11
Nov '18
Follow (Week 6): Lead Like Jesus
11
Nov '18
The Elder Team
Chris Logan
Welcome A story about Daniel. With that welcome I know that the term “elders” has been a touchy subject at various times in our 110 year history There are many pragmatic/practical reasons a church might have elders.
- Help the pastors carry the burden of pastoral ministry
- Bring a variety of expertise through various ages, experiences to bear on the issues every pastor faces
- To hold the pastors and each other accountable
The list can go on and on of the helping ministries elders can perform according to each person’s abilities
With that said I would briefly like to share what the Bible says about Biblical eldership. I would say the best and only reason to have elders in a New Testament church is that the New Testament says to.
Titus 1:5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint[a] elders in every town, as I directed you.
Acts 15:12 And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.
Acts 14:23 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed
Ephesian’s 4:12-13 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
1 Peter 5:1-4 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
There are many more passages that speak to the New Testament church and being elder lead.
FBC exercises a plurality of elders (def.; more than one) if anyone or group would like to discuss these Scriptures please reach out to us, none of us know what you are thinking unless you tell us.
We have open elder meetings the 2nd Monday of each month at 7:30 anyone is welcome
Closing: Peter and Paul remind us that the churches we shepherd are not our own. We are overseers of Gods church, God’s flock. And so it is God’s Word that must have the final say. Jesus created the church. He died for the church. He is its only King and law giver. If we are committed to shepherding Christ’s church, and not our own, then we must be willing to do it his way.
Ed Bell
(This is a brief outline of what Ed shared)
When I was much younger I was shot by Debbie’s former boyfriend.
I grew to hate that man for what he did to Debbie and me.
You can’t follow Jesus if you hate someone!
Corey Ten Boom struggled with many things in life, one of which was fleas. She learned to love fleas when God used them to keep the Germans from finding a hidden bible. She also struggled with burdens in her life that were too big for her. Her father taught her to let him handle those burdens. He was built for them, she was not.
We try to carry burdens that are too heavy for us. Like forgiving those who persecute us. Those who hurt the ones we love.
G. Gordon Liddy says there are two kinds of people in prison and they are both stupid. The convicts who deserve to be there and the prison guards. The convicts did stupid things to get there. The guards voluntarily choose to be there in a high-risk situation for minimum wage. They choose to go to prison every day. They are more stupid.
When I hold a grudge against someone who did something stupid I “go to their prison every day” I am being stupid. I am being more stupid than the person who hurt me. When I carry that burden, I am shaming my Father who wants to carry it for me. I am not built to carry that kind of burden. I need to give it to Him.
Scott Underwood
(Scott did not get to share all of this because of limited time:)
Jesus was
Practical – met people in their daily needs and concerns, which lead into spiritual needs
Intentional – Jesus went where people were, specifically for the reason to engage them
Relational – Jesus acted in ways and used circumstances to build deep relationships with people.
Calling of Simon and Peter, James and John – from their boats –Matthew 4: 18-22
Calling of Matthew and Zaccheus – from the tax tables – Matthew 9: 9-13, Luke 19: 1-10
Practical, then Relational
Washing of the feet – John 13: 1-20
Cooking them breakfast – John 21: 1-22
Practical, transactional, but life changing and relationship starting
Woman at the well – John 4: 1-26
Healing lepers – Matthew 8: 1 -4. Healed him, encouraged him to follow God’s commands
Restoring sight – John 9: 1-38
Scott shared about how he saw a man who looked destitute looking through a dumpster. he imagined getting out of his car, talking with the man, sharing the gospel, giving him some money and helping him on his way. It was probably the Holy Spirit nudging him, but Scott never got out of his car. He drove on. Then he called on Tim to share a better example…
Tim Martin shared how God nudged him to pray for a lady he saw in a restaurant. He fought the urging for quite a while – until it was almost too late. But he obeyed…and God blessed him and the lady (and her husband).
Daniel Kinnaird
(Outline)
Passage: Philippians 2:5-8
– Jesus patterned his life and leadership in a way that is completely the opposite of they way our culture teaches us to live.
– Temptation of power: most of us believe that we leverage power to accomplish important goals and causes.
– Example: daydreaming about winning the lottery — I dream about everything I might accomplish if I had power, authority, and money.
– These methods are flawed because we are broken people. We are corrupted by our own pursuits of worth, confidence, and value in the eyes of others.
– These methods are not the way of Jesus.
– christian leaders (and christian people) will look very different than the world if they pattern their lives from Jesus.
– The way of the christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross” -Henri Nouwen
– Leadership in the church moves from leadership built on power and into a leadership in which we listen and discern together where God is leading his people. It requires deep trust in God and trust in brothers/sisters in Christ.
(This is a summary by admin)
Philippians 2:5-8 5 You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, 6 who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. 8 He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross!
What kind of blueprint for life or leadership is this? It is not a good one! Who starts at the top with all the power and say that is not the way I want to lead my life? The temptation for power, the temptation to feel important and be important is real. I have been high and I have been lower than low.
I have been in places we would consider unimportant. We all want to escape that kind of situation! We all dream of being in a different place. If only we had money, power and authority, we would do such good things. That seems to be the reality of all of our lives.
But the way of Jesus is different. His way is in opposition to money and power. He voluntarily laid aside His God-hood and that is the invitation to all of us in our life and in our leadership. Whether we carry a title or not we are all leaders: of our lives, in our families, our friend-groups, in the places we work, and at school. We influence ourselves and we influence others.
The way of Jesus is not the way of humans. It’s not our way. There is an author that I love who said, “The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”
The way of Jesus ends in death. We talk about it figuratively like death to ourselves, death to our dreams, we lay that down for the sake of Jesus. I think Jesus actually lived it literally. I don’t like to think about it that way. I really don’t! It’s hard to think about that. But that was the way of the one that we follow.
So I want to encourage all of us, as we live our lives, to look and to read scripture and model our lives after Jesus who lived lived completely differently – upsettingly differently than the way that we live our lives. I want to invite all of us, including the leaders and elders to live in a way that sets down power and authority and trades it for love! That we voluntarily forsake what seems to make sense, what would give us leverage to accomplish awesome things, good causes…that we lay that down in order to follow Jesus.
Because leadership built on power is not the way of Jesus and it can’t be the way we lead in the church. We need to move from leadership built on power to leadership in which we discern together where God is leading His people. That requires trusting each other and it requires humbly seeking God’s face in everything that we do.
Daniel then shared how God is pulling him out of being an elder and into Young Life where he can minister to young people. He sees the leadership of Jesus in the hearts of those who work there. They don’t do it perfectly because this is hard, but he sees how they sacrificially give of their time, that they lay down the power to love other people, make time for other people and make space in their lives to love other people who are sometimes very difficult to love.
Chris Logan then closes with a few comments.
Follow Week 6: Listen to it here
You can view the video series HERE.
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23
Sep '18
GATHER (Week 6 & 7): We Gather to Celebrate!
23
Sep '18
KEY VERSES: Acts 2:37-47 (NASB)
Why do we gather? God gathers His Church for His purposes and His glory! Today we will learn that God gathers us to celebrate His work in our lives. We have been homesteading in the book of Acts 2:37-47 and there is much to learn from the early church in its beginning days. I call those early days the honeymoon phase of the Church, but no relationship stays in the honeymoon. Struggles happen that require a normalization of life. The early church soon realized that Jesus’ return may not happen in the first or second generation of believers like they presumed. Now, 2,000 years later, Jesus has still not returned. That is why we gather—to remember Who brought us together, to celebrate Jesus, and to anticipate the promised Victory that is ever before us!
We gather to celebrate God and the work God is doing actively in us and through us! We do that by sharing His story by teaching the Bible and by sharing our testimonies. When we share testimonies as we gather, we join with the Apostles and the early church in doing so. The sharing of testimonies is an ancient practice that goes all the way back to the very beginning of the Church, but it is also a means of grace by which we will overcome evil. Listen to Revelation 12:11, “And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”
We are to share our testimonies with one another. Watch Merissa’s Testimony:
There are different kinds of testimonies. Testimonies are an essential part of why we gather:
- When we share our testimonies, we glorify God for the blood of the Lamb by which we are saved. Testimonies first and foremost proclaim the goodness and faithfulness of God!
- Testimonies also teach about the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ through stories. Stories are powerful! We get a glimpse from one another of how the Christian life is filled with power in the everyday ways. We learn from one another how to put into practice our faith and why hanging on to our faith is so important. Sometimes, we are the only Bible people will read. What does your life teach?
- Testimonies encourage each of us to persevere in love and good deeds. It’s hard out there and very often testimonies shine God’s light in dark places that each of us experience! We need to see that it is true that we can overcome; that faith does work, that we do have a living hope worth hanging onto. When we gather, we are building one another up in love so that we can be love to our world!
Listen to what we, our gathering at FBC, can be like by God’s grace. From Paul in Colossians 3:14-17, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
Sharing stories help us live out this truth. We are not celebrating ourselves when we share our testimonies; we are celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in each of us and in our church. When we gather faithfully, we have greater power within us to scatter faithfully.
Ed & Delora Hartsock to share their testimony.
We gather to scatter so while we gather let us do so in a way that help us be faithful in our everyday lives in the everyday ways. God loves you! God sees you in all of your situations! God is at work! God will use all of you… All of your story… Will you trust God will all of you and all of your story? Will we trust God with all of FBC and all of our story?
Gather Week 6: Listen to it here
Week 7 of this series is a celebration in music and sharing. We invited the group Heartsong to lead our time of worship and share with us.
Gather Week 7: Listen to it here
The video series can be found by clicking HERE.
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