9Marks Book Study Highlights: Chapter 2

Biblical Theology. The next mark of a healthy church according to Mark Dever is Biblical Theology. Why is this important you might ask? Well I think it is pretty obvious that biblical illiteracy is a huge problem in America and especially among Christians. Christians just don't read their Bible and when they do it's seldom that they come to a right understanding of the theology contained in pages they read. Part of the problem is very much related to the first mark, Expositional Preaching, or really the lack-there-of. Pastors just don't preach expositionally very often anymore and since very few of their church members actually read their Bible outside of Sunday morning it is no wonder that people have a screwed up understanding of Biblical Theology. So here are the points we learned from this chapter and hopefully you'll realize, like us, that Biblical Theology is very, very important:

• In society today, beliefs have been domesticated. People no longer fight for them and may not even care about them anymore.
• Today people believe to be true simply what they desire to be true.
• People need to have a "metanarrative" or meaning in their life.
• God is a creating, holy, faithful, loving and sovereign God.
• Sound teaching in our church must include a clear commitment to the teachings of the Bible, even if those teachings are often neglected.
• The Bible shows us very plainly that God is a creating God and the He is an electing God.
• God has a passion for holiness and is not unconcerned with His creation.
• The language of covenant is the language of personal relationship.
• The sacrifices of the OT showed that purification was needed, and that sin is so serious that death is needed to atone for it--that salvation and forgiveness are costly.
• If you think people are basically good, then a church is simply a place where we seek encouragement or perhaps the enhancement of our self-esteem.
• If you think that we are spiritually dead, then the church needs to present the Gospel clearly and tell people how to find forgiveness and new life.
• Jesus Christ was the faithful fulfillment of God's promise to redeem us into a restored relationship with Himself.
• God will continue to care for us and His continuing care is based not on our faithfulness but on His.
  

9Marks Book Study Highlights: Chapter 1

So far our book study on 9 Marks of a Healthy Church has been terrific. We have been challenged and stretched in the way we view ministry and the methods we use to carry it out. We have seen God affirm in us, through this book, some of the recent changes in the style/format of the Foundation services and believe we are heading in the right direction. It just so happens that one of the major changes we made in our services happens to be the the first of the 9Marks according to Mark Dever; expositional preaching. We have committed to preaching and teaching the Word of God like never before. We are deliberately making the preaching and teaching of the Word as a central part of the Foundation Ministry and trust that God will be honored by that . Check out some key ideas we gathered from Chapter 1 of 9Marks:

Chapter 1:

• The first mark of a healthy church is expositional preaching.
• The main role of any pastor is expositional preaching.
• Expositional preaching contrasts with a topical sermon.
• A topical sermon begins with what the preacher wants to preach about.
• An expositional sermon makes the point of the message the point of a particular passage of Scripture.
• A pastor who doesn’t regularly preach expositionally will never preach more than they knew when they began the whole exercise.
• Pastors shouldn’t use Scripture as an excuse for what they already want to say.
• God’s Word is the instrument chosen by Him to bring life.
• The Word shows us what to believe.
• It is in Christ that the Word of God has fully and finally come to us.
• God’s Word not only gives us life; it also gives us direction and it keeps shaping and molding us in the image of the God who is speaking to us.
• All of us, by our sinful nature, are looking for ways to justify our sins against God. We want to know how we can defend ourselves from God’s charges. Therefore we are in desperate need to hear God’s Word brought honestly to us, so that we don’t just hear what we want to hear but rather hear what God has actually said.

9Marks Book Study Highlights-- Part 1

As the Vision Team(Aaron,Jonathan,Chance) has been meeting weekly to plan and prepare for the present as well as the future for The Foundation, we realized that we needed to do a better job of studying and growing together as a leadership team. To accomplish that task we are currently reading a book entitled: 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, written by Mark Dever. So far the book has been awesome and we would like to share some of the things we are learning as we move along through the book. I hope these posts will be helpful to you and that you might see The Foundation putting more emphasis on some of the healthy characteristics for the Body. Here are the notes from the Preface and Introduction:

Preface:

• Unhealthy churches cause few problems on mature-healthy Christians but are serious deterrents in the growth of young Christians.
• Bad churches are very effective anti-missionary forces.
• The local church is God’s evangelism plan.
• The local church isn’t an option for us; it’s the shape of you following Jesus.
• If we want to be more biblical in our evangelism, then we will find ourselves devoting more time to praying for the lost in our personal prayer times.

Introduction:

• Preaching of the Gospel and proper administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper have been regarded as the marks of a true church by Protestants since the Reformation.
• The exaltation of numbers and technique are two easily recognizable hallmarks of secularization in American churches.
• Three Major Church Models: Liberal, Seeker-Sensitive, and Traditional
• All three assume that evident relevance and response is a true indicator of success. (Social Ministries/Liberal—Music/Seeker-Sensitive—Programs/Traditional)
• It is dangerous to assume that the fruit of a successful church is readily apparent.
• God’s word is well-stocked with images of delayed blessing.
• “Biblically, we must realize that the size of what our eyes see is rarely a good way to estimate the greatness of something in the eyes of God”
• A successful ministry is one that is demonstrably faithful to God’s Word.
• The preaching of the message and the leading of disciples are two basic needs in our churches.
• The 9Marks: Expositional Preaching, Biblical Theology, The Gospel, Biblical Understanding of Conversion, Biblical Understanding or Evangelism, Biblical Understanding of Church Membership, Biblical Church Discipline, Concern for Discipleship and Growth, and Biblical Church Leadership.