PEOPLE, NOT PROFESSIONALS

That question leads to a right understanding of leaders in the church.

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to overlook God’s plan for people when we organize churches around professionals. We single out people who seem especially gifted, and we craft the community of faith around them. Everything we do is dependent on their speaking ability, organizational aptitude, and creative skill. But the ministry of making disciples was not intended for professionals alone; it was intended for the whole people of God.

All men and women who have placed their faith in Christ have the Spirit in them so they might be witnesses for Christ to the ends of the earth. When you read Acts 2, you realize that the giving of the Spirit was never to be a special anointing on a select few. This is about a supernatural anointing on every single one of God’s people.⁹

Think about the time Jesus was talking with his disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”¹⁰

What did Jesus mean? Was he saying that the anointing of the Holy Spirit on us would be stronger than it was on him? Yes. But the key is why it would be stronger.

The Spirit’s anointing on us is not stronger in quality than it was on Jesus. After all, he was sinless. And as a result, his relationship with the Spirit of God was totally unhindered. So how will the Spirit’s anointing on our lives enable us to do greater things than Jesus could do?

We will do greater things, not because of the quality of the Spirit in select ones among us, but because of the quantity of the Spirit spread throughout all of us. The Spirit of God does not rest on just one individual, as we observe in Jesus. No, the Spirit of God rests on every disciple of Jesus, and because of the filling of the Spirit all across the community of faith, we can see greater things than anyone ever saw in the ministry of Jesus.

Because of the filling of the Spirit all across the community of faith, we can see greater things than anyone ever saw in the ministry of Jesus.

At this moment, while you read this sentence, men and women around the world are being saved from their sins through the proclamation of the gospel. At this moment, people are being delivered from addictions and healed of diseases. At this moment, brothers and sisters are advancing the gospel in power amid unreached people groups. All of this is happening right now because the Spirit of God has been poured out on all his people all over the world.

Let us not, then, be so foolish as to confine the work of the Spirit to one professional, speaking in one place, at one time of the week. Let us not be so unwise as to bank the spread of the gospel on a certain person at a certain place when all week long the Spirit of God is living in every single man and woman of God, empowering each of us to advance the kingdom of God for his glory.

I was having a conversation the other day with a seminary buddy who jokingly accused me of campaigning to end paid leadership in the church, his salary (and mine) included. You might be wondering the same thing. Is there a place for paid leaders—that is, professionals—in the church?

Absolutely. And I don’t think I’m saying this out of self-interest. When we look in the New Testament, we clearly see a warrant, even a command, to provide financially for certain teachers and leaders in the church. Paul says it is good for leaders who sow spiritual blessings among God’s people to reap material blessings from God’s people. Of course, leaders in the church must be careful to honor God by their use of money.¹¹

What, then, is the responsibility of such leaders in the church? Paul answers this question in Ephesians 4. God has given leaders to the church to equip God’s people for ministry and “prepare God’s people for works of service.”¹² The church has been entrusted by God with stewards of God’s Word to equip God’s people to be servants with God’s Word. This goes to the essence of being radical together, and it changes everything about how we view leaders in the church.

There is clearly no way that I as a pastor can minister to all the needs in our church, much less in our city. Realizing this, some people might say, “Well, that’s what the rest of the church staff is for.” But that can’t be true either. We will never have enough staff members to meet all the needs in our church or our city. If we want to multiply the gospel from our faith family to all the families of the earth, it will require not just a pastor or church staff but the entire body of Christ built up in love “as each part does its work.”¹³

What this means, then, is that church leaders are intended by God not to plan events but to equip people. Leaders do not exist to provide services; they exist to serve people. Realizing this, we who are leaders in our faith family have made a concentrated effort to take resources (most notably our time) away from organizing ministry for people and to invest them more in mobilizing people for ministry.

Church leaders are intended by God not to plan events but to equip people.

As I write this, an overseas church leader I’ll call Dominic comes to mind. I met him once while visiting a communist nation.

Dominic is now in his sixties, and he has been the pastor of a relatively small house church for most of his life. Dominic’s passion is telling people about Christ. He was once brought before the communist council in his community to be questioned about his evangelistic work. He walked into the interrogation room with a large rock in his hands and set it down on the table in front of the men who were about to question him.

Surprised, one of the men asked Dominic, “Why did you bring this rock with you?”

Dominic replied, “Before we begin my questioning today, I want you to know something. If you try to stop me from telling people about the greatness of Jesus Christ, then this rock is going to start speaking for me.” Dominic was alluding to Luke 19:40, where Jesus says that if the disciples didn’t proclaim his glory, the stones would cry out instead. The communist leaders, of course, had no idea what Dominic was talking about. They conferred and decided he was out of his mind, so they released him without further questioning!

Dominic’s passion to tell people about Christ translates into a commitment to train people in the church. When he leads someone to Christ, Dominic takes personal responsibility for helping that person grow in Christ. His goal is for that person to become a leader in the church and then eventually to leave and plant another church somewhere else. (Almost all church planters in that part of the world are bivocational.) Dominic’s church has now planted more than sixty other churches in his country, with nearly every one of the pastors trained by Dominic. His life and leadership are a picture of what it means, not to organize ministry for people, but to mobilize people for ministry.