For several years now, erstwhile 9Marks editor and now full-time pastor Sam Emadi, with a wink, has summarized our ministry, "Yeah, I just tell people, 9Marks exists to tell pastors not to do weird stuff. Just do what's in the Bible."
Not a bad summary.
If you've not heard the term "ordinary means of grace" before, Sam has captured what many pastors today need to hear: don't do weird stuff in your church. Don't take your growth cues from a marketing team. Don't lead church services that would make P. T. Barnum or J. J. Abrams proud. Don't, in short, think you can offer something extraordinary based on your creativity or ingenuity, or that you can manufacture the extraordinary through reverse-engineering the results you want.
The Spirit has already revealed everything we need for gathering and growing churches. And, yes, it's pretty ordinary stuff. You might even be tempted to call it boring and (ironically) uninspiring. Yet the uninspiring is inspired: preaching God's Word, singing God's Word, praying God's Word, reading God's Word, and declaring God's Word through the ordinances. Those ordinary-as opposed to extraordinary-practices have been ordained. The wisdom of God often sounds like foolishness, no?
In many churches simple acts of worship have been encrusted over by years of accumulated traditions that mask the beautiful simplicity of the ordinary means of grace. Don't think you can offer something extraordinary based on your creativity or ingenuity, or that you can manufacture the extraordinary through reverse-engineering the results you want. The Spirit has already revealed everything we need for gathering and growing churches: preaching God's Word, singing God's Word, praying God's Word, reading God's Word, and declaring God's Word through the ordinances. Those ordinary-as opposed to extraordinary-practices have been ordained. Directing people's hearts and minds to God is the most important thing a church can do, and the singular activity around which everything else hangs. We need to remember that the visible church is a gathering of Christians in a local assembly to worship the Lord. This Journal, which focuses on the ordinary means of grace, presents the very heart of the 9Marks church program. What's our church model? Here it is.
Table of Contents Editor's Note
Don't Do Weird Stuff by Sam Emadi
Do Weird Stuff by Alex Duke The Why of Ordinary Means of Grace Ministry Liturgies Are the Pipes, but the Word Is the Water by Matt McCullough
Why the Ordinary Means of Grace Must Be Central in Our Gatherings by David Strain
Why Preaching Is Primary and the Ordinances Aren't by Jonty Rhodes The How of Ordinary Means of Grace Ministry How Programs Fit into an Ordinary Means of Grace Ministry by Mike McKinley
How A Good Desire for Church Growth Can Lead to Bad Ministry Practices by Harshit Singh
Good News, Ordinary Pastor! You Don't Need a Winning Personality by Dan Miller
Are Buildings Essential to Building Healthy Churches? by Adam Sinnett
Congregational Singing: Can Musical Style Dilute This Ordinary Means of Grace? by Neal Woollard The Effects of Ordinary Means of Grace Ministry Yes, Scripture Reading Really Does Change People by Terry Johnson
Yes, The Ordinances Really Do Change People by Tiago Oliveira
Yes, Preaching Really Does Change People by Mike Bullmore
Yes, Singing Really Does Change People by Shai Linne
How I Accidentally Stumbled Across-And Then Fell in Love with-the Ordinary Means of Grace by Alex Duke
Never Underestimate the Value of Ordinary, Brief, Christian Conversations by Caleb Greggsen
Between Sundays: Life in the Means of Grace by Raymond Johnson
The Freedom that Comes from Being Boringly Biblical by Eric Bancroft
"The Word Did It All" The Necessity of Preaching According to the Protestant Reformers by Shawn Wright