[x] Crossway+ members can shop select books and Bibles at 50% off in our 2024 Christmas Gift Guide. To receive your order by Christmas, choose UPS Next Day Air.

What All Healthy Churches Have in Common

The Basics

A lot of pastors that I know are exhausted. Some of them have been exhausted by trials around COVID, but long before that, pastors have been exhausted by the constantly repeated message that they need new ideas. The thought is that you have to innovate in order to get people to come.

But I would say the most important things about a Christian church are the things that make it a Christian church. The things that are unique about your church or mine can never be the most important things about it.

How to Build a Healthy Church

Mark Dever, Paul Alexander

In this practical guide, pastors Mark Dever and Paul Alexander have compiled a practical handbook for pastors and church leaders on how to build a healthy church grounded in the gospel.

The most important things about our church have to be the things that we have in common with every other true Christian church that there is in our city, country, or around the world—in all places, ever since Jesus. Those have to be the most important things about our church.

The things that are unique about your church or mine can never be the most important things about it.

That’s a wonderful weight off a pastor’s shoulders to know that the most important things are reading the Bible, preaching the Bible, praying, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and having clear lines of being a part of the church or being put out of the church.

These are the basic things that Christians have dealt with from the apostles until now.

Mark Dever is the coauthor with Paul Alexander of How to Build a Healthy Church: A Practical Guide for Deliberate Leadership.



Related Articles


Related Resources


Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel through publishing gospel-centered, Bible-centered content. Learn more or donate today at crossway.org/about.