Accessible Guide from 9Marks Equips Believers to Steward Their God-Given AuthorityIn every position of power—from executives and world leaders to church elders and parents—lies the potential for life-giving leadership or destructive corruption. Driven by sinful pride or opportunism, many people abuse their God-given authority, harming the ones they're called to lead and contributing to a skeptical attitude toward leadership. The answer to bad authority, however, is...

More and more church leaders, pastors, and members are looking for guidance on how to practice church discipline in a biblical way. Here is a contemporary and concise how-to guide that provides a theological framework for understanding and implementing disciplinary measures in the local church, along with several examples of real-life situations. Drawing on both Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, this brief hardback helps leaders face the endless variety of circumstances and sins for which no...

Recent cultural interest in evangelicalism has led to considerable confusion about what the term actually means. Many young Christians are tempted to discard the label altogether. But evangelicalism is not merely a political movement in decline or a sociological phenomenon on the rise, as it has sometimes been portrayed. It is, in fact, a helpful theological profile that manifests itself in beliefs, ethics, and church life.DeYoung and other key twenty- and thirty-something evangeli...

How can the church move forward in unity amid such political strife and cultural contention?As Christians, we've felt pushed to the outskirts of national public life, yet even within our congregations we are divided about how to respond. Some want to strengthen the evangelical voting bloc. Others focus on social justice causes, and still others would abandon the public square altogether. What do we do when brothers and sisters in Christ sit next to each other in th...

What is the Church's mission? What does it mean to participate in God's mission personally? How do "mission" and culture interact and conflict?This book articulates various evangelical views regarding the church's mission and provides a healthy, vigorous, and gracious debate on this controversial topic. In a helpful Counterpoints format, this volume demonstrates the unique theological frameworks, doctrinal convictions, and missiological conclusions that inform and ...

Pastors from America and India Share How They Patiently and Faithfully Lead Missions in Their Local ChurchesWhat role should the local church play in the mission to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth? Many Christians view missions work as a task for large churches or parachurch ministries. But God commands all believers in churches of all sizes to protect and proclaim his word. Working together patiently and faithfully, we can reach nations with the gospel....

Who leads a church? Why is this important to God?God cares about his glory, and he means to display his glory through the church. For this very end, God has established elders and deacons, members, and congregational authority. This primer on church structure connects the different offices of the church to one another and to the glory of God.

**It’s a question hundreds of pastors ask every day:**What is the best way to grow?A lot of books give a lot of answers, but the best one comes from Scripture. Word-Centered Church brings that answer into sharp focus. Written by Jonathan Leeman, editorial director for the reputable ministry 9Marks, Word-Centered Church offers a thorough treatment of one of God’s greatest concerns: growing His people and growing His church.As simpl...

Congregational authority is less about the meetings and more about the mission.Congregationalism has a bad rap for well-known reasons: inefficient meetings, upstart members, browbeaten ministers. But biblical congregationalism isn’t so much about the meetings. It’s about empowering the whole church to promote and protect the gospel. Pastors lead and equip. Members get to work strengthening one another and pursuing Christ’s mission in the world.

Church membership is not just a status, it’s an office. Leaders shouldn’t fire members from the responsibilities given to them by Jesus—they should train them! When members are trained, the church grows in holiness and love, discipleship and mission. Complacency and nominalism are diminished.Jesus gives every church member an office in the church’s government: to assume final responsibility for guarding the what and the who of the gospel in the church and its mini...

Accessible Guide from 9Marks Equips Believers to Steward Their God-Given AuthorityIn every position of power—from executives and world leaders to church elders and parents—lies the potential for life-giving leadership or destructive corruption. Driven by sinful pride or opportunism, many people abuse their God-given authority, harming the ones they're called to lead and contributing to a skeptical attitude toward leadership. The answer to bad authority, however, is...

God means to fulfill the Great Commission through local churches.How did the apostles and the churches of the New Testament obey the Great Commission? By gathering Christians together in churches. The church is God’s plan for evangelism, discipleship, and the Great Commission. This connection between the Great Commission and the church dramatically impacts how both leaders and members should think about their work of making disciples. We do it together.