Skilled Leaders, Equipped People

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13 

The idea of skilled leaders working within the church was ordained by Jesus himself. But please note the professionally trained within the church are called to equip the regular folk for works of service. 

From this concept we get a good picture of how the church is designed to function. Some people will be engaged in part time or fulltime church ministry as their primary focus. According to the Scripture from Ephesians a primary duty is to train and nurture and equip the people of the church to do the work of ministry. 

Perhaps an analogy from sports will help to illustrate the point. The coach of a sports team is the undisputed leader of the team. But the coach does not play in the game. The coach works with the team preparing them for the match. The coach picks certain players to fill certain roles on the team based on their skill and aptitude for the position. Even the most skilled are encouraged to improve and hone their skills to a highest level they can achieve. When it comes to game day the coach has prepared the players to play the game and he or she stays on the sidelines encouraging the players, calling plays from the vantage point of a person who sees the whole picture, and motivating the players to be there best.  

I learned this concept from one of the pastors I had early in my life as a disciple of Jesus. Somehow I happened to get involved with a married couple who became separated and were living apart due to the husband having an affair with another woman. He was sorry for his indiscretion but the stress on each of them and the children was severe. 

In my feeble attempts to counsel them I soon became aware of my inadequacies and inability to know what to do do to be of any real help. In desperation I called my pastor for help. He gave me some wise counsel and advise. Before we ended our conversation I apologized for taking up his time. He quickly pointed out that he was willing to spend as much time as I needed to give me advice and a strategy to handle the situation because the alternative was that he would have to invest many hours of time if he had to engage with the couple to counsel them. Furthermore, he would be limited in how many of these situations he could handle. Whereas if he worked with several individuals like me the number of people that could be helped by our church was greatly increased.