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.

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.