Sweet Followship

John, over at The Earnest Contender is doing a wonderful series about pastors, what they are, Biblically, and the office as described in scripture.

This post is about how the congregation should relate to the leadership of the church.

Ephesians 4: 11-16

11. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Notice that we are talking about the leadership, and I take it to include both staff and lay leaders (you don't have to if you don't want to, but I strongly advise it).

12. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Their work has a purpose: to "perfect," or to "prepare" God's people for ministry and to build them up as members of the body of Christ.

13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

They are to keep at it until God's people are unified, know Christ, become mature and realize the perfection of Christ (not of us) in themselves.

14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Maturity occurs when we grow up. Children do not act maturely, grown-ups are supposed to. Children fall for all kinds of stupid stuff. Grown-ups are not supposed to.

If God's people are mature, false teachers will not be able to sway them from their right thinking in Christ.

15 . But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

"Truth in love" does not mean we should greet the grumpy old lady by saying, "Hi, there, you ugly old hag, " just because she is ugly, old and a hag (does the sentence, "Be ye kind one to another," mean any thing to you?).

The truth is the person of Christ, who is the truth. We know that He is because He said so. Besides, the whole emphasis of the verse is Jesus.

16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

There's that unity thing again; a body that fits together to accomplish God's purpose in love.

I submit that congregations have a responsibility to follow their leaders to these ends, as long as the leadership does not try to lead them to do something immoral, illegal or contrary to the principles of God's word.

In order for that to take place, and for the congregation to be united in followship, each individual (read: you) must submit to the leaders God has given, pastors, staff, deacons, Sunday School teachers, Church Training Directors or whoever.

"I don't want to do that," or "We've never done it that way before," or (especially here in the south), "Up north we...," have never been, are not now and never will be reasons to thwart the leadership of the church.

Make it easy for your leadership. Don't take *Kool-Aid for them, but willingly follow them as God's annointed for your congregation.

Be enthusiatically led to grow in christ, love each other (including the leaders), and meet regularly in the followship hall for the meat of the word and to drink in all of Christ you possibly can.

Then watch the body of Christ groW!

*A veiled reference to the followers of Jim Jones, who committed mass suicide by taking poison laced Kool-Aid because he said to.