Video Transcript: Authority and Decision Making in the Church

This is lecture 18 in the pastoral ministry skills practical ministry skills course.  And today we're talking about authority and decision making in the ministry or in  the church. It's chapter it's part of chapter 12 in pastoring the nuts and bolts. Our key verse is from Acts 15:28, and the setting is the Jerusalem Council. One of  the great questions in the early church, excuse me, was whether Gentiles, non  Jewish people, had to become Jews before they could become Christians,  whether Christianity, in other words, was a subset of Judaism and or a  completion of Judaism, but you had to go through Judaism to get to Christianity.  Paul had been preaching just to the Gentiles and saying they didn't have to.  There were those who followed him around and came in and said, yeah, all this  stuff about Jesus is great, but Paul had a bit of it wrong. You first, you have to  follow all of Moses first. You have to get circumcised, you have to keep kosher,  all of that kind of thing. And so the church called the Council, there wasn't one  authoritative person who made a rule. They got Paul together and Barnabas,  who'd been traveling with him and preaching with him, and they got the other  people together on the other side, and they all the apostles and the leaders of  the church were around and say leaders of the church just the Bible doesn't say  how they became leaders of the church. I think they were just people recognized them. They were the ones people looked up to. They just naturally came into  those positions. And they had a meeting, they had a council, and they heard  both sides. They prayed, and then James, who was leading it all up. This is  James the brother of Jesus, not James the apostle who had already been  beheaded by King Herod, but James says, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements. It seemed  good to the Holy Spirit and to us, a decision was made, and that was how it was  presented. So we're talking about now how you make decisions, how God wants decisions to be made in churches, in ministries. And there are two kinds.  Basically, there are the decisions about the directional authority, or the decisions about direction. And the question is, what is the authority that makes those  decisions? But there are the directional decisions, what you might call strategic,  what's the overall way we're going? And then there's the operational or the  tactical detail management kinds of things. You might call it division decisions  and the management decisions. So where are we going and how are we going  to get there, two different kinds of decisions. So let's talk first about the where  are we going decisions, the directional decisions. Who has the authority to make those for the church? Well, there are various different ways it's done in different  denominations, and this is another example where the Bible doesn't tell us very  specifically. Each of the proponents of each of the different ways can find  examples and verses that seem to support their ways. Nobody can show  anything that says, Thou shalt not make decisions this way. So and each of  these has resulted in good decisions at times and bad decisions at times. So  whatever is according to the way that your denomination or your tradition or your

church works. You go with that, but I'm just trying to explain the different ways  that it goes. The first one is that the direction should come from some source  outside of the church, some First off, we're assuming it all comes from God, but  is it? How does God get it to the local congregation, the local ministry, where he  wants them to go? There are some that say it comes from some larger source  outside the church, a denomination and association, something like that, maybe  even an individual like the Pope. Some president of an organization something  like that. Direction should come from something larger. There's others who  believe that direction should come from the pastor, that that's one part of the  pastor's job and responsibility, and the pastor is trained and equipped better  than anybody else to hear from God, and that's what they think. Some pastors  encourage that idea. I never did because I wanted all the help I could get. But  some say direction should come from Pastor. Others say direction should come  from get all the church together and have a big church meeting and talk it all out  and take a vote on it. And it seems to me, a lot of those things really relate to the culture in which that church arose, churches that are used to or churches that  arose in cultures that were used to being run by a king and a monarch were  much more comfortable with having somebody outside the church tell them what to do churches that arose in, for instance, America a couple 100 years ago,  where everybody does things by democracy and by voting, that went over into  The churches as well. In almost every case. The reality is that the direction  comes from some group of leaders working together with the minister in some  way or other to resolve on what the decision is going to be, on what the direction is going to be so that they they know this is where God is leading us. And what  do I mean by direction? Well, for instance, a very basic kind of a thing that has  to be decided is, for instance, is God leading us to try and grow this church into  some into a mega church, or is he leading us to try and split off and plant  satellite churches and a bunch of smaller churches? In other words, all the  people that come in, do we keep them together, or do we farm them out to new  think that's a basic directional decision that needs to be made, and the church  can only do one or the other. So they're all various other kinds of directional  decisions that I'm sure you can think of. Should we focus on an orphanage, or  should we focus on a Bible school? You know, we don't have the resources for  both. Maybe eventually we will. But right now, is our direction orphanage, or is  our direction Bible school? Somebody's got to make these directional decisions,  and in almost every case, the reality is that it's a group effort, and I believe that  is biblical however you frame it. It comes down that way, and I think that's the  way God wants it. Now, there are two terms that can be kind of confusing. They  can kind of cross into each other. Some give you the idea that you have to have  both, and others say one or the other, they kind of overlap. That's kind of the  way that I look at it. And those two terms, again, kind of borrowed from business and other outside the church, kind of organizations. But I think often, if used 

right, very helpful in organizing the church. And that is vision versus mission.  Vision Statements, mission statements. A vision is basically a picture, a mental  picture, a word picture of what you believe. God wants your ministry to be. And a mission is an image or a word picture, a statement of what you believe. God  wants your mission to do, your ministry to do. Sometimes you are in such a  place where you can say, God wants us to be this, and God wants us to do that,  and they need separate statements. But very often, if God wants us to be this,  that implies what God wants you to do? If God wants us to be a church that  sponsors a mission, a Bible college, then that implies that what you're going to  do is establish a Bible college. So you don't necessarily have to have both. If  you find it helpful, have them both if you don't work on whichever one you find  easiest to express what you think God is wanting you to do. A lot of people will  say our our vision is to do this, and so our mission, when they're expressed, to  state a mission, it's well, it's to become that. And that's that's saying the same  thing in different words. So if that helps you do it, if not, it doesn't. Let me give  you some thoughts though about the statements, because this statement, it's  kind of like having we talked about before having it. In a nutshell, it's a short  thing that you and your people can get in their heads that guides and helps you  make sure you're staying in the right direction and you're not doing extraneous  things. And it also helps you when people say, Well, what is your ministry all  about? What do you do in your ministry? If you're not prepared with a short,  concise, clear statement, you could go off half an hour. You're telling stories, and the person could might still not know any more than they did before. So let me  give you some examples of mission vision statements, and these could be either one, the first one actually is one of the most effective in American church history. Lost people matter to God. Well, that's not really a vision or a mission, but it's a  statement that galvanized a church that started in a living room to become one  of the biggest churches in America because keeping that at the forefront of  everything they thought, everything they did, everything that they taught lost  people matter to God, reminding themselves it's not just us in the church that  God cares about. God cares about those others. God wants us to find the lost  people and bring them in and so that guided everything they did. It's what five  words. Here is another one. And by the way, I am sure that that church would  not mind if you borrowed that statement connecting people with God and  helping them make a difference. So the vision is we're going to be a place where people can connect with God and where they can learn how to make a  difference, and we're going to help them do that. This was thought of. This was  one of the churches that I served, and we came up with this statement at a time  when making a difference. The American generations were kind of moving from  what people were derisively calling the me generation, the what's in it for me, I  want to get all I can for myself. They said that this particular generation was very selfish. And so the next generation coming behind that was saying, Well, I don't 

want to be like that. I want to make a difference in the world. And so that was the up and coming thing. And so we tried to grab that zeitgeist, if you will, that that  popular spirit of helping make a difference and so and of course, that is  something that a church does. A church does connect people with God and help people make a difference. It's all about H.I.M. hosting God's presence, imitating  Jesus and making him known. That one is a little longer, a little harder to  remember. You can kind of still remember connecting people with God and  helping them make a difference. That's a nice, short, memorable sentence. This  one is different, but I have to tell you how this came about. This role also came  from a church that I served. I was talking about preaching about the. Purposes  of the church, and it's very similar to what I talked about in the first lectures here, hosting God's presence. I talked about being a home, comfortable family, home  for God, and being hospitable. And I summed that up as hosting God's  presence. I talked about raising up children to become like Jesus and working to be like Jesus. And I summed that up as imitating Jesus. And this was a whole  series of sermons, and I talked about bringing inviting everybody else into the  family, and demonstrating what God was all about, and the joys and the  blessings of following God. And I summed that up as making him known. And  this was about the time that there was a very, very popular worship song called  it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. And then there was, there were that  came, I think, from a popular phrase in the culture, oh, he thinks it's all about  him, or it's not all about you, it's not all about me. And so I realized, if I put the  first letters of hosting God's presence, imitating Jesus and making him known. I  put them together, and it made it H.I.M., it spells him. And so we said, it's all  about him. So you could say that our vision, mission statement at that church  was it's all about him. And then when people wanted to know a little bit more  than we had it right there in the initials, hosting God's presence, imitating Jesus  and making him known. Another church uses this one, where we love God and  love our neighbors. Now that is short. It's memorable. It's also, it seems to me  pretty obvious, and doesn't say a whole lot. Every church could say that. It  doesn't help you stand out in any way. It doesn't keep your focus. Well, it does  on love, but it's, it's so general, you know? So I'm not saying it's a bad  statement. It's we're about to see a bad statement, but I think this is it doesn't  have the memory if you're using it as a something, an outreach kind of thing, to  help people want to come to your church, as opposed to the church down the  street. I'm not sure this one quite does it, but I just leave that out for you to look  at. Now I came across this one blank church exists for the passion and purpose  of inspiring, discipling, equipping and sending out Christ followers with the  destiny of transforming the world to the glory of God, the Father Son and Holy  Spirit, and fostering a graceful yet convicting church environment in which  people of all faith experiences and backgrounds are molded into the image and  reflection of Christ together, creating a God honoring community of authentic 

worshipers deliberately focused on reaching their community, The nation, the  next generation of believers and the world through missions works, innovative  programs and prayer. That is a wonderful statement, but it's not a vision  statement or a mission statement. It kind of is a combination of what we believe  and what we do, and it's, I'm it's a great church. I'm sure, if they're doing all that  stuff, then praise the Lord. That's great. And you probably need a statement like  that too. It's helpful when people get into your membership class, if you have a  membership class and they want to know what your church is about, or, you  know, this could be a whole series of sermons based on that. It's a good  statement in that regard, but it is not what most talk about in terms of a vision  statement or a mission statement that your people can quickly grasp and  remember and tell and explain to somebody else who asks them. Most  important thing though about your statement is that it actually reflects what your  church is. You don't want a false front mission statement. You don't want a  mission statement of what makes your church look like a mega church cathedral when you're actually only have 30 people in your congregation. How do you get  to these and how do you carry them out, strategic planning. Strategic planning is another one of those phrases from the business world that has now kind of gone out of vogue, but I still think that there is value in sitting down and trying to figure out what God wants us to do and where he wants us to go, and how we're going to get there, and what are we going to do this year and this month and this week to get us there. Because somebody said, if you're aiming at nothing, that's  where you're if you're aimed to nowhere, if you're aimed to nowhere, that's  where you're going to wind up. If you're aiming at nothing, that's what you're  going to hit. I used to toward the end of my ministry, would open every Sunday  by saying, God is up to something around here. God has gathered this group of  people at this place, at this time, for a reason. Strategic planning, or ministry  planning, whatever you want to call it, and directional planning, ministry planning is more precise, and I deal with that later, but directional or strategic planning  looks at okay, who is this group of people? God has gathered here. Nobody's  here by accident, is what I would how I would say nobody is here by accident.  God's up to something around here. God has gathered this group of people at  this place at this time for a reason, the planning, the strategic planning, the long  term planning, if you want to call it that, that's another term that is used for it is to figure out the reason. And you do that by looking, okay, what is the group of  people that God has gathered together here? What is this place where he's  gathered us? What's the community like? What are the resources? What are the needs at this time we're here right now? What's going on right now? What?  What is this place in history? What is happening at this season, in the  community, in the people's lives, in the nation, in the world. Put all of those  things together. Mix them together. What are our resources? What our  strengths? What are our weaknesses? What's available? What are we good at? 

And ask God to show you the reason that he's got you there. And there's a  whole section in the book about that. And then you figure out how you get there.  How are we going to get there? And again, a whole section in the book. But I  want to go quickly over the characteristics of a good goal or action step. First, it  is prayer based. Did God inspire or approve this idea? It doesn't have to have  come out of prayer, as I said before, but you have to pray about it. Is this  something we want God to do, or God wants us to do. Is it prayer based? It has  to be specific. It has to answer the question, what exactly are we planning to  do? What exactly do we hope to accomplish here? Not just so, in other words,  attract more young people. Again. That's a great goal in general. But what are  you going to do? How are you going to do that? What specific steps does God  want us to take this month, this quarter, this year, to do that? What resources  are we going to put into it? What time are we going to put into it? It needs to be  a goal. Needs to be targeted. In other words, aimed at something. How will we  How will it advance our vision, our mission. This is the direction we feel God  wants the church to go. How is this particular action going to move us in that  direction? If you say, Oh, it's a wonderful thing to do, but it's going to move us in  this direction instead, then maybe you really need to rethink it and replay it. It  needs to be defined. How are you going to know when you reach it? How you  going to know when you've accomplished it? When you can stop working on that and stop work, start working on something else? It needs to be supported. Are  the people that We are expecting to do this. Excited about it. I don't know about  in your church, but in my experience, people come together and they have  meetings and they say, Oh, we ought to do this. We ought to do this. We ought  to do this. And I know the perfect person that we can get to do it. They don't  want to do it themselves. They want to get somebody else to do it. Well, is that  other person willing to do it? Are they excited about it? Do they support it? If you don't have somebody who's excited and willing and passionate about doing the  thing or at least, at least willing to do it and thinks it's a good idea, then you're  not going to get off the ground, or else you're going to be trying to do it yourself.  It needs to be timed. You have to have a time attached to any particular action  program, action step, so that you know, okay, when are we going to evaluate  and adjust this and what's our final deadline? Okay, is there a date by which we  have to get it started? Is there a date or a condition that has to be fulfilled at  which we will evaluate it to see whether it's worth continuing, or whether we  need to make some changes, whether we decide whether it's time to extend it or or end it. You know, every program, every operation, every, pretty much  everything in this life has a beginning and an end. And there are some things  that some churches have been doing for years and years and years that ought  to be, quite frankly, given a decent burial, because they have way run out of their usefulness, and the only reason you do them is because that's how we've  always done it. So time and finally, is it worthwhile? Will the benefits, tangible 

and intangible benefits, be worth the cost? And the cost is not only money, it's  time and it's energy, it's resources, and it's the lost opportunity to do other  things. If we put time and energy and money and resources into this, that means we cannot put them into that. So is this really worth it at the expense of that  quick word, operational authority, that's the people on the ground who are  actually doing the thing. They should be allowed to make as many decisions  about how they do it as they possibly can, because they're the ones who are  doing it. They're the ones who presumably know more about it. They're the ones who are closest to seeing the needs. And I want to say real quickly, many, I'm  not quite sure where this fits in here, but a lot of churches, increasing number of  churches, get their direction from prophetic words. The Lord told me that this is  the way we ought to go. Praise the Lord for that, I encourage that the Apostle  Paul says God to seek that in I Corinthians 14, seek the spiritual gifts, but  especially that you may prophesy. In other words, hear and repeat what God is  saying. But if you are one of those who is getting the prophetic word. Your job is  just to let the people who are in charge for carrying it out, the pastor or whoever, to give them that word. It is not your responsibility to make sure that they do  what you think they ought to do about it. And on the other side, if you're the  ministry leader, you are not obligated to do something just because somebody,  even if they have a recognized prophetic ministry, says you should. So there are examples in the Bible, the Prophet came to Paul and wrapped up his hands and  said word from the Lord, they're going to if you go on to Jerusalem, they're going to tie you up like this and throw you in jail. And a lot of people, pretty much  everybody, except Paul that heard that, thought that was a warning from God  that he shouldn't go to Jerusalem. But Paul went on to Jerusalem anyway, it was his decision what to do about the word Okay. Praise the Lord, we have finished  halfway through this course, hallelujah and I will see you on the other side.