If leadership is tough, then spiritual leadership is unbearable. I say this without reservation of qualifications because, when we consider and understand what is at stake in spiritual leadership all of us who provide such leadership will, no doubt, agree.
As the Apostle Paul addresses the Ephesians elders, he is calling them to an oversight that cannot be minimized and certainly not ignored. The calling of an elder is to an organization but one that is spiritual and empowered by as well as accountable to, a kingdom and King not of this world. What He calls them to is of a different order than what leaders of this present kingdom are called to. The problem, however, is that there has been a merger between the sacred and the secular. This merger did not take place to theologically correct the false dichotomy of the secular and the sacred. In other words, this union was not an attempt to show that, for believers, all things are sacred, and nothing is secular because Jesus is Lord of all.
Unfortunately, this marriage of secular leadership (its principles, practices, and understandings) with the sacred has caused sacred principles, practices, and understandings to take back seat. Now, churches are run like organizations on earth and pastors are more professionals than they are shepherds, entrepreneurs more than evangelists. This has led to a diminishing value of what the role of a pastor is and what the duties of this office demand. The church is losing its grip of and ground in the gospel precisely because pastors have neglected their sacred duty as the scripture instructs.
At the heart of the pastor's charge is to "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). A central reason why this shift has happened is a confusion of ownership. When pastors speak of the church that they pastor they often, if not always, say "My church" and or "My people." Paul, however, identifies the church as "the church of God which he obtained with his blood." The church I pastor is not my church it is His church The people I serve are not my people they are His people. Some may think that I am making too much of something so small. But am I, really?
The value I esteem of a something will always dictate how I care for that something. If the church is my church, then I will care for them on the basis of my standards and expectations. I will value them to the degree that they look, behave, and respond like I want them to respond. They are mine and what is mine must always know that they are mine. Subconsciously pastors will lead like dictators with the cover (veil) of servant leadership. In the end, however, everyone knows that their obligation is to their pastor even if he behaves and or acts and or treats others in ways that are contrary to Christ. Abusive pastors are cultivated and produced by churches who have allowed ownership to be transferred from loyalty to Christ to loyalty to a man.
This is why many people still hold an idolatrous view of the office of pastor. You cannot challenge him, you cannot correct him and even when he is wrong (even blatantly wrong) he can never, really, do wrong. The many abuse and sex scandals that are plaguing the church are the result of the subconscious shift in ownership. No longer does the pastor serve the church but the church serves the pastor. Christ came not to be served but to serve yet pastors, whose life and example is to imitate that of Christ, have flipped the script and have now called the church to serve them and not the other way around. Some of these churches have cult like tendencies which, if not checked, turn in to synagogues of Satan led by men whose ways, actions and church structure are equivalent to David Koresh, and Jim Jones. Their voice and not the voice of the Lord; their will and not the will of the Lord will matter above all.
Now, let me shift here and say something that will sound incredibly contradictory. I will, however, show how it is not. When a pastor calls the church that he pastors my church and the people he serves as my people this is not, entirely, wrong! The error in the phrase is always the heart (the intention) of the person who says it. Wolves in sheep clothing conveys this reality: a person can speak truth and have a heart of evil design and intent. Jesus looks at the heart of the person as the true evaluation of where they life stands with the truth they teach.
Here is my point: when God calls a man to a church that man must guard that flock as his stewardship to the Lord. They are not his church to do as he pleases with it (Christ owns them with and by His blood) but they are those for whom he will personally have to give an account for. In that sense the church is his church ...they are his people. But the heart intent is not selfish but God-ward as they feel and own the weight of the words of the Apostle Paul,
"Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may
present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he
powerfully works within me" (Colossians 1:28–29).
That is what the life and heartbeat of a pastor who sees Christ's death for them as the value of the church they pastor. It is his by stewardship not by ownership and the difference between the two is only seen in the style of leadership.
We will look, next, at several qualities of leadership that will help to discern the intent of the pastor who calls the church his church and the people of God his people.