Jonathan Leeman Addresses the Commonly Asked Question, "Why Should I Join a Church?"In a time when many are shunning the practice of organized religion, Jonathan Leeman offers a short book on why church membership is a critical element in every healthy Christian's maturation. By offering a brief, straightforward explanation of what church membership is and why it's important, Leeman gives the local church its proper due and builds a case for committing to the local...

Accessible Guide from 9Marks Equips Men to Steward Their God-Given AuthorityEvery position of power—in homes, churches, and boardrooms—has the potential to strengthen people or to harm them. Bad leaders abuse their authority or abdicate it. And their actions breed distrust in authority generally. Yet what do godly authority and leadership look like—the kind that causes people to flourish?Many men today have lost their bearings when it comes to leadership. In...

Accessible Guide from 9Marks Equips Believers to Steward Their God-Given AuthorityIn every position of power—from executives and world leaders to church elders and parents—lies the potential for life-giving leadership or destructive corruption. Driven by sinful pride or opportunism, many people abuse their God-given authority, harming the ones they're called to lead and contributing to a skeptical attitude toward leadership. The answer to bad authority, however, is...

Accessible Guide from 9Marks Equips Men to Steward Their God-Given AuthorityEvery position of power—in homes, churches, and boardrooms—has the potential to strengthen people or to harm them. Bad leaders abuse their authority or abdicate it. And their actions breed distrust in authority generally. Yet what do godly authority and leadership look like—the kind that causes people to flourish?Many men today have lost their bearings when it comes to leadership. In...

How can the church move forward in unity amid such political strife and cultural contention?As Christians, we've felt pushed to the outskirts of national public life, yet even within our congregations we are divided about how to respond. Some want to strengthen the evangelical voting bloc. Others focus on social justice causes, and still others would abandon the public square altogether. What do we do when brothers and sisters in Christ sit next to each other in th...

Church membership is not just a status, it’s an office. Leaders shouldn’t fire members from the responsibilities given to them by Jesus—they should train them! When members are trained, the church grows in holiness and love, discipleship and mission. Complacency and nominalism are diminished.Jesus gives every church member an office in the church’s government: to assume final responsibility for guarding the what and the who of the gospel in the church and its mini...

An expert defense of how God's holy love is biblically, theologically, and practically represented to a watching world through the practices of church membership and discipline.

God Is Love vs. Love Is GodOur culture's view of love—with no boundaries or judgments or conditions— justifies whatever our hearts want and whatever our hearts feel, rejecting any authority that gets in the way. Falsely heralded as the only path to true selfexpression and self-realization, this kind of love diminishes—if not completely redefines—the holy love of God revealed in the Bible.In this book, Jonathan Leeman directs us toward a biblical definition ...

Congregational authority is less about the meetings and more about the mission.Congregationalism has a bad rap for well-known reasons: inefficient meetings, upstart members, browbeaten ministers. But biblical congregationalism isn’t so much about the meetings. It’s about empowering the whole church to promote and protect the gospel. Pastors lead and equip. Members get to work strengthening one another and pursuing Christ’s mission in the world.

Should we actually practice church discipline today? Is it unloving?Once an ordinary part of church life, churches gradually stopped practicing church discipline in the 20th century. But Jesus commands it. Paul practiced it. And churches benefit from it. Why practice church discipline? It shows love for the individual caught in sin, love for the whole church, love for non-Christian neighbors, and love for the glory of Christ.

Jonathan Leeman addresses the commonly asked (and often unanswered) question of, "Why should I join a church?" in a time when many are shunning the practice of organized religion. By offering a brief, straightforward explanation of what church membership is and why it's important, Leeman gives the local church its proper due and builds a case for committing to the local body. Church Membership is a useful tool for churches to distribute en masse to new and potential membe...

How Can We Know What the Church Is Supposed to Do?Jesus commissioned the local church to carry out a mission. Yet local churches often disagree over exactly what Jesus commanded them to do, leading them to align their mission with current political or economic trends. So what does the Bible have to say?In this short ebook, Jonathan Leeman argues from Scripture that the mission of the church is first and foremost to make disciples—the task that each...