Different churches have all sorts of different focuses. Some focus more on social justice things. Others on developing those in the church. Others on evangelism. And all that’s great. But unless there’s a sense of the lordship of Christ amongst the people … then the church isn’t even a church. 

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been having a bit of a poke around this thing we call ‘Church’. And there’s a reason for that. Church, as much as some people may think that the term is old fashioned or irrelevant, Church is a big deal because it’s God’s idea, not a human idea.

It’s God’s idea as the family of His children, to bring them into relationship with Him and one another and to get them together to bring more about His business here on this earth. The business of drawing more and more people to an eternity with Him.

And I know many, many people have many, many objections to this ‘Church’ thing. Down through the centuries, Church has sometimes behaved very, very badly indeed. Even now sometimes you have to wonder right?

So over the last couple of weeks, we looked at some of those objections, I hope, through God’s eyes. Today, this week and next week on the program I want to share some thoughts with you about the things that I go looking for in a Church.

If I’m out there looking for a Church to belong to what are the things that I should look for in that Church? See whilst in huge part I think the biggest thing about belonging to this Church or that Church is a sense of God’s calling for each one of us. I also think He gave us a brain to think through the options and to choose a Church that’s Godly and a Church that’s truly having an impact in the world.

Before the car the Church the people went to was determined largely by two things. Firstly, geographical proximity and then the denomination in which they’d grown up. In some parts of the world geographical proximity is still the biggest issue. If the only way to get to Church is to walk, well you need to be within walking distance of the Church.

In other parts of the world where people have their own cars the geographical catchment of a potential Church widens considerably. And frankly, Berni, me, I’m a post denominationalist. By that I mean, denominations just don’t mean much to me anymore. To some people they do and that’s fine but not to me.

What really matters to me is that this local Church, that’s what it’s all about. Not some sense of wider brand organisational affiliation. Today I want to kick off with the number one thing that I’m looking for in a Church when I walk into that place.

Interestingly over the coming couple of weeks, we’re going to look at the results of a major international research project that involved over 1,000 Churches in 32 countries and 4.2 million responses from Church-goers. Based on that comprehensive research it comes up with eight common factors that are common threads across those Churches that are growing both in quantity, the number of people, and in quality. I think that qualitative dimension is really important.

Eight factors, each of which must be present in order for a Church to be growing in numbers and quality. Great stuff. We’ll look at each of those over the coming couple of weeks but this first criteria that I’m looking for in a Church isn’t even amongst those eight. It wasn’t identified as a critical factor in a growing Church.

And yet, whether the research bears it out or not, it’s the factor and that factor is this. The number one thing that I’m looking for when I walk into a Church is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In Ephesians chapter 1 the Apostle Paul’s writing to his friends in the Church of Ephesus.

And he says that his prayer for his friends is that they get to know God better and better. They would know Him for themselves the great hope they have in Christ. The riches of their inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of His power for them.

But have a listen now to what he goes on to say about this incomparably great power. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 20:

God put this power to work in Christ when He raised Him up from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come.

And He has put all things under His feet and He has made Him (listen to this) head over all things for the Church which is the body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

See, Christ is the head of the Church and we are His body, plain and simple. But you see at times, when I’ve been wandering around looking for a Church to belong to I’ve wandered into many a Church where, frankly, Christ is simply not the head. I’ve wandered into Churches that are doing so many good philanthropic or social justice deeds, so many, but in doing those deeds they’ve drifted a million miles from Christ.

They’ve stopped believing in and proclaiming the Word of God. And then I’ve walked into Churches where every Sunday you get a great motivational sermon about being all that you can be or achieving all that you can achieve and earning all that you can earn. And every now and then there’s a passing reference to what God said. Every now and then.

And I’ve met with groups of Christians socially over coffee or a meal where the conversations turn to everything and anything other than Jesus Christ. I’ve been amongst groups of Christians who, in their midst, accept low standards of moral behaviour. The sorts of things that are among the very few things that God says clearly, in His Word, for us not to do.

Now you might think I’m being critical. I’m just looking at things and telling you the way I see them. See God’s Word, the Bible, it’s not a series of fables or allegories. It’s not something that we have up there on the shelf somewhere gathering dust. God’s Word, the Bible, is the living Word of the living God. It’s God speaking with us.

My friend, Jesus is the Lord above all. Above heaven. Above earth. Above everyone. Above every name. Above everything. Church isn’t a country club. It’s not a place where we get to push our own pet projects and theologies. Church is a place that’s supposed to be full of people who are full to overflowing with the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

And those sorts of people call Jesus Christ ‘Lord’. The Lord of their lives individually, where they’re doing things that only God and they can see; and the Lord of their Church collectively. Those sorts of people are the sort of people that hunger to hear what God has to say to them in their lives through His word today.

Those sorts of people are the sort of people who thirst to experience for themselves the presence of the Spirit of God in their hearts and their lives. Those sorts of people are the sorts of people who want to be disciples of Jesus Christ:

Jesus told His disciples, ‘If you want to become my followers then deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow me. Because if you want to save your life, you’re going to lose it and yet, if you lose your life for my sake then you’ll find it. What will it profit you if you gain the whole world and yet forfeit your life? And what will you give in return for your life?’

These are the sort of people who will lay down their lives, their selfish agenda’s and pride to make Jesus Christ the Lord, and instead, take up their cross. My friend, if that isn’t the groundswell of the culture of a Church then it has no business calling itself a Church.

I’m not talking about finding the perfect Church full of perfect people. Just one that genuinely calls Jesus Christ ‘Lord’. Not just in what it says. Not just in its rhetoric. Not just in its sermons or in its prayers. But in what it does. In how people treat one another. In how they sacrifice, how they love.

Without that, I don’t believe it’s a Church at all. It’s nothing without the Lordship of Christ.

We’ve all seen different styles of leadership in our day. Some good. Some, not so good. And some … downright awful. We see it in the workplace. We see it in community groups. And we see it in churches. So – what sort of leadership should we be finding in our local church?

Over the last few weeks on the program, we’ve been taking a bit of a look at this thing called ‘Church’, because many people are uncomfortable with it. I can’t tell you the number of times I run into the attitude that Church is old-fashioned and irrelevant.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been sitting around with people who belong to a Church and listen to them complaining about this or that, some decision, the pastor, some leader or elder. And yet, as imperfect as Church is, the whole Church thing is God’s idea. God’s plan, His plan for His children, those who believe in His Son, to live together as a family.

Now, I don’t know about you but I’ve never encountered a perfect family. The Church is no different. Be that as it may, I think that when we’re looking around to find a Church to belong to or when we’re honestly taking a good hard look at the Church that we do belong to there are times when we need to use our heads. To look at the different aspects of Church and ask, ‘Is this working as it should be?’

On the occasion that I’ve been looking for a Church to belong to one of the things that I look for is the style of leadership. And that’s what we’re going to be taking a look at on the program today. The leadership that goes on in a Church.

Depending on the culture in which we live we have different expectations of leadership. Some cultures, the Korean culture for instance, in part the Chinese culture, well leadership is quite a hierarchical concept. People have grown up in a culture where you respect and honour and obey the person who’s put in leadership above you.

In many Western cultures people are more egalitarian in their views. Consumerism, generational influences. Those things can cause people to question leaders much more. So leadership has a lot to do with cultural and generational contexts.

Someone who makes a good leader for a Church as a whole may not fit so well, for instance, in leadership roles with the youth of a Church. But whatever the context, whatever the culture, I think we’ve all seen the sort of leadership that inspires people and yet the sort that seeks to control them and push them down. The sort that empowers them and the sort that oppresses them.

This isn’t just a Church thing, it’s anywhere. Now leadership and us submitting to leadership is only a problem when we disagree with the leader or the leaders. When we agree with them it’s a piece of cake. But when we disagree with them, then we have a problem.

And for a leader it’s kind of a delicate balance sometimes between empowering people to be all that God made them to be and to achieve all that God made them to achieve on the one hand. And yet to set boundaries and directions on the other.

Because, frankly, without boundaries and directions from one or more people who are clearly gifted to be leaders, the Church is going nowhere. It’s going to be all over the place. I’ve seen Churches that start out with this great idea of giving everyone a say and so a committee springs up for this and another one for that.

The property committee, the finance committee, the missions committee, the remuneration committee and on it goes. And whilst committee can work as a legitimate leadership tool some Churches become so bound up in committee’s and arguments it turns into masterly inactivity.

Back in the late 1990’s, a man by the name of Christian Schwarz wrote a great book called Natural Church Development. It’s based on almost 10 years of research of over 1,000 Churches in 32 countries. And one of the questions he looked at was, what sort of leadership style is it that causes a Church to grow, not just in numbers but more importantly, in quality, in the richness of the body of Christ that is the Church?

It’s so easy to look at mega Churches, often the leaders of those are classic type A, goal orientated, outcome orientated people. But in his research Schwarz found that it wasn’t necessarily the superstars that made the best leaders. Let me read you what he had to say.

And by the way this is a great book, not too thick and very, very easy to understand. Again it’s called Natural Church Development and this is what he writes on leadership:

Leaders of growing Churches concentrate on empowering other Christians for ministry. They do not use lay workers as helpers in obtaining their own goals and fulfilling their own visions. Rather they invert the pyramid of authority so that the leader assists Christians to obtain the spiritual potential that God has for them.

These pastors equip, support, motivate and mentor individuals enabling them to become all that God wants them to be. And the good news is that pastors of growing Churches don’t need to be super stars. Most of the pastors with the highest scores in the research are little known.

Now remember this comes from a huge research project. Over 4.2 million individual responses were analysed. It turns out that the style of leadership that’s the best style across countries and cultures and age groups consistently is the sort that empowers God’s people to be who He made them to be and to do what He made them to do.

And why oh why should that be any surprise to us at all. The Bible, written a couple of thousand years ago, tells us exactly that. Have a listen. 1 Peter chapter 5, beginning at verse 1:

Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exalt the elders among you to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising oversight not under compulsion but willingly as God would have you do it. Not for sordid gain but eagerly.

Don’t lord it over the people in your charge. Instead be examples to the flock and then, when the chief shepherd appears you will win the crown of glory that never fades.

See, the sort of leadership that the Bible talks about is the sort that doesn’t lord it over people to oppress them. But by example leads people so that they follow willingly. And again, this is from Jesus. Matthew chapter 23, verses 11 and 12:

The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalts themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

The sort of leadership that God wants for His Church is servant leadership. Leadership by example. I can’t tell you the number of Churches I’ve walked into where the pastor’s running around, utterly exhausted, running his agenda that doesn’t include the people. Having this person do this, that person do that and all the time the people in the pews are grumbling.

When I walk into a Church, what I’m looking for is the sort of leadership that sure, guides and directs and sets boundaries, that’s part of leadership. But the kind that also wants to find out what people have to contribute and then sets them free, empowers them to go and to do that. Wouldn’t that be radical?

The number of times pews are full of people with certain giftings but the Church, the leadership doesn’t go out there to discover what those people’s giftings and motivations are. Somewhere, somehow along the line, many a Church has got this idea that the pastor or the minister is the one-stop-shop that does it all.

At the other end of the extreme, that it’s a complete democracy and everyone gets to decide. In my experience, neither of those two extremes work. The sort of leadership that works is Godly leadership. The sort of leadership the Bible talks about. Servant hearted leadership.

A leadership that empowers the body of Christ to function by releasing each person into the Church, into ministry to do what they’re gifted to do. To do what God has made them to do. That’s what really works. The sort of leadership that empowers, that inspires and that guides.

There’s nothing worse than being a square peg in a round hole. And in this thing called church – that should never, ever be the case. God’s made us a certain way, to do certain things. And in a church, those gifts should be put to use for God and for others. Simple really. So … how come it doesn’t always work like that?

I’m going to tell you about Mariah today. Mariah is a young woman who has one of the most creative talents or gifts that I have ever encountered. She works as a designer and a graphic artist with a Christian advertising agency. Now Mariah is just an ordinary looking person. If you ran into her on the street you’d never pick her creativity from the outer packaging.

She’s not one of these arty extravagant people, almost the opposite. She’s quietly spoken and humble. When it was first suggested to me by one of our Board members that we ask her to help us with the graphic design needs of our ministry at Christianityworks, to tell you the truth I had my doubts.

I thought to myself, “Can she come up with the goods? Has she got it to design newsletters and the covers of the books that I write and packaging for the CD’s that we produce and a host of other things where we just need the gifts of a graphic artist and designer?”

Well, over and over and over again the things that she has produced have just blown me away. The other day we were under a bit of time pressure and I asked her to give me some options for a CD cover. And the designs she sent through to me just blew me away completely. I can’t stop raving about them.

And here’s the thing, I’m kind of a frustrated designer. I can use a computer, I can put something together. Every now and then I get this idea that I can do this myself. But every time I get something from Mariah I realise that I am so far from being in her league it is just not funny.

Why am I telling you this story? Well, this week and next week on the program we’re looking at the ten things that I look for in a Church. If I’m looking to understand the health of a particular Church or if I’m actually looking for a Church to be a part of I think there are a few things to consider.

Over the last few days we’ve taken a look at a couple of those. (1) The Lordship of Christ – is this a place where Jesus Christ truly is Lord. And yesterday, yesterday we looked at (2) the leadership style. Does a Church have the sort of Godly leadership that empowers people to be who God made them to be and to do what God made them to do? Or does the leadership oppress and manipulate the people?

Important question that, because the leadership style has a huge impact on the people in the Church and on the mission of the Church, huge. And there’s something that kind of flows straight out of that, it’s what we’re going to look at today. An aspect of a Church that is so important.

It’s (3) whether or not the involvement of the members of the Church in the ministry of the Church, is based on their natural giftings. Now if you’ve listened to this program for any length of time you’ll know that one of the things I bang on about a lot is that God made each one of us differently. And He’s made us to do the things that He prepared for us to do.

It’s exactly what the Bible says. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10:

We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the things that God prepared beforehand for us to walk into. 

My good friend Keith Henry and I co-authored a book on this whole subject recently called My Personality GPS. Now Keith and I were sitting together over a coffee the other day planning our next book and he said to me, “You know Berni, the more I talk to people about this stuff the more I come to the realisation that they’re interested basically in three things about themselves.”

“Firstly, who God made me to be. Understanding that. Secondly, what we’re meant to be doing with that. How to make the rubber hit the road. And thirdly, how to be better at relationships, in particular managing the differences.”

As I thought about that I realised how right Keith was. Most people don’t understand who God has made them to be. That’s basically what that first book is about. And the next one we need to write about is this. Once I know what God’s gifted me to do, what am I going to do with that? What are the things I’m going to be good at doing and enjoy doing? And what are the things that I should steer clear of because I’ll never be good at any of them?

Romans chapter 12 the Apostle Paul writes this. Beginning in verse 4:

For as in one body we have many members and not all of the members have the same function so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Prophecy in proportion to faith. Ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

Now there are seven motivational giftings or personality types listed there in the Bible. Which one of those am I? Which one of those are you? And what should we do with those things? You see because of who I am there are some of those things, showing compassion for instance, being pastoral, hanging in there with someone when they’re hurting. There are some of those that I’m never going to be able to do well.

And yet so often what you see in Churches is people being asked to do things without anyone ever figuring out who they are, who God made them to be, what they’re motivated to do and what they’re good at. We all have different gifts, different abilities, different motivations and invariably the things we really enjoy doing are the ones that we’re good at.

When I was an elder of a Church once someone suggested that I should go on a pastoral care roster and look after twelve people allocated to me. I said to them, “What, are you nuts?” This woman coordinating the pastoral care, she was a bit offended.

She said, “You’re an elder”, she said, “You should do some pastoral care.” So I asked her if she’d like to preach the sermon for me this coming Sunday. “Oh no” she said, “I couldn’t possibly do that”. “So what makes you think I should be doing pastoral care then?” I asked her. She saw my point.

The number of Churches who produce boring, old-fashioned hand outs and brochures, who have two or three brilliant young graphic artists sitting in their pews. The number of Churches where pastoral care is almost non-existent who have dozens of people gifted with caring, compassion, sitting in the pews who over the last fifteen years have come to the conclusion that because they’re not flashy, up front people they have no role to play in the ministry of the Church.

How many givers blessed with finances see the plate go round every Sunday but have never had their gift of giving connected with a specific need in the ministry and impact of the Church? Come on, this is tragic. It would make you weep.

Christian Schwarz in his book Natural Church Development which is based on a massive scientific survey of over 1,000 Churches in 32 countries comes up with these statistics. In healthy Churches somewhere around 70% of the people said, their personal ministry involvement matched their gifts. In unhealthy Churches that figure was around 10%.

On this occasion the numbers tell you the story, don’t they? So here’s the thing, if God made each one of us differently, if He has a plan for us to use our gifts He’s given us for His glory, shouldn’t the Church be the place where people discover who they are?

Shouldn’t the Church be the place that teaches them who they are? Shouldn’t the Church be the place where they get the opportunity to live out who God made them to be, their natural gifts, their natural motivations, their natural abilities in service to glorify God? Shouldn’t it?

Shouldn’t we know what people’s giftings are and then ask them to contribute in the things that they’re gifted to contribute in? Can it actually work any other way?

So, the thing that I look for when I go into a Church is whether the ministry that’s going on in that Church is based on people’s gifts. That is so important.

There’s nothing worse than being a square peg in a round hole. And in this thing called church – that should never, ever be the case. God’s made us a certain way, to do certain things. And in a church, those gifts should be put to use for God and for others. Simple really. So … how come it doesn’t always work like that?

You know, it’s a funny thing, whenever you walk into a room full of people there’s one thing for certain. No two are alike. In fact, they’re all different. Different shapes, sizes, nationalities, personality types, backgrounds, experiences. This intricate complexity in people, physically and emotionally, makes for a richness of diversity and frankly, the world would be so boring without that.

If everyone was like me or if everyone was like you imagine how utterly boring this world would be. It used to bother me that the Church, this thing that, after all, is supposed to be the body of Christ, that there were so many different denominations and forms of Churches. Some traditional, some contemporary, some kind of way out there, at least that’s how it seems.

And each different stream or denomination kind of pretty much convinced that their way was the right way. Charismatic, evangelical, all these labels that, frankly, took me a while to get my mind around. A journey that’s still going on I think. Why all the differences? Until one day it dawned on me that if all the Churches were the same it would be pretty boring wouldn’t it? The richness and diversity kind of reflects the differences we see in humanity.

I mean some Churches I walk into sometimes I think, “Great, if this is how people want to do Church that’s great but I couldn’t do it this way.” That’s because I’m me and they’re them. Some Church services are really lively, some are quieter and more solemn. Some Churches are huge with small cell groups for people to connect. Other Churches are much smaller and more intimate.

The diversity goes on and often people in a particular Church put their “success”, whatever success means, they put their “success” down to the style of their Church.

Now over the course of this week on the program, I’ve been sharing some of the things that I look for in a Church. And the easiest thing in the world would be for me to say, “Well, you know, I’m looking for this style of Church or that style of Church. I prefer a medium to small Church rather than a mega Church. Or I prefer this style of worship rather than that style of worship.”

But that would be pretty much useless to you because you’re not me and your style and who you are is going to mean that you’re probably going to fit into some other Church different from the one that I fit in to. And it’s important, I think, to talk about what we’re looking for in a Church.

So many people believe in Jesus, so many and in my country, Australia, over two-thirds of all people claim to believe in God. And yet many, many struggle with the whole Church thing because of their experiences sometimes, they’ve been burned. Or perceptions or the way Churches present themselves in the media or the marketplace.

So today, today I want to chat about something that I’m looking for, not so much to do with the style, not on the surface, but below the surface. Something much deeper than that.

If you’ve been able to join us so far this week on the program you’ll know that I’ve mentioned the book, “Natural Church Development” by Christian Schwarz a few times. It’s a great book based on a huge survey of over 1,000 Churches in 32 countries.

And one of the things that he found was that Churches often pointed to different aspects of their style as reasons for growth. But have a listen to what he found in his research. Listen to this, quoting from his book:

The point separating growing and non growing Churches, those which were qualitatively above or below average, is not style at all. Instead its this, are Christians in this Church on fire? Do they live committed lives and practice their faith with joy and enthusiasm?

And the term that Schwarz used for this was “passionate spirituality”. In short, are the people in this Church passionate about Jesus and following Him and living their lives for Him and sacrificing for Him? Is there a passion, a fire that burns in their hearts?

Now that, that’s something that completely transcends style. A dear friend of mine, an older man, he loves going to a traditional liturgical service. Now, that’s not my style. For me, I’d find that a bit dry but that’s just me right? So I asked him about this, I said, “Why do you love going to that style of Church service?”

And he said, “Oh Berni, you listen to the words and the prayers and the prayer-book and they are so deep, they so connect me with God”. And he said it with such a deep passion that I realised that the style had nothing to do with what was going on. Styles vary, the issue is the reality of drawing close to God and worshipping Him and living our lives for Him.

My friend, I’ve walked into many a Church that, frankly, is dead. It may be a happy-clappy singing Church on the surface. They may sing upbeat songs. They may get a rousing message from the pulpit each Sunday. But you scratch below the surface and there’s an absence of fire. People are going through the motions sure, but in their hearts, in their lives, nothing’s changed. There’s no passion for Jesus. You know what I’m talking about right?

Someone once asked Jesus, “what’s the most important thing that I have to do in life?” And His answer was simple and straightforward and profound. Luke chapter 10, verse 27. He answered:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.

Do you see how His answer involves fire and passion? With all your heart, soul, mind and strength. In other words with every fibre of your being, with all that you are, that’s how you’ll love your God. And that passion and fire then translates into the same sort of love for the people around us.

Here’s the thing, when you hang around people like that, people who have a fire raging in their hearts for Jesus, you can’t help it, it ends up rubbing off on you. You catch the fire. They encourage us, they show us, they guide us, they lift us up to love God the way they do. The Spirit of God uses the fire that He’s fired up in their heart to happen in our hearts.

And on the flip side of that coin, when you hang around people whose hearts have grown cold. People who are just going through the religious motions. It drains the passion out of you. After a while, hang around with them, your heart will grow cold like theirs.

So let me come back to it. I want, no in fact, I need to be surrounded by people who are on fire for Jesus. Let me say again, this has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with the style of the Church. It has everything to do with the relationship that those people have with their God.

Unless my heart is fit to break with the love of my God, unless my life is bowed down to Him, then what good am I to you doing what I’m doing right now? Well? And as enthusiastic and as positive a person as I naturally am, I need people around me who are connected into Christ with that passion too. Because we all have down days and challenges. And we have fears, we have obstacles. We all have to face the daily grind. A grind that can quickly squeeze the life out of us and douse the flame.

When I wander into a Church I’m looking for the Lordship of Christ. I’m looking for leadership that empowers people. I’m looking for people involved in ministry of the Church according to their natural gifts and abilities that God’s given them. And my friend, I am looking for people in whose heart there is a raging fire, a passion for Christ because if that flames gone out the Church is dead.

I remember being part of a football team once … where we didn’t win a game all season. Can I tell you – morale at training and on the weekend was really low. We were … well, losers. And you know sadly – I’ve walked into many a church that’s just as flat, lifeless. Dead. There’s no spark, no fire. Why is that?

They say, don’t they, that a camel is actually a horse designed by a committee. And you know, one of the things about people living together and working together is that the more of them you have in one social unit – a family, a workplace, the local kids football club, a Church – the more people there are in a group the more important it is to have some structures and to get those structures right.

I tend to think of a Church more as a living organism than I do an institution or a building. It’s alive, full of people part of one body, the body of Christ, hopefully pulling pretty much in the one direction to achieve the things of God here on this earth. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

But often Churches turn into a maze of bureaucracy. An amorphous mass of dysfunctionality. Committees, leaders, groups, factions, regional committees, denominational committees, general meetings. And seriously, I’ve seen it and you’ve seen it.

I remember talking with the Vice Chancellor of a large university in Australia a few years ago over breakfast. We were talking about the politics in his university and he said, rather wistfully, “I fancy, you know I’m pretty certain, that my university is just 50 different cost centres held together by a common car parking policy.” Quite funny I thought. But you know, I’ve been to Churches that are a bit like that too.

When it comes to Church some people think that structures, you know the odd committee, some form of designation of having departments perhaps in a larger Church, department heads, whatever language you want to use. Some people somehow think that that’s unspiritual. But actually, you see this very thing happening in the Bible as a matter of practical necessity.

As Moses was leading God’s people, Israel, through the wilderness pretty early on in the piece, he discovered he couldn’t do it all. Have a listen, we’re reading from Exodus chapter 18, verses 13 through to 24:

The next day Moses sat as judge for the people while the people stood around him from morning until evening. When Moses’ father in law saw all that he was doing for the people he said, ‘what is it that you’re doing for the people? Why do you sit alone while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?

Moses said to his father in law, ‘Because the people come to me to enquire of God. When they have a dispute they come to me and I decide between one person and another and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.’

Moses’ father in law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out both you and these people with you for the task is too heavy for you. You cannot do it alone. Now listen to me, I will give you counsel and God will be with you. You should represent the people before God and you should bring their cases before God.’

‘Teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do. You should also look for able men amongst the people. Men who fear God are trustworthy and hate dishonest gain. Set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.’ 

‘Let them sit as judges for the people at all times. Let them bring every important case to you but decide every minor case for themselves so it will be easier for you and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this and God commands you then you will be able to endure and all of these people will go into their homes in peace.’ 

So Moses listened to his father in law and did all that he said.

So you see, sometimes structures are a practical necessity. Moses couldn’t do it all, he had to appoint men over the thousands, the hundreds, the fifties and the tens. There was a management structure.

And you see it in the New Testament too where the 12 Apostles in the early Church found that they were becoming so tied up in the day-to-day administration of the Church that they had to appoint 7 trusted men to handle that so that they could get on with what they were meant to be doing. You can read about that for yourself in Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 7.

The long and the short of it all is that once a Church starts to grow some sort of structure and accountability is necessary to share the workload and yet make sure that we’re all still pulling in one direction. And it’s not so much the existence of the structures that grind Churches into the ground.

I’ve mentioned on and off this week that great book by Christian Schwarz called Natural Church Development. It’s based on the most comprehensive Church research survey ever undertaken. Over 1,000 Churches in 32 countries with some 4.5 million responses.

This is what the research discovered about structures in the Church. Have a listen to Schwarz:

Our research confirmed for the first time an extremely negative relationship between traditionalism in management structures and both growth and quality of the Church. 

And by that he means things like discouraging leadership structures, inconvenient worship service times, demotivating financial concepts. Things that may have worked in the past but now they’ve become traditionalistic ruts. The thing that works is the thing that Moses and the Apostles figured out.

They needed structures that promoted an ongoing multiplication and growth of the ministry. Leaders aren’t simply meant to lead, they’re also meant to develop new leaders. Often our expectations hold us back from achieving that. We expect that everybody should always have direct access to the senior minister or senior pastor.

Now people don’t expect that in really big Churches but they do in smaller Churches that are growing. Ministry is only ministry if it’s done by the minister. That’s the expectation. I don’t know where we get that from because it’s not in the Bible. If you’ve been part of a Church you may have seen how outdated leadership styles and management structures just make the place dysfunctional.

On the other hand, this simple principle of minimalistic bureaucracy and functional streamlined structures can make the place hum and facilitate growth. It doesn’t feel like it’s particularly spiritual talking about these management structures in the Church and it’s something that most of us probably don’t even give a second thought to.

But if the structures have become unwieldy, if the approach to management is rooted in traditionalism of yesteryear rather than being relevant and empowering for the current generations then that’s going to knobble the Church. People are going to feel like they’re being tied in a straight jacket. There won’t be any innovation for trying something new.

Schwarz makes an interesting point. In biology, dead matter and living organisms aren’t told apart by their substance but by their structure. The structure of the relationship of the individual parts to one another. There’s an intimate connection between life and structure. Creation was an act of forming and shaping and structuring things. And Schwarz writes:

A comparative creative act occurs wherever God pours out His Spirit within the Church today thus giving it structure and form.

One of the most effective Churches I’ve ever seen was a Filipino Church in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. The elders of the Church were literally the older men. And initially, I thought, “I wonder how this is going to play out”.

But the structure of the Church was such that whilst the elders provided the wisdom and the framework, men and women of all ages were empowered to serve in what turned out to be one of the most vibrant Church community’s I’ve ever visited.

That’s why functional, streamlined structures are things that you need to look for in a Church. Good structures, good management and leadership empowers the Church. Dysfunctional structures will tear it apart.