I heard a speaker recently talk about ministry as a fusion of calling and gifting. Both the call and the gifting are given by God to those he chooses to minister to his church. And both the calling and the gifting must be operational for ministry to be effective.

The call should be a product of an ever deepening relationship with God. As the name implies, gifting is the ability to do the ministry that one called is to do.

The gifting along with the talents and personality of the one called are given by God to meet the needs of the church.

The danger is that a minister can lose sight of his call and rely almost exclusively on his gifting. A gifted speaker can churn out entertaining and perhaps even helpful sermons without being in touch with the God he claims to serve. In my lifetime, I have seen too many preachers get caught in egregious behavior that was performed while they were continuing in what appeared to be successful ministry. Apparent effectiveness is not necessarily an indication of a deepening relationship with God.

On the flip side, a man can feel called to ministry but not have the gifting, talents and abilities to function in the role he feels called to fill.

This is why it is necessary to have a presbytery or some other governing body to evaluate and qualify those who feel the call to ministry. But it should be understood that when a pastor is ordained, the ordaining group is simply confirming that the gifting is indeed operational in the candidate as he ministers to the body. The gifting must be validated and affirmed by mature believers.

For the minister to be effective, he must acknowledge that both the gifting and calling come from God and the minister is dependent upon God for maintenance of them both. This requires humility.

It does not require the kind of humility that is self deprecating or self defeating. It requires the kind of humility that understands that God could use anyone, but is grateful for the opportunity to be used. Like any other gift, the giver should be thanked for providing the call and gifting to go along with it.

Paul writes about this in Ephesians 4 when he says,

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Ephesians 4:11–14 (ESV)

God gives. Man can only receive.

It has been my observation that the amount of control that a person attempts to exert over their environment is directly proportional to their level of insecurity. Insecure people feel a need to control their circumstances and the people around them.

This fact makes it extremely troublesome when the insecure person is put in a position of leadership. Insecure leaders tend to micromanage their people and can be very critical of everyone around them.

Now, before we jump all over the insecure people around us, we need to apply the log and speck rule and face our own insecurities. We need to do this because we all have them.

I am learning that for Christians, the antidote to insecurity lies in a proper understanding of how much we are loved by God combined with a proper understanding of his power. In other words, God has been, and will always be, in loving control of what goes on around us. A proper understanding of how much he loves us will allow us to assume that everything will eventually work out well.

When I lose sight of the fact that God is in control, I can allow the insecurities of the people around me (and their corresponding attempts to control me) to push me toward acting out of my own insecurity. When I allow this to happen, things quickly spiral out of control.

Since this blog often discusses church leadership issues, I would like to make a comment or two about insecure church leaders.

I have found that insecure church leaders will often inhibit those they lead from using their gifts to their full extent. Optimally, a church leader should be helping members identify and develop their gifts. The leader will then encourage them to seek opportunities to use those gifts for the benefit of the church body.

Insecure leaders, whether it is consciously or unconsciously done, thwart those in their care and do not allow them to operate in freedom. I can think of two reasons for this:

1. Insecurity can cause the leader to attempt to monopolize the attention of the group. If he gets his validation from his position of authority, he will not want anyone else to siphon off some of that validation.
2. Insecurity can cause the leader to act out of fear that others would do something that is outside of his vision for the church. The insecure leader will take upon himself authority that is not his since it is Jesus’ church and not the leader’s church.

One of the things I enjoy about presbyterianism is that decisions are to be made by a group of individuals, not a single person. In a true presbyterian church, the elders and pastors have equal authority. Each can speak into the blind spots of the others on the leadership team.

Trusting that God is the one who pulls the leadership team together allows for my insecurities to be negated by the collective wisdom of the other elders. If each elder has this attitude, then none of the leaders will feel the need to control the direction of the church body. We are then in a position to allow Jesus to direct the body.

My experience is that this is never perfectly done. This is because we all have insecurities and our enemy is expert at manipulating use through our insecurities. We act out of selfish, self-protective motives.

As leaders, we need to heed the words of James:

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

James 5:16, ESV

If we are honest about our insecurities with our fellow elders, if we confess our desire to manipulate and control, then Jesus can begin to work through us to build his church.

Perhaps every elder meeting should start with prayers of confession and repentance.

Jesus warned us that there would be people in our churches with improper motives for being there. For example, I point you to the parable of the wheat and tares.

Since the Reformation, we make a distinction between the visible church and the true church. The visible church is all those who profess faith in Jesus Christ. The true church is those who have actually responded to Jesus by placing their faith in him.

We cannot see the heart of our fellow church members and it is not our job to determine who is a tare and who is wheat. The point of this distinction is to be aware that not everyone in the church is a true follower of Jesus.

I have been in churches where someone has great influence in the church but at the same time has less than pure motives for how they use that influence. This can be rather disconcerting to both leaders and members of the church.

There have been problems in the church from the beginning 2000 years ago. Many of the letters of Paul were prompted by the need to address disruptions in the church which were caused by those who are likely in the category of tares.

If you are seeing someone cause disruption in your church, I would like to share a few thoughts that might encourage you through the process.

We see the problems addressed in 1 Corinthians played out over and over again through church history. I believe it was Malcolm Muggeridge who said that new news is old news happening to new people.

Keep in mind that none of this takes God by surprise. I believe that God allows disrupters in our lives to show us our need for continued regeneration. In other words, the disrupters tend to bring out our worst which we can then bring to God for healing and change.

Along these lines, some verses in Ecclesiastes were in the scripture reading this morning at the church I attend. I found that they encouraged me and seem to speak to this issue:

“In such circumstances, I saw the wicked buried. They came and went from the holy place, and they were praised in the city where they did those things. This too is futile. Because the sentence against an evil act is not carried out quickly, the heart of people is filled with the desire to commit evil. Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, I also know that it will go well with God-fearing people, for they are reverent before him. However, it will not go well with the wicked, and they will not lengthen their days like a shadow, for they are not reverent before God.”

(Ecclesiastes 8:10–13, CSB)

The writer of Ecclesiastes laments the fact that wicked people come and go from the holy place as if God somehow is OK with their wickedness. Along the same lines, I am often surprised by the boldness of those who promote error in the church.

But we also are reminded in this passage that the people that cause problems in the church will ultimately have to face their creator to give an answer for their behavior. Jesus told us that there are dire consequences for those who lead others astray. We can be confident that by leaving the disruptors in God’s hands, they will ultimately either be changed in their opinions and behavior or be condemned if they persist in their error.

But I also feel that I should issue a challenge to church leaders. I have witnessed the damage that occurs when the leadership of a church does not step in to place limits on the disruptors.

While it may seem gracious to allow those with unbiblical views to continue in their error, it is ultimately damaging to the people we are called to lead and protect. Those who promote error tend to prey on the weakest among us. For the sake of the weakest, the error must be addressed.

I feel the need to point out that the best way to prevent the spread of bad theology is to teach good theology.

The passage about the millstone also applies to leaders who do not protect those over which they have been given charge.

Even a casual student of church history, or history in general, will observe that every time the church has sought or obtained political power, it has gone badly for the church and the society around it.

I am not aware of a single incident where political power or political inclusion has gone well for the church.

This morning I read Psalm 118 which brought this thought to mind:

“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humanity. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in nobles.”

Psalm 118:8–9, CSB

It is one thing for the church to proclaim what Scripture has to say on the issues we are facing. It is another thing entirely to appear to be supporting (or opposing) a candidate or party based on their conformity (or lack thereof) to what the church endorses.

The bottom line is that we are to be obedient to God’s will as revealed to us in Scripture.

We are to trust in God alone.We should follow the example of Jesus:

“Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.”

John 2:24–25, CSB

With regard to politics in the church, while we may agree on a particular goal, we may disagree on how to accomplish it. If the church is doing what it should, it is likely that there are people in attendance that do not share our political perspective and would do things differently if given the choice.

The beauty of the church is that God uses our different perspectives as part of the process to conform us into the image of Jesus.

Our disagreements and discussions operate like the chisel of a sculptor. They are used to remove the stuff that mars the image that the creator sees in us.