Today
there are many people in the independent evangelical and Pentecostal movements
who start churches merely because they feel led to do so.
If
there were a way to statistically track the outcomes of these self-ordained
pastors, my educated guess, based on years of experience, is that most of these
churches and/or ministries fail to last more than a few years.
In
our American culture we glorify
independence and self-determination. These values are great when it comes to
our entrepreneurial spirit, which is why our nation will probably always take
the lead in creativity and wealth creation and our economy will continue to
rebound in spite of what the federal government does to us. But when it comes
to functioning properly in the body of Christ these values can be harmful.
Unfortunately,
the way many of our brothers and sisters have "called themselves" to
start churches or launch ministries mimics Hollywood movies more than biblical
protocol! I am thinking of movies that depict independent fundamentalist
evangelicals like The Apostle (staring Robert Duvall) and Elmer Gantry (staring
Burt Lancaster). The former highlights a man who baptizes himself and calls
himself an apostle, while the latter features a man who conducts tent crusades
without any ministerial training or affiliation to a church, association or
denomination.
A
telling scene in Elmer Gantry involves a group of pastors and a newspaper
reporter asking evangelist Elmer Gantry and a lady evangelist a simple
question: Who trained and ordained you? Their response: "God" did.
These
movies demonstrate that even secularists understand there is something wrong
with this way of doing ministry. It is as ridiculous as sending yourself to
Afghanistan to fight Islamic terrorists without the covering, protection,
training or the strategy of the U.S. military. I have had experiences in my own
church in which a person left the church without proper training, communication
or protocol with plans to start a church in their home. My primary question to
people such as these is "Who sent you?"
I
tell our church members that when they meet a minister or pastor for the first
time, the number one question they should ask is "Who sent you?" or
"Who do you submit to?" If the minister or pastor says
"God" then run from them as fast as you can! Many have started local
churches for the same reason some entrepreneurs start their own small
businesses instead of working for a larger company: they simply don't want to
submit to anyone else or have someone over them telling them what to do!
One
of the greatest chapters in the Bible is the priestly prayer of Jesus in John
17 in which Jesus is praying to the Father before His crucifixion. In this
prayer Jesus constantly refers to the fact that He was "sent" or
"given" things to Him by His Father to do the work He gave Him to do.
This shows He never called Himself to minister; Jesus needed to be sent or
given ministry by someone higher than Himself for His ministry to be
legitimate, even though He is God the Son (John 17:2-4, 6-9, 11-12, 18, 21,
23-25).
If
the Son of God didn't call Himself into ministry then others who feel called
ought to pattern themselves after His protocol for confirming the timing of a
genuine call into ministry. Furthermore, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 5:1, 3-6
that Jesus didn't call Himself into the priesthood; he waited until the Father
called Him. This was patterned after the Old Covenant in which a person could
only serve as a priest if his physical father was a priest of the tribe of Levi
from the priestly line of Aaron (Exodus 28:1). Thus, if we don't have a father
who ordained us into the ministry (in the New Covenant this includes spiritual
fathers) then we have a "bastard" ministry and have no biblical
legitimacy to fulfill our calling.
The
early church also functioned with this concept of sending as a methodological
background. For example, even though Saul and Barnabas had already felt called
by God into ministry they didn't dare send themselves until the leaders of the
church in Antioch also received a confirming word from the Lord to send them.
(Read Acts 13:1-2, in which the tense of the original Greek wording shows that
God had already called Saul into the ministry before the leaders of the church
received the confirming word.)
In
another instance, Paul the apostle submitted the gospel of grace he was
preaching (to the Gentiles) to the leading apostles of the Jerusalem Church
(Peter and John) for fear his work was in vain (Galatians 2:2, 9). This shows
even Paul, the great apostle, needed the right hand of apostolic blessing to be
considered legitimate.
Paul
also shows it was part of the protocol of the early church that a person
wouldn't preach or minister unless they were officially sent and, by
implication, sanctioned by the church. (Read Romans 10:15 which says "How
shall they preach unless they are sent?")
In
spite of this biblical precedent, many ministers I meet have started their
churches from no more than a subjective "leading of the Lord" without
the training, blessing or sending of a local church body. If a person cannot go
through the grid of submitting to a process of biblical training, character
development, and theological and ministerial training in the context of a local
church, then how can they be properly prepared to shepherd a flock under God?
Most of the time when someone has no personal submission to spiritual authority
it illustrates a deeper issue within them of rebellion against God! Jesus said
that if we receive the one He sent then we receive Him. Conversely, by
rejecting the spiritual authority He sent then we reject Him (Matthew 10:40)!
I
have experienced everything I have written in this article the hard way! For
example, when I first received a calling from the Lord to enter full-time
ministry (in October 1980) the first thing I did was submit my revelation to my
pastor, Benjamin Crandall. Even though I felt called to start a church I
submitted to his counsel which included sitting under his tutelage for several
years until he licensed me for ministry. It was four whole years of preaching
in my community before he finally came to me and told me it was time to start a
church, which I did in 1984. I believe that, because I submitted to his
spiritual authority as my spiritual father, our church has been blessed with
having no church splits in 26 years and unity amongst all of our elders and
pastors. Also, I sense a special anointing and grace upon me to teach on
spiritual authority and church government. Conversely, some I know who started
churches about the same time as me have experienced multiple church splits
because they didn't submit to the biblical process involved in a ministerial
calling. This includes training, ordination and submission to spiritual
authority in the context of a local church or ministry.
Furthermore,
when some bishops in my city approached me in 2005 about consecrating me as a
bishop, the first thing I did before allowing such a consecration was to have
them call several local and national bishops who knew me well to obtain
feedback before we continued. If those leaders didn't agree that I was already
functioning as a bishop then I didn't want to proceed! (They received
confirmation from several bishops which then began a one-year process in which
I submitted to a rigorous grid in which they interviewed apostolic leaders, my
elders and my family to verify the legitimacy of my calling as a bishop.)
In
spite of the above, I believe there are exceptions to these protocols
especially in certain places in the world where there are no local churches or
apostolic leaders, or where there are no spiritual fathers willing to process
and release younger ministers into the ministry. But, in this nation it is very
easy to find someone willing to mentor, train and release a person into the
ministry.
The
first place to look is in your own local church. Most times there is a biblical
process that is either structured or informal that a person can go through to
be sent out into full-time church ministry. However, if you want to start a
church, you should first prove yourself by either running a successful home
group that rapidly multiplies or oversee a ministry in your local church that
successfully nurtures and trains leaders. If you cannot prove your pastoral
calling with the blessing of a senior pastor in your local church then that is
a good sign you will not be successful as the founding pastor of a new local
church.
Joseph
Mattera has been in full-time church ministry since 1980 and is currently the
Presiding Bishop of Christ Covenant Coalition and Overseeing Bishop of
Resurrection Church in New York. He is also serving as the United States
Ambassador for the International Coalition of Apostles, and as one of the
founding presiding bishops of the International Communion of Evangelical
Churches.
Charisma News, 17/07/2014
