REAL CHRISTIAN LEADERS

Leaders and Followers

GREAT LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP MODELS

WHAT IT MEANS TO FOLLOW

THE CHURCH TODAY

Follow Who?

Leadership is a hot button topic these days. Not only for thousands of Christian gurus and wannabe “leaders” out there, but also for pastors and teachers who hope to become the next mega church founder or bestselling author. It’s nearly epidemic.

The other day I read a Tweet that said something like, “Real Christian leaders can honestly say, ‘Follow me as I follow Christ’".  That set me off. I replied: “The mark of a true Christ follower is that they follow Christ, not human leaders”. In response to that someone Tweeted back: “So Paul is encouraging people NOT to follow Jesus when he says, ‘Follow me as I follow Christ’?”

And that’s what led to this blog post.

If you’re following anyone other than Christ, you are not a Christ follower. That should be plain enough. But to elaborate, let’s take a closer look at Paul’s oft-quoted statement: “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

As usual, the real problem comes when we take a single verse like this one out of its actual context and begin to apply it to situations and practices that were not intended by the author.

 

In this case, we have to go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, starting around verse 23. Even though the verse in question actually starts chapter 11, it’s necessary to go back to the end of chapter 10 because the verse is finishing up the end of a thought that begins there.

Here’s what Paul is saying at the end of Chapter 10. He’s wrapping up a discussion about how the Corinthians should behave when it comes to exercising their right to eat meat sacrificed to idols. This was an issue in their community. Some of them thought it was a sin, others thought it was no big deal. Paul assures them that it really isn’t an issue, but stresses that they should not practice the eating of meat sacrificed to idols if it causes one of their brothers or sisters to stumble in their faith.  So, Paul wraps up this thought in verse 31 by saying:

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor.10:31-11:1)

Did you catch that?

He’s using himself as an example in regards to eating this meat. He says, “I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage…” and then he ends by saying, essentially, “Do what I’m doing when it comes to eating this meat because this is what Jesus would do too.”

What Paul is not saying is, “I’m such a perfect example of Jesus that you should just start following me instead of trying to follow Jesus.”

Paul would never suggest that anyone should follow after him (as if they were Paul’s disciples). How do I know this? Because at the beginning of this very same letter, Paul rebuked them for exactly that:

“What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:12-13)

Later on he says:

 

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” (1 Cor. 3:4-7)

Also, in the book of Acts, Paul warned the church with very strong words to avoid leaders who tried to gain their own followers, saying:

“I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:25-31)

What troubled Paul most of all was the knowledge that, after he was gone, men would rise up “to draw away disciples after themselves”. Paul was broken-hearted to think of the Body submitting to the authority of men rather than to the authority of Christ.

Why would this concern Paul so much? Why would it cause him such anxiety and emotional turmoil? Perhaps because Jesus made the issue of leadership within His Body very clear: It was designed to be a family, an organism and a community, not a hierarchy.

In the Church, our only Head and Leader is Jesus.

"Christ is the head of the body, the church; Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,that in everything Christ might be preeminent." (Colossians 1:18)

"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." (Ephesians 1:22-23)

So, once again, let me say, “Christ followers need to follow Jesus, not human leaders who misquote the Apostle Paul.”

 

-kg

 

LEADERSHIP: House Church 101 Podcast Series

Leadership: No one was more interested in this topic than the first disciples of Jesus. But what was His response to their arguments about which of them was the greatest? Why is "Leadership" so important in the Body of Christ and how can we get it right?

The Painfully Normal Church

According to the New Testament, the Christian faith was inaugurated at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit, in fulfillment of Joel 2:28-32, was poured out on all flesh. From that day forward, the followers of Jesus became empowered to preach the Gospel, baptize new believers, plant churches, and share communion with other believers. Everyone was in the ministry of Jesus Christ. There was no distinction between clergy and laity because in their minds, every follower of Jesus was “…being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." – (1 Peter 2:5)

When the Spirit of Almighty God was poured out on all flesh at Pentecost, those first Christians got it. They understood that the same Holy Spirit of God that once rested over the ark of the covenant behind a 300 pound veil in the Temple of Jerusalem was now living within their own hearts. They were excited beyond belief and consumed with a fire and a passion to share this living presence of God with everyone they knew.

The original Christian church was one “not made with human hands”. Rather than following “the pattern of this world” the Biblical Christian church was birthed by the Spirit of God, empowered by words of Christ, and under submission to the Father. Simply put, the Christian church we read about in the New Testament was something that God was doing, not men. In contrast to our Church today, the first Christians were ordained by the Holy Spirit of God Himself and sent out to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News, that the Kingdom of God had come to every man, woman and child.

The artificial, man-made hierarchy we see in the Christian church today is not what the Church practiced under the Apostles in the New Testament. Instead of a Body made up entirely of Spirit-filled ministers of the Gospel, the Christian church eventually surrendered this heavenly model for a more top-down approach.

As one New Testament scholar, Howard Snyder, put it:

"The clergy-laity dichotomy is…a throwback to the Old Testament priesthood. It is one of the principal obstacles to the church effectively being God’s agent of the kingdom today because it creates a false idea that only ‘holy men,’ namely, ordained ministers, are really qualified and responsible for leadership and significant ministry. In the New Testament there are functional distinctions between various kinds of ministries but no hierarchical division between clergy and laity. The New Testament teaches us that the church is a community in which all are gifted and all have ministry.”

I believe this is partly why Jesus strategically chose his disciples from among the most common and ordinary strata of society. He wanted to make sure that when a run-of-the-mill fisherman stood up and proclaimed the Gospel no one would bow down and worship him. Instead, the people saw ordinary men and women just like themselves, uneducated, dirty, and painfully normal, who had been caught up into the eternal purpose of God.

When Peter spoke under the power of the Holy Spirit, or when Paul prayed for people to be healed, or when any of those unnamed disciples ministered to one another in the Body, everyone knew it was God doing the work, not the people themselves.

"When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” – (Acts 4:13)

When they gathered together it wasn’t to hear words of “eloquence or superior wisdom” but to experience Jesus in their midst as the Head of the Body and to share Him through a communion that went beyond bread and wine. The original, New Testament Christians were empowered, “not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power” (1 Cor 2:1-5).

The Church is what God is doing, not what we are doing. We are living stones, but only because we are filled with the Life of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Gathering apart from that is just a gathering. When we come together, to the Living Stone, we also like living stones are built up into a holy priesthood, offering sacrifices of praise to celebrate our Risen Lord who is present with us in the meeting.

Can you imagine being in a room with Jesus and allowing someone other than Him to speak for over an hour? Can you imagine experiencing the awesome presence of the Spirit of the Living God and reading announcements?

The Body of Christ is an expression of the tangible, resurrected Christ. Have we settled for less? Have we become comfortable listening to the wisdom of Men rather than waiting quietly for the whisper of our Eternal Creator?

The more I read the New Testament the more I see a people who were caught up in something beyond themselves. They were the most common, uneducated, normal people you can imagine. Even their leaders were humble, ordinary, everyday men and women who saw themselves as fortunate participants in the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the heart’s desire of Almighty God to reveal Himself to the World.

 -kg

*NOTE: This article originally appeared in the online magazine www.theyoke.org.

LEADER OR PASTOR?

Pastor Davis wanted more than anything to be great at his job. So, to be a better pastor, he got in his car and drove across town to the Christian book store. Using his pastor’s discount card, he purchased ten different books on Leadership written by various business-leaders, professional speakers, and motivational authors. After reading all of those books he was good at one thing: Leadership. Unfortunately for Pastor Davis, being a great pastor has absolutely nothing to do with leadership.

The problem here is that we have redefined the term “pastor”as it was intended in the new testament to reflect our modern day ideas of what church should look like. See, the noun “Pastors” only appears once in the new testament scriptures, and then it is used in the plural sense, not the singular. Not only that, the group of people called upon to “shepherd the flock”in the local assembly are called “Elders” not “Pastors”.

Beyond the obvious misuse of the word, the real danger is that we’ve completely redefined the verb “to pastor” so that it no longer has anything to do with loving people, caring for them, serving them, feeding them, strengthening them, making sure they are spiritually healthy, or anything remotely close to what a “shepherd” would do to take care of the sheep. Instead, we have reduced the term “shepherd” or “pastor” into the most narrow function – leadership.

Pastor Davis made the mistake of reading books and attending conferences and listening to audio books about leadership so he could inspire people to listen to him, or to motivate people to do stuff, or to convince people to invest in his church. What should he have done instead? Well, if the function of being an elder (who is part of a group of other elders) is to nurture the spiritual development and growth of his brothers and sisters in the church, maybe the first thing would be to spend time praying for those people? And then maybe you could spend time with them? Perhaps you might decide to read books about how to listen more, or how to encourage people? You might also want to try doing all of these things without an ulterior motive like wanting to use your influence on people to get them to do stuff, or to give you money, or to volunteer for something. Just love them and listen to them and bless them and encourage them because you love them, and because you genuinely feel called –and gifted – by God to care for people.

See, Pastors who are obsessed with leadership are like husbands who expect to improve their marriages by reading books about monster trucks. Not only is leadership not related to loving people, it will train you to become more self-focused and less others-focused.

Books about leadership make you a better leader – in the worldly, CEO, “I’m the boss” sense of the word – but if you really want to learn how to please Jesus and be the best “shepherd” you can be, just focus on learning how to love people more, and to serve people more. It’s what Jesus did. It’s also what Jesus commanded us to do. He got down on his knees and washed the feet of this disciples, and then he said, “Now that you know these things you will be blessed…if you do them!” (Not if you read them, or if you know them, but only if you “do” them).

Biblically, a good shepherd or pastor is one who loves people and serves people and helps people to depend more on Jesus. Good pastors do not train people to depend on themselves. They constantly point others to Jesus and they teach them to hear the voice of the One, True, Good Shepherd who is more than capable of speaking to His own sheep and leading them where He wants them to go.

Pastoring is not about being a good speaker. It’s not about being a good marketer. It’s not about motivating people to do stuff. It’s not about being a smart business man. Simply put, pastoring is about loving and serving people.

Don’t be like Pastor Davis. Be like Jesus. Get on your knees. Serve others. Wash feet. Teach people to look to Jesus, and to cling to Jesus, and not to yourself. Then you will be a good pastor, and you know what else? You’ll also be a leader who sets an example worth following.

-kg

**

Thanks to Aaron [@CulturalSavage] for his Tweet that inspired this blog.

MOMENTUM: LEADERSHIP (PART 4)

LEADERSHIP: THE DISCIPLES FINALLY GET IT [PART 4]

Eventually, the disciples got it. They abandoned their pursuits of hierarchy and they embraced the loving, servant leadership posture that Jesus so beautifully modeled for them.

We see this when Peter appealed to the Church as a fellow laborer in Christ and referred to himself as a "fellow elder" rather than as an Apostle:

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” – 1 Peter 5:1-4

Paul echoed this also, saying:

“Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.” – 2 Cor.1:24

People love leaders. We love leadership. We flock to those with the greatest talent and ability. But this is exactly what Paul warns the Church about when he rebukes them for identifying themselves as followers of Appollos, or Peter, or even of himself. (see 1 Corinthians 1:11-13)

Instead, Paul warns all of them not to become disciples of any other man, or leader, but to fully submit to Christ alone as Lord and Savior and Teacher.

It took me about seven years to fully embrace this. I started out giving myself only two “soapbox moments” where I would basically stand up and preach a mini-sermon. Eventually the Lord broke me of that. Next, I had to learn not to answer every question, and eventually Jesus broke me of that habit, too. After that I had to learn to stop playing “Ping-Pong” where I felt the need to respond immediately to whatever was shared in our group, which essentially made me the center of our conversations. Today I’m learning to just listen to people, and to the Lord, when we come together. As someone once said, “Listening to someone is so much like loving them that most people can’t tell the difference.”

What we’re learning to do now as a church family is to meet with Jesus, not just have a meeting about Jesus.

So, let’s not draw away disciples to ourselves. Let’s do all we can to point people to Jesus; to empower them, not to exploit them. Jesus is the One who is Building His Church, not you and I. But, we do get to facilitate what He’s trying to accomplish in their lives if we stay close to Jesus and listen for His voice.

Here are some questions that we can consider:

*What are your biggest personal challenges when it comes to leading others?

*What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made as a leader?

*When you hear the word “Leader” what mental image comes to mind?

*What does leadership look like to you?

*What sort of leader was Jesus?

*Can you lead others by listening?

*Can you lead others by empowering them?

*Can you lead others by serving them?

*Can you lead others without promoting yourself?

CONCLUSION
Leadership really is the most important thing in the Church. But only if Jesus is our Leader and the rest of us are brothers and sisters practicing the many “one anothers” found in the New Testament.

-kg

MOMENTUM: LEADERSHIP (Part 3)

JESUS: OUR HEAD? – [PART 3]

In the Church, our only Head and Leader is Jesus. This means we already have a Shepherd. It's not up to the sheep to choose another shepherd from among the flock, or to hire one from the outside to rule over us.

As Paul so eloquently puts it:

"Christ is the head of the body, the church; Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything Christ might be preeminent." (Colossians 1:18)

"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." (Ephesians 1:22-23)

But, is Jesus really the Head of His Church? Of Your Church?

In our little house church experience, I've tried very hard over the years to allow Jesus to be our Head and not to take that role upon myself. Here are some suggestions I'd share for those who would like to allow Jesus to actually be the Head over their Church family:

*Don’t orchestrate the meeting - This means you shouldn't decide ahead of time who's going to teach or speak, or which songs you will sing, etc. Just show up and wait on the Lord.

*Learn to Wait -The scriptures are chock-full of blessings for those who wait upon the Lord. I believe that in the church this concept is just as valid. If Jesus is the Head, let's wait for Him to lead us.

*Gather to Pray and Seek Together - Someone once remarked that an open meeting requires more prayer, not less. He was right.

*Practice Corporate Submission - Individually, each of us is expected to follow Jesus daily by submitting ourselves fully to Christ and allowing Him to lead us and have His way. When those same surrendered people come together for fellowship, they should experience a corporate submission where they continue to lay everything before their Lord and ask Him to lead them and have His way.

*Restraint is Key - Leadership is often more fully expressed in the things I do not do when we come together than in what I do.

*Keep Focus on Jesus - People may become tempted to talk about their day at work, their kids, that commercial on TV, the election, those people who aren't as spiritual as we are, etc. Bring them back to Jesus since He is the Head and He is in the room.

*Don’t Allow Anyone To Dominate - This goes for you, too. Make sure that those who tend to talk too much practice listening to those who seldom talk at all. Find an equilibrium where everyone can share but no one shares too much.

*Don’t Answer Every Question - I had to learn the hard way not to be the Bible Answer Man but to transition into the Bible Question Man. It works.

*Don’t Create Dependency on Yourself - Teach people to depend on Jesus, not upon you, for hope and strength, and faith. They say that the way you know you're a leader is to count how many people are following you. That's wrong. In the Church, the way you know you're a leader is to count how many people are following Jesus, not you.

*Love People As They Are and Ask Them To Do The Same - Don't try to make people think and act just like you. It's alright if they don't agree with you on every little doctrine. You just might learn something from people who do not have the same theological assumptions that you do.

*Everyone Is In Process - Many of the convictions I hold today are ones I did not hold 5 years ago. If the Keith of today could go back in time and talk to the Keith of 5 years ago, they wouldn't agree on many things. So, have grace for people who aren't on the same page you are now. You might not be on this page in the next 5 years either.

*Focus On Your Mistakes and Failures - What I mean is, it's easy to start pointing out the faults of other Christians and especially of those Traditional Churches who don't "get it" like we do. So, rather than waste time exploring how wrong they are about evangelism, or what have you, make sure you talk about how your church is doing in that same area.

[END PART 3]

MOMENTUM: LEADERSHIP IN THE CHURCH

NOTE: For those of you who weren’t able to join us at the Bay Area Momentum on Oct. 6/7, here’s a look at my presentation notes on the topic of “Leadership”.

MOMENTUM: Leadership – The Most Important Thing? [PART 1]

I want to thank all the other presenters for allowing me to speak on the most important topic of all – Leadership.

Really, is anything more important than leadership? Obviously, nothing is more important than leadership in the Church. We know this first of all because everywhere we look we see the evidence. We have Leadership conferences, Leadership study bibles, Leadership sections of our book stores, we have Leadership guru’s everywhere.

Another way we know that Leadership is the most important thing in the Church is because the Twelve Disciples were very interested in this topic. In fact, no one in the New Testament is more interested in Leadership and Hierarchy than the disciples of Jesus.

"An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest." (Luke 9:46)

Even at the Lord's Supper, when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him, and that he would suffer in order to establish a new covenant between God and man, the disciples took a break from discussing which of them might betray Jesus in this way in order to discuss the very important topic of leadership:

"A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest." (Luke 22:24)

Earlier on in Jesus' ministry the mother of James and John came to him to engage in a dialog about leadership, saying:

“Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom." (Matthew 20:21)

Of course, James and John themselves were also quite eager to move up in the hierarchy of the Kingdom and so they also came to Jesus to talk about leadership issues when they said:

"Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:37)

Even when they traveled from town to town, the disciples loved to pass the time by talking about which of them was the greatest of all.

“They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, [Jesus] asked them, 'What were you arguing about on the road?' But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest." (Mark 9:33-34)

 

WHO'S THE GREATEST?

Now, I believe that every person has a God-given desire to be great. The problem comes when we confuse “Greatness” with “Being Important.”

Jesus said that the greatest would be the servant of all, not the most important, or intelligent, in the room.

Yes, the disciples were extremely fixated on the topic of leadership and hierarchy. But Jesus wasn't. In fact, in every single one of these cases, Jesus took the time to stress to His disciples that, in the Kingdom of God, leadership didn't have anything to do with being top dog. In fact, if they wanted to be great in the Kingdom of God, they would have to get used to washing feet, being everyone's servant and acting like simple, humble children.

Let’s look at how Jesus responds to the disciples obsession with leadership and hierarchy:

Jesus points to both a secular and a religious hierarchy and says, “Not So With You!”

SECULAR HIERARCHY: "Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)

He sternly warned his disciples not to “lord it over” one another as the Gentile rulers did.

RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY: But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant.  For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matt 23:8-12).

He also commanded them not to follow the example of the Jewish leaders who loved the praise of men and built their own kingdoms to glorify themselves.

-kg

[END PART 1]

ANATOMY OF AN OPEN MEETING: What Leaders Do?

Part 5: OTHER FUNCTIONS OF A LEADER IN AN ORGANIC CHURCH

In this, our final installment, we'll talk about a variety of things that leaders (or "elders") in the open meeting or new testament church should be prepared to do, as-needed.

Making Disciples
The purpose of the Church is to disciple others to follow Christ and to obey everything that He commands. Obedience to Christ, then, is critical to the life of the Body, and our gatherings together should be one of the primary places we learn how to follow Christ together on a daily basis.

Discipleship, I believe, is not always a leader/student arrangement where the mature Christian is teaching the baby Christian how to follow Christ. Not that it can’t be that way, of course, but I don’t believe it’s the only way we make disciples.

In our house church family I’ve found that a by-product of our fellowship together is a sort of constant discipleship where the Body works together to help everyone else follow Christ daily. It’s an ongoing reality where we are learning together how to follow Christ personally.

Dealing with Conflict

As an elder in the Body of Christ, one of our roles is to deal with conflict when it arises. It might be an argument between individuals in the group, or it might a divisive person who stirs things up, or it might be a disagreement over an issue of doctrine or a point of contention over a practice in the Body.

Our group has had a variety of these issues over the last six years. Sometimes the issues are trivial, and other times they are challenging. As always, spend time on your knees asking the Lord how to proceed. Remember, Jesus is the one who is building His church, not you or I. Always, continually, submit everything to Jesus and allow Him to move and to lead your church family through this process of healing and reconciliation.

Discipline

Sometimes, a leader might have to confront a member who needs to be disciplined, and for that I recommend a group of elders within the Body who are motivated by love and full of wisdom and Godly insight. The goal is always reconciliation and restoration. Be as discreet and private as possible as long as the person is cooperative and repentant. Only take things to the entire church body as a very last resort, and then again, only with the desire to bring repentance, reconciliation and restoration.

Guarding your Family
Sometimes there are predators who come into your church family and you need to have discernment to recognize them and move quickly to remove them. This might involve meeeting with them in person to let them know why you're asking them to leave, or you might need to pull them aside and give them a warning if you think they just need a friendly reminder to change their behaviors.

The kinds of behaviors we need to be wary of are those who cause division or strife in the Body:

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.” (Romans 16:17)

Also look out for those who seek to have their way or to run the show. If this is something that you're not called to do, then it's certainly not something that anyone else has the right to do:

“I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.” (3 John 1:8-10)

Rather than allow one person to have their way and drive others out of the church, you should step in with other elders and ask this person to leave if they cannot fellowship without throwing their weight around.

You, of course, need to watch out for people who claim to be Christians but who are actually not following Jesus at all. As Paul explains:

“But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.” (1 Cor. 5:11)

What Paul means, literally, is that we should not allow these people to gather with us when we eat and fellowship as a Church.

As always, the goal is reconciliation and restoration in the Body, not to damage people or to condemn people. So, if you're doing this right, no one else in the Body will ever know that you've met with anyone to discuss anything because you're honoring the people you love, not engaging in gossip or slander.

Again, this is not about control. We don't want our church fellowships to be about making people act like us or think like us. Please don't use this as a license to police the behaviors of your church family.

 Defend the Liberty of Everyone

This one, to me, is the most difficult but one of the most important things to remember in an open meeting. In our church family we like to say that "everyone is in process" and this means that we're all coming from different denominational backgrounds and we're all at different levels of maturity in various areas of our walk with Christ.

This means that we do not ever attempt to get everyone else in the Body to agree with us on every point of doctrine. Our group does not have any Statement of Faith for this very reason. Our only criteria for gathering together, and for accepting people into this Body is simply this: "Do you love Jesus? Are you actually seeking to follow Him in your daily life?" And if your answer is "Yes" then you are welcome to be a member of this Body.

All we ask is that you don't attempt to change us to believe what you believe and we promise not to try to change you to believe what we believe.

This simple attitude of liberty has allowed our group of former Baptists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. to fellowship together for over six years without heated arguments over doctrine. We gather only to seek Jesus together and to help everyone else in the group to follow Him in their daily lives.

Unless you want to create a church that is full of people who act and think and believe just exactly the way you do (and to me that's a nightmare), I encourage you to learn how to disagree agreeably and to major on Christ when you come together, not on this or that little pet doctrine or theory.

You'll not only learn things from people who think different from you, you'll also fulfill Christ's desire that everyone in His Body be one, even as He and the Father are one. Our unity isn't based on agreement on doctrines, but on our sincere love for Christ alone.

Did I miss anything? If you've got any further questions about anything I've talked about in this series, please leave a comment below. I'm open!

-kg

[END OF SERIES]

Anatomy of an Open Meeting: Creating Experts?

Part 4: THE DANGER OF CREATING HEROES AND EXPERTS

I've written about this before on my blog and shared my concerns about elevating leaders within the House Church/Organic Church movement to become our own versions of "Pastors" and "Bishops". If we do that we've now become as guilty as the rest of the traditional church we left behind in order to pursue Christ as our only Head.

This is a two way street, by the way. It can be the Leader who seeks the fame and the name, or it can be the people who seek after a guru who will tell them what to believe and how to behave. Or, it can be a little of both.

As someone whose personal sin is Pride, I have to admit that I'm very aware of this tendency in myself and I work very hard to sit in the background of our own church family and not take the Lord's place in the Body. I used to limit myself to only two "soap box moments" every meeting. Then my goal was to try not to share a comment on what every person shared during the meeting (which created a sort of conversational ping-pong where someone would share and then I would comment and then another person would share and then I would comment again, etc.). Now my goal is to keep silent unless the Lord really prompts me to share something. Otherwise, I sit quietly and I listen.

I know that sometimes people who read my blog or my books will visit our house church and they'll expect that I'll have some cool teaching to share every time. But that's not what happens. If anything, I'll rarely talk at all unless the Lord has given me something to teach or to share.

I'll never forget when one brother visited our group for the first time after reading my blog. He came on a Thursday evening and after I played the guitar during the shared worship time, I got up and left the room. He told me later that he thought it was very weird that I would do that, but the group didn't miss a beat and people were sharing and teaching and praying for one another spontaneously without me in the room. Eventually he did notice that I had returned to the room when I spoke up and shared something, but until that moment he was oblivious to my presence, which is sort of the point, really.

My goal is really to encourage everyone else to share. I really want to hear what my two teenage boys have to say. I want to hear from those quiet wives who never speak out. I want hear what that five year old boy has to say about Jesus. Those are always the most profound things, really. I've learned so much from the most unlikely sources. It's amazing, really.

This kind of thing is a movement of God. No man can take credit for this. When I hear from people all over the nation, and even the world, that God is leading them in this same New Testament model of "being Church" it excites me. Because we're not moving in this direction because we read a blog or a book or attended a conference. Every one I've spoken to shares their story about how God did this to them. God called them to step outside the traditional model of Church and they obeyed Him and followed His leading, even at a great cost - usually friendships, or salaries, or the respect of others, etc. But when I hear those testimonies I rejoice because I know that God is purifying His Bride and He's doing something marvelous that no man can dare take credit for.

In our final installment we'll look at a few other things a leader in an open meeting might be called upon to do.

-kg

[END PART 4]

Anatomy of an Open Meeting: How Do I Lead One?

Part 3 - HOW DO I LEAD AN OPEN MEETING?

This is probably the hardest thing to write about. As someone who grew up in the traditional church, was trained to be a leader in the church and has never even attended an open meeting before transitioning to an open house church model, leading others in this kind of meeting is very difficult to do.

For the first several years of our house church gatherings, I tried to encourage this sort of open meeting. Sometimes we would manage to come close, but it was years really before we started to actually have the sort of open meetings we long for.

If anything, the leader in an open meeting should begin by exercising great self-control and restraint. Honestly, a successful open meeting is more about what I don’t do than anything I do to make it successful. For example, I don’t prepare a teaching every time we gather. I don’t answer every question about the Bible that comes up. (As Neil Cole suggest, “Be the Bible Question Man, not the Bible Answer Man”). I don’t decide in advance what we’ll talk about or what we’ll study. I don’t choose the worship songs ahead of time. I don’t orchestrate the meeting. I don’t fill the awkward silences with noise. I don’t create a dependency on myself. I don’t lead the communion time. I don’t have a follow-up or illustration to wrap up everyone else’s testimony or scripture verse.

So, once we know what we don’t want to do, what is it that we should be doing? For starters, we should spend time in prayer before the meeting to ask the Lord Jesus to reveal Himself and have His way in the gathering. We should allow everyone a chance to speak. We should make sure the quietest person in the room is invited to share something, if they would like to. We should respect the opinions of others, even if they are not our own. We should learn how to disagree agreeably, which is all about your focus. If your focus is on Jesus then you won't get distracted so easily by disagreements on doctrine.

We should try to keep the group focused on Jesus if things begin to stray off the mark. We should learn to ask intelligent and insightful questions more than we bring clever answers to show our intelligence. We should find ways to bless everyone else in the group. We should pray during the meeting for the Lord to speak, and to move, and to have His way, and to reveal His heart to everyone. We should listen to the Holy Spirit if He prompts us to stop and pray for someone in need, or to sit quietly and listen for His voice, or to sing another song to respond to something inspiring we’ve just heard someone share with us. We should allow others to lead the group as they hear from the Lord. We should not see ourselves as leaders filling a position of authority but as servants fulfilling Christ’s command to serve others in love.

Overall, the leaders of an open meeting should be seen and almost never heard unless it’s necessary.

Granted, there are times when a visitor, or even a regular member, might become hostile, or attempt to take over the group or monopolize the share time. That’s when the leaders in the Body need to defend everyone else in the group and lovingly suggest that there might be someone else who would like to share something. If that doesn’t work, you might need to pull this person aside after the meeting and explain to them how an open meeting is designed to work and why it’s better if they take time to listen more than they share so that others can participate and everyone can grow together.


In our next installment of this series we'll discuss the danger of creating heroes and experts within the Body of Christ.

-kg

[END PART 3]