Our values align with that of “9 Marks of a Healthy Church”. They include the following marks: Preaching, Biblical Theology, The Gospel, Conversion, Evangelism, Membership, Discipline, Discipleship, and Leadership. For more information on each mark, please scroll below.
An expositional sermon takes
the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the
sermon, and applies it to life today.
Where is it in the Bible?
According to Scripture,
God accomplishes what he wants to accomplish through speaking (see Gen.
1:3, Isa. 55:10-11, Acts 12:24). This means that if preachers want their
sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says.
The Bible has many
examples of this kind of preaching and teaching: Levitical priests taught
the law (Deut. 33:10), Ezra and the Levites read from the law and gave the
sense of it (Neh. 8:8), and Peter and the apostles expounded Scripture and
urged their hearers to respond with repentance and faith (Acts 2:14-41,
13:16-47).
On the other hand, God
condemns those who “speak of their own imagination, not from the mouth of
the Lord” (Jer. 23:16, 18, 21-22).
Why is it important?
Expositional preaching is
important because God’s Word is what convicts, converts, builds up, and
sanctifies God’s people (Heb. 4:12; 1 Pet. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:13; Jn. 17:17).
Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon
makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
Biblical theology is sound
doctrine; it is right thoughts about God; it is belief that accords with
Scripture.
Where is it in the Bible?
The entire Bible teaches
sound doctrine.
Many New Testament
books, such as Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Ephesians, are stuffed to
the brim with rich doctrinal teaching (see Rom. 1-11 and Eph. 1-3).
The authors of the New
Testament frequently argue that sound doctrine is essential for healthy
Christians and healthy churches (see 1 Tim. 1:5, 2 John 1-6, and Titus
2:1-10).
Why is it important?
Biblical theology is
essential for
Evangelism.
The gospel is doctrine. Therefore, sound doctrine is necessary for
evangelism.
Discipleship.
Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth” (Jn.
17:17). Christians grow by learning and living in light of the truth—in
other words, by sound doctrine.
Unity.
According to the New Testament, the only true unity is unity in the truth
(1 Jn. 1:1-4; 2 Jn. 10-11).
Worship.
To worship God is to declare his excellencies (1 Pet. 2:9-10) and to exalt
him because of who he is (Ps. 29:2). True worship is a response to
sound doctrine.
The one and only God who
is holy made us in his image to know him (Gen. 1:26-28).
But we sinned and cut
ourselves off from him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23).
In his great love, God
became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus
fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the
sins of all those who would ever turn from their sin and trust in him
(John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21).
He rose again from the
dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath
against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25).
He now calls us to
repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts
17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are
born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John 3:16).
He is gathering one new
people to himself among all those who submit to Christ as Lord (Matt.
16:15-19; Eph. 2:11-19).
Where is it in the Bible?
Romans 1-4 contains one of
the fullest expositions of the gospel in all of Scripture, and 1 Corinthians
15:1-4 contains a succinct summary of the gospel.
Why is it important?
A biblical understanding
of the gospel is important because the gospel is the power of God for the
salvation of everyone who believes, and it is the only way for sinful
people to be reconciled to a holy God.
Not only that, but
everything in a church flows from its understanding of the gospel, whether
preaching, counseling, discipleship, music, evangelism, missions, and on.
A biblical understanding of
conversion recognizes both what God does and what people do in salvation. In
conversion, God
gives life to the dead
(Eph. 2:5)
gives sight to the blind
(2 Cor. 4:3-6)
and gives the gifts of
faith and repentance (Phil. 1:29; Acts 11:18).
And in conversion, people
repent of sin (Mk. 1:15;
Acts 3:19)
and believe in Jesus
(Jn. 3:16; Rom. 3:21-26).
A biblical understanding of
conversion recognizes that only God can save, and that he saves individuals by
enabling them to respond to the gospel message through repenting of sin and
trusting in Christ.
Where is it in the Bible?
Jesus called people to
repent and believe in him (Mk. 1:15). He said that unless someone is born
again he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven (Jn. 3:1-8).
Throughout the book of
Acts, the apostles call people to turn from their sin and trust in Christ
(Acts 2:38, 3:19-20, 10:43, 13:38-39, 16:31, 17:30).
Many of the epistles
describe both our need to repent and believe in Christ and God’s
supernatural work to accomplish this (Rom. 6:1-23; 1 Cor. 2:14-15; 2 Cor.
4:3-6; Eph. 2:1-10; 1 Thess. 1:9-10; 2 Tim. 2:25-26).
Why is it important?
A biblical understanding of
conversion is important for churches because
It clarifies how
churches should exhort non-Christians—they should call non-Christians to
repent of sin and trust in Christ.
It reminds churches that
they must rely upon God in all of their evangelistic efforts; only he can
give new spiritual life.
It teaches churches to
maintain a sharp distinction between themselves and the world.
Church members’ lives
should be marked by the fruit of conversion,
Churches should admit
to baptism and the Lord’s Supper only those who show evidence of
conversion.
Churches should evangelize
and teach about the Christian life in such a way that the radical nature of
conversion is continually emphasized.
Evangelism is simply telling non-Christians
the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to save sinners. In order to
biblically evangelize you must:
Preach the whole gospel,
even the hard news about God’s wrath against our sin.
Call people to repent of
their sins and trust in Christ.
Make it clear that
believing in Christ is costly, but worth it.
Where is it in the Bible?
Scripture contains both
teaching on evangelism (Matt. 28:19-20; Rom. 10:14-17; 1 Pet. 3:15-16) and
examples of evangelistic preaching (see Acts 2:14-41, 3:12-26, 13:16-49,
17:22-31). Moreover, any time Scripture speaks of the gospel, it is teaching us
what we are to share in evangelism (see, for example, Romans 1-4 and 1
Corinthians 15:1-4).
Why is it important?
When a church has an
unbiblical understanding of the gospel, they don’t evangelize, they
evangelize in misleading or manipulative ways, or they share a message
that’s not the gospel.
On the other hand, a
biblical understanding of evangelism clarifies our role in the mission God
has given to the church: we are to preach the good news about what Christ
has done and pray that God would bring people to believe it.
According to the Bible,
church membership is a commitment every Christian should make to attend, love,
serve, and submit to a local church.
Where is it in the Bible?
Throughout Old Testament
history, God made a clear distinction between his people and the world
(see Lev. 13:46, Num. 5:3, Deut. 7:3).
Christ says that
entering the kingdom of God means being bound to the church “on earth”
(Matt. 16:16-19; 18:17-19). Where do we see the church on earth? The local
church.
The New Testament
explicitly refers to some people being inside the church and some
people being outside (1 Cor. 5:12-13). This is much more than a
casual association.
The church in Corinth
consisted of a definite number of believers, such that Paul could speak of
a punishment inflicted by the majority (2 Cor. 2:6).
Not only does the New
Testament speak of the reality of church membership, but its dozens of
“one anothers” are written to local churches, which fill out our
understanding of what church membership should practically look like.
Why is it important?
Biblical church membership is
important because the church presents God’s witness to himself in the world. It
displays his glory. In the church’s membership, then, non-Christians should see
in the lives of God’s changed people that God is holy and gracious and that his
gospel is powerful for saving and transforming sinners.
In the broadest sense,
church discipline is everything the church does to help its members pursue
holiness and fight sin. Preaching, teaching, prayer, corporate worship,
accountability relationships, and godly oversight by pastors and elders
are all forms of discipline.
In a narrower sense,
church discipline is the act of correcting sin in the life of the body,
including the possible final step of excluding a professing Christian from
membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper because of
serious unrepentant sin (see Matt. 18:15-20, 1 Cor. 5:1-13).
Where is it in the Bible?
The New Testament
commands corrective discipline (excluding unrepentant sinners from the
fellowship of the church) in passages like Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians
5:1-13, 2 Corinthians 2:6, and 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15.
The New Testament speaks
about formative discipline (our efforts to grow in holiness together) in
countless passages about pursuing holiness and building one another up in
the faith, such as Ephesians 4:11-32 and Philippians 2:1-18.
Why is it important?
Think of discipline as the
stake that helps the tree grow upright, the extra set of wheels on the bicycle,
or the musician’s endless hours of practice. Without discipline, we won’t grow
as God wants us to. With discipline, we will, by God’s grace, bear peaceful
fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:5-11).
Scripture teaches that a live
Christian is a growing Christian (2 Pet. 1:8-10). Scripture also teaches that
we grow not only by instruction, but by imitation (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1).
Therefore churches should exhort their members to both grow in holiness and
help others do the same.
Where is it in the Bible?
Peter exhorted his
readers to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ (2 Pet. 3:18)
Paul exhorted the
Ephesians to grow by speaking the truth in love to one another (Eph.
4:15).
Many passages in
Scripture instruct us to imitate godly leaders (Phil. 4:9; Heb. 13:7).
The point is that, according
to Scripture, all Christians should grow in Christ, imitate other godly
Christians, and encourage others in their growth in Christlikeness.
Why is it important?
Promoting biblical
discipleship and growth is important because none of us are finished
products. Until we die, all Christians will struggle against sin, and we
need all the help we can get in this fight.
If a church neglects
discipleship and growth, or teaches a skewed, unbiblical version of it, it
will discourage genuine Christians and wrongly assure false Christians. On
the other hand, if a church fosters a culture of Christian discipleship
and growth, it will multiply believers’ efforts to grow in holiness.
A church that is not
growing in the faith will ultimately yield an unhealthy witness to the world.
The Bible teaches that each
local church should be led by a plurality of godly, qualified men called
elders.
Where is it in the Bible?
Paul lays out the
qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Passages that
evidence a plurality of elders in one local church include Acts 14:23, Acts
20:17, 1 Timothy 4:14, 1 Timothy 5:17, and James 5:14.
