I’ve been invited to speak to a group of pastors (actually a local Baptist association’s pastors breakfast). My topic will be “The Church and Shepherding in the NT.”
The topic was suggested to my by the person who invited me to speak. He had read a few things that I had written about leaders and service in the NT. He said he thought it would be good to discuss the relationships between elders/pastors/leader and others in the church according to the NT. As he said, this would then lead to a discussion of the nature of the church.
So, thinking through these issues (leadership, service to others, nature of the church), what passages of Scripture do you think would be important to this type of discussion?
Today I’ve been talking about leaders… specifically the emphasis that is placed on leaders in today’s church. We don’t typically see that emphasis in Scripture.
Yes, there were leaders in the NT church and there are a few passages that speak directly to or about leaders. But, primarily, the NT authors addressed all believers… whether leaders or not.
I think this passage from 1 Thessalonians is becoming one of my favorite passages about leaders in the church. Why? Because the passage about leaders is directly followed by a passage about everyone:
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 ESV)
Of course, I would translate it a little differently. The phrase that the ESV translates “are over you” is actually the phrase “lead you.” Also, the word translated “brothers” would probably better be translated “brothers and sisters.”
It’s also interesting that Paul writes exhortation in the plural: “We urge you…” instead of “I urge you…”
One more thing… in discipleship terms, the strongest command in this passage is probably “admonish” which is a command given to both all “brothers and sisters” and to “those who lead you.”
Thinking about my previous post called “Is the Church Top Heavy?“, I ran across this article by Ed Stetzer called “The Problem with Pastor as Rock Star.” Stetzer sees the same problem with too much emphasis on leadership (maybe) and especially on one man (the “Pastor”).
He says “rock star” pastors lead to problems in personal imbalance, hindering community, approval addiction, and selling out the church’s future. This is what he says about the problem of rockstar pastors “hindering community”:
If the church life revolves around one person’s speaking gift, it is incredible difficult to move to community. A community “won” to a single voice is not won to community, but to spectatorship. Thus, when pastors say, “it’s all about the weekend,” they tend to create an audience rather than a biblically functioning church community. This is still true if your church is an oft-criticized seeker megachurch or a your verse-by-verse preaching point. Either way, if you get thousands sitting in rows but can’t move them to sitting in circles, true community is hard to find.
As a guy who travels around speaking, I understand how quickly it can happen. For the last few weeks, I’ve spoken at a church close to my own house while the pastor is on a short sabbatical. But even in delivering biblical messages, I’m not engaging in biblical community with those people. It takes more than a stage to create a community. The temptation must be fought that a mass of people gathered to hear one person speak is equal to biblical community.
A gifted communicator can draw a crowd, but biblical community will sustain a congregation. A great orator is fun to have at worship, but cannot build community during the other six days and 23 hours of the week. Great preaching will be used by God to bring others to faith and sanctify God’s people, but it will also encourage the body to do life together on mission.
I’m not saying that every person in the community should have immediate access to the pastor. But I am saying that every pastor should be in some accountable biblical community.
I agree with Stetzer that this is a problem. I disagree with his solution, which seems to be for the pastor to be a little less of a rockstar.
What do you think the solution is? How would a church move from emphasizing leadership to emphasizing community?
I struggled with what to name this post. I almost called it “Does the Church Overemphasize Leaders.”
A few days ago, I was talking with a friend about leadership among Christians as represented in Scripture. My friend made an interesting observation. He said, “Scripture talks about leaders far less than the church today talks about or relies upon leaders.”
I think my friend is right. So, I started thinking to myself, “Is the church today top heavy?” As I thought about it, I determined that I could answer that question, “Yes,” or I could answer it, “No.”
In one sense, the church is top heavy today because of the emphasis that is place on specific leaders. In many churches, leadership functions are reduced to the giftings and abilities and talents and time and energy and resources of one man (or a few men, at most). In this sense, the church is not top heavy in numbers, but it is top heavy in emphasis. Leaders receive more of the emphasis and attention.
When a decision has to be made (or someone wants a decision made – there is a difference), the church turns to their leader(s). When a question is raised, the leader(s) is expected to provide the answer. When there is a problem or struggle, everyone expects the leader(s) to provide the solution.
This is “top heavy” in the sense that roles and responsibilities are falling on the shoulders of leaders today, while in Scripture we see the entire church tackling these decisions, questions, and problems.
On the other hand (and in another sense of the term “top heavy”), our modern, traditional church structure indicates that the church is not as top heavy as we see in Scripture. Again, we tend to see one person or a few people leading. These people are responsible for the teaching, discipling, admonishing, training… pretty much everything that the church does in Scripture. We relegate other (non-necessary) duties to non-leaders.
In Scripture, we see something different. Everyone takes part in teaching, discipling, admonishing, training, etc. The entire church works together to serve their community and proclaim the gospel to those how are not believers. Thus, many, many more took part in “leadership” in the examples that we see in Scripture. In other words, when it comes to number of people functioning, the church today is not as top heavy as the church in Scripture.
So, yes, today the church is top heavy in the emphasis that is placed on one leader or a few leaders. But, the church is not top heavy when it comes to the functions that every believer should take part in.
In fact, as you can probably tell, these two senses of “top heavy” work together. Since we emphasize one leader or a few leaders, then others are not required to (or even allowed to) function as they should. And (to look at it another way), since everyone is not functioning as they should (to build up one another together), then one or a few have to bear the brunt of the responsibility.
My primary responsibility while in Alaba, Ethiopia was to teach a class for church leaders. The class was held for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon for five days.
Several different types of church leaders were represented in the class – men and women; paid and non-paid; city and village; established and non-established; evangelists, pastors, and elders. (In Alaba, an “established” church has a building and is recognized by the local government as an official organization.)
In order to attend the teaching sessions and to receive money for lunch each day, the attendees had to pre-register, read 1 Corinthians twice (the book that I taught during the session), and memorize 1 Corinthians 2:1-10. I like this passage because Paul reminds his readers (and us) about the important of the wisdom of God. In fact, living according to the wisdom of God became the theme of my teaching sessions.
At the beginning of each morning and afternoon session, three of the students would recite the memory passage. As they recited, others would follow along in their Bibles. If someone stumbled on a word, the entire group would say the word quietly. These leaders had no trouble memorizing 1 Corinthians 2:1-10, and they had no trouble understanding the importance of relying on the wisdom of God instead of human wisdom. I think this was important for them to think about, because education is very important in their culture. At times it seemed they put too much emphasis on formal education, especially when it comes to leading the church and teaching Scriptures.
Throughout the week, we stressed living according to the wisdom of God in different situations, and how the wisdom of God often looked different than the wisdom of the world. I encouraged these church leaders to teaching and live according to the wisdom of God. But I also reminded them that any believer can live and teach according to the wisdom of God because every believer is indwelled by the Spirit of God. Thus, I hope these leaders will take this back to other Christians in the church in Alaba.
Also, I would begin each morning session with a short lesson on church leadership. Each lesson would begin with a passage of Scripture (Acts 20:28, Hebrews 13:7, 1 Peter 5:1-3, etc.). We would talk about the importance of caring for God’s people as opposed to being busy with administrative or organizational work. We would also talk about the importance of serving and living as an example for others to imitate.
In the middle of each morning and afternoon session, we would have a coffee (buna) break. The entire class would be served coffee (mixed with butter and salt), tea, and kolo (roasted grain). During the breaks we would stand or sit around and talk with one another. While I wish I was able to communicate better with them, this was some of the best times of the teaching sessions for me. This is where they would usually talk about the lessons we had been learning and would put them in their own cultural context.
If I could change anything about these sessions, I would have begun with a more interactive format. I had originally planned to teach using dialog or discussion, but I ended up changing to a mostly lecture format. (I chickened out, to be honest, because they were accustomed to lecture teaching.)
While some topics in 1 Corinthians were difficult to teach because I did not know their culture or customs very well, one part of 1 Corinthians was easier to teach. When the Christians prayed in this area, they all said “Amen” at certain points based on what the person said. For example, whenever someone said, “Thank you for…” everyone would respond “Amen.” Thus, it was very easy to teach the importance of interpreting tongues (understanding what another is saying) and especially Paul’s illustration in 1 Corinthians 14:16.
This was a great teaching and learning opportunity for me. While I learned from the students, I think I would have learned more if I had made the teaching more interactive. (I did change some things later when I taught a group of teenagers.)
By the way, we were in Ethiopia during the rainy season. It rained almost every day that we were there, and often rained all day. Of course, this also meant that the temperatures were mild (well, mild for us but extremely cold for them). The video below shows the rain and mud. But, at the end of the video, you’ll see part of my class as they are gathering one morning.
I love blogging. I know, that comes as a surprise to you. But, it’s true.
However, there is a type of blogging that I love more than most. What kind of blogging is that? It’s when a blogger reads another blogger’s post, and then responds with his or her own thoughts. Then, it gets even better when another blogger picks up the topic and continues the discussion.
I’ve seen this happen a couple of times recently, and I wanted to point it out. Here are two “threads” that I’ve been fortunate to be a part of recently:
A couple of years ago, I started a “chain blog” on the concept of “city church” that was designed to encourage just this sort of interaction. Perhaps I should start another “chain blog”. (Read this post for more information about “Chain Blogging.”)
What topics would you like to see several bloggers write about and discuss?
Last week, on my post “Honest Questions About Elders/Pastors“, I thought the comments were very good. In reply to two of the comments, I said the following:
As I see it, if a person is not acting as an elder before that person is recognized/appointed by the church as an elder, then that person should not be recognized/appointed. Of course, that means that the person is doing everything an elder should do BEFORE he is an elder…
I think of “elder” as a recognition by the church that someone is doing well (or at least consistently) everything that all believers should be doing.
These comments represent my view of elders over the last few years, but a huge change in my view from several years ago. I thought I would take the opportunity to explain some of the implications of this view of elders.
First, there is nothing in the scriptural description of elders that should not be a description of all believers. All believers should have blameless character. All believers should care for their families. All believers should treat other Christians and outsiders properly. All believers should teach and care for (shepherd) and watch out for (oversee) one another.
Second, the fact that all believers SHOULD live in a certain way does not mean that all believers ARE living that way. Thus, the church should recognize (appoint, if you prefer) those who are living more consistently in the way that all believers should live. These are elders.
Third, people are recognized as elders because of the way they are ALREADY living, not so that they will do something different once they are recognized. This requires that all believers be allowed and expected to operate and function together. (In other words, we can’t allow only certain people to teach. All must be allowed to teach so that those who are “able to teach” will be obvious to all.)
Finally, (and I suppose I could add many, many more things to this list) this view of elders requires that believers ALREADY KNOW the people they are recognizing (appointing) as elders. They have already lived with them. They have learned from their teaching. They have grown from their example. They have accepted their correction. They have observed their service.
So, what do you think about my view of elders? What would you add?
I have an honest question about elders (or pastors, if you prefer). (“Honest” means that I’m actually asking for answers…)
For most of my life (including today), I have heard something like this: “Elders (pastors) are responsible for the teaching/preaching ministry of the church.”
Sometimes, I hear it this way: “The senior pastor is responsible for the teaching/preaching ministry of the church.”
Now, in context, the statement usually means (at least) teaching/preaching to the congregation once per week (usually more often).
But, here’s my honest question: Can this position be justified from Scripture? If so, how?
Like I said, this is an honest question. I would appreciate comments in answer to this question (these questions), especially from those who agree with the positions stated above.
My friend Adam from “adamic” has posted a very interesting question in his post “Church Leader as Jesus?” He points to a “missional” class that he says sounds like it is teaching that a pastor should “fill Christ’s role in the local body.” He says:
On further digging, my fears appear confirmed. Each course’s description ends, “This course will focus on the pastor as prophet . . . pastor as priest . . . pastor as king.” I’m not sure where in Scripture you get the idea that the pastor is to fill all the offices of Christ in the local body. Do you know?
Like I commented to Adam, this sounds more like Ignatius than Paul. I’m hoping someone answers his concerns.
So, I’ve published two posts in the last two days about “women in ministry,” that is, about women serving others. (see “Spiritual Gifts and Women” and “Spiritually Gifted Women“) In those two posts, I suggested that 1) the NT authors did not limit the spiritual gifts that God gives women, and 2) it is proper to use titles such as apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher, shepherd, leader, etc. to refer to women.
Also, in both posts, I pointed out that God gives spiritual gifts so that the one gifted can serve others. So, it would appear that God does intend for such spiritually gifted women to serve others.
In general, these are not the hotly debated issues when it comes to “women in ministry.” Instead, the heated debates surround questions such as:
Should a woman be an elder (pastor/preacher)?
Should a woman be a Bible study teacher?
Should a woman teach men?
Should a woman be a deacon?
Since the modern church tends to view “pastor” and “preacher” as synonymous with “elder,” I’m combined those into one question. In Scripture, though, a “pastor” is one who shepherds, and I’ve already suggested that it is appropriate to refer to a woman who exercises the spiritual gift of shepherding with that title… if a title has to be used. Similarly, a “preacher” in Scripture is one who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers. Since we are all called to proclaim the gospel (including women), I see no problem with calling a woman a “preacher.”
Once again, though, the problem is the way that the modern church uses those terms, not with the biblical usage of the terms. Thus, in today’s church, when someone says “preacher,” that person is probably referring to an elder who regularly teaches the church. That person is probably not using the term “preacher” to refer to someone who regularly proclaims the gospel to unbelievers. Thus, we have problems due to our use of words, not due to commands or prohibitions in Scripture.
Once we get past those differences in word usage (that is, the difference between the way we generally use words today and the way the words are used in Scripture), we still must deal with certain passages of Scripture that deal with the context of women serving others. Primarily, those passages are 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Others would include 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-9.
I am not going to exegete those passages at this time. That’s not the purpose of this post or this series. Instead, I would like to point out that differences of interpretation in these passages… and, in fact, those different interpretation are not new. Followers of Jesus Christ has disagreed about the meaning of those passages for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
So, I do not intend to present another interpretation – my interpretation is already out there among the myriad of other interpretation. One of them is correct… perhaps.
But, how do we deal with instances where people disagree over the interpretations of these passages and others like them? What do we do when someone limits the role of women more than we think is correct, or when someone gives more freedom to the service of women than we think is correct?
In my denomination, the rule has been to separate from churches who decide that women can serve in more contexts than the denomination allows. In other denominations, it has been the role to allow any interpretation.
So, what do we do? How do we handle these differences when we meet together with other believers?
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