Another good Dutch saying…
Ξ April 16th, 2006 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Theology |
I just came across anther good quote from Mr. Dutch Sheets. It goes like this…
”We can run our churches and ministries from the boardroom or the prayer room. The first produces the works of man, the other births a move of God.”
- Dutch Sheets, The River of God (Regal Books, 1998), p 194
I fear that the structure of most Anglican churches seek to run the church through a boardroom. A boardroom in which there is prayer. In most Anglican churches, there are no elders (people who are appointed by leadership to be spiritual directors). There is a priest, the wardens, and a vestry (church board). THe wardens are appointed, but are not delgated with eldership - in fact sometimes they are not all the spiritually mature at all. The vestry are a voting body that manage the money and the property. They are not expected to have very much spirit in their decisions with the exeption of the blanket prayer that gets prayer at the beginning of every meeting.
I think its clear that the better way to handle church leadership is to run it from a prayer room in which decisions are made. Prayer must be the priority over business. If we are going to have vestries, we need to also have other people who are appointed to lead the church from a spiritual standpoint, and I don’t feel that one priest or pastor can carry that role all by himself. In fact, when considering the whole accountability thing, churches would be far better off with a group of elders that were headed but not dictated by a head pastor or priest.
The elders would set out to pray together regularly and seek vision and direction for the church. They then had that direction down to the vestry and the various other ministries in the church that need to understand the direction of the church (so pretty well all of them).
THis would be prayer room church as opposed to a boardroom church that basis most of it’s decisions on finances and the democratic process. Jesus wasn’t democratic and neither were his disciples. Don’t get me wrong, it works for government, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for churches.
Happy Easter everyone!