22. Don’t shut down; don’t try to do too much. You can’t install a new church vision during a preacher search. You really shouldn’t ordain new elders during a search. After all, the new preacher will want to have met and be very, very comfortable with the new elders. You can’t do that and be in the midst of an ordination process.
But don’t stop doing church. Send short-term missions off. Institute new mission efforts. Have energetic campaigns for the new adult ed program. Give the sense that things are happening — because they really are.
The temptation is to put as many things as possible on hold, but if you do, the membership will feel the lack of vibrancy and leadership. They’ll sense the lack of direction. Some will leave.
23. Communicate. At least monthly, tell the church what’s going on, even though you can’t say much. After all, you can’t announce the names of candidates if they haven’t yet met with their own elders to let them know they are talking to you. You can’t talk about the details of salary negotiation.
But you can tell the church how many candidates are on your list. You can tell them how many interviews you’ve conducted. You can make sure they know that you are working hard. And you can remind them to help you find candidates and to recommend names. You can — and should — ask them to continue to pray for the search.
Put someone in charge of making sure you won’t forget to communicate with the church (you will). In fact, after about 6 months without a preacher, you’ll dread getting up and announcing that you still don’t have a preacher.
But if great things are happening at church, if the congregation has been warned how long this will take, if the interim preacher is pretty good, the church will be patient. But none of this will excuse a failure to communicate.
24. Keep your candidates’ confidences. Candidates are paranoid about confidentiality. If the elders or search committee has a leak, word will get back to the candidate very quickly. Remember, there are just two degrees of separation.
If anyone leaks a name (or hints about the city he is from or whatever), he or she must be summarily removed from the committee. If the committee can’t keep a confidence, the church’s reputation will be ruined and its ability to hire a minister will be destroyed.
Keep your candidates’ confidences. Warn the search committee (and church secretary and your wives) that blabbing a name or even the least little hint will ruin your chance to hire someone.
Then say the same thing to the entire congregation. If someone wheedles a name out of an elder, they should know that the elder may have to resign and that the candidate named will certainly not come. Be plain. Repeat the message often.
In fact, by telling the church this, they’ll feel more like a part of the process, because their silence and discipline helps make it all happen.
The members will be frustrated not knowing the names and quality of candidates being interviewed. The search committee and elders will be frustrated not being able to share the progress they’re making. It’s tough, but there’s no avoiding the fact that you can’t give out a candidate’s name without his permission.
25. The try out weekend. How well you plan the weekend reflects on the elders and the congregation.
* It’s important that the congregation be cautioned that the church is being tried out just as much as the minister. A try out weekend goes both ways, and members should not be high handed in their dealings with the preacher. More importantly, the elders should not come across as high handed.
* Don’t over-schedule. Travel wears people out. Being interviewed wears people out. Give them some down time. Give them time to recover after a long drive or plane trip.
* Be clear that you intend to pay travel expenses, and pay promptly without reminder.
* Buy the plane tickets. Book the hotel. Don’t make the preacher advance the costs.
* If your town has a decent hotel, offer to put the preacher and his family up there. Don’t scrimp by having him stay at a deacon’s house. If you do that, he’ll never really have any down time. He and his wife won’t be able to talk forthrightly with each other about their decision. (The exception is when they have friends in town and want to stay with them.)
* Most preachers struggle to make friends at church. Have at least one social event (not an interview) with people their age. Show them that you have families that they’ll connect with and enjoy spending many years with. Keep it intimate and low key. Cook out or otherwise socialize over food.
* Ask the preacher what he wants to do. He may be ready to house shop. If so, help him find a truly good realtor (not necessarily a member). He may want a tour of the city. Find him a friendly member to host him and his family. Just be considerate of his desires and time.
* Schedule time to meet with the minister and his wife before they leave. This gives both parties a chance to ask final questions. You don’t want the minister leaving town with unresolved doubts or unanswered questions.
* Make sure the preacher and his wife have an opportunity to ask the elders questions in a private setting.
* Some preachers are very uncomfortable talking salary, especially before they’re committed to the move. Some elders are just as uncomfortable. But many churches are cash strapped in the current economy. You’d hate for the preacher to tell his elders he’s trying out, to try out, to emotionally bond with the new church — only to have it all fall apart when the preacher and elders can’t get together on pay, benefits, time off, and such like.
Personally, I think it’s most fair to the preacher to sort through these issues before his try out. If you can’t come to terms, then there’s no try out. You’ll learn a lot about each other during the negotiations.
If you wait until the preacher has already emotionally committed to your church and has even announced his try out to his elders, his negotiating posture will be undercut. It may save you some money, but it’s not fair to the preacher to let him do that to himself.
* Give the congregation a means of communicating their opinions — an email address or elder to call. Give them a short deadline, say, by the following Wednesday. In reality, the elders will know the church’s reaction almost immediately after the try out, because most members will share their views right after the service. But many members will want to gather their thoughts, commiserate with fellow members, talk to their family, and provide thoroughly considered input — which takes time and should be respected.
* Give the preacher a quick answer. But also ask him for a quick answer. He’ll want to spend time in prayer and talking to his wife and family, but he should not linger long over the decision. Delays by either side can lead to frustration and even anger. If the church was pleased with the try out weekend, they’ll be on pins and needles.
Be thoughtful and prayerful, but don’t take long.
26. Once a candidate is hired, let everyone else you’ve been talking to know — quickly. Not just the candidates, but others that you’ve asked to scout around to help you find someone.
You’ll need their help again. Be thoughtful of their time and energies.
I want to underscore your emphasis on communication. Probably the most common complaint among church members in general is that they don’t know what’s going on. It is especially important to elicit feedback from the congregation so that they feel they are heard. This is true no matter how sure the elders are up front that the congregation will like the new minister. I had a friend, now deceased, who had had a very successful ministry with a certain church. He went away for several years to get an advanced degree. When his successor departed the elders invited him to return for a second ministry there but they did it entirely on their own without consulting the membership. It was unfair to the church and unfair to the minister. A number of members never did get past this and he had a miserable second tenure there. For personal and family reasons he felt he had no option to leave. He died while the minister there and I’ve wondered if that huge amount of stress was at least partly responsible.
In my experience small churches tend to be the worst at communicating with members perhaps on the common but very wrong assumption that everyone finds out what’s going on through word of mouth. Since many small churches have one or several dominant families this feeds the perception of there being members who are on the inside and members who are on the outside. Small churches can ill afford that fault line.
Regarding communication it really needs to be said that men’s business meetings are not only ridiculous in 3013; they are flat out unscriptural. Luke in Acts is clear that the entire church was present for the Jerusalem conference. Since the apostles were in charge there we have direct apostolic authority for congregational meetings. In contrast, the NT has not the faintest allusion to men’s business meeting. Even if a church is so conservative that they would not allow a woman to speak in a congregational meeting the women still have a biblical right to be present and could submit questions in writing. A lot of dumb things that are typically said in men’s business meetings go unsaid when women are present.
I have been in many dysfunctional Churches of Christ with business meetings, Elder supervision, heavily vetted preachers, etc… Having “scriptural” roles has not made any of these churches vibrant, spiritual, or successful. What is lacking is deep, real, spiritual, heartfelt, challenging, Paul/Timothy relationships. Proverbs 27:17 says that “As iron sharpens man, so one man sharpens another”.
What do you mean “Preachers struggle to make friends at church”? If that is the case, never should they be preachers. The preacher and elders should be the absolute best at bonding and making friends. They should model for the church deep, close, relationships. If an elder or preacher doesn’t know how to be really close to each other then the church is dead in the water. I have never seen a successful Church of Christ where the elders or preacher were distant from the members.
If the church starts practicing open, close, loving, caring, spiritual relationships then, and only then, will the church take deep root and grow.
Skip, I think you’re right in general about ministers being able to make friends. I have known, however, two ministers who were more or less frozen out of social acceptance at a friendship level at their churches. It seems bizarre to me that a church would do that to a minister whom they have chosen but it does happen. Both churches are dysfunctional and have seen little change in their membership core for many years or when someone new does come and stick around they suck them into their dysfunction. They seem to have regarded their ministers as necessary but as outsiders.
Gary, How utterly tragic and preventable: A church that hires a preacher and then shuts him out. The church is already dead and the minister should quit and leave. This dynamic is alien to the first century church. One more reason many churches of christ are no longer the Church of Christ.
Skip, the one church is the same one that cancelled the late service that community visitors were coming to and kept the early service that the elders and their families liked so they could get out early for lunch. That tells you the quality of those elders. That poor guy who ministered there tried to turn it around for years and finally left. The other minister just went to his church about a year ago and is really struggling now. His church seems to be guilty of false advertising. They rolled out the red carpet to get him and were very warm and welcoming. Now it’s like he’s the new guy trying to be accepted into the inner circle. They seem to be a severely inbred church. Even the interim who preceded him was either a present or former member there. I’m not sure which.
All this disfranchising and distancing is very understandable as most members do not want the elders or especially the preacher to see them as they are in everyday life, but only as they are at church.
The more conservative the church, the more this applies. No one wants to live a life where you are pronounced or judged saved one minute and hell bound the next and then the opposite a few minutes later.
Many have left the church because of the differences in us and just say they love God and their neighbors, as that is pretty simple and without division and argument. There are now approximately 27 divisions of the Church of Christ. We had better wake up.
From The Body by Charles Colson:
“Not since the barbarian hordes overran Europe has the influence of Christianity been weaker. We hear all about church growth in various parts of America or Christianity exploding in African countries, but look at the cold, hard facts. Look at what we really are up against.
There are approximately 1.7 billion members of various Christian churches: 900 million Roman Catholics, 300 million Orthodox, approximately 300 million mainline Protestants, and perhaps 200 million conservatives, Baptists, Pentecostals, and assorted evangelical sects. And the heart of the church–those with serious, alive faith? No one knows the number for sure, but they are spread throughout myriad denominations and traditions, scattered in various corners of the globe, widely separated by theology and tradition, and in some cases not even speaking to one another.
Compare that with one billion, well-organized, relatively well-disciplined Muslims. Or with 2.5 billion pantheists–the forces from the Great Deep of which Calvin and Kuyper spoke.
We often hear Christianity spoken of as the dominant world religion. Not so. The church of Jesus Christ is a minority, and the odds again it overwhelming. Which is why it is so crucial for the members of the Body to put aside their less significant differences and join forces around our integrated world-view to defend the truth.”
Many elders and preachers don’t want any member to see them in everyday life either. Sadly, the “The church of christ” is no longer The Church of Christ.
We did a lot of it to ourselves. We condemned everyone and everything including our own people. I know some of our preachers and elders liked to do it, but it has caused so many problems that it may take generations to repair the damage done. I know this may have kept some in line but it kept splitting the group and putting people against each other. It accomplished nothing good in my opinion.
Skip,
Many preachers have plenty of friends at a shallow level but have trouble building close friendships because they have trouble leaving the “preacher” role. Even their friends expect them to be the preacher in private.
To whom can the preacher speak about problems with his elders? Whom can he trust with that kind of a confidence — a potential church splitter and job killer? To whom can he speak about his wife? His children?
There are plenty people who’d be glad to have him over for burgers, but who can he share his soul with? It’s hard. As a result, many buddy up with other preachers — thanks to virtually free long distance and social media. Which is good — but it’s not the same as face to face.
(Warning: Long post)
The #1 regret that I have about this denomination/tribe/breed/whateveryoucallit that I have been a part of for over 40 years is the degree to which it is no longer the Church of Christ and is now the Church of Preacher. The majority of the money goes to him, he’s given unfettered control over the influencing of “his church” through sole occupation of their time and attention via the pulpit, he decides the church’s “acceptable activities”, gets his expenses paid while the members who are paying his way have to also pay their own, and the elders assist him in creating a culture where anything short of a cult-like admiration and following of him is tantamount to abandoning the Lord. But to his credit, he does promote “his church” as the best church ever, and serve it loyally….until another church offers more money then he decides that church must need his preaching more than the one that has been paying him all along. It’s always just a coincidence, I suppose, that the church that needs his help the most is also the one that offers the highest salary and most benefits.
If anyone wonders if their church is preacher-centered, do the following:
1) Look at the budget and determine what percentage of the donations go to the preacher’s pocket compared to, for example, benevolence;
2) Observe and note how much of your church’s assembled time involves everyone sitting and listening to the preacher give his opinions on whatever he wants to discuss, with only his input/voice/opinions being shared, while he equates whatever he says to “the gospel” and declares it so godly that just listening to him say it amounts to “worshiping God”;
3) Compare the time you spend listening to the preacher to the amount of time you spend with a shepherd (the one actually responsible for guiding you spiritually).
I can’t speak of other denominations, but it’s painfully obvious to me that ours has become spiritually and financially paralyzed by the “dress up and sit down religion” that is practiced in many of our Preacher-Centered Private Worship Clubs.
OK, I’m venting, but I’m also lamenting. I love this group, the churches of Christ. I was born into it and have devoted my life to it. It breaks my heart to see how utterly ineffective and irrelevant most of them are in their communities and even in their own families. We have divided down and divided down, until it’s practically unsustainable. We are in desperate need of reconciliation, and it appears the primary obstacles to that happening are the local preachers who have an inherent conflict of interest when their lifestyle is dependent on keeping their church isolated and the shepherds who seem completely uninterested in doing anything bold for the advancement of the kingdom. It appears that, instead of making our tribe effective again by unifying through healing of the wounds that led to dividing down in the first place, most leaders seem content to let contraction take place through congregations quite literally “dying out”.
Imagine the impact our group could have against poverty, hunger, disease, addictions, divorce, etc in our communities and the world if we would stop isolating ourselves, bickering over everything and dividing ourselves down into the smallest functioning units possible. Imagine if we combined our manpower, diversity of spiritual gifts and money to help our communities and the world instead of maintaining SO MANY buildings and paying SO MANY preacher salaries.
Of course, if I were the evil one and I witnessed this new force that was the Restoration Movement in the US from the 1800’s through the 1960’s, I would pretty much use the same strategy to render it ineffective that he has already used. Get them bickering over non-essential matters, have them stop fighting me and get them fighting each other, divide them down into small groups and lull them to sleep in the pews. Convince them that True Worship(TM) is dressing up and sitting down, quietly of course, and have them cede their spiritual growth and health to a single person. I’d still have to deal with their money, since their giving to the “church treasury” is legendary. Hmmm, well then I would flip their budgets upside down by having them spend almost all on themselves and almost none in helping others. Salaries, buildings, power bills, let’s see…I might even be able to get them to start paying song leaders. No, wait, that’s ridiculous, that’ll never happen. But the rest, yes, the rest!
So back to the blog post (sorry about wandering): Jay, I appreciate your work and your church immensely. I would like to make a request: A blog post or series that 1) lists the paid local preachers that were hired by the churches in the new Testament; and 2) lay out the process and qualifications set forth in the New Testament when “hiring a local preacher”. Of course, if you find that these might not exist, then we would need a follow up series where we determine if a paid local preacher is an innovation or an expedient 🙂
Again, I appreciate your work. And thanks for giving us a forum for discussion.
Fox,
Amen, Amen. I would like to add that, how much more evangelism could be done in our communities if we could counter the concept now present in our members that they cannot present the Gospel like our professional preacher, therefore the only message they feel qualified to give to someone that asks them about the church or Christ is come hear our paid professional preacher. He’ll explain it all to you. I fully believe the reason the early church grew fast even during persecution was because of the members activity, actively communicating what they knew and how they felt about this new savior. The churches with the most powerful preachers suffer the greatest loss of their members teaching others. I have not seen statistics, just my observations. I would be interested if others have also seen this trend. Of course as you may note in my previous post, the attitude of some of the small church preachers would dictate that he is the only one that is allowed to dispense any of God’s word to those outside the church, because you in the audience that have been members for all of your lives haven’t studied and learned enough yet. That’s exactly why I have to preach so long and be so firm in our sermons. Your just not ready yet, for that service.
Larry, if you are waiting for a preacher to tell you what to do, wait no longer, the greatest who ever lived has already instructed you on what to do.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.
When we start delegating to others, the work we are supposed to be doing, all control will soon be lost.
Example: Well let’s take the “Church of Christ” as that example. Do we even know what the church is anymore. I don’t think so, and defiantly no one remembers to whom it belongs.
Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Just remember it does not take a thousand members to make a church.
Jay, It maybe true in CoC practice that the preacher cannot be real and honest but it is alien to Bible examples and the clear teaching of scripture. Paul was brutally honest in his letters and James teaches us to confess to others. I don’t confess struggles because others make it easy for me, I confess because of who I am and because it is God’s will. Had elders and preachers been doing this in the past then we would not have this problem today. Pride is at the root of a failure to be transparent, not modern Church culture.
Fact is that congregations have created the problem being described, by creating a distinct clergy. This is not a rant against a man being paid for his service to the saints, but an observation that once this becomes a job upon which Brother Joe depends to feed his family and educate his kids, and once he commits himself to the narrow education which produces his credentials, Brother Joe has staked the well-being of his family to getting and keeping that rare decently-paid preacher job. He’s ill-equipped for anything else in the marketplace. And his selected job market is miniscule, limited in the CoC to a particular subset of this one small denomination. More than most professionals, Joe needs to keep THIS particular job, as it is terribly hard to replace. Complain to the elders about his relationship with them? Or complain to someone else? Not likely; that’s a high risk/low reward decision. In the real world, we call that a CLM, a “career limiting move”. The elders as a group are supreme, and that group is answerable to absolutely no one.
Since most elderships (sorry) hire the preacher as a surrogate to do most of the work of a shepherd, the preacher is not working with them, but FOR them. The preacher and the elders in most places are “in this together” only as a reporting subordinate to governing board. That org chart arrow points one way. When Brother Joe struggles, that moves responsibilities back to the elders, who never intended to personally carry that burden. This is why they hired the surrogate in the first place, to allow them to retire to the boardroom and issue decisions. “We hired you so we would not have to handle day-to-day business. If we have to worry about your handling of these things, who needs you?”
This model mitigates against healthy change, maturing relationships among leaders, personal shepherding by elders, and significant problem-solving. What it gives us is a professional cadre of men whose most successful members can fill the pews with oratory, manage the operations with efficiency, and shield the elders from complaints by keeping things just as they are for as long as humanly possible– but with more people and more money coming in. The less successful ones become semi-nomadic, part of the congregational catch-and-release program which pins the congregational hopes on the new preacher and which punishes that same person if those hopes are not fulfilled. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The cynical views of Fox are a big reason few ministers in Churches of Christ stay either in ministry or in Churches of Christ or both for a lifetime anymore. It is a myth that the role and influence of our ministers is more than it was before 1960. S.H. Hall and others come to mind from thsat era as giants both in their local church and in the brotherhood. I don’t know why but a certain percentage of born and bred CoC members have it out for ministers and would not be happy if an apostle were to come back from the dead and fill their pulpit. These hardcore critics are a corrosive force in Churches of Christ and drag them down wherever they go. I have known literally dozens of ministers and, with one possible exception, they were all earnest, sincere, commited disciples of Jesus who wanted nothing more than to serve Christ’s church. May God save us from the particularly toxic Church of Christ flavor of cynicism.
Charles, I must say, you hit that one out of the park.
Larry said,
“Of course as you may note in my previous post, the attitude of some of the small church preachers would dictate that he is the only one that is allowed to dispense any of God’s word to those outside the church, because you in the audience that have been members for all of your lives haven’t studied and learned enough yet. That’s exactly why I have to preach so long and be so firm in our sermons. Your just not ready yet, for that service.”
That would be the opposite of what my experience(and probably most of my preacher friends)has been. I have tried my best to get members to just try to speak to others about Jesus. Just tell them what he’s done for you. I don’t want them dependent on me. But that message seems to fall on deaf ears. Like it or not, the churches I have participated with, are plenty fine with the minister being “the guy” with all the answers,personality, charisma, etc…THere may be a couple of exceptions in bigger churches with more talented/trained/Spirit led individuals, but the avg. “good ole boy” is plenty satisfied to leave the “evangelism” to the preacher. After all it’s why they hired him.
Every member evangelism is a long cherished ideal in Churches of Christ but I don’t find it in the NT. Christians are admonished and encouraged to do many things in scripture but evangelizing the lost is not one of them. The closest most Christians will ever get to evangelizing is bringing a friend to church with them. Rather than bemoaning that wouldn’t it be better to accept it as reality and build on it?
Gary, I disagree. Mat 28:18-20 says that we we make disciples of all nations teaching them to obey everything Jesus taught which includes making disciples of all nations. Evangelism is the responsibility of each and every Christian. This is Jesus’ original plan to reach the world. If I know my neighbors are lost and never care enough to share the gospel with them, what kind of Christian does that make me?
Skip, I know that’s Church of Christ 101 reasoning but I believe it is an error to understand the Great Commission to mean that every Christian has the same responsibility to evengelize as the apostles did. If that is the case why doesn’t it come up elsewhere in the NT? We don’t want to admit it but evangelizing and sharing the gospel were particular and specialized ministries in the early church. The possible exception was among Jewish Christians who already knew God through Moses but there is not a hint of every member evangelism among Gentile Christians.
Fox wrote,
Or whether paid preachers are aids or expedients. 🙂
That question was answered about 100 years ago. The Sand Creek split of 1888 or so was over instrumental music, non-free will offerings, missionary societies, and located preachers.
Until the 1950s, there were still churches and periodicals arguing against located preachers.
They died. Now even the strictest non-institutional churches (the theological heirs of Sand Creek) have paid preachers. The reality is that we don’t know how to run a church any other way, and those who’ve tried alternatives have failed. (You want to argue that the men’s business meeting is a better plan?)
It’s admittedly a pragmatic argument, but I keep waiting for someone to show me a congregation of 500 with no paid staff.
It’s obvious that the apostles in Jerusalem were supported by the church. They were fulltime ministers. Paul supported himself, but made it clear that he was entitled to the support of the congregation.
Churches of any real size require more from leadership than part-time volunteers can provide. It’s easy to see in the scriptures and beyond obvious to those elders who’ve tried to lead a large church while it was understaffed.
“Churches of any real size require more from leadership than part-time volunteers can provide. It’s easy to see in the scriptures and beyond obvious to those elders who’ve tried to lead a large church while it was understaffed.”
I never noticed in the bible where it was said that Jesus had to halt baptisms, until he hired staff.
might be there, just have never seen it. People have been on this road so long they have no clue what is church, and what is social club. And there are those who sit and complain about mistakes made in the club called CoC.
I read where there was only one leader/head of the church, and he was not “part time”.
Gary, I think you are missing my point. Does every Christian have the obligation to love others?. What is more loving than helping a neighbor come to know Jesus Christ. I don’t have to be a professional, paid preacher. I merely need to love enough to share with my friends. If every member in the local church loved in this way the church would burst at the seams with or without a paid preacher.
Where people are in trouble and fear for their lives, like in military service, hospitals or prisons, they do not have a paid staff or hired preacher and study and teach each other just fine and do a much better job of it. They take it very seriously. They also have more accept Christ and be baptized than any church I know percentage wise.
Maybe we need more fire and brimstone to put fear of hell in our people instead of we are all OK as we are.
Skip, scripture teaches that we are to owe no one anything except to love them. Scripture never teaches that we are required to love others by being evangelistic. It is certainly a good way to love others but it is not required of us by God. There is certainly an important sense in which the Christian life is inherently evangelistic but the doctrine of every member overt evangelism is of human origin. It can not be found in scripture. If it is of God don’t you think Paul would have mentioned it at least once?
AJ, where in the NT was the gospel proclamation ever accompanied by warnings about help?
Sorry, that’s warnings about hell. My autocorrect does not believe in hell!
Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Psa 11:6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: [this shall be] the portion of their cup.
I can show you a few more if need be.
Laymond, I’m not sure what you are so up in the air about concerning Jesus being the head of the Church. I sincerely doubt that any regular poster on Jay’s site would deny that being the case. What’s most missing in action in todays church is the body of Christ… not the head who is Christ. We should be teaching and preaching with all our might that when we go to unbelievers and suffering, hurting people, we are going to Jesus himself (Matthew 25:40). I don’t think many average church members really sees Jesus in the unbeliever or the hurting or suffering. So they sit in their church building, waiting for Jesus to show up. Guess what? He’s probably outside the church building in Jail or Prison or in Rehab or at our office or countless other places. He might ocassionally be inside the church building, I guess, but He’s most likely a single mother struggling to make ends meet or a drug abuser or alcoholic or maybe a couple living together without the benefit of marriage whom many righteous church member will probably attempt to avoid. When the church starts going to the people I have identified instead of sitting in the assembly waiting to be entertained, it will be the real Church of Christ and Jesus will be there.
Jay mentioned,”It’s obvious that the apostles in Jerusalem were supported by the church. They were fulltime ministers.” I guess that I totally missed the concept that the Apostles would be known as just ministers. These inspired men were placed into a duty as a minister which we now affirm that the work of ministers should always be directed by men who have been appointed to fulfill the duties of shepherding, feeding the flock, oversee with a responsibility for the loss of souls. Do you believe that the Apostles that were at Jerusalem were under the supervision and guidance of the Elders there? We have determined that the Eldership of a congregation was the top of the chain of command next to Jesus Christ. If these men (Apostles) were identified as ministers and not considered as Elders in the position of greatest responsibility why would we not see that ministers today be over the Elders? Ministers are accepted in that duty as being universal, meaning when a man has acquired the identity of a minister he is accepted as that in all churches even if he is just visiting, but if a man has been appointed as an Elder he is limited to only the local congregation that appointed him. Ministers can be compensated for doing the work delegated to an Elder by the scriptures while at a congregation, but an Elder cannot? A man can be a minister without being married but an Elder must be married and have children living at home. What! Yes, missed that one, when children leave home to start a life on their own the father no longer has jurisdiction over them. Therefore, if they go astray the father cannot be held accountable for their actions. As long as the children were obedient while in his house he would remain qualified by the instructions for Elders. I believe that we have really distorted some of the messages in scripture. I also believe that the Elders are not to be muzzled from compensation for their service in the church.
P.S. Skip and AJ good comments.
“That question was answered about 100 years ago. The Sand Creek split of 1888 or so was over instrumental music, non-free will offerings, missionary societies, and located preachers. ”
Jay, many of these questions were never answered, they were just agreed on by man, men just as fallible as you and me. Unless all these “answers” can be found in scripture, they remain unanswered and unscriptual still.
Just like the creator, I can show you where God is said to be one God, you have never shown me where in any scripture this is denied. Just because “Sand Creek” said it is biblical to have located preachers, does not prove anything except “they said so”.
laymond,
Don’t forget all these spoken by Jesus. Matt 18:9, 5:22, 23:33.
I especially like Luke 12:5
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
If it was up to me there would be no full time paid preachers.
Some of the best I have heard had a full time job and still preached two sermons on Sunday and did it happily. The more I see of full time preachers, usually preaching Sunday morning only as many do not have evening services anymore the more an outside job should be required and those funds be used to further the kingdom by deeds instead of words spoken to a mostly closed audience.
The sermons about more money needed to run the church, instead of for good works, amusingly remind me of the olden days when the Catholic pope had a novel idea and sent Johann Tetzel going around proclaiming the church needed more money, and to help the church get it, you should and could pay your loved ones out of hell fire. Now that sure got folks attention as many sinners counted on their loved ones doing the paying for them after they died and some even set aside the money for the paying themselves out so why stop sinning. His preaching was “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!” Pretty catchy. Now that got folks attention and brought in the wanted funds in spades.
Things haven’t changed that much from then til today, have they?
Jay,
Your experience in the past that CoC preachers not being able to be real or open or they would jeopardize their career may be true in the CoC but this isn’t the norm in my experience. If you will notice, Paul was brutally honest about his sin in several epistles. He even confessed he was the worst of sinners. Sounds like although he was a great apostle in the first century that he wouldn’t last a year in the churches you refer too. How tragic that the CoC culture has drifted so far from the NT pattern that preachers become people pleasers hoping to keep their jobs. This means the church is now beyond repair. I was in the ministry twice and had no problem being real and open with many in the church. I never left the ministry because of gossip, being too open, or because members looked down on me. I left because I finally decided full-time ministry was not my gift.
I don’t think our standard should be the warped modern CoC. That is precisely part of the problem. We need a new paradigm. For a church that has historically prided itself on being the NT church… nothing could be further from the truth.
Larry, Jay is correct that the apostles were ministers or evangelists. That ministry along with the ministry of elders was subsumed within the ministry of an apostle. Peter refers to himself as an elder. He was not renouncing his apostleship. Many ministries at least overlap.
Larry, you raise an important question about the standing of ministers compared to the standing of elders. What seems to have actually happened in the late first century and in the second century is that the located evangelist/minister became one of the elders or bishops of the congregation. The scripture citation eludes me but Paul refers in one place to elders in general and then to elders who teach and preach. The only significant treatment of the development of leadership in churches following the apostles lifetimes that I know of is The Churches the Apostles Left Behind by Raymond Brown. He is now deceased but was a highly regarded scholar. He authored the two volume John commentaries in the Anchor Bible series. David Lipscomb argued persuasively that elders do not have to be married or have children but that Paul’s references were merely addressed to situations where elders were married and had children. He pointed out that, otherwise, even the apostle Paul would not be qualified to be an elder. Under that view there would be no barrier to the minister being an elder. The Presbyterians have that arrangement with ruling and teaching elders.
1 Timothy 5:17 is the passage where elders who teach and preach are distinguished from other elders.
Gary wrote,
James, the brother of Jesus, appears to have acted as chairman of the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church, although not an apostle himself. This may well be what later led to the creation of the monarchical bishop in the second century in some areas.
On the other hand, I’m not aware of an argument that the evangelist/minister became an elder. I think the evidence more strongly suggests that he typically was an elder — hence Peter’s calling himself an elder and Timothy, according to tradition, becoming an elder at Ephesus.
I think you likely had at least two patterns. One, much like many modern missionary situations, was where an evangelist/apostle, such as Paul, helped start a church, served as sole leader temporarily, and then appointed elders. Paul was never an elder in Ephesus. He left elders behind when he left.
The other is where the evangelist is also an elder — where some elders are also teachers and preachers.
I think we can see both patterns.
A.J.,
I know far too many full time paid preachers who labor effectively in God’s kingdom to agree. And I’ve observed how poorly we manage to do the work of the Kingdom without fulltime leadership.
The fact is that churches with fulltime leadership grow more and survive longer than those that don’t — despite the problems that sometimes exist in the system. Like a lot of things, it’ll never be perfect, but no one has ever come up with a better idea — for this country at this time.
Laymond,
Sand Creek said that its UNbiblical to have located preachers. That branch of the Churches of Christ has almost entirely died out — largely because they had no located preachers.
Gary, “We are never required to love others by being evangelistic”. God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to come to earth to save us. Jesus highest priority on earth was getting us to believe on him to be saved from hell and be with God for eternity. The great commission is for us to go into all the world and make disciples.
It would kill us to go to heaven and find out that our neighbor could have been with us if we had reached out to him. The greatest love we can ever show a relative, neighbor, or co-worker is to share the good news. And yet you believe that we don’t have to show love by helping someone to be forgiven and enjoy sweet fellowship with God? Evangelism is not called a gift in the Bible, it is a command…for every Christian.
Skip, as noble as every member evangelism sounds, trying to require it is a perpetual guilt trip for Christians and is an addition to scripture. The logical outcome of it is the train wreck that has been the ICOC/Boston Movement/Crossroads Movement. Show me a church that tries to bind it on its members and I’ll show you a church where members are constantly escaping out the back door. Grace and the imposition of every member evangelism are incompatible.
Jay I think we pretty much agree about the evolution of leadership in the early church. Timothy going from being the evangelist to being an elder illustrates what I mentioned. By the second century I don’t believe we find any reference to evangelists at least as Timothy had been in staying with the Ephesian church. The ministry by then seems to have been done entirely done by bishops/elders and deacons. But what the evangelist had done in ministry was still being done- just by the bishop or bishops. Our requirement of a plurality of elders is generally a good idea but can’t be bound by scripture. Even Churches of Christ have had our exceptions. In the 60’s when Burton Coffman was the minister at the Manhattan Church of Christ and raising funds nationwide for a new church building there the Manhattan church only had one elder and Coffman was not shy about defending it. (Of course, Burton Coffman was never shy about anything!) I know a man who is the only elder in his Church of Christ. He was once part of an eldership but the other elders either died or moved away. He does not believe that that caused his ministry as an elder to cease. The members there all seem to love him and follow him as their elder. Anyway I don’t see the development of a single or dominant bishop in the second century as being against God’s will. The canon of scripture in the second century had not been settled so I think we have to allow for the continued evolution of ecclesiology as well past the first century.
Jay, I did not mean to imply that you would agree with the latter part of my comment.
“Sand Creek said that its UNbiblical to have located preachers. ”
Well you caught me Jay, I haven’t kept up on my “sand Creek” history. But that wasn’t really my point, Just because someone says something doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.
I really doubt that not having a located preacher was the biggest flaw at “sand Creek”. When we go back to examine many small, and large church congregation which have failed and use them as an example of what not to do, we are fooling ourselves into thinking we can do better if we just avoid those pitfalls.
I believe we were left an instruction book that will guide us through, if taken seriously.
The CoC was founded/restored, on the old country preaching “Preach and do what the Bible says, leave out what it does not say.”
Anyone who says that is happening today, is like myself, they just ain’t up on their church history.
Jay,
There is one thing that has come from all the splitting of our churches and that is more preachers. Our leadership is poor to say the least.
The changing and joining together that is bound to come one way or another will cost many preachers their jobs.
I see the movement toward good churches increasing but that will be from those with good leadership as you say but most of our churches crowded around here that do not have anything to do with one another and all have a preacher will suffer and lose their jobs as they should.
Church of Christ buildings are going to be for sale and preachers out of work in the future in numbers that will amaze us all.
I believe Jesus gives us another description of what it takes to feed his sheep.
Jhn 21:15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest (agapaō) thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
(agapaō – 1) of persons
a) to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly
Jhn 21:16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest (agapaō) thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love (phileō) thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
Jhn 21:17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest (phileō) thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest (phileō) thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
phileō 1 to love
a) to approve of
b) to like
c) sanction
d) to treat affectionately or kindly, to welcome, befriend
As we see in these three scriptures it was not enough that Peter said he loved (agapaō) Jesus as his Lord, but it was necessary that Peter (phileō ) liked and respected Jesus as a friend. I believe that is missing in the church today, friendship.
Yes believe it or not you can “love” someone and not “like ” them very much.
When a neighbor is having trouble, and asks you can you feed my sheep for me, and you say sure I will do it for x- amount of money, is that really friendship.
Especially if that friend was willing to die for you.? There is a difference in friendship, and a duty to earn a pay check.
Gary,
Unfortunately you don’t seem to know what you are talking about. I am not a member of the ICOC BUT they have restructured/reorganized and they are much healthier now than the average CoC. They have eliminated the heavy handed “discipling” and their churches are growing because they take the whole Bible seriously and are trying to live by it. They are much more engaged and loving than I have found in the several Churches of Christ I have been in over the years. We have dear friends in the ICOC who run circles around the average CoC member in terms of their love, engagement, Bible study, and healthy growth.
Regarding your observation that evangelism is not required of Christians… Please show me the scriptures that prove your thesis. Here is what I see:
” Matthew 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Notice, Jesus says “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”. Answer me this: who is the them? What did Jesus just command them? “Make disciples of all nations” Then he commands the apostles to pass this command on to the new converts.
Laying that aside, please give me the scriptures telling Christians they don’t have to share their faith. I would love to see them.
Skip said “Laying that aside, please give me the scriptures telling Christians they don’t have to share their faith. I would love to see them.”
I forget exactly where it is Skip, but maybe it is just under the one that tells us God is three persons. 🙂
That is the main problem I see with a paid preacher. Folks figure he is getting paid, so he needs to be doing this as I have a job and do it every day or at least full time so he should too.
With no paid preacher, everyone assumes the responsibility of doing the visiting, evangelizing, and especially listening to others with problems and that causes more to want to help those in need. In other words, the church, meaning the members, the true church, becomes closer.
Laymond, sounds like a broken record.
Skip, many churches pay lip service to every member evangelism and consequently little damage is done. But I have two I believe valid concerns for churches that seriously push it. First, it drives away those who are weak, troubled and struggling. Most people, including most Christians are just trying to get by in life the best they can. I believe it was Thoreau who said most people are living lives of quiet desperation. It has not got any better since his day. While these people may be helped ever so much at first in an every member evangelism (hereafter EME) church at some point they will be expected to get on board with the program and start showing evangelistic results. These folks will likely just quietly slip away perhaps never to try church again. For every solid evangelistic member today in the discipling churches like the ICOC I believe there are likely several who dropped out along the way traumatized or at least burnt out. It is too high a price to pay.
Second, EME churches inevitably develop a two tier membership level in practice. There are the achievers who are able to get folks in the baptistry and there are the slaggards who don’t. Racking up baptisms is the ticket to church leadership and the church elite. Everyone else at some point becomes part of the scenery.
Regarding the Great Commission EME is a bridge too far to base entirely on the one passage. Paul wrote half the NT and never mentions it. When you read Paul’s admonitions about relating to non-Christians he emphasizes living a life that is above reproach and living peaceably with everyone as much as is possible. He never alludes in any way to evangelizing them. Again, it’s a great thing to do but it is not a requirement of the Christian life. Jesus’ preview of the Judgment in Matthew 25 is about serving others in practical ways. No one is lost for failing to be evangelistic.
I suppose there is an exception to everything and maybe your church is the exception here. But I’m convinced that the vast majority of churches that seriously push EME do much more damage than good.
Gary,
I am sorry that you have such a jaded perspective on the privilege of helping the lost enter into forgiveness and a thrilling relationship with God. You give it a name (EME) almost as if it is a program or a forced requirement and I have never presented it that way. You assume people will be made to feel guilty about a failure to win souls and you don’t understand that when we are under grace it is a privilege to help others to go to heaven. I am not sure how your perception of this glorious privilege has become so legalistic.
Has being forgiven of past sin and being given all the promises of God been a blessing to you or a curse. Are you not thankful that God loves you and has given you the indwelling Holy Spirit? Are you not thankful for the future expectation of heaven and an eternity without sin. I love my relationship with God. I love the fact that I have been called and redeemed. I love the privilege of being a part of God’s glorious church. I love God’s incredible mercy and his boundless patience with me.
Evangelism is taken from the Greek for good news. If you had the cure for cancer would you complain if someone suggested you share it with the world. NO. You wouldn’t have to be asked to share, you would feel it to be your divine privilege.
In II Kings 6 and 7 you know the story about the siege on Samaria and the famine. Four lepers left the city out of desperation and went to the Aramean camp only to find it evacuated but with silver, gold, clothes and food. The concluded, “This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. … let us go at once and report the good news”. This story captures evangelism in a nutshell. If we have the cure and we are grateful, we want the world to know.
Unfortunately your experience seems so jaded that you view the privilege of evangelism as a forced requirement and telling the lost about a cure as distasteful. I can’t erase your past nor can I erase your exposure to legalistic Christianity. All I know is that I am grateful and don’t need commands to help others hear the greatest news in the world. The scriptures don’t teach forced evangelism and this is not what I have argued. Your experience has colored your perspective. I only hope you come to eventually see the light.
The other day my wife and I went shopping for a ring and we had a very pleasant chat with the clerk. In the course of the conversation we mentioned our church and asked him to visit sometime. He immediately asked if he could bring his girlfriend too. I asked for our phone number and quickly gave us his number. He followed up asking when he could call us to make sure we hook up. This was not a forced encounter. It was a divine appointment that God had set up before creation. He is coming next week and I believe God has amazing plans for this young man and his girlfriend. Encounters like this remind me of the joy, privilege, and pleasure of showing others our savior. Perhaps someday you will learn this for yourself.
Sorry, I butchered grammar in my last comments.
Skip, exactly. Evangelism is a privilege not an obligation and more Christians will evangelize when it is presented as a privilege rather than an obligation. By the way I’m not jaded about evangelism. I never kept count but I’ve been privileged to baptize a number of people into Christ.
Skip,
Good comment, I’d like to add that I have known many in the CoC that acted as if they never received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. To me if the Holy Spirit does dwell within as promised your life would not be able to hide the goals of the kingdom.
Larry, I assume I could recognize you and Skip by the “Moses Glow” on your face. Just think that was caused by just talking to God, If God lives in you as you say, do they have to cover you up at night for the dark to come in.? just wondering how that works. You do know that Revelation tells us there is no need for light other than God wherever he is, don’t you? I have never seen people walking around at night glowing, except on Halloween.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Laymond,
If you ever want to be taken seriously then communicate seriously. Sorry that you don’t believe you have the indwelling Holy Spirit but I do in keeping with the promise made in many scriptures. K.C. Moser explained it well years ago.
Romans 8:9 “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”
Skip, if everything you do in life is taken seriously, you sure are going to have a boring life.
The difference in the spirit that indwells you now and before you became a Christian is, before being a Christian your body controlled your spirit, now your spirit controls your body. Yes you have obtained a holier spirit, because you let God lead the way. And God leads through the spirit.
Skip and Gary,
If by “every member evangelism,” we mean something like the legalistic approach of the old Crossroads movements (evolved into ICOC), where you were looked down on if you didn’t convert people, I agree with Gary. But if we mean that the church emphasizes and trains people in evangelism as a natural consequence of the Christian walk — without keeping score — then I have to go with Skip.
It’s difficult to emphasize a particular good work without becoming legalistic, but a thoughtful leadership can do it. One key (among many) is to not treat evangelism as the sine qua non or exclusive test of whether you’re engaged in God-pleasing ministry. God cares about widows and orphans, too. And there is a breed of leader who will attempt to elevate evangelism as the good work that matters most — but I agree with Gary that the Bible never does this. In fact, some churches so emphasize evangelism that the church becomes nothing but an evangelism machine — that would have nothing to do if everyone in the area were converted. But the “good works” we were saved to do are far, far broader than evangelism.
Gary,
Early on, both Thomas and Alexander Campbell were the sole elders of their churches. The “plurality of elders” argument seems to me to have arisen in the late 19th or early 20th century as a result of debates with Baptists over who has the true “marks of the church.”
The Didache (late first/early second century) addresses traveling evangelists in the early church.
The author seems to agree with Benjamin Franklin, that house guests are like fish — after three days, they begin to stink.
It appears that once the local congregations were established with internal leadership, they became extremely skeptical of visiting “apostles.”
Ala John wrote,
Very true. You can see the trends quite plainly. Many older churches are dying or have died. If you study the universities closely, it’s clear that most have decided that the future is a blend of the progressive Churches of Christ and evangelical churches generally. Most of “our” colleges now have an enrollment that’s less than 50% CoC — which is a truly astonishing fact.
Their survival depends on anticipating what the future will bring — and their studied perspective is obvious from the decisions they’re making.
Meanwhile, thousands of CoCs are closing their doors and the denomination as a whole is shrinking.
But when you have a town that is dying it is going to be very hard if not impossible to have a thriving congregation. We have all been through small towns in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and the old South that are just dying out.
The young people moved to the cities because of jobs. Their parents retired some place fun and left the small towns.
Jay and Gary,
“But if we mean that the church emphasizes and trains people in evangelism as a natural consequence of the Christian walk — without keeping score — then I have to go with Skip.”
That is what I meant all along. 🙂
Laymond,
I believe in the indwelling Holy Spirit just as the Bible describes, which is a promised gift for every single Christian.
“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” I Cor. 6:19
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Ezekiel 36:27
Jay said, “Most of “our” colleges now have an enrollment that’s less than 50% CoC — which is a truly astonishing fact”
That statement while true is misleading (IMO) in the fact that yes, where progressivism has flourished, the numbers are down. But “our” more conservative institutions have retained, slightly increased, or slightly dropped(not enough to give a definite reason as to why) in percentage of CofC kids. Harding, OCU, and Freed-Hardeman are nowhere near the 50% number.
Are the conservative institutions though doing the students a favor and teaching them how to live in the real world? Perhaps that is why the numbers of cofC students keeps dropping.
Secondly, how many “kids” want to admit that they are cofC? Some came from community church backgrounds and other non-denominational churches.
IMHO, the cofC really needs a rethink about their non-denominational character when they are losing members and preachers (as Jay described really well) to community churches and others, a good number of which closely resemble and took the better parts of the cofC.