P

Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches

Russell D. Moore

The gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news that through Jesus we have been adopted as sons and daughters into God’s family—means that Christians ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in North America and around the world.

Russell D. Moore does not shy away from this call in Adopted for Life, a popular-level, practical manifesto for Christians to adopt children and to help equip other Christian families to do the same. He shows that adoption is not just about couples who want children—or who want more children. It is about an entire culture within evangelicalism, a culture that sees adoption as part of the Great Commission mandate and as a sign of the gospel itself.

Moore, who adopted two boys from Russia and has spoken widely on the subject, writes for couples considering adoption, families who have adopted children, and pastors who wish to encourage adoption.

1. What drove you to write What Is a Healthy Church Member?

I wanted to see more Christians understand that the health of their local churches and their personal spiritual health are profoundly connected. The Lord granted me the privilege to serve with the brothers at 9Marks ministries. I’ve had the repeated experience of talking with many pastors who want to lead their churches in healthy directions but who struggle to transfer their ideas and vision to their people in a way that aids reform. But most Christians I know also want to participate in sound, healthy churches. So the problem wasn’t merely or always a problem of resistance, but oftentimes of understanding. It seemed that a companion volume to Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, written for the average person in the pew, could be useful in helping church members support their pastors in strengthening their churches and in helping Christians make their local churches more central to their understanding of what it means to be a healthy Christian.

2. The book is patterned after Mark Dever’s book 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, but you address 10 marks. Is this a case of one-upmanship, or do you have a more noble explanation?

I don’t think I’ve seen many people “one up” Mark! Sometimes people comment that Nine Marks is missing some crucial marks like missions and prayer. It’s not an omission as much as it is a focus on some issues of crucial importance that are sometimes debated or neglected in discussions of church health. Few people deny the importance of prayer or missions.
But having said that, Healthy Members focuses on practices that are important for our individual devotion. I don’t know many Christians who have not at some point struggled to pray consistently and fervently. So, I added a chapter on prayer given its importance in the Christian life and the struggles we all have with it. Prayerfully it will encourage the Lord’s people in this vital communion with the Savior.

3. Of the 10 marks you discuss, which one do you feel is most lacking in the church today?

That’s a great question.  One could make the case for several marks being critically missing: expositional listener, biblical evangelist, seeks discipline, and humble follower. If I were forced to choose one, I would have to see the essential mark that’s missing is “expositional listener.” How we listen to or heed God’s word impacts everything else in life. I fear that the weakened listening ability of this hyper-electronic, image-saturated age creates the stony ground that refuses the implantation of God’s word. Listening spans are contracted. And often when we do listen, we’re listening for things that scratch our itching ears.
Expositional listening calls us to listen for the original intent and meaning of the passage preached. It calls us to set aside our “practical” and “felt needs” in order to hear what’s important and needful to God. The habit of our culture is to begin with self and seek a response to ourselves in God’s word. The healthier habit is to begin with God and His word and seek to be conformed to it (Rom. 12:1–2). If we do that, all the other healthy practices will tend to follow suit.

4. Reformed Christians have lamented the downgrade of evangelicalism in recent years. Yet, picking at specks in the eyes of others does little good when there is a log in our own. Which of the 10 marks, if different from the previous question, do you feel Reformed Christians need to work harder at?

Same as above.

5. How does being a healthy church member bolster the ministry of the bride of Christ and make the church more beautiful?

Biblical Christianity is a remarkably corporate or group faith. The contemporary tendency to think almost exclusively in terms of a “personal relationship with Christ” has steadily undermined the public and collective relationship we have with the Lord as His body or His flock. But when we stress, as the New Testament does, the inescapably family-centered nature of Christianity, the glories of Christ come into fuller picture.
For example, Jesus says that our love for one another would make it known to all men that we are His followers (John 13:25). When Christians gather together in loving relationship to one another we demonstrate to those outside the love of God what it means to follow Him. More glorious still, we find that it’s in the church where this love—the love of God—is made complete (1 John 4:11–12). Think of that. God’s love is made complete in the world in the church as Christians love one another as He loved us. And Ephesians 3:10 tells us that “by the church the manifold wisdom of God” is made known to rules and authorities in the heavenly realm.
In effect, being a healthy church makes the task of evangelism and missions more compelling and effective. When the Bride of Christ gathers and commits herself to loving the way she is called to, then the supremacy of Christ and the love of God are made brilliant for an on looking, perishing world. But if we undermine or downplay the centrality of the church, we in effect undermine the one institution wherein Christ is embodied and His glorious wisdom made known.

6. You write “Conclusions” and sections “For Further Reflections” at the end of every chapter. If you were to write something comparable for the end of this interview concerning What Is a Healthy Church Member?, what would you say?

Based on Ephesians 4:11–5:2 and comparable passages, I would ask the readers to consider how essential God intends the local church to be in their lives. I would ask that they see how intertwined their spiritual health is with the life and witness of their local fellowship. The very purpose for which Christ gives gifted people to the body is to prepare them for works of service (4:12). Their spiritual maturity is not a matter of completing consecutive months and years of “quiet times”—though personal devotion is critical—but of being an active member of the body of Christ exercising your gifts so that others are built up even as they are built up by receiving the blessings stemming from the gifts of others (4:13, 15–16). We learn to put on Christ in the church (4:20–25). And as we are kind and forgiving of others in our churches, we increasingly become imitators of God, living a life of love which pleases God (4:32–5:2). All that we need to grow up into Christ and to see others grow in Him, God provides in and through the Body of His Son. I would want to ask if we have deeply understood this stunning reality and if that is reflected in our involvement in a local body of Christ.

Title: What Is A Healthy Church Member?
Author: Thabiti M. Anyabwile
Publisher: Crossway
Covertype: Hardcover
Pages: 128
Release Date: June 30th
Retail: $12.99/RHB price: $9.00
Available for pre-order here.

Books on church vitality and health have largely been directed toward pastors. I suppose this is wise, for a church with ill-informed leadership is bound to be riddled with problems. Yet the church is more than just its pastors. The whole congregation makes up the body of Christ, and every member carries a certain responsibility in that body. Thabiti M. Anyabwile’s What Is a Healthy Church Member? is a welcome addition to books addressing the health of the church.

Anyabwile’s book is part of Crossway’s 9Marks series, and as such, seeks to address the concerns of Mark Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church from yet another angle. In fact, Anyabwile’s chapters mirror those nine characteristics that Dever discusses, focusing them on the common member, and adding one. Here is a summary of Anyabwile’s 10 marks of a healthy Christian.

Mark 1: Where Dever’s first mark of a healthy church is expositional preaching, Anyabwile encourages Christians to perform expositional listening. That is, it is not good enough to attend a church with solid preaching. Believers should be active in listening to the sermon to discern the meaning of the Scripture, accept it, and apply it to their lives. Anyabwile goes on to discuss the benefits of such listening skills and gives practical suggestions for cultivating this mark.

Mark 2: Since a healthy church adheres to biblical theology, healthy church members should be biblical theologians. They should desire to know God more and know the overarching themes of the Bible. Here, Anyabwile shows why biblical theology promotes vitality in Christians and how to become theologically informed members.

Mark 3: If a healthy church is committed to a proper understanding of the gospel, healthy church members are gospel saturated. They will think about the good news of Jesus Christ, strive to understand it more, continually draw comfort and strength from it, and boast in it. In an age where the gospel is treated as if it were only good for addressing the unconverted, it is comforting to read that the gospel is good news for the Christian, too!

Mark 4: Because a healthy church has a biblical understanding of conversion, the healthy members will be genuinely converted. They will dig past the presumptive, easy-believism that inundates the evangelical scene, and exercise self-examination. Anyabwile encourages a better understanding of conversion and gives valuable directions for knowing better the state of one’s own soul.

Mark 5: A church having a biblical understanding of evangelism will have members that are biblical evangelists. They take delight in the gospel and share it with others.

Mark 6: While churches should seek to implement a biblical understanding of church membership, healthy Christians will likewise seek to be committed members of a local congregation. They will dedicate themselves to loving the brethren and building them up in the Lord. Here we see a thoughtful description of what committed church members look like.

Mark 7: If practicing biblical church discipline faithfully is a mark of a healthy church, healthy church members will seek discipline. They will be open to biblical guidance and correction from others, and lovingly seek to provide them to others. Anyabwile helpfully describes what discipline looks like among members and shows how they can joyfully seek it.

Mark 8: A healthy church has a concern for discipleship and growth, so healthy church members must be growing disciples. Rather than being satisfied with nominal Christianity, they progressively increase in spiritual maturity. Here Anyabwile discusses problems in our thinking that hinder our growth, and the means God has given us to cultivate godliness.

Mark 9: Dever stresses the need for churches to implement biblical church leadership, so Anyabwile calls church members to be humble followers. This section addresses how members are to honor and love their leaders with a teachable spirit, and proposes actions they should take in order to follow the leadership of their local church.

Mark 10: Dever never stated prayer as a mark of a healthy church, since he did not see it as something that was being challenged. However, Anyabwile sees this as a point worth making, describing healthy Christians as prayer warriors. He talks about how and when church members should pray, and addresses things for which they should pray.

Throughout the book, Anyabwile presents a picture of the church as a gathering of those glorying in the gospel to represent “the body of Christ” to this world. By addressing the relationship of the individual believer to the congregation, he enables us to see that the health of the church is stunted if reform is confined to the level of leadership. Christ is interested in the whole body being built up.

I heartily recommend this book. Its greatness lies not in novelty of insight. Rather, it is found in its ability to address the everyday basics in a clear, concise, and compelling way. The sad fact is that we easily overlook simple responsibilities, and someone has to recall them to our attention.  Anyabwile does this in a winsome fashion.

Furthermore, this is not simply a book to be read by individuals. Its short, well-organized chapters with questions “for further reflection” make it helpful for study groups. This is a book for Sunday Schools, Bible studies, and other church groups to discuss together. I, for one, look forward to reading this book again, but next time reflecting upon it with my fellow church members.

—Jay T. Collier