How we’re led

We believe that Jesus is the Head of the Body (Eph 1:22–23; Col 1:18). We submit to His Headship, and we submit to one another in the fellowship of the Spirit and in doing life together.

Our authority for how the church is organised should solely be sourced in the Scripture. There are many traditions that have developed over the last 2,000 years, some helpful and some harmful. However, we endeavour, as best we can, to follow the New Testament pattern for leadership.

We don’t see any separation in the New Testament between those that “minister” and those that receive from the “ministers” and are “normal Christians”.

Everyone is a minister of Christ — a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5) — and each of us plays a critical role in bringing our giftings to bear in ministry to one another and to the world (Eph 4:12). One Body with many parts, and with Jesus as the Head (1 Cor 12:12).

Two primary instructions given by Jesus create the framework within which we approach leadership.

In Matthew 23, Jesus was instructing His disciples in the context of local Jewish religious leaders who loved attention and titles. In verses 6–12 He says:

Jesus is clearly not talking about function here, He is talking about titles. Function is necessary and good and God has created functions (fathers, mothers, teachers, etc.), each for their purpose. The issue Jesus is taking is with the title-giving. A giving which creates something He doesn’t want — an air of hierarchy, position, privilege, superiority; a status system.

In Matthew 20, there was an argument about who might be able to rule with Him in privileged positions. At this point the disciples still did not fully understand what Jesus was doing. Verses 25–28 show His response:

The way the Gentiles operate is to grant positions of power to people — politically, organisationally, and so on — where they are able to exert pressure on others in order to make them submit to them, directly or indirectly. The original Greek text says it even more forcefully than the English translation.

It is not to be this way among followers of Jesus. We are not to have gentile power structures and organisational hierarchy in the Body of Christ.

Jesus, the Lord of the church, makes two things abundantly clear about how His Body should operate.

The rest of the New Testament follows this pattern and outlines only one local leadership function in the Body of Christ: the elder (1 Tim 3).

The term “elder” is a functional term in the Greek New Testament, not a title, as Jesus instructed against. It is used interchangeably with “overseer” (Tit 1:5–7), another functional term. They are the same thing. There are meant to be a plurality of elders in any given area, never a single person “at the top”.Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5; 1 Peter 5:1

Elders help us hold the standard set for Body life, as outlined by the New Testament letters, and to navigate the rigours of it. They are not there to control the affairs of the Body.

What elders do, and who qualifies

In addition to the elder function, there are gifts that Jesus gave to the Body to build it up into maturity: apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding and teaching gifts (Eph 4:11–13).

These are not organisational roles or titles. They are people operating in a particular gifting for the Body’s benefit. Anyone might receive these gifts, elder or not, and operate in them as the Holy Spirit wills and commissions.

These five giftings are not the same as the gifts of the Holy Spirit that He distributes among the members of the Body — a word, a healing, an act of mercy, a tongue (Rom 12:6–8; 1 Cor 12:8–10, 28). Those are covered in Gifts of the Spirit.

The five gifts, and the authority each carries

The New Testament recognises deacons — διάκονοι, servants. These are men and women of proven character who are tested and recognised by the body to handle larger-scale practical service needs, so that the ministry of the Word is not neglected.Acts 6:1–6; 1 Timothy 3:8–13; Philippians 1:1; Romans 16:1

What deacons do, and who qualifies

There are people in our network who open their homes so the church can gather. A host may or may not be an elder. Hosting is an expression of hospitality for the Body of Christ. In the New Testament the church met in houses of people never called elders, among them Lydia, Mary the mother of John Mark, Gaius, Nympha, Prisca and Aquila.Acts 16:14–15, 40; Acts 12:12; Romans 16:23; Colossians 4:15; Romans 16:3–5

Hosts help to facilitate how we meet on Sundays and aid in creating the environment we aspire to — the one anothers.

Who hosts are, and what they do

Any capacity of servant leadership or influence among God’s people should be accompanied by a holy fear, reverence and humility. This is a Body that belongs to Jesus and Jesus counts anything done to His Body as done to Him (Matt 25:40, 45; Acts 9:4–5; 1 Cor 8:12, 12:27).

Jesus wanted us to take this seriously, so He directly instructed His disciples about it in Matthew 18, with parallels in Mark 9 and Luke 9. It opens with the disciples arguing about status in His Kingdom. They were jockeying for position, so this was an apt moment for instruction. Jesus did not soften this.

A few things are worth calling out right off the bat.

• The disciples assumed the Kingdom would have a hierarchical pecking order, like every other worldly kingdom. They were profoundly mistaken.
• In first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman culture a small child had almost no status, rights or power. Children were dependants, not players. Jesus is not commending childishness or cuteness. He is pointing to lowliness, lack of pretension, and dependence.
• Greatness in His Kingdom is the opposite of the ambition they were displaying.

Jesus calls a child over, stands him in the middle of the group, and tells His disciples that they must turn and become like that child or they will never even enter the Kingdom. The one who humbles himself like that child is the greatest. Whoever receives one such child in His name, He says, receives Him.

How we treat the humble, the unimportant, the little ones who belong to Him is how we treat Jesus Himself. He identifies Himself with people who have no leverage.

Then the tone turns severe. Anyone who causes one of these little ones who believe in Him to sin — σκανδαλίζω (skandalizō), to trip, entice, or lead into falling away — would be better off with a heavy millstone hung round his neck, the kind turned by a donkey rather than by hand, and drowned in the depths of the sea.

The little ones are not only literal children. The child is the illustration; the category is humble believers, those without status, new or weak in faith, easily influenced, vulnerable. Causing them to stumble, whether by pride, bad example, false teaching, exploitation or contempt, is so serious that a gruesome death would be the lighter outcome. This is aimed squarely at those with influence in the Body of Christ, the disciples included.

Still speaking to them, He tells them to deal with the source of that stumbling in themselves with the same severity. Whatever it is in us — ambition, the eye that looks down on the weak, the hand that grasps at status or exploits — is to be treated as an emergency. Better to enter life maimed than to keep the whole body and be thrown into the fire. This is not a call to literal self-mutilation. It is Jesus insisting that tolerating that sin in ourselves, when it could cause one of these little ones to stumble, is worse than losing a limb.

He closes by telling them not to despise one of these little ones, because their angels always behold the face of the Father. God assigns high value and close attention to the very people the ambitious overlook.

The short of it

Anyone who would have influence or servant leadership among Christ’s people must first become small, because the Kingdom has no room for status-seeking. How we treat a humble believer is how we treat Jesus Himself, and causing one of them to stumble is so grave that drowning would be mercy by comparison. That same severity has to be turned on whatever in us — ambition, contempt, our example, our sin — would become that stumbling block, while we refuse to despise those whose angels stand continually before the Father.