The Scriptures in Joshua 7 depict a situation for God’s People which is truly disturbing.  Prior to the events of the war with the city Ai, the People of God were following the leadership of God and the Word of God and were experiencing first-hand  the presence of God, the victories of God, the blessings of God, etc (e.g. see the victory at Jericho in Joshua 6).

However, an event in Joshua 7 occurred which resulted in the following:

1. The People of God are taking casualities. 
   
2. The People of God are stopped in their tracks and are dead in the water.
3. The People of God are now walled off from the blessings and victories of the Kingdom War against darkness.

What happened?  The Word of God was being ignored.

Review of last week: 

I am attempting another “multi-week” exploration of some truths which may be “outside the box” for many of you reading this newsletter.  For many of our churches, this series of articles may be surprising, offensive, informative, challenging, mind-stretching, revelatory (in a non-biblical sense), and/or confusing.   The topic which I will be discussing will be: 
The “Polity” of our local churches.

In these articles, the term “polity” means the system for leading and governing our local churches.

As you sit and read this material, you may well experience “discomfort” as you read my words: please allow me to remind you of the fundamental premise of our polity that each and every one of our churches are an autonomous fellowship which will make its own decisions about its leadership and governance paradigms.  No one else can instruct a church on how it must or even should frame its polity—certainly not some “over the hill”, washed-up, ole-fogey Director of Missions.

However, last week, I did discuss the orbit of polity as possibly being the “Sin of Achan” for some our churches.  

Review of last two weeks: 
I am attempting another “multi-week” exploration of some truths which may be “outside the box” for many of you reading this newsletter. For many of our churches, this series of articles may be surprising, offensive, informative, challenging, mind-stretching, revelatory (in a non-biblical sense), and/or confusing. The topic which I will be discussing will be: 

The “Polity” of our local churches. In these articles, the term “polity” means the system for leading and governing our local churches.

Polity Part 1:  The Sin of Achan (the hidden sacred cow of polity sin)
Polity Part 2:  Biblical Leadership- A View from 30,000 feet

A Preliminary to our Discussion on the Role of the Lead Pastor

I am indebted to Dr. Lance Cole (Ruffin Stacey) for his insights into this preliminary discussion.  When I speak to churches about the biblical paradigm for a Lead Pastor, I often experience the hearers admitting that they are constitutionally set up with a very different paradigm for their Lead Pastor than what I share with them.  When I ask them why their paradigm is different, the answer as to why is never biblical—it is almost always pragmatic.  As I have listened to different churches describe their pragmatic rationale, it seems to me that there are two observations inherent to this discussion.

A.  Understanding the Three Categories of Ministry Roles in the Biblical Church:  
As one reads this primer on Lead Pastor Congregationalism, it should become quickly apparent that I am persuaded that it is helpful to distinguish between three distinct categories of ministry roles in the biblical church.  They are as follows: 

    1. The Role of Overseers/Elders/Shepherds (sometimes labeled as Pastors):
This is a poson of spiritual leadership, authority, management, governance, decision-making, oversight, shepherding, and teaching.  There is a Team of Plural Pastors led by a Lead Pastor.
    2. The Role of Servant Minister (sometimes incorrectly labeled as deacon):  

        In my assessment, this is a position which is not an official title of biblical polity but rather a role description of a person (or persons) who serves the Team of Pastors/Overseers/Elders/Shepherds as an AWE ministry team to accomplish tasks assigned to them by the Team of Pastors. They serve as a Ministry Team and not a committee and certainly not a board.  The role of Servant Minister is not a position of biblical authority or governance.  Rather, it is a role of service ministry. 

Two Aspects of Congregationalism  (see WRTC, p. 187-193 for a very good analysis; much is captured here)

When one uses the term “a congregational church”, it amazes me how many different things that can mean to the speaker.  Also, it is discouraging to me how much a person’s understanding of “congregationalism” is not derived     from the Word of God at all or from the leading of the Holy Spirit, but rather from tradition, Americanism, and culture.  It is helpful to me if I breakdown the essence of congregationalism into two key aspects:
    1.  Autonomy
    2.  Democracy

The First Aspect of Congregationalism--Autonomy:

First, the word Congregationalism means that each local church is autonomous , and not subject to oversight by or accountability to any other higher human authority structure in the Visible Church.  Of course, this concept of autonomy does not mean that the local church is not directly accountable to the authority of the Lord as He leads His church through Word and Spirit.  We are autonomous not from our King Jesus but from other church authority.

For many of us, July is a key month to take a vacation.  I, myself, will be taking a couple of weeks off work this month.  I wonder, however, if any of us actually stop and consider the purposes of our vacations and whether or not we have any kind of biblical paradigm to guide us as we plan our vacations every year.

To that end, please allow me to share my reasons for going off on vacations.  As far I can tell, the word vacation and even the concept of a vacation is absence from clear explicit biblical teaching.  Although, I would argue that the Lord gave Elijah a 40 day break from Elijah’s ministry (i.e. a vacation) to help him recover from his depression.  While I realize that my conclusion from 1 Kings 19:8 is debateably deduced, I am comfortable with this extrapolation.

For me, the paradigm for a “non-working” vacation is grounded in the biblical orbit of the Sabbath.  Shabbat, in the Hebrew language, clearly means taking a day or even a longer time to rest from work in order to prepare ourselves to return to our labors with renewed vigor for the Lord our God.  Following this general line of biblical reasoning, I see my purposes for my vacations to be as follows:

1.  Rest-- to rest from work; what is often sad is that we cram so doggone much into our vacation time that we find ourselves exhausted at the end of the vacation time and in need of another vacation in order to recover from our first vacation.

2. Renewal--my vacations are not intended to be an escape from my work but rather to renew myself to return to my labors

3.  Reflection--as the Lord’s Day Shabbat is intended to free me from my concerns of work so as to focus my attentions upon the Lord in worship, study, contemplation, and reflections, this also should be my purpose during my vacation time.

4.  Romance--this is a time for me to refresh my romance with my God, my romance with my wife, my romance with my family, and my romance with this fantastic life with which the Lord has blessed me.

I am fully aware that this section on biblical polity is going to be new and/or controversial to many of you.  All I ask is that you might consider researching the Bible itself to see if these perspectives seem to be more biblical than your existing polity dynamics.

How many Pastors should a biblical church have?  (Answer:  Plural)

1.  Let us begin with the compelling explicit description of plural Pastors/Elders for a singular church being referred to in James 5:14.
    Is anyone among you sick?  Let him call for the Pastors/Elders (plural) of the church (singular local church), and     let them (plural) pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

According to our Constitution, the DVMBA Vision for ministry is two-fold:

1. To promote church health
2. To promote joint mission endeavors

During my tenure as your Director of Missions, I have utilized a lot of space in these “Thoughts on Tuesdays” newsletters addressing some of the major “church health” issues in our reclining and declining churches. I have written two lengthy series discussing first the need for revitalization changes needed in some of our struggling churches and, secondly, the need to make biblical realignments to many of our churches’ polity. Both of those lengthy series are completed. I suspect that many of you are weary of both the biblical exegesis and the theological discussion inherent in both of those series.

The good news is that there is no lengthy tome today.

1. Mike Tillman (Lead Pastor of Ellisboro) recently had major surgery to remove toes on his second foot; he went to the doctor last week to ascertain if further surgery will be required. I have not heard yet about the doctor’s report.
2. Jay Willard (Interim at New Pleasant Grove)- his wife had major stomach/internist surgery last week; recovery was anticipated to be both difficult and challenging.  Unfortunately, complications have arisen which has mandated that what was supposed to be a 1-2 night hospital stay has become now a 14-21 night hospital stay.  Also sad, Jay is not permitted to see Kim. Please pray that she gets home soon and has an easier recovery than expected.
3. Doug Byrd (Lead Pastor at Ayersville) has gone through a serious surgery this spring with a very painful recovery.  Just recently, he has been diagnosed with liver cancer-- with a growth the size of an orange on his liver.  The most recent report this week is that the cancer has moved to the bones.  Please pray for Doug, his wife Linda, his family, and the Ayersville church.
4. Dr. Tim Keller is a personal acquaintance of mine.  Translated, that means that he and I worked together closely on a couple of projects in another denomination, and he knows my name and probably recognizes my face.  We are not intimate friends.  Many of you may know Tim as a nationally known evangelical pastor and writer of numerous books.  Tim has recently been diagnosed with the dreaded aggressive pancreatic cancer.  He is seeking some of the best medical treatment literally in the world.  He is asking for prayer for his recovery and comfort for his family.

When I went into my quiet time this morning, Mike, Jay/Kim, Doug, and Tim were on my mind.  Also, as many of you know, I was diagnosed in 2017 with a fast growing aggressive prostate cancer.  To date, the Lord has kept that cancer growth in check.  However, yesterday at my trip to the dentist, he became very concerned with some growths on my tongue—he then referred me to an oral surgeon for examination and possible biopsies.  Well, while the tongue growths will probably be nothing, you can imagine that it just rekindled some of the mental dynamics of the 2017 biopsy.

Whenever I teach the “Church At War” revitalization discipleship module to pastors, I always discuss that, in my opinion, one of the greatest ministries which pastors, leaders, and members can do to help their churches to grow is to practice hospitality. While it is certainly a blessing to open up our homes and our lives to other believers, the passage above calls us to show hospitality to strangers.  In that culture, “strangers” would most like not been members of their local churches.  They may well have been non-believers who had not yet embraced Jesus as Lord and Savior.