The crisis of leadership in American evangelicalism

Discussion in 'Religion' started by JoeNation, Oct 8, 2021.

  1. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    This is part 1 of The Christian Post's article series on the Crisis of leadership in American evangelicalism.

    Regular readers of The Christian Post are well aware of the moral failures at the highest levels of evangelical leadership in the recent past. Formerly revered figures such as Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels and Mark Driscoll and earlier harbingers like Jim Bakker are the reminders that all is not well within the multifaceted movement that is American evangelicalism.

    When an evangelical icon such as Zacharias can fall so drastically from the evangelical firmament, clearly there are cultural and spiritual dynamics at work that require investigation.

    CP has tasked three of our reporters, Michael Gryboski, Leah Marie Klett and Brandon Showalter to investigate the problem and possible causes and solutions with a broad cross section of the evangelical community. There are obvious factors that must be taken into consideration.

    The rise of the “megachurch” and the consequent vitiation of formal denominational influence and the structures and oversight it provided is certainly one factor.

    Another factor is the hypersexualization of American society, a cultural phenomenon that is one of the first things foreign visitors to the United States notice. Pastors and other evangelical leaders are impacted by this virulent phenomenon. It should also be noted that American pastors of this generation have a dramatically increased and unprecedented number of women in their churches who are not married and not living with their parents or other relatives. The rising tide of pornography that has increasingly saturated society is another powerful potential snare that evangelical leaders contend with on a daily basis. In reality, pornography is the Madison Avenue ad campaign for sexual immorality.

    The so-called “cult” of celebrity and the rising corporate model of leadership are other troubling factors surfaced in this series.

    Another factor that is also surfaced and that commands attention is that an increasing number of evangelicals and their leaders are adult converts to evangelical Christianity, and thus do not have a family background and “grounding in the faith.” As our series suggests, there needs to be more attention given to personal spiritual formation and grounding in the faith in seminary for those evangelical leaders who did not have the advantage of being reared in such spiritual circumstances.

    All of these factors and doubtless more will surface in the days ahead. As people from various evangelical traditions identify causes and propose answers to the leadership crisis roiling evangelicalism in America.

    CP presents this series as a contribution to that discussion in the hope and prayer they will ignite an ever more inclusive discussion of this critical problem and how it can be addressed successfully for the betterment and flourishing of His church.
     
  2. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    This is part 2 of The Christian Post's article series on the crisis of leadership in American evangelicalism.

    Crisis in pastoral leadership: Are the apostolic and prophetic offices being restored?

    Amid seemingly unending church and ministry leadership scandals and the exposure of unhealthy structures and institutions that enabled them, are long-lost offices of the Church being recovered?

    The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:20 that the Church, the household of God, is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.”

    In Ephesians 4:11-12, Paul continues that the Lord gave fivefold offices for the edification of the Church, specifically “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.”

    Yet many Christians today have no theological or experiential grid for the first two offices listed, perhaps because the canon of Scripture is closed and the apostles who were alive during Jesus' time are no longer walking the Earth. This view, which is called cessationism, holds that after the death of the last apostle, spiritual gifts like prophecy and the office of a prophet are no longer operating. In practice, however, some churches and denominations adhere to degrees of this view, allowing for certain expressions of the gifts to operate in the church. Others have admitted to believing in the continuation of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirt but being, for all intents and purposes, "functional" cessationists.

    With such a theological paradigm, the absence of the offices of prophet and apostle in the contemporary church has yielded an often top-heavy congregational structure that is led by a pastor. Teachers teach the Bible in Sunday school. When many think of the office of evangelist, guest preachers and the-late Billy Graham and his stadium crusades come to mind.

    To dive more deeply into these ecclesiological issues, The Christian Post spoke with Ron Myer and Larry Kreider, two leaders with DOVE International — an interdenominational global family of churches and ministries on six continents. CP also spoke with Pastor Derwin Gray of Transformation Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation in Indian Land, South Carolina.

    The interviews explore what has gone right and what has gone wrong in recent years, and where they see God taking the Church at-large in the coming decade.

    Substantial paradigm shifts are occurring for many Christians, they say, and sincere believers would be wise to heed what the Holy Spirit is doing, even if it seems unfamiliar.

    How have the fivefold offices gotten lost and how are they being reclaimed?

    According to Kreider, a major issue afflicting the Church is what he calls “clergy-laity mentality.” He describes it as a pervasive mindset where the paid clergy leads the church and they are called “pastors.” They do most of the ministry work and laypeople serve the ministry of that pastor.

    But whatever terms are used, DOVE International contends that leaders in the local church are more like elders or overseers.

    "We do believe that all five of these gifts are needed. And on a broad-based level, you need the apostles and prophets working together, hearing from God together. To use military terminology: apostles [are] the generals. The prophets being the seers, they’re the ones getting the intel [from God],” Kreider asserted.

    For a local church, there needs to be impartation from all those gifts, equipping from all those offices.

    Yet, this is strange doctrinal territory for many people, as it was for Myer.

    “In my upbringing, there was nothing ever spoken about apostles and prophets. There was no grid for it,” Myer explained. But that all changed as he became “filled with the [Holy] Spirit and into an understanding that Ephesians 4 is here to equip the saints for ministry and that the equipping of the saints is a primary role of the Church."

    "To equip people to minister to those who are not part of the Church, not just to minister to each other," he detailed.

    The apostles are the builders, the church-planters, those who are trainers and equippers.

    And the prophetic is to come alongside them to help guide and speak to that — what is the Lord saying right now in the present, Myer said. He added that all five offices are needed to work together so that the Church can hear the full counsel of God.

    “I think somewhere along the line we slipped into [the church mode] where it’s easy to just have a pastor to lead the church. So we’ll just call him a pastor," Myer said. "And in some cases, you have evangelists — that’s their primary gift — but they only knew pastors, so they put the term pastor on them. But they’re frustrated because they're not functioning as a pastor because that is not their primary gifting. People put that label on them, and then they’re trying to be somebody that they’re not versus truly functioning in who they truly are."

    Myer believes that God has given a "greater definition" that brings "greater freedom."

    "With greater freedom then comes greater function," he contends. "With greater function comes the ability to be who God really created them to be. We’re working to usher in and continue to expand the Kingdom of God, His way of doing things, as we pray, 'Father, let Your Kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.'”

    If the fivefold gifts can work together to see each and every believer functioning and bringing the Kingdom into their workplace, in the marketplace, into their school, a greater expression of Jesus is manifested in society, he maintained.

    What are small-a apostles?

    Kreider believes that an apostolically inclined small-a apostle is motivated by and is thinking on a macro, big-picture level, and wants to see the Kingdom of God extend across their city, state, region, nation and world. As with any other spiritual gift and vocations, this gifting is to be called out and affirmed by others in the Body of Christ.

    To function in these gifts, one needs to see the giftings in others, Myer added. It’s not just someone who prophesies or carries a prophetic gift, but someone who trains up and pours into others so they can mature spiritually.

    For those who are hesitant to embrace this thinking because they have concerns about what has been referred to as the New Apostolic Reformation or the abuse or misuse of spiritual gifts, the DOVE leaders urge Christians to revisit the Word. The New Apostolic Reformation is a phrase coined by C. Peter Wagner to describe a movement within Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity reclaiming the apostolic and prophetic offices.

    “I think what has happened is that when the church is run by pastors and administrators, it has played right into the clergy-laity mentality that has ruined the Church," Kreider said. "When you read the book of Acts and the Epistles, you see God using common, ordinary people. You see them being resourced through apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers."

    The title “pastor” is used for ministry and church leaders today, even those in pastoral roles, but are not particularly pastoral-gifted people, he added.

    “If they lead a megachurch, they are probably apostolic. But since we don’t have room for this language, I think it holds us back from expressing the heart of Christ to people and to be trained to full maturity and fulfill the call of God that is on their lives,” Kreider said.

    In fact, the first time he went to a Pentecostal gathering, he sat in the back row so he could leave early “in case it got too crazy.”

    Myer added: “For those who have had negative experiences, and there are certainly plenty of them out there, my response is: I’m sorry you had a negative experience. There’s no excuse for it."

    For those who get hung up on titles, DOVE International shies away from them and leans more toward adjectives.
     
  3. yakpoo
    Cynical

    yakpoo Well-Known Member

    I though the headline was gonna read...

    The crisis of leadership in... (Joe Biden)
     
  4. FryDaddyJr

    FryDaddyJr Well-Known Member


    what a childish old fart you are
     
  5. yakpoo
    Cynical

    yakpoo Well-Known Member

    Let's talk about Modern Monetary Theory. ;)
     
  6. Profiler
    Inspired

    Profiler Well-Known Member

    Ok @JoeNation, what is your point? Do you want a response in reference to your stated religious beliefs or are wanting to have an honest conversation about what’s stated in the article?
     
  7. yakpoo
    Cynical

    yakpoo Well-Known Member

    Honesty and JN are not on speaking terms.

    You'll notice that all four of our PL Marxists friends won't discuss policy. Their policies (e.g. MMT) are "guano" crazy! They're simply trying to justify what they do by establishing "moral authority". They're Marxists...they have no moral authority. Everything a Marxist says and does is self-serving. They're Godless. There are none as superior as they. That's what it is..."Marxist Superiority"! :eek:
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2021
    ddddd and Profiler like this.
  8. Robert Ransom
    Roflmao

    Robert Ransom Cautiously optomistic.

    A sermon from the seller?
     

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