Family Leaders

This post is the third and final continuation of Priests and Pastors.

In some ways it may have seemed like I left a leadership vacuum at the end of my last post. How can churches exist without clear leadership? Even leadership teams still have one person that they eventually answer to, right? They can't; and yes they do.

I am absolutely not against leadership within the church. Jesus was never against leadership, just bad leadership. My main points in the last two posts were simply that every one of us has been given the privilege of being a priest/minister/ambassador for our Lord and King and we shouldn't neglect that or even worse abdicate it to someone else, and Christ's Church wasn't intended to be lead by one man (pastor or otherwise) who gets completely overwhelmed by everyone dumping every responsibility on him.

A very good analogy for the Church is a family. We are a family of believers, God's family. I'm not going to take the time to point out all the reasons and references why this is a good analogy, but if you are wondering, start looking in Scripture for words like mother, father, children, and family and see how many times it refers to God and His relationship to His people. Okay, so let's say that the Church is God's family. Just like any other family (especially really big families) there are roles that each person plays in the family, and there are disputes and squabbles and times for discipline and correction, and there are times when decisions must be made for the entire family. So what are the Scriptural guidelines that show how families are to resolve those disputes and make those decisions, etc?

The roles of fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, grandparents, widows, and so on are all reasonably explained in Scripture. All of us are created equally, but each of us has a unique place and role and function within our blood family as well as within God's family. First-born males have very different roles from their sisters or younger brothers. There are three main points that I believe come out of this that are crucial to understanding leadership within God's family.

First, mothers and fathers have the duty and responsibility to love, nurture, raise, and train their children until those children have families of their own. This is true physically as well as spiritually. In fact, at some point it becomes the responsibility of the children to take care of their own children and their parents who have raised them. Simply stated, there are seasons of leadership within every family. Let's not neglect our appointed time to lead, or reject the leadership of others when it is their time.

Secondly, not all people are able to lead in the same way. First-born males are given responsibilities that others in the family aren't ever given. Husbands are given responsibilities that wives are never given (and wives are given responsibilities that husbands are never given for that matter). Apostles, pastors, deacons and others who have been called and chosen by God are given responsibilities that others will not be given. To me it makes perfect sense that Paul would tell Timothy, "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?" Exactly!

Moses was an amazing leader of God's people, but it took his father-in-law to point out that he was leading in the wrong way (see Exodus 18). He had become "the man" and took all responsibility upon himself for leading God's family. Jethro pointed out rightly that "The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone." He told him to "select capable men from all the people - men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain - and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens." Not all of these men were appointed to serve thousands, some were appointed only to serve ten, and some were not appointed at all.

Here's my final point. In God's family we have only one Father, and there is only one First-born Son. Between them, they have ultimate responsibility for appointing leaders, for choosing the seasons for their leadership and how many they will serve, and for making decisions for the Family. Each of us has a role and function within the Family. Those that are called on to serve as leaders must ask the Father who they are to lead and for how long. And if any significant decision needs to be made, it is not theirs to make, but only to follow the decision of the Father.

Leadership in God's family is a wonderful thing. Each of us have been chosen to lead others in some way for some season. May we all be faithful to the responsibilities we have been given and truly bless and respect those that have been given greater responsibilities within God's family.
Blessings,
Shiloh