in your narrative of the unhealthy elements of your church the one thing that
stood out most was your local church inability to allow the pastor functioning in the
role God intended. a The reason I took this stance is throughout your narrative you
indicated that the congregation wanted to be more involved in the decision and
delegation of the task from the pastor, however before the pastor can delegate
task he must first establish the appropriate culture for the church. a As scripture
tells the believer to “each is given spiritual gifts some apostles, some prophets,
evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the
work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-12, NKJV).
Before he can delegate any authority he must explain and teach the congregation
in the direction God has purposed him for in the church. a I think your church would
be able to grow in discipleship by following a similar pattern that Rick Warren
references in his book “A Purpose Driven Church”, when he talks about the leader
establishing the vision and then developing a congregation to believes in his vision
and when everyone buys into the vision of the pastor the church is able to grow
and leaders can be trusted with task because everyone is operating with the focus
being on a singular vision for the ministry, rather it is growth with young
congregants or unbelievers, most make a plan establish the vision and allow the
leader to lead.
I can understand the fact that the seniors were a bit resistant to change, that is
one reason that my brother moved from his first church, many of the seniors were
unsure of adding the singles and college age groups to the church, there was a lot
of old money being given to the church, specifically when the older congregants
passed. Having to teach them is it just your preference or is it biblical in what they
are resisting a may be something that would need to be taught. Even the new
pastor who has been used to doing everything, I can see if they are coming from
a smaller church and not used to having people to delegate to or work together
with to provide the ministry, we need to remember that Paul taught to the whole
church not just those in church leadership, that the whole church was responsible
for the teaching and responsibility of what they have heard.[1] You stated that your
local church is “not perfect but has an increasingly positive, healthy status.” I think
that no church is perfectly healthy as they are led by broken people and I would
hope that all churches would want to be in a healthy status, and many are not and
do not know it, so they need to really look at themselves and see where they
need to work on first as it is not a onetime fix, but a constant working just as our
relationship with Christ is.
[1] Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, 3rd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway,
2013), 235.
References:
Dever, Mark “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church”, Washington, DC, Crossway, 2013
Warren, Rick, “The Purpose Driven Church: Growth without compromising your
message and mission”, Grands Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 1995
