Video Transcript: The Pastor's Authority and Accountability

Welcome to Session 11 in the practical ministry skills course the pastor's  authority and accountability. This is based on Chapter Seven of pastoring the  nuts and bolts. Our key verse for this session is you must teach these things  and encourage the believers to do them. Paul is writing to his protege, Titus.  This is one of the what are called the pastoral letters I and II Timothy and Titus  Paul didn't write to churches. He wrote to pastors or ministers to church leaders, and they have some a wealth of information and advice about how to be a good  leader in God's church, a good minister. And so Paul says to Titus, you must  teach these things and encourage the believers to do them. You have the  authority to correct them when necessary. So don't let anyone disregard what  you say. You have the authority. As a minister, as a leader of a ministry, local  church, or any other kind of ministry, you have authority. And a lot of people  recognize that, yes, of course, I have authority that's implicit in the in having this  role. But a lot don't realize there are two kinds of authority. There is what's called positional authority, which is authority that comes because you hold that  position. And in some organizations, that is much stronger than in others. In the  military, a superior officer has authority over an enlisted person, just strictly and  only because they have that position. They have positional authority. They may  eventually gain the other kind of authority. But doesn't matter. In the military, you  got to do what your positional superior says to do because they have that  authority. The Church, even though it's often called the army of God, is not the  military, and you don't have that kind of authority. There are people who will  question your authority, even if you are the minister, like Mrs. Thundermuffin,  here are you questioning my authority again, Mrs. Thundermuffin, and I would  say again, it looks like she's questioning his authority. You will find people that  will do that. There are people in a church, even good Christians of long standing, who will take ownership of the church consider it their church, and especially if  you come in as a new pastor, a new minister, a new leader of whatever your  ministry is, they may grudgingly, At first, grant you positional authority, but if they think you're getting it wrong, if they think whoever put you there, appointed you  or elected you or hired you, or whatever put you in that position made a mistake, they won't make any bones about it, and they will go around you, and they'll try  even to undermine you. And we'll deal with those kinds of problems people later  on in another lecture, but I mentioned the authority that you have because of  your position. You start with that, and you husband that. You take advantage of  that, but you do that in order to have time to build up the other kind of authority,  and that is authority that you earn, not that you're given, not not that comes after your title if you have a title, but authority that you earn because people respect  You. And notice I said respect. I didn't say like their respect is what will allow you to influence them, and that's what authority is about. Influencing people, causing people to do what you believe is the best thing for them, to. Do. I could like  somebody and think they're a really nice person, but think they have no idea 

about what I ought to be doing. I could respect somebody, respect their wisdom  and their judgment, and even though I may not personally like their personality, I will be much more inclined to go along with what they say, if I respect their  judgment and their wisdom and their relationship with God. So you need to work as a leader to get people to respect your wisdom and your good intentions and  your integrity and all the other things that will cause them to respect you and  therefore to listen and go along with what you are, where you're trying to lead,  even if they don't immediately agree with you. Now it's important to understand  that their respect for you is going to be based on their perception of you. It's  going to be based on what they know or believe about you, whether or not that's true. In other words, they you could be an entirely honest and good person, but  if they've heard rumors that suggest the otherwise and they believe them, then  you're not going to get the respect that you truly deserve, and vice versa. If they  if you think somebody is a very good, wonderful God fearing person, and then  you can respect them and listen to them and follow them, even if, behind the  scenes, they are something different, and that's the basis of, unfortunately, of  scandals in the church where leaders betray the trust. So don't allow that to  happen to you. Honestly earn the respect. But also try to make sure, I mean,  you don't have to be constantly out there, defending yourself against every little  thing. Hopefully, some of those things are going to be so crazy that anybody  who really knows you and respects you won't pay any attention to the stuff that  the devil tried to throw out there. People will grant you authority in their lives  based on how they perceive four things, I've already kind of run over, these your character, you have to have that, that character of honesty and integrity,  faithfulness, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. If you are a person of good  character, they will respect you. They'll grant you authority in their lives based on your relationship with God, on how they perceive your relationship with God, if  they believe that you are a God fearing person who prays and knows how to  hear from God. You tell them, then that you were praying and God led you in this direction, they are likely to grant you authority based on that, because of their  perception that, yeah, if this person said they heard from God, they did, they will  grant you authority based on your relationship with them and their friends. The  better you know them, the better they feel like you know them and their friends  and understand their situation and are approachable and you have a good  relationship, then they're going to be much more likely to grant you authority in  their lives, and they will grant you authority and influence in their lives based on  their perception of your knowledge and ability. So that doesn't mean constantly  be using big words that nobody can understand just to show how educated you  are, but you need to gain the knowledge. You need to gain the ability, which is  learned through practice and through training, and then the people need to see  that in your life, and the more they see that, the more authority they're going to 

give it. They believe that you are a person of good character who has a good  relationship with God and knows how to hear from God, who understands their  situation and knows them, and you have knowledge and ability, if they believe all of those things about you, they'll follow you almost anywhere. They will give you  tremendous authority to lead the church, and they're part of it. The more respect you earn, and again, the word is, earn, the more influence and authority you will  have so in different denominations and different church setups, the positional  authority is different in some the some ways of doing church government, the  positional authority of the pastor or the Minister is pretty much anything they say goes in others, it has to be submitted to a committee or a board or the elders or  the Presbytery, or Whatever you call it, and be approved in some the position  carries with it a lot of positional authority in some areas and not a whole lot in  others. For instance, in my own denomination that I came out of, the pastor of a  church had pretty much unlimited say over the worship, how the worship was  conducted, and the use of the building for worship, but the pastor did not have  unlimited say over how the money was spent, money, spending money, even for worship, because it had to go through and be approved if there was as much  money available as the pastor wanted to spend. All of that had to go through  various levels of committees and things like that. So very often it's broken down  like that. But even in those areas where you don't have the positional authority,  then the relational influence respect authority will carry a lot of weight. Now,  influence and authority is tested when you try to change things, as long as  you're just going along with the way everything is and everybody's happy, then it doesn't matter if you have any influence or authority. But if you believe God is  leading you to change something, and other people are not so happy about that  change, that's where the influence and authority comes in. But yet, you're not  being a leader. If you're not changing, if you're just riding the wave along, if you  just following the people to wherever it goes, You're not leading. It's amazing to  me how sometimes even the smallest changes are seen as huge in the minds of the people in the church. I remember I went to one church, and after a service, it was early in my time at that church. And again, I come from a denomination  where we were appointed around to different churches. I think I served six or  seven in my lifetime. Keep having to stop and count them, and I won't take the  time to do that right now, but a woman came up to me after the service, and she  said, oh, oh, Pastor, you've changed everything. And I said, What have I  changed? And she said, the offering used to be after the sermon, and you put it  before it. That to me that that was a totally I mean, that was tiny, tiny, little thing  didn't matter to me. I don't know exactly why I did it, why I made that change,  but it certainly I didn't consider it a life changing thing, not even important  enough to consult with the worship committee. But for this person, oh, my  goodness. And I finally figured out there are people, and I'm not saying this, that  was the case with this person, but there are people whose only connection with 

God is the Sunday morning service. And so if a change is made to the Sunday  morning service, then you're messing with their connection with God. And that's  serious for some whether that's the case or whether it's something else, change  makes most people uncomfortable. So if you feel that God is leading your  church in a new direction. There are several things you can do to make it easier  on everyone. First and foremost, pray don't make a change just because you  think it's a good idea. Pray about it now it may come the idea. May come in  prayers and you feel like you came straight from God, or the idea may come  from a class like this a conference, just thinking about things, a suggestion  somebody makes, but then take it back to God in prayer and get God to confirm  that it's either way God, God can initiate it directly to you in prayer, or through  something that he brings to you some other way, it still can be from God, but  don't assume it's from God, especially if you just thought of it on your own, or  somebody suggested it, or You saw an advertisement, bring it to God in prayer,  and soak the whole process in prayer all the way through next discuss the idea  just informally, offhand, off the record with somebody you respect, if you're still  trying to confirm, is this really God? If it is exactly, how should I go about it?  Maybe talk about it with a colleague in another church or another ministry,  instead of, you know, don't bring it right into anybody in your ministry until you're  quite until you're pretty sure that you want to suggest it, but then start discussing it informally with the leaders, the other leaders you trust in your ministry or in  your church, talk about it, refine it, even if the idea came from God. That doesn't  mean the final form, came from God. So discuss it. Work it out. God leads  people. He wants us to use our heads for those kinds of things, to figure out  those details. So work it out. And if you get some agreement from some other  important leaders in your church that you trust your your kind of people you go  to for advice that it's good, then start laying the groundwork in your sermons, if  you're a pastor, or in your your talks, in in your conversations with other people  in the ministry, start laying the groundwork, maybe not necessarily in terms of a  program, but in terms of the biblical principles that would lead to the support of  this kind of a program, or whatever change you're making, lay the groundwork in the sermons, and then after a while, when the time is right, present it to the  appropriate body in your church, board of deacons, board of elders, whatever  you call the the group of people, if there is a group of people that that pushes  things through, that approves things or encourages things, or advises or  whatever they do. We'll be be getting into that a little bit later, but there is usually a body of people in a church, of the other leaders in the ministry, and the ideal,  the ideal thing is, if you have done such a great job laying the groundwork, that  you get together for your meeting and somebody else says, Hey, Minister, I've  got an idea. How about if we do this and they present the same thing you are  going to present? That's perfect. That's great. But of course, if it doesn't happen, and most of the time, frankly, it doesn't be ready to suggest it yourself, if you 

need to at the right time, that's a prayerful decision for God to show you and  suggest it as an action proposal. Here's what I propose doing. Here are the  steps. Here's how I think it would work. As they say, cast the vision. Show them  what it would look like once it's in place, and the advantages, the pros and cons. And then suggest that you know, after, there's been discussion and whatever  suggest, well, how about if we just try it as a trial run. Don't immediately suggest  a permanent change. Say, Let's try this for six weeks or three months or  whatever is an appropriate kind of a of a time, and see how it works out, people  are much more likely to approve something if they feel like they can then go  through a process of evaluation and say, no, that didn't work. Let's let's go back  to the way we used to, however you do it, follow your church's or your ministry's  decision. Making process now expect resistance, not only in that leadership  group, but then once it becomes known among the larger body, the  congregation or the other people in the ministry, expect some resistance,  because different people accept things at different rates. There are the early  adopters who get excited about any any new idea, and say, This is great. Let's  go for it. And then there are the people who sit back and say, Oh, you're going to have to prove this to me. And after 95% of the church or the group has been  doing it. It's been working well for two years. There's finally saying, well maybe.  And so you have some people on that end and some people on this end, and  then you have a lot of people. I'm not sure if it's exactly a bell curve, but anyway, a lot of people all along the way, different people will adopt it at different stages,  different periods of time as you go through the process. So until people have  adopted it, they will resist it. And you need to be prepared for resistance. Don't  give up at the first sign of resistance. Don't let your your leaders give up. Don't  let them say, oh, we can't do this. We might as well drop it, because so and so  doesn't like in particular, if there are certain people, there are some people who  will try to control the church by threatening to stop giving or threatening to leave. Don't allow the church to be held hostage by those who would threaten to do  something destructive to your ministry if they don't get their way. Those are not  the kind of people that you want influencing your church and God is bigger than  they are. If they get unhappy and say, Well, I'm just going to leave, I will tell you,  from experience, you're much better off letting them leave instead of begging  them to stay and trying to change things, because they won't be happy and  they'll just keep talking to their friends and making things worse in that regard,  let them go. Jesus, let people go. And if they threaten to stop giving you all, you  should not be in a position where your church is financially responsible, your  ministry is financially dependent on one or two sources of giving your as a  matter of fact, your ministry is dependent on one source, and that is God. It's not any individual. So if somebody picks up their ball and goes home, God has  another ball God can provide. But also remember that you can't force the church to accept a change, even if the change is from God, even if the change is from 

God, you can't force them to accept it. So if they won't even do a trial run, okay,  move on to the next thing. At the end of the trial run, use your church's decision  making process to decide whether to keep going the way it is, whether to make  some changes, whether to go back to the old way in many church polities, as I  

said, the pastor can't force the minister can't force the church or the organization to accept a change, but even if you do have the positional authority, forcing an  unpopular change is usually a bad idea. If you come up with something that you  think the church can pull off, if everybody in the church gets behind it and  supports it, and then 49% of the people don't like it and they leave, then it's not  going to work anyway. They call it a pyrrhic victory, if you if you won, but you lost anyway. There are many sad examples, and I've lived through some of  congregations using their God given free will to refuse to accept God's new idea. And I, I say, I lived through I believed it was God's new idea. CONGREGATION  didn't accept it, and that refusal often marked the beginning of a decline for the  church. Definitely, in my ministry, that has happened, and if it happens to you,  don't feel like a failure. Even Jesus couldn't get most of the Pharisees to change their ways. Now, very quickly, I need to hurry on this. Your accountability. Some  pastors claim they're only responsible to God. Some ministers believe they're  the only ones who can properly hear from God. That's a recipe for trouble. If you don't want to be held accountable, it means you want to do something that you  know you shouldn't do, right? If you don't want anybody to ask about it. It means subconsciously, you know you ought not to be doing it, but you want to do it  anyway. Nobody in the New Testament Church claimed to hear infallibly from  God, except for Jesus. You had the Old Testament prophets and you had Jesus, but after Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit came on, all the church, nobody, not  Peter, not Paul, not James, none of them claimed to hear infallibly from God.  Paul writes, we know in part, and we prophesy or we hear from God in part,  none of us has the whole picture, and because of that, let two or three people  prophesy tell them this is what I heard the Lord saying, and let the others  evaluate what is said. So somebody says, God said this to me. Okay, then let  the others who know how to hear from God evaluate that and weigh it. Paul  himself made himself accountable. He went to Jerusalem. He says I went there  because God revealed to me that I should go. God told him to go. While I was  there, I met privately with those who considered to be the leaders of the church,  and shared with them the message I'd been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted  to make sure that we were in agreement for fear that all my efforts had been  wasted and I was running the race for nothing. This is the Apostle Paul who  wrote so much of the New Testament, saying that he went and made himself  accountable to the leaders of the church, the apostles and so on are still in  Jerusalem. And the implication of that last sentence for fear that all my efforts  had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing he was willing to accept their judgment if they told him he was wrong. He made himself accountable to 

them. A clear line of accountability protects you, as well as the church, because  if somebody accuses you of something, and they will somebody accuses you of  something, then if you have a line of accountability, then those to whom you're  accountable should be able to say, No, we've been with this person all the way,  and the way They've been leading this ministry is right, and they did not do what you're saying they did. Every pastor needs someone who can hold them  accountable beyond the people of their own congregation. Every minister, every  leader, needs someone who can hold them accountable beyond the people that  they are responsible for. You need to be responsible to people that you're not  responsible for and of course, if there was actual wrongdoing, it's important that  the church has a means of dealing with that. We'll talk about that in another  session. We are out of time. I'll see you next time