January 12, 2015
Equipping the Body
My adult Sunday school class
is watching a DVD about leaders equipping members for ministry. The
motivational thought behind the last lesson is that we are all gifted in some area
of ministry. When we build a team, have a dream and get support we can have an
effective ministry. The presenter said, “When
you position yourself in that structure you are cooperating with God’s
structure.” Unfortunately on today’s church landscape, changes in leadership
often means changes in church direction and ministry. I think it’s a tragedy
when ministries are eliminated, destroyed, and replaced — all for the sake of
change. We have children’s Sunday school teachers who no longer teach; youth
group leaders who no longer sponsor; and hand bell choirs who no longer
perform. Leadership sometimes forgets, “…But God has combined the members of
the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts
should have equal concern for each other. If one part
suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part
rejoices with it” (1 Cor 12:24b-26 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----How is it that God called us to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ then gave some other dude to be head over that relationship? Have the Scriptures assigned that position to anyone? Actually, they do: Jesus Christ is head of His church. There’s no assignment of that post to any church leaders. Then what about obeying your leaders according to Heb 13:17? Probably the same is about it as is about everyone being fully convinced in their own mind (Rom 14:5.) Church leaders are people given only a certain amount of authority who take far more than that, as people are wont to do. The scriptural positions of leadership cover a variety of responsibilities, but none of those involve possessing Christ’s church to define by themselves anything of its ministries and functions, to tell anyone to shut-up or speak-up or do this or do that. Yet they run around like four-star generals commanding a regiment of troops.
-----Somehow, the mind of Christ has become foggy in the heads of church leaders. We’ve examined that mind before as Philippians 2 describes it, looking also to the interests of others, emptying the self and taking the form of servants, and as Romans 15 adds, each pleasing his neighbor to edify him and welcoming each other. This rather calls into question the program shuffling done by leaders always prowling to find something of the church they can shape more after their own spiritual ambitions.
-----Don’t get me wrong. The Bible does give authority to leaders. But it as much constrains that authority by 1) each believer’s personal interests in the Lord and convictions about the Lord, and 2) the same command for leaders to pay attention to and serve those interests of others the same way as Philippians directs for all to do. Then it constrains the individual's freedom by directing submission to the leaders.
-----The paradox does sort out. Paul directed Timothy and Titus to select men well matured in the spirit for leadership positions. Doctrines must be maintained consistently with the truth. Godly behaviors amongst the people must be stirred up; bad behaviors must be repressed; basically, the ways of the new life must be taught, encouraged, and stimulated. Personally, I believe there is something wrong in a church whose elders do not know and maintain personal relationships with the people of the church. It is they whom the leaders serve, who need stirred-up, educated, and edified. It is they about whom Christ has interest and for whom He gave His life. They are around whom the necessities of services are shaped. So, why should the services change just because leaders changed when the people of the church have not?
-----Church has become a place to go and a thing to do. Most people have come to think of it like the local movie theatre, except you are not required to pay admission before entering the great majority of them. Once there, whatever the leaders have envisioned to perform is the program of the morning. When the final curtain goes down, we all go home. If we felt evangelical, we pitched a few bucks into the missionary program. If we felt a little compassionate, we pitched a can of beans into the food bank. Everything of it has become just representations. And then, seeing most leadership positions limited to four years or less, rather than being the lifetime service Scriptures make of them, we might suspect those posts have become mere representations of spirituality as well.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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