How to Build a Healthy Church and Nine Marks of a Healthy Church

by Mark Dever, Paul Alexander

Classic 9Marks Texts for Every Pastor, Now Available in a Set Mark Dever’s best-selling book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church has impacted thousands of pastors worldwide. This classic text offers tried-and-true biblical principles for leading a church toward health by expanding on each of the 9 marks―expositional preaching, gospel doctrine, concern for discipleship, and more. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church is now available in a set with How to Build a Healthy Church by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, the companion handbook for pastors and church leaders on how to build a healthy church grounded in the gospel. This practical resource offers readers a helpful framework for building this type of ministry, addressing a multitude of topics such as the role of the pastor, congregational singing, the importance of elders, new members’ classes, and adult education. Paired together, these two helpful books create a timeless set that is essential for every pastor’s library.

Genres: Church

624 pages, Paperback

Published November 9, 2021

About the author

Mark E. Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Since his ordination to the ministry in 1985, Dr. Dever has served on the pastoral staffs of four churches, the second being a church he planted in Massachusetts. Prior to moving to Washington in 1994, Dr. Dever taught for the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University while serving two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church.

In an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America, Dr. Dever serves as the executive director for 9Marks (formerly The Center for Church Reform, CCR) in Washington, D.C. 9Marks encourages pastors of local churches look to the Bible for instruction on how to organize and lead their churches. Dr. Dever also teaches periodically at various conferences, speaking everywhere from South Africa to Brazil to the United Kingdom to Alabama. Feeling a deep burden for student ministry, Dr. Dever often addresses student ministry groups at campuses throughout the country. He has also taught at a number of seminaries, including Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Dr. Dever’s scholarly interests include Puritanism and ecclesiology.

Dr. Dever currently serves as a trustee of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; he also serves as a member of the board, vice-chairman, and chairman of the Forum for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. From 1995 until 2001, he served on the steering committee for Founders Ministries, a pastoral movement for biblical teaching and healthy church life within the Southern Baptist Convention. As Guest Senate Chaplain for two weeks in 1995, Dr. Dever opened the daily sessions of the United States Senate in prayer. He is a member of the American Society of Church History and the Tyndale Fellowship. He also held the J.B. Lightfoot Scholarship at Cambridge University from 1989 to 1991.

Reviews

[Caroline Rieke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book was so helpful, insightful, and practical on laying out what a healthy church should include and look like with expositional preaching being the #1 mark. I found the chapter on church membership exceedingly helpful on explaining the importance of church membership and what membership should mean for the Christian. I love Mark’s biblical knowledge and his love for the church. I also really appreciated the resources he provided after every chapter. I couldn’t recommend this book more, for any Christian, and even more so for elders & head pastors.

[Emma Sheehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set me up with some great foundations of what a church should look like. Not the church of America but the church of the Bible.

[Collin Mayfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

9 Marks has been inspiring and helpful for me as I seek to go into vocational ministry. Inspiring in that I am excited to advocate for these things in my church and help them slowly be pointed out in the right ways through Wisdom. Helpful as I learn the truth about how a church who is healthy and seeking to be ran in biblical truth looks like.

I will continue recommending it for years and years

[Garhett Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit dissapointed. I was hoping this would be more than the avergae church leadership book. It was pretty status quo.

[Linnea Morris]

Read this for workkkkkk.

[Brandy Sexton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderfully accessible book describes 9 traits that should characterize a biblical church. It’s a must read for those looking to build a healthy, thriving church.

[Joshua Biggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marky Mark really outdid himself with this one. It’s a simple question really, but one many Christians couldn’t define, “What is a healthy church?” Dever does a great job of answering that question biblically. He does so in a way that informs the reader of the biblical truths and principles regarding a healthy, biblical church, but also in a way that makes you excited for church. The church is described not only and sacred and necessary, but also as beautiful.
Anyone interested in church planting, pastoring, or just wants to know more about what makes a healthy church, this book is a must read.

[Tommy Wreay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I read the 4th edition but have not worked through the handbook. I’ll go through that later and update the review then. I also have the third edition but should give that copy away. This review is for personal notation.