EIGHT WAYS A LOCAL CHURCH CAN LIMIT BELIEVERS
By Joseph Mattera
I have served as a senior pastor for 30 years, and I have also worked extensively with political, community and business leaders over the past three decades. As my understanding regarding the Kingdom of God and marketplace ministry has evolved, I see church with a new lens and notice the frustration many young people and professionals have regarding their local churches. Many in these categories feel limited rather than celebrated and released into their callings.
In the context of this article, I use the word “straightjacket” as a metaphor to mean limitation and constriction of leadership potential. I believe if the church does not shift towards a kingdom mindset and move away from an empire-building mindset, we will continue to alienate some of the best and brightest young leaders in our generation. I speak this as a leader who believes the local church is the visible expression of the invisible Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23), and the hope of the world.
The church as structured in the New Testament is able to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6). I write this article with a deep yearning in my heart for the church to go to the next level so we will not continue to be irrelevant to the surrounding culture and miss great opportunities to disciple world-changers.
The following are ways the local church has become a straightjacket instead of a releaser of kingdom purpose:
1. When church leaders are the only ones viewed as ministers.
For the church to disciple nations (Matthew 28:19) and exert cultural influence (Genesis 1:28; Matthew 5:13-16), we must recognize and even commission (not ordain or give out ecclesial titles) those called to high-level marketplace leadership in the secular arena. After all, Jesus rose from the dead so He could fill all things (Ephesians 4:10). The only way this can happen is for the church to nurture, celebrate and release members called to the marketplace. If a church makes a conceptual distinction between church leaders and marketplace leaders by only referring to the former as ministers, then we are missing an opportunity to strategically place believers into every sphere of society.
Ephesians 4 teaches that Christ gave the church five-fold ministers to train God’s people for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). Based on the context starting in Ephesians4:10, we need to redefine the work of the ministry to include the filling up of all things on the earth, which means the equipping and sending of saints into every sphere of life, not merely equipping the saints called to full-time church ministry.
2. When business leaders are only valued for their tithes and offerings.
Many high-level business leaders I meet are very frustrated because they are either sitting under a pastor that has a lower level of leadership than they do, and/or they are only valued in the church because of the amount of tithes and offerings they give to the congregation. Business leaders in the first category should find an apostolic leader in the body of Christ (even if they are not in their same geographic region) they can receive input from, even if it is not their local church pastor.
They should stay in their local church as long as their family is receiving nurturing and pastoral care. This is a better option, for this would not allow these business leaders to get frustrated and opt out of church altogether (which many unfortunately do). Those only valued for their financial giving will be underutilized in the church; they will feel like they are in a straightjacket instead of a place that enables their leadership gifts to flourish.
3. When the pastor is an empire-builder.
When a pastor is an empire-builder, they only want to utilize marketplace leaders and their finances to build bigger buildings and support their programs. This is all good and fine, but limiting, since the message of the kingdom (Genesis 1:28; Ephesians 4:10) commands Christ-followers to fill up everyone else’s buildings, not just our own. Empire-builders are only committed to people commensurate to the support they receive for their empire.
Kingdom-builders wash the feet of marketplace leaders and help equip them to maximize their purpose in their cultural sphere. Pastors committed to releasing Christian leaders called to the secular arena will never have any lack of financial giving towards their own local church programs because of the law of reciprocity: whatever you sow you will reap.
Marketplace leaders in an empire-building church will usually feel like they are only being used instead of being celebrated and blessed.
4. When the preaching centers on escape rather than engagement.
Pastors who focus their preaching mostly on heaven and escaping the earth will greatly limit the vision and capacity of their members called to influence and engage the earth. After all, the Bible is not a book about heaven but the most practical book ever written regarding the stewardship of the earth. [Editor’s note: We agree with a lot of what this author writes, which is why we republish some of his articles, however, one of his theological perspectives with which we strongly disagree is his ostensible preteristic or “no-rapture” viewpoint.]
5. When the view of the kingdom is mystical.
Many in full-time church ministry have a dualistic view regarding life: that God only values spiritual things and the physical world is not as important. This goes against the fact that Jesus is both Creator of the material universe as well as the Redeemer of our souls (John 1:3-4; John 12-13).
Consequently, pastors with a dualistic view will only focus their preaching and ministry on prayer, healing, and the spiritual disciplines and gifts. Their view of the kingdom is limited to things spiritual. Marketplace leaders find such myopic focus mystical and not practical. (Of course, they see the importance of the spiritual disciplines, gifts and prayer but integrate it into their function in the secular arena.)
Marketplace leaders are used to mapping out business strategies; they utilize budgets and have practical goals and objectives. Hence, mystical leadership that does not connect to practical living frustrates and limits their participation. In the Kingdom of God we are called to be “spiritual” instead of “mystical”.
Spirituality does not mean non-engagement with the material world, but the ability to function in every aspect of life while walking in the fruit and power of the Spirit (the Spirit-controlled life as shown in Acts 1:8 and Galatians 5:22-23).
6. When young people are not matured into disciples.
When a local church merely has a vision for youth that involves entertaining them with games, concerts and fellowship they greatly limit their vast potential and pigeonhole them into a straightjacket. Young people need to be challenged, trained, and given a sense of purpose and not just entertained. Youth groups that do not disciple and preach a strong word can easily become havens for sex and drugs.
Youth groups should not go for large crowds at the expense of compromising the primary call of the church, which is to make disciples.
7. When leaders are not nurtured and sent out.
When a local church only has a vision for itself and not for church multiplication and cultural engagement, high-capacity leaders will feel limited and bored. The only healthy churches are the ones who continually recognize the potential of new members and harness and harvest their potential for the glory of God.
8. When the pastor is a micro-manager.
Marketplace leaders and young professionals are often critical thinkers who value creative freedom. Pastors who have to be involved with the entire minutia in tasks they assign to their leaders will frustrate and alienate them. Conversely, kingdom-minded pastors would usually lay out the framework for tasks assigned to these leaders and give them the opportunity to improvise and exhibit freedom to operate within the framework.
[Original Source: http://josephmattera.org/eight-ways-local-church-can-limit-believers/]
[Editor’s note: Previously, we have republished some of this author’s articles because we obviously agree with his observations and commentary in those particular articles we republished and believe they speak to issues currently confronting the Church in this hour, thereby serving an important purpose. However, we, nevertheless, strongly disagree with some of the author’s other doctrinal beliefs; e.g., his eschatology, i.e. preterism, amillennialism, his frequent condescending comments against strongly-held, Biblically-sound teachings concerning what is commonly referred to as “the rapture” as being “escapism,” and the millions who wholeheartedly believe in a coming rapture as “escapists,” et al.; his ecumenical views and what appears to us to be soul-tie-generated sentimentality for the Catholic church, which we regard as the one-world end-times church identified in the Bible as the Babylon church system led by “the false prophet” (who we believe to be the final Roman Catholic Pope) into which all the false religions of the world, Biblical Christianity excluded, will be coalesced; and his advocacy for syncretism or reintegration of Roman Catholic false and idolatrous doctrines into the Pentecostal/Charismatic stream. Some of his viewpoints, in our view, essentially establish him as an apologist for Roman Catholicism, an opponent of the Protestant Reformation, and an advocate for the dismantling and reversion of Protestant reforms. Indeed, that this author can write so correctly, poignantly, and prolifically regarding so many problematic issues extant in the ecclesiastical realm in this hour, and yet maintain the heterodoxical viewpoints he does, is to us an inexplicable enigma, except to point out that all these matters are rooted in Roman Catholicism, that he self-identifies as a former Catholic (see, his paid-content article: Seven Reasons Why I am Not a Roman Catholic), along with many of his family-members and friends, and as mentioned before, appears to us to have a psychological soul-tie to the Roman Catholic church, and some of its traditional religious trappings, which, again, is highly enigmatic in consideration of an article such as this one as well as many of the others we’ve republished. Update (10-13-18): In a recent phone and email exchange in which I confronted him regarding his self-publicized alliance with, endorsement and promotion of postmodernism (i.e., spiritual formation, pre-reformation mysticism, contemplative spirituality, etc.) proponents, as well as apparent acceptance and espousal of their teachings, his unequivocal response was, in essence, that he does not regard any of same to be in any way problematic or heretical, and sophomorically attempted to censure me for confronting him on these matters, despite providing him a “best of short list” of hundreds of the millions of available articles available on the Internet describing the irrefutable heterodoxy of these anti-Biblical teachings and how they lead ultimately to total apostasy. More to come on these matters in future articles. Again, despite agreeing with the concepts Joseph Mattera expressed in this article and others we have published on this site, sadly, I am also compelled to state categorically that I do not in any way endorse him or his ministry, and, in light of my recent exchanges with him regarding specific doctrinal issues, including some not mentioned here, must issue a strong warning to anyone and everyone to steer clear of his ministry, teachings, and all organizations he leads, due to his current intransigence and apparent refusal to properly consider the substantial areas of doctrinal error he espouses and promulgates. Consequently, we will not be republishing any additional articles by Joseph Mattera.]
Dr. Joseph Mattera is currently the Presiding Bishop of Christ Covenant Coalition, Overseeing Bishop of Resurrection Church in New York, and the president of U.S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (USCAL). His website is at: http://www.josephmattera.org.
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