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. d 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. d 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. d 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 d 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
