What Is a Healthy Church Member? (IX Marks) | Thabiti M. Anyabwile

What Is a Healthy Church Member? (IX Marks) | Thabiti M. Anyabwile | A Great Tool to Strengthen the Bride of Christ

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What Is a Healthy ...

	What Is a Healthy Church Member? (IX Marks) Thabiti M. Anyabwile Crossway Books, 2008 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Biblically and practically instructs church members in ways they can labor for the health of their church.What Is a Healthy Church Member? takes its cue from Mark Dever's book What Is a Healthy Church?, which offered one definition of what a healthy church looks like biblically and historically. In this new work, pastor Thabiti Anyabwile attempts to answer the natural next question: What does a healthy church member look like in the light of Scripture?

God intends for us to play an active and vital part in the body of Christ, the local church. He wants us to experience the local church as a home more profoundly wonderful and meaningful than any other place on earth. He intends for his churches to be healthy places and for the members of those churches to be healthy as well. This book explains how membership in the local church can produce spiritual growth in its members and how each member can contribute to the growth and health of the whole.

?In an era when Christians seem confused about what kind of community the church ought to be, here?s a helpful handbook outlining the church?s true biblical priorities, especially as they apply to individual church members.?
John MacArthur, President, Grace to You

?Given the state of so many of our churches today, this book arrives not a moment too soon.?
R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

?This book provides an excellent and much-needed focus on the individual church member.?
R. C. Sproul, Chairman and President, Ligonier Ministries; Senior Minister of Preaching and Teaching, Saint Andrews Chapel, Sanford, Florida

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Brilliant Application of IX Marks Principals

I received this book yesterday and read it in 1 sitting... I plan to begin leading the congregation through it in a few weeks, as well as integrating it into our new members classes. As a pastor there is little more I could say to encourage members to healthy participation in the church. This book is a must read for every church member.

A Great Tool to Strengthen the Bride of Christ

"How are we doing in our marriage?" "How are we doing as a family?" "How am I doing as an employee?" "How am I doing as a church member?" I'm guessing you may have asked or been asked one of the first three questions, and probably have a sense of how to answer them, but how would you answer that last one? For a church to be healthy and to fulfill its calling, it is vital to have healthy members. Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile understands this and has written this wonderful little book to help every believer see their calling as members of the body of Christ. As he writes in his introduction, "The health of the local church depends on the willingness of its members to inspect their hearts, correct their thinking, and apply their hands to the work of the ministry." (pp. 15.)

He describes ten marks of a healthy church member. A healthy church member: is an expositional listener, a biblical theologian, gospel saturated, genuinely converted, a biblical evangelist, a committed member, seeks discipline, a growing disciple, a humble follower, and a prayer warrior. Each of the ten marks is described in clear, straightforward language in ten short chapters. Each chapter contains practical ways to grow in each of these areas, suggestions for further reading (if interested) and an explanation of why each mark is both biblical and crucial for both the church and its individual members. And each chapter concludes with a few questions for application and reflection.

If you are thinking this sounds like a massive to-do list, let me encourage you. It is challenging, but it is not legalistic or overwhelming. Pastor Anyabwile is writing for people like you and me, who know that we need the grace of God for any progress in the Christian life! As he writes in his final chapter:

"It is entirely possible to read this book and assess yourself while losing sight of Jesus Christ and the cross. That is, you may read this book and go away thinking `work, work, work' instead of `grace, grace, grace' or `trust, trust, trust'. Each of the chapters may have become for you a roadmap for self-improvement and self-effort, duty and perhaps drudgery. The counsel of this book is offered not as a prescription to be taken independent of God's grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Neither condemnation nor practical atheism are the hoped for results of this book. Rather, I pray that you've been able to read [it] with a pleading heart, desiring that the Lord of the church might supernaturally awaken each of his saints to serve in extraordinary ways. I pray that a deep dependence upon the True Vine-apart from whom we can do nothing- grows in each of our hearts as we long more and more to be what Christ is making us to be." (pp. 115-116).

This book is short (117 pgs) and to the point, yet it is tender and gracious and very Biblical. It is also the only book of its kind that I am aware of, and it is one that I as a pastor, would love to see read by as many people as possible. Are you a healthy church member? This book will help you to decide and to find new opportunities for growth, and new hope in Christ to enable that growth in your life. And your church can only benefit from members who are captured by that vision and hope! Check it out today!

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Giving Us Ten Marks of a Healthy Church Member

What Is a Healthy Church Member? is patterned after the book What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever, and is the third book in the IXMark series. It gives us "one proposal for becoming a healthier member of your local church."

The ten chapters in this little book (and it is little) are based around ten marks of a healthy church member. Each chapter ends with a few questions for deeper thinking on the topic of the chapter, and many chapters also include a short list of books for more reading on the topic. It's all biblically grounded, theologically sound, and most of all, practical.

Here are the 10 marks of a healthy church member, otherwise known as the ten chapter titles:

* A Healthy Church Member Is an Expositional Listener
* A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Theologian
* A Healthy Church Member Is Gospel Saturated
* A Healthy Church Member Is Genuinely Converted
* A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Evangelist
* A Healthy Church Member Is a Committed Member
* A Healthy Church Member Seeks Discipline
* A Healthy Church Member Is a Growing Disciple
* A Healthy Church Member is a Humble Follower
* A Healthy Church Member Is a Prayer Warrior

There's nothing earth shaking here, but that doesn't mean this isn't an exceptionally useful book. I'd call it a church member's user manual, but that would make it seem too much like a to-do list and it is not that. It does have suggestions that the reader is encouraged to practice because they desire to become a healthy church member, but in the end, Thabiti Anyabwile brings us back to the gospel of Christ Jesus as the foundation for everything and the gracious work of the Spirit as the means by which these 10 marks are accomplished.

What Is a Healthy Church Member? would be well-suited for use in a new member's class or other group study as well as for individual reading and study.

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Good and concise...

This book put out by Thabiti Anyabwile called, "What is a Healthy Church Member?" is a very short book and not terribly "deep" in theology. Neither one of these is a hindrance to this book, but actually very accomadoting. The reason I say this is because you can literally give this to anyone in your congregation and they will have no reason to say no. It isn't gonig to be over their head, as it is very practical and straight forward, and it won't take up much of their time, as it is only 114 pages and the pages are only 5" x 4".

The book is part of 9 Marks Ministries and is an extension of Dever's "9 Marks of a Healthy Church."

The topics in this book are as follows (every chapter starts with, "A Healthy Church Member is...):

An Expositional Listener
A Biblical Theologian
Gospel Saturated
Genuinely Converted
A Biblical Evangelist
A Committed Member
Seeks Discipline
A Growing Disciple
A Humble Follower
A Prayer Warrior

If you are good at math or you can count like a horse, you will notice that there are ten marks and not nine. Anyabwile says that he gives the last as an "extra" for us readers, and I was thankful.

This book is very practical and the chapter titles might look overwhelming at first, but they really are put forth in a very well balanced manner and are very challenging for everyone from the Pastor, layman or congregant.

Anyabwile states the following:

This little book is written in the hope that you might discover or rediscover what it means to be a healthy church member of a local church, and what it means to contribute to the overall health of the church

I think that Anyabwile did just that as it really is a challenge to all who set foot in church each Lord's Day.

I would highly recommend this to read and then to hand out afterwards to any member in your church.

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Excellent Resource

This excellent resource is ideal for equipping believers in the basic responsibilities of church membership. Anyabwile's short little book exhorts and encourages believers to church life seriously. The marks of a healthy church member, corresponding to Mark Dever's Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (with one to grow on!) are:

1. A healthy church member is an expositional listener
2. A healthy church member is a biblical theologian
3. A healthy church member is gospel saturated
4. A healthy church member is genuinely converted
5. A healthy church member is a biblical evangelist
6. A healthy church member is a committed member
7. A healthy church member seeks discipline
8. A healthy church member is a growing disciple
9. A healthy church member is a humble follower
10. A healthy church member is a prayer warrior

This is pastoral and practical theology, written in a user-friendly style, with the tenderness of a shepherd. It could easily be adapted for use in a Sunday School class or small group. The church I pastor purchased a copy for every household.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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