Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2F
How does leadership work in a simple church?
Once again we must think of family as our primary image of church instead of thinking of non-profit organization as our primary image of church. Once we do that, the idea of leadership becomes simple. Leadership then resembles parenting more than it does managing.
Two kinds of leaders emerge in simple church networks: stayers & goers. Stayers are the spiritual fathers & mothers within a simple church. They serve as the overseers of the family. They pastor the flock. Their leadership style is comparable to a mother or father in a healthy biological family. Goers are more apostolic at heart. They go throughout the network planting new churches and networking the existing ones together. They often act as overseers of the network.
Various authors have come up with more elaborate leadership concepts for simple churches. These systems try to identify how simple church leadership corresponds to Biblical terms such as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, elder, and deacon. Though some of their ideas may be valid, I have not found myself to be smart enough to positively identify how each of these roles plays out in today’s church. For my simple mind, I have only been able to distinguish between the stayers and goers. Perhaps the roles mentioned above are more complex explanations of the simple reality that some leaders stay in a context while others go from context to context. In the end, it is often easier to identify leadership roles in the rear view mirror (by seeing what God has done with a person over a period of time) than it is in the windshield (trying to label and predict who will play what leadership role before the test of time).
Supplemental Readings:
Luke 10:1-12 (read along with Luke 9:1-6 & Matthew 10:1-16)
Ephesians 4:11-16
Romans 12:3-8
1 Corinthians 12:1-31
I Timothy 3:1-13, 4:12-16