What Is a Healthy Church?
What Is a Healthy Church?

Author: Mark Dever

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2024-09-26

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1433596636

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Key Traits of a Healthy Church to Develop within the Local Body What is an ideal church, and how can you tell? How does it look different from other churches? More importantly, how does it act differently, especially in society? Many of us aren't sure how to answer those questions, even though we probably have some preconceived ideas. This book answers those questions and many more. Author Mark Dever seeks to help believers recognize the key characteristics of a healthy church: expositional preaching, biblical theology, and a right understanding of the gospel. Dever then calls us to develop those characteristics in our own churches. By following the example of New Testament authors and addressing all members of the church, pastors and laity alike, Dever challenges all believers to do their part in maintaining the local church. Part of the 9Marks Building Healthy Churches series, What Is a Healthy Church? offers timeless truths and practical principles to help each of us fulfill our God-given roles in the body of Christ. Offers an Ideal Church Model: Encourages pastors and members to implement healthy church qualities within their local body Written by Mark Dever: Pastor, bestselling author, and president of 9Marks From 9Marks: Other titles in the Building Healthy Churches series include Church Discipline; Deacons; and Church Membership Replaces ISBN 978-1-58134-937-5

A Church Called Tov
A Church Called Tov

Author: Scot McKnight

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 149644602X

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“Scot and Laura do an amazing job of teaching us what a good church looks like.” —Beth Moore What is the way forward for the church? Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches—from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church. We need a better way. The sad truth is that churches of all shapes and sizes are susceptible to abuses of power, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse. Abuses occur most frequently when Christians neglect to create a culture that resists abuse and promotes healing, safety, and spiritual growth. How do we keep these devastating events from repeating themselves? We need a map to get us from where we are today to where we ought to be as the body of Christ. That map is in a mysterious and beautiful little Hebrew word in Scripture that we translate “good,” the word tov. In this book, McKnight and Barringer explore the concept of tov—unpacking its richness and how it can help Christians and churches rise up to fulfill their true calling as imitators of Jesus.

Making Sense of God
Making Sense of God

Author: Timothy Keller

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-09-20

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0525954155

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We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Amplified Leadership
Amplified Leadership

Author: Dan Reiland

Publisher: Charisma Media

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1616384727

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"If you want your ministry to reach its maximum potential--all that God wants for you--it is essential that you develop strong leaders. In Amplified Leadership, coach for pastors Dan Reiland gives you a proven process for developing new leaders who are established spiritually and trained practically."--Back cover.

Making A Good Church Great
Making A Good Church Great

Author: Steve Sjogren

Publisher: Gospel Light Publications

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780830746620

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Bestselling author Steve Sjogren untangles the complex jumble commonly known as greatness in today’s mega church, mega everything world. As a successful pastor, he launched the servant evangelism movement, but along the way he discovered that significance was not where or what he thought it would be. Now, in a very practical book, he focuses on genuine greatness. Is it the size of the sanctuary? The number of new believers baptized each year? The youth attendance? The quantity of best selling books the pastor has written? The list of television shows, radio shows or podcasts the pastors appears on? Or is it something more? What is the buzz on good churches that become great in God’s eyes? Sjogren argues that greatness is not a point at which you arrive; rather, it is an ongoing process of worshipping, serving and living in God’s presence. It not a slick program; rather, it is a family, a hospital, an army and a school. When God is a present, His people are empowered. When God empowers His people, a good church becomes great.

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Edition)
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (3rd Edition)

Author: Mark Dever

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2013-08-31

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1433540010

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Now in its third edition and featuring a new foreword by New York Times best-selling author David Platt, pastor Mark Dever’s classic book is not an instruction manual for church growth. Rather, it is a wise pastor’s recommendation for how to assess the health of a church using nine crucial qualities often neglected by many of today’s congregations. Church leaders and church members alike will resonate with the principles outlined here, breathing new life and health into the church at large. In this newly revised edition, fresh arguments have been added (for example on expositional preaching, about the nature of the gospel, on complementarianism), illustrations have been updated, appendices have been changed, and cover has been improved.

What Is the Mission of the Church?
What Is the Mission of the Church?

Author: Kevin DeYoung

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2011-09-08

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 143352693X

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Social justice and mission are hot topics today: there's a wonderful resurgence of motivated Christians passionate about spreading the gospel and caring for the needs of others. But in our zeal to get sharing and serving, many are unclear on gospel and mission. Yes, we are called to spend ourselves for the sake of others, but what is the church's unique priority as it engages the world? DeYoung and Gilbert write to help Christians "articulate and live out their views on the mission of the church in ways that are theologically faithful, exegetically careful, and personally sustainable." Looking at the Bible's teaching on evangelism, social justice, and shalom, they explore the what, why, and how of the church's mission. From defining "mission", to examining key passages on social justice and their application, to setting our efforts in the context of God's rule, DeYoung and Gilbert bring a wise, studied perspective to the missional conversation. Readers in all spheres of ministry will grow in their understanding of the mission of the church and gain a renewed sense of urgency for Jesus' call to preach the Word and make disciples.

Learning from London
Learning from London

Author: Jason A. Fout

Publisher:

Published: 2019-11

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9780880284783

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Winner of a Gold Medal - 2020 Illumination Book Awards Crucial reading for everyone committed to evangelism and church growth. -Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church As most mainline Christian denominations struggle with declining numbers, the Church of England in the Diocese of London is bucking the trend. In one of the most diverse, multi-faith, urban, and pluralistic cities in the world, London churches are growing and thriving against the odds, proclaiming the gospel afresh, and meeting the needs of their communities in creative, innovative, and life-changing ways. Based on more than six years of study, Jason A. Fout offers lessons from London, a road map to growth and revitalization for American churches-big and small, historic and newly started, evangelical and Anglo-Catholic. This remarkable guide offers practical tools as well as insight and inspiration for all who care about the future of the church.

The Battle for the Beginning
The Battle for the Beginning

Author: John F. MacArthur

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Published: 2005-03-20

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1418508020

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The battle lines have been drawn. Is the enemy winning? "Thanks to the theory of evolution," writes best-selling author John MacArthur, "naturalism is now the dominant religion of modern society. Less than a century and a half ago, Charles Darwin popularized the credo for this secular religion. Naturalism has now replaced Christianity as the main religion of the Western world, and evolution has become its principal dogma." Many Christians who claim to believe that the Bible is God's revealed truth seem willing to allow modern scientific theories to replace the Genesis account of creation. Such compromises present a conspicuous danger. Bible teacher and pastor, John MacArthur, believes that in Genesis 1-3 we find the foundation of every doctrine that is essential to the Christian faith?the vital underpinnings for everything we believe. The Battle for the Beginning draws a clear line on today's theological landscape. "Everything in Scripture that teaches about sin and redemption assumes the literal truth of the first three chapters of Genesis. If we wobble to any degree on the truth of this passage," John MacArthur insists, "we undermind the very foundations of our faith."