The Deliberate Church
Building Your Ministry on the Gospel

Authors: Mark Dever and Paul Alexander

Publisher: Crossway Books
ISBN: 1581347383
Pages: 176
Recommended: Yes

Disclaimer: This book was provided free of charge through the Diet of Bookworms as part of a book review program.

Overview

The authors provide three clarifications about their book in the
Forward before explaining what their purpose was in writing the book. First, they explain, what they are proposing in The Deliberate Church (TDC hereafter) is nothing new but rather something quite old. Second, they are not presenting a program that churches can “plug in” and implement. Third, TDC is not a quick fix for churches hoping to grow overnight, whether spiritually, numerically, or both.

The authors explain that

the deliberate church is careful to trust the Word of God, wielded by Jesus Christ, to do the work of building the local church. It is an attempt to put our money where our mouth is when we say that we believe in the sufficiency of Scirpture for the life, health, and growth of the local church . . . In short, God’s Word, encapsulated in the Gospel, builds the church.”

TDC argues that the gospel and the Bible provide the foundation for the local church and that methodology must grow out of both:

The uniqueness of the church is her message – the Gospel . . . That Gospel is visualized in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both instituted by Christ. The distinguishing marks of the church, then, are the right preaching of this Gospel and the right administration of the biblical ordinances that dramatize it.”

TDC argues that four principles guide the building of the church: (1) theology drives methods, (2) God’s methods are to be our methods, (3) the gospel enables and informs how we participate in God’s purposes, and (4) the measure of success is determined not by numbers but by how faithful the church is to the gospel.

The book is organized into four sections and twenty-one chapters, plus a forward, introduction, and conclusion. Interspersed throughout the chapters are various questions under the heading of “Think Tank” that will help the reader and his/her congregation reflect upon and apply the material to their own local body of believers.

Section and Chapter Summaries

Section 1 – Gathering the Church

Ch. 1: “The Four P’s”
- Preaching, praying, personal discipleship, patience.
Ch. 2: “Beginning the Work”
- Clarifying the gospel, cultivating trust, cleaning the rolls, conducting reverse membership interviews.
Ch. 3: “Doing Responsible Evangelism”
- Including essentials, extending invitations, avoiding entertainment, avoiding manipulation, being God-centered.
Ch. 4: “Taking in New Members”
- Biblical teaching on membership, new members’ class, church covenants, membership interviews, ministry of new members, the margin of error.
Ch. 5: “Doing Church Discipline”
- Formative and corrective, the preventative function of accountability, context, the care list, and removing a member from the rolls.

Section 2 – When the Church Gathers

Ch. 6: “Understanding the Regulative Principle”
- The regulative principle, worship as the purpose of redemption, worship in the Old Testament, worship in the New Testament.
Ch. 7: “Applying the Regulative Principle”
- Read, preach, pray, sing, and see the Bible; about multiple services.
Ch. 8: “The Role of the Pastor”
- Practitioner of the marks, teaching is everything, the day-to-day, the three Gs.
Ch. 9: “The Roles of Different Gatherings”
- Adult education, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Wednesday evening service, member meetings.
Ch. 10: “The Role of the Ordinances”
- Baptism, the Lord’s Supper.
Ch. 11: “Loving Each Other”
- A live and active culture, a corporate witness.
Ch. 12: “Music”
- Congregational singing, accompaniment, variety, getting there.

Section 3 – Gathering Elders

Ch. 13: “The Importance of Elders”
- Biblical background, practicality of plurality.
Ch. 14: “Looking for a Few Good Men”
- Recognizing before training, what elders are not, what elders are, qualification quadrants.
Ch. 15: “Assessment”
- Assessing character, ability, and fit.
Ch. 16: “Why Character is Crucial”
- Modeling, meetings, the great meeting.
Ch. 17: “Getting Started”
- Exposition, recognition, nomination, election, installation, cooperation, rotation.
Ch. 18: “Staffing”
- Specialization, alternatives, intrastaff relationships.

Section 4 – When the Elders Gather

Ch. 19: “The Word and Prayer”
- The word, prayer.
Ch. 20: “The Agenda: What to Talk About”
- Preparation, categories for conversation, the budget process, others in the room.
Ch. 21: “Decision Making: How to Talk about It”
- The pastor’s role, speaking graciously, observing order, voting.

Conclusion
- A Godward-looking church, an outward-looking church.

Review

The worse the book, the longer the review; the shorter, the better. This will be a short review.

Setting out on an honorable and biblical quest, Dever and Alexander accomplish their goals admirably. They provide a thorough, albeit not exhaustive, treatment of the biblical teaching concerning the form and function of the local church. Eschewing formulaic or numerical growth-focused programs, the authors have developed a veritable manual for church leaders to use as a guide in establishing and/or maintaining a Scriptural church.

The book should be read in its entirety but, having done that, TDC can then be used almost as a reference to address specific issues in the church. It is also likely that the reader of TDC will find some chapters to be more timely than others: it is difficult not to evaluate one’s own church when reading through this book and some chapters will address problem areas in almost every church.

By way of example, this reviewer was very taken with the chapter “Music.” Perhaps feeling the need to explain or justify a chapter on this subject, the authors begin:

Music in the context of the corporate gathering is only a subset of corporate worship. Listening to the preached Word of God is one of the most important ways we worship God together; in fact, it is the only way we can learn how to worship Him acceptably . . . worship is a total life orientation of engaging with God on the terms that He proposes and in the way that He provides.

“This reflection reminds us that our audience in corporate worship is not people . . . Worship in the corporate gathering is about renewing our covenant with God by meeting with Him and relating to Him in the ways that He has prescribed.”

Three principles are offered for congregational singing:

It is public, not privatized . . . we would be wrong to encourage people to think of corporate worship in terms of shutting out the rest of the congregation to have a privatized emotional experience with God.

“It should be theologically rich . . . we want to avoid songs that encourage us to reflect on our own subjective emotional experience more than on the objective truths of God’s character and implications of the cross.

“It should be spiritually encouraging. The result of theological richness will always be increasing accuracy in worshiping God as He really is, which will in turn result in increasing spiritual encouragement for us.”

What is true for the chapter on music is true for almost all the chapters in the book. Reading through the brief description of each chapter provided in the “additional material” above demonstrates the breadth and depth of this book. It will make the reader carefully think through the forms and functions of the local church and to evaluate their own church – shall we say? – more deliberately.

For those attempting to bring about change in an existing church, this book is a must-read; for those just beginning a church, The Deliberate Church is invaluable.


2 Cor 1:13