Preparing God's People for Works of Service
The Lord reminds us, through Paul, in Ephesians 4 what our role is as leaders in the church:
"It was he (speaking of Jesus Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." NIV
So the question is this: Am I, as a pastor, doing that? Or am I doing ministry? My first, last, and only job description in Scripture is to prepare Christians for works of service. I am to be "preparing the saints for ministry" as another translation puts it. Am I?
In the most recent edition of REV magazine, Bill Easum says "If you're the pastor of a church, your pimary role isn't to care for your people. Your role is to help them to grow into mature Christians..." The premise is that mature Christians will care for "your people."
Pastors and lay people...thoughts? I wanna hear from you on this. What IS my job description? How am I doing? What can I be doing better?
5 comments:
I fugure as long as you have head tilt, you'll be ok.
Seriously, isn't our role to reflect Jesus and point people towards maturity?
Yes indeed. But is your point in agreement then? Is that another way of saying Ephesians 4:11?
"Equipping the saints" has always been a part of my personal mission statement as a pastor. I'm happy to care for folks in my pastoral role since, in part, we are to model the Christian life, showing our sisters and brothers what we all ought to be doing (Jesus and Paul did this as well, didn't they?).
Did you use the NIV? When you read "mature" or "maturity" in the NIV NT (as in Eph 4:13), the Greek actually reads "teleios", or a derivative, which is "perfect", or a derivative.
My point is that as Wesleyans, God calls us not simply to maturity, but to Christian perfection. So, we go back to the old Methodist charge (now largely forgotten) to "spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land". Making disciples, for Wesleyans, is synonomous with making a holy people.
It's not about "making the gospel relevant to people", as so many contemporary models arrogantly attempt to do, but "making a people relevant to the gospel". The "contemporary model" sinfully suggests that the gospel is somehow "irrelevant", and so we need to correct it.
Holiness...sanctification...perfection...forgotten crucial points of our heritage.
Brett...my personal mission statement as a pastor was "to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and to make people into fully-devoted followers."
I always felt that a big part of that devotion meant helping people to discover their own gifts for ministry and service.
Full devotion is more than just a saving knowledge of Christ. It means conforming your life by using the gifts for ministry that God has given.
We are facilitators and not just chaplains. Caring for people is important but our main role is to help people find their place in God's plan.
I hope that helps.
Ultimately, shouldn't we really be working ourselves out of a job? If we are doing our job, or fulfilling the role of pastor, and people buy into it with all of their hearts in Christian Discipleship and fellowship, we would be out of a job. Then maybe we could focus our attention and our personal discipleship on scriptural things
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