Acts 20:28

Mention the word leadership today, and you’re bound to be met with a mixture of varied responses ranging from the largely pessimistic to the nominally optimistic! Stick the word “Church” in front of “leadership” and any trace of optimism there was speedily vanishes away!!  Try as one may to dress things up and paint a positive picture, when many hear the words “Church leadership”, they are left with a bitter taste in their mouth!  I wish I could say that such ill feelings are misguided and misjudged, but I can’t.  It is with good reason that Church Leadership over the last few decades has received such a bad rap. 

In this 13^th sermon part, we turn our attention to see what God has to say in His Word about Church leadership.  It’s time to bring the standard back into leadership.  

Ephesians 4:11

There is a plague today that is infesting the Western Evangelical Church and greatly harming the Ekklesia.  It’s this notion of individualism — that I can be a dismembered member of Christ’s Body and still somehow function in ministry.  You’ll search the pages of the New Testament in vain to find such a pattern!  In every place you see ministry, you will see members connected to the Body!!   The gifts are given to the BODY — a local assembly of committed individuals/believers.  Different gifts are given to different members within that local assembly for the profit of the whole BODY.  This whole idea that one can be dismembered from a local assembly and yet be serving in “ministry” is a farce, and nowhere is this travesty more seen than in the field of evangelism!! 

John 4:28

May the Lord bless you through His servant Jason.  There is something for everyone in this timely sermon.

1 Corinthians 12:31

The Church of Jesus Christ is first and foremost a spiritual body of believers who have had a supernatural encounter with the Living God, and through the new birth have been grafted into Christ’s spiritual body.  Jesus Christ is the spiritual head, and from Him flows down to each member, every spiritual blessing and spiritual gift needed for the sound nourishment and spiritual growth of the entire body.  These spiritual gifts are not mere niceties that make for a cosy addition; instead, they are crucial components required for the spiritual building of Christ’s Church. 

In this eleventh teaching part, we examine the proper attitude that is required to excel in these gifts for the blessing of the Body.