POWER CORRUPTS

Pardon me for continuing on this topic, but I have more reflections on the corrupting power of church planters and senior pastors.

Years ago, an influential man in the early American Christian churches named Alexander Campbell was opposed to having a paid minister in a church. He called them "hirelings," and saw that they demonstrated a conflict of interests to make a church grow in order to provide their own pay, and that when trouble came to the church they would seek a ministry elsewhere, abandoning the sheep for yet another worker. The solution, he thought, was a plurality of elders who served as long-term, life-long shepherds. Campbell's thinking has become very rare today.

In fact, just today I read these concepts from someone who was opposed to the idea of a church hiring a "resident theologian" to help shape the doctrinal teaching of a congregation. Here are his telling comments:

The idea of a “theologian in residence” requires the senior minister/pastor to surrender or share a tremendous amount of power. . . . The second problem I see is that if “knowledge is power,” and if “power tends to corrupt,” then whoever is engaged in such a pursuit needs to be cautious.

Perhaps this brother does not notice the very serious flaw in his assumptions. He seems blind to the fact that the senior minister even has "a tremendous amount of power" to surrender, and that perhaps churches should have been cautious before hiring a senior minister.

Is there a biblical justification for the position of a senior minister? I see practical advantages to using the one-man leadership model, but other than a few obscure references (such as the concept that the "angels" of each of the churches in Revelation might have been the pastors), I don't see it in the Bible. It seems to me that if a church would start to truly function in community, it would change things tremendously. Instead of one man going up on the mountain to hear from God and deliver "the" message to the people week by week (what we might call the Mosaic model for ministry), maybe churches (or at least their leaders in plural) could together seek God's direction and leading.

Most church planters and senior ministers talk about doing ministry as a team. But what they mean is "You guys help me." Many senior pastors are badly egocentric, with an unrecognized desire to control. He keeps the saints dependent upon himself, rather than serving others and inviting those who will to join him in humble ministry. One reason he doesn't recognize that he is out of balance is because the single-pastor model is the only one he has ever seen.

Though they would not use the term, most senior pastors view themselves as benevolent dictators. They dictate the programs, the teaching, and the direction for the church, but their motives are benevolent. What makes them different from a tyrannical despot is their internal motive, but not their style of leadership.

So I recommend that every church have a worship team, not just a worship minister. Also a preaching/teaching team, not just a preaching minister. Or perhaps I am recommending that those worship or preaching ministers, after being hired, live out a different model for ministry and share the "power" that was given to them.

Clearly, I am still working these thoughts out in my head. It is so personal to me, because I see all of these temptations before me both in our church and at my school. And my own path has been to see my lust for power and to back off. Only eternity will measure whether I did so from false motives or true. I want to have Jesus say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

"LORD, let me see the church the way Jesus sees her. Let me serve, give away, die to self, and let You control, rather than me. I want to be a steward of what authority You grant to me, without denying it, yet I am convinced every day that I must run from the power of organized religion, in Jesus' name. Amen."
-ker