CAN A CHURCH BE AN EFFICTIVE CHURCH WITH OUT A PASTOR???

[PASTOR CHARLES E BELL JR]

THERE WAS ONCE A VACENT CHURCH AND THE DEC STATE TO A VISTING PREACHER THAT A CHURCH DO NOT NEED A PASTOR IT CAN BE RAN BY THE DEC BOARD. WHAT IS YOUR INPUT ON THIS CAN A CHURCH BE EFFICTIVE WITHOUT A PASTOR. WHAT WOULD YOU HANDLE THIS?

[Eric Hancock]

It is only within the past two centuries that Jews who embraced New Testament faith could -or would- begin to struggle to reaffirm the original New Testament view of a Jewish distinctive as valid within the Church. In apostolic times and briefly AFTERWARD the Jewish believer in Yeshua, while subject to sometimes fierce opposition within the mainstream Jewish community could also still live within the Jewish community, as tile New Testament and early Church history demonstrate.’
For the entire Medieval era, however, and until tile period of Jewish Emancipation (roughly beginning 1790), both Church and Synagogue and Jewish and Gentile establishments collaborated to make it physically and socially impossible for Jewish believers to remain in any practical sense within the Jewish community, or to maintain ties with it.

By the 19th century the power of religious establishments was broken, or seriously weakened, by reformation, disestablishment and secular revolution. It was as inevitable that sincere Yeshua-believing Jews and their Gentile Friends would seek to restore the ancient truths concerning Jewish identity; namely, that it is bound up with a divine program of vital importance to the Church and to the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. ‘They asserted that the unity of all members of the Messianic body does not require Jewish believers hi Yeshua to sacrifice their distinctiveness, but rather to be a vital Jewish remnant within the life of Israel and the Church.

“SO TOO, AT THIS PRESENT TIME THERE 1S A REMNANT CHOSEN BY GRACE...” (Romans 11:5)
It was on the basis of the “Elijah remnant” (w.2-4) that the apostle had affirmed Jewish continuity within the Church and within Israel.During the 19th century and after, these Gentile friends, predominantly from West Europe and North America, also foresaw the imminent restoration of Jewish national life and the return of Israel’s exiles to tile national homeIand.’ Indeed, modem Jewish national restoration has been tile womb for the development of various schemes for Jewish spiritual renewal, among them modern Hebrew Christianity and Messianic Judaism. This essay will deal with these last two developments, which in the writer’s view are but the forerunners of the restored remnant which bad existed in the days of the apostle Paul. Just as tile national restoration of Israel has involved an amazing complex of religious and secular ideologies, as well as various practical endeavors and often violent cross-currents within the movement, the struggle for a New Covenant restoration has not been lacking in complexity and crosscurrents.

THE GREAT DIVIDE
The great divide within it has been the relationship between its two major components: Jewish and Messianic (or Christian). In principle, there should be no division between the two. Certainly, the disciples of Yeshua and the apostles and writers of the New Testament (as distinct from their later interpreters) saw no contradiction between the two. They did not see themselves as "former Jews”. The concept of ”completed Jews” is a modern term, but it was inherent in their thinking.
“For the hope of Israel am I bound in this chain.” (Acts 28:20) This was Paul’s declaration to the Roman Jewish leadership he had invited to meet with him upon his arrival in Rome as a prisoner. Some 19 centuries of Jewish and Christian history, however, now stand between the New Testament principle and Hebrew Christian renewal. Aside from a few dating attempts to create distinctly Jewish fellowships in the Diaspora and Israel, until recently the main impetus has been to try to transmit Western Evangelical currents into Jewish cultural and religious frameworks.
During this period the secularization of Jewish life, with its tendency towards pluralism and an often tolerant indifference to religious issues, has impelled most Hebrew Christians to assimilate into Christian churches. Well-meaning Jewish and Gentile Christians may whitewash the problem by simplistic pronouncements that “Christianity is Jewish”’. They ignore the things which have happened in the life of both communities which have polarized them. The Jewish world of today, like its Christian counterpart, is more than a mere extension in time of the New Testament era with only minor cultural and technological changes. Only a small minority have opted for a loose affiliation with interdenominational Hebrew Christian alliances and similar fellowships. The fact remains that today most Diaspora Hebrew Christians are as unaffiliated to existing Hebrew Christian organizations as most secular Jews are unaffiliated to existing Jewish mainstream frameworks. There have been ongoing massive national and religions losses to the forces of assimilation in both frameworks.

It is true that Christianity was born within the Jewish people and within a stream of ancient Judaism. Even when it went out among Gentile proselytes, Godfearers and pagans, it affirmed its Jewish roots in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the contemporary first-century Judaism conveyed by its Jewish founders. The watershed decision of the strongly Judaistic Jerusalem leadership, as
recorded in the Book of Acts (chapter 15), freed Gentile Christians from the demand by the “circumcision party” for Gentile conversion to mainstream Judaism as a condition for admission to the new movement. Jacob (James) counseled: “We should not trouble those of the gentiles who turn to God” (Acts 1 5; 19-2 1) With the consent of the council, a few restrictions were added to accommodate Jewish sensitivities. Significantly, the apostle noted that “Moses has in every city those who preach him, for he is read every Sabbath in the Synagogue.” It is intimated that Jewish followers of Yeshua were hearing Moses every Sabbath and were expected to continue to hear him, as indeed Paul and his companions repeatedly did.6

Meanwhile, Gentiles were finding ways of relating their Christian experience to very different situations and problems. Some of these are dealt with in the Pauline and other epistles, such as sexual and marital relations, congregational Order, attendance at pagan feasts, philosophical controversy, idolatry, and other aspects of non-Jewish lifestyles.’ By the middle of the second century the Jewish believers had experienced with other Jews the consequences of two failed Zealot revolts against Rome, the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and the monopolization of Judaism by the Pharasaic-rabbinic party, with its claim to be the sole heir of Mosaic Judaism. It was that Judaism which was to become the stream that would shape Jewish life and religion almost exclusively until the 19th century.

At the same time, the Church was making powerful inroads into Gentile societies throughout the ancient world, and especially within the framework of the Roman Empire. New forms of Christianity were developing, often violently antagonistic to mainstream Judaism, Nazarene Judeo-Christianity, and most things Jewish. Christianity was becoming as distant as possible from everything Jewish. The Marcionite heresy, the logical extreme of this tendency, attempted to sever all ties between the Church and its Jewish roots (including the Hebrew Scriptures and whatever reflected them in the New Testament), but was formally rc3ected. A back-door Marcionism, however, re-entered the Church, and still prevails in many Christian circles, whereby the Church as the “true Israel” appropriates to itself everything positive about Israel in the Scriptures, and nothing but condemnation is left for the Jews themselves. or total assimilation into the Gentile Church. Similarly, the monophysite heresy - that there is only one divine nature in Christ, and his humanity is of no consequence - was rejected by most of the Church it too crept back into the Church, with the Jewish humanity of Yeshua all but submerged in theological dogmas in Orthodox, conservative Catholic and Evangelical circles. He often appears as merely God in disguise as a man, and the very human conflict in his mission is all but concealed from view. While the mystery if the Incarnation of the Son of God both in its literary and physical aspects, is not easy to hold in, balance, Hebrew Christians and many Messianic Jews often lean theologically to the traditional Christian tendency to
emphasize Messiah’s divinity at the expense of his humanity.
This tendency may be understandable in view of modernist attempt to conform Christian faith to modern secularism with its abhorrence of divinity. At the same time there is a collaboration with the long-standing Christian avoidance of confronting the earthly life and teachings of Yeshua, which are relevant not only for Jews but for all people.

EVANGELICAL MOVEMENTS AND JEWISH LIFE
It is often claimed that the Reformed Church, especially the Evangelical movement within it, has restored the Church to its New Testament purity. Without minimizing the significance of reformation and renewal in the post-medieval Church, including some of the unreformed churches much remains in Christianity which is alien to New Covenant Judaism.
Evangelical Christianity for good reason and bad, is not a uniformly positive factor for Jewish life, whether in a Hebrew Christian or a Messianic Jewish phase. First of all, it expresses the historical experiences, the culture, the theological emphases of on-Jewish peoples, mainly from Western Europe and North America.

Indeed, it was the above-mentioned Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) and the inspired work of the Pauline party, which paved the way for a truly diverse international Chuicl, freed from the narrow vision of the Judaizers who saw only the Jewish aspect of the prophesied end-time. it was therefore inevitable that non-Jewish Christians would experience their faith, and the struggle to express it, within a variety of contexts outside Jewish life and experience.
We can even see beyond the serious theological issues in the Great Schism between Eastern and Western churches, as well as in the 1Bth century Reformation dividing Protestant Noab Europe from Latinited South Europe, Which was to a large extent an expression of diverse peoples seeking to experience their Christian faith in harmony with their ethnic cultures “rather than being forced into alien Latin frameworks.

Ideally, a strong Jewish body within the Church would have continued to provide, like the Jerusalem Church described in Acts, the checks and balances Out of the Jewish experience to help the newer Gentile churches avoid the pitfalls of paganism, and continue in good rapport with the mother Church. For it was out of their Jewish national and religious experience that the Jewish apostles
and teachers of New Testament times disseminated a universal message. Their sources were found in the Hebrew Scriptures, contemporary Jewish ways of handling them, and a Jewish lifestyle, which was an essential part of their being. This ideal was not to be realized, and The Jewish Christian component within the Church and the Synagogue was eventually extinguished. By the time the Church became a truly international presence and force in the world, there was no Jerusalem Church, nor any other vital Jewish entity within it, to inform, exhort, warn, counteract pagan inroads, and no less important, to combat the blatant rejection of the apostle Paul’s appeal to the Church “to provoke Israel to jealousy (Romans 10:19; 11:11,14), and to avoid boasting against the Jewish people: “God has not rejected his people whom He foreknew…Boast not against the (Jewish) branches…for the gifts and call of God are irrevocable..." (Romans 11:1,17,29)
Unfortunately, there have also been bad reasons, which have persisted within Evangelicalism to make it a negative factor in the struggle for Jewish spiritual restoration from a New Covenant perspective. Evangelicalism retains within it remnants of medieval negatives towards the Jewish people which date back to the early Church Fathers. They may not necessarily be derived from conscious Anti-Semitism, but reflect ancient unbiblical theological attitudes towards the Jewish people and its place in the divine program. In 1974, for example, at a major conference of committed Evangelicals in Lausanne, Switzerland a wide range of issues, including evangelism, civil liberties, and cultural respect, ignored any reference to Jews in its comprehensive “Lausanne Covenant”. This, despite attempts by several participants to include a totally biblical paragraph respecting the special relationship between the Church and the Jews. In 1989 at Lausanne Ii in Manila, the conference again ignored an earlier call to include a reference to the Jewish people in its initial draft of a Manifesto, but finally yielded to a call for Jewish evangelism and a denunciation of two-covenant theology only

[Eric Hancock]

MINISTER BUSBY
ONE SHOULD BE CALLED TO LEAD A CHURCH

THE TWO HAVE DIFFERENT CONCEPTS
The relationship between the fit of the church/synagogue member with his/her congregation and the psychosocial competence of the member was studied. The religious leader from each of 12 congregations (four Jewish, four Protestant, and four Roman Catholic) nominated approximately six members who fit well within the congregation (central members) and six members who fit less well (peripheral members) according to a set of guidelines. One hundred thirty-three (133) congregation members, 77 central and 56 peripheral, participated. Central and peripheral members displayed significantly different psychosocial competence characteristics. However, neither central nor peripheral members manifested uniformly greater effectiveness across all of the competence scales. Specifically, central members indicated greater satisfaction with their congregation, a greater sense of control by God, and a lower level of efficacy, coping skills, and sense of control by chance. The findings suggest to change agents that the process of helping an individual fit within a system may be associated with negative as well as positive consequences for his/her effective functioning. This view conflicts with the notion that fit corresponds to psychological well-being, and points to the importance of studying the relationship between fit and multidimensional criteria of psychosocial competence across a variety of settings.

[Eric Hancock]

PASTORS RESPONSIBILITY

The responsibilities of elders and licensed pastors are derived from the authority given in ordination. Elders have a four-fold ministry of Word, Sacrament, Order and Service within the connection and thus serve in the church and the world. Local pastors share with the elders the responsibilities and duties of a pastor for this four-fold ministry.
1. Word and ecclesial acts:
a) To preach the Word of God, lead in worship, read and teach the Scriptures, and engage the people in study and witness.24
(1) To ensure faithful transmission of the Christian faith.
(2) To lead people in discipleship and evangelistic outreach that others might come to know Christ and to follow him.
b) To counsel persons with personal, ethical, or spiritual struggles.
c) To perform the ecclesial acts of marriage and burial.
(1) To perform the marriage ceremony after due counsel with the parties involved and in accordance with the laws of the state and the rules of The United Methodist Church. The decision to perform the ceremony shall be the right and responsibility of the pastor.
(2) To conduct funeral and memorial services and provide care and grief counseling.
d) To visit in the homes of the church and the community, especially among the sick, aged, imprisoned, and others in need.
e) To maintain all confidences inviolate, including confessional confidences except in the cases of suspected child abuse or neglect, or in cases where mandatory reporting is required by civil law.
2. Sacrament:
a) To administer the sacraments of baptism and the Supper of the Lord according to Christ's ordinance.
(1) To prepare the parents and sponsors before baptizing infants or children, and instruct them concerning the significance of baptism and their responsibilities for the Christian training of the baptized child.
(2) To encourage reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant and renewal of baptismal vows at different stages of life.
(3) To encourage people baptized in infancy or early childhood to make their profession of faith, after instruction, so that they might become professing members of the church.
(4) To explain the meaning of the Lord's Supper and to encourage regular participation as a means of grace to grow in faith and holiness.
(5) To select and train deacons and lay members to serve the consecrated communion elements.
b) To encourage the private and congregational use of the other means of grace.
3. Order:
a) To be the administrative officer of the local church and to assure that the organizational concerns of the congregation are adequately provided for.
(1) To give pastoral support, guidance, and training to the lay leadership, equipping them to fulfill the ministry to which they are called.
(2) To give oversight to the educational program of the church and encourage the use of United Methodist literature and media.
(3) To be responsible for organizational faithfulness, goal setting, planning and evaluation.
(4) To search out and counsel men and women for the ministry of deacons, elders, local pastors and other church related ministries.
b) To administer the temporal affairs of the church in their appointment, the annual conference, and the general church.
(1) To administer the provisions of the Discipline.
(2) To give an account of their pastoral ministries to the charge and annual conference according to the prescribed forms.
(3) To provide leadership for the funding ministry of the congregation.
(4) To promote faithful, financial stewardship and to encourage giving as a spiritual discipline.
(5) To lead the congregation in the fulfillment of its mission through full and faithful payment of all apportioned ministerial support, administrative, and benevolent funds.
(6) To care for all church records and local church financial obligations, and certify the accuracy of all financial, membership, and any other reports submitted by the local church to the annual conference for use in apportioning costs back to the church.
c) To participate in denominational and conference programs and training opportunities.
(1) To seek out opportunities for cooperative ministries with other United Methodist pastors and churches.
(2) To be willing to assume supervisory responsibilities within the connection.
d) To lead the congregation in racial and ethnic inclusiveness.
4. Service:
a) To embody the teachings of Jesus in servant ministries and servant leadership.
b) To give diligent pastoral leadership in ordering the life of the congregation for discipleship in the world.
c) To build the body of Christ as a caring and giving community, extending the ministry of Christ to the world.
d) To participate in community, ecumenical and inter-religious concerns and to encourage the people to become so involved and to pray and labor for the unity of the Christian community.

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

hmmm... what was the difference between the synagogue and the church in the New Testatment?

They were two different entities within the same culture as well as within a culture that was being birthed (the merging of both Jews and Gentiles)

So... what was the outcome of the merging of the two as far as structure in the "house of God"?

[PASTOR CHARLES E BELL JR]

BUT DID GOD APPOINT THEM TO TO BE THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH TO ASSIST DONT MEAN TO BE THE HEAD DO IT

[Eric Hancock]

A Pastor or Elder must be elected
1) The elders help to settle disputes in the church. “While Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch of Syria, some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the Christians 'unless you keep the ancient Jewish custom of circumcision taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.' Paul and Barnabas, disagreeing with them, argued forcefully and at length. Finally, Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem, accompanied by some local believers, to talk to the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:1-2, NLT). The question was raised and forcefully argued, then taken to the apostles and elders for a decision. This passage teaches that elders are decision makers.

2) They pray for the sick. "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:14). Since the elders have to meet specific qualifications, their lives are godly and therefore the sin in their lives is minimal and is confessed regularly; therefore, they are used to pray for the sick. One of the necessities in prayer is praying for the Lord’s will to be done, and they are expected to do this.

3) They are to watch out for the church in humility. "I exhort the elders who are among you, I being also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God among you, taking the oversight, not by compulsion, but willingly; nor for base gain, but readily; nor as lording it over those allotted to you by God, but becoming examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:1-4). Elders are the designated leaders of the church, and the flock is entrusted to them by God. They are not to lead for the pay or the reward but because of their desire to serve and shepherd the flock.

4) They are to watch out for the spiritual life of the flock. "Yield to those leading you, and be submissive, for they watch for your souls, as those who must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief; for that is unprofitable for you" (Hebrews 13:17). This verse does not specifically say “elders,” but it is talking about the church leaders. They are accountable for the spiritual life of the church.

5) They are to spend their time in prayer and teaching the word. "And the Twelve called near the multitude of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word’” (Acts 6:2-4). This is for the apostles, but we can see from the passage above in #3 that Peter equates himself as an apostle and an elder. From this verse you can also see the difference between the duties of elder and deacon.

Simply put, the elders should be peacemakers, prayer warriors, teachers, leaders by example, and decision makers. They are the preaching and teaching leaders of the church. It is a position to be sought but not taken lightly—read this warning: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1). The role of elder is not a position to be taken lightly.

[Eric Hancock]

the Deacon can be in Charge until a Pastor has been Elected

Duties and Service

According to Scripture a Deacon has many duties and roles for service within the church (Matt. 20:16-28). I have outlined below some duties of a Deacon:

A. Caring for the people, other Christians and especially for other members of the congregation, for three reasons, first, for the physical well being of those concerned, second, for their spiritual well-being, and third: as a witness to those outside (Jn.13:13).

B. To head off disunity in the church (Acts 6:1-4). To build up one another and encourage one another (Rom. 1:11-12) for the common good, edifying and uniting the church in the ministry of Deacons (1 Cor. 14:26).

C. To support the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:3). Deacons will serve the church as a whole by helping with responsibilities that the main teachers cannot perform. They should fundamentally encourage and support the ministry of the Elders.

D. Assist the Elders in administering the Lord’s Supper (Jn. 12:2; Lk. 10:40, 17:8; Acts 6:1-2).

[HOPE - Psalm 43:5]

I wonder... did the churches in the book of Acts and in the Pauline Epistles look anything like what we have today?

What were the difference between the temple of the OT, the synagogues and then churches of the NT??

I don't mean sacrifices but I mean structure and hierarchy?

What's the difference in the way the western world "does church" and the rest of the the Believers in the world?

Maybe we are talking about a symptom or the fruit and not the root cause of what you are mentioning Pastor Bell.

[Ladyjd721]

I believe that every church should have a covering by a man of God.It is not the deacons job to head the church but to assist the head of the church