The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel (Paperback)

by Mark Dever (Author), Paul Alexander (Author) "When I was interviewing with Capitol Hill Baptist Church before they called me to be their pastor, someone asked me if I had a program..." (more)
Key Phrases: Jesus Christ, Grand Rapids, New Testament (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
-Here is one of the most faithful and insightful pastors of our time, addressing the most crucial issues of church life. Mark Dever refuses to separate theology and congregational life, combining pastoral insight with clear biblical teaching. This book is a powerful antidote to the merely pragmatic approaches of our day-and a refutation to those who argue that theology just isn-t practical.- -R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -This book is the perfect example of what a truly practical book on church health and growth should be-it gives concrete guidance for and examples of biblical principles being put into practice in the life and ministry of the local congregation.- -J. Ligon Duncan III, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi -Rare indeed are books on the church that begin with the Gospel. Rarer still are books that derive methodology for building the church from the Gospel. This excellent book does both.- -C. J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries -The Deliberate Church shares many of the ministry lessons that Dr. Dever and his colleagues have learned from Scripture and sought to implement in the life of their church community. This book is for anyone who wants to get serious about following the biblical pattern for the church and is looking for down-to-earth practical help.- -Philip Graham Ryken, Senior Minister, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description
Pastors Mark Dever and Paul Alexander provide a model of a biblical church in this resource for pastors, elders, and others interested in the vitality of their church. This highly practical book proposes an attitude of complete reliance on and submission to the Gospel in building a healthy church.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Crossway Books (September 9, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581347383
• ISBN-13: 978-1581347388
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #92,933 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on church life/growth in recent years, November 4, 2005

By	Jim (USA) - See all my reviews

Finally--a book that commends true church health in the context of a church that is growing! This is a book that describes a church (Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.) that can serve as a model for churches large and small who want to minister relevantly in a postmodern world without sacrificing numerical growth. This book moves beyond the "modernist" accounts of church life and growth--with all their facts and figures and statistics and styles and trends and scientific formulas. But it is truly "postmodern" in recovering Reformation ecclesiological wisdom and contextualizing it in a contemporary environment. Yet it does this in a way that does not fall prey to so much that is faddish in the postmodern or emerging church movement (a movement, which, in effect, criticizes the seeker-sensitive movement by saying, "I'm tired of the church marketing to a baby-boomer niche market. I'm twenty-something. I'm the seeker now. Market to me.")

This book transcends so much of the same old Christ-of-culture, capitalistic market talk we read these days in church-life and church-growth books. Yet at the same time it is a real-world book that gives real answers and a model by which real churches can attain real growth (numerically and spiritually!). There is an obvious backlash in our time against niche-market Christianity, and this book will be a leading voice in that backlash.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prioritize church health over church growth, January 17, 2006

By	Neal Stublen (Newark, DE USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What's wrong with church growth? Nothing, necessarily. But here's an excellent book to encourage pastors to pursue church health and allow the growth to be a natural result of a healthy church body.

Mark Dever and Paul Alexander advocate a strong dependence on the Word of God and prayer to build a healthy church. Even better, they share how they have sought to promote these aspects of pastoral ministry at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. It is evident that Mark Dever has sought to be "deliberate" in his service as a pastor and he has done a great job of sharing some of the practical wisdom that he seeks to live by in this book. You will find that even when he departs from some more popular approaches to pastoral ministry and church growth (e.g. multiple services, pastoral specialization), he expresses his views with humility and kindly invites you to consider the reasoning behind his position.

Among other things, you will learn how the pastoral staff at Capitol Hill Baptist Church conducts public worship, evangelism, membership interviews, discipleship, church discipline and elders meetings - and you will see that it is all done in an attempt to "deliberately" display God's glory to one another and the world around them. Most importantly, you will see that they are always seeking to base their practices on biblical teaching, keeping the proclamation of the Gospel central and relying on the power of God's Spirit to make their work effective.

If you are a pastor, I would encourage you to read this book. If you are not a pastor, I would encourage you to read this book and give a copy to a pastor you know.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not you're CEO Pastor!, July 13, 2007

By	Mike Parks - See all my reviews

We live in a day and age where biblical preaching and good old theological teaching has taken a back seat and the CEO Pastor is in the front! This is not the case with Mark Dever. I read this book right before I became an elder, which helped me greatly.

Once I finished the book, I thought, is this really, how this church functions? I had to find out, so I took a trip to Capital Hill Baptist to see for myself. It was nice to see that Capital Hill Baptist operated in the exact way described in Devers' book. Not only that, but I "interrogated" one of the interns, and he described their elder's meetings exactly the way the book did.

If you are a church leader, I would highly recommend that you read this book. This book was intended to be the sequel to Devers' previous book, 9 marks of a healthy church, which is also fantastic!