Coombs on Leadership

A good father is not utilitarian. He doesn't use people, he invests in them! It is tragic to meet so many people in the church who feel they are being used. Deep down many people feel that they are appreciated and included by leadership only because of their gifting; that their acceptance is based on what they can do and not who they are. And when their usefulness is gone, then so is the relationship.

Murray on Ministry

Pastors are usually all too aware of their weaknesses and keep their guard up there. But, often the devil comes in through the unguarded door of our strengths to make havoc of our lives and ministries.

* The pastor who is blessed with coolness under pressure, can seem unfeeling and detached.
* The pastor who is blessed with a desire to please and serve others, can become a slave to people-pleasing.
* The pastor who is blessed with a huge theological mind, can choke his poor lambs with indigestible doctrine.
* The pastor who is blessed with love for his work, can become a workaholic.
* The pastor who is blessed with a "burden for souls," can become severely depressed with the unresponsiveness of the lost.
* The pastor who is blessed with a sensitive heart, can exhaust and deplete his emotions in counseling.
* The pastor who is blessed with an administrative ability, can become diverted by committee work, minutes, reports and agendas.
* The pastor who is blessed with a "thick skin," can become immune to valid criticism.
* The pastor who is blessed with leadership skills, can become a manager more than a shepherd.
* The pastor who is blessed with a sense of humor, can become a foolish clown more than an ambassador of the King of kings.
* The pastor who is blessed with an eloquent tongue, can rely on his oratory more than on the Holy Spirit.
* The pastor who is blessed with a logical mind, can end up producing sermons that stimulate the mind but chill the heart.

How much we need to look towards our Almighty Christ, who is able to defeat every devilish strategy by giving us a sense of weakness, vulnerability, and need in the areas we think are our strengths. And, in a further display of grace, He also makes our weaknesses the stage for displaying His strength (2 Cor. 12:9).

Clinton's Three Challenges to Leaders

1. When Christ calls leaders to Christian ministry, He intends to develop them to their full potential. Each of us in leadership is responsible to continue developing in accordance with God's processing all our life.

2. A major function of all leadership is that of selection of rising leadership. Leaders must continually be aware of God's processing of younger leaders and work with that process.

3. Leaders must develop a ministry philosophy that simultaneously honour biblical leadership values, embraces the challenges of the times in which they live, and fits their unique gifts and personal development if they expect to be productive over a whole lifetime.

Sam Allbury on Trinity

What happens when we forgetting the Trinity at Church? At least two things will follow.

1. Our view of church will become functional and not relational.
We will only meet to ?do? things, and will not really see the point of meeting for merely social reasons. Our gatherings will become a matter of utility and not family. In churches like this there will not be much life-sharing. The minister will see his congregation as ?clients? or 'patients'; his ministry as one of shunting people through the right programs or 'fixing the sick'. He will see himself as a professional ?Bible teacher?. His people will feel handled rather than loved. The church will be the place to grow for a while in understanding, or at least in Bible knowledge, but will not be the place to find authentic Christian community.

2. Our aim for church will be uniformity and not diversity. The Trinity shows us a God who is unity in diversity rather than unity in sameness. The Father, Son and Spirit are not interchangeable. They share an ontological unity, but function differently within the purposes of God. This lies behind Paul's teaching on the variety of gifts found in the church in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Our unity-in-diversity reflects God's unity-in-diversity.

A Unitarian view of God will therefore lead to a monochrome view of the church. Maturity will be understood in terms of trying to make everyone a certain kind of Christian. Christians will look the same and sound the same. They'll be encouraged into the same kind of ministry. A particular gifting will be the hallmark of the spiritually advanced. In Corinth (reading between the lines) it was evidently the gift of tongues. Today, in many reformed churches, it is the gift of teaching. Those who are really committed to the gospel will become ?Bible-teachers? (there they are again). There will be cultural and vocational flatness.

Christianity it may well be, but a form of Christianity unwittingly more akin to Islamic, not evangelical, theology.