PARTICIPATION GROUPS, PART 7: LEADERSHIP

Matthew 20:25-28, James 4:6-7, Hebrews 13:17
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
13 February, 2005
All Rights Reserved

The short story To Build a Fire by Jack London tells the tale of an unnamed man and his dog making an all-day journey on foot through the Yukon to meet some friends at a mining camp. He takes a little-used path through the deep snow in order to scout for lumber. It is bitter cold, so cold that his spit freezes with a crack before it hits the ground. An old-timer with a pipe back at the camp at Sulphur Creek had warned him sternly that no one should travel the Yukon alone when it is below minus fifty degrees. He ignores the advice. The temperature is actually minus seventy.

He hikes strongly through the morning then at 12:30 builds a fire and eats his lunch. He keeps being surprised at how fast his hands become numb and useless when he removes his gloves. After lunch he trudges on until he steps into a hidden spring under the snow and wets his legs to mid-calf. He knows his life is at stake because his feet will freeze if he does not dry his boots in a fire. So he starts a fire which burns well, but the process of gathering twigs and sticks loosens the snow which has built up on the tree under which he is sitting. Before he can remove his now frozen boots the tree drops its load and extinguishes his fire.

The man tries vainly to start another fire away from the trees, but his hands are frozen solid and he cannot handle the matches and tinder. After burning himself terribly in a second failed attempt to make a fire, he foolishly concludes with his cold-addled mind that he should just run to the camp. It is miles away. He makes a few attempts to run, falls, then walks. Finally he falls and knows that the end is near. In one of his very last thoughts he thinks of the old man at Sulphur Creek and mumbles: "You were right, old hoss; you were right." The dog stays by his side until the smell of death is obvious, and then runs off down the trail to find the other men who will provide fire and food for him.

The church in the postmodern era is dwelling in a spiritual environment which is far colder than anyone of us would like to imagine. The bitter cold of spiritual death in the world at large permeates our bones even as we huddle together in our churches to stay warm. We watch the majority of our children failing to thrive in the Lord and are surprised. Like the man in the story who is surprised to feel his hands freeze solid we are amazed to see how fast any work of God freezes up and stops responding to the Master's commands. We watch churches close and are taken aback. We can't really be freezing to death, can we? We find it hard to believe that in one three-year period in the nineties the church in the West spent one hundred billion dollars in the aggregate, planted five thousand new churches, and saw the number of evangelicals decline--even as the population rose. Yes, brothers and sisters, it is minus seventy degrees out there, and we are affected by it every day.

The man in the story died because he would not listen to the old man at Sulphur Creek. The only way that we as individuals and the church as a whole can keep from freezing solid is to be certain that we heed the words of our Lord and live in the life which the Master has planted in the hearts of everyone who believes in him. This is the seventh and final study on the subject of participation groups. I have used the new term "participation" to describe dynamics of church life which are as old as the Bible. It is these dynamics by which the church not only survives but thrives in every age, no matter how inhospitable to faith. Specifically, how can the church thrive in the bitter cold of the decline of the West? We must recognize the signs of spiritual hypothermia, we must raise up leaders who will only trust the Lord's wisdom and not their own, and we must become followers of the Lord and our leaders in the knowledge that our spiritual lives depend upon it.

1. RECOGNIZING SPIRITUAL HYPOTHERMIA

We have been following a memory device in this study to help us remember five key purposes of every grouping of the church, no matter how small. Fine Students Progress More Rapidly stands for Fellowship, Study, Prayer, Ministry, and Reproduction. These all sound extremely familiar. Do we not know all about these? The sight of dead churches and faithless Christians all over the landscape should be a tip off that there is something dreadfully wrong. The church in the West has, in fact, redefined each of these crucial dynamics to make them more comfortable. The frigid effect of prosperity and ease has caused us to convert our participation groups into comfort groups.

I realize that I am painting with a broad brush, but see if these characterizations do not have the ring of truth. First, our groups have attempted to have fellowship without the pain of burden-bearing. There is a great deal of pleasure to be had in consorting with like-minded people, but the meaning of fellowship is sharing the loads of life together in our Lord and common faith. Secondly, our groups have attempted to do study without obedience. How many times have we read the words: "If any man does not take up his cross and follow me he cannot be my disciple?" And how many times have we concluded that if we just keep quiet about the shocking challenge the moment will pass and we can get to the refreshment time? Or when the pastor gives a prophetic word like this one you thought: "I'll just sit quietly and then we can all go home to lunch with no damage done"?

Thirdly, we have attempted to have prayer in our groups without worship or intercession. I know you can think of exceptions, but is it not true that most of our prayers are about personal needs and comfort issues? While Buzz and Myrna Maxey live in the mud and disease left by the recent tsunami on the island of Sumatra we think mostly about aches and pains. Comfort groups rarely exceed petition to dwell upon God, his world, and his purposes.

Fourthly, our comfort groups have attempted to do ministry without mission or sacrifice. The ministry of a comfort groups stays mostly within the group. It's not wrong to comfort each other, but God has more important things for us to do as the world goes to hell by the minute. Fifthly and finally, comfort groups try to do reproduction without the pain and mess of childbirth. We are all hoping that merely having the group will cause the church to grow and we will not be forced to do personal discipling.

This is a picture of a p-group without the "p". It is the picture of the fire of God being put out by the frigid cold of this world seeping into our bones. If you can handle this, it is the moral equivalent of shacking up. We want the benefits of being with God but our flesh does not want the commitment, submission, and obedience of a real marriage to the purposes of God. This is spiritual hypothermia. I do not say that everyone and everything in the church today is like this, but can you not see it? In fact, many pastors today are shaping churches not to overcome these dysfunctions but to enshrine them! If this analysis is correct then what is the solution?

2. RAISING UP ANOINTED SPIRITUAL LEADERS

Anointed leadership is the only plan for church health found in the Bible. Our p-groups will only move into genuine participation when their leaders lead them there. Please get this stunning fact: You can search the libraries of the world and you will never find a volume entitled Great Committees Which Shaped the Course of Church History!

When I first came to Rochester I searched for original documents on the impact of evangelist Charles Finney. In the restricted archives at Strong Museum I found a pamphlet with minutes of a meeting of ministers who gathered to discuss the merits of Finney's so called "new measures." The committee wanted to vote on whether Finney should be using his revivalistic methods or not. The minutes were a bunch of bluster. Asahel Nettleton, the great reformed preacher and evangelist, was there but he left before the committee finished and went back to his work. Finney was there, tolerated the meeting, and went right back to what he was doing. I bring this up not to take sides, but to point out that the work of the ministry was done by the anointed leaders. Finney we know and Nettleton we know, but we never hear of the committee or its members again.

We are in desperate need of such anointed leaders today! At the same time, there is massive confusion in the church about what it means to be a leader in the church of Jesus Christ. As we ought always to do, let us consult with Jesus himself in Matthew 20:25-28: "But Jesus called them to Himself and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.'"

Immediately we see that the professionalized, organizationally-minded approach is not what Jesus had in mind. True Christian leaders do their work by expending themselves in service to God and man, not ruling others. Jesus is describing firebrands, not managers. Anointed leaders walk in the bloody footsteps of their Lord. They move in anointing and revelation, not natural ability and training.

Let me drive home a heart-stake of understanding about the responsibility. Anointed leaders are servants of God first, so their service to God's people is totally determined by what God has said. This does not sit well with a democratic mindset. When Westerners hear that our leaders are supposed to give their all for us, we immediately want to tell them what to do. Do you remember what the disciples said when Jesus told them that the greatest service he could do for them was to die for their sins? They said: "Don't do that!" Somehow, in a condition of complete ignorance of the will of God they believed they knew enough to tell the Lord Jesus what he should do. Serving them meant that Jesus had to do the will of the Father.

Anointed leaders end up living in this tension all the time. They are bound to serve people by doing precisely what the Lord has said while people are telling them to do something different. It is the nature of the beast. The man in the Yukon died for the sole reason that he would not listen to the voice of wisdom and truth. Everyone in his right mind took a partner on journeys through the frozen north, but this man knew better. It was not that the cold stole his judgment, though that happened at the end. He began with a false appraisal of his knowledge. London wrote: "He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, not in the significances." The great danger of the church today is that we will freeze to death in the spiritual cold because we trusted our knowledge about the things of life rather than the Lord.

The beginning of any participation group, from two people up to a large church, is an anointed leader who is prepared to burn himself out doing precisely what the Lord says and nothing else. If the flock knows which way God is going, he can go there, but if they don't, he can't. The normal job of a p-group leader is to keep reasserting the will of God in the face of encroaching spiritual coldness. He or she will always be pulling to make participation groups with a capital "P" and to keep them from decaying into comfort groups.

3. RAISING UP ANOINTED FOLLOWERS

But how sweet it is to be under the leadership of someone who leads like Jesus did! I think this is a lost pleasure in the era of absolute personal autonomy. I remember going on my first motorcycle day trip with my neighbor. We and our wives got our bikes and clothing all ready. I went over to talk to him about some safety issues. I found that he was all tuned up before I even got there. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it was to discover that he was fully prepared to be the squad leader--and that I did not have to do it! He had been a squad leader in the army and just clicked into that mode for motorcycling. And what a good leader he was: signaling road hazards with his hand, waving unruly drivers on by, route-finding, and the like. A big part of my enjoyment that day was to be under the oversight of a good leader.

Think about this logic: If Christ is raising up anointed leaders to bless us by burning out on our behalf, where do you think the place of blessing is? It is obviously to be anointed followers who click into what God is doing. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote this to believers who had been dispersed into the frigid cold of pagan first-century culture: "But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, 'God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:6-7). Did you catch that? The spiritual fireworks are given to those submissive to God. Humble people get to see the grace of God doing great things like repelling the Devil.

And submission to the human leaders God raises up is not a mere inference, but an explicit command: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you" (Heb. 13:17).

While anointed leaders are the key to the recovery of the spiritual dynamics of church health, they cannot do anything without anointed followers. The term "submit" which James used is a rich Greek word which means to take our place in the wonderful structure which God is creating in his kingdom. Every one of us submits to God and human authorities which God has raised up. Things would have worked out much better if that man in the Yukon had submitted to the wisdom of the old man at Sulphur Creek. And sometimes that's how spiritual leadership comes to us. Some old woman at the nursing home, our own pastor, our mom or dad, or whoever, may just make a little remark full of divine power that will change our lives. If we are not willing to submit to God and those he has given responsibility for us, we place ourselves in danger of spiritual hypothermia. It's hard to serve the Lord with frozen hands and feet just because we thought we knew better than our leaders!

And spiritual submission is not a coercion model but a cooperation model. When we don't cooperate with what God is doing as clearly expressed in his word it is "unprofitable" for us, to say the least. When we do life in the Lord becomes so sweet we almost can't stand it! That is the life experience of an anointed follower.

CONCLUSION

Participation groups are not a novel idea, and if they seem so it is a measure of how far we have fallen from what God has planned for his church. All the intentions of God ride on even the smallest and most informal structures in the church. It is the way he sovereignly works by his Holy Spirit.

Can you admit the effects of spiritual hypothermia upon us? Do you see the danger we are in? When p-groups move into the will of God they become intense sources of both heat and light on the dark and cold landscape of this world.

Is God calling you to move into his anointing of leadership--to burn yourself out for others by doing exactly and only what he has said? The church needs you. And for every last one of us: Will we be anointed followers who discover the sheer joy and spiritual power of Biblical submission?

Just as that foolish man was free to freeze to death in the Yukon, believers are free to freeze to death in the frigid atmosphere of this lost world. We can shut the church down by refusing to lead and by refusing to submit. Will you face the issue and say like our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done" (Matthew 26:42)? Anointed leadership and followership are God's appointed means for building a healthy church, if we but accept the terms.