So how is this whole thing led? Who does what? Read on for a different way of seeing this important topic.
Holy Spirit
When it boils right down to it, none of us are really “leaders”. Rather, we are all just followers - sheep in need of a shepherd. This isn’t our church to build, we are all simply servants following his lead, bidding his will. Thus, when we talk about leadership, we must remember that our first call isn’t ever to lead, but rather our first call is simply to listen and do what he tells us. We want to be a movement that takes this very seriously. Ultimately, this is Jesus’ work, and we want to hold it loosely and do our best as servants to follow his lead. One of the most significant words of instruction in scripture came from Jesus’ mother, Mary, as Jesus was about to perform his first miracle. In the story, Mary pointed a number of servants toward Jesus and said, “Do whatever he tells you.” We want to live this way. We want to learn to listen to the Spirit of Christ, discern what he says and follow his every word.
Community/Priesthood
This is a basic fact of Scripture: every member of Christ’s family has been indwelt by his Spirit. Therefore, it can safely be concluded that every member can also discern the will of God for both their individual lives and also the corporate body. We want to be a movement of people that sees one another acting as priests, discerning collectively God’s will and advancing in that direction. This does not negate the role of leadership bodies within the corporate body that help steer and guide the whole, rather it simply validates the need to value and listen to what God might also be communicating through every member.
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Five-Fold Ministers
While every member of Christ’s family is filled with God’s Spirit, it is also clear that some members are more mature and/or have special gifts that enable them to help more acutely direct the larger corporate family. While desiring to guard against an “us and them” mentality, we do want to be a movement that recognizes those with unique leadership gifts and release them into service for the benefit and maturing of the whole family of faith.
Specifically, in Ephesians chapter four, the Apostle Paul mentions that the Spirit has given to the church: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers to lead, equip and develop the church. We want to be a movement that develops a simple leadership framework that incorporates people with each of these gifts. We want to be a movement that sees these leaders released to prepare the whole people of God for works of service. And as these leaders are released, and as they equip the rest of the body, our prayer is that our whole movement would become known as an apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and teaching movement.
Elders
In scripture, elders are referred to as the overseers of the flock. They are, so to speak, the spiritual mothers and fathers of the family. We want to be a movement that sees elders as a grassroots people that are overseeing, mothering and fathering people on a day to day basis. In other words, these are the people that will be “responsible” for each of the local churches. Their whole role will be to live with and encourage the people that meet in their homes. They will help guide and direct their churches into a deeper movement toward Christ, and they will also help ensure that their churches are living out both the vision and values of the whole network. Like Moms and Dads their ultimate purpose is to see the people in their care raised to maturity and released into the world.
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