Deliberate Church: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Beginning The Work

Clarifying The Gospel
Assuming that people sufficiently understand the gospel is dangerous. We must begin by clarifying the gospel.

“What you win them with is likely what you’ll win them to.”

“Clarifying the Gospel is so critical, especially at the beginning of a work, because you want to ensure, as much as externally possible, the purity of the church’s membership (i.e., that all members are truly converted). The more your congregation is clear on the Gospel, the less likely it is that either tepid nominalism or carnal divisiveness will find air to breath—and the more likely it is that you will forge healthy and growing unity around the Good News that distinguishes the church from the world.” –p. 45

Cultivating Trust
Expositional preaching – presenting the point of the text as the point of the sermon
Personal Relationships – the church is a godly web of mutually sanctifying familial relationships
Humility – particularly in accountability and correctablility

Cleaning the Rolls
“When we allow prolonged nonattenders to keep their names on the membership rolls, we actually help deceive them into thinking they are saved when their behavior is in fact calling their salvation into question. If membership is the church’s public affirmation of a person’s conversion, then to leave a nonattender on the rolls could very well be damningly deceptive.” –p.48

Conducting Reverse Membership Interviews
Dever has interviewed every member of his church starting with those who joined just before he got there all the way back to those who have been members for decades.