What are the characteristics we are looking for in a “9Marks-Friendly Church”? See below:

We believe God speaks through His written Word, the Bible. Churches must be committed to the faithful preaching and teaching of Scripture, where pastors explain, apply, and submit themselves to God’s Word week after week.

We believe baptism is for believers who personally profess faith in Jesus Christ, and that church membership should consist of baptized believers committed to one another in a local church.

We believe salvation is entirely by God’s grace. God is sovereign in salvation, and yet human beings are responsible to repent and believe the gospel.

We believe church membership is a biblical responsibility and that Christians are called to actively love, serve, and care for one another within the body of Christ. We also believe that churches should be clear about who their members are, and exercise church discipline in cases of unrepentant sin.

We believe local churches should be led by qualified elders, but that the congregation must hold final authority in church matters. We also affirm distinct biblical roles for men and women in the church and home, and that the office of elder/pastor is reserved for qualified men.

We believe that God has revealed in Scripture how his people ought to worship him. Churches should be committed to the ordinary means of grace - preaching the Bible, praying the Bible, reading the Bible, singing the Bible, and seeing the Bible in the ordinances.

We believe that the Lord has given sufficient instruction to his church about how the local church is to be organized and how it is to carry out its mission. We believe that faithfulness requires us, as churches, to adhere as closely as we are able those instructions, regardless of what we may think of their effectiveness or relevance. We deny that any ecclesiologicalor missiological practice is to be favored “because it works” or “because it produces results” or “because it reverse-engineers a movement.” We seek to follow the King’s commands as given in the Bible.