Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers

The next thing Paul tells Titus about church leaders, specifically small group leaders is they must be stewards.

The word for steward in Greek is oikonomos, where we get the English word economics. It meant someone who looks after something for another. This is one of the essential qualifications for being a leader in the kingdom of God, is doing it someone else’s way with someone else’s stuff.

I am writing this from the Greater Faith Conference in Cheltenham, a conferentbce hosted and run by Faith Life International, the ministry of Brother Keith Moore. Some of our singers and musicians are involved in the worship. They don’t turn up when they want to, they turn up when they are expected. They cannot sing the way they want, play the way they want, do what fits with them. Why? The conference is not theirs. It is someone else’s, therefore everything that is done has to be done their way. Because of this, they are both learning a lot and have been promoted to stand on a stage their own abilities and talents would never lead them to stand on.

This principle is foundational in leadership, so much so that Jesus actually says that if you are unable to be faithful with that which another man’s, you cannot ever truly have what is your own. I learned this at an early age and was to the best of my maturity and ability a remarkably faithful youth pastor, children’s pastor, assistant pastor, elder, usher and whatever else I have done for other ministers and ministries. Some of the people I have been faithful to have done things that I would not have done, in ways I would not have done, for reasons I am not sure of. But I still was faithful to their way. That’s called stewardship.

If it is not your name on the door, you don’t do it your way. It’s so simple. I have seen small group leaders teach what they wanted, teach against the pastor, teach weird and strange doctrines, and all sorts of things that are not supporting the local church and are not faithful, they are not being good stewards.

Now why is this essential for leaders. Firstly, it is divine order. God puts people into places and expects us to function in our places. Secondly, it is spiritual – if we cannot obey a human who we can see and hear clearly, we will never be obedient to God who we need faith to see and honour to hear. And at that stage, someone will be super-spiritual and say “I obey God over man”, and there is a place for that if man is telling you not to preach the gospel in the name of Jesus, but if the man is saying play it in E not D, you are not being spiritual by claiming God told you to play it in D, you are being spooky, rebellious, and you are not a steward. Thinks like wear light clothes when you are in the band, turn up on time if you want to usher, only take 5 minutes in an offering talk – they are not excuses to be a bad steward because you have a feeling.

Saul lost his kingdom for failing to specifically obey and steward the command of the Lord, and not slaughtering all the sheep and goats, and leaving Agag alive. This stewardship is not a casual matter, it is one of they main reasons I see people fail to step into new levels of ministry and abundance and promotion. If I had to put one thing on why I am increasing today, it is because I was faithful when I was under others.

Everytime something is in my hands – I ask myself whose is it. When I am here at Greater Faith, life is easy, I just do what they tell me to do, it’s not my conference, it’s not my thing. Now it helps they are deeply spiritual, but I have worked for men who I don’t understand why they did what they did, and I still did it because that is stewardship. I dress appropriately for the conferences I go to, I submit to local pastors when I travel. That’s why I get increase.

People need to understand this principle. You cannot be off doing your own thing. Let me define stewardship like this – if you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, you have to be able to submit and flow with that thing. You have to be able to compromise. You have to be able to steward.

I was once a small group leader in a church, where the pastor chose to use a rather controversial Bible study. Some of the other small group leaders opposed this Bible study and refused to teach it, eventually their lack of stewardship was so obvious, the church sadly split. A few years later, I was with someone who used to go there, and they said what was my opinion of the book, and I said that I never cared for it, but he said you just opened it up and taught it like it was your favourite book. To me, that is one of the highest compliments I could receive. It’s being a steward. It’s being faithful with what is others. It’s putting the whole above the self.

Leaders who cannot step into this will not go far. Selah.

We are continuing our series on the standards Paul set for leaders in Titus 1. It’s a challenging series, but Paul was a challenging person when it came to church leadership. He expected people to be above suspicion, to be faithful to their marriage and here we add another family based expectation: faithful children.

It is clear if you read that phrase in several different Bible translations that the translators are struggling to decide whether the Greek means “faithful children” as per the KJV, or “children who believe” as per NIV and ESV. The issue is the Greek word “pista” can mean believing in the sense of having Christian faith, but it can equally mean someone who is reliable or obedient. The commentaries are split about half and half. I lean with children who are believers as Paul uses pistis in every other instance in Timothy and Titus to mean a believer in Christ.

Now why is this important for a church leader? A church leader is someone that is leading people. A deacon in charge of teas and coffees is still leading people – showing them how to love and serve, helping those who turn up late, even sometimes imposing discipline. In a small group Bible study, it’s the same thing. Now, if someone is a parent, we already have a picture of how they would do this.

Your household is a picture of how well you lead. How well you discipline. How well you train. How well you govern others. If someone’s children are out of control, don’t have any respect for others, then it’s a very good idea not to put that person in charge of adults.

(Now before I go any further, let me correct an error I have encountered by saying that no one should be ever disqualified from church leadership because of what their adult children believe or do. Salvation is an individual choice, and no father can force their adult children to believe and receive the gospel and live for Christ. Being an adult is about being free to make your own choices. We are talking about the children who are living at home and part of the household, so really up until they leave home.)

So when someone has children living at home, they are reflection of that person’s leadership skills. I was a youth pastor for many years before starting the Tree of Life Family, and I saw many parents disengage with their teenagers, and to me that means that person is too busy in their life to ever be in church leadership. I’ve seen other parents far too harsh with their children for it to be a good idea at that time to trust them with the care of adults.

We had a lady in our Dagenham church, she was very keen to be in leadership in the church. She had a job where she ran conferences and wanted to help us run our conferences. In terms of capability she was definitely capable. But her son was utterly disengaged from church and Christianity. He was about 15, so still living at home, still a child, and so that matters when appointing leaders. I spoke to her about how whether she prays with her son, whether she reads the Word with him, and suggested a plan for family devotions. She said that she did not believe that was her job, but it was the church’s job. She asked what the church did for youth.

At that time we had a youth group on Friday, but he didn’t want to go, so she wouldn’t make him (even though I’m sure she made him go to school five days a week!). So she insisted we start a youth group on Sundays. I said if he goes to a youth group Sunday morning he will miss the sermon. I told the mum I spend hours every week writing my sermons and pointed out the large number of teenagers who every week are in the service notebooks open, listening, learning, who come and ask me questions afterwards and are growing in Christ. She said he didn’t like that.

When she described the youth group she wanted on Sunday morning, she didn’t want us to disciple her son, more like let him play the PlayStation on Sundays so she could go to church and have a break from him. Needless to say I did not ask her to be in leadership, and she left the church and actually found a church that took all the teenagers away from the Sunday worship and sermon and miracles and let them play on PlayStations and watch movies!

No one is a perfect parent. No one gets it right every hour of every day, but there must be signs that the parents is putting life and energy into discipling their children and raising them in the faith. If you insist your teenagers go to the dentist, and shower, and go to school, you can insist they go to church. You step back when they are teens and “let them decide”, you are making a choice that will bite you in the back, and you are showing that you are not ready to lead other adults in a Christian setting.

Paul is not saying that every pastor’s child as adults must be on fire for Jesus, they are adults and you are not forever responsible for your adult child’s decisions. Paul is also not saying that your family has to be Stepford Wives, perfect every moment of every day. But Paul is saying that if you want to be in church leadership, you should be reflecting your future church leadership and ministry in your family – children who are disciplined, a household that is in order and full of peace and grace and love.

Selah.

After laying the foundation that part of our role as leaders is to be blameless, to live a life where accusations do not stick, to care for others in our lifestyle, Paul immediately jumps to male-female relationships. I believe more church leaders, whether deacons, small group leaders, or national level leaders, have lost their credibility, their reputation, their influence, their ministry for missing this and messing up here than anywhere else. I’m sure anyone reading this is thinking of some major leader in the body of Christ who has forfeited their ministry for some form of sexual immorality. Some scandal that was both shocking and the ripples went far. But it can happen in a small group as well, it can happen with the deacon in charge of the tea rota as well!

Now in the King James Bible, Paul says “the husband of one wife” (Titus 1.6) which immediately opens up the question – can a man who is divorced be a pastor, can a man who remarried be a pastor, does this verse mean that only men can be pastors? Without taking this all to pieces and going off track, no that’s not what Paul was saying at all. What the literal Greek says is a “one woman man”. You see I have met married men who are not a one woman man, I have met married men who have one wife, but more than one woman. That’s going to disqualify you from Christian leadership.

Right now in the church, there are many issues regarding the LGBTQ+ movement, and how the church should respond, and I praise God that many Christians and many preachers are raising a bold call to state that all of these behaviours are sinful and against God’s plan. But to be honest, it is not often that people in the church are engaged in these behaviours, even though it does happen. But on the other hand, it is fairly common that people who are living together and unmarried come to church. That’s great – I want everyone to feel welcome in church, I want everyone to belong. But being part of the community is not being in leadership. We need to let our churches know that God has standards and Paul enforces those standards in church leadership.

For leaders, the divine principles go back to Genesis, sex is for marriage, marriage is for life, and marriage is one (biological) male and one (biological) female. We cannot appoint a leader who is not committed to this standard. We cannot allow them to influence others. The Bible does not say slowly and gently walk away from sexual immorality, it says flee! Run at top speed in the opposite direction (1 Cor. 6.18). We are expected to obey this! It’s New Covenant!

Why is Paul so strong on this behaviour? Because it can destroy churches! It can destroy communities! It can destroy marriages! It can destroy lives! As a pastor, I have had to deal with far too many situations where this kind of behaviour is so destructive and has hurt so many people.

Imagine a man in the church, he is a great man, outgoing, friendly, enthusiastic, a great communicator. But you also notice he is a bit of a flirt. He says things that could be taken more than one way, he has a special smile for the ladies. You like him and think he would be a good leader, and in terms of personality and gifts, he probably would. But because in his heart, whether is married or not, he is not a one-woman man, you have just given him a reason and excuse to call the ladies in the evening, to have them come round his house, to spend time with them, to help them with their chores, and to misuse his position.

As a side note, I am very wary of any man who feels he has a ministry to women, especially to young or vulnerable women. Several times in my life, some man has attempted to tell me he has a ministry to young ladies, or abused ladies, and I have shut that down straight away. Paul actually tells us in Titus 2 that the older women should teach the younger women – so that’s how that should work!

Now with all of these the past is the past, and if it has been repented of, and someone has left something in the rear view mirror, we do not have the right to get out of our car and grab it and pick it up again. But like Paul told Titus, do not appoint elders, bishops, leaders who are not one women men! It will never end well.

If you are married, the best way to embrace Paul’s wisdom here is positively. Obviously, don’t have an affair, don’t chat up other ladies, don’t watch films of other women naked on your phone, don’t have an AI girlfriend, don’t be messaging ladies late at night.

But what about making sure you are a one woman man? Go and make your wife the one-woman of your life. Go and be the man to your one woman!

Go and buy her some flowers, some jewellery, take her out on a date this week, go and get dancing lessons together, lock yourself in the bedroom for a few hours, whatever you need to do. And pray together, discuss your future vision together, serve in the local church together, value each other. Love your wife the way Christ loves the church. Aren’t you glad that Christ loves the church and isn’t about to leave us for the local mosque or Hindu temple! He is committed to us! 1 Peter 3.7 says “Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives” – consider means to think. Think about your wife, what would make her happy – go and do that! Be a one woman man! Focus on that one woman and treat her like your queen!

I don’t believe that Paul here is not assuming that women have to watch themselves too. For one-woman man, read one-man woman and act accordingly. And no, you don’t have an Aunty ministry to the young men!

The greatest leaders in the church are often those who are married and celebrate their wife and people see they have a good marriage and godly seed – that is a very attractive force, and helps you influence people powerfully.

P.S. Sometimes as men, we struggle to spot if someone is a one woman-man or not. Ask your wife, she will know. Women normally pick up on this fairly rapidly. Now, you cannot go to someone and say “I will not make you a deacon because my wife has a feeling”, but you don’t have to appoint them either, you can wait and nothing is ever lost waiting before appointing a leader. Selah.

You know one of the greatest distortions of the glorious message of grace is that there should be no standards for offices of leadership in the body of Christ. That we just pick based on smiles and talent.

Worship leaders who don’t read their Bibles or ever listen to sermons. People taking the offering who don’t tithe! Ushers who don’t listen to what they are told and do it their way rather than the way they have been instructed. Small group leaders who are building their own little empire rather than building the kingdom of God and submitting to their pastors and bringing people into unity with the vision and culture of the local church. All of that will actually keep people from Heaven!

We are the only Jesus that some people will ever see and if we are turning people off from the kingdom, that has eternal consequences. And if pastors allow people to do that, that has both eternal consequences and immeditate consequences for their church.

That’s why Paul – the great apostle of grace – as an apostle – told both Timothy and Titus (both pastors he raised up and appointed) to put requirements in place for their elders. By reading through those requirements and studying them, we find out what God Himself, in the age of grace, expected from all leaders.

In Titus, Paul doesn’t get beyond his greeting before starting to impose standards on leaders. According to Paul, these standards for leaders is called putting the church in order (Titus 1.5), and a church in order grows, and a church out of order does not. We need to reach our nation and the only way to do that is to have order in the church, and the only way to do that is standards for leaders that are enforced by the pastors. Churches will get stuck around 40-50 people unless pastors are prepared to impose standards on their leaders – or else everything hinges on the pastor, and that won’t grow much!

Paul then lists a long list of standards, the first one being that all elders must be blameless. I believe that these standards are supposed to be held by all leaders, all deacons, all elders, all pastors and all leaders, and a failure to hold to them is to fail to understand grace, honour, prosperity, promotion and the entire walk we have with God, and the awesome responsibility we have before God and before the church!

The first standard in this list in Titus is blameless (Titus 1.6).

A leader in the kingdom of God should be blameless. In the Greek the word is “anegkletos” – without egkletos. Egkletos means be able to be accused. Part of being a leader is carrying yourself in such a way that if someone accuses you of something, that people just dismiss it – they say “no way, not them, you are barking up the wrong tree there”. That’s what the word “blameless” means.

I studied Acts 19 for my doctorate, and Paul is accused in that of causing a whole host of problems, but he tells the people boldly – you can say what you like but there is no cause (Acts 19.40). It’s the same word! There’s nothing you can stay that will stick, because I know how I have lived! Paul practised what he preached – he told Timothy and Titus to ensure all their leaders were blameless and he told the crowds in Ephesus that he was blameless. There’s no reason to accuse him of anything because he was careful how he lives.

We need to live aware that there is an enemy that hates us and seeks to discredit us and destroy our reputation. You make coarse jokes – people think you are a coarse person. You get accused of coarseness, it can be hard for people to dismiss that accusation. You are not blameless.

You give single ladies lifts home in your car – people think you are a ladies man. You need to do things to ensure people do not have a reason to come against your reputation.

You drink a glass or two of wine, and someone accuses you of being drunk – you will find it easier to defend yourself if you never drink alcohol. Why do you think Proverbs tells us alcohol is not for kings! (Proverbs 31.4). We are too important to be accused of drinking too much!

Since my first pastoral placement in the late 90s, I have been accused of being stand offish with people, not huggy, not demonstrative, curt with women. My response is always absolutely! Because I will not put myself in a position where I can be accused of anything immoral, my reputation as an apostolic leader and what God is calling me into is far, far too important to ever put myself in a position where I am too free and friendly with people and an accusation sticks. No way!

Now in the spirit, we are totally blameless before God (that’s in Romans 8.33, and it’s a beautiful truth – God has made us utterly and totally righteous, and it’s the same word, same author, so Paul knew what he was saying) – but this is not talking about the spirit realm, because the church of the Lord Jesus Christ does not exist just in Heaven, but on earth, and on earth there are people who are keen to judge us and hassle us and accuse us and throw mud at us.

James 3.1 actually says that if we become a teacher in the church, we will be judged more strictly. That doesn’t mean God will judge us more strictly, it means the people around us will. We need to be very careful how we conduct ourselves in this world. The more your ministry grows, the more people are watching you and the more circumspect you need to be. You need to care about the impression you give to others.

There are types of behaviour that makes mud stick to you, and types of behaviour that means the mud just slides off, that you become Teflon! That’s what blameless means – when satan throws mud at you, it just slides off.

The international evangelist Billy Graham, in 1948, made a series of rules for himself and the staff of his ministry that men and women should never under any circumstances be alone together unless they are married, whether in a bar, a car, or even a lift. Straight from his ministry handbook: “A man should not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman”. Billy Graham never got in a car with just him and another woman. These rules have come back into the public eye with former Vice President Mike Pence keeping to the same standard.

You might say, well I think that is extreme, but Billy Graham was in ministry 76 years with no hint of a scandal. Talk about extreme – that’s an extremely long time to have a scandal free ministry and finish well! That’s a great thing. That’s teflon, that’s blameless! That’s what it means. That’s the key.

It means being careful in the way you deal with people, it means being aware of the people around us, it means being kind to those who don’t know us and making it easier for them to trust us. It means being open at time with things that you would rather not be open against. It means people who are leading you, like your pastor, trust that if they give you an instruction you will be trying to follow it as close as possible, not trying to do as little as possible their way and do as much as possible your own way.

Now sometimes when I talk about this, people come to me and tell me about sins in their past that they feel brings them blame – no – if you have repented and restored your reputation, then you are back to being blameless. People know that people change, and most people celebrate a changed life and although it can take time to rebuilt the trust and reputation, nearly every sinful action and attitude can be dealt with and people can – especially with good leadership – come back to a place of blamelessness!

I mean remember who wrote Titus – the murderer of Stephen! But he took the time to patiently, with Barnabas’s help – build a reputation so the churches trusted him and he became Teflon. However you have been living up until now, you can make changes and become blameless!

I don’t know about you, but I truly want to be used of God to impact my generation. So I spend time allowing the Lord to speak to me and show me areas in which maybe some other people might blame me if I was accused of something. In those cases, I resolve to alter – by His grace – my behaviour and attitudes. I suggest you all make the same commitment today.

This is the starting point of developing the standards of leadership because it is the starting point of Paul’s list to Titus for leaders, specifically for small group leaders and church leaders.

There’s not much point of going on if we do not genuinely care how our behaviour and attitudes affect others and realize the need for a reputation to be an effective leader. Sort this and step up! Become a candidate for God to use you in a powerful way leading others.

Selah!

If you cannot lead yourself, everything in your life is going to be hard. It amazes me how many people want to go into ministry to effectively lead others in how to live their lives and their own lives are far from being orderly. This is a new series on how to lead yourself to more effectively lead others.

Of course, no one has to be perfect to be in ministry, but you should be able to lead yourself. Many of the challenges you face in your life are not due to others but the way you lead yourself.

Even when someone has been a leader for a long time, it is hard to lead yourself because you are so comfortable with yourself; you make excuses for yourself; you are blind to your problems because they are so close to home. Also, we often give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that we do not give to others. We certainly judge others by their actions and judge ourselves by our “heart” unless we are very careful indeed.

The most important thing you can do to lead yourself well is deal with your blind spots!

We all have blind spots, but as leaders, because we influence people, we have to be very careful indeed as yours will become the blind spots of others. One of things that brings us into leadership is our ability to focus well, and a skill at solving a particular type of problem. But if all we then talk about is that problem, we preach the same one sermon over and over, we solve every problem with the same tool then we have blind spots.

If you think you are always right, you definitely have blind spots! Jesus Himself said we can actually be trying to take the speck out of someone else’s eye while we have an entire plank in our own eye. Seems Jesus was very aware that as leaders we could have blind spots. We trust our insight without spending enough time with Jesus and with older, wiser, mentors that we get our eyes sorted.

David sinned in a way that would cost any 21st century pastor their entire career. He slept with a woman who was not his wife, then murdered her husband when he impregnated her! He couldn’t see it was a problem. Then Nathan, very wisely, told David a story about a man who stole another man’s lamb, and David was furious at how badly this hypothetical man behaved – then David realized it was him. Nathan was exceptionally wise in this approach, and later David named one of his sons after him.

How do we end up with blind spots? Several ways, but a main way is we hear the Word and then don’t do it (James 1.23). It says that if we do this, we deceive ourselves. That’s the Bible phrase for a blind spot – self-deception. We need to spend time with Jesus and the Word, the mirror of the Word is what helps restore our sight, and the Spirit convinces us of sin, righteousness and judgment.

You will not get out of blind spots by trying hard, you need to be humble and let others correct your vision. You cannot operate on your own eyes! God will bring the right people into your life, and also do operations Himself – God can be trusted to keep your vision clear but you need to learn how to listen to others, admit you can be wrong, and let our blind spots become open doors to growing in Christ,

Selah.