Christian Leadership
Christian leadership is the type of leadership that is practiced in the church according to the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus set the foundation of leadership of the church by placing the apostles on the bottom-most part of the church to support the rest of the followers. Paul, the apostle took the work of the apostle seriously to ensure the doctrine of Christianity is spread throughout the world. He named five ministers who would help in building the kingdom of God as Jesus wished (Ascough 2002).
The five-fold leadership ministry or the ascension gift matrix is a concept of leadership found in Ephesians 4:11 that divide the church into four offices namely: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers. The fivefold ministry arose when Jesus ascended into heaven and it is meant to build up the Gods temple build of living “stones”. The five ministries are tools that Jesus uses to set up his Kingdom and they do so by equipping, encouraging and training.
Almost in the whole world pastors, teachers and evangelists are recognized to be existent even today. However there is a controversy over the apostles and prophets though in recent studies some scholars have talked of existence of them today (Lawrence 2004).
In some aspects of the bible the Apostles and prophets, being the most important in the church were meant to be existent throughout the life of the Christian church. Jesus Christ is found to have the qualities of the leaders in the five ministries, where he was referred to as an apostle in Hebrews 3:1, he was referred to as a prophet in the book of Mathew 22:11, he was referred to as a pastor where he was referred to as the shepherd. He is also referred to as Rabbi, the teacher in Peter2:25.
According to Apostle Paul prophets existed even after the death and resurrection of Jesus hence they were not meant to be in existence until the time of Jesus since he said this decades after the ascension of Jesus. The term ascension gift comes from the deeds of Jesus of appointing other apostles and prophets during his ascension. Thus the fivefold ministry was meant to exist until the second coming of Jesus. Prophets are explained to be there in the end of times by the Bible, to witness his coming (Marshall 1991).
An Apostle is a messenger of the church who is visionary and whose job is to keep the church in progress. They give guidance since they have a lot of knowledge than all the other church followers. An Apostle has courage, charisma and experience to keep the church in dominance and to bring the church direction. In modern day there are those people who act as the apostles in the church such as some bishops and priest who are completely dedicated to spreading the gospel. An example are the bishops of the East African Church in Africa who are showing a great structure of their church where they are committed to the spreading of the gospel and to fulfill the wish of apostle Paul who asked fellow apostles to bring more and more people into the church. That is the apostolic role (Maxwell 2004).
A prophet is an individual who is able to speak with the supernatural beings and communicate their messages to the rest of the people. Prophets are expected to have high moral standards and know clearly well between wrong and right. They can tell the future events or advise people to repent for the sake of coming of God or his messenger who could be even angels. The message to be communicated may be meant for an individual or for a group of people.
False prophets are the prophets who claim to be chosen by God to communicate his message but they are actually after deceiving people and for self-glorification. The Bible in the book of Deuteronomy gives green light to kill false prophet who can be known if their prophecies do not happen.
Prophets are known to be human beings only with special ability to tell people the message of God so they are subject to sins and may make wrong decisions. According to Paul prophets are the second discipline from apostles in the fivefold ministry and they lead in both the churches that Paul lead and those that he did not and said that the validity of the prophets was to be tested by the doctrine of the apostles (Marshall 1991).
According to the Christianity doctrine there can be no appointments of prophets by fellow church member neither can there be any qualifications outlined for one to become a prophet. Paul put it clear that not all believers shall have the gift of prophesying as prophets make statements that are authoritative wise and instructive. So throughout the generations that have been there and those to come prophets will have to be there and they shall tell the people the will of God until Jesus comes again. Prophet must stand firm as they are open to opposition and doubt of which they must overcome by being faithful, firm in their words and be gentle (Stott 2002).
The third ministry is the evangelist whose work is to preach the gospel and ultimately reach conversion of people to accept Christ. In the present day evangelistic mission seems to be failing in greater magnitude than in the past in that many preachers are seen to be preaching to multitudes but few or no people are converted. It was also happening during the times of Jesus where he would go to Synagogues and people would attend with different reasons. Some would come only to see him but other would come to receive the gospel and get converted.
Evangelists have the duty to convince the people to change their ways for the better and uphold holiness from the point of change. Baptism is one common practice that is meant to signify conversion from bad ways to a Christian’s way of life. An evangelist has a tough task of converting people in places where opposition is very great, where people have been convinced of other ways of live that they believe are much better than any other. An evangelist should be a person of good reputation in actions, words and intention. Many people have been seeking fame and self-glorification in the name of evangelism and their mission is characterized by hype and heavy advertisement which is not meant to gather people for conversion to God’s way (Nelson 2008).
The forth element of the ministry is the pastor whose role is to keep the church member, rather the congregation focused on the church. The word pastor means a feeder or a shepherd and so he has an obligation of taking care of the believers. They must be gentle as stated by bible that it is bad to yell at a sheep and send it away but a good pastor like a shepherd must be polite and welcoming to any of his sheep.
In the present day a pastor duty is still very vital in the apostolic church in keeping the believers together. They are seen in all churches where the maybe given different titles but their duty of keeping the flock intact is similar. They are supposed to have good knowledge of each of the congregation member and must be intimate with them also. This puts the pastor in a very sensitive position as he must think about the best way to go so as not to mislead the congregation. They should assume the characteristic of God of loving sinner even more and do everything that will bring them back to the congregation he is leading.
The last ministry is the teacher whose main role is to maintain and restore peace. This means that the teacher should let the people know God by educating them. Since the coming of Jesus schools teaching about Gog have been set up to assist in preaching of the gospel. Over time the schools have kept growing and spreading all over the world. Education should be administered in an orderly manner so that the learners can understand with ease. Teachers can be trained in schools and can also be researches who later teach what they find out in their researches. A teacher must allow the pupils comprehend what he teaches them by giving them information bit by bit and allow them to practice what he theoretically teaches them. Thus a teacher sheds light on the knowledge of God (Briner 2009).
Like in the case of pastors and prophets, there can also be a false teacher who would teach their pupils what is not correct. The false teachers are the teachers who are led by greed, impatience and selfishness. A teacher must show much better morals than his fellow mankind. The teachers have a duty to prepare the pupils’ future by assist them create their foundation in Christ. A teacher should have good knowledge of the language and good speaking skills so that his pupils may sit down and listen.
According to Paul, a leader should not rule but serve and for the church to keep going there must be cooperation of several leaders whom must fulfill their duties as leaders so as to finally achieve the goal of the church as set by its head, Christ himself. Both women and men should team up and develop the church in oneness. For God word to keep spreading there must be order from top of the hierarchy of the five ministries (Marshall 1991).
The apostles have the duty of church-planting and establish the church in new areas. The prophets proclaim the revelation of God. Prophets are human and can prophesy something wrongly and should not be condemned as false prophets since there can also be people who can tell the future through powers given by Satan like the woman whose demons were rebuked by Paul. The evangelist has the duty of conversion of people who are lost or are believers of other beings other than God’s way according to Christ. Pastors’ duty is to keep the congregation together and showing it the right way. The teachers’ duty is to educate the congregation on the importance of Christian’s way of life (Stott 2002).
The apostles and the prophets are on the bottom supporting the people and that is why the apostles were put into place first after the ascension of Jesus. Paul together with his colleague who were not among the twelve apostles show that the duty of apostles was to be done by even other apostles beside the apostles who had been named by Jesus. Jesus told the people to be careful in fellowship so as not to follow their leaders just blindly (O'Malley 2007).
Conclusion
Apostles today have different names in different Christian churches but their duty has remained the same of keeping the church thriving and in full gear of progress. In some churches they are called bishops who act as the leaders in their respective areas of leadership. The prophets who are existent have the duty of foretelling the people of the future events that God has revealed to them; they give warnings and tell the people to repent. Prophets until today cannot be appointed by fellow men as their abilities are just special that are not acquired through learning. They are still known to be people of great faith, firm in their words and gentle.
Evangelists in modern churches are still very crucial as they execute the duty of converting people to be followers of the Christians way of life in their churches. Evangelists maintain good reputation in their actions, words and intention and must lead by example. Pastor are the shepherds whose duty is to keep reminding the believers of their faith and today they may have different titles but their duty of keeping the flock together remains. The teacher in today’s church is there to educate the people and sometimes they may carry out the duty of a pastor of reminding people of their faith and the vice versa may also happen when the pastor does the duty of a teacher.
The five ministries together do work of holding the church together and proving its strength. Each of the ministries has a duty of fighting against opposition and being patient when they face a lot of opposing forces. In communication of vision the apostle and the prophet have bigger tasks of setting the vision of the church and the evangelist, the pastor and the teacher do the duty of working towards realization of the vision by encouraging and giving hope to the believers. The five ministries must take charge of their dockets and work together as a team, observing cooperation in the church as the goal of the church ministries is common.
Ascough, R. and Cotton, S. 2002. Passionate Visionary: leadership Lessons from the Apostle Paul. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers. Pp. 79-124
Briner, B. 2001.Leadership lessons of Jesus. New York: Random House. Pp.67-93
Lawrence, J. 2004. Growing Leaders: reflections on leadership, life and Jesus. Oxford: BRF. Pp. 76-89
Marshall, T. 1991. Understanding Leadership.Chichester: Sovereign World. Pp.9-47
Maxwell, J. C. 2004. Developing the Leader within You. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Pp. 16-39
Nelson, J. 2008. How to become a creative church leader: A modem handbook.Norwich: Canterbury Press. Pp. 14-23
O'Malley, D. 2007. Christian Leadership.Bolton. U.K: Don Bosco Publications. Pp. 89-120
Stott, J. 2002. Basic Christian Leadership: Biblical Models of Church, Gospel and Ministry.Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press. Pp. 56-68
