Greg Gilbert

Dealing with Bad Documents

By Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Confessions, Covenants, and Constitutions: How to Organize Your Church | 02.26.2010

Very often a new pastor will find a statement of faith like our church had—unclear at best and heretical at worst.

What Is this Thing, Anyway? A Multi-Site Taxonomy

By Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Multi-site Churches | 02.26.2010

Congregational? Presbyterian? Episcopalian? Presbygational? Conbypalian? Epigregyterian? I've heard them all (even made up a few myself).

"Its just as congregational as any other church," some argue. "We have a meeting of the whole church every quarter."

"No, it's Presbyterian" others say. "You have a group of pastors that makes decisions for multiple congregations."

Give Me Doctrine or Give Me Death

By Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: The Emerging Church | 02.26.2010

If I want a Christianity that is authentic, real, textured, and alive, can I possibly have that within the narrow constraints of a structured system of doctrine?

Before You Discipline, Teach This First

By Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Church Discipline: Medicine for the Body | 02.25.2010

What might not be so obvious is that a pastor needs to teach the church about more than just church discipline before they’re ready for discipline.

Brian McLaren and the Gospel of Here & Now

By Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: The Gospel | 02.25.2010

For all his off-the-cuff casualness, McLaren is nothing if not deliberate. He has an agenda, and it’s to reset altogether the church’s understanding of the gospel.

Book Review: Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, by Rob Bell

Review by Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: The Emerging Church | 03.03.2003

Bell’s “questions” are not as innocuous as they first sound. They are the means by which he permits one to disconnect and throw away the springs one doesn’t like.

Book Review: Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, by Jim Belcher

Review by Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Church Discipline (Part 2) | 03.02.2003

The reunion Belcher is hoping for here is just not going to happen.

Book Review: Brothers, We Are NOT Professionals, by John Piper

Review by Greg Gilbert | 11.05.2002

This book will be a great encouragement, and a convicting exhortation, to every pastor in America.

Book Review: Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace, by Harvie Conn

Review by Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Young Pastors | 09.02.2002

For a mature Christian who is thinking through these issues, Conn’s discussion will spark thoughts and will at least begin to chart a course in the right direction.

Book Review: Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches, ed. by Thomas White, Jason G. Deusing, and Malcomb B. Yarnell, III

Review by Greg Gilbert | 9Marks Journal: Church Discipline (Part 1) | 09.02.2002

Allen’s chapter aside, this book is a generally well-articulated statement of some important Baptist distinctives.

Book Review: When People Are Big and God is Small, by Ed Welch

Review by Greg Gilbert | 08.02.2002

This book would be useful to any pastor who is willing to have numerous and extended conversations with his people.

Book Review: Hearing God, by Dallas Willard

Review by Greg Gilbert | 07.02.2002

I think there are probably better, more biblically careful books that hold at least some portion of what Willard is arguing.

Book Review: What’s So Amazing About Grace?, by Philip Yancey

Review by Greg Gilbert | 06.02.2002

In the end, Yancey’s conception of grace is inadequate at best.

Book Review: Worship by the Book, by D. A. Carson

Review by Greg Gilbert | 04.02.2002

Worship by the Book will be a dog-eared and threadbare favorite of any pastor serious about planning his church’s corporate gatherings with deep theological and biblical roots.

Book Review: Revolution, by George Barna

Review by Greg Gilbert | 03.05.2002

If Barna had ever been a part of a healthy, vibrant local church, perhaps he wouldn’t find it so easy to declare the local church expendable.