:08 +0000

I actually got the chance to meet Mark Dever between sessions at the New Attitude conference. He was kind enough to speak to me for about 10 minutes. Also, as I need to conduct an interview for a class, he said I could set up a chance to formally interview him in the near future. I’ll probably post concerning this on StrangeBaptistFire.com soon.

-Andrew