This may be boring to some of you… but it’s part of an ongoing deep quest for me. One I’m excited to pursue and one in which I expect to find a beautiful plan according to God’s design. As I’ve been reflecting on the role of "pastor" and it’s relationship to the professional structures of North American churches, I was intrigued by the introduction to an assignment for my "Spiritual Leadership in the New Testament" course, written by Dr. Larry Perkins:
"Usually we consider issues of church governance pragmatically- organizing leadership structures so that we can achieve our goals- getting the job done. The New Testament considers church governance essentially a spiritual issue."
The assignment asks us to explore the ways in which governance in the faith community should be viewed as a spiritual formation activity. The exegesis and the readings associated with this assignment are convincing me of a deeper, more blessed biblical concept of leadership, pastoring, and church structures than we tend to grasp in our contemporary contexts. Perhaps I’ll post the essay related to this introduction when it’s complete. Hmmmm.
well, if there’s no book or methodology, then i suppose many of us are in for quite an adventure; an adventure that should humble us and keep us dependant on God for inspiration, wisdom, and conextual insight within each of our churches.
it did make sense… and you’re right. it’s so difficult to transition away from our historical traditions and tendencies that don’t stem from biblical principles without doing harm to a local church. I have yet to find a book or resource that explains well the steps needed to move an existing church and its structures into the next phase of ministry in this emerging culture. Olsen’s book, in my book list on the left, does a decent job…
with so many styles of governance already existing within churches the difficulty might be attempting to transiition a pragmatically focussed leadership to a spiritually focussed leadership without being pragmatic along the way. did that make sense?
although Acts 6 exemplifies for us an early church governance where prayer and the Word were of central importance to the leadership, it may prove to be a lengthy exercise in transitioning existing boards/governance toward a more spiritually focussed model…not that I am suggesting we don’t try!