Nine Marks of a Healthy Church | Book Review

—PJ King

The following is a republication of a review PJ wrote for his own (now-defunct) personal blog some time ago. The book is important enough that we felt the article deserved republication here. As you'll note, we have covered many of these topics in depth ourselves. We hope you find PJ's review informative!

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Mark Dever's book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church [248 pages], is not particularly new - but it is particularly relevant to our current church culture. Originally published in 1997, this book discusses nine traits which Dever has identified as important indicators of a church's vitality. He writes that there are many other important aspects to a healthy church, but he believes that these nine are particularly important for gauging a church's health.

The nine marks this book details are as follows

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Self-Improvement vs. the Gospel

—Chase Russell

Chase Russell currently works as a director of children’s ministry with One by One Nicaragua, a team dedicated to bringing the gospel to the next generation of Nicaraguans. He is passionate about getting the gospel right with children. In this article series, he examines one of the biggest mistakes we can make in children’s ministry and suggests some helpful correctives.

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Lately, I’ve been on a journey to answer the following questions:

1. Exactly what is a saving relationship with God?
2. How is it different from simply a collection of knowledge about God mixed with good Christian behaviors?
3. How do you explain this to a child?

Why should you care? Even if you currently have no interaction with children

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Comfort and Community When Life Sucks

—Stephen Carradini

[The following is an article by Chris’ longtime friend, Stephen Carradini. If you enjoy the article, drop by his author page to check out his bio and some of his other writing. Stephen will be a semi-regular voice on Pillar on the days ahead, so make sure you give him a warm reception in the comments.]

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In my last article on suffering, I concluded that the eschatological and the earthly are both appropriate realms for hope. But when suffering, it’s hard to remember that.

Christ is the ultimate comfort in suffering; to cast our cares and our selves wholly upon him produces a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7). Sometimes that peace eludes us for no reason that the sufferer can immediately see, as was the case for Job, David and many others. Especially in those times, the church needs to

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Confessions of an Ex-Teetotaler

—PJ King

The following is one article in a series on dealing with alcohol Biblically. You can read the rest of the series here.

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This is my story. It is not meant as a judgment on anyone, and should not be taken as one. I share it because I thought it might offer some helpful perspective on how I got to where I am and provoke some helpful discussion. In this article, I use the word “teetotaler” to mean those who believe everyone should always abstain from alcohol. As Chris noted in his articles, there is plenty of room for abstention on personal grounds.

I was born and bred a teetotaler, just like some of you. If I reported finding alcohol in a friend's house, my parents never allowed me to go back. Any Christians who drank were serious sinners and probably weren't Christian at all. This belief didn't cause much friction in my social life, however, because I was too young to drink legally and accordingly wouldn't have imbibed (illegally) no matter what I thought about the nature of alcohol. Additionally, at least when I was younger, most of my friends’ parents’ hid their alcohol because they had children in the house.

Even going to college

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Tripping People With Beer

—Chris Krycho

The following is one article in a series on dealing with alcohol Biblically. You can read the rest of the series here.

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In the previous articles in this series [Alcohol is of the Devil! and Alcohol is from God], I argued that drinking is not sinful and in fact is a blessing from God, and tackled one of the most common arguments against consuming alcohol. In this article, I am examining the other common argument against drinking, one that I think is much stronger but ultimately still not compelling.

Some teetotalers, recognizing that Scripture affirms the goodness of alcohol, argue that we should nonetheless avoid it to avoid tempting our brothers and sisters in Christ. They offer two passages in support of their view

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Week Off

This week marks the end of summer for the Krychos and Kings alike. In preparation for the school semester, we're taking the week off to spend some time with our spouses and get ready. PJ starts full time at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on Thursday, while Jaimie starts her final year of undergraduate work in Professional Writing at OU next Monday. (Chris and Katie both get to keep working full time at their respective jobs.) We hope you have a blessed and excellent week, and we'll see you next week with the continuations and conclusions of our ongoing series. God bless!

Hope (Even When Life Sucks)

—Stephen Carradini

[The following is a guest post by Chris’ longtime friend, Stephen Carradini. If you enjoy the post, drop by his author page to check out his bio and some of his other writing. Stephen will probably be a semi-regular voice on Pillar on the days ahead, so make sure you give him a warm reception in the comments.]

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In part one of my series on suffering, I concluded, “Trusting in God, even in the face of brutal circumstances, directly produces joy.”

But for what do we trust God? Do we hope that he will end our suffering, or do we rest only in the eschatological hope of the life to come?

The answer is yes—to both.

Our firmest foundation should be

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Youth Ministry (Without the Youth)

—PJ King

The way we do youth ministry is failing. I am writing this series, Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure?, because after high school, half of our youth will drop out of the church for good. While there are a lot of positives in current youth ministries, I’m harping on the negatives because something is broken. What are we doing wrong? What can we do better?

Now, take off your easily-offended glasses, put on your discerning ones—and let’s get started.

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Last time, I listed a host of problems with the ways many of our churches do youth ministry. Having identified what I believe to be the root issues, I will now attempt to deal with two of them head-on.

Youth are separated from the rest of the church body

We have talked before about the lack of age-integration in many churches. This problem applies especially to youth ministries

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Pastor like Jesus [Pastors and Practice]

—Ben Arbour

[Editor’s Note: In the midst of writing a book on the same topic, Ben Arbour has agreed to offer us a series, Pastors and Practice, arguing that Christ is our true model for pastoral ministry. Throughout this series, Ben will explain how Christ’s example should affect the governing of the church and the ministry of pastors.]

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Here’s a crazy idea: Follow Jesus!

So far in this series, I’ve been identifying what I believe to be a serious problem in many Western evangelical churches. I now want to turn towards constructing an alternative vision of ecclesiological polity—one that I believe is more in keeping with the New Testament and one that sees Jesus as the model pastor.

One of the saddest things I’ve come to realize is how little attention Jesus gets when we discuss leadership. When it comes to ecclesiology, we think that because the Church as it now exists wasn’t birthed until Pentecost in Acts 2, we can’t really learn anything about church life from Jesus or the Gospels.

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Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure?

—PJ King

The way we do youth ministry is failing. I am writing this series, Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure?, because after high school, half of our youth will drop out of the church for good. While there are a lot of positives in current youth ministries, I’m harping on the negatives because something is broken. What are we doing wrong? What can we do better?

Now, take off your easily-offended glasses, put on your discerning ones—and let’s get started.

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I grew up in youth ministry. From 7^th grade on, I participated in Sunday School, drama team (Sunday afternoon), Sunday night discipleship and Wednesday night events. I always went to summer camp, did all the service projects, went on every mission trip, and went to Disciple Now each February (except that one time I was sick). And I ran sound for both Sunday nights and Wednesday nights throughout most of high school. When it came to youth group cred, I was ballin’.

Having been removed from youth ministry for some time now—and having watched many of my former peers walk away from the faith they once professed—I have begun to wonder: is youth ministry effective? More personally: is your youth ministry effective? How many kids who go through your youth ministry remain in church during and after college? (I know that’s a difficult number for most laity to track, but retention is probably the best gauge of effectiveness.) According to research at LifeWay, if about half of them stay in church after college, then the ministry is better than average. But that’s a lousy average, isn’t it?

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Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure? — The Series

—PJ King

The way we do youth ministry is failing. I wrote this series, Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure?, because after high school, half of our youth will drop out of the church for good. While there are a lot of positives in current youth ministries, I’m harping on the negatives because something is broken. What are we doing wrong? What can we do better?

Now, take off your easily-offended glasses, put on your discerning ones—and let’s get started.

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1. Youth Ministry: Preparing for Failure?
2. Youth Ministry (Without the Youth)

Alcohol is from God!

—Chris Krycho

The following is one article in a series on dealing with alcohol Biblically. You can read the rest of the series here.

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In Alcohol is of the Devil! I argued that alcohol is actually a good gift from God rather than inherently evil. As such, we should enjoy it, although we should do so wisely, and with a great deal of care and concern for brothers and sisters in Christ who are tempted to drunkenness. As I expected, a number of people argued against this view. Drinking has long been a hot-button issue in many churches, especially

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