Book Review: What is a Healthy Church?

As a preface, at the beginning of this year I had set a goal to read more, and read a more variety (I tend to read primarily for quiet times and devotionals).  This means that I step out of my box a little, and included with my goal was to write my thoughts on the book and the takeaways I got from reading it.

In a busy first half of 2019 which included three international business trips, a move from Atlanta to Colorado, and all of the craziness of establishing life in a new place, I hadn't gotten to the second half of this goal until now.  I hope that if you find this blog, that it helps you and enhances your life in some way.  

So here we go... 

What is a Healthy Church?  By Mark Dever 

This was one of the first books on my list for the year.  Amanda and I had learned that we would be relocating to Denver at the end of 2018, and one of our first priorities when we arrive would be to find a good church.  Spoiler alert:  We did!  

Reading this book, to me, was also a retreat for me to reflect on my past (and current at the time) church experiences, and especially the time we spent in the "seeker-sensitive" churches I've attended.  Not that there's anything wrong with positioning a church to attract outsiders to hear the Gospel and have the opportunity to turn to Jesus, but it seems that that can often come at a cost.  I don't want to go into that today, but it was something I was concerned with especially with my responsibility of leading my family well.  

What is a Healthy Church? in my opinion is a good quick read for someone who wants to know how to lead their church well as a lay member, has some concerns and needs a sounding board for whether those concerns are legit or not, or (like us) want to understand what to look for in a new church if they have decided to church hunt...  Not like John Crist HERE and HERE (these are funny, by the way!).  

The book isn't incredibly "deep" - it's meant to be a "bathroom read" in a way.  If you want to go more in depth into the "Nine Marks" that Dever talks about, he has a more in-depth book "Nine Marks of a Healthy Church," which I wish I would have bought, but for the season of my life in the beginning of the year, the cliff notes book was adequate, but it was my only criticism of the book.   

Takeways:

There wasn't anything too "earth shattering" in this book for me, honestly.  It was a good review, which is sometimes what we need.  The book starts by talking about what the church, Biblically speaking (which is what we should care about, ultimately) is and it isn't.  It isn't a building, or a set of programs, or a meeting where we give up an hour of our lives once a week, but it is the natural habitat of a Christian who has been joined together with others by our trust in Jesus Christ and our belief in the Gospel, and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  It (the church) is described as the body of Christ (in a sense, the continued presence of Christ in the world) where we use our spiritual gifts to build each other up and display to the world what Christ is like.  It is a people, not a place.  

But what should "it" look like?  The point of the book is that churches should not seek to be "perfect" because there is no such thing as a perfect church (it's all filled with redeemed sinners who depend on Jesus, after all :) ), but that it should seek to be "healthy."  In the same way as we want our physical bodies to be healthy by protecting it, feeding it healthy foods vs. junk, and getting regular health checkups, the local expression of the body of Christ we "do life with" has the same needs spiritually (which makes sense).  

So what are these things?  

The author splits up the "nine things" into two categories:  Essential Marks (basically, table stakes) and Important Marks (things that should be there, but aren't core).  The nine marks he lists are:

Essential Marks

1. A focus on expositional preaching
2. A commitment to Biblical theology 
3. A Biblical understanding of the Gospel

Important Marks

1. A Biblical understanding of conversion
2. A Biblical understanding of evangelism
3. A Biblical understanding of membership 
4. Biblical church discipline
5. Biblical discipleship and growth 
6. Biblical church leadership

The discussion that he gives on the three essential marks are very good.  Honestly, a focus on expositional preaching (basically, letting the scriptures guide the preaching vs. using Bible verses as a prop for "what you really want to say") and the discussion of Biblical theology was the sections I'd spend the most time on if I were reading this book again.  

What I appreciate about this book is that Mark Dever is very careful to make sure we "focus on the main thing" - which is the centrality of preaching Christ and as Acts 2:42 states to devote ourselves to "the apostles' teachings" by making careful preaching from the Bible, as it was written (not reinterpreted based on our culture or desires) the focus of what is talked about the pulpits.  In my opinion, if we focus on these first two items in our churches, we would do very well and a lot of the other things would take care of themselves as a result.  

There are things that don't matter all that much, including

• What type of programs you have
• What style of worship songs and what artists you choose songs from (although you should evaluate your worship songs through the lens of scripture, for sure) 
• What you believe about the end times interpretations, predestination vs. free will, the use of spiritual gifts in your church, etc. 
• Do you have "Sunday School," small groups, house churches, missional communities, etc. as your discipleship structure?  (hence why I'd agree with Dever that mark 8 is "important" because churches view discipleship structures differently) 
• Does your church allow a woman to teach in certain contexts? 
• I'm sure there are more... in some ways one thing that we as Christians can agree on is that we can't agree on a lot of things. LOL 

What does matter, though.  The proclamation of the Biblical Gospel (see 1 Corinthians 15).  The testimony of Christ's apostles in the New Testament, which includes a Christ-centric view of the Old Testament (meaning, we can't unhitch it because it doesn't jive with our culture).  These are non-negotiables if our churches are truly to be healthy.  Most of us as Christians can agree with that.  If we do these things well, a lot of the other questions above will take care of themselves as long as we're humble and let the Word and the Spirit lead vs. our opinions.

And honestly, even when we have to take stands in our culture because of our obligation to follow clear scriptural teaching, if we really believe what the Gospel says:  that we are sinners that are dependent solely on the death and resurrection of Jesus for our eternal life and that we can't "earn it" at all, shouldn't that make us more patient, more loving, and more gracious in our speech... not less?  

One rant (I have to go here... it's been on my heart for a while):  going through an entire Christian service and not hearing any mention of "Jesus" at all should give us pause.  HE is the reason we're here... why isn't HE getting more of our attention in our Christian churches when we worship?  I have been through worship services like this and it saddens me a little.  If at the end of time we're all going to bow and confess that JESUS is LORD, when why are we seemingly shy about talking about Him in our church services?  We shouldn't.  If we are, then perhaps this is one "Check Your Heart" moments as John Crist likes to say. 

In closing.

I definitely recommend the book if you are looking for ways to a.) pray for your church and lead well and b.) if you are in church-hunting mode and truly want to find a church that is healthy.  Like a yearly physical, it can either be a good confirmation that you are on track, or perhaps it will highlight things that may need a little (or a lot of) work.  Either way, it is a helpful read.  

And I'm happy to say that our current church in Denver is one that lives up to these marks well.  Not perfectly (read earlier statement about "no perfect church"), but well.  

I hope that this helpful.  Thanks for reading, whether you agree with my musing or not :-)