How to Build a Healthy Church

“In the year 2000, I attended a weekender at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. During our time there, Mark Dever allowed us to observe how they did church and invited us to ask questions. Everything the elders and the church did was intentional, and everything we observed was rooted in biblical convictions about what a church is and does. The Lord used that weekend to shape my understanding of what a healthy, biblical church might look like. What you hold in your hands is very much like a ‘weekender’ in book form. But make no mistake. This is not a ‘how-to’ book in the ordinary sense of that term. Instead, it is a ‘why-to’ book. In it, Dever and Paul Alexander argue that because the church is God’s idea, we must order it according to his word. Our God determined church health, and he has revealed in his word how to pursue it. So read this book, consider what a church is, then deliberately lead your church toward that end for the glory of God.”

—Juan Sanchez, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“How to Build a Healthy Church is as simple as it is biblical. At the heart of the message is the presupposition that the Christian life is to be deliberately lived out in the community of a church family under the oversight of elders. Dever and Alexander provide no quick fixes, no new revelations; they simply call us to ordinary and consistent biblical Christianity.”

—Chopo Mwanza, Pastor, Faith Baptist Church Riverside, Kitwe, Zambia

“Here is one of the most faithful and insightful pastors of our time addressing the most crucial issues of church life. Mark Dever refuses to separate theology and congregational life, combining pastoral insight with clear biblical teaching. This book is a powerful antidote to the merely pragmatic approaches of our day—and a refutation to those who argue that theology just isn’t practical.”

—R. Albert Mohler Jr., President and Centennial Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“This book is the perfect example of what a truly practical book on church health and growth should be: it gives concrete guidance for and examples of biblical principles being put into practice in the life and ministry of the local congregation.”

—Ligon Duncan, Chancellor and CEO, Reformed Theological Seminary

“How to Build a Healthy Church shares many of the ministry lessons that Dever and his colleagues have learned from Scripture and sought to implement in the life of their church community. This book is for anyone who wants to get serious about following the biblical pattern for the church and is looking for down-to-earth practical help.”

—Philip Graham Ryken, President, Wheaton College

“Here is a novel idea: use the Bible as a handbook to gather and guide the church! And How to Build a Healthy Church is a novel volume indeed, standing amid the spate of ‘church-as-corporation, pastor-as-CEO’ manuals that glut church life. Here is a book that wafts a radical, refreshing breeze from the pages of Scripture that will breathe life into the church. A crucial read.”

—R. Kent Hughes, Senior Pastor Emeritus, College Church, Wheaton, Illinois