After reading Dever’s book, Marks of a Healthy Church, I had to do some real
reflection where I separated personal feelings and facts.[1] c Who wants to admit
that their church is not the perfect, Bible preaching, God honoring, heart
converting church? c I know my church is not perfect, though I do not want to
admit it. c If it were, we would not have changeover of congregants and every
person would be completely satisfied with all that we do and offer. c I do not
know if I would want to be part of that church. c I want to be part of a church
that is not perfect. c I want to be a church that can grow, change, and be willing
to accept criticism while staying true to the Scriptures, our mission, and our
values.
c c c c c c I would say the first part where we need growth according to
Dever’s book is in the realm of expositional teaching. c I struggled with this one
as our way of teaching is expositional with a touch of topical and not vice
versa. c We do not pick topics and meld the Scriptures to fit or relate to the
topic like many topical preachers do.[2] c We meet as a team in November and
May and set up series for the year and build expositional messages that fulfill
the series. c Each message is a passage of Scripture, and we break it down
point for point as typical of expositional teaching.[3] c For example, we are
preaching and teaching through our church’s core values, and currently we are
teaching about discipleship. c We have taken each of the Scripture verses that
we built our core values around and are teaching that verse. c Dever agreed
that not all preaching is biblical, and I would agree.[4] c An area of opportunity
for us to improve is to turn more toward exposing the Word and less
commentary. c We spend a lot of time using commentaries and explaining the
verses through commentaries. c We could adjust to focus more on the
hermeneutics or spend more time on the translation of the Word, however, I
would be concerned of losing the focus of the message. c Ultimately, I believe
our growth potential in expanding our expositional teaching is in delivering the
message in a way that commits the Word at the center always.
c c c c c c The second area that I know we need improvement on is church
discipline. c I was surprised to find out recently that the leadership had
“requested” a member of the church to no longer be part of the worship team
due to adultery. c It was ironic that Dever wrote a section on that type of
surprised response.[5] c It was explained to me that someone living in sin should
not be allowed to be leading worship as worship is celebrating Christ, the same
person they are actively living against. c I do not disagree with their reasoning
but was surprised as I have been part of other churches that have knowingly
turned a blind eye to sinful behavior for the benefit of the church and because
they did not want to single people out. c My current church is not worried about
singling a person out as much as setting the example that living in sin is living
without God. c In conversing about the handling of this situation, it was noted
that they did not base their decision on a biblical stance but a moral stance. c
This is where I think we can do better. c Dever provided several examples of
Scripture that addressed church discipline, noting that Paul called for removal
from fellowship those that cannot be directed away from sin (1 Cor. 5:2-11
paraphrased). c I feel that we need to look at what biblical church discipline is,
and structure our ideals and decisions based on Scripture, not on group morals.
Jesus Himself noted in Matthew 18 that there is a prescribed way to handle
church discipline, but we do not currently have anything in writing that states we
will follow His model. c I agree with Dever’s statement that we, as a church,
need to live and be accountable for the same rules we preach and teach.[6] c I
also firmly agree that whatever we decide to follow and put in writing for church
discipline, we should not be looking to completely exclude the person from
fellowship based on their sins, but we should also not ignore sin and give the
appearance of complicity. Dever’s discussion in appendix two, especially his
discussion of introducing church discipline slowly, is great advice in this area of
church leadership.[7]
c c c c c c The other area that I believe we can grow and improve in is the
area of church leadership. c We are currently working through an issue in our
church that Dever provided insight on. c We have a group of individuals that
would like to see us add women to our elder board, on the basis that we do
not specifically say that woman cannot be elders. c Their argument is that our
bylaws and doctrine do not specifically exclude women. c This is where we can
improve. c Our current leadership and elder board agree that 1 Timothy 3 and
Titus 1 are clear that elders should be men. c Paul did not arbitrarily choose to
state “men” in his writing, because he also spoke of elders as being husbands
(1 Tim. 2). c The group argues that Jesus allowed women to teach and preach,
and therefore gender should no longer matter. We need to strengthen our
doctrine and bylaws to emphasize 1 Timothy and Titus explicitly to their wording
as to protect the sanctity of the Scripture and not allow the Scriptures to be
shaped to fit narratives.[8] c As a church, we need to be better at documenting
our stances on areas of ministry, and eldership is one of those areas.
Bibliography
Dever, Mark E. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. 3rd ed. 9marks. Nashville, TN:
Crossway / Lifeway, 2013.
[1] Mark E. Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, 3rd ed., 9marks (Nashville,
TN: Crossway / Lifeway, 2013).
[2] Ibid., 43.
[3] Ibid., 44.
[4] Ibid., 54.
[5] Ibid., 194.
[6] Ibid., 191.
[7] Ibid., 263-266.
[8] Ibid., 245.
