Last week I posted on this site an article about a pastor who was leaving a larger church for one that is much smaller. He had served at the larger church for 15 years. Not only had the church grown numerically, it had grown spiritually and had added considerable space to their facility. To say that he was loved by the majority in the church would be a major understatement. As I said in the previous post, there was absolutely no reason for him to leave except that he knew God was calling him to this other church. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to preach in that church.
I purposefully arrived early and sat in the front pew to listen to the sounds the people made when they entered the sanctuary. In some churches it may have sounded like a funeral service with grief-filled people speaking in hushed tones about the one who was no longer with them. Not this church. There were the sounds of laughter and conversation throughout the building. The sound I was most wanting to hear was the "buzz," the sound in a building when numerous people are carrying on a conversation, and the "buzz" was quite loud yesterday morning. I always see that as a sign of health. The other thing I looked for was what the people did when the service ended. In a healthy church people are in no hurry to leave. They enjoy standing around talking with members of their church family. The vast majority of the church members were still there when I pulled out of the parking lot.
The worship service was very powerful with a good mixture of contemporary songs and traditional hymns. I'm often not impressed with blended services, but this church does them as well as any, and I found it to be quite worshipful. There was a good order to the service, and everything moved along at a good pace although nothing seemed rushed. As I preached it was obvious that the people were engaged in the message with several taking notes.
Several of the people told me that they will miss their pastor but that the church is more than one person. Their focus is on Christ and how they can best serve him. Their former pastor told me many times that he could take no credit for the good things that happened in that church during his ministry there. He gave all the credit to God and to the members. In our last conversation he said that the main thing he tried to do during his time there was to not mess up what God was doing in that church. He recognized that he was the pastor and had leadership responsibilities as a result of that role but that the head of the church was Jesus Christ. Not only did he recognize that; he taught it to his congregation, and what I experienced yesterday is evidence to me that they believe it as well.
So often I have seen pastors leave a church and be followed out the door by a mass of people. Most of those who leave when the pastor does has been following the pastor, not Christ. I've seen churches shut down most of their ministries when their pastor leaves. They just drift along waiting for the church to call another pastor and refuse to begin any new ministries until that happens. Such churches often begin to decline which may explain why some churches are so desperate to call a new pastor as quickly as possible.
These churches do not recognize who the true head of the church is. Pastors come and go. The day a new pastor arrives on the scene he or she is a departing pastor. If the Lord tarries every pastor will eventually leave the church he or she is serving. So will every member. The one constant in every church is Christ himself. It is his church. He is the head. Yes, it is permissible and right to grieve over the loss of a beloved pastor, but that does not mean that we take our focus off Jesus Christ. If he is the head of the church the ministry of the church need not suffer when a pastor leaves.
If we want healthy churches they must clearly understand who is the real head of their church. If we want our churches to faithfully advance the Kingdom of God they must seek God's vision for their church and be encouraged to follow that vision. The church in which I preached yesterday understands these things and is seeking to do them. What about your church?
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