A Treatise on Church Growth part nine

Which brings us back to our main point - the answer for the man at the pool of Bethesda was a personal encounter with Jesus. Our very existence as born-again christians begins this way and it must continue this way. There is no other way. He chooses now to meet with us by His Spirit (how much more intimate!). Our gatherings should be continueing encounters with Jesus for each of us personally and collectively, encounters with the deposit of Christ within each of us. Whenever two or three are gathered together in my name, meaning we are married to him, there am I in the midst of them. He is there in the midst of us, to meet with us, to fellowship with us. If our gathering together is an encounter with our pastor or spiritual elder only, what a shame because Jesus is then limited to that one man to meet the needs of an entire congregation of people.

Praise God that the pastor is a protector, a watchman and many other things but he is only what he is as the Spirit of God enables him to be so. This means a total yielding to the Holy Spirit to be effective. Then and only then can the leadership be to the people the blessing God meant for them to be because then the leadership is one with the people in Spirit, making a perfect whole - one in God's sight. One in love for God and each other. Then, as one (not leadership and laymen), we can properly submit to and receive from one another because then we are properly submitted to and receiving from God, together.

The pastor is no longer a professional christian while I am an amateur but we are both one in Christ with love binding us together and his role of blessing me flows out of Christ's love for me and I am accepted in the Beloved. Amen.

Leadership then is to be more mature in love. Rebellion usually comes when leadership is not leading as Christ did - by loving people more than himself, by loving them by knowing them personally, heart to heart. Not by making people fit into a tradition or any system of contact that talks and teaches the Word but does not touch and love the people, does not do the Word. The same is true in natural families where children, usually as teen-agers, rebel. If love isn't flowing properly in the family, the children will usually rebel or die from lack of love.

to be continued...