A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. This article is from Fellowship magazine, November/December 1993 and appears by permission. The magazine is published by the United Church Renewal Fellowship. Rev. Dr. Connie denBok is minister at Rowntree Memorial United Church in London, Ontario.
Is there a minister anywhere who hasn’t been kidded about working only one day a week?
When my husband and I arrived on our first summer internship in Compeer, Alberta, population 50 (48 of whom were Roman Catholic), we knew that services would be held the following Sunday. We knew that every minister in our experience took Mondays off. That left Tuesday to Saturday to be filled with whatever ministerial and theological endeavours presented themselves.
There were a few cues. One of the elders dropped off a lawn mower and told us that it was sometimes used to mow around the manse and cemetery. And after church on Sunday a few families from outside the village invited us to drop by for a bath any time. We hoped the invitation was prompted by the lack of running water in the manse.
So Tuesday morning we went out for a bath, mowed the cemetery, ran a hose across the road and into the manse to fill the rain barrel, and waited for the phone to ring, for someone to come to the door in need of pastoral counsel – for something to happen to tell us what to do.
Just what do ministers do in their role as church leaders? Are we theologians in residence, set apart by our years of university and superior knowledge of the latest theological papers? Are we chaplains to the community, on call to marry, bury and baptize anyone who is not a practising Roman Catholic? Are we professional counselors? A lawn service? A reliable way to provide Sunday worship? Are we rulers of the church? Servants of the Board? Shepherds and examples to the flock? A random sampling of the population? Do we represent our congregations to the courts of the church, or do we represent official church policies to our congregations?
A CRISIS OF CONFUSION
An executive officer of another denomination told me that in the late 1970s his conference dealt with six or seven clergy crises a year. Now they deal with that many in an average month. There is no congregation or denomination untouched by the confusion.
The flock wants a pastor. The Sunday morning crowd wants a preacher. The needy want a benefactor. The courts of the church want committee members. The proud new grandparents want a priest. The seminaries want activists.
If leaders do not know where they are going, or even whether or not they are leaders, how is the rest of the church to find its way?
What is the role of a church leader? The New Testament refers to them by the generic term, presbyteros. The Greek is often translated into English as elder. In addition we find diaconos, or deacon, administrator. We find apostolos, an ambassador or representative. Over time we see the emergence of episcopos, literally an overseer, sometimes translated bishop.
Unfortunately, none of these titles carried detailed job descriptions in the early church. Apostles began as Jesus’ hand-picked 12 helpers and evolved to include Paul the ambassador to the Gentiles, and expanded to include others, including with the unmistakably feminine name (in the original Greek) of Junia (Rom. 16:7).
David Luecke of the Institute for Christian Organizational Development in Pasadena, California, found it more helpful to study leadership in terms of New Testament analogies.
Perhaps the most familiar New Testament analogy for leadership is the shepherd. United Church ministers are ordained to pastoral care. In other denominations church leaders are called Pastors, a practice which emerged from 18th century German pietism. It was introduced to close the gap between clergy and laity and to emphasize a caring relationship between leaders and people. Luecke notes that the New Testament often refers to Jesus as shepherd, but there are only three instances outside the Gospels where church leaders are called shepherds (Acts 20:28, Eph. 4:11, 1 Pet. 5:2). Shepherding is only a partial model of New Testament leadership.
A pastor whose vision extends only as far as feeding the flock will have fat sheep.
Another New Testament leadership analogy is the ship’s helmsman (1 Cor. 12:28). The identical word is used of the helmsman in Acts 27:11 and the ships’ captains (Rev. 18:17). A helmsman or administrator was not the owner of a ship but had three functions: to know the ship’s destination, to discern the ship’s current situation, and to make the adjustments necessary to reach the desired destination. It might be noteworthy that no ship owner entrusted the helm to a committee.
Occasionally church leaders are described as oikonomos, literally household managers or stewards. Stewards oversaw the day-to-day management of a household or estate.
Church leaders are stewards of the mysteries of God, and required to be faithful to their trust (1 Cor. 4:1 -2). The stewards entrusted with God’s work are to be blameless, not over-bearing, not quick-tempered, not given to much wine, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain; hospital, loving what is good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined, holding firmly to the message they were taught so they might encourage others in sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it (Titus 1:7-9). When is the last time the nominating committee of your Official Board assessed potential candidates against the minimum biblical standards for day-to-day managers under the realm of God?
Biblical stewardship has nothing to do with raising funds and everything to do with raising godly, faithful leaders.
The more frequent New Testament leadership analogy, used no less than 31 times by Paul, is the Greek oikodomeo, from oikos, meaning house, household, fellowship; and domeo, meaning to build. Paul has coined a new usage to describe the task of building people and households in the faith.
David Luecke suggests a more accurate translation would render oikodomeo as “fellowship building.” Our English word “fellowship” comes from the old English village pasture where all held grazing land or “fallow” in common. “Fellows” were those who grazed from a common pasture and derived a living from a common source.
In building parlance a church leader might be an architect who plans the structure according to God’s specifications.
GRAZING UNDER THE OIKODOME
Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are God’s building – oikodome (1 Cor. 3:9). Luecke suggests the paragraph following could be rendered as follows:
By the grace of God has given me, like an architect (architekton), I established a foundation and others are building fellowship on it. But each one should be careful how he builds fellowship… If anyone builds fellowship on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, his work will be shown for what it is… If someone’s work remains where he did build fellowship he will receiver a reward.
Church leaders are also like contractors bringing together the necessary trades or gifts and co-ordinating them in the great task of building a fellowship. First Corinthians 14:22-25 describes a church where “everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. These must be done so that all might be edified, build together in fellowship.”
A pastor whose vision extends only as far as feeding the flock will have fat sheep, and no worthy church leader tends God’s people for the sole purpose of fleecing them several times a year. A helmsman must have a destination beyond his or her ship. A steward is entrusted with wealth in order to perform greater tasks.
Church leadership is the implementation of a great work of God. Churches don’t spontaneously appear and flourish like mushrooms after a rain. Human agencies have been commissioned by God for the building of Christ’s church on Jesus the living stone. First Peter 2:5 tells us, “You also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.”
Some church leaders are called to be architects, some contractors, some are carpenters and plumbers. But every church leader is a builder of people in God’s house.