Pastors' Talk

For years, certain churches and ministries have referred to “virtual church” or “attending church online.” This year of COVID-19—the “anti-gathering virus,” as Mark puts it in this episode—has made such phrases even more popular.

Paul says pastors must be “well thought of by outsiders.” But Jesus says we’re “blessed” when others speak evil about us, even falsely.What do we do with this? How much should a pastor care about his reputation?

Episode 149 explained what “cleaning the rolls” means, and why pastors should lead their churches to do it. Episode 150 continues the conversation, but focuses on how to actually get it done.Jonathan Leeman, Mark Dever, and Matt Schmucker discuss.

Some churches report hundreds of members, with dozens in attendance. These churches need to “clean their rolls.”Jonathan Leeman chats with Mark Dever and Matt Schmucker about what that means and why churches should do it.

Healthy churches plant churches. But how? What causes a church to “bubble over”? Here’s one way.

Broadly speaking, “theonomy” is the theological persuasion that civil societies ought to be governed by the Mosaic Law. In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever chat with T. David Gordon about the errors and appeal of theonomy.

We just released a new Journal: Pastoring through Political Turmoil. In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan chats with Mark about the Journal in particular and the topic of pastoring through an election season in general.

In this episode of Pastors Talk, Mark and Jonathan talk about how pastors can prepare their people for a tough political season.

How do you prevent a potential friction between staff and lay elders? How do you ensure they’re not just “yes men”? How much deference should non-staff elders give others? In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman, Mark Dever, and Klon Kitchen continue their conversation on lay elders.

Churches ought to have elders. Some will be paid (1 Tim. 5), but many will be not. These unpaid elders are called “lay elders.” Is this distinction in this Bible? Are lay elders “minor-league elders”? Are they called to ministry in the same way senior pastors are? How can a church make sure that there isn’t a deep divide between elders who are paid by the church and those who aren’t?In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman chats with Mark Dever and Klon Kitchen (a lay elder at Cheverly Baptist Church) about these questions and more.

In this inaugural episode of Bible Talk, Alex Duke chats with Jim Hamilton and Sam Emadi about the first three chapters of Genesis. These first three chapters of the Bible are so important because they set the trajectory for everything that comes next—all the way until we get to Revelation 22.Bible Talk is available on iTunes, Spotify and 9Marks.org.

Jonathan and Mark chat about Grace Community Church’s decision, civil disobedience, and how Christians ought to approach this season with an extra amount of charity and grace.

In this special episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman asks Mark Dever to reflect on his friendship with J. I. Packer.

As Christians, we know we should pray. But too often, we fail to because we simply don’t desire to.

Sadly, missing church is common. Sometimes, it's for good reasons; other times, it's not. As a pastor, how many times have you heard a member tell you, "I'm so sorry we missed last Sunday—we just couldn't make it with everything we have going on!"?In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman chats with Mark Dever and Gunner Gundersen about how we should respond to those who simply don't feel like going to church—and so they miss for this-or-that reason.

Many pastors feel pressure from their members to speak up on social media. “Why aren’t you talking about ___________? Don’t you care?”In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman chats with Mark Dever about how pastors ought to approach social media use.

In this Pastors Talk episode, Jonathan chats with Mark about the new 9Marks Journal: On Shepherding — The Work and Character of a Pastor. They focus on three traits of a pastor:— They should be godly & gifted, but especially godly.— They should care about other churches.— They shouldn’t freak out.

In his book Revival & Revivalism, Iain Murray defines revival as God using ordinary means to effect extraordinary change. That’s much different than revivalism, which is when man tries to use extraordinary means to effect the same, extraordinary change.Can you tell the difference between the two? Is it even possible? In this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan asks Mark to take a brief tour of church history so that pastors and Christians today can discern the difference between revival—a good thing—and revivalism—a bad thing.