Introduction
I
appreciate what Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological
Seminary, said, “Any system will work if the people are godly and mature. However, it seems fairly clear that
congregationalism most nearly follows the pattern of the New Testament
period. It affirms best other essential
components such as:
1.
The
Priesthood of the Believer
2.
A
called servant model of leadership
3.
Congregational
involvement in ministry and discipline
4.
Individual
responsibility of the believer to God and one another
5.
The
Lordship of Christ.”
When
deciding upon a structure of offices and government for a church, we must lay
aside tradition and pre-conceived ideas and instead return to the Scriptures
with open eyes. The English word church comes from the Greek word kyriakon, meaning “belonging to the
Lord.” Because we belong to the Lord, we understand
that we must order or ways after His
ways in His Word. Perhaps the most
challenging mountains in churches are those of tradition and control. We humans love to cling to the familiar and
have a sense of control. Fred Powell,
former Senior Associate Pastor of First
Baptist Church,
Atlanta, Georgia, writes, Extra-biblical tradition is almost always
contrary to truth. This tradition is the
product of man’s mind and methods, whereas truth emanates from God.” One of the most difficult challenges of
pastors is to take churched people and try to get them to look at church
through the lens of Scripture rather than the lens of their experience or
tradition.
Any
serious disciple must be willing to look at the hard questions and ask, Lord, how do we apply what Your Word says
and flesh it out today?
To begin
we must acknowledge that we do not live in the first century. We are not citizens of Jerusalem.
We do not ride the immediate wave of the apostles. We are twenty centuries removed! As we seek to apply what the Bible says to
our church structure, we have much room for grace, creativity, and
addition. We also must differentiate
between that which is descriptive in the New Testament
from that which is prescriptive. Everything that the Bible describes that
the early church did is not an automatic prescription of how it must be done
today. Aubrey Malphurs explains,
The issue concerns whether today’s
evangelical churches should follow the forms as well as the functions of the
New Testament church. There are those
who teach that the local church is bound to follow not only the biblical
functions or principles of the early church but its forms (methods) as
well. An example would be when the
church meets. They would argue that the
local church should meet on Sunday because of the significance of the first day
of the week and because it was the practice of some apostolic churches. There are others who believe that the church
is bound to follow only the scriptural mandates of the early church but not its
practices or patterns, for the latter are cultural and relative.
The latter view is the best
solution to this issue. The twenty-first
century church is bound to follow the prescriptive passages of the Bible
(commands, prohibitions, and so forth), not the descriptive passages (such as
those found in Acts 20:7 or 1 Cor. 16:2).
This affects the local church in terms of its liberty and relevance.
Because the
Bible is our plumb line, the Lord Jesus is our foundation, and the Holy Spirit
is our guide, we keep our feet firmly rooted in the first century, yet we
spread our wings and grow into the twenty-first century. In doing so we want to make sure that we adhere
to basic principles, precepts, and patterns.
And then we want to build our structure and organization around our
mission of how to specifically carry out the Great Commission in our particular
context.
What is
the purpose of any church? To bring glory to the Lord Jesus through
the process of disciple-making. This
purpose is accomplished through the following ways:
Exalting the Lord Jesus in worship
Energizing the world through
prayer
Evangelizing the lost
Establishing believers in God’
Word
Equipping the saints for the work
of ministry
Edifying the body through
fellowship
Extending into the community
Engaging the culture
Everything
a church does must work to accomplish our primary purpose via these eight
ways. The wise church orders her structure
so as to best accomplish the task. The
throne of God is our destiny, worshiping the Lamb of God with the countless
redeemed from every tribe and people.
The way we do church must be driven by this future reality.
One other
prerequisite to building a church structure is answering the question, “Who are
the ministers?” The book of Ephesians
answers this simply. Paul tells us that
when the Lord Jesus conquered death and experienced victory, He distributed
gifts. Drawing from Psalm 68, a picture
of an ancient wartime victory celebration, he shows that Jesus, instead of
keeping the spoils of war for Himself, distributed gifts to the church. What were these gifts? He gave
some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors
and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, to the
building up of the body of Christ. The New Living translation says it this
way, He is the one who gave these gifts
to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and
teachers. Their responsibility is to
equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
J. B.
Phillips wrote, “His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped
for service.”
The
lesson here is two-fold. The church is
made of equippers and ministers. The called-out vocations, like pastors (many
theologians believe that the Ephesians 4:11-12 passage is best translated
“pastor-teachers” signifying that they are one), are the equippers. Their primary function is to train the laity,
who are the ministers, to do ministry, or to use their spiritual gifts to
serve the Lord and others. The New
Testament understanding of the church was that every member was a minister. Charles
Stanley writes,
I’m afraid the modern church has
lost sight of this principles. Instead
of organizing to meet the needs of the
body, we hire pastors and expect
them to do it. . . . God did not give pastors to the church to
meet the
needs of the body. Pastors were given to train the other body
members
to meet one another’s needs. A local church that does not understand
this does not deserve to have a
pastor. Why? Because until the
people do, they will expect to serve as
if he has all the gifts. It’s a no-win
situation. The gifts listed in Ephesians 4 are what I
call the equipping
gifts. Their purpose in the body is to equip the
other members to
carry
on the ministry – not to do the ministry themselves.
Sadly,
most churches view the vocational staff as those who are paid to do the
ministry. And as a result churches do
not fulfill their part of the Great Commission.
Powell writes, “Across America we see in most churches and denominations
men who are the vocational ministers doing a myriad of things that are not
God’s planned assignment. We are told
[in the Bible] that the pastor-teacher is a gift to the church and is to equip
the saints for the work of ministry. It is clear that the primary task of the
pastor-teacher and other vocational ministers is to equip church members as
disciples who in turn evangelize, disciple, minister and carry out sundry tasks
as a part of the work of ministry.”
When this does not happen, “the saints are not equipped for ministry and
souls are bound for hell.”
Scripture
is clear. The church members are the
ministers. They are called to do
ministry. So, as the church organizes a
structure, she must build a blueprint that empowers the most people to do the
most ministry. George Barna wisely
writes, “The ministry is not called to
fit the church’s structure; the structure exists to further effective
ministry.”
Church structure is good only as
long as that organization, biblically grounded, empowers people to do ministry.
Summarizing
our introduction,
- The Bible is our plumb line,
the Lord Jesus our foundation, and the Holy Spirit our guide.
- We must be forward in our
thinking.
- We must structure around our
mission.
- The congregation are the
ministers.
- Officers, structure, and
government exist to empower people for the work of ministry.
Church Governments
With that
foundation, the three primary types of church government are called
episcopalian, presbyterian, and congregationalism. In his book, What Baptists Believe, Herschel Hobbs wrote, “Episcopal refers to
the rule of bishops. Presbyterian means
the rule of elders. Congregational
refers to the rule of the congregation as among Baptists.”
The
episcopalian form, common to Anglicans, Methodists, and Roman Catholics,
derives its name from the Greek word episkopos,
meaning overseer and translated bishop.
The basic concept is that “authority is given to leaders called
bishops. Bishops preside over several
churches and exercise their authority.” The bottom-line in this system is that the
authority to make decisions lies with the bishops.
The
presbyterian form of church government is based on the rule of elders. The name derives from the Greek word presbuteros, translated elder. The elders serve as representatives of the
church. In this system, there are two
types of elders: teaching and ruling.
Akin writes, “Teaching elders are ordained by other ministers, while
ruling elders are ordained by the local congregation.” Advocates for this structure often refer to
the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15-16.
Elders hold the power to make decisions.
A third
type of church organization is called congregationalism. This structure is rooted in the concept that
the power to make decisions lies in the individual churches: her members and
her leaders. Baptist churches often operate
as congregational churches. There is no
bishop nor board of elders who rule the church.
Instead, the power to make decisions is vested in the individual members
under the weekly leadership of her pastor(s) and the spiritual oversight of her
staff and deacons. Generally a single
pastor is selected, though some churches will expand church staffs to include
several pastors. In such cases there is
usually a senior pastor who assumes leadership.
Ernest
Mosley writes, “In congregational church government the church covenant, the
constitution and bylaws, the business and financial plan . . . are to be
approved by the congregation.” This plan requires the participation of
church members.
Decision-Making and the Holy
Spirit
The New
Testament witnesses to the moving of the Spirit of God through the bodies of
believers. These bodies were known as
churches. Some have said that the book
of Acts should be known as The Acts of
the Holy Spirit instead of The Acts
of the Apostles. The book of Acts
testifies that the Helper, the Counselor, is the One who came alongside the
disciples and was the real Guide for the early church. Jesus promised that this Spirit would enable
the church to do greater works than He (Jn. 14:12), help them (16), teach them
all things and bring to remembrance what Jesus had said (26), guide them into
al truth, speak whatever He hears from the God-head, disclose to them what is
to come (Jn. 16:13), and glorify Jesus (14).
The
disciples waited for the Holy Spirit to come (Acts 1). In chapter two, they are filled with the
Spirit. This baptism and filling changed
the way the church made decisions. In
chapter one they are still casting lots (26) to discern God’s will. But after Pentecost this method is never used
again. Why? Because all believers are now indwelt by the
Spirit. The immediate result was
evangelism and this distinctive: “everyone kept feeling a sense of awe (Acts
2:41-43). Chapters three to four show us
numerous evidences of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the church. Acts 5 brings the accusation that two
believers had not lied just to the church but to the Holy Spirit. In Acts 6, the congregation, under the
leadership of the Spirit, selects seven men to serve tables, men characterized
as “full of the Spirit” (3). Doctor Luke
describes Stephen minutes before his death as “being full of the Holy Spirit”
(55). In chapter eight, Philip
exemplifies a man empowered and directed by the Spirit. Philip’s evangelistic success came from
obeying the specific promptings and instructions of the Holy Spirit. Later, in chapter thirteen, the Bible says
that while the church was “ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit
said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabus and Saul for the work to which I have called
them.’ “ The church commissioned them,
sent them out, and the Scripture says, “So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit,
they went down” (13:2-4). Again and
again, we see the testimony that the Holy Spirit fulfilled Jesus’ words in John
14-16 guiding, helping, teaching, disclosing, and empowering the church to do
greater things and thus, glorify Jesus.
How does
an individual glorify Jesus? One way is that she walks
by the Spirit. How does a church glorify
Jesus? We walk by the Spirit of God. Henry Blackaby writes, The church is a body with Christ as the Head. The Spirit of God guides every believer. His indwelling presence can teach us and help
us.
Blackaby
goes on to discuss the early church’s process of decision-making:
With the coming of the Holy Spirit on
the church at Pentecost, God
came to dwell in every beliver. He created the body – a local church – so
that every member needed every other
member. In the body of Christ
every believer has direct access to
God. God can speak to any and every
member of the body. He can work through the whole body in
revealing
His will. In the NT, the Holy Spirit also led the
apostles as they guided the
church.
God led the members and leaders in a mutual interdependence
of serving and decision-making. New Testament examples illustrate joint
decision-making under Christ’s lordship:
·
The
Choosing of Judas’ Replacement (Acts 1:12-26)
·
The
Choosing of the Seven (Acts 6:1-7)
·
Peter’s
Witness to the Gentile Conversions (Acts 11:1-18)
·
Barnabus
and Saul Sent Out (Acts 13:1-3)
·
The
Jerusalem
Council (Acts 15:1-35)
Blackaby
describes this pattern of joint-decision-making under Christ’s lordship (key
principles of Congregationalism), in his workbook Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. In the unit entitled “God’s Will and the
Church,” he writes . . .
When God speaks to a person about the
church, the person should share
with the body what he or she senses God
is saying. As each member shares
what he senses God is saying, the whole
body goes to God in prayer to
discern His will for the body. In this time God confirms to the body what He
is saying. Individual opinions are not that
important. The will of God is very
important. . . . Pastors, church leaders, and members are to
have such a
relationship with God and the church body
that spiritual guidance is the
outcome.
When Christ is able to guide each spiritual leader and member of
the body to function properly, the whole
body will know and be enabled to
do God’s will.
A church comes to know God’s will when
the whole body comes to understand
what Christ wants them to do. For a church, knowing God’s will may involve
many members, not just one. Yes, God often will speak to the leader about
what He wants to do. That leader then bears witness to the
body. The
leader does not have to try to convince
the church that this is God’s will.
The leader encourages the body to go to
Christ and get confirmation from
the Head. This is why a church must learn to function
as a body with Christ
as the Head of the church. The church needs to function like a body with
every member free to share what he or
she knows or senses as God’s will.
When God gave directions to our church
in Saskatoon,
He often gave them
through
persons other than me. Many of them came
from the members of the body who sensed a clear direction of God and shared it
with the body.
We
created the opportunity for people to share what they sensed God was leading us
to be or do. Our desire was not to find
out who was for it and who
was
against it. In our business meetings we
never took a vote asking, “How
many
of you are for this and how many of you are against it?” That is the
wrong
question. Every time you ask that
question you have a potential church
split. The right question is, “With all of the
information and all of the praying that we have been doing, how many of you
sense that God clearly is directing
us
to proceed in this direction?” This is a
very different question. It does not
ask
members for their opinions. It asks them
to vote based on what they sense
God
is saying to the church.
In
Saskatoon, as
God moved and expressed His will to church members, I guided them as their
pastor to share with the other members of His body.
All
were given an opportunity and encouraged to share. Each was encouraged
to
respond as God guided him or her. This
happened not only in worship
(usually
at the close of a service), but also in prayer meetings, committee
meetings,
business meetings, Sunday School classes, home Bible studies,
and
in personal conversations. Many called
the church office and shared
what
God had been saying to them in their quiet times. The entire church
became
experientially and practically aware of Christ’s presence in our midst.
The
result of this decision-making process is very similar to that of Acts 2:43
when “everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.”
Christ is manifest among His people.
Baptists and Congregationalism
Baptists
historically have been noted for their desire to base their practices on the
bible instead of man-made traditions. Christian History magazine’s edition
that was entitled The Baptists: A people
who gathered to walk in all of His ways describes this part of church
history as “a people who dared to take the Bible seriously and
specifically.” It continues . . .
From
small and rude beginnings, the people called Baptist have grown
through
persecution, struggle, and misunderstanding.
Their flowering is perhaps due to, as much as anything else, their sense
of freedom and
their
specific attention to the Bible as their sole authority in matters of
faith
and practice.
Church Officers: Pastors and
Deacons
There are
two types of church officers in these churches: pastors and deacons. Baptists have often believed that the
biblical titles elder, overseer, bishop,
and pastor all refer to the same officers.
Hobbs
wrote, “There is the office of bishop, elder, or pastor. In the New Testament these titles refer to
the same office. The title bishop refers
to the function, elder the dignity.
Pastor is translated from the Greek word shepherd. The three words – overseer, elder, and pastor
– therefore refer to the same office.”
Mosley
explains further, “In the past 50 years many churches have added staff ministry
leaders according to their needs for ministry in leadership, proclamation,
pastoral care. These pastoral staff
persons serve in positions such as associate pastors of music, education,
counseling, etc. This is not unlike the
churches in the New Testament that had several leaders (Acts 11:30; 15:4;
20:17). The need for the plurality of pastors is
obvious: organize to grow, not just maintain.
The
second office is that of deacon, taken from the Greek word diakonos. The same word is
used in the following ways: domestic servants (John 2:5,9), Christ (Rom. 15:8), followers of Christ (John 12:26;
Eph. 6:21), servants of Christ (1 Cor. 3:5; 2 Cor. 6:4), and those who serve in
churches (Rom.
16:1).
Jim
Henry, former Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, Orlando, Florida, teaches
that deacons primarily do three things: keep down murmuring and grumbling, look
after the widows (oversee ministry), and relieve the pastors. They serve three tables: The Lord’s Table,
the needy, and the pastors. When pastors
and deacons fail to work together as spiritual leaders of the church, several
things result:
- The pastors burn out
- The pastors neglect the Word
of God and prayer
- The pulpit and teaching
ministry weaken
- Leadership are less sensitive
to the Holy Spirit
- Evangelism and discipleship
suffer
- The congregation lose
opportunities to be equipped, grow, and serve
Practices
differ as to whether or not deacons should be administrators or be doers of
ministry. Larry Garner addresses that
issue: “The big question remains, Are deacons administrators or ministers? The Seven [in Acts 6] were to be responsible
over the ministry needed. The New
Testament patterns is that they are to be administrators of ministry. The Scripture states that the seven were put
over the ministry to the widows. They
were responsible for seeing that the ministry was done.”
Don
Wilton, senior pastor of First Baptist Church,
Spartanburg, South Carolina, has said for years, “A church should be pastor-led,
deacon-served, and congregation-run.”
Empower People to Make Decisions
As a
church grows, more people must be added to the leadership base. Sonny Holmes, current President of the South
Caroling Baptist Convention, told me that from his view, among the Baptist
churches that are growing, the following transition has occurred: a de-centralizing
of decision-making power to ministry teams.
Deacons and pastors work together to empower other people to do ministry instead of trying to control or
dictate what they do. Holmes also shared
that the hardest transition he sees is going from a rural mindset of church,
where a few people make all the decisions, to a suburban mindset, where people
in the congregation are empowered to make decisions and carry-out
ministry. The lesson: empower your staff and ministry teams to make decisions and
do ministry!
Bill Hull,
president of T-Net International and author of several widely-read books on how
churches can best make disciples, believes the average church is entrenched in
administration and tradition. Thus, the
churches become monuments of maintenance:
“The church needs to be liberated from this
slavery to administrative forms and released to its biblical, ministerial
functions.” He fears that churches are not “organized for growth and fulfilling
their mission.” Instead, they are
“organized for security, predictability and safety.”
Hull writes in We Must Sacrifice the Forms for the Function, he says, “The
mentality of the present system is management, not leadership. Its focus is maintenance, not mission. And its result is restriction, not release. The solution is to think function, not
form. If the church desires to move
people toward mission instead of toward institutional maintenance, a new
administrative model is needed.” Hull advocates a
“ministerial congregationalism supported by a streamlined administrative
congregationalism.” In other words, empower the congregation to do ministry while
empowering appropriate individuals to make decisions in their various areas. The balance of the system is accountability:
“The three loci of power in the church – they congregation, leaders, and staff
– must provide checks and balances, which facilitate mission. I
suggest this simple interface: Final authority rests in the congregation;
delegated authority in the leaders; and daily authority in the staff.”
Empower
people on ministry teams and committees to make decisions regarding their
respective areas: “Delegating decisions nurtures a feeling of ownership and
openness. It makes the church more
grass-roots in practice, with those close to the action making the
decisions. Those working within their
sphere of ministry are endowed with the responsibility and the authority.” When appropriate, they too come to the
congregation for input and approval.
Every decision does not have to be discussed with the entire
congregation. Instead, use
congregational discussion times for sharing what they sense to be leadership
from the Lord and sharing about things that affect the entire body.
Pastors
act as overseers and equippers, helping to empower people to do ministry and
thus fulfill the church’s mission.
Deacons are able to help oversee ministry areas, protect the church, and
lead in ministry. Together they become a
vital team, seeking the Lord together for guidance and empowerment and
mobilizing the congregation towards the Great Commandment and the Great
Commission. Again, Hull shares, “The goal is to get as few as
possible meeting as little time as possible for administration, so as many as
possible can have as much time as possible for people ministry.”
FINAL THOUGHTS
Wayne
Grudem gives a helpful, balancing perspective . . .
It must be clear, in concluding this
discussion of church government, that
the form of government adopted by a
church is not a major point of
doctrine. . . . Where there are weaknesses that appear to be
inherent in
the governing structure, individuals
within the system generally
recognize those weaknesses and attempt
to compensate for them in
whatever ways the system will
allow. Nevertheless, a church can be
more pure or less pure on this point, as
in others. As we are persuaded by
Scripture concnering the various aspects
of church government, then
we should continue to pray and work for
the greater purity of the visible
church in this area as well.
Returning
to Akin’s thought, “Any system will work if the people are godly and
mature.” Godliness among the Lord’s
people is paramount. The power of the
early church was greatly due to the reality that they were godly, Spirit-filled
people who sought the face of God.
