"What is a Healthy Church?" Review

This short and sweet little read by Mark Dever is quite brilliant. Dever describes a healthy church and discusses the essential marks and the important marks of a healthy church. 

Essential Marks: expositional preaching, biblical theology, a biblical understanding of the good news. 

Important Marks: a biblical understanding of conversion, a biblical understanding of evangelism, a biblical understanding of membership, biblical church discipline, biblical discipleship and growth, biblical church leadership.

There are a lot of points I found interesting in this book but I found the last few paragraphs the most inspiring and humbling. "Take care in how you propose change to your pastors. Pray, serve, encourage, set a good example in your own life, and be patient. A healthy church is less about a place that looks a certain way, and more about a people who love in the right way. And love is generally best shown when it's given in the face of circumstances we don't like."


This seemed to be specifically for me. When I learn some little bit of theology or ecclesiology that I find important, I immediately try to fix whatever is wrong or change the way something happens. I'm not really in leadership to do that and maybe changing some aspect of the church quickly is not holy. It's much more meaningful when I set a good example in my own life, love like Christ, and purse patience. 
So if there is something that you're not happy about right now. Something at your church you disagree with. Maybe something a Christ follower did to you, the way your worship service is set up, topical sermons every Sunday, don't lash out. Love, pray, serve, encourage, be patient.