Church Revitalization

Crucial Issue #4: Reactive Pastoral Leadership.

One of the crucial issues in a plateaued or declining church is Reactive Pastoral Leadership.  What often is needed is Proactive Pastoral Leadership in which the Pastor is led by the Lord to engage in purposeful, courageous, assertive, and bold endeavors to lead the church into the changes needed to redirect the church from its present path.

Some where along the way Baptist churches have gotten off task of understanding the role of the Pastor. A pastor search team does not define this. God does. Dr. Craig child's recently posted some great insight on what the word of God says in the Pastor's role.

The Pastoral role is revealed in the Word of God to be:

1) The Pastor is the leading Overseer of the church.  Literally, episcopos or overseer, is the Greek word in the New Testament to describe the role of Pastor to be the one who oversees, manages, leads, guards over, and governs the ministries and the vision of the church.

2)  The Pastor is the leading Shepherd of the church.  Literally, poimen or shepherd, is the Greek word in the New Testament to describe the role of Pastor to be the one who leads, feeds, and protects his sheep.

3)  The Pastor is the leading Elder of the church.  Literally, presbuteros or elder, is the Greek word in the New Testament to describe the role of Pastor to be the one who has the wisdom and insight to teach and to instruct the People of God to follow after the Lord and to live in His ways.

One has only to study deeply the texts of Titus 1:5-7, Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:1-4, and Acts 20: 17,28 to see that these three Greek words describe the exact same office of the church-- the Pastor (as we call him).

It takes a lot of patience between the Pastor and the church to go through revitalization. It takes a lot of prayer and both parties must rely on the Holy Spirit. The Word of God has the answer's and if any church; no matter how large or small is doing the will of God then it will have a bright future.

thanks for reading,

see you next week,

Pastor Eddie