Church Leadership

I love the way our church has "stepped up" in the temporary absence of our pastor. Scott has taught tirelessly that one of his main purposes is to prepare the church body to minister, and not just to minister to us (though he has done that very well). I went to SAU today and ate lunch to be greeted by about a dozen from our church who went to an International Student Activity.

I have heard other stories of our deacons selflessly ministering to others (this is no surprise of course.) We have a basketball ministry on Monday nights and I heard last night's meeting was great. I look forward to publishing a report from what happened in the near future.

I am so proud to be a part of Wyatt Baptist Church. We have a very unique and very biblical church structure. Instead of having a "pastor-as-CEO" model, we have a group of men who lead the church as pastors. We are going to be able to fill the pulpit with men who are at the church, and won't be dependent on pulpit supply.

Our situation shows how important having a biblical model for church leadership really is. Many times when one man decides the vision, teaching and overall direction, the church becomes unhealthily dependent on one man. If he leaves, the whole structure falls apart, and then the church will be at the mercy of the next pastor's vision, teaching and direction. If you have a group of godly men who have "one mind" on the vision, teaching and direction that the church ought to see, believe and go, then the displacement of a pastor does not affect the direction of the church because there are others to pick up where the displaced pastor left off.

I wish more churches would adopt this biblical model for church leadership. This along with other biblical mandates for the church are found in the book displayed at the top of this page- Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever. It's amazing that in addition to it being biblical it is also very practical...go figure.