Danny Wahlquist's LiveJournal

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Thursday, May 24th, 2012

5:45 am

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever - Preface & Introduction

Some of my favorite quotes:

Preface

It is in the nature of sheep to stray and of wolves to eat. I guess if I can’t deal with that, I should just get out of under-shepherding.

Unhealthy churches cause few problems for the healthiest Christians; but they are cruel taxes on the growth of the youngest and weakest Christians.

I’ve come to see that love is largely local. And the local congregation is the place which claims to display this love for all the world to see.

So the congregation—the gathered people of God as the sounding board of the Word—has become more central to my understanding of evangelism, and of how we should pray and plan to evangelize. The local church is God’s evangelism plan. The local church is God’s evangelism program.

The church isn’t an optional extra; it’s the shape of your following Jesus.

If we are more biblical in our practice of evangelism, we will find ourselves giving more of our prayer time to praying for non-Christians, and we will realize more of why we must pray for people to be converted.

We are to be upwardly focused—God-centered. But we are also, I think, supposed to reflect God’s own love as we look out on other people and on other congregations.

If we have a commitment to help evangelize an unreached people group abroad, why haven’t we done a better job in trying to find members of this people group in our metropolitan area?

the local church is responsible for raising up the next generation of leaders. No Bible college, course, or seminary can do this.

Introduction

The social ministries of the liberal church, the music of the seeker-sensitive church, the programs of the traditional evangelical church all must be seen to be working well and working now to be considered relevant and successful.

Biblically, we must realize that the size of what our eyes see is rarely a good way to estimate the greatness of something in the eyes of God.

We need churches in which the key indicator of success is not evident results but persevering biblical faithfulness.

“Does faith come before the new birth?” And he answered, “No, it is the new heart that truly repents and believes.” Broadus

Evangelism that does not result in discipleship is not only incomplete evangelism but is entirely misconceived.

We don’t simply need to remember to tell people to come to church after we have prayed the prayer with them; we need to tell them to count the cost before they pray that prayer!

the slander that God is not worth living for. . . . . God has entrusted to His church the glory of His own name.

The 5 Types of Work That Fill Your Day

Tim Tebow responds to Jake Plummer's comments on his faith http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2011/11/tim-tebow-responds-to-jake-plummers-comments-on-his-faith/1?loc=interstitialskip