Recently, it was brought to our attention that a small group of
ministers, some of whom we were formerly associated with, were
sitting around talking about us and our "crazy ideas".
One of the ministers who
has understanding of biblical eldership asked the other ministers
what they thought about our practice of shared leadership. One of
the Pastors spoke up and boldly said that "you have to have someone
in charge so he can get the credit for when things go good in the
congregation and the blame for when things go bad." He followed up
by explicitly saying that "someone has to be in charge".
The inquiring
minister responded with a statement that is worthy of record. He
said "I agree that someone has to be in charge when we will
not allow the One who is supposed to be in charge, actually be in
charge", referring of course to the Head of the church,
Jesus Christ.
The Pastors then
confessed that the spiritual condition among their individual church
groups is not what it should be and that in many cases, the Holy
Spirit has been forced to take a back seat. They even confessed that
they really have no bragging rights because their individual groups
have nothing better to offer than any of the other groups.
Now maybe if they
will all just dig into the Word with an open mind and an open heart,
they might find that our ideas are not so crazy after all!
