Questions for Church Leaders (6)
Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 2 Corinthians 13.5
A disturbing challenge
This passage from the apostle Paul presents a disturbing challenge. It comes at the end of his second lengthy letter to a group of churches in Corinth. And it calls those churches and their leaders to look carefully at where they are as congregations of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is Jesus really in them? Are they making disciples? Glorifying God? Seeking His Kingdom? Equipping and sending church members for works of service in the mission fields of their daily lives? Is the reality of the risen and reigning Christ visibly at work in their midst in such ways as this?
Or would they fail the test, proving themselves, by their lack of any real evidence, to be something other than what they claim and are pretending to be?
Paul clearly means business here. Either we are disciples of Christ and our churches are congregations of His Body, or we—and it—are not. How can we know? Jesus said that the fruit we bear in our individual and corporate lives will tell the tale (Matt. 7.20).
So what does the fruit of our church suggest? As church leaders, we must be prepared to answer the question, “Are we making progress”?
Assessing progress?
How can a local church assess itself? Paul instructed the churches in his day to examine themselves. Does your church examine itself? Do your church leaders conduct regular assessments of its staff and programs? What do those assessments reveal? With respect to our vision and mission, “Are we making progress?”
If not, why not?
Some might protest, “Well, you can’t evaluate a church, you know, as if it were some business.” Who says? Paul clearly intended those leaders in Corinth to have a good look at their situation and to determine—member by member, house church by house church—whether Jesus Christ was really alive and growing and serving in those churches. If Paul expected it of them, you can be sure that Jesus expects it of us.
It’s really not that difficult. We just need to know what we’re looking for, and then devise some means of looking for it.
What are we looking for? Kingdom presence and progress, obviously. Where should we look for that? In the lives of our members and their everyday ministries, of course. But how do we do that?
By shepherding the Lord’s flock as we should.
Shepherds of the flock
In a most fundamental way, shepherding is the responsibility of every church member, to be ready by word and deed to encourage, edify, and equip other church members as part of our normal time together. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has sent us all like He was sent, to shepherd one another in His love and for His glory.
At another level, the New Testament often refers to church leaders as shepherds (cf. 1 Pet. 5.1-3; Acts 20.28; Eph. 4.11, 12). Shepherding is a most important function for church leaders to fulfill.
Suppose we’re walking through woods one day and we come on a clearing where, right there in the middle, a shepherd is standing with his flock. He’s got a dog beside him and, oh, 50 or 60 sheep browsing and lying around.
Now imagine we walk up to that shepherd, offer a friendly greeting, and engage him in conversation. At some point we ask him, “So, how’s your flock doing?” And he says, looking back at his sheep, “Oh, pretty well, I guess.” “You guess? What do you mean, guess?” “Well,” our shepherd friend continues, “they all keep coming whenever I call. I feed them day by day. I mean, what else can I do?”
Well, is that it? Isn’t the shepherd responsible to “know well the condition of his flocks”, as Solomon says (Prov. 27.23)? Shouldn’t he have a sense of the health and wellbeing of each member of the flock? Is each one eating like it should? Growing as it should? Does it have any pests or pains or problems? How’s its wool developing? Is it going to produce a good harvest at the shearing? Getting along with the other sheep?
As church leaders, we are shepherds of the flock of God. God takes this work seriously, as we see in Ezekiel 34.1-10. He intends each member of the flock to be properly shepherded and to be healthy and fruitful in the work of the Lord. Jesus outlined His work as the Good Shepherd in John 10; He expects all the Lord’s shepherds to follow His example. He expects us as church leaders to “know well” the condition of our flock by the active, personal, ongoing work of shepherding all the people of God entrusted to our care.
The better we as leaders fulfill our calling as shepherds, the healthier and more fruitful the Lord’s sheep aregoing to be. And then we’ll be able to know that real progress is being made in building the church and advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, unto the praise of the glory of God.
For reflection or discussion
1. How does the practice of shepherding work in your church? How do you practice shepherding with other church members?
2. Would you say that you are making progress in the faith? In what ways?
3. What is your practice of examining yourself, to make sure you are where you should be with the Lord?
Next steps—Preparation: Meditate on Provers 4.21-27. How might you put Solomon’s counsel to work in your life?
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
A good supplement to this ongoing study on the Church is our free PDF book, Pray for Your Church. Download your copy from The Ailbe Bookstore by clicking here. Also, we encourage you to visit our ReThinking Church page, where you’ll see a variety of free resources to help you church.
This week: Our Read Moore podcast is into a new series of readings from our book, The Joy and Rejoicing of My Heart. In our Crosfigell teaching letter, we begin to examine some of the wonderful spiritual poetry from the period of the Celtic Revival. And in our daily Scriptorium column we are studying the Gospel of Matthew. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you.
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