Customer Reviews

The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel

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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.

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.

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!

The Deliberate Church (TDC) is a self-conscious attempt to make some headway into the overblown "The ___________ Church" genre by teaching pastors how to build "the church on and around the Gospel of Christ" (21) with the goal of liberating "both leaders and members from the tyranny of popular growth models and church fads" (202).

A deliberate church intentionally infuses absolutely everything it does with the Gospel! My goal here is to overview the book, and give some highlights.

On the first page of the introduction the authors write their thesis: "Ignoring God's plan for the church and replacing it with your own will ensure the eternal futility of your work" (25). Let that sink in! Along those same lines they write: "Our power is not in having small groups, or meeting the felt needs of our target audience, or using the right evangelism program, or having funny skits, or providing plenteous parking, or targeting our ministries to postmoderns. Our power is in our unique message--the Gospel (27).

The introduction and conclusion alone are worth the retail price. Overall, the book is divided into four sections that help the reader deliberately apply the gospel to the growing of a church, the gathering of a church on Sunday, the choice of elders and the elders meetings.

The first section was a 75-page summary of Dever's 9 Marks of a Healthy Church; however, it was geared towards practically doing what was written as theory in 9 Marks.

My favorite parts were his understanding of the pastor's job--the 4 P's = expository Preaching, Praying, developing Personal discipling relationships, and being Patient (ch. 1)--his explanation and application of the gospel (43-5), what to avoid in evangelism (54-56) and his biblical case for and application of church membership (60-5). Remember, "God is happiest to entrust His flock to those shepherds who do things His way" (40) and "God's purposes for all of human history revolve around the local church as the visible, corporate manifestation of His Son" (72).

Section 2 (the longest in TCD) helps the corporate gathering of the church become Gospel-centered. They begin by arguing that God cares about how we worship (ch. 6); therefore, our Sundays should revolve around Reading, Preaching, Praying, Singing and Seeing (in baptism & the Lord's Supper) the Bible (81-6). In ch. 8 they argue the role of the pastor flows from a biblical understanding of what a church is to be and do, meaning the "most important and fundamental role of the pastor is to preaching the Gospel clearly" (89). There is also a lot of practical help here on staff meetings, the purpose of the weekly church services (ch. 9), baptism & communion (ch. 10), cultivating love in your church (ch. 11) and music (ch. 12).

My favorite part is his summary of pastoral ministry: The 3 G's = Graze (feed the people God's Word), Guide (lead God's people), Guard (protect God's people) (94-5) and their conclusion: "every element of the main weekly gathering should have positive warrant from Scripture.... This may seem constrictive...[but] it will actually liberate you from the tyranny of the latest innovation or the most popular fad" (126).

Section 3 is about choosing elders. He argues that the words elder, pastor, bishop, overseer all refer to the same office (cf. Acts 20:17-38, 1 Peter 5:1-2) and that there are only two church offices in the NT, elder and deacon (cf. Phil 1:1, 1 Tim 3:1-13). He argues persuasively for a plurality of elders (over against the Moses, single, solitary pastor model) (ch. 13). The rest of the section gives practical advice on how to choose elders biblically (character recognition before training), how to assess their ability and character (chs. 15-16), how to patiently transition a church into an elder-led model (ch. 17) and choose church staff (ch. 18).

Section 4 is a very practical section on structuring the Bible and prayer (ch. 19), the agenda (ch. 20), the decision-making process (ch. 21) and attitudes of elders meetings around the gospel. He gives good advice here on how to fill the time at a meeting (chs. 19-20), the senior pastor's role as a model of the Gospel in these meetings (185-6, 189-92), delegation of responsibilities, equipping the other elders (173-5), and determining the annual budget (186-7).

The book ends with summarizing a deliberate church as one that is Godward-looking (195-7) for growth and Outward-looking (197-202) to serve other people, other churches and other countries with the Gospel.

In conclusion, I loved The Deliberate Church! It was a little slow in places, but overall it is the most practical book on what a church and it's leadership is supposed to be and do that I've ever read! Though it's a bit repetitive if you've read 9 Marks and I do not agree with all it advocates, I highly recommend it and agree with R. Kent Hughes that this book "wafts a radical, refreshing breeze from the pages of Scripture that will breathe life into the church" (back cover).

With countless artificially-minded church-growth infesting our modern Christian culture, this book is one of the few that actually treasures what we're supposed to treasure: the gospel.

Since the Bible doesn't instruct us to rely on the latest church fad, growth strategy, ministry technique, or business mindset to build God's church, this book is unafraid to make that clear--getting right into the battle for the sake of gospel-centered ministries.

The only reason I put 4 stars instead of 5 is because the book is geared more about being a pastor or an elder than the title may suggest. If you're just a committed church-goer who's seeking gospel-centered changes in a church leadership structure that's resistant to change, this book does not give you very many specifics on exactly what to do about that. It already assumes that you're in a position to give direction in a church.

Nonetheless, it's still useful for anyone who wishes to know what makes up a true, biblically-minded church leader and why biblical church functions are essential. It's definitely a book I'd recommend to any church leader or just anyone who wishes to know more about what a gospel-centered church should look like.

Recently, several, straight-forward books which provide a superlative guide for evangelical (protestant) churches have been written and this is one of them. No ivory tower prof writes this short, every-day language set of essays. Pastor Mark Dever's authority comes not from his doctorate but from his fruit in his own church from which experiences this book is drawn. A must read, along with Rainer's Simple Church and Dever's A Healthy Church for all who would reform the local church to biblical orthodoxy for the glory of God and the joy of His children.

This is rare book on the church which is both biblical and practical. It is not a plug and play description of programs or new ministry paradigms. Rather, it is a fresh call to biblical faithfulness to the essential tasks of the pastor in leading, preaching, praying, shepherding, and discipling.

The book is firmly grounded in a Word-centered framework for understanding the relationship between the Gospel and methodology. Briefly stated: "(1) Theology drives method . . . (2) God's methods determine ours . . . (3) The Gospel both enables and informs our participation in God's purposes . . .[and] (4) Faithfulness to the Gospel must be our measure of success, not results." (27-28). On the solid foundation of these theological-methodological convictions, the authors present guidelines and suggestions for ordering the life, worship, and ministry of the local church.

Their guidelines are as practically useful as they are biblically faithful and develop in four sections: Gathering the Church, When the Church Gathers, Gathering Elders, and When the Elders Gather. Within those four broad categories, everything from doing evangelism to taking in new members to doing church discipline to developing an elder-led congregation is discussed.

There are a couple of places where I think the authors present their opinions with more conviction than their arguments warrant (e.g. some of their comments on music) and I was disappointed that they didn't say much about small groups - but as a whole, this is an outstanding book that I found very helpful. I would highly recommend it to pastors and church leaders.

I read this book on a journey between Belfast and Pittenweem. Its a fantastic journey with alot of beautiful scenery (google map it) yet the whole time I was absorbed in this book, it is thought provoking, biblical and enjoyable to read! What more can I say? If you are a Pastor looking to reform your church after biblical patterns then take up and read!

The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on The Gospel by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander is a brilliant how-to manual, a bright estimate of the church's needs, and a breath of fresh air. This is a unique and helpful book. Considering the preponderance of literature on marketing the gospel and using the latest fads coming out of Willow Creek or Saddleback, this approach is truly innovative as it is grounded in the Gospel. Though the authors are Baptists anyone can benefit from this exceptional work. If you are serious about a theologically oriented approach that does not waste time encouraging widespread capitulation to culture then this is your book.

Personally, the chapter that meant most to me was the first. Plainly outlined as the 4 Ps: "Preaching, Praying, Personal Discipling Relationships, and Patience," which sets the tone for what is to come. Here the writers, especially Dever, issue what is a true strategy for the pastor. In contrast to programs and plans for "Growing your church" this brief initial chapter highlights Scriptural truth coupled with some sound practical advice. For example, the many passages cited or referenced for "preaching" are then supplemented with the simple reminder: "God's Word builds His church. So preaching His gospel is primary" (p.35). Furthermore, under "patience" one finds the encouragement to stay in a ministry for an extended period of time. Given the high turnover rate in my own denomination this is unusual, as it is sane advice. "Go where you can envision contentedly putting down roots for the rest of your life, and commit," suggest the authors (p.40). This is exhorted in the context of the question: "are you building a career or a congregation?" A poignant question indeed, as many often leave ministries for "bigger and better" things!

If you were to buy only one book within the next year to help you with pastoral/church ministry this should be it. There are "Think Tank" sections with short exercises and questions designed to help you "get more out of the teaching." Bibliographic material is interspersed throughout the text as well, which enhances the book's overall value. Get it, read it and share it with your leaders, your church will be better for it.

Theodore Zachariades

Cover to cover, this book outlines a gospel-centered plan of action for the local church pastor. Dever and Alexander pleasingly blend theology and methodoloy in this practical book. I strongly recommend it for those involved in church leadership - particularly seminary students or young pastors.