Lead Others In Learning The Word – You Can Do It!
Word-of-the-Day: ‘Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.’ (Acts 20:28)
I am very fortunate and blessed with having the ‘gift of gab’, and the ability to write down and convey what I’m thinking. Sometimes, it is much to the chagrin of those who attend the Life Group I am fortunate to teach (or have attended it) and receive the three e-mails a week I write to them, containing news on upcoming Life Group classes and events, prayers and praises of our folks, this Word-of-the-Day that is also posted in the blog of the same name, and a ‘monologue’ that is often filled with items I am led to share.
It is often of a geo-political or news-item nature that I need to get off my chest and is often as long-winded as the Word-of-the-Day offering. Some monologues are whimsical, while others are for serious awareness; often the items people need to be aware of are those the ‘mainstream media’ will not cover. (Some mention the need for coffee or tea to get through my diatribes, a sobering thought for this writer…)
The Lord also blesses me with the privilege of occasionally preaching His Word, and providing me the ability to construct and then present a message to our congregation. It is certainly humbling and quite frankly lets me know every time how inadequate I truly am to do that. Yet, people seem to respond favorably to what I have to say, which is a blessing as I haven’t had pitchforks chasing me out and I haven’t been excommunicated from the church or trespassed from the premises, yet.
There have been some who have called me ‘pastor’ due to my sermons, but I wasn’t sure that was proper as our Pastor is one who has the vocational skills and training to provide pastoral care to the flock. He is well-equipped to be our face of our church, and is well-entrusted to provide counsel and other needs of his people. I don’t have that skill or demeanor to be such a person for such a great number of people that he deals with on a daily basis.
But am I – are we – called to be ‘pastors’? Are we all to be pastors, perhaps of a lesser degree? In Acts 20, the Apostle Paul, in his voyage to Jerusalem before his arrest and extradition to Rome, stopped at the port of Miletus, on the western coast of modern Turkey. He sent for the Elders of the church of Ephesus to meet him there, so he could give them a final set of instructions and encouragement before he would say ‘goodbye’ to them for the last time.
Paul laid out a set of warnings to them, and in Acts 20:28, tells them to ‘watch over yourselves and the flock you oversee’, and to ‘be shepherds of the church’ which Jesus ‘bought with His own blood’. For our church, we have formal Elders, who are brought in for a three-year term to serve alongside the Pastor to provide ‘Spiritual leadership and Spiritual oversight of the church’ alongside the Pastor (who is also an Elder). Elders must qualify per the standards of the Scriptures of 1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; and 1 Peter 5:1-3. Per Paul’s charge to the Ephesian Elders, and the need for Elders of today’s church to provide Spiritual leadership and oversight, we can see the need for our Elders to be shepherds of the flock alongside our Pastor.
For myself, an ‘inactive Elder’, this answers the question for me. (I could also go by Elder Emeritus, but Emeritus is Latin for ‘has-been’, and while it might be accurate it’s not very flattering.) It also helps that I lead a Life Group, and though I have nowhere near the responsibilities of the Pastor of the entire church, I am entrusted to watch over those who I lead in our small, Bible-study group, praying with them and for them, answering Biblical questions (or attempting to), and to help organize our small group to help each other as needed. So, I am a ‘small-p’ pastor, an apprentice to the ‘Big-P’ Pastor in that regard.
But what of us who won’t become an Elder, or don’t qualify for one? If you lead a formal or informal Bible Study group, or are a father or a mother that is head of a household, while you may not be an Elder or ‘pastor’, you should be like one. As a shepherd to a flock, be the leader to your group or the parent of your children who leads them in worship, leading the prayers of the family and being the Spiritual leader to the others. As a supervisor of men and women, I understood the need for me to be leader of the tasks we were assigned to accomplish. The tone and cadence of performance had to be set by the leader in order to have the group perform.
In the same way, a person leading a Bible study group must ensure a cadence is set in order to study the Bible; the leader must ensure no one is left behind and all attempts to ensure the study is understood are made. Beyond the study of Scripture, how we make a community of fellowship is how much we listen and get involved in each other’s lives, praying for each person and understanding the needs of the individuals. So, in that sense, to lead or shepherd those who are our students requires at least the rudimentary skills of pastoring a flock.
I may not have the skills or ability to pastor a large flock, but I can use the skills and ability to pastor a small flock, to teach Scriptures and be there to talk and help out. The same holds true for you, though it may be larger or smaller, but you can lead a flock that you can handle to the worship and learning of the Lord and His Word, or at least help to lead someone through the Great Commission to hear the Gospel and accept Jesus’ Salvation.
