My guess is this - that if you asked church of Christ ministers this simple question - "do you feel restricted by elders in your church to do what you feel lead to do to grow the church you serve?" -- what percentage do you think would answer in the affirmative?
I would say the percentages would be high to answer in the affirmative. 75% 80%? I bet it's somewhere in that range.
We are hesitant (in the churches of Christ) to give the evangelist any leadership authority. For example, we say that there is no blueprint for choosing elders and so we come up with our process; however, there is a bluprint - Paul told Timothy to appoint the elders! I've NEVER heard of a church doing that. Have you?
What I'm saying is this: our present model clearly is not producing growing churches for the most part. We clearly need to get out of our business model that we adopted from the world and refocus on what a true Biblical model of leadershp would look like.
I'm not saying that the shepherds have no authority. However, I'm saying that the evangelist has more authority in the NT church that he currently does in the contemporary church. Agree or disagree? Why or why not?
What we are doing for the most part is not producing disciples, growing churches, equipping people for ministry or reaching the world for Christ. If it's not working, why don't we fix it?
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