Benefits of Church Membership

This was adapted from a tweet by 9 Marks:

QUESTION:

What are the benefits of church membership to the individual Christian?

ANSWER:

— It commits you, the Christian.

It’s good to commit yourself to love and serve others. You will grow as a Christian as you commit to encourage, build up, strengthen, serve, rebuke, and pray for other Christians.

— Others are committed to you.

Becoming a member of a church means joining with an entire group of Christians who have now covenanted to watch over you spiritually. If you’re a member of a church you have an entire church full of people who are publicly committed to loving you and serving you and watching over you.

— Elder protection.

If you’re a member of a church, that church’s elders and pastors should care for you, pray for you, and personally counsel and teach you. As a member of their church, they are accountable to God for how they lead you (Heb. 13:17).

— Safety net.

In his book Stop Dating the Church, Josh Harris points out that it’s comforting to know his church would kick him out rather than tolerate his unrepentant sin. Being a church member means that a whole church full of people are committed to helping you live a life that’s pleasing to God, even to the point of excluding you from the church if you stop repenting of sin. While this sounds harsh to some, to those of us who know the deceitfulness of sin, this is an immensely comforting and encouraging reality (Heb. 3:12).

— Assurance.

Membership is the church’s affirmation of the validity of someone’s profession of faith (Matt. 16:19, 18:18). The church looks at a person’s life, hears their explanation of the gospel and how they came to believe it, and says, “You look like a Christian to us. So join us. Watch over our lives and we’ll watch over yours.” So while membership in a church doesn’t guarantee that someone is a Christian, it should assure believers of the genuineness of their faith.

Recommended Reading:

Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus by Jonathan Leeman

Why Church Matters by Joshua Harris

I Am A Church Member by Thom Rainer

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline by Jonathan Leeman

Happy 20th Anniversary 9 Marks

This month marks the 20th anniversary of 9 Marks. The desire of this ministry has always been for the local church to display the character of God. Over the years, they have produced books, seminars, videos, podcasts, and articles aimed at the local church to be a healthy one. I have benefited from this ministry and I am sure most of you have as well.

In this video, Jonathan Leeman talks with the two men that started 9 Marks, Mark Dever and Matt Schmucker:

Book Review: Revitalize by Andrew Davis

When a new pastor comes into a church, there comes a time when the pastor casts the vision for the direction of the church. A lot of times it will reflect the ministry of the pastor. Other times, it is help the church become a more Biblically, healthy church that is engaged in making disciples. Andrew Davis led his church, First Baptist Church of Durham, North Carolina, in a time where they were an unhealthy church into a thriving, healthy church. He tells his story and how others should lead their church to become a healthy church in his book, Revitalize: Biblical Keys To Helping Your Church Come Alive Again.

Davis begins the book by using the example from the seven churches in Revelation that every church needs to be revitalized. He states that the church needs revitalization since the beginning of church history. The phrase "semper reformanda" means always reforming. The church should always be in a period of reformation even in our day. Davis states that a church that stops reforming will die.

Some of you maybe wondering what is revitalization. Davis says that revitalization "occurs when God restores a once healthy church, helping it to change course from its recent decline toward spiritual disease and death...Revitalize is a word that God speaks to the dry bones of a dead church or the weak, helpless form of a dying church...every revitalization of the church from dying or dead is an act of the sovereign God of the universe who speaks the powerful, life-giving word to the church: 'Live!' or 'Be revitalized!'" Revitalizing a church should be an act of God who uses the leaders to where God wants the church to go.

Davis shares his story of how God used him to lead FBC Durham, NC that use to be a seeker sensitive church, into a church that is healthy, where the Bible is preached more faithfully than prior to Davis coming to the church. He talks about preaching the Bible expositionally to establishing a plurality of elders which most Baptist churches seem to don't understand. He also talks about be a courageous in leading change and to be patient.

Church revitalization is important because we see where the American churches are heading. Some are wanting to reflect the culture while others are refusing to make any changes because they like the way things are. If you are a pastor, elder, or a leader in the church, let me encourage you to pick up Davis's book. It will be worth your time.

Thanks Baker Publishing Group for letting me review this book.

Performance Music In The Church

A recent tweet from 9 Marks on Twitter asks the following question:

What are the dangers of performance music in a church gathering? Is there any role for “performance”?

Here is the response:

1. Performance music can focus our attention on the performers, or even on the music, rather than God.

2. Performance music can wrongly encourage a culture of passivity and entertainment. In many cultures today, especially in the West, we are used to being entertained: we see professionals acting on TV and in movies, we hear professional musicians on our iPods, and we have learned to expect entertainment even at church. But Christian worship is not fundamentally about being entertained. It’s about actively, personally engaging with God. When Christians gather to worship God they should not be passive consumers but active participants.

So does that leave any role for performance?

A small one, if any. While it seems that some performed music is within the bounds of addressing one another in song (Eph. 5:19), churches in the West today may do well to minimize performance and maximize congregational singing.

"Christianity is a Team Sport"

This sermon by Trip Lee was from the "9 Marks at Southeastern 2016" conference.

Patience in Regards to Discipleship

In this video, Mark Vroegop, Pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, IN, speaks on how discipleship and patience go hand in hand. This sermon took place during the 9 Marks at Southeastern conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary:

Cultivating a Culture of Discipling

I have been enjoying Mark Dever's latest book, Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus. This book shows us how we are to be invested in the lives of other believers. There are churches that think that discipling comes in the form of Sunday School or a Discipleship Training class, which are all good, but there is hardly any one-on-one interaction.

Recently, Dever preached to pastors and church leaders on how to cultivate a culture of discipling during the First Five Years conference that took place in Ft. Worth, Texas last week:

Can A Pastor's Wife Work Outside The Home?

This has been a question that I have been in debate with a few Christians because I know a few pastors where their wives work outside the home and other do not. This question was addressed in the recent mailbag from 9 Marks which is written by Jonathan Leeman:

•The office of elder belongs to the elder, not to his wife. As such, there are no extra requirements that fall on her that don’t fall on any other wife in the church, at least formally speaking.

•I don’t understand Titus 2:5 (“working at home” ESV; “homemakers” HCSB; “busy at home” NIV) to teach that a woman must work exclusively at home. If it did, it would seem that that paragon of womanly virtue in Proverbs 31 is not such a Proverbs 31 woman after all. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard (v. 16). She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes (v. 24). I suppose it’s possible she does her real estate speculation and market trading sitting in her front porch rocking chair with baby at breast. But that strikes me as both unlikely and arbitrary.

•I do believe that Titus 2:5, Proverbs 31, 1 Timothy 5:14, and such passages teach that a woman should have a general orientation toward the home and to household management. As the womb has been assigned to her, so has the household. Notice that the Proverbs 31 woman is buying fields and trading garments for the sake of her household. What this looks like, I assume, will differ from family to family.

•I believe it’s a luxury of modern economies and Christendom that we expect pastors to do anything other than bi-vocational ministry, and perhaps for their wives not to work. Do you think churches in Pakistan today or pre-Constantine Europe could afford to pay one or several pastors enough money that they could devote themselves to pastoring full-time, while their wives do or did nothing to help fill the pantry with food?

•I’ve never heard of people complaining about wives volunteering at church or in some sort of community event. It would seem strange to say she can participate in such volunteer activities so long as they don’t pay her.

If a (pastor’s) wife is working so that the couple can afford nicer cars while the kids are in daycare, I have a problem with that. If a husband is being neglected in some way because she has career ambitions independently of him, I have a problem with that. Every wife, pastoral or otherwise, should work to ensure that her husband and children are cared for with the quality of care that she alone has been gifted by God to give them, assuming there is freedom to do so. For many wives, this might mean working exclusively in the home. For others, it might mean working outside the home, assuming it does not compromise her primary duty but assists in it


Source: Mailbag #6: Pastors’ Wives, Taking Oaths, Pastors & Administration Work

The Main Sessions of 9 Marks At Southeastern 2013

These six videos are the main session from the 9 Marks conference on Evangelism that was held at Southeaster Seminary this past September featuring Danny Akin, Peter Williams, Mark Dever, Thabiti Anyabwile, John Folman, and J.D. Greear.

What Are The 9 Marks?

One ministry that I appreciate is 9 Marks which was started by Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. I love that ministry is gear toward helping churches become what the New Testament teaches and how they can be a healthy church.

One of their statements of faith is that "the church is to reflect the character of God." If you have been around in church long enough, you know that some of them are not reflecting that character. In this short video, Mark Dever explains what birthed 9 Marks and what are those 9 marks for a healthy church

Why These Nine Marks? from 9Marks on Vimeo.

This is a list of books I have read from 9 Marks that I highly recommend:

9 Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever

The Church: The Gospel Made Visible by Mark Dever

Preach: Theology Meets Practice by Greg Gilbert and Mark Dever

Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons by Thabiti Anyabwile

Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church by Michael Lawrence

Am I Really A Christian by Mike McKinley

What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline by Jonathan Leeman

Church Planting is for Wimps by Mike McKinley

The Life of God in the Soul of the Church by Thabiti Anyabwile

Reverberation: How God's Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People by Jonathan Leeman

Messages from the 9 Marks & Desiring God Conferences

9 Marks and Desiring God had conferences going on in the same weekend which for many people they can either attend one of the other. Thankfully, those conferences are available online for all to listen:


Thabiti Anyabwile's blog has all six messages from the 9 Marks conference at Southeastern Seminary.


The Desiring God National Conference had a series of messages on sanctification