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:

1. Expositional Preaching
2. Biblical Theology
3. The Gospel
4. A Biblical Understanding of Conversion
5. A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
6. A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership
7. Biblical Church Discipline
8. A Concern for Discipleship and Growth
9. Biblical Church Leadership

I agree with Dever that all these points are important for a healthy church. From my own experience, I believe that more churches understand and practice the first five marks better than they do the final four marks. My review will dwell on those final four marks.

What Dever identifies as mark 6, "A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership," is often referred to as "Meaningful Membership." It is a concept that, in part, requires members to make a real and covenantal committment to the church and for the church to hold its members accountable to that covenant through various means (with the most severe means being the removal of that person's membership). Meaningful Membership goes hand-in-hand with mark 7, "Biblical Church Discipline." Without the removal of unfaithful members, it is impossible to maintain Meaningful Membership.

Dever is a pastor of an SBC church (Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, D.C.). [Read about PJ and Katie's visit: Visiting Capitol Hill] In this book, he acknowledges that one of the SBC's problems is a bloated membership list. He sites statistics that state the average SBC church membership list is three times larger than the actual number of people attending on a Sunday morning! This statistic (which I know to be true from my experience in SBC churches) is absolutely devastating. It means we have people who can honestly say they are members of FBC ________ when they haven't been to that church in 2 years! This is harmful for the witness of that church because an individual can truthfully tell others that he is a member of said church and yet live like an unbeliever—and he can do it without the church keeping him accountable for his membership. [See our discussion of church membership: Membership Matters to Me | 3 Assumptions About the New Testament Church | The 5 Most Important Aspects of Membership]

For mark 8, "A Concern for Discipleship and Growth," Dever discusses that the church should be concerned that all of its members are growing. Dever emphasizes that this is not only a responsibility of the pastors and elders, but also of the members. Discipleship should not only be from the leaders toward the congregants, but also from member to member. [See our discussion of church discipline: Undisciplined Disciples | What is Church Discipline? | 3 Steps to Church Discipline | The 4 Purposes Behind Church Discipline]

Mark 9 is "Biblical Church Leadership." In this chapter, Dever covered the typical requirements for a church leader (male, irreproachable, exemplary family life, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach), but he also offered an idea that has been rejected by many Baptists for the past century: eldership. Dever details how the scripture calls for elders and that elders are not simply the deacons or the "church staff", rather, elders include both pastors and lay-leaders. Because eldership is such a foreign notion to many Baptists (these days), I simply recommend that you read Dever's own words.[See our discussion of eldership: The Mandate for Multiple Elders (Series)]

This book is a wonderful resource for leaders and laity alike. While not using overly academic language, this book does present its ecclesiology well. Of course, in this book, Dever could not go into great detail on any of the nine marks. However, he did leave a wonderful gift in Appendix 3 for readers who would like further study by listing three to ten books of recommended readings for each mark.

Reading this book was a refreshing experience. Even if you do not expect to agree with Dever on all nine issues, I believe it is important to consider his arguments. I wholly recommend Nine Marks of a Healthy Church.

Review: required