A friend of mine said that to me the other day. She was describing the leader of a local church. The assessment of that leader didn't particularly surprise me, but what surprised me was that she didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the leader of a church not being a gifted preacher.
As I've written on here before, as far as I can tell, the criteria the apostle Paul required for a church leader were roughly excellent character + able to teach.
Time and again in the New Testament, we see that lots of people have been given lots of different gifts, and it is the job of the people with "word gifts" (such as preaching and teaching) to equip everyone else for using their gifts so that the church can be built up. In other words, it's the preachers and teachers who should be doing the whole servant leadership thing.
In light of that, and in light of some of the mess that's been going on today and will rumble for a while yet, here's a quote from 2 Timothy.
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
2 Timothy 2:24-25, ESV
1 comment:
Custard: there are methods of teaching which don't involve preaching.
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