Episode 187: On Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (4th Edition)

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Jonathan Leven, and I'm here with-- - Mark Devar. - That's the one. Welcome to this episode of "Nine Marks Pastors Talk." - Thank you. - Oh, you weren't talking to me. - Exists. - To, why did you name the ministry after yourself? - Well, is it Mark Devar Ministries? - Marks. - Nine Marks. - Oh, nine Marks. Does mean nine characters are-- - You've never heard people say that. - Not to my face. - Yes, they said, "You face." - But they've said it. - Haven't people been complaining about there's too much banter? - Learn more at nine marks. - Doug. - I do wanna talk about you today, specifically your ministry through this book. It just came out the fourth edition. - I have just within the last few minutes seen it physically myself for the first time. - I'm seeing it myself. - We've finally got it promoted to a hard back. How'd you do that? - Big time, I don't know, man. - Wow. - Well, I think Crossway has recognized the consistent ministry of this book over the years. It's now in its fourth edition. Could you just give us a little book biography of nine Marks of a Healthy Church? - Yeah. - How did it begin? - Yeah. - Different editions where we're at. - Yeah. It began as a letter, which you can actually find in an appendix of this current edition of nine Marks of Healthy Church, a letter to a church that I had helped to start back in the suburbs of Boston in 1985. And the Lord was very kind to smile on those early efforts. And when I left there, and then I guess six years later, five years later, I was living in England doing my doctoral work and I got a communication from that congregation that after they'd gone through two or three pastors who were moving on fairly quickly, 'cause we're sort of like I did. They were there 'cause of Gordon Conwell. They've passed through the church for a little while, and then they were going into, usually it was mission's work, someplace in Central Asia or Japan, or they were gonna just go to the local Southern Baptist Association and ask them to help them find a pastor. And when they told me that, I thought, oh no, this is not gonna go well, because you have been built as a bit unusually as churches are being built in the mid '80s, are from the way most churches were built in the mid '80s. And therefore I tried to quickly write up a letter. This is I think before email, so this would have been a snail mail letter that I wrote up and posted off to friends back in Massachusetts. And a few years later, when I was talking to this church here in Washington, and they asked me what my philosophy of ministry was, I shared with them this letter, saying, hey, here are some ways that I said they should, this congregation should understand they're different than what a pastor may expect. So these would highlight some things that I'm thinking of as I come here. And I came here to the church in Washington, and we had a church newsletter at the time, that was physically printed and given out the Metropolitan Messenger. And there was a pastor's column, and it was a monthly newsletter. And I don't like writing as you well know. (laughs) And so-- - Cermons, you write Cermons. - That's right. And so Matt Schmucker said, well, you could just take those nine things in your letter and turn each one into an article. I say, yeah, I could do that. So then I did that for nine months. And then Matt said, we could pull those together and publish it as a booklet to give out to pastors and seminarians. It's good to know. And so Founders Press was happy to take it and make it. So our first little edition was a little green, folded book with staples that we-- - 1998, 78. - Something like that that we gave out. And we ended up giving out tens of thousands of copies of those over a few years. There was this one time we wanted to get into the South Eastern seminary and we couldn't get it in with Founders' name on it. So Founders agreed to give it back to us. And then we started publishing it ourselves. And it was initially Center for Church of Form. And then-- - Jewish Patterson would have been the president then. - That's right. And then it was realizing the self-defeating nature of that name for ourselves. We just called it-- - Center for Church of Form. - Yeah, then we just called it nine marks, like Desiring God did from Piper's book. We just called it one nine marks. And we published it for a long time until then Crossway said, hey, can we have a full book of this? And I think by then I had preached a series of sermons here on this, a topical series. - One each. - So I said, yeah, we'll just pull these together and they can be the book. And so that's how the first edition happened. And then the second edition came out a few years later and the third edition a few years later with some additional appendices. And this fourth edition has the most changes of any of them. The new preface by our new forwarder by HB Charles Jr. We've updated the bibliography. Thanks for Killa Morrell for all the copy editing and other editing kind of help he gave. - Same appendices. - Same appendices, we kept the appendices. What about the text itself? - Well, the text is all revised. The heaviest revisions are I've combined two chapters and I've combined two other chapters and I've added two new chapters. - In other words, you changed the marks. - I didn't. I really didn't. - Didn't. - Didn't. - Didn't kind of. - So there's got a conversation going on the background for a few years here at I'm Mark's Ministries. (mimicking) Is that the sound sour grapes make? - Mark was anxious to add new marks and change them. I kind of old school dude said, let's keep them to sound. - Graphy dude that you are. - And so there's been this conversation and we all agreed with this fourth edition kind of announce these in fact. - Yeah. And back in 2015 at our church, I had preached through this four part series on Mark's Healthy Church in which I brought conversion and evangelism together and in which I brought sound doctrine, biblical theology, I called it and biblical and biblical and biblical gospel together. And then I, and which I preached one on a biblical understanding of practice of prayer and a biblical understanding of practice of missions. - Why did you add those now when you didn't in 1998? - Well, that's like saying, why weren't they in that letter that I wrote in like 1991? And they weren't in that letter, I guess, because I don't know that the practice of prayer I had begun at that church in Boston. I mean, other than the fact there was some longer prayers, it wasn't as pronounced as it is now and I practiced in my thinking and missions. Similarly, I was assuming some things then, but I don't know how prominent they were in the church now, but now after being here 25 plus years and repeated comments from people outside that this is distinctive and should be made more widely known to help churches. - Fair to say you could take those two things for granted, thinking most churches had a healthier practice of them that over time you realized, no, it probably is worth leaning into these things more. - Maybe or maybe just understanding more from folks who've been here for a while and then aren't here, or who visit how they found distinctive and helpful our practice of prayer and our practice of missions as a congregation is. So just trying to be more explicit and share that. - Before I'm good. - So it wasn't about losing two marks, you combine them as you said with a couple of others and making space while maintaining the number nine. - Well, that's true, yeah, that's true. But listen, let's say that we didn't care about maintaining the number nine and I weren't gonna add prayer and missions. - I think I would still wanna combine those other two and two because in doing workshops over the years, the questions I get about. - They all work together. They're mutually implicated. - Especially if Angelo's in conversion. I mean, I'm raising all the same issues and a little bit less but still so with biblical theology and the gospel. Because what's the focus of it? I mean, listen to Greg Gilbert's talk from the 2020 T4G. - Yeah, these issues are super related and it always came out of workshops. - So before we had a mark called conversion and another one called evangelism, now we have one called. - Conversion and evangelism. - All right, come on. - But you know what, go ahead. - But brother, we've always had one called discipleship and growth. Mark six, so that conjunctive end is welcome in the chapter titles of nine marks. - Praise the Lord. - Amen. - Are there other pressures that you felt then that you don't feel now or that you didn't feel then and you do feel now as you're thinking about ministering to other pastors? How has the landscape changed between 90s and now that might or might not make it into this book? Because as you said, you went through and edited the whole thing. - Yeah, no, we did. The bibliography should be refreshed. Something's just taken out. I'm trying to remember any large sections we put in. I mean, it's been a year and a half since we did the revisions. - Yeah, I think I don't address some of the very specific things that I think are very timestamped right now. So what I'm addressing, I do that maybe a little bit more actually in the new "How to Build a Healthy Church". I'm more in trying to catch and refresh and smooth over things that as I read the older edition, it just feels more dated. But I think if you've been used to reading, using nine marks of a healthy church, you'll find this similar. And I hope you'll enjoy the fresh material there is in the chapters on prayer admissions. - Yeah. - I don't think you'll find anything huge that's gone in those four that we've compacted into two. - Okay, these next two questions are just essentially giving you an opportunity to talk about things. I've heard people criticize the book about. - Yeah. - But I think you have good answers to it 'cause I've heard those answers. I notice that you have recommendations. - And if I don't give the good answers, will you make sure and throw those in? - See what I can do. I notice that you have recommendations from people in certainly the United States and Brazil and the Middle East and big cities and little cities. - Yeah. - The background critique being, this might work in Washington, D.C. But not sure it works elsewhere. - Yeah, well by God's grace, this book has had a long history now. It's been out there for 20 plus years and God has very kindly used it. And so we deliberately thought, listen, let's not, it's not like I'm an unknown author that needs a well-known preacher to commend it. So let's instead, well let's continue to use some of the pastors that are well known, but let's also grab just some other Christians from elsewhere around the world and from different denominations. - Well that was gonna be my next question. You got Baptist Presbyterians, Anglicans. This is not just a Baptist book. - I don't think so. I mean it's hopefully useful for Baptists and Baptistic Christians. But the things that are talking about in this are not, there's nothing inconsistent with being a Baptist, but it does not demand a Baptist ecclesiology. This is more written for Bible-believing Christians who understand that Jesus founded the local church and it's possible for us to have true churches that are not very healthy and looking around the landscape, what are some marks of a healthy church? And therefore when we understand that, it gives us things to pray for specifically, to try to work for specifically. And it's an encouragement to see various folks in different places and times and denominations finding help here and putting that in words and the endorsements. - When I teach doctrine of the church in seminary classes and I'm doing this section on contextualization will often quote you by saying, the most important thing about your church is what it shares in common with every other church and every other time of history. Can you explain that? - Yeah, I think whether it's me or you or some other ministry or an author with a new conference or new book, they often will try to take the things that distinguish them from other people they think are saved, other churches they think are true and make those distinctives, they're kind of selling point in the things they emphasize. And there's a place for that. I mean, if a brother has a concern about this topic or that and he has something new to say on it, by all means, you know, have at it. But there is also something to say for understanding what the church is in the scriptures and therefore what it must always have as its essence. Not as it's been essence, good things to have, but as it's essence, what makes it a true church. And then how to do that well. So those are the kind of central issues, which is why I think you get the kind of width of endorsements that we try to focus on especially in nine marks. So CHBC has all kinds of peculiarities about a Capitol Hill Baptist church where I'm the pastor that we never really try to promote through nine marks. There are just things about our congregation in particular. But there are things that we do that we think a lot of churches could do and churches not just in North America, but in South America and in Asia as well in Europe and Africa. And those are the kind of things that we are gonna encourage pastors to write about and we're gonna talk about on pastor's talk and those are the kind of things that we try to include in things like nine marks of a healthy church that we think will be useful to be well outside of our context. - Well, and if I could exegete you to you, when you say the most important thing about your church is what it shares in common with the other, every other church in the history of Christianity. - From Jesus to now. It occurs to me that in this particular moment, it's not just about selling points, but in this particular moment when so much emphasis is put on contextualization and finding the key to my particular context and that's gonna sort of unleash untold good to say to pastors, actually the Holy Spirit has already revealed those most important things that are quote unquote the key. My key, he's not so unkind as to leave us guessing about what the most important thing is par or unable. So study the Bible and what it says and man, that's what you need. And every church should do those when we're in where. - Is it gonna last longer as a hard back? - I assume it would. - Do you keep the cover or are you the kind that takes the cover's lost? - I can hold it open on the table and bend it all the way back. - There's no little ribbon included with it to put it in. - It's not a devotional name. As you think about the last 20 years of ministry of this book, would you and I don't not ask me to draw a direct connection between this book and the fruit out there, but just do you sense that some things in evangelical churches are healthier and are some things unhealthy here. As you think about the landscape of the 90s versus today, and I know you're only sitting from your country. You don't see all but. - By God's grace, I think through a lot of ministries and a lot of individual pastors, the concerns that I raised in this volume back in, 20 years ago. - I think all of them have become more broadly addressed. Everything from plurality of elders to expational preaching. Of course, I've just been one of many, many voices on that to a better grasp on the sovereignty of God and subteriology to questioning some kinds of manipulative evangelism. Though I think that disease is sort of morphing in our day. So basically, I think spontaneous baptism is taking the role that the sinner's prayer and an invitational use to play. - Membership and discipline, more people seem to be grasping on. - Yeah, I think so. - I think in the American setting, at least, I would say that's easier for people to hear it seems in the east than it is in the west. - True. - You and I have certainly noticed, I think, in our conferencing and churches and preaching and weakenders and things that pastors and the west coast are often a little more suspicious of institutions and their people are. And pastors in the east coast seem to take that a little bit more for granted. - Yeah. - But I'm even thinking of Greg Will's remark. I think it was too. - Yeah, about us. In earlier years, when he assigned some of my material, the guys would just object to the church discipline. A lot of skeptical questions about the topic of church discipline. He says, whereas now, he finds they're just asking more of the how to. Okay, I get it persuaded, but help me work through what it means in the situation. - Yeah, I think the Lord Jesus nine marks, but it's also just true that we're in a secularizing culture. It feels like at least in the United States. And therefore, there's more, there's less evident charity and acceptance for the local church to lean into in the community. And therefore, there's more reason to be distinct from the community that's encouraged, even enforced by the community itself outside of us. So there's less disadvantage and discouragement from making ourselves distinctive. So I think there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. John, you nine marks is an interesting book and that like we don't even assign it in our internship because it's been superseded in its individual parts by so many of the books that you've spent the last couple of decades editing. Thank you, brother. And yet we didn't decide to retire this book. Instead, put effort into, you know, redoing it, giving it a new life. And one of the reasons I was motivated to do that is because if your testimony is you said, you've seen this as sort of a world view book. Exactly right. Explain what you mean by that. Well, and in fact, before I answered that directly, somebody recently said, I think he was coming out of a weekend or something. He said, what's, if I have time for one book from your entire uva, nine marks and tire uva, what would it be? I think it's got to be nine marks because it is-- I said it to a pastor yesterday. I said because it is this world view, paradigm shifting book. It allows you to see the church in the world as it were in a different way than you were before. It doesn't get into all the mechanics of exposition or preaching or membership or discipline the way them were. Specialized books, succeeding books do. But it helps you see the church differently than you were before in a way. The other sort of take for granted. Here's two different ways I've told pastors to get started in helping their staff or elders understand the church. See what you think. Each of your sets of four books. The first set, I said, do nine marks of a healthy church and then how to build a healthy church and then compelling community. And then one assembly. Those are all vision casting books. Yeah. And I think nine marks to how to build, that makes sense. That's easy. That's how to build the sort of practical implications of. Compelling community is what you're aiming at. One assembly may seem like it's too technical or specific. But actually, I think especially they start me with chapter three and get the sort of vision and then back up into the intro of the first couple of chapters. And then a lot of people find that appendix by the professor who wrote on Ecclesia, one of those helpful things that and one assembly. I think that would be a good for some to use to help eldership grasp the church. Another kind of quartet of books I suggested would be my little book Discipling, then Macstyles, Little Book of Angels. Right. And then Andy Johnson's Little Book Missions. And then maybe, and this is sort of optional, my little book on the Great Commission and the Little Church to try to help them see if they're allergic to taking it head on with nine marks, how to build a healthy church, compelling community and one assembly. Then the more like, okay, then let's start with ministry and how are they about ministry? We can be discipling and then see the same terms that go on in evangelism, same thing in missions. And then particularly spell it out in biblical theology with the Great Commission, understanding the Great Commission in that little church basic series. I think both of those would be a good way for a pastor to say, hey, in this next year, we're going to take three months and look at each one of these books for three months. And we're going to, and you could do that over two years to it and use those, those eight books, three months for each one just kind of walk through those just to make sure you have a basic agreement in how you're looking at things and understanding things or find out where you don't. - Well, that first set of four is about the vision of what the thing is. The second set of four is how we're reaching out and making disciples. - Yeah. - If I understand it correctly. And it's funny, and it's over, would it be fair to say that over the years, certain things did sharpen and clarify in our minds. So the fact that you put one assembly in that first set of four, what, why, again, it seems awfully specialized, why that? Well, it's because more, the more we're looking at the thing, the church and realizing, okay, this is not a service provider. This is not a dispenser of religious information. This is not a one-a-week event where you show up and get your spiritual tank filled. This is actually a family. It begins to sharpen your mind eventually. The more you stare at that, the more the family has to meet. That weekly meeting altogether is crucial to what the thing is. - Yeah. Now, if somebody wants to do a more theological read through, then I could say, okay, grab my book, The Church, your book, Word Center Church, simple, but clear, helpful. Your book, Rule of Love, that would be another way to look at things more theologically, that would be helpful for maybe another group of folks to try. - Brother, any last, maybe this is an awkward question. Anyways, you've seen the Lord use this book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, My Final Question, in particular in ministry. - Well, I mean, just, you know, I get any notes of brothers who are pastoring churches sending me emails, telling me, hey, we read this, we read this in an older ship, I read this with a friend, super helpful, yeah, things like that. Very thankful for how the Lord used it. I'm not the right one to ask that question. - I certainly, I've certainly seen a lot myself and heard a lot of those anecdotes, and I'm grateful. I mean, the mere fact that they would ask to, hey, let's do a fourth edition, suggests it is helping brothers out there build healthy churches. - Well, and I was, you know, it's, I was glad to do a fourth edition. I don't know if they'll love you a fifth. I was glad to do a fourth edition to get the prayer and missions stuff included in it. I was really thankful for that. - And so if you've been paying really close attention, the thing that Mark has been saying in the last few years, you'll have noticed he started to shift, but this book kind of is the announcement. Okay, here's how we're talking about the nine march now, together with all the other good material in this. Thank you so much for your work on it. - Oh, thank you brother for all your work on the whole. - 100 books were given away. - Amen. (upbeat music)