Today’s blog post is for guest speakers, whether you a travelling evangelist, an associate pastor, or an intern or elder or deacon who is covering the pulpit for a weekend.
Whether you are an apostle, prophet, evangellist, teacher – or a pastor but in another church to your own – you should submit yourself to the pastor of that church. You should be aware of his authority. Those sheep are not yours – you are merely a guest. You should behave as a guest.
You have zero right to go into another church and raise your own offering, build your own mailing list, do anything to bring increase to yourself. I have had people come to raise their own offering or do their own thing, and I never invite them back. I have had people on Monday morning skip lunch with me to have lunch with some wealthy people in my congregation and try and hit them up for money! They never came for one minute to serve, help or love our church, but came to steal from it. They came to take what they wanted.
On the other hand, good guest speakers, the ones who keep coming back – they will go to the pastor and say “do you know I love you? I am honoured to be with your people – I am submitting to you in your church, tell me anything you need to tell me and I will do it”. I am on both sides now, I travel a lot, I am an apostle over a family of churches, and I still pastor local churches. I know how I have been treated on both sides, and I know what honour is on both sides. I would never take advantage of a pastor, I come to serve. As a pastor, you need to know what the travelling ministers you invite are like – not just what they preach – and travelling speakers need to honour the pastors.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 