Alright, here we are, lesson two
in our series Seven Habits of Highly Effective Christians,
Elders, Ministers and Deacons. I've already done
one lesson on highly effective Christians.
Today we're going to be talking about
highly effective ministers and elders and of course then we'll conclude with
highly effective deacons. Now as I mentioned in in the first
session, this series or the title of this series is based on a book by
Stephen Covey, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"
and let me tell you a little bit about this book if you've not read it before.
In his book, Mr. Covey reviewed two hundred years
of "success type" literature, motivational books and so on and so forth
stretching back two centuries,
and he found that regardless of the age, the culture, or the profession,
effective and thus successful people shared
common traits of character and what he did is he reduced, he distilled
all these down to 7 basic characteristics of successful and effective people
for the purpose of his book. Well, I've used the same approach here using the Bible
and my experience in church work over the years
to identify the seven most common characteristics
of effective Christians. So in this session, as I mentioned,
we're going to continue this series by listing the seven habits
of effective preachers and elders.
So we begin with the habits of effective preachers.
There are many, there are many, but
I'm going to name only three, three very important ones.
Now I need to repeat that what we're searching to do for all for Christians
deacons, elders, ministers here
is to describe those common habits that make
these people effective. As I've said, there are many who call themselves
Christians, many who have been appointed as deacons and elders, many
who have been commended to the ministry of preaching but
are not very effective in these roles.
For example, if just wearing the title "preacher" made one effective,
then any church could randomly
select any old preacher to serve them as minister,
but we know that churches don't do this because they know from
experience that not all preachers are equally effective and some are not
effective at all, the're just not good at their jobs, just like any other
area of work. And so in our lesson today
we're going to define the habits that effective preachers
and effective elders have and have cultivated
in order to become successful at what they do. Now as far as preachers are concerned
there are three main habits or characteristics that identifies the
truly effective minister. These are described by Paul
in his letter to a young evangelist named Timothy
in Second Timothy. So let's start with habit number one.
Effective preachers have the habit
of purifying themselves. Highly effective preachers have the habit
of purifying themselves. Let's read Second Timothy
chapter 1 verse 6 shall we? Paul says, "For this reason I remind you to
kindle afresh the gift of God which is
in you through the laying on of my
hands." Now Timothy, to give you just a little bit of background here about why
Paul is writing this and why he saying this in this particular letter,
Timothy it seems was holding back in his ministry
because of his youth, because of the many distractions in the world,
because of the fear of persecution by the Jews
and certainly persecution by the Romans
at this period of time in history. And so
Paul encourages him to renew his gift,
to purify himself continually by separating himself
from those things that would hinder or distract
or would slow him down in his ministry.
You know, even preachers get into a rut.
It could be a rut of fatigue or a rut of
boredom or rut of laziness or sinfulness.
It's usually a rut where the preacher starts "majoring in minors"
in order to avoid the true and the hard work
of ministry. Now effective preachers have the habit of purifying themselves
on an ongoing basis in order to remain fresh and
open and sensitive to the Spirit's lead.
Effective preachers cultivates spiritual habits that serve to purify their minds
and hearts continually. For example,
they read the Bible continually, it's not something they only do when they're preaching,
it's a habit that they have on a daily basis.
They make time for personal prayer.
It's interesting to note that a lot of preachers,
they're in situations where there's prayer going on, an opening prayer, closing
prayer, they pray for somebody else,
but a lot of times preachers don't take the time to pray themselves.
A personal quiet time for just themselves
and the Lord. Effective preachers have
a powerful and consistent prayer life
on a daily basis. They also read and study material that will expand their minds
and their ministry. Of course you have to read the Bible,
but in addition to that, effective preachers
also read other material to open up their ideas
about certain issues, to give them a better insight
into church work and so on and so forth. They also cultivate relationships
that keep them accountable. One way to purify yourself
is to have a friend, a brother in the Lord,
someone in the church who's able to to tell you when you're wrong,
to tell you when you're putting the wrong emphasis.Your
preachers usually count on their wives to do that for them, but you also need
what I call an accountability relationship with a brother
in the Lord. They are also involved in activities
that serve the brotherhood in general and not just the local church
and they do this to expand their view of the kingdom.
If the only people the preacher ever sees are people in his own congregation,
he doesn't know what's going on in his city, in his
state, in the country. You need to kind of
expand your mind and expand your view to see what's going on
in the brotherhood to have a better grasp of things.
Effective preachers understand the trends and things that are taking place
in the brotherhood
and they also do what's difficult
first. Oh I can't emphasize that
enough. Effective ministers know that it's important to do the hard stuff
first. I once knew a preacher
who hated to study and prepare lessons but he did love computer work
and office things so he would spend, during his week, he'd spend
three days getting the bulletin ready and preparing mission reports with
statistic sheets and pie charts and graphs
and he'd run errands and he'd do the office work and the accounting and all this
and that and then finally on Saturday night when he just couldn't put it off anymore
he'd get down and get his lessons together for the next day and you know what?
By the time Sunday rolled around you knew that he was just getting his stuff
ready at the last minute, it would show.
So effective preachers continually purify themselves and their ministries
in order to maintain the enthusiasm and the passion
that characterized their original call into ministry.
Highly effective ministers also
preach, in other words, effective preachers
preach. Let's go to Second Timothy, we're still in Second Timothy chapter one,
and let's read verses eight to 12. It says, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the
testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner,
but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace
which was granted us in Christ Jesus for all eternity,
but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus,
who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light
through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.
For this reason I also suffer these things,
but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced
that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day."
Paul in this passage here is still passionate
about the gospel even when he refers to it
in a letter to a fellow believer and a fellow
worker. Even though Paul has suffered for the gospel
he is still completely convinced and fully engaged in the spread
of the good news, in other words nothing stopping him.
Effective preachers are effective because
they're excited by the message. They're not excited about
where they're going to preach the message or how many people will be there.
Paul is zealous in this letter and yet he's only writing to one person.
And so what makes preachers effective is that
they want to preach, they need
to preach. They need to preach in season or out-of-season,
whether it's a big crowd or a small crowd, whether the hearers are friendly or skeptical,
whether it's local or international or in person,
whether they're preaching on television or radio, in print, on the Internet,
they just want to preach.
So effective preachers are convinced
that the gospel is God's truth to man and they are
anxious, even uncomfortable, if they don't get to preach. Effective preachers
have to preach. Habit number three.
Highly effective preachers persevere.
When I say persevere, I mean that preachers who succeed in ministry
are those who are able to keep
on keepin' on, they're able to last, they're able to hang in there,
they have a persevering spirit. In his letter to Timothy,
Paul encourages Timothy to persevere
in three areas: first of all to persevere
in doctrine. Let's go back to Second Timothy chapter one, this time in verse
13 he says, "Retain the standard of sound words
which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure
which has been entrusted to you." And then in chapter two verses 1 & 2, he says the
following: "You therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,
entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And so
effective preachers are able to persevere.
Persevering in a doctrine or a teaching means to continue diligently teaching God's Word
even when it's inconvenient or when people will not listen
or when people will not obey. Persevering
even when others oppose within the church
and without and not being afraid
to confront, persevering in the effort to train others
in the word and in the teaching of it. The preachers job is to
minister the word in
every circumstance and successful effective preachers
make sure that they don't get away from that primary task
in their many sided job, easy to lose focus.
It's easy for preachers to kind of lose
focus and stop preaching the word.
And that brings me to the second area of perseverance
and that's persevering in ministry. Effective preachers persevere in
preaching the word and they persevere
in ministry. Let's stay in 2nd Timothy, this time go to chapter 2,
verse 3, begin in verse 3. Paul says,
"Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life,
so that he may please one who enlisted him as a
soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless
he competes according to the rules.
The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share the crops.
Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding everything.
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship
even to imprisonment as a criminal; but the word of God is not imprisoned.
For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen,
so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus
and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He will also deny us; If we are faithless,
He remains faithful, for He cannot
deny Himself." Kind of a long passage there
where Paul is talking about the importance of persevering in ministry.
In other words, there are many distractions and temptations in the world
and ministers need to be careful not to be trapped in these.
Some ministries are ruined by worry or sinfulness because the
preacher becomes more involved with something
other than ministry on the side, and eventually this thing
leads to ruin. Successful effective preachers
keep their eye on the prize and their hands on the wheel of ministry
without making any detours. On a personal note, throughout my
ministry career I've been offered all kinds of partnerships and different ventures
but I always refuse because it would be a distraction.
I don't want to be concerned about anything other than my family
and my ministry. I do not want to be distracted
from preaching the gospel and ministering to the church.
So persevering in preaching the Word, persevering
in ministry and the effective preacher, highly effective preacher, also
knows how to persevere in the love
of the church. There are many more comments by Paul to Timothy in both
his letters about being a good preacher,
enough to fill out this entire lesson and a couple others.
Suffice to say that the most effective preachers that I've ever met
and seen work are those who actually
love the Lord's church. Understand what I'm saying? Not just, "well they're good speakers
and so they want to speak,"
but they actually love the people, they love Christians, they love the Lord's church.
No matter how they are treated, whether they have preached in a big or a small church,
whether they've been in the Bible Belt or in the mission field,
effective preachers continue to love the Lord's church
and sacrifice themselves for it.
No matter how much education you have or how skilled a speaker you are,
if you do not love the church, you cannot be effective
as a minister. People can sense this
and they'll respond to you accordingly. And so
effective preachers, those who are effective
in the work, are those who love the church
and persevere in loving the church despite the things that happen.
So let's summarize here. There are a lot of people who wear the name
minister or preacher. Colleges and preacher training schools are producing
a new crop every year,
but effective preachers achieve success
because they have cultivated 3 important habits.
Number one, they continually purify themselves through prayer
and the cleansing Word of God. Number two,
they continually preach the gospel with enthusiasm
and avoid debates over issues and personalities.
And three, they continually persevere
in teaching the word to others, serving
others, and promoting the Church of Christ to the world.
This is what they're about, this is what is central
about them. Let's face it, if the only thing that you remember about the
preacher is his hobby or his passion for football,
if all you remember, "Oh yeah, brother Joe, he was great preacher,
yeah, yeah, oh he loved football. I remember the time at the game we did this and he
used to coach the kids," if you don't remember
him for his passion for Christ rather than his passion for football, something's wrong there.
Of course, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to successful ministry.
Things like people skills and getting in touch with the
culture of the people you're preaching to, so on and so forth,
however, the habits that I've just spoken of,
a man will not become effective in ministry no matter how many friends he
has in the church or how he fits into the local scene
if he doesn't cultivate these 3 basic
habits. Let's move on to effective elders. We're going to do both of these in
this particular session. Now it's difficult to say all that needs to be said about the role the elder so I'm
going to have to summarize and compress my comments
into 4 key habits for effective elders, so I had
3 key habits for the preachers, 4 key habits for the elders,
ends up giving you seven.
So let's begin right away, shall we? Habit number one, highly effective elders
are on guard. Highly effective elders are
on guard. Let's go to Acts shall we? Switch over, go to Acts
chapter 20, let's read verse 28 to 30. Paul is speaking to elders,
his kind of farewell speech to them
and he says to them in chapter 20 verse 28 he says
"Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock,
among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God
which He purchased with his own blood.
I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw
away the disciples after them." So in this particular passage Paul calls the elders together and he
exhorts them to be on guard, to be
on guard. And so effective elders, highly effective elders, first and foremost
the habit that they cultivate is that they are on guard.
first of all they're on guard for themselves.
Effective elders watch themselves and their conduct
and their attitude first and foremost. Elders who are not seen as
striving to grow and develop in personal spiritual maturity
have no respect among the brethren and without respect
they cannot be effective. They can be the elder but the
question is being an effective elder. The church will be patient and
forgiving with a man and his weakness if he is striving to
improve it. More elders lose their effectiveness because they mistakenly
think that being an elder
excuses them from having to deal with sinful habits or sinful character traits
such as pride or laziness or gossip or being angry or aggressive or worldly
and that's not so. So elders have to be on guard and the first thing they guard
is themselves. Secondly they guard the flock. Effective elders
understand that once they become elders they have to change their priorities.
Many times men take on the eldership and they see it as like
an extra duty, like a religious hobby that they kind of add to all the other activities,
but eldership is much like marriage, it changes your whole life
and it changes your schedule. The most
effective elders are those that guard the flock
24 hours a day, seven days a week, not just on Sunday
and on Wednesday. It's not a part time job, it's a full-time job.
You can't be effective as a shepherd without being deeply involved
in the lives of the sheep seven days a week.
Effective elders on guard, they guard themselves
they guard the sheep, they guard the Word. Note in Paul's encouragement in meeting
with them that there was no talk about buildings or money or programs things like that,
these were matters that the deacons were concerned about. We'll talk about that in our next section.
Effective elders concerned themselves about their ongoing personal spiritual development.
They concerned about the need and the direction of the spiritual lives of the members
and the accurate teaching and preaching of God's Word.
And so effective eldering requires men who resist the temptation to do the more
tangible work that belongs to the deacons
and tackle the more challenging and demanding work of building the kingdom
within the members. Too many elders regressed to
being deacons, because it's easier to be a deacon
instead of going forward and doing the shepherding work which is more
difficult. It may not be more difficult physically
but it's more difficult spiritually and emotionally.
The word tells us that effective elders accept
and excel in guarding themselves, guarding the church, in guarding the Word
against the world, against the forces of evil
and darkness. And so in order to be highly effective,
elders must first of all be on guard. Habit number two,
effective elders are on duty.
They're on duty. Now this is a personal observation
but I've noticed that the most successful elders are the ones who carry the Shepherd's staff
wherever they go, in other words, their lives
are defined by their role as elders in the church.
You see it in the way they talk, you see it in the way they act, you see it in the way they
react to things, in or out at the church.
Some elders are elders when they're in the building or when they're at an elders meeting,
but effective elders are elders at ball games
or picnics or work. Wherever they are no other role, whether it be
in their job or their favorite hobby, no other role
is more emphatic then their role as elder.
In other words, when they share with other people that they serve
as elders in their church, people are not surprised.
If you say, "well I'm an elder in my church" and people say,
"Really? Man I would of never guessed that," well there's a problem.
What you want is "Oh, well I thought you're the type of man that would probably
serve in that way." So elders who are
on duty realize that in this world
there are so many lost sheep looking for a shepherd
and they have been ordained by God to find these lost sheep wherever they are. And so,
highly effective elders are on guard, they're on duty,
highly effective elders are also on fire.
Third habit, they're on fire. Let's go to Acts
shall we? This time let's go back to Acts chapter 13,
read a very important passage there. Acts chapter 13
beginning in verse 1. It says,
"Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers:
Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene,
and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch,
and Saul. While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,
'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.'
Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid hands on them,
they sent them away." Now I read these passages rather
to point out that the elders, it says they had prophets and teachers, teachers there
refers to elders. I read this passage to point out that
elders were involved in the great mission work of Paul
to the Gentiles. Now we read that, we kind of gloss over it because
we're in a hurry to read about what Paul was doing,
but you have to understand at that time
it took great courage to encourage and support
this type of activity for Jewish Christians,
but they were enthusiastic for the gospel and therefore
they sent Paul out. This was not a great popular thing to send somebody out
to preach to Gentiles. So it took great courage to do this.
So many times elderships are reduced to being just decision-making
bodies that give thumbs up or thumbs down
for budget items instead, carpet color, that type of thing
instead of being on the leadership edge of launching new ideas and efforts
to seek and save the lost and minister to the saints;
elders that are kind of fired up about evangelism
or helping the poor or strengthening the church
or providing the kind of leadership that people will follow.
Effective elders lead by example,
but highly effective elders
lead by inspiration and inspiration is what
leads the church to do great things
for God. These elders, these teachers here
in Acts chapter 13 that was inspired leadership
to lay hands and to commend Paul to go forward
on this mission work that would
cause a lot of consternation in the church at the beginning,
preaching to the Gentiles, very difficult thing.
Alright so, effective elders are on guard,
they're on duty, they're on fire, and then habit number 4, effective elders are on the same track.
On the same track. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 2, Paul says the following, he says,
'With all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace." So in this passage we see that Paul understood
that when you take people who are divided by culture,
divided by social position, divided by education
each with their own sinful flesh, when you take people that have all these characteristics
and you try to make one unified body out of all these separate parts,
you're going to have to work at it, it's not going to be easy to unify
people that have these traits. It is
no different with elders and their efforts to work together
as a unified group. Why do you think
that the qualifications for eldership stressed those things that enable a man to get along with
other men. In First Timothy chapter 3 verse 2 to 7, we're not going to read it,
but there he lists 16 qualifications
for an elder candidate, and of these sixteen,
8 qualifications referred to his ability to relate to other people,
especially other elders, because these are the men he will spend a lot of time with.
So what I'm saying is, effective elders are those who truly
are temperate and prudent and hospitable,
not addicted to wine, or anything for that matter,
not confrontational, not argumentative,
not self-willed, you know "my way or the highway" type people,
not proud, meaning they can admit mistakes, they can
apologize when they're wrong and so
effective elders work on their relationship
with each other. They invest time and effort
into this for many reasons. First of all
causing division and conflict among the elders is always the first plan of attack for Satan,
that's why it's so important for elders to be on the same track,
to work at the unity that they need to have together
in order to provide unified leadership.
They're always under attack by Satan. Satan understands if he can break up the eldership,
it's just another step to break up the church. And so effective elders
work on this unity idea. Eldering also
is a group task, not an individual task,
so the more unified and team-oriented the eldership is,
the more successful they are and the more successful they are as individual elders.
Your success as an elder, your relative success as an elder,
is based on your relative ability to work with the team,
to work with the group. And then finally, the church
is a reflection of the eldership. A divided,
do nothing eldership is going to produce the same kind of congregation.
So effective elders recognize that a healthy,
open, unified group of elders is biblical in nature
and a source of comfort and confidence to the congregation.
When we were kids, we didn't like to see our parents argue, right?
If you saw Mom and Dad arguing and shouting at each other, it was kind of
frightening, it was very
disconcerting wasn't it? Well believe it or not, we don't like to see our elders arguing either.
We don't like to see division among our elders, it frightens
the congregation. So effective elders not only know this,
but they take concrete steps to maintain that unity of the Spirit
and they work diligently at keeping the peace among themselves
and they do it for the love of Christ and the sheep that He died for and into
their hands the Lord has put certain responsibility for them.
Alright, so let's summarize this part, obviously again,
so much more could be said about the very important subject
of elders, but these four, these four critical habits will suffice.
Effective eldering requires that men
be on guard each day for the spiritual well-being of themselves, the church,
and the teaching of the Word. Effective elders need to be on fire
in order to inspire the church with their zeal to serve the Lord and the church
and the lost. If elders don't inspire, who's going to inspire us?
You can't subcontract out inspiration. Inspiration has to come from within
the congregation. You can't hire inspiration.
And of course, they have to be a force for unity and peace and reconciliation
for the leadership as well as for the entire
church. And so, effective leadership in the church
is the first key to growth because the church cannot grow
beyond its leadership. Alright, well I hope that
you'll continue to pray and support your eldership, whoever is watching this.
I hope that those people who are hearing this lesson today,
I hope that you'll always support and accept
your elders, pray for them, encourage them,
help them to be more and more effective
as the years go by. Alright, so that's session number two,
the habits of highly effective preachers, ministers,
and the habits of highly effective elders. Our next session we're going to deal
with deacons and I hope you'll be with us for that. Thank you.