Does It Have Any Place in the Houses Church?
The purpose of ordinations is to ensure that candidates for leadership positions in the church meet the expectations of the church calling them. Those include experience and theological training, and if the role includes preaching, the presentation of a sample sermon. Usually there is also an opportunity for the whole church to challenge the candidate with questions and to affirm the candidate with a vote of the membership.
Not all house churches have “leaders,” but because their members already have relationships with one another, the selection of a leader is a far simpler matter. This makes any kind of ordination process superfluous.
Ordination is strictly a human practice within the Church, and to suggest otherwise would be a pelagian1 mistake. A candidate’s status before God does not change with ordination. So, to say that a person has been ordained is simply a reference to the fact that he has been through the ordination process. Should indiviiduals ordained in one setting moves to another setting where expectations may differ, they would need to go through the ordination process again.
Excursis on “Leadership.”
Consider these words of Jesus:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”2
Christians in leadership positions must always remember to subordinate their activities to the Lord Jesus, their only true leader. They need to approach their work with a servant’s attitude and take care not to quench the Spirit by usurping the Lord’s due authority.
Men and women considering a theological education are confronted with seminary advertisements with claims of effectiveness in the training “leaders.” They load their curricula up with “church growth” classes and “leadership” models that come right out of business schools and where leadership is equated with “success.” Coming along behind them are countless para-church “ministries” offering web-based presentations with clever videos and prescribed homework for the flock.
One has to lament the lack of any stress on “followship,” which is what the church leaders are actually supposed to do.
Leave a Reply