I want to look at leadership models for church, and as we take this journey we may find ourselves departing some way from what we have known, but I would suggest that we will be getting a lot closer to a truly New Testament model of church structure. In the process it is necessary to question the way we have traditionally done things. Do they measure up to the pattern and spirit of the New Testament, or have they diverged? It is easy to assume that the way we have been brought up to do things is without question the right and only acceptable way to do things. It may not be though. That possibility exists. So it is right to check. Fortunately we have the New Testament to help us.
The first thing that we notice as we look at current church structures, is that they are hierarchical. If you were to draw it in diagram form, it would be a pyramid. At its crudest, you would have the ordinary people, the congregation at the bottom, and over them you would have different layers of leaders culminating in one person at the top. That top person would be the Priest, Minister, Senior Leader, Pastor, Vicar or some other such title. In some churches there may be only one or two layers of leadership under the Main Leader, but they still sit ‘over’ the general members of the congregation. Other churches have quite a number of layers of leadership and see this as a way of ‘involving’ people in church life (as if this was the goal to aspire to!). Whichever way they do it, the pyramid pattern describes the authority structure that generally governs church.
In Matthew 20 v 25 Jesus points to the hierarchical system of government among the gentiles – the Rulers rule the people, and the high officials rule the Rulers. But, He says, it should be “not so with you”. The trouble is, that in the Church that is exactly how it has been with us for the last 1700 years. For the first 300 years after the Resurrection the church was a movement, and how it moved! Then it started to become institutionalised and formalised. Hierarchical professional leadership became the norm. It has been so ever since.
A hierarchical system is found in the Old Testament. Moses, when he was struggling to successfully judge all the many disputes between people, adopted a hierarchical structure suggested by his father in law, Jethro. Jethro advised Moses to appoint Judges, some to have responsibility for 1000’s of people, some to be over 100’s, some over 50’s and some over 10’s. We have the ordinary people with various layers of judges in authority over them. As Kingship develops in Israel, again the ordinary people sit under the authority of the King and his appointed rulers. In the religious sphere also we have the same pyramid pattern. The ordinary people at the bottom and over them the Priests and at the top the High Priest. Granted the role of High Priest was not permanent, but rotating, but even so hierarchy was the pattern. By the time we get to Jesus’ day, we have a leadership hierarchy of High Priest, Chief Priests and Elders (religious Judges). However, instead of establishing a similar hierarchical system in the Church Jesus planned something altogether different., because in His Kingdom there are no ‘ordinary’ people. Every person in the Kingdom is extraordinary.
So, how does Jesus want the Church to be organised if not by the hierarchical methods of the world? I realise that as I write this, some will say “but hierarchy is laid out for us in the New Testament. There are bishops or overseers, deacons, pastors and elders. Then on top of all that there are Apostles too. Surely this is hierarchy?” We need to look at these words and understand what is being said, so here goes.
We will start with the term ‘elder’ which in Greek is presbyteros. It’s basic meaning is someone mature in the faith and in wisdom and judgement. A wise father figure. Responsible for leading the local church. Then we have the word episkopos which we translate as ‘overseer’. This is not a different person from an Elder. This is simply another word used to describe someone who is responsible for looking after the local church. Vines (dictionary of New Testament words) describes this rather well. Episkopos describes the role – overseeing- and presbyteros describes the character – maturity.
Next we have ‘pastor’ which has come to describe the person who leads a church normally. The word comes only once in the New Testament, in Ephesians 4 v 11 in a short list of five giftings. The Greek word used is poimén which is translated everywhere else as shepherd. Based on this illogical use of a different word to translate poimén on one occasion only, the Church has built a tradition that there is a role which is called Pastor who is higher in the pecking order than Elder. Pastor has become the definition for the leader of a church. However, it is meant as a character description rather than a leadership title. Interestingly Jesus is described as both ‘shepherd’ and ‘overseer’.
It seems to me that we have one role only described here, but in various ways. Each New Testament church had elders to look after it, to oversee it, to shepherd it. Each church unit was small enough to meet in the home, a bit like a large (by our standards) family. A family has parents, a Father and Mother who are mature and wise and look after their family. They oversee it and shepherd it. A family only needs one set of parents, not a team of parents. There was no need for an Eldership Team or a Pastor, just a good Father and Mother. This opens up some interesting thoughts about the role of women in the church…..but more of that in another article.
Lastly it’s worth mentioning Deacons and Apostles, because the Church has seen fit to place them in a hierarchy too. Deacons were appointed in Acts 6 to look after the practical daily distribution of food to the needy, leaving the Apostles to get on with their job of teaching/explaining the scriptures. Because we have been trained to see this through a hierarchical lens, we assume that Apostles are more important than deacons. If you need food Deacons are far more important! It’s simply a case of “you do what you’re good at and I’ll do what I’m good at”.
Because of the lens we use, we have been trained to see Apostles as at the top of the pyramid. In the UK the term Apostle has come to mean someone who leads a number of churches or is responsible for a region – an area manager. These are ‘important’ people, who move in the upper layers of church life. This has little relation to a New Testament apostle. The word ‘apostle’ was a secular word with military connotations describing those who went ahead of their Commander to prepare an area for his coming. They were commissioned to go and get things in order. New Testament apostles functioned the same way. They went. They didn’t sit in an office all week directing operations. They went and they spearheaded the advance. A true apostle’s ministry is marked by signs, wonders and miracles (2 Cor 2 v 12). They are apostles with a small ‘a’, humble people, often holding down a secular job to support their ministry, not ‘big shots’ but men and women who come to serve – or rather go to serve.
It is notable that there is nowhere in the New Testament any description of hierarchy, and none implied. There is no pyramid structure. We are not told that “the people” should be the base layer with deacons above them, then elders, then the Pastor/Senior Leader with Apostles at the top of the pile. There are Elders who simply oversee and shepherd their church family. They are parents who look after each local family, not Professionals, not highly trained, not parachuted in but born and bred alongside the rest of their spiritual family. Then there are apostles who go – and also serve the churches with their ministry as do prophets, teachers etc. (I will deal with what is called the five fold ministries in another article).
I have to say that I have worked for years in the hierarchical system. I thought it was all there was. I was wrong. It perpetuates a clergy/laity thinking. A ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality. We, the leaders, and them, the people. I struggled to see myself as ‘An Elder’, as being on a different level, and was criticised for it at times. But I have often heard leaders talk in terms of us and them…..and sadly at times it has been “how to get ‘them’ to understand/listen/adjust to what we think/plan/want.” This is not the language of family but the language of an organisation. In a family you have loving relationships that produce sons and daughters. In a hierarchy you have layers of authority to exercise control.
Now, having said all that you may have a question: “if we abandon the hierarchical structure of church leadership that we currently have, and leave the church in the hands of elders who are just fathers and mothers, who will lead the church?” Well, how about Jesus?
So how does that work? What we are looking at is the restoration of the Church as a movement within society that permeates society and brings change at grassroots level – like the yeast in a batch of dough. We are talking of myriads of small church units where relationships are close and people are on fire for Jesus. Do you remember in Acts where it says (after the deaths of Annais and Saphira) that no one dared join the church. And yet in the next verse it says “the church grew.” We are after churches that no one dares join just for the respectability, or the social life or because of a half commitment to Jesus. We are after churches where passion for Jesus is the norm, where the common desire is to follow Him wherever He wants to take them.
Those of us who have been in institutional church leadership might well say: “that’s a brilliant idea. If we had lots of churches like that in a town we could change the town. It just needs someone to organise and coordinate these churches into a cohesive force. We need to find someone with the skill set to do this.” Do you see the error? We change the town, we organise, we coordinate….. Actually there is one person with the ideal skill set to coordinate these small powerhouses of church into a cohesive force . His name is Jesus. He has a brilliant director of communications too. His name is Holy Spirit. When they get together on the case, there is no stopping them – if we let them. It worked once before……
Church is out there 