Church and Management

Church and Management

There has been an incorporation of Corporate/Political style management into the Church over the last century that has been to the detriment of the gospel, discipleship, and the Church. My hope is that as you read this that the Lord with the accompaniment of the Holy Spirit may reveal what is being taught here even though this may fly into the face of the majority of Churches and Christians today to teach you how to lead.

What Jesus taught to us and later revealed to us through the Gospels and Epistles is that leadership in the Church should be a servant-leader. Corporate/Political leadership has the top down effect. The leader on top and everyone else below in their subservient roles. The servant-leader is the opposite of this. The servant-leader is the servant to everyone else or has the bottom up approach. Which means that the lives and agendas of others takes precedence over the servant-leader. The servant-leader holds others in higher esteem then oneself (Philippians 2:3-4). In Ephesians 4:11-13 the Churches plan is for leadership to give towards others so that others will do the work of the ministry. The purpose of this is so the body will be built up, reach unity in the faith, knowledge of the Son of God, become mature, and attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

In Ephesians 1:22-23 Paul describes the Church as Jesus Christ being the head over everything for the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. You take one person not being allowed to be taught and matured will not allow the fullness of Christ to be represented. The servant-leader who gets in the way and does not allow to have someone else’s life to take precedence will stop the process of maturity and fullness of Christ from happening.

Matthew 20:25-28 shows Jesus Christ teaching us this very principal of the bottom up approach to leadership. Jesus after learning that the Son’s of Thunder (James and John) wanted to sit at Jesus’ right and left proposed an alternate method of leadership. Present day leadership wants to Lord it over you and exercise authority over you but it should not be with you (talking with Jesus’ disciples). But Jesus continues and says if any of you want to be great in the kingdom than one must be servant and even slave to all. Jesus then tells the disciples that He did not come to be served but to serve. Jesus takes an additional step by saying that His life is to be given as ransom to others.  Price for redeeming or liberating slaves, captives, property, life is to die to oneself.  Jesus described his entire ministry as one of service in giving his Life as a ransom for many (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45).

There is a cost to a servant-leader and that is to promote others above oneself. That oneself is to die to their own life. The rest of the life of a servant-leader is to help others reach the fullness of Christ. When one loves others above oneself is producing the new commandment in John 13:34-35; John 15:12 that tells us we are to love others as Christ has loved us. Christ loves others by ransoming His life so that others will benefit. How much are you or your Church leadership giving or ransoming their lives to benefit others above their own life, positions, and agendas?

It saddens me and am sure that it grieves the Holy Spirit that most Churches, ministries, and para-church ministries want the Holy Spirit to move but He does not. Most of the time it is due to the management style of that ministry. When it is using the worldly way of management and not the Jesus taught way of management the people are being controlled and held back. Thus squashing or grieving the Holy Spirit in that particular person or churches  life. When that happens exponentially across the board then the Holy Spirit is stopped in His tracks. Those ministries need to stop being conformed to this world and let the Jesus management style of His church to run free. Where there is freedom, there is the Holy Spirit being set loose to do the job that God has sent Him to do. We as leaders need to come along side of and help others to grow even at our own cost. True discipleship is in the servant-leadership form. The question to ask is are you or your Church using and demonstrating this type of management style? If not, then what are you going to do about it?

Without the Resurrection of Jesus Christ then all is Vain!

Without the Resurrection of Jesus Christ then all is Vain!

1 Corinthians 15:12-16
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.


How can anyone deny something that has already happened? Jesus was resurrected. This was one of the pillars of Paul’s message and the pillar of Christianity itself. Without the resurrection, then all is in vain. It was amazing to Paul that those who had heard the Resurrection preached would reject such a doctrine. Likewise today, it’s amazing that people would turn away from such a comforting truth that fills our lives with hope. The only people to whom no resurrection would be appealing are those who are fearful of punishment if there is a resurrection and they have to give an account of their actions. This fear is always the motivating factor behind those who oppose the resurrection. If there is no eternity, then they can live like animals because there will be no eternal damnation. Such is not the case.

Paul tied our future physical resurrection together with the resurrection of Jesus in an inseparable way (1 Corinthians 15:16). He was saying that anyone who does not believe in the bodily resurrection of all mankind does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. There can be no salvation without believing in the resurrection of Jesus (Romans 10:9), so a person who does not believe that everyone will be physically resurrected cannot be a Christian.

This put the Corinthians who had believed this lie in an awkward place. They either had to reject the lie about no resurrection or they had to reject Jesus. They could not have it both ways. This still holds true today.

Paul made denying our bodily resurrection equal to denying the physical resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:13). This verse shows the consequences of denying Christ’s resurrection: It makes the Gospel vain (“not successful; futile,” American Heritage Dictionary) and faith vain. The Corinthians who had had life-changing encounters with Jesus would have known that this certainly was not true, and they would have been forced to reject this false idea that there is no resurrection.



Out of the thirteen sermons to unbelievers recorded in the book of Acts, eleven clearly mention the Resurrection. In the two sermons that remain, it was not mentioned, but it was implied. Why is the Resurrection so important?

First of all, the resurrection of Jesus makes Christianity different from religion because we are dealing with a real, alive person, not just principles. As John said in 1 John 1:1-3, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Christianity is fellowship with a real person who is alive.

Second, forgiveness of sins is not obtained by a doctrine but by Christ Himself (Matthew 9:2, 6; and Acts 5:31). If Jesus did not rise from the dead, He cannot give salvation to us. However, He did rise from the dead, and now He lives forever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25).

Third, it is Christ living in us (Galatians 2:20) that gives us power to live victorious lives (Romans 8:9). If there were no resurrection, there would be no power.

Fourth, there are a number of scriptures that link our own spiritual resurrection (i.e., being born again, John 3:3) with that of Christ’s (Ephesians 2:1-6; Colossians 2:13, 3:1; and Romans 6:1-11). According to Scripture, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we cannot be saved (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Last, the resurrection life of Jesus is the guarantee of our physical regeneration (Romans 8:11). Because Jesus conquered death, the fear (Hebrews 2:15) and the sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:55) have been removed for us. This produces great comfort for those who believe (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

So, faith in the present-tense ministry of Jesus is essential to true Christianity and would be impossible if Jesus were not alive. Without Jesus being alive, Christianity would just be another dead religion.

But hallelujah! Jesus is raised from the dead, there is a resurrection of the dead, and we will reign with Christ eternally. So we are the most blessed of all men on the earth.