In Case You Missed It (February 3, 2019)

Transcription

1 In Case You Missed It (February 3, 2019) I find it incredibly frustrating to come home and find one of my kids watching a TV show I have never heard of where they are about to watch season 4 episode 8. I have no idea of the plot, the characters, what is going on. I might sit with them but I feel totally left out. Churches can be like that. Every church has a vision, a mission, key characters, a plot if you will and those newer to a church can find it frustrating and confusing to come in on half-executed plans and ambitions. So before we start 1 Corinthians next week, the Elders thought it would be helpful for me to spend one week making sure all of us are on the same page in regard to where Grace Bible Church Holland Park is and where we are heading. Our firm and unshakeable conviction is that when God called each of us into the Kingdom of His Son we inherited a task that is not optional but mandatory for every Christian. Perhaps the best summary of that task is found in the Great Commission. Matthew 28:18 20: Jesus said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 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 1

2 everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Please don t hear that this is all churches are to do. But this is perhaps the central and most important thing we can do with our lives. We are to make disciples to see non-christians turn from the world to submit to their Creator. How? First, by baptising them. By sharing the gospel and seeing them repent and turn to the Lordship of Christ. And then by teaching them. By sharing the Bible and its truths. Seeing them grow and mature. I think it would be fair to say that every biblical church holds the Great Commission as its guiding star. But I think it equally as true to say that while every good church seeks to make disciples by baptising and teaching no two churches approach this task in the same way. What is the best way to make disciples? Do you focus on not losing any of our youth? Do you get out on the streets doing cold-call evangelism? Do you focus on friendship evangelism? Do you train a few men and women as evangelists? Do you train a few men as pastors and women as women s leaders? Do you plant new churches to reach the suburbs and towns? Do you send some as missionaries to the outermost parts of the world? I think the answer to each of these is yes! Absolutely! But here is the reality as much as we aim to do all of these well I have yet to see a church that does all of these to a consistently excellent level. It seems that in His sovereign will reaching the world fulfilling the Great Commission involves different churches having certain strengths areas they are better equipped to do well in while never ceasing to strive to do every area well. 2

3 Just as leaders have different gifts and tendencies, so churches find they tend to do certain things better. Several years back we stopped and sought to honestly evaluate our church. We were striving to carry out the Great Commission through all of these means but if we were objective the areas we felt we could do best were in training men and women and planting churches. But this also meant we had to work extra hard at areas like evangelism and raising up missionaries. So given this several years ago we decided on a vision statement for our church. Our vision is: To see the Gospel permeate and transform Brisbane and beyond through a network of biblically faithful churches. Since that time two things have made us seek to refine what we are doing. First, we planted a church in Logan and we are not sure they want Brisbane and beyond in their vision sound like they are the beyond. And, it almost sounds like we can do it instead of Christ doing it through us. It didn t talk enough about Christ and His work in us and the world. So we have laboured over this. We are not at all settled so this is very tentative and almost certainly not a final version but we are moving more toward having a vision something more like. Our vision is: To impact our world by seeing lives increasingly shaped by Christ and His Word in a growing network of churches Jesus will build His church. Jesus will shape His kingdom. But He bestows on us the great privilege to be a part of what He is doing in this world. He chooses to use us to reach a lost world. He chooses to use us to see lives increasingly shaped by Christ and His Word. And for us one of the main ways we can be a part of what He is doing is through a growing network of churches. 3

4 How do we do this? Glad you asked that is our mission. We have also been working on our mission statement because we asked several people what it was and no one even our leaders could remember it so we realised it needed to be changed and much simpler. Again, we are still far from settling on anything but we are considering this: Our mission is: Gather, Grow, Go! Gather to worship Jesus Grow to follow Jesus Go to proclaim Jesus We think most of us should be able to remember 3 words Gather, grow, go. We want to gather unbelievers to hear the gospel. We want to gather believers to worship Jesus on Sunday, in small groups, in homes, in discipleship groups, as you worship with your family and alone. We want to provide the encouragement and resources to see you grow into the men and women Christ calls you to be. And then we want you to go to send you out in evangelism, in church planting and in missions. Ambitious? Absolutely! But God calls us to be ambitious and we can be ambitious because He is with us to the end of the age. So how do we get there? Over the next few years we do want to focus on the areas we are weaker without neglecting to develop the areas we are stronger. What areas do we want to put more focus on? Pouring into our youth. We want to provide role models, peers, teaching, resources that help our kids move through the tough years and become healthy disciples of Christ. We are going to work more on evangelism. You will hear about opportunities to invite your neighbour to dinner or church. 4

5 Explaining Christianity courses. The Word 1 to 1. You will be hearing about these. Missions. Thomas Hemphill one of our missionaries is going to run a night midyear for any who might be interested in missions. But, this morning to help us get on the same page so you understand why we are doing the things we are doing I want to talk about: First: Developing the next generation of leaders Clarifying the position of pastor Looking forward to our next church plant Developing the next generation of leaders In 2013 we planted GBC Corinda and in 2018 we planted GBC Logan. We were a smaller church when we planted Corinda. We sent 23 adults and a bunch of kids. Last year with Logan we sent over 70 adults and a bunch of kids and then in the following few months around 10 more joined them. No surprise that one lesson we learned was it is easier to gain traction when you have a big group who can do everything from day one music, kids ministries, the works. In retrospect we wish we had pushed to send more people to Corinda. Even today Corinda has grown and is in a healthy position, has an awesome pastor but we think it is still maybe people under what would make that church really take off. There seems to be a hump around people that is often difficult to get over. So, we want to ask you and those at Logan to consider making a kingdom choice. As much as we love you and it would hurt for the kingdom we hope some may choose to move to Corinda and serve there. Or even consider choosing to go there for 1 or 2 years to help them over the size hump. If you might consider that please speak to me. 5

6 But what about here? One thing planting Logan did was to remove a whole layer of leadership and willing workers. It left a significantly larger hole than we anticipated. A year later and we are still struggling to find some ministry heads, homegroups shepherds, Grace Group leaders. But what an opportunity! Last year we saw a number of men and women step out of their comfort zone and serve in ways that blessed this church. This year we are looking for more of the same. Don t be shocked if some day you get a tap on the shoulder saying have you considered? Or don t wait for the tap just volunteer. We want to be proactive. In particular we are looking to train some men and women as leaders in our church. Last year we told you that we are developing intern tracks. We now have a number of interns some paid, some unpaid some men, some women who we are working with in terms of leadership, teaching and discipleship. This whole intern track is new for us we will make some mistakes but overall it will bless this church now and for years to come. So, Sunday evenings you will see a number of men leading and teaching and us slinking off after dinner to review that night. Dena is working with a number of women to train them such that we hope will fill the gaps in our ministry to women. When I got back from my holiday in the US the Elders asked me if I was excited about this year. Actually, I am so excited. Getting processes in place to identify, nurture and develop the next generation of talent for the kingdom is one of the most significant things we have done in ministry. It is going to take some time but this is something we need if we are going to be used by Christ in this world. The next area I want to talk about is: Clarifying the position of pastor 6

7 Let s do a little word association. What comes to mind when I say jumper? Some of you think of an athlete a long jumper or high jumper. Some of you think of a sweater a woolly thing you wear when it gets cold. Some of you think of a body someone who has leapt to their death in a suicide. Words have different associations depending on the environment we are raised in and our life experience. One thing I know is this when I say the word pastor I know that means different things to different people sitting here. Why do I need to address this? We have been thinking through the structure of our church in terms of pastors, associate pastors, interns. As well, several years ago the Elders decided that we wanted member approval for certain major decisions like changing the constitution or buying property. Among the list of things we wanted member approval for is appointing someone to a full-time position as a pastor. We have never sought member input for this before. Dave, Ben and I were appointed before we decided on this change. However, what became clear after we announced this change is that the membership had no unified view of what we were asking them to approve. The word pastor had different meanings to different people. That is because the way this term is used in different church traditions is quite variable. Among the more prominent ways the term pastor is understood are these: Pastor is not a biblical office or title and should not be used. Pastor is the office of the sole elder or elders who lead the church. Pastor is the title for the main teaching elder of the church who is usually employed to do this vocationally. Pastor is the title given to both vocational and lay elders. Pastor is a title given to distinguish the vocational elders from the lay elders. 7

8 What are we to make of this? Pastor comes from the Latin word for shepherd. So the words pastor or shepherd are really interchangeable. So let s consider these options. Pastor is not a biblical office or title and should not be used. Biblically, we have to admit that evidence for the office of pastor is not strong. When we are talking about this word in contexts other than actual shepherds there is only one place where it is used as a noun and could possibly be a church office. That place is Ephesians 4:11: And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. In this passage, Paul is referring to gifted men given by Christ for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, to build up of the body of Christ. The question is whether these verses describe church offices or are these functions descriptions of what they do? And if they are offices whether all of them or some of them or none of them were meant to continue past the time of the Apostles. So, are they offices positions in the church? Some have assumed that because Apostles and Prophets seemed to be offices in the church that evangelist, pastor and teacher should be offices as well. However, even calling Apostle and Prophet an office is debated and apart from this verse, the Bible is silent about the office of evangelist, or the office of pastor or the office of teacher. I also want to suggest that the Bible seems to regard Apostles and Prophets more as gifts foundational to the establishing of the church. Ephesians 2:20: [The church] is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. They were foundational. 8

9 Overall, I believe the evidence favours seeing these as roles or functions not official church offices. And I believe the roles of Apostle or Prophet ceased you can wait for 1 Corinthians 12 for that. But, it seems the other roles continued beyond the founding of the church but not as church offices. We need evangelists, and pastors and teachers today. These are still necessary roles for the church to thrive. But you can see that the evidence for making firm judgments based on this one verse is shaky. So, this verse is understood very differently in various church traditions. Many churches believe all five of these titles are ongoing offices. For example, traditionally, Pentecostal churches have held to the ongoing presence of all five of these as official church offices. Other churches believe only the first two or more commonly the first two and pastor continues. That is common in charismatic circles. Some hold to only the last three continuing it is not common but is found in some independent churches. Perhaps the most common view today is that just the office of pastor continues this is common in many Baptist, Presbyterian and other churches. And then a number of church traditions say none of these are offices that continue for example Brethren. Basically, churches are all over the place on this. Last year I spoke at a church in Melbourne. You walk in the front door and to the right is a door that said Pastor s office to the left it said Evangelist s office so I asked and there was no Teacher s office and while they had a Pastor they had not had an official church Evangelist for over 50 years so that office was a storeroom. We know there is confusion so about 12 years ago the Elders here studied these passages and decided that Pastor wasn t a biblical office. So, in our naiveté we changed the bulletin. We changed our business cards. My card read: Craig Lloyd Elder Given To Preaching And Teaching. You can imagine how a Sunday morning went. 9

10 I would say hi to a new visitor and introduce myself. They would ask so what do you do here? I would reply I am one of the Elders given to preaching and teaching. They would look at me with this look that said OK we have wandered into some strange cult let me out of here. So in a very short space of time pastor went back into the bulletin and onto our business cards. It was too ingrained in the psyches of Christians. The guys up front are pastors. So we decided to use the title but we knew we would have to define it carefully because it meant different things to different people. To many of you here this morning it means this: Pastor is the office of the sole elder or elders who lead the church. One stream of Baptist churches took this route. But because that stream included the majority of Baptist churches in Queensland many of you were exposed to this. Basically they taught that the terms Pastor and Elder were interchangeable. Most churches had a pastor who was the elder and then the other leaders were the deacons. Larger churches had more than one pastor. But, the concept of a solo elder leading a church as the Pastor is not the pattern we see in Scripture. Despite this, many churches use the term Pastor and they mean it to refer to the person leading the church. However, our position in this church is that the Bible teaches that a local church is to be led by a plurality of Elders not by a pastor. Every passage of Scripture speaking about the office of leaders elders and overseers is in the PLURAL. Leadership is to be shared (Titus 1:5). If you do a study you will see that only when an author of Scripture refers to himself as an elder or when Paul writes of the qualification for an elder is do we see the term in the singular. 10

11 We are firmly convinced the biblical model is for a church to be led by a plurality of godly elders. Here is another view. Pastor is the title for the main teaching elder of the church who is usually employed to do this vocationally. Bear with me here. Ephesians 4:11: And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. In the eighteenth century one of the more famous men fighting for the abolition of slavery and the improvement of society was a man named Granville Sharp. He was also a brilliant Greek scholar. In 1778 he wrote what became known as the Granville Sharp rule brace yourself: When the copulative kai connects two nouns of the same case, if the article ho, or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participles, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle. Got it? Feeling edified? Wow 99.99% of Christians could not care less. But some time later someone noticed that if you apply his rule to Ephesians 4:11 it meant that the last two terms pastor and teacher would be linked. They said this verse should read: And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastor-teachers. And so in many churches especially in the US teaching became the main function of pastors and they were generally called pastor-teachers or teaching-shepherds. The idea is that you have the elders and then one of them is the pastor-teacher. While I personally have a lot of affection for this two problems. First, the grammar is wrong. The people who popularised this view only read the first part of Granville Sharp s rule. 11

12 He made it clear that his rule does not apply to plural nouns ever and in Ephesians 4:11 pastors and teachers are both plural nouns. Second problem instead of teaching being one of the pastoral tasks it becomes the pastoral task. But despite these problems to this day for many pastor is an office for the primary teacher of the church. Pastor is the title given to both vocational and lay elders. Pastoring or shepherding appears to be the core function given to all elders. Acts 20:28 Paul says: Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd [or pastor] the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. 1 Peter 5:1 2: I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness to the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory about to be revealed: Shepherd [or pastor] God s flock. Every elder is responsible to shepherd the flock. So some churches use the title pastor to refer to every elder. Again I have a lot of sympathy and affection for this view and would not be opposed to it. But we are not done yet. Pastor is a title given to distinguish the vocational elders from the lay elders. Basically if you are an Elder who is paid you get the title Pastor. Where does this come from? 1 Timothy 5:17: The elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. Elders who rule the church well who are good leaders over God s flock can be considered for the blessing of double honour. 12

13 Basically that is a fancy way of saying the church should consider paying them for their labour. The word honour means respect or high regard. But it became associated with providing those of high regard with financial reward. Matthew 15:3-6 and 1 Timothy 5:3 are examples of places where honour is associated with providing financial support. Those elders who are deemed to rule well are to be considered worthy of financial compensation. So, one very common tradition is to call all paid elders those who receive this double honour by the title pastor. Others only call the paid elders who do most of the teaching and preaching by the title pastor. Notice this verse does not say only those who work hard at preaching and teaching but especially those ones. So our understanding is that if you are going to pay anyone start with someone who mainly teaches but also once you have that men or men in place consider those who lead in other ways to worthy of double honour paid. So there you have the wonderful confusing world of pastors. Can I tell you how much I wish I did not have to get into this complicated area! To be honest I do not wish to denigrate or say any of these views are wrong. I have a great deal of sympathy for many of them. Edmund Clowney puts it perfectly: Even the best form of church government is an empty shell if [the principles of Christ s headship, the church as the organic life of His body, and the principle of service and stewardship guiding the leadership] do not grip the hearts of those who lead and those who follow. Better by far are imperfect structures in the hands of devoted servants of Christ than the most biblical form of church government practiced in pride or in a loveless and vindictive spirit. 1 I have seen awesome churches with every one of these models. But, as we roll out our church structure and call some people here pastor and begin to put men forward for you to affirm as pastors it is important for you know what we at this church mean by the term pastor. 1 Edmund Clowney, The Church (Downers Grove: IVP, 1995) p

14 We do not see it as an office specified in Scripture. It is a function a role shepherding the sheep. But because it has become so ingrained in Christian culture we find ourselves unable to move away from this word. So we have to define it. Here we have pretty much chosen to go with this last view. Pastor is an elder who is paid to shepherd the church. Those we set aside vocationally who are paid to minister to the flock. But even then we need to refine that a bit more. Our church is led by a plurality of elders. Some of them are given to shepherd the flock in a more vocational capacity. In a church like ours with more than one pastor we believe that among the pastors one or more men must be set aside to carry the major burden of preaching and teaching. So among the pastors at least one has to be gifted in and labour in preaching and teaching. Once you have that men or men others may bear more of the shepherding or evangelizing or counselling or administrative roles. There will be overlap. Every pastor needs to be involved in all aspects of ministry. All must shepherd and teach and counsel and administer just the emphasis will vary from man to man. Here at Holland Park, we are at the point where we can have a pastor set aside to focus more on the non-teaching roles. Crucial, important roles deserving of double honour. We are considering calling this position Pastor-Shepherd. In one sense I hate it Pastor-Shepherd means shepherd shepherd. But in another sense I love it. He will be a pastor an elder set aside vocationally to focus on the shepherding side of ministry. Roles such as: 14

15 1. Spiritual development 2. Discipleship 3. Ministry oversight 4. Counselling 5. Monitoring the work, spiritual well-being and training of interns and ministry heads 6. Making sure the teaching pastors are freed to do their job 7. Administration and policy I know you all come from different backgrounds where this term pastor means different things. I certainly do not want to say ours is the only view, the right view or even the best view. I do want to say we have met as Elders and studied this and this is the position we have come to. Men like Murray Hudson and Danny Hindle are functionally pastors shepherds but because they are not paid to do this ministry we have chosen to use this term for those who are shepherds of this church by vocation. So when the time comes to affirm a pastor this is the position and role you are affirming him to. Finally, let me close by: Looking forward to our next church plant Planting churches is wonderful and exciting but in another way it hurts. The last two weeks I preached at Logan and Corinda. It was so wonderful to see people I poured myself into I miss them. And I am sure you listened to Dave and Ben and thought I miss them although hopefully not too much. It hurts to see friends leave. It certainly hurts to lose a layer of leadership. I can tell you we would not be thinking about another church plant unless we were convinced it is one way every one of us can participate in the Great Commission. 15

16 So, what do we need to do to gear up for the next plant? We need leaders, helpers, servants. Don t hear me wrong. I hope you don t hear me saying Your Saviour Needs You! Our Saviour needs nothing. Here is what I want you to hear. Jesus offers you the opportunity to be used by Him to reach this world. Getting a good job. Finding a life partner. Raising a family. Those are all fine things to do and if God blesses you with them do them well and rejoice. But seeing the lost saved. Seeing the kingdom grow to the outermost parts of the world. Giving yourself for Him. That is a life well spent. We need leaders, helpers, servants enough for two churches. Get involved. Sign up to serve. Let us see you want to be trained and used. Ask Luke how can I serve? Do something simple like join a homegroup or Grace Group or Authentic Manhood. Our last two church plants came out of groups like that. Give so we can employ interns men and women to lead the plant. We will plant other churches if our hearts are kingdom oriented. I m going to close with a few thoughts from Thomas Hemphill one of our missionaries involved in Central Asia. Last week I asked him for thoughts on how to light a fire under us so that a few of us might consider missions. 16

17 I got a really insightful response back. As I read it it struck me that his comments applied to far more than missions. Evangelism, church planting just serving Jesus. Here are a few bits I edited from his reply: Craig personally, I think the real issue is a faith issue. That is, what do our people really believe about the following: Do we really believe that Jesus is Lord? (that is, He s the boss, the master of my life. That the Great Commission, along with all the other teachings and commands of Jesus, are not an option, they are commands.) Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father and there is no plan B? (that is, those who don t believe are eternally damned) Do we really believe in Eternal Life? (that is, even though it s going to cost me big time in terms of finances, standard of living, being close to family, it s worth giving up those things for the sake of the Gospel) Do we really believe in Hell? (that is, Hell really is the eternal destination of people who don t hear the Gospel, and therefore have no opportunity to believe) Do we really believe that God will provide our needs even if it means getting on that jumbo jet and leaving behind Medicare, our stable salary (backed up by Centrelink/family assistance if needed), our family and friends, our house and the very comfortable life we have here in Australia? Do we really believe that God s plan for spreading His authority, and His Gospel, is through the church and its members as they go out to the nonbelievers? (that is, there s no Plan B. We are the plan for God s glory being spread, and with that privilege there is also a great responsibility). I suspect many of us don t. Even though most people in our churches would say they believe those things, their lives often don t match it. If we really believed and trusted those things, we would live our lives very differently to the way we do now and you would have no trouble at all in finding missionaries, as well as pastors, chaplains, RE workers, you name it. I include myself in this this side of glory I also struggle with these things. It s hard to believe the unseen more than the seen! But we have to keep praying and calling our people to these truths. He is right he struggles to do this I most certainly struggle you struggle. It costs to follow Jesus. It costs to put our hand up to be part of the Great Commission. But this year and next and the year after the Elders, the Pastors, the women s leaders, the homegroup leaders, every ministry head we will keep praying keep calling you to these truths and remind you that: 17

18 Jesus offers you the opportunity to be used by Him to reach this world. So put up your hand and say Here am I send me! 18

19 In Case You Missed It (February 3, 2019) Main Point: Jesus offers you the opportunity to be used by Him to reach this world. General Questions: 1. In the Great Commission what does it mean to make disciples, to baptise, to teach? 2. What are the types of ways churches can fulfil the Great Commission? 3. How do you understand?: Our vision is: To impact our world by seeing lives increasingly shaped by Christ and His Word in a growing network of churches 4. How do you understand?: Our mission is: Gather, Grow, Go! Gather to worship Jesus Grow to follow Jesus Go to proclaim Jesus 5. What areas do you think our church needs to work on to fulfil the Great Commission? 6. Are there other ways our church can look at developing leaders for the church? 7. What has been your understanding of the word pastor? Pastor is not a biblical office or title and should not be used. Pastor is the office of the sole elder or elders who lead the church. Pastor is the title for the main teaching elder of the church who is usually employed to do this vocationally. Pastor is the title given to both vocational and lay elders. Pastor is a title given to distinguish the vocational elders from the lay elders. 19

20 8. How would you summarise the position of GBC regarding the term pastor? 9. Discuss Edmund Clowney s quote: Even the best form of church government is an empty shell if [the principles of Christ s headship, the church as the organic life of His body, and the principle of service and stewardship guiding the leadership] do not grip the hearts of those who lead and those who follow. Better by far are imperfect structures in the hands of devoted servants of Christ than the most biblical form of church government practiced in pride or in a loveless and vindictive spirit. 10. In what ways can we be involved in reaching the world for Christ? Application Questions: 1. In what ways are you involved in fulfilling the Great Commission? 2. Are there any areas of training you need to help you be involved in reaching the world? Where can you get this training? 3. Could you be part of our next generation of leaders? Who do you need to speak to about this? 4. Discuss Thomas questions: Do we really believe that Jesus is Lord? Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father and there is no plan B? Do we really believe in Eternal Life? Do we really believe in Hell? Do we really believe that God will provide our needs even if it means getting on that jumbo jet and leaving behind Medicare, our stable salary (backed up by Centrelink/family assistance if needed), our family and friends, our house and the very comfortable life we have here in Australia? Do we really believe that God s plan for spreading His authority, and His Gospel, is through the church and its members as they go out to the non-believers? Since we all struggle with these how can we press on in faith to see the kingdom come? 20