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As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures.

Mark Dever

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Mark Dever
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 28
Erudite
Missionary
Pastor
Preacher
Theologian
Writer
the United States of America
Church
Remains
Measuring
Success
Terms
Fidelity
Truth
Begin
Scriptures
Must
Health
Churches
Long
Instead
Primaries
Numerical
Growth
Primary
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Numbers
Quick
Compromised
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Scripture
Indicators

More quotes by Mark Dever

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We can't know at any given time how God will bless our faithful witness. So the apparent numerical growth of the church is never a good guide to how faithful we have been in evangelism.
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We mustn't be content to just sit around pointing out the errors in others we actually need to be sharing the gospel and praying for people to be converted.
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If you need wisdom and guidance, then pray to the Lord to guide you.
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Today is what the Lord has prepared you for.
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The church is the gospel made visible.
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By the grace of God I am what I am
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Evangelism is not simply looking at someone and saying, Look, you have to become a Christian. Instead, an evangelist tells us the truth about who God is, and explains where we stand as a result of that. People can ignore us - indeed, they have every legal right to do so.
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As a pastor, I have the opportunity every week to share the gospel publicly in a way that most of the members sitting in our church do not. However, that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for reaching others with the gospel.
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Too often preachers want to deal with people simply at the level of publicly accessible reason. We participate with them in their own epistemology. But this is not New Testament preaching. We have a message that is not from this world it is from God. We don't know it by our own cleverness we know it because God has revealed it.
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Most people are glad for somebody else to share their own story of how they have found spiritual help. The problems start when you begin to universalize your story - when your narrative becomes authoritative and begins affecting their lives as well.
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Forgetfulness of God's grace is one of the greatest tools in the enemy's war against our souls.
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There is no gospel without the offence. This is God's wisdom. It never seems sensible to us in our flesh.
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We may be sinking in the North Atlantic in the most famous ship disaster of all time, but God can still use us to reach out and save others through our witness.
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We do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted we fail only if we do not faithfully tell the gospel at all.
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Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.
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What really concerns me is for Christians to understand the fundamentals of evangelism in a way that is helpful in the contemporary scene.
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An evangelist no more imposes his views on others than a pilot imposes his views on his passengers when he lands a plane on a runway. I bet the passengers are glad!
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I don't have any way to control the Spirit or create revival. I pray that the Holy Spirit would move upon the church, but at the same time, I want to busy evangelizing. I am not one of those people who moan and pray for revival all the time, but do nothing.
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There is simply so much reason to believe the good news of Jesus Christ in history, in Scripture, as well as in our own experience that it would take a leap of faith not to believe in the gospel.
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God can use even stray, honest comments to bring people to himself.
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