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.

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.

Today will be our final segment on recovering a biblical polity for our churches.

The General Role of the Congregation:

1. The congregation is called to follow the Team of Pastors in the leadership and governance (oversight) of the church’s ministry as the Pastors follow the Holy Spirit and His Word.
2. The congregation is called to be the AWE People to serve the Lord with and for the Team of Pastors and Servant Ministry Team Leaders.

Biblical Role #1 of the Congregation: The Democratic Right of Self-Determination
It seems to me that it is self-evident that it is the congregation who determines if they are being called to be a local church and what kind of church they will be. While not a prescriptive teaching of the Scriptures, I believe that the Bible gives us a few descriptive texts of the infancy of churches where the “congregational members” determined that they would meet together for Kingdom purposes.