leadership injustices part 2
thanks to the comments left on my first post, i have done more thinking about this. in my first post, i think i was too direct in speaking out against one person, that may have been wrong of me to do. what i really wanted to address, and hopefully i will do a better job of it, is the problems inherent in the current church leadership structure that is in place in most evangelical churches. its the fact that these pastor-lead hierarchies seem to be the common place that gets my blood up. when the church first started, in no way was it intended that one person would have sole leadership responsibility. if the first-century church would have been run like it is most places today, there would not have been the Council at Jerusalem, a group of apostles and elders that, seemingly from Acts 15, was a governing body of the church and was instrumental in making the decisions. if it were like today, Peter would have been the Executive Pastor of the Church and would have been the sole decision maker... after all, he had God's leadership call on his life, right?
as far as leadership structures go, i tend to not like them, i admit that. but as i read in Acts about the Council, i think that type of decentralized leadership would be pretty refreshing. a group of people, appointed by the church, to oversee how the church is run and to make major decisions that come their way. as Troy shared in his comment on the last post, there are certain denominations and individual churches that do have a structure like that, one in particular is John Piper's church, he is only one vote among a group of elders.
i have another question i want to pose, based on my re-reading of Ephesians 4:11-13..... and i have some ideas on this subject, but i want to hear from the rest of you. the question is this: do we, as a Church, put way too much emphasis/importance on the 'Pastor' role, as far as the make-up of the church, than was originally intended?
sub-question: what happened to the incredibly important role of the Apostle or Prophet?
1 Comments:
My first instinct is to say a pastor in power leadership model is wrong because it gives one person too much power. It has also occurred to me now that on the flip side, why is it fair for the church to place such a heavy burden on one person and their family? Caring for spiritual lives and people carries enormous pressure, too much for one person to carry.
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