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"Teaching God's Word to God's World"
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Ministry Leaders
George
L. Faull
Dear Brother Faull,
We are hearing of
preachers who are doing away with the elder and deacon concept and have what is
called "Ministry Leaders". It seems to be spreading all over. What
are your feelings about this?
ANSWER:
My feelings are really not
that important. If I were to express them I would say that someone is proud in
thinking they could improve on God's revealed church polity. They are ludicrous
in following the fad of the charismatic movement. They surely must be ignorant
of the source of this presumption for they are the adapters of a Fuller
Theological brainstorm of unregenerate men and are patterning the church after
the "foolosophy" of Mega-church gurus who are nothing but change
agents of the Lord's Church. It is unbiblical and it is nothing short of
presumptuous and high-handed sin.
Having said that, I want
you to see that they usually use the Acts 6 model of Church leadership. The
only leadership there was that of the apostles. They, unlike the Fuller lords,
were willing to take constructive criticism from the members. The people did
not want the apostles, who were obviously acting as elders in teaching and
praying, to forget the widows' needs. The apostles realized they did not have
time to serve tables and so they chose servants. They did not choose Elders
they chose servants. They did not choose seven elders, they chose seven men who
could serve tables, so this is not an example to be used on how to choose
Spiritual leaders, but servants who would lead in the physical work of the Church.
Furthermore, in spite of
what those who follow the Fuller and Vineyard philosophy say, God has a set
plan for Church polity. It is very simple. God gave two temporary
offices, apostles and prophets, who are the revealers of truth. He has two
permanent offices that teach what the apostles and prophets revealed namely the
Evangelist and Pastor teachers. Deacons are not in the
spiritual leadership role. Even they are not required to be able to teach but
their qualifications are given, as well as that of their wives. They are not
even to be novices but well grounded in the faith. The "Fuller Model"
places men in leadership roles as so-called ministry leaders. They are made up
in many churches of new converts, women, and even teenagers. It is no more
right to substitute for God's polity as it is to substitute for Christian
immersion. We need to be careful that we do not follow Philistine ideas or some
Uzzahs among us are going to die unnecessarily. It made good sense to move the
ark on a cart like they did. I bet Uzzah's family did not think so. If he had
not moved the ark the wrong way, it would not have jostled and he would not
have grappled to save it. He would not have died. When we have a copycat
religion we can end up one dead cat. David was angry at God that he could not
do it his way, but then he read the Book and said to the priests to carry it on
their shoulders according to the due order. Read it for yourself in I Chronicles 15:2,13.
This fooling with God's
polity is not new. They have been fighting over it for almost 1800 years. See
it in the Papacy. Rome copied the emperor and they have Cardinals and a Pope.
The Church of England has a head of the church in a king. Mormons, J. W.'s have
a president. Everyone follows the form of polity of the country in which the
denomination originated. America copied the Democratic board system for years
and set the church back years. Now the church is copying the pastor-lead
ministry team system of Vineyard and other apostate men who claim that God has
revealed this system to them. It is shameful that so many of the brethren are
ignorant of the source of this form of polity that they have adapted.
Pragmatism is Lord. Success is God. Mega-church is the ideal.
Paul addressed the elders
of the church. He called for them to come to him. They were with the apostles
at the conference at Jerusalem and helped make the decisions. There are
qualifications for them. What these pragmatists want is an office they can
control. They want to put in men and women with leadership roles that have no
Biblical qualifications so you can not fault their choice. They are usually
" yes men" to a man out of control as a leader himself who does not
want to be held accountable to anyone. They wish to be the authority in the church.
The church is autonomous with no outside interference. This is as it should be.
However, this is not a license for a baby pope and cardinals in our churches.
The Scriptures tell us that if we speak, we
are to speak as the oracles of God. The plea of our movement is to call
scriptural things by scriptural names. New names come from new ideas. That is
what we have here. Elders and presbyters show a leaders age. Bishop and
overseers show their authority. Pastor and Shepherd show their work. This work
is not given to unqualified men and women. Some of
the brethren are not smart enough to see the underlying reason we have ministry
leaders instead of elders and deacons. Since they are unmentioned and
qualifications are not given, then women can do it. By removing the eldership
and deaconate, women rule over men as ministry leaders. Man, is the devil smart
and men dumb?
I must repeat again that Acts 6 is about
the leadership of the apostles appointing servants. It is not about them
appointing spiritual leaders. These men were placed as a function in the body. They are overseers of a
work, while elders are to oversee the flock or people. There is a big
difference.
It is the evangelist and elders that are to
"mature and perfect" the church to service. They are the ones charged
with bringing every member into a function in the body so the church can be
built up to do the works of the ministry. It is not team leaders who do this.
It is the evangelist and elders who are charged with this according to
Ephesians 4. They are the gifts of leadership that Christ
placed over HIS church with authority. To try to circumvent them with
unqualified novices and women is rebellion to the King who has not left us
without a plan of polity for his church. The Church spiritual
leadership consists only of the elders and evangelist who have the oversight. To
ignore this is to commit the sin of many of the Old Testament people who chose
debased men to be priests instead of the sons of Levi. It is the attitude of
Korah who said, "we too are the people of God. We are all holy". It
is true they were God's Holy people, but they were not holy in respect to
office. Likewise, God made the elders of the Church the overseers of the flock
to feed the Church of God that he purchased with his own blood. Acts 20:28
It is the evangelist who
ordains elders in every church. He sets the church in order. He does not set
ministry leaders in place. He sets elders in place to feed the flock. Soul
winning is not the job of the elders. Shepherds do not make sheep. Sheep do.
The evangelist commits the word to faithful men and women who can teach others
also. The elders shepherd the flock and the increase of the flock. The Deacons
oversee the physical tasks.
The apostles were led into
all truth. They set up the polity of the church. They did it in every church. Acts 14:32 and Titus 1:5. It is
plain that they did it at Phillipi. Philippians 1:1. “Paul and Timotheus, the
servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:”
The "fuller
idea" is seen often in the Mega-church " wannabe" ministries.
They call the full-time workers "pastors" and after rooting out the
part time elders who are good men in the church, they hire some full time men
who will play on the team well with them and their agenda. They have to be men
of vision (agree with the pastor) and men who are team players (who will not
rock the boat).
One other thing they do
when they have meetings, is this:
1. They have to have unity
of thought.
2. They vote until it is
unanimous.
3. The one who will not
agree has to resign.
Many faithful and wise men have been defrocked by
this method so he has to move on or sit in a pew with his mouth shut. I have seen
this over and over. Men that were good elders and teachers are moved out and
flunkies who never had an original thought in their mind but are excellent
parrots are put in their place. I have seen this all over the country in my
travels. If God made them overseers how dare they be removed by deciding we
must have unity at all costs. When perfect agreement becomes the pole star,
let me tell you the church is being led by wandering stars that will shipwreck
the church.
God's plan is that the
elders are to shepherd the flock. Evangelists are to evangelize the lost.
Together they mature the church for service. A church without elders and an
evangelist and deacons, is not a church set up after the divine order. To
purposely change the titles, work, functions, and qualifications for the
"fuller concept" is nothing short of rebellion. It is presumptuous,
unscriptural, unwise, and to be avoided at all costs. We do not change Gods
vocabulary because some misunderstand it. This is why there is sprinkling
instead of immersion. The king wanted a new word, "Baptize".
Immersion was too plain for him and so, true to common sense, new practices
came from new words because new words mean new ideas. When you change God's
words you change God's meanings.
We are specifically told
the names of these offices. We are specifically told to speak as the oracles of
God. We are plainly told that Paul said - now we have received, not the spirit
of the world (its culture) but the spirit, which is of God that we might know
the things that are freely given us of God. WHICH THINGS WE
SPEAK NOT IN
THE WORDS WHICH MANS WISDOM TEACHETH, BUT WHICH THE
HOLY SPIRIT TEACHETH; COMPARING SPIRITUAL THINGS
WITH SPIRITUAL. I Corinthians 2
Alexander Campbell said it
well. "We prefer to call Bible things by Bible names because we are always
afraid that if the word is not there, the idea that the word represents is not
there. " Well said! We are not obligated to be a coiner of new words, it
is unwise. Then we become the definer of those words and we end up like the
Jews of old who married with the unbelievers and spoke half the language of the
Jews and half the language of Ashdod.
There is no pure faith without pure
vocabulary. New offices have new qualifications. New qualifications allow those
whom God forbids to teach and have authority to do so. One
ought to always look at the origin of a thing to understand its devious design.
The unscriptural terms being substituted today by Mega-church
"wannabes" came not from men of God's vineyard, but of another
Vineyard. It came from professional change agents who have stolen the New
Testament Church away from those who were walking on the old paths. Let no man
say he is part of the Restoration Movement who changes God's terms of pardon or
polity in exchange for nothing but pragmatism and subjectivism and whatever
works.
May God bless those who
recognize that Jesus led the Apostles into all truth and left the Church with a
plan of church polity.
Let God be true and every
man a liar!