"Building Healthy Churches" (9Marks) Book Club

I love the idea of a book club around a more significant theme, where each simple book feeds into one aspect of that theme. Building healthy churches is a good theme, and I'm thankful for Mark Dever's outline of books for just such a trek. In light of this idea, I'm starting three book clubs for 2020. Each will use the same monthly selected book. Participants can attend any one or more of the monthly meetings. Two meetings will be in-person, and one will be over Zoom.

The books will follow the video Mark provided (above).

January: Expositional Preaching, by David Helm
February: Biblical Theology, by Nick Roark & Robert Cline
March: Sound Doctrine, by Bobby Jamieson
April: The Gospel, by Ray Ortlund
May: Conversion, by Michael Lawrence
June: Evangelism, by Mack Stiles
July: Church Membership, by Jonathan Leeman
August: Church Discipline, by Jonathan Leeman
September: Church Elders, by Jeramie Rinne
October: Discipling, by Mark Dever
November: Prayer, by John Onwuchekwa
December: Missions, by Andy Johnson

9Marks offers all 12 books for $72 in a bundle. Follow this link to learn more.

Rules for Safe Play:
Anyone can participate in this book club; however, there are some rules so everyone can get the most out of the intention of this club.

1. Participants will be required read the month's selected book prior to the Zoom meeting in order to be a part of the discussion.

2. The discussion topic of this book club is the topic of the month's selected book (listed above). Therefore, we will not introduce topics that are off-topic or beyond the topic of the month's selected book.

3. This club is a conservative Christian book club and assumes the Bible is true and that the Bible is the Word of God. Conservative, orthodox Christianity is the assumed worldview of this book club.

4. 9Marks is an organization that is theologically reformed (a.k.a., Calvinists), as are the selected books and most of the book club participants. Therefore, we will not use these meetings to argue for or against reformed theology.

Zoom Meetings.
Zoom is an easy-to-use, video conferencing software that can be used on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. SaltyBeliever.com has an account and can accommodate large groups. We'll also record the meetings and provide a link to those who were signed up but missed the meeting. Although subject to change, the Zoom meetings are scheduled as follows:

January 27th, 9 AM (MST)
March 2nd, 9 AM (MST)
March 30th, 9 AM (MST)
April 27th, 9 AM (MST)
May 18th, 9 AM (MST)
June 22nd, 9 AM (MST)
August 3rd, 9 AM (MST)
August 31st, 9 AM (MST)
September 28th, 9 AM (MST)
October 26th, 9 AM (MST)
November 23rd, 9 AM (MST)
December 28th, 9 AM (MST)

In-Person Meetings.
The Thursday group will meet at the 4th West Lee's Marketplace in downtown Salt Lake (255 North 400 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84103). However, because it won't be open in time for our meeting in January, we'll use the Lee's Marketplace in North Salt Lake for January only (725 Redwood Road, North Salt Lake, UT 84054). Lee's has donuts, breakfast food, and coffee. And the new Store Director is a great guy.

The Saturday group will meet at the North Salt Lake Lee's (725 Redwood Road, North Salt Lake, UT 84054) and we won't switch to the downtown. We'll remain at this location for the year.

Below are the dates for the first two months for each group. We'll schedule the subsequent few times at our first meeting.

Thursday Group:
January 30th, 9 AM
February 20th, 9 AM

Saturday Group:
February 1st, 8 AM
February 22nd, 8 AM

Please let me know if you're planning to attend either of these two in-person groups. (If you don't have my number, email, or are connected with me on social media, you may contact me here.)

With the nuts and bolts out of the way, it’s time to sign up, get your books, and start reading. See you at a book club gathering!
Bryan Catherman

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