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Shalom (peace),

I've been visiting this church, because one of its leaders has been helping me edit one of the books in the Truth Series. Though the church does not belong to my organization, it has some admirable qualities.

One such, I've been visiting the church for quite some time and I don't know who is the Pastor. If you ever go to that church service, you'll notice that all the men look the same, leadership is shared among all the leading men and no one is outstanding in attire, execution of duty or any thing else. From the usher to the men on the pulpit, they all are friendly, dignified in a godly way and adept in what they believe. In fact, they all look like the Pastor to me, everyone act accordingly.

I've always thought that the person with whom I was working with was the Pastor, seeing that he is the one with the 22 year old television ministry, even though by just going there and seeing him you'll never know. What humility, what godly order I've seen displayed at this church; makes me think, this is how it is suppose to be. All status quo is dropped and everybody is equal and one esteems the other above himself, from the least to greatest and viceversa. So much have been placed on the "high and mighty" pastoral office that many churches are clearly unbiblical.

The following exert is taken from a track written some time ago entitled, "Who is the boss." You can read it in its entirety and print it by CLICKING HERE. For the record, this is not an attack on any Pastor on this list, I hardly have time to scrutinize myself much more to look at someone else:

WHO IS THE BOSS

"Our churches have become a parlor for everything the world has to offer in government, administration, leadership and accountability. We have failed to realize that they are two kingdoms on earth, one that is run by satan and the other run by the Lord. These two kingdoms are strikingly opposite and the subjects in one kingdom are sharply peculiar to the other. If for any reason the peculiarities have ceased, then compromise has fostered and the two kingdoms have merged.

However, according to the bible, this is impossible and should never happen, if so, then apart of one of the kingdoms have compromise their landmark. Unfortunately, some of the subjects in the greater kingdom (of Jesus Christ) have fallen to this trap and mountains of untold problems have festered.

The Lord clearly told us that in this kingdom, the first shall be the last. Yet, like the other kingdom, the first is first in many church leadership. In this kingdom, the Lord also told us that the greatest is to serve the others, but instead, the members go hungry while the leaders drive fancy cars, have private jets, live in large houses and eat well. In this kingdom, the Lord clearly commands the pastors and all leaders not to be Lord over his heritage, but rather to be an example to the flock. Yet still most pastors want to own and run God's show and hide under the pretense of false humility.

THE BOSS

Who really is the boss, is it the Pastor or Jesus. When did God assign an under Shepard to wave a big stick of forced tithing with an obedience to every word from his or her mouth, regardless of it's biblical authority or spiritual guidance. Who's the boss anyway? Paul did tell us to obey them that have the rule over us, not one man but them. Not physical emperors, but humble servants who lead by doing rather than by forceful commandings only. The days of Moses Leadership are over, it was prophesied and now received; "It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God"(John 6:45).

In others words, your direct commandment come from the Lord and the pastor is just a confirmer or help. When David went to go give his brothers food, around the time the philistines was at war with Israel, he left the fold to a number of servants. In other words, he is the shepherd, but he left to assist his brothers and his servants took over the shepherding while he was gone. The servants are not the shepherd, but together they oversee the sheep while David is out.

"It should also be noted that the elders were instructed to shepherd the flock of God, as we see in Acts 20:28-30:

'Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.'

Not once in the New Testament do we see just one person being called "the pastor." It seems obvious that this was always intended to be a team effort - No one man can be everything to the flock of God that shepherding requires. Those who are under a single person who tries to be all things to everyone are inevitably poorly cared for sheep.

Nevertheless, pastors are constantly bombarded by such foolish notions as "my life, (my children or my ministry...) would not be in such bad shape if we had a better pastor!" The unrealistic expectations put on pastors can be not only unrealistic, but sadistic and cruel. Even the greatest pastor is not God, and no pastor is here to take God's place in our life.

MOSES

Even though the Moses type leadership is gone, many fail to even exemplify Moses, who the bible said, in his time, was the meekest man in all the earth. My God do you know how low you have to 'seem' to be called the meekest man. This man didn't even retaliate when accused, every time God had to step in for him. Today the pastor's office is so magnified that all other offices or gifts of the spirit seem subordinate to it.

Over twenty people in the New Testament who are referred to as apostles, only a couple who are referred to as prophets, and only one who is called an evangelist-Philip. We do not have a single person in the New Testament who is called a pastor. This verse, Ephesians 4:11, is the only place in the New Testament where this ministry is even mentioned. This leads us to a very important question. How did this ministry, which is only listed one time with no definition, and not a single New Testament example of it given, come to so dominate the ministry of the church?

First, we should not immediately conclude that this is least entirely wrong, because we do not have an explicit example of this ministry in the New Testament, we have an implicit one in the Lord Himself, just as we do all of the ministries. Leading and guiding the flock is basic to how the Lord shepherds His flock, which He does primarily through those He has given this ministry to.

The Greek word translated "pastor" here is "poimen," which is defined as "a shepherd, one who tends herds or flocks," not merely one who feeds them. Tending speaks of protecting them from predators, keeping them healthy, examining their pastures for any noxious vegetation, as well as providing them with pure water to drink. All of these are likewise the responsibility of this ministry in the church.

WHO IS YOUR COVERING?

Your covering is Jesus Christ and not your pastor and might I add you have the right to disobey your Pastor if he is out of line with the 'word' in any capacity. Peter stood boldly and said, we ought rather to obey God rather than men. What importance on God's direction than man's ideology. The

Hebrew boys that were capture told old Nebuchadnezzar, "we are not mindful of your..." In other words, we don't care what you have to say, we are following Jehovah, even if the other priests bow to your system. Nevertheless, these guys knew God and his word. The only time you can disobey leadership is to obey God; in this case you are disobeying to obey, as my pastor told me.

Someone had this to add,

"Most of us have heard the question "Who is your covering?" at some point. This is a lot like the saying, "God helps those who help themselves," meaning it is a common term but it's not actually in the word and not necessarily true.

For years I have cringed when I heard people say things like "so and so is coming under our authority" or "I'm submitting my ministry to 'so and so's' authority." In the same way that the Babylonian value system enumerated in Revelation 18:12-13 is a upside-down version of God's value system, the world's understanding of authority is an upside-down view of God's authority.

World system authority is the right to manage people. Spiritual authority is the right to serve people. In the world we get more authority through faithful management. In the kingdom we get more authority through faithful service.

This sounds good and is not controversial in the least, but when it comes to practical implementation, we have a tendency to rely more on our 'born and raised in the world system' experience than on our spiritual understanding."

I'm not trying to incite rebellion, but many Pastors today need to be less control oriented, whether easily seen or psychologically, and allow the Holy Spirit to minister through them and give them rest.

WRONG USE OF ELIJAH AND ELISHA

On another note, many preachers and advocates to this domineering type ungodly leadership usually use the Elijah and Elisha scenario. They claim one should follow the pastor or a particular minister to get their anointing, similar to how Elisha followed Elijah. Not so. Because of this many have missed the true meaning of this beautiful scenario.

Like most of the Old Testament stories, this Elijah and Elisha scenario was unequivocally pointing to Jesus Christ alone. In this we see the resurrection and what it means to every believer. Similar to Elijah, when Jesus ascended he passed the mantle (life and resurrection power) of his spirit to every believer who wholly follows him. Then and only then the believers can do double of what Jesus did. That's the reason he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do" (John 14:12). Remember also that Elijah had to pass through the water, which represents water baptism in Jesus name. Therefore, the Elijah and Elisha scenario was unequivocally pointing to salvation and its dynamo promises.

Also, when Paul said to follow me as I follow Christ, he wasn't pointing to following a man; because if we follow Paul as he follows Christ, it would be Christ we're following and not Paul. The same can be said about obeying leadership. Obey as the leader give directives from God.

Remember, You can read it in its entirety and print it by CLICKING HERE to see what it's really saying.

To add to this need study, Pastor Clark has blessed the body of Christ with this audio message entitled, "Where's the power in the church?" This one is really good. By the way, you should take advantage of it now because this weekend we'll be changing hosting and doing some other stuff, so I don't know how long the site will be down, if it goes down. Have a blast with this one:

Click here to listen to "Where's the power in the church?"
(right click and save target as...)

Grace be unto you,
Oneil
www.ThreeQ.com

P.s Please continue to pray for us

PLEASE PRAY!

Last week, the Lord led us on some fasting and prayer over the ministry leading up to the weekend. Then something surprising happened, in one day, Sun-Mon, we had over 100,000 hits. Not only that many other persons were hearing the truth about how their lives have been taken for a joy ride by secret agents. As expected they attacked our hosting company who wrote to tell me that they want to terminate the site over some trump up charge. I willingly jump to solve it and yet still they wanted to terminate It.. When I pointed out to that if we solve the problem that caused this why do we still have to be terminated; then they stop having correspondence. Please pray, we really need, because if we are going to take on Goliath we have to go in the name of the Lord. Needless to say, I've never gotten so much threats in my life; but I'm persuaded that God's will be done.