Christ is the leader of the Church, Paul in Ephesians 1:22 said “God placed everything under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church” however, God entrusted the authority to lead to his servant whom he set them aside to lead the community. Pastor as a public Leadership is to lead community. A person who is called by God to lead public has a responsibility to be in the community, with the community and for the community. One of best questions raised in the class during public leadership discussion was “How we can be a community pastor rather than just a church pastor?” This really a kind of question we are to consider as pastor especially as rural congregation pastor. In most cases when pastor are called to ministry, especially the first call, what is in pastor’s mind is not the community in general but only the congregation he/she is going to serve. As a pastor we are not just called to deal with the Spiritual life of people in the Church, we are also responsible to take part in the leadership of socio-economic, political, cultural and others aspect of the whole community we are called to.
God calls pastor through congregation, whenever God calls it is not because who we are but because whom God is. Jesus does not says to the eleven disciples, all authority has been given to you, therefore go… what is said was all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18). All the power and the authority belong to God, however, God entrusted his authority to us to go and be a servant. Who is going to be a good leader? Leading does not demand perfectness; the only perfect leader of his people is God. Paul did not pressed on the perfectness of young Timothy we he gave for public l...
... middle of paper ...
...ng out and proclaims the gospel for unchurhed, and pastors should focus on internal evangelicalism. It is hard to evangelize other before we got evangelized ourselves. Most Churches tries to evangelize other by giving away their resources, being a good steward is good to promote the work of evangelism; however, pastor should focus first on evangelizing the members of their congregation. Today majority of Church goers do not understand their bible. When God ordered Moses to build the Tabernacle, its construction started from the inner most of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25:10), the last work to be done to finish the Tabernacle was the outer parts ( Exodus 40:33). Here I want to indicate that the Pastor should start the work evangelism from the pew to the community. To produce good evangelist the pastor should work on making his congregation biblical well versed.
Leadership within Christian community should be with distinct qualities and traits of an effective Christian leader. The author defined leadership by not focusing on profit when Christ said, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” The author explored the leadership qualities and practices that are not only distinct within the community of Christian leadership but also applicable in any arena of leadership. Significance comes from working with associates and friends. Similarly, the joy of success comes from the journey toward it than its accomplishment. Grace-full leader is a responsive leader who allows an organization to discontinue practices that are no longer effective and replace them with other good ideas and effective methods.
Transformational leadership also integrates well with a biblical worldview because both advocate valuing followers as well as leaders, the importance of ethical behavior, the need to forgive and learn from mistakes, and the value of a high moral example. Kouzes and Posner advocate leaders having a “moral authority to lead” (2007, p. 41), practicing personal accountability and working to improve all aspects of their follower’s lives. This others-centered leadership approach fits well in the Christ centered atmosphere of a Christian school.
If these primary goals are accomplished, then worship will not be empty and simple-minded. Instead, the worship atmosphere would be held to a higher standard and, she believes, both pleasing to God and attractive to those who do not know God. " Reaching Out without Dumbing Down" is a book intended for church leaders, elders, or pastors who are considering altering their current worship style to attract more unsaved people. The author provides excellent standards to help pastors and worship leaders plan, execute, and evaluate worship services. These same standards also provide a great opportunity to educate the church family on the reasons behind the use of certain worship elements.
Teachers around the time when Jesus lived thought that learning was such that the people who wanted to learn should come to them to be taught. But Jesus felt differently and rather than waiting for people to come to him, he went out to find them and then chose them to be his followers. He called them disciples and this word means one who learns. But Jesus chose his disciples carefully as we are told in Mark 1:16-20 and also in Mark 3:13-19. In the first passage, Jesus appoints his first four disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John. Jesus said to them “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) In Mark 2:13-17, Jesus calls up the fifth disciple, Levi who was a tax collector, and Jesus later renamed him Matthew. But Levi was not called in the same way as the other four disciples. Jesus was with him at the tax collector’s booth and Jesus simply said, “Follow me” (Mark 2:14) and he rose and followed Jesus.
In a survey conducted in 2012, LifeWay.com inquired about the importance of evangelism among members of the Christian faith. The results of the survey showed that 80 percent of people who claimed to follow Jesus Christ and had openly devoted themselves to the teaching of Christianity, felt that they had a “personal responsibility to share their religious views and beliefs about Jesus Christ with non-christians” (Wilke, LifeWay.com). Surveys such as this reflect the Christian doctrine of evangelism and the weight it holds within the Christian faith. As can be seen back in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ commanded His followers “to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19).” However, Jesus never told His followers how doing this.
As a minister God expects his leaders to care for the people he has given them influence over with understanding and patience. There is no particular model to follow because all churches have their struggles and each minister has a gift to help influence the congregants through their conflicts.
Philosophy of Ministry: God's desires come first, I must always live my ministry God's way. I must live as a Christian (1 Corinthians 9:27) I must have a proper relationship of surrender to the Leader. In my personal life or in the Church I must understand that Christ is Head and Chief Shepherd (Ephesians 1:22, Hebrews 13:20). The “management” of Church is about relationships with God and Man, not just maintaining a social organization.
The desire to be accepted is prevalent among youth today. In a world that is currently suffering from a famine of love that is intended to be given to today’s youth, more and more we see students that desire to be accepted, yet feel accepted by no one. Because of this we see them decide to reach out, and as they do they become accepted into a group that is not a good influence on them, or simply is wasting their time. Here we will look at what exactly the bible tells us in the issue of acceptance, and how it would look in the average youth ministry today. We will then look into how we will follow up with students past their fist visit and finally what utilizing the idea of acceptance to its full potential will do for a ministry.
In his book Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, author Alexander Strauch defends a bible-based leadership structure designed to govern the church. He argues that a plurality of elders is biblically modeled, apostolically appointed, and best suited to both the familial nature of the Church and the exclusive headship of Christ over her. He defines eldership in the biblical terms of shepherding and concludes that the primary responsibilities of biblical elders are to nurture the flock on God’s Word, lead well, cover the flock against the destructive antics of false teachers, and care for hurting or drifting sheep. He covers all the major New Testament passages that offer direction and provide guidance on elders. Strauch highlights the importance of structure to the health and holiness of the local church and is clear, ultimately structure determines how things are done in the local church… the point is, the structure of the church both reflects and determines our theology and beliefs.”[3] There are many things to be managed within a church structure, but the overall structure of the church
Robert Clinton states “The central task of leadership is influencing God’s people toward God’s purposes” (Clinton, 1988). George Barna defines a Christain Leader as “someone who is called by God to lead; leads with and through Christlike character; and demonstrates the functional competencies that permit effective leadership to take place” (Barna, 1997). It is a shame we as Christians fail to recognize that Christ would have us be leaders in more than the church.
In society and culture, leadership has the paradigm of a great and powerful person, who makes change in a miraculous and unconventional way. Since the beginning of time, people have completed heroic acts against evil and sin, but in many cases it is those who have the lesser appearance and humble disposition who have established the greatest acts of heroism. In the Bible, the Israelites and Hebrews waited for God to send a high and mighty king to save them from the oppression of the Roman government, but instead they were blessed with a little baby boy, born of poor parents who grew up to be a carpenter, yet won over death giving all humanity the opportunity to save the most important aspect of life; their soul. Leaders are always are depicted as government officials or society’s finest, but it is more important to treasure and follow a leader whose life you can duplicate because of their character, because their life pushes you to be better and elevates you to be a better person. Jesus Christ not only is the greatest leader of the church, but has the greatest life for society and humanity to pursue.
In ministry it is important to note that the different people involved in your ministry will be at different stages of their spiritual growth. Having an awareness of your own personal theology will be important for how you go about teaching the students who are involved in your youth ministry. One part of personal theology is spiritual formation. Duffy Robbins states that spiritual formation is, “the growing into the likeness of Jesus” (448). Another main part of personal theology is community. Understanding and having an idea of both spiritual formation and community helps with the formation of personal theology of ministry. This paper will share five areas of theology and how they relate to practical theology in youth ministry. The five areas of theology include view of God, view of people, view of sin, view of redemption, and view of scripture.
In this form of government the Biblical supportive by how the way the elders and pastors are elected. By the form of the congregational and by the existing elders and pastors. If you look in Acts chapter six and verses one through six, it explains this view of the elders of the church electing new elders and the congregation. “So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples…” (Acts 6.2) The apostles are selecting others to join them. This is the form of how the current elders or pastors like a Peter is selecting someone new to the church. “The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen,…” (Acts 6.5) These are Biblical examples of how the congregation and the elders or pastors elect someone new into the role of a elder or pastor.
What are the definitions of poor and poverty ? Many people hear the words poverty and have different meanings, so how do we know which definition and I poor is the correct one? According to many people poverty may mean a person who does not have any money to do the things they want to do, however most people can afford to live only on the things they truly need. This is just one example; there are many other definitions of the word poverty. Then what do people consider to be the meaning of the word poor? Some may say poor is not having enough money for that extra something at the supermarket or at the mall. What exactly are the true definitions of each word, and how do you tell the words apart and how do you know what to believe.
Evangelism is the way to bring people to know Christ. The initial objective of Jesus’ plan was to enlist men who could bear witness to his life and carry on his work after he returned to his father. “here we see how much Jesus depends on us to carry out his work. The number of Christians in Africa, Asia, and the Americas are on the rise.” When non Christians look at Christian leadrs, they will sometimes point a finger at the leader, ready to judge or reject the leader.