The Economics of Authority

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

If you ask people what makes a good leader, that list can become long and winding. Sometimes, that list will include adjectives like strong, upstanding, courageous, but also it can include patient, loyal, generous. Still, other lists, other adjectives we could heap on would be maybe good communicators. We want them to be savvy. We want them to be transparent. Well, whatever your list is, my question is why. Why do we care about leaders? Why do we keep all of these adjectives, all of these expectations upon leaders? And I believe that the answer is that somehow leaders represent the best of us. That those with authority we want them especially if they have authority over us we want them to be examples that we can follow. You see this in the negative example whenever a leader that people really want to follow fails miserably particularly in a moral failing. The newspaper headlines will not be riddled with, you know, pastor does good job and

leads his church. That's just that doesn't make the news. Scandal does. The reason Scandal makes the news is because we want these things in our leaders. I don't think it's bad, but I do think think it's a reality. And although leadership in a classic sense is usually associated with organizational charts or business, the Bible actually says a lot about leadership and authority. And because I'm crazy, I'm going to try to cover it all in one Sunday. It'll be great. We really need to, though, we really need to understand how churches appoint leaders, how churches should handle leadership, how we as believers should handle church authority. And in fact, this topic should make us sit up straight because church history is riddled with examples of abuse of authority or bad use of authority, both in ancient church history and in recent church history. Okay, this is not a new problem,

but it's definitely not a problem that's going away either. And really as a church, as Christians, we don't just need a laundry list of adjectives. We don't just need conceptual standards, right? We need as believers, as a church, in covenant with one another, we need to connect our lives and our church to the way, capital W, to the way that Jesus establishes and carries out and works through authority. We need to connect those things. Church authority can't be a cuss word. Okay? We have to understand it. Maybe another way to say it would be that we need to see authority within the economy of Jesus. We've been talking about this the last couple of weeks about the economy of Jesus. And really, the economy of Jesus is just the way that he created things to run, to run well. Like any economy, if you understand how it runs well, then you can invest well in it.

I've got a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law who are visiting today. I won't point them out. But they buy things at thrift shops and they sell it on Facebook Marketplace, and they turn a profit doing it, right? The reason they can do that is because they understand how the economy runs. They understand what people are looking for on Facebook, and they understand what's cheap at a thrift store, okay? They get it. They know how that economy runs. When we know how the economy of Jesus runs, then we can invest well. We can do right by it. We can live in accordance with it, okay? We can understand how it runs. So two weeks ago, we saw how the economics of love helps us act in cooperation with Jesus initiating. So Jesus initiates love. He initiates purity in our hearts. He heals us, but he's also at work and we can be sowing seeds in cooperation with Jesus as he does that.

Lastly, we looked at the economics of gender and how the economics of gender defines roles so that, particularly among men and women, so that as we work together, our work together completes one another, right? Or to say it a different way, complimentary. Our work is complimentary to one another. It completes one another. We work in cooperation, different roles that are equal and that need one another, okay? Today, if you wanna hear more about that, by the way, that's a complete shock to you. You can go on our website and the sermon is there from last week, the economics of gender, you can look that up. We covered 1 Timothy 2. So today we're gonna be discussing the economics of authority and we're gonna be in 1 Timothy 3. And so if you wanna turn there, we're gonna be kind of going there. But actually we're gonna start at the end. We're gonna start in verses 14 and 15 of 1 Timothy 3.

Don't worry, we're gonna cover most of it, but we're gonna start at the end. And the verses are going to be up here in 1 Timothy 3, 14 and 15. It says this, it says, I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Now, man, it hurts me to not go into detail on verse 15, how the church is the pillar of the buttress of truth, how we are the church of the living God, we're the household of God, but I'll just leave it at this. These things, it says, verse 14, I am writing these things to you so that Paul is writing about the economics of authority to give leadership and structure to this church. This is the church in Ephesus that he's writing about, so he's writing to Timothy, and he's saying, I'm writing these things to you so that your church knows how to run.

And not just run like in a practical sense, but in a sense that is in accordance with the economy of Jesus. And so if we're going to be talking about leadership and structure for us to invest well as a church and as Christians, we need to see both parts of that. We need to see the leadership of it and we need to see the structure. So you can also see it by posing them as questions. Maybe the first question would be, what is a good leader? And the second would be, how should those leaders lead a church? What is a good leader and how should those leaders lead a church? We're going to start with a good leader and we're going to start in 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 2. So where you were before, Larry? 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 2, it says, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. So we're talking about leadership, but from the

the outset here, we need to define terms, okay? Because you and I don't use the term overseer, okay? Raise your hand if you use the word overseer when you weren't reading First Timothy 3 in the last year. Okay, good, okay. We just don't talk about overseers, right? It's just kind of a strange word. It's a Bible word, right? What does overseer mean? And so what I'm going to do, in fact, as Hope Harrington read, whenever she read it, her translation had church leader. some of your translations are going to have the word bishop. Okay. And most of them are going to have overseer. So what I'm going to do for the word overseer, I'm going to supply the word pastor. Okay. The office of pastor. Okay. The Bible, whenever it's talking about leadership in the church, when it's talking about how a church will be structured, it begins with this initial office of pastor.

Now, I will show you how I can get away with using the word pastor. I like to justify myself here with scripture. Pastor has two synonyms in the Bible. Those synonyms are elder and overseer. I will show, I will show you. In verse 5, 1 through 2, it says, so I exhort the elders. And so elders is bolded and beside it in parentheses, it has kind of the Greek I'm not throwing Greek letters up there. Don't just, but it's, it's pres, presbyterus. Okay. So I exhort the elders, um, among you to shepherd the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. So exercising oversight, the, uh, the, um, episcopos word, that's the same word as overseer. So epi means like around and scop, like scope means look. look. So overseer, that's where we get the word. Okay. So, in here, you have elders that should pastor and oversee the church. Okay. So these are kind of synonymous here. And then in Acts 20,

it does the same thing. It starts in verse 17, then skips down to 28. 17 says it's to the elders of the church in Ephesus. So it's actually the elders that are in the church that we're reading about in 1st Timothy, to the elders of the church in Ephesus, and it says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for or shepherd the church. So you have elders that are made overseers in order to pastor the church. Biblically, we are free to use any of these words. If we talk about elders, people think we're a Presbyterian church. If we say overseers, people have no idea what we're we're talking about. So we say pastor, okay, the office of pastor. But it's important, it's important because at South Burleson we will have the office of pastor, but when the Bible uses elder or overseer, we should and can read pastor. It's all the same thing, okay. There's not some overseers

doing this thing over here and elders doing this thing over here and then pastors doing it. We're just gonna, they're all the same, okay? And we need clarity, particularly, in this particular role, because it is extremely significant. Okay, this role, this office of pastor is extremely significant, because these pastors should be good. But what is a good pastor in the economy of Jesus? This is our first question. What is a good leader? What's a good pastor? Well, let's look back at verse two, beginning of verse two, it says, therefore an overseer must be above reproach. Good pastors are defined mainly by their integrity, overwhelmingly so actually. And the distinction to be above reproach, it stands out as kind of an overview for the rest of the verses that follow. So from the second half of verse two all the way through verse seven, this is kind of an overview of that.

So the rest of the verses are gonna kind of unfold underneath it. So what do we get in the next couple of verses? We get 10 adjectives to expound on this idea of integrity. Okay? So those adjectives, a husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-control, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 10 adjectives. Instead of getting lost in those adjectives, I just want to boil them down to two ideas. And there's a lot there, right? I mean, we could do a whole sermon series on each one of those words, basically. But there's two ideas represented in those 10 adjectives. The first is that the elder stays in bounds. The pastor stays in bounds. So in the marriage, they stay in bounds with stimulants. They stay away from derailing sins, right? Where they're not a drunkard, they're not violent, but gentle.

They stay away from those things. The second thing they do is they keep ministry relational. So they stay in bounds personally, but they keep ministry relational. So they establish good relationships. They open their home. They are a natural teacher. They are relationally aware. They are not motivated by greed. Okay, so they stay in bounds. They keep ministry relational. And then after we get those 10 adjectives, we get three areas of close examination. So we're kind of, you know, we're just reeling off adjectives. But then in beginning in verse four, it kind of slows down a little bit. And we get this, we get a further kind of look into what this integrity should look like. First Timothy chapter three, verses four and five says, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if anyone does not know how to manage his own household,

how he care for God's church. So pastors must be examined closely and that includes their home life. And you might be crying foul. You might be saying, no, it's not fair. Well, sorry, it's right here. My home life, I'm a pastor here. My home life is subject to examination. Should be. And my home life must reflect the gospel. So we should ask these questions. Do the pastor's home lives exhibit both love and justice?

Do they exhibit care? Do the pastor's children listen to them most of the time? Listen, I've met a lot of people's kids and I like mine a lot more than all those other ones. I got some pretty great kids and it's because I married well. So, all jokes aside, this is not perfection. This is not what we're talking about. We're not talking about some perfect home where everybody's like, you know, the children sing praise songs to themselves to go to sleep. That's not, we're not there, right? That's not what we do. But it must reflect the gospel, right? must reflect the gospel. The home life is subject to examination. Second verse 6, he must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. So the spiritual life, spiritual life is under examination. He must display a certain maturity, right? So we should ask of pastors, have the pastors experienced

failure, setback, trial, and have they received seasoning from that? Right? I've heard that it's only a failure if you don't learn from it. And if you have a pastor in a church that has not gone through a few things, has not received some kind of beat down, right, some kind of seasoning, then I tell you it's going to be really hard for them to lead other people as they go through those things, right? They're not gonna be able to relate. They're not gonna know what to do.

I've been that pastor, I've seen that pastor. It's not great. It's very, very difficult. And it hurts a lot of people when you have a spiritually immature pastor. 1 Timothy 3:7 is the last one. It says, moreover, he must be well thought about outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. So public life, the public life of this pastor should be under scrutiny, should be under examination. He must be reputable. OK, it doesn't mean he needs to be popular. It just needs to be reputable. So maybe a good question would be like, have the pastors displayed love and charity among people who neither know nor care that he's a pastor? If a pastor has displayed grace in the public square, right, among people and was not, you know, kind of acting under pastoral jurisdiction, right, wasn't sermonizing, wasn't, you know, calling somebody out on a church or anything, you know, it was just like at Walmart.

And can the pastor display love and charity at Walmart? That's probably a really great way to ask that question. Especially, you know, some Walmarts. So if a pastor can do that, then he's ready. Right. If he can have a charitable action, he's ready. In all these descriptions and these examinations of good pastors, I want you to see these three things, right? And I want you to see that pastors qualify first by their integrity. So this is kind of a summary, right? They qualify first by their integrity. They do what they say. They stay in bounds in their marriage and stimulants, and they stay away from derailing sins. Second, though, they qualify by their depth, right? They know the Lord deeply. They've been through some things. They know their family deeply. They have deep relationships with their wife and children. They have deep relationships established at the church and with the public.

Right? With just people that they have, that they are peers with in every sense. Right? But pastors never qualify by their talent. Ever. Aside from able to teach, which was one of the ten adjectives that we saw, which is not even a high bar, by the way, I'm able to teach. There is a shocking absence of great communicator or strong leader in this list. We're not looking for alpha dogs here. We're not looking for people that can blow everybody else off the ball and grab the reins and take control and lead the charge. You don't see it. It's not here. It's not. What do you see? You see death and integrity. You see gentleness. You see a tender hearted man who can care for people, people who can reach in and be actually compassionate toward other people because they've received compassion before. That's what you see. That's the list. That's Paul sitting down, writing a letter to Timothy and saying,

here's how you find men that can pastor in the church in Ephesus. And none of it, none of it has to do with being a guy with a side of guy, Right, like being a manly man. None of it has to do with that. It has to do with integrity. It has to do with depth of character. Good pastors, good pastors then promote the good. They promote unity, health, life, and good pastors inhibit the bad. They inhibit backbiting. They inhibit error. They inhibit falsehood. Bad pastors, either with bad intentions or just because they're immature, promote the bad. They promote division and dysfunction, and they inhibit the life and growth of the church. As a quick aside, and I wanna just give a nod to verses eight through 13,

because in verses eight through 13, it talks about the qualifications for deacons. Leadership, church leadership does include deacons. However, today, we are going to limit the discussion to pastors. To be perfectly candid, our church family needs time to study the role of Deacon. I will say this, that in the role of Deacon, you have scriptural descriptions in about three or four places, Acts 6, 1 Timothy 3, these verses, 8 through 13, then Philippians 1 and Romans 16. These few passages historically have led to disagreement. among people who love Jesus and follow the scripture. Okay. They have historically led to disagreement. And like I said, to be candid, we need some time. I'm not just going to preach on it and expect everybody to go, sure, we need to study it. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're just not going to go into it today. And I usually don't just skip over whole swaths of verses.

I will also say our church has served extremely, extremely well by our five current deacons who continue to set an example of love and faithfulness that include Dan Hay, whom you've seen up here, Daniel Oster, Sean Coffman, David Upchurch, Hollisup Church. They are great men, worthy of example, worthy of following, worthy of paying attention to, and we will address the deacon role. I promise you that, just not now. We will address it. So I want to recap real quick on pastors at South Burleson. We need pastors with strong integrity and with depth of character. Jesus establishes leaders like these because in the economics of authority, there is a premium on examples, which is why I'm so ever thankful for our deacons. Because it's not just me that you have to follow. You get to see all kinds of guys, all kinds of people, how they follow Jesus. There's a premium on example.

Jesus desires us to grow up in relationship with Him, to grow up through relationships. And we all need people around us to show us how to grow up. Amen? Okay, good, we're there. So we have answered then, in some degree, we have answered what makes a good leader, what makes a good pastor. And we will now turn our attention to the question of structure. How should those leaders lead a church? You can have the best pastors in the world, but if your structure is bad and does not let them lead, then it doesn't matter. You can hog tie a good leader with bad structure. Conversely, good structure can sometimes really help a new or inexperienced leader, right? So, similar to leaders who reflect Jesus, We also need a structure that displays Jesus' kingdom.

In other words, we don't pattern ourselves and the way that we conduct relationships with one another and the way we conduct ourselves as a church. We don't pattern ourselves after the business world. We don't pattern ourselves after American democracy. We pattern ourselves after the kingdom of God. But to do that, it takes a little bit of savvy, to be honest. It's not just as easy as saying, yeah, let's pattern ourselves after the Kingdom. Good idea, Drew. Okay, done.

It's a little more difficult than that. So for that, I really want to turn to verse 75. We're going to start in verse 17. Okay. As you're turning to first 75, 17, I just want to go over the points quickly. Structure that displays the Kingdom. It should encourage shared ministry. We're going to talk about each of these. I'm just giving you the flyover. It should honor leaders' needs and it should hold leaders to high standards. Okay, the structure should encourage shared ministry, should honor leaders' needs, and should hold leaders to high standards. So first, let's look at encouraging shared ministry. I'm going to cheat a little bit, but I'm going to use the very beginning part of 1 Timothy 5:17. Oh, sorry, go back. There you go. First, Timothy 517, it just says, let the elders who rule well. Okay, I'm just going to stop there. I realize that's cherry picking. But our structure, our church structure,

should encourage a shared ministry. In other words, I want you to notice in 517 that elders is in the plural. Okay, elders in the plural. In fact, let me one up that, And I will tell you that every single time the New Testament references actual pastors and actual churches, which is 16 times, it is always in the plural. Always. Just to show my work, that's where. It's all those places. All of those places. It's several times in Acts, but then several times after that, It encourages shared ministry. Look, it is not a sin to only have one pastor in a church. It's not. But the Bible overwhelmingly encourages a plurality. Overwhelmingly.

You have to look real hard and do a lot of gymnastics to make the Bible say there should be one pastor per church. Okay. Within our own church, giving too much power to one person historically has ended poorly. And for those of you that have been here, you know, 15, 20 years, I can hear some Amen's. There you go. It has historically ended poorly. Now, and I want to say it this way. It has ended poorly when one person had too much power, whether that person was a pastor with some unchecked ideas or a church member that was pushing a rogue agenda. Right? Both of them. In fact, both of them have led to splits in this very church. Sister. Yes. Multiple times over. Okay. So look, it might seem that talking about our structure or government or leadership is a bit overly pragmatic or unspiritual or anything like that, but let me just tell you, let me just tell you. Good structure and it's structure, just

structure, leadership and structure is oftentimes the difference between a church that is falling apart or church that's thriving. It's just true. And when you have a structure that is poorly put together, or a structure that is not very well thought out or a structure that gives too much power to one person, whoever that person may be, it will tear a church apart. I don't think if you've ever been a part of a church that's falling apart, it's not a fun ride. There's people that leave Jesus for it all the time, all the time. I meet people that are sworn atheists now. They grew up in the church. There was this major divide. were really mad at each other, and now they don't believe in Jesus anymore. Because of structure. Now, I realize I've just said that giving too much power to one person has historically ended poorly. And I also realize that our church only has one pastor.

I'm aware. I, look, I get it. The mirror is in full effect. That should move you to pray just like it does me. We need more pastors. We need plurality on every level, especially for pastors. We need it as a point of health, as a point of just reflecting the kingdom. I wanna say this about shared ministry. So shared ministry is good because it spreads the love, right, it spreads the responsibility, it's good. But it also keeps our church from being overly dependent on one person or one group of people to make things happen. It's just healthy. When you have a church, I was listening to a podcast and these guys were talking, they worked with churches, and this one guy said, I worked with a church of 500 that only had 40 volunteers. And he said, if your church has 500 people on a Sunday, but you only have 40 volunteers, you are drowning. Staff is doing too much, you're all burned out.

It's gonna be bad. And I know, I get it, we're a church of 75. I understand it's different, but that just changes the ratios, not the facts, right? We don't need to be overly dependent on one person or one group to make it happen. Yes, our church has had lean times where that had to happen. There's one a lot of people to do a lot of the work. But wisdom says you share ministry. When a church's authority is consolidated into a very small group of people who are either unelected or unqualified or both, that church is doomed. And I don't say that with any particular joy. It's bad. The church with shared ministry, on the other hand, thrives. It is a joy because, in some ways, because you're continually passing on what you are learning. It's like a greenhouse where all plants grow. Shared ministry helps. So we need a structure for shared ministry. Second, we need to structure for honoring needs.

Let's keep reading in 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 18. says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching for the scripture says, this is the Old Testament quote here, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. Our church, our church should honor the needs of its leaders. And I realize verses 17 and 18 deal with pastors in particular, but it goes for leaders across the board, across the board. People need things beyond money. I don't know, that's a news flash, but it shouldn't be.

Leaders need great people to work with. Leaders need sustainable schedules. Leaders need a clear vision that they're working toward. Leaders need emotional support. Leaders need to know that the work they're doing is significant and a structure, any good structure should anticipate and meet those needs where possible. And that goes way beyond money. This is why in our church, we have rotating schedules. This is why we assess people based on personality type before we assign them to a job. This is why we have six month terms of service. This is why. It's not because we're trying to make things easy, it's because we are trying to anticipate and meet needs.

I was, we were having a, like a, like a staff leadership retreat. And staff would be, it wasn't just me. It was, it was me and Deacons and team leaders. Okay, and we'll get to that in a second. We're all there. And I said, I said, okay, what's something that's good that's happened in in 2021? In 2021. And so we're listening things and, and Haul sub church. God bless you, you, sir. He said, we have a lot of volunteers. And I said, oh, good, a lot of volunteers. And then he said, well, I'm pretty sure this is the most volunteers we've ever had. Ever. Now that's great. But when you consider the church, that this church was at one point double, if not more, of the size that it is now, that's not great. That burns people out. That, that, what that does in real time is it holds somebody's face to the flame and say do you love Jesus? If so, then you're just going to keep serving. That's a terrible thing

to do to people. And it makes people walk away from church and the Lord all the time. Our church doesn't need to do that. We need to have rotating schedules. We need to be be able to let people serve in a way that is good and beneficial, not just to us, but to them. It takes time, takes work, takes creativity. That's our job, not just mine. Pastors, for pastors in particular,

we can take away these verses that the family well being and the family blessing of the pastor is paramount, right? So to be crass, I am paid by this church. I am paid to lead well. That includes preaching and pastoring to the best of my abilities. It includes calling members. It includes building budgets. It includes planning for the future and includes honoring the past. Another way to say that though, is to say that I am paid so that I can focus on this job.

If I had to work a second job, my attention would be divided. That's in some ways why we pay a full-time job. And I know, I know it seems weird to be paid full-time because all I do is just preach once a week. It's the same scam that Olympic high jumpers have. They only have to perform once every four years. Okay, same scam, we're both running the same scam.

Just leave it there, just let your mind wander. Structurally, our church should honor needs, the people that are tasked with leadership. Structurally, our church should support and encourage shared ministry. Lastly, we're gonna read it in verses 19 and 20. It says, do not admit a charge against an elder, read pastor, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses, as for those who persist, As for those pastors who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. Our structure should hold leaders to high standards. Leaders are an example, both good and bad. Both good and bad. It is a two-edged sword.

And so, as a pastor here, I would hope that if somebody were bad-mouthing me, you would at least check that. You would at least say, on my behalf, out of some love and charity toward me, say, are you sure that's true? Where did you get that information? That you should have a guard on the reputation, not just of me, but of our deacons and our team leaders too. We should have a guard on that by the same turn. If you ask the question, where did you get that information? And you see that there is some overwhelming evidence to the positive, then that leader needs to be corrected

as publicly as appropriate. If I'm caught headlong in sin, you owe it to the church church to publicly discipline me. Do you hear me? I hope these words don't come back to haunt me, but it's what it is. It's what it is. It's part of the job. It's what I signed up for, right? This is pastoral leadership. Just what it is. If you don't like it, go do something else, right? I've had people tell me, if you can do anything else besides pastor church, do that. If you can't, but if you can't, just go past that church. It's a beat, but it's good. What this does is this builds transparency into the role, right? We know who has authority. We know how they're supposed to use it and how they're supposed to not use it. That builds trust, or at least can. And it gives us proper recourse whenever sin occurs. I will tell you, man, I, it is a precarious position to be in, to be the only pastoral

and staff. What I've had to do, and it's been a joy, but what I've had to do is really just open up my life to a few people, particularly the deacons and particularly Daniel Oster, where I've just said, hey, here's kind of what I've been thinking. Here's what I've been going through. Daniel Oster, I don't know if I intimidate any of you, but I definitely don't intimidate Daniel Oster.

Not even close. I wish I did sometimes. But I also have people, I mean David Upchurch, Dan Hay, Hollis, Sean, I mean all those men are speaking into my life. My wife is speaking into my life and just saying, are you sure you're not being stupid right now? That is a good question to ask. When it's done in love, it's a good question to ask. And I have a lot of people that love me, but structurally, we don't have anything in place and we need to fix that in the future. We don't have anything in place structurally for someone in my position to be in check. And we need that. That's a really, really good thing to do. And so we're gonna be talking about that a little bit later but I just wanted to help you understand we're having to kind of cobble together transparency now and it's working to God be the glory. That's not a great plan for the future because this church hopefully will outlive me, okay?

The reason that we have a lot of problems with authority today is not because authority is bad, but that it has been abused. We mistrust leaders because of other leaders that have acted mistrustfully, that have betrayed our trust. The answer to that is not to abolish authority or to be extremely suspicious of authority or to say, well, you know, let's not give authority to anybody.

The answer to that is clarity and agreement. If our structure is clear, if our authority structure is clear, if we all know how we fit into the chain of command, if we all know how this works together, then we can all reflect the economy of Jesus together and we can all thrive. So here is how we structure our roles now, just so that you guys know. We have ministers, people that minister that are just like on the ground, doing ministry, making it happen. You guys are serving and on frontline team, you guys are serving on tech team. You guys are serving in preschool ministry. You're kind of in the class, making it happen. Team leaders are people that are organizing those ministers. They're creating schedules. So some of our team leaders, so Amy Hay is our student ministry team leader. Cindy Hightower is our frontline ministry team leader. Shelly Coffman is our preschool ministry team leader.

And we have Levi Haley is our cleaning team leader. So we have team leaders that are in place. We're still working to build that a little bit more robustly. Deacons then are over those team leaders and are kind of these master servants, right? They're setting example, but they're also helping the team leaders carry out kind of just some practical goals in real time. Pastors then are people that are kind of setting, setting goals, setting culture, setting vision, through, obviously, through preaching and teaching, but also just discipling and developing leaders, things like that, so that we're all working together. I want you to see, I did it that way on purpose, pastors are on the bottom. My job as a pastor is not to be served, but to serve. I serve the deacons. That's my primary job, really, to serve them. How do I do that? Well, I prepare well for them. I make sure that they have opportunities to succeed.

I celebrate them when they do. I support them whenever they don't. I help them whenever they're having family issues. That's my job. Those deacons have the exact same job for team leaders. Team leaders have the exact same job for ministers. That's how it works. This is not perfect. It's not all built out. But our hope is to build a structure that points at the kingdom. Where we share a ministry, we honor needs, and we keep high standards.

As we enter into our time of response, I just wanna bring out one fact. And I wanna bring out the fact that we do all this, we do all this because Jesus has made us new. Jesus has made us a family. In other words, Jesus does call people individually, but he doesn't leave you alone. And that the church, the church, We owe it to the Lord Jesus Christ to be a family that reflects the kingdom. And not just in smiling at people, and not just being heartfelt in what we're saying. All that's good and should be right there. But it should also be reflected in how we conduct a worship service. It should be reflected in our HR policy. It should be conducted in how we make decisions as a church. It should infect it and go through all of the ways that we are a church family. For some of you, Jesus has been talking to you through this. You are, maybe you're deciding to be a part of our church family.

Maybe you're deciding to take that first step with Jesus. We're going to have a time response where we stand and we sing. And as we do, I'm going to be up here on the front. And I just want to encourage you. If you need to pray with somebody, if you need to take that next step, whatever that next step is, might be baptism, it might be following the Lord for the first time, it might be joining us as a member of this church. However that needs to sort itself out, you can come forward and pray with me. You can also pray with somebody that's right next to you. It doesn't have to be with me. It could be pray with somebody that you know or that brought you or whatever. But my encouragement is don't delay. Whatever the Lord's telling you to do, do it. You won't regret it. Let's do it today. Let's do it now as we stand and we sing. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus.

He came to us to forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon And empty to prove my Savior lives I give thanks to Him as He is gone Because I know the future And life is worth the living Just because he lives Sweet to hold A newborn, build a pride and joy he give but greater still the comma sure this child can face uncertain certain days because because he I can face tomorrow

because he no fear because I know the future life is worth a living Just because He lived and then one day I'll cross the red light's path No war with pain, and then as death's way to end To read the lights of glory and all the piss Because healing, I can't face tomorrow Because He lives, is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth just because He You guys, it was really good to worship together. You guys are dismissed. We have name tags for reason. Stick a hand out and get to know somebody new. We'll see you next week.