Pastor Daniel Brown writes about the importance of significant and intentional community for followers of Jesus.

Church-hopping Christians who flit from one congregation to another do have a problem—but it is not with the people they meet, as they think. It is with themselves, observes one veteran pastor who believes local church involvement is the true measure of someone’s faith.

“Some Christians are like kids with slivers in their hands—God asks them to hold still so He can get at the slivers with as pair of tweezers, but they keep pulling away and squirming around, hopping from church to church, getting more and more infected by the very stuff that could be extracted in fellowship. God uses church to increase our love and to refine us.”

Image: Hector Emilio Gonzalez

With these principles of the purpose of fellowship Brown urges committed church involvement for every believer. Drawing from his 20-plus years in ministry—during which he has founded 23 churches and helped start two overseas—Brown says church is “the perfect setting for us to experience and to offer the love that Jesus said would characterize His followers.”

But that is not always easy, and if someone does not have ongoing contact with other Christians they can be “fooled into thinking [they] are loving others” because they experience little frustration. “But until you spend meaningful time with others, you do not really have much occasion to love them in spite of what they do.”

“Learning the truths of His kingdom is not like learning facts from a textbook,” he writes. “It is more like hiking over the rise of a hill and, for the first time, catching a glimpse of a valley where you could gladly spend the rest of your life. With each new element of truth you grasp, you find yourself thinking, ‘This is the best.'”

Adapted from a Charisma News Service article and used with permission.

How should we lead the church?

In this Pneuma Review conversation, Pastor-scholar Tony Richie discusses what having good leadership means for a local church

Introduction

“We’re a good church, but we need a good leader!” The preceding sentence expressed the sentiment of the good people of the John Sevier Church of God in Knoxville, Tennessee, during our interview for the pastorate (December 1997). These words also resonated with my own experience a few years prior when had I entered the Doctor of Ministry program at Asbury Theological Seminary. My Bachelor of Arts degree had been in Philosophy-Religion, with a minor in Biblical Languages, and I had earned a Master of Divinity degree from the premier seminary of my denomination. As I surveyed the various emphases offered by Asbury, I realized that my training in theology, language, hermeneutics, homiletics, and counseling had not practically prepared me specifically for the role of pastoral leadership; nevertheless, as a pastor I was consistently called upon to function not only as a preacher or a counselor but as the leader of my congregation. Accordingly, contrary to my previous approach to education and yet with a deep sense of divine direction, I chose the leadership track for my studies at Asbury.

Tony Richie chairing a panel discussing ecumenism at the 2014 convention of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

My experiences at John Sevier and Asbury have been echoed in my overall pastoral experience. I have been in the ministry for nearly thirty years, more than twenty-seven of which have been spent serving as a pastor. I have enjoyed relatively successful ministry in each pastorate, yet I have not infrequently felt an absence of confidence concerning my leadership duties and abilities. Slowly, I have come to suspect that the missing sense of certainty may be due, at least in part, to a failure to understand and apply a specific, sound theology of leadership for the pastoral setting, especially in my own ministry context as a Pentecostal Christian and churchman.¹

Discerning Practical Value

The almost incomparable worth of morally and practically competent leadership and the tragedy of evil or inept leadership is a consistent and recurring theme in Scripture. Further, an important element of the leadership challenge includes carefully defining leadership in local church settings.

Incomparable Worth of Competent Leadership

Throughout the biblical record the issue of leadership is noticeably prominent. Very early on the problem of corrupt leadership is latent. Hartley notes that Nimrod was the first empire builder.² An enigma to scholars, he appears to have been regarded in almost godlike terms.³ He was apparently a powerful leader. Nimrod’s rule was centered in the region of Shinar (Gen. 10:8-12). The account of the height of human arrogance and divine displeasure over the tower of Babel is set in Shinar, later known as Babylon (11:1-9). That this “famous city symbolizes commerce, human achievement, and the pursuit of pleasure” appears clear.⁴ The attitude of heaven toward haughty human leadership is underscored in the divine dispersion and division of the human race. Throughout the Scriptures Babylon is often encoded as the enemy of God and of God’s people (e.g., Rev. 17-18).

In complete contrast to the pride and pomp of Nimrod and Babylon stands the piety of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. A comparison of the patriarchal narrative of Scripture with ancient historical evidence strongly suggests the patriarchs lived in a dimorphic society consisting of pastoral nomads and village dwellers, probably early in the second millennium BC. The family units of the patriarchs were basically “autonomous tribal chiefdoms”.⁵ In the culture of the ancient Near East, “the patriarchs themselves were chiefs of seminomadic clans”.⁶ The patriarchs exercised definite leadership influence within the realm of their usually somewhat large family unit and its accompanying assortment of servants, friends, visitors, and, to some extent, neighboring peoples. For instance, Joseph’s timely leadership position and ability is of key import to Israel’s physical and national survival and divine destiny as the people of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 37, 39-50).

He was young in the Lord; rash and impulsive. He was also a born communicator, and immediately went out preaching and teaching, unencumbered by such banalities as sound doctrine and scriptural truth. That was where I was supposed to come in. When I mentioned in the company of other believers that I had to teach that boy sound theology I was surprised to hear what I now know is a common response: “make sure you don’t put out his fire for God!” Most will not come out and say it, but the sentiment is clearly felt: theology is dangerous.

Welcome to the Pentecostal/charismatic movement.

I am not sure where this fear of theology was birthed, but without a doubt it is with us. Though this does not reflect the attitude of the entire Pentecostal/charismatic movement, its influence is felt throughout. Few things are more shaky than a Christian movement that fails to emphasize the very structure that would preserve it: sound doctrine.

Thus, I was encouraged when I saw that Ministries Today had begun the Ministries Today Institute which describes itself as “A continuing Education Course to Equip Church Leaders”.  However, I was discouraged when I saw the May/June 2001 issue. The Institute teaching was titled “Healthy Church Apostles”. The subtitle read, “Every local church should have a healthy apostolic covering in order to be effective beyond its four walls.” The article goes into detail about how apostles are to be used in the local church. It was very specific, and reflected heavily the teaching of C. Peter Wagner.

Ministries Today has as its subscribers a large number of Pentecostal/charismatic leaders from many different doctrinal backgrounds. This movement is distinctive in its broad denominational following, as we are bound together by our common desire to see the contemporary work of the Spirit. As I read I kept thinking doesn’t MT realize the diversity of the movement?

This was not merely an article, but a teaching endorsed by Ministries Today. I have no desire to discuss the validity of the teaching set forth in the article. Rather, I question the wisdom of MT putting its name behind what is clearly a disputable doctrine. The alienation that can result from this is apparent in the opening paragraph. Note the unqualified statements:

Image: Daniel Tseng

We are in a subtle shift of Church leadership, which is going on around the world. The shift is in the way leaders think of ministry, view ministry, and function in ministry. C. Peter Wagner has carefully studied this change and has called it the New Apostolic Reformation. Because of this shift, if you’re conducting church the same way you were 10 years ago, you are already caught up in yesterday’s movement, and may be stuck in a religious system.

This would be acceptable in an article. But as part of their Institute, it is a sanctioned view of MT. As such, you can see what they are saying about those who reject this teaching, or are not “conducting church” in the ways prescribed in the article. Such a narrow and arguably obscure view is not in keeping with MT’s non-denominational stance.

Ministries Today’s commitment to educating church leaders is commendable, and I hope other Pentecostal/charismatic publications will soon follow suit. However, with our need for an understanding of the primary doctrines that unite us, I see no need for MT to endorse disputable teachings representing a small part of a large movement.

Reviewed by Mike Dies

Debra Wood, “Local Church Missions for the New Millennium” Ministries Today 17:2 (March/April 1999). Pages 64-68.

As the new millennium approaches, amidst all the sensationalism and millennial hype, there is at least one positive emphasis shining through all the nervous excitements: renewed zeal for missions and evangelism.

A number of articles about missions and evangelism, from many streams of Evangelicalism, have recently appeared among periodicals (see Other Significant Articles).

The article, “Local Church Missions for the New Millennium” in the March/April Issue of Ministries Today is an extortive challenge to get radical about missions in your local church. This challenge for developing a successful missions program is given by an up-close look at three missions-oriented churches. The testimonies of Pastor David Kim of Grace Korean Church, Pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, and Pastor Zacharias Fomum of Christian Missionary Fellowship in Yaound, Cameroon will encourage you to seek God for a fresh expression of the Great Commission in your congregation.

Each of these pastors shares how their burden for missions has grown within their churches, beginning with them and their congregations catching the same vision. David Kim speaks of how early on he laid the groundwork for Grace Korean Church to be missions-focused. According to Ministries Today, Pastor Kim told his three-family fledgling congregation that they should start supporting a missionary. Startled at first, they expressed their desire to have some “basics” first like a building and a piano. Kim said, “There are 400 churches in this area. If you do not want to do the will of Jesus, why do want to start a church with me?” Today they still do not have a building, but they have planted over 2,400 churches worldwide. They have planted a church for nearly every member of their 2,500-member church.

Ted Haggard has been stirred to see the spiritual powers in heavenly places be brought low. He has personally traveled to many nations to pray for the overthrow of these demonic forces. As a part of this personal emphasis, every week he reads a profile of a Joshua Project people, one of the people groups the A.D. 2000 & Beyond Movement has identified as needing a church planting effort. He and his church have also been an integral part in seeing the new World Prayer Center, based in Colorado Springs, become a reality. Already it is apparent that this intercessor’s center is going to be a hub for prayer efforts in the coming years. Pastor Ted Haggard believes that for a church to have an effective missions program the leadership needs to set an example of prayer and missions outreach—guilt-laden lectures are not the answer. He says, “The church’s vitality rests on the spiritual life of the leadership, particularly the senior pastor. He must ‘do it himself’ before he can lead the flock.”