Marva J. Dawn is a Christian theologian, author, musician, and educator associated with the para-Church organization Christians Equipped for Ministry, Vancouver, Washington. She also serves as Teaching Fellow in Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dawn is generally perceived as a Lutheran evangelical. She often writes in a paleo-orthodox style, stressing the importance of Christian tradition and the wisdom of the Church through the centuries.

A scholar with four master's degrees and a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics and the Scriptures from the University of Notre Dame, she has taught for clergy and worship conferences and at seminaries throughout the United States and Canada and in Australia, England, Hong Kong, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, and Scotland. She is also well-known as a preacher and speaker for all ages and sometimes contributes to worship by means of her musical gifts. She is married to Myron Sandberg.

Her 1995 book Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time (ISBN 0802841023 ), which urged a second look at so-called "contemporary Christian worship", caused a stir in evangelical circles as the first scholarly work from within the evangelical community to seriously question "seeker sensitive" style worship. Dawn claims that much contemporary worship, which seeks primarily to evangelize through entertainment, isn't really Christian worship at all. Rather than focus on bringing people into the Church through worship, Dawn argues that worship should instead focus upon the glory and grace of the triune God, not ignoring the artistic treasures and traditions of the Church through the ages. The book remains her most widely read and most talked about work. Dawn continued this exploration in her 1999 book A Royal "Waste" of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World (ISBN 080284586X ).

Some other notable works include:

• How Shall We Worship?: Biblical Guidelines for the Worship Wars (ISBN 0842356363 )
• Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting (ISBN 0802804578 )
• Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God (honored with the 2002 Christianity Today Book Award in the category of The Church/Pastoral Leadership) (ISBN 0802847706 )
• Truly the Community: Romans 12 and How to Be the Church (formerly called The Hilarity of Community) (ISBN 0802844669 )
• The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call (with Eugene Peterson) (ISBN 0802846785 )