1993 Preachers Study Notes
It seems to me that successful relationships of all kinds are tied directly to the responsibilities incumbent upon all parties that are involved in the relationship. The only way that we can ever say that we have a good relationship is for someone who is a party to that relationship to understand what responsibility they bring to the relationship. When they understand what their responsibilities are and discharge those responsibilities, the relationship is enhanced.
Marriage, I think, is probably a good example. Marriage is a relationship between two people. The success of that relationship is tied directly to the husband understanding what his responsibilities are and discharging those responsibilities, as well as the wife understanding what her responsibilities are and discharging them. There can be no good relationship without that understanding and without the ultimate execution of those responsibilities. Before the relationship functions and flourishes as it should, the responsibility of each participant must be clearly defined.
I am convinced that one reason many relationships between churches and preachers go sour is because there is no clearly defined responsibility on the part of either or both. The church hires or sends a man to preach and says “Go preach.” The preacher says, “I will go preach.” Six months later the church wants to know “What have you done?” The preacher says, “I’ve been preaching.” The church says, “That’s not good enough — we want to know more about what you have done.” This is clearly an indication that the preacher did not fully understand what the church expected of him, and it may well be that the church did not understand what they expected of him. As a result, the relationship goes bad.
I am going to talk with you from the viewpoint, first of all, of the responsibilities that the sponsoring church has to the evangelist in the field. Expectations can only be fulfilled when all parties to a relationship understand and discharge their responsibility in that relationship. If there happens to be a church that wants to sponsor a work or a preacher in a location, here or abroad, the first obvious responsibility of the sponsoring church is the selection of the preacher. This may well be the most important step in a successful working relationship. I know it is certainly the most important step when you marry somebody, to marry somebody you can get along with. If you cannot get along with the person you marry, you have trouble from day one. If you select a preacher that you cannot get along with you have got problems to begin with. So the church needs to be very careful about the individual they select to do the work. They need the right person for that particular work. The church sponsoring the work should select, send, and oversee the preacher in the field as he carries on that work. In Acts 13 :3, “And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” This refers to the sending of Saul (Paul) and Barnabas to a certain work that the church had selected them to do,
Over in Acts 14:26-28, the Bible says:
“And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. And there they abode long time with the disciples.”
The selection process is something that we need to talk about for a while. Let me say first of all, the one selected for the work by the church must be qualified to do that work. According to 2 Timothy 2:2, that person must be faithful and capable of preaching the truth to bring about the desired results. “And the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” I believe that the church should know something about the background of the preacher they select to support. How has he done in other places? What is his track record? How has he gotten along in previous works? Did he accomplish what he set out to accomplish and was it a successful work? If a preacher has trouble everywhere he goes and has problems in every work he undertakes, sooner or later you become suspicious of the preacher. Surely, all the churches with whom he works are not bad. Surely, every work is not wrong. It may well be that there is something in his personality, or something in his make-up, or something in his outlook, that is creating a problem. I believe a church ought to know that before they select and send a preacher to do a work.
The church should select a man who is qualified to do the job that he is being sent to do. There are some jobs that I could do, and if you sent me to do them I believe I could do a good job. There are, however, some jobs that I am not qualified to do, and it doesn’t matter how much you like me or how much I like you, if you send me to do a job I can’t do, I will just not be able to do it. So the preacher you select needs to be qualified to do the work that you are sending him to do. To send someone who is not qualified is only to lay the groundwork for future difficulties I often hear brethren say, “Well, he was the very best we could get at the time.” I very humbly submit to you that the “very best at the time” may not be good enough. It will come to pass in time that you will realize that. Brethren often say, “We made a mistake.. we sent the wrong man,” because he was not equal to the job and he was not able to do it. I would suggest that we would all be better off if we waited for the right man — if we selected the right man for the right job — rather than sending the wrong man and weeping for that fact in years to come and over the mistakes that we had made.
Secondly it is the responsibly of the sponsoring church to support the preacher. The sponsoring church is responsible for supporting and for standing behind the preacher as he carries on the work in the field. There is really no greater letter, to my mind, in the New Testament, describing a successful relationship between a preacher and a church, than the Philippian letter. If you have ever read and studied the Philippian letter you will be impressed by the feelings that existed between the Apostle Paul and the brethren at Philippi. It was a wonderful relationship. They supported him time and again. In Philippines 4:10: “But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity Not withstanding you have well done, that you did communicate with my affliction. Now you Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but you only.”(Philippians 4:14-16).
Time and again Paul referred to the fact that this congregation had supported and cared for him. In Philippians 2:17-18 this same principle is reiterated. The last thing that the preacher needs to worry about in the field is whether or not he can pay his bills, whether or not he will be able to pay off the credit card, or whether or not he will be able to buy food for his family, or whether or not he will be able to clothe his children. He doesn’t need to be concerned about making ends meet. He needs to know that there is congregation behind him which is aware of the fact that he does have needs, and they committed themselves to take care of him and support him in that particular situation.
Thirdly, another responsibility of the sponsoring church is the establishment and definition of goals. This is the crucial part of this whole equation to my mind. The sending church must have a clear idea of what it is supporting and of its expectations of the preacher. By the same token, the missionary needs to know what the congregation expects of him and what he must expect of himself and how his performance is going to be measured. Often, if a preacher has no goals the road of least resistance will be traveled. Any activity will seem acceptable, and we tend to feel comfortable as long as there is motion on our part. If my employer were to come to me and ask me the question, “Ronny, how will your children do this year on the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test?”, and I were to say to them, “They’ll do the best they can!” I would be out of a job overnight, because they would not accept that as an acceptable goal. What my goal actually says is that eighty percent of my children will score at or above the eightieth percentile. That is a goal! I know when I have reached it and I know when I have not reached it. I know that what I do is working toward the fulfillment of that goal. I know whether or not what I am doing will help me achieve that goal or whether I am engaged in busy work. That may be good busy work but has absolutely no relationship to the goal I am committed to achieve or fulfill. It is thus imperative, brethren, that all involved in a mission effort sit down and work out in detail the goals and objectives of the proposed mission project. I believe these objectives must be measurable, they must be practical, and they must be clear. This is no time for generalization. To say that we are going to send a preacher to a certain place is no more meaningful than to say a shoe salesman is going to sell shoes. Now if a shoe salesman says he is going to sell shoes, he can sell one pair of shoes and he has done what he said he was going to do. If the salesman says, however, “I am going to average selling five pairs of shoes per day”; at the end of the day he knows whether he sold five pairs of shoes. He either achieved his goal, he exceeded his goal, or he did not make his goal. He has something by which to measure his work. The person who may be sending him knows whether or not he is achieving the goals that have been set.
I would be honest, I think, if I told you if you were to ask many men going off on missionary trips, what they are going for, they would merely reply “To preach the gospel.” I personally believe that is inadequate. We need more clearly defined objectives --- if we are going to be able to measure our success. To say “I am going off to preach the gospel” is noble sounding, however, how do I know whether or not I have accomplished what the church wants me to accomplish or what I want to accomplish, unless I define my goals more adequately than that. We need objectives that everyone clearly understands so that everyone knows what we are going to do. Are we going to try to establish a church in a certain place? Or are we sending a man to a mission field to strengthen a work that is already there and develop leadership in the churches? Or is he going for another reason? We need objectives because results cannot be measured without some prior expectations against which to judge them. There is just no way around that. The only way we are going to know what our results have been is if we measure them according to some expectation that we have already set up.
How do we gain our expectations in a mission field anyway? How do we know what we really want to accomplish? How do we know what we might even be able to accomplish? Well, we might ask whether there are any existing programs already in progress. How are they doing? What rate of success did they have? What denominations are here? Have they been successful in their endeavors? It would seem to me that if we go into an area where denominations have totally failed to make a dent in that culture or society, to say the least, we have an uphill battle. We know to start with that we are going into an area where people have rejected the teaching of others, even though it may not have been right, they have rejected religious teaching. We need a benchmark, somewhere to start, some goal in mind.
We must remember that there is a vast difference between performing tasks and reaching goals. You can stay busy twenty-four hours a day and never reach your goal. Unless the task contributes to the completion of the goal, what is its point? For example, a preacher might spend an entire day or week filled with activities that have no real relationship to the main objective at the mission site. He can report to the church that sent him how busy he has been, and that will be true. But the question is, “Is the preacher doing what they sent him there to do?” He can tell how many miles he has traveled, or how many sermons he has preached, but did he establish a church, or did he develop leadership? (If those were the goals for which he was sent.)
Many times we fail in our work, brethren, because we do not have clearly defined goals. The church really does not know what they should expect of the preacher, and then they become frustrated because he does not produce more than what he does, or he does not meet expectations that they have. The preacher becomes frustrated because he does not know for sure what the church wants him to do, and he is not exactly certain what the goal is all about. Does that mean if we fail in meeting a goal that the work has failed? Not at all. It just means that we set a goal, we tried to achieve that goal, we were able to measure the amount of success that we had, but we did not completely achieve or accomplish what we wanted to. I submit to you that it is far better than going off into a place not knowing what we want to do, and then becoming embroiled in misunderstanding and arguments because of that fact.
Fourth, I believe it is the responsibility of the sponsoring church to oversee and regulate the work. Part of the goal setting process must address those areas about which the sponsoring church needs to be consulted. For the missionary to act totally on his own without consideration for the wishes of the sponsoring church is to invite disaster. By the same token, for the sponsoring church to make demands of the preacher without first hand knowledge of the conditions and problems in the field, is foolish indeed. Such oversight will require on-site observation at times, if the church is to keep abreast of the needs of the work and the changes that take place in the work. Those observations cannot be made by telephone, telegraph, fax or letter. They need to be on-site investigations. I can tell you that it is very difficult for any of us to maintain total objectivity in any endeavor. It may look good to me, but you may walk up by my side, and in a matter of minutes see things that I have never seen. When you point them out to me I will be able to see them. I may have been objective, or I might have thought I was being objective. It is kind of like getting a second opinion from a doctor. Any doctor who is worth his salt is not only willing for you to get a second opinion, but would encourage you to do that so that he is sure that he has not overlooked something or misdiagnosed it. By the same token, any preacher in the field will gladly welcome brethren into that field to look at the work first hand, to see what the problems might be and what their recommendations might be. Any church that supports a work for years without any communication other than mail or phone, can never have a complete, accurate picture of what is going on. That is the responsibility of the sponsoring church.
Last of all, it is the responsibility of the sponsoring church to love and respect the preacher who they have sent. In Philippians 1:7-8, Paul said: “Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.”
In Philippians 4: we read: “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.”
When there is a relationship between a church and a preacher like that, you are not going to have anything but success.
Let me say a little bit about the responsibilities that the preacher brings to the relationship. What are his responsibilities and obligations?
First of all, it is the responsibility of the preacher to go preach. In 2 Timothy 4:1-2:
“I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.”
The preacher can never forsake the truth for anyone. He must remain true to his commitment to preach all the truth and nothing but the truth. That is his responsibility. The sponsoring church is aware of that and would not want a preacher who does not preach the truth.
It is the obligation and responsibility of the preacher to fulfill the goals of the sponsoring church. Armed with the gospel and the goals of the sponsoring church, the missionary approaches the task before him with humility and courage. He is there to carry out a mission: a mission that has been agreed upon, that has been discussed, with goals that have been clearly defined. He knows where he is going and he begins to lay the groundwork for how he is going to get there. He will be able to report to the sponsoring church the progress he has made in reaching those goals either by: fully accomplishing them, going beyond them, or falling short of them. His first duty of course, is to God. Next, he sets about to accomplish what the sending church has indicated it wants him to do. That is something that needs to be pre-agreed upon. When the church sends the preacher, both should understand clearly what is under consideration. If at some point the preacher feels he can no longer remain true to what he feels is best for the work and at the same time comply with the wishes of the sending church, it is at that point that he needs to sit down with the sending church and explain his feelings and the reasons why he feels as he does, and try to work out a scriptural solution. If this cannot be done, then it is time for the preacher to leave the work in their hands, allowing them to contact someone else. It would be foolish for a headstrong preacher to say, “Whether you want me to do it or not, I am going to do it. Whether you like it or not, this is the way it is going to be.” I would encourage any preacher caught up in that kind of a dilemma to quietly and humbly say, “Brethren, we have come to a parting of the ways. I wish you well.” That will bless the work. That will help the work rather than hinder the work, if it is drawn out in a struggle of disagreement.
Third, it is the responsibility of the preacher to survey the needs of the mission field and communicate these to the sponsoring church. Being on the field and on site, the preacher may find out things that no one was aware of. It is his responsibility to see that
the sponsoring church knows about these things. Brethren, I cannot conceive of a situation where it would be sensible, much less scriptural, for the preacher to hide things from the sponsoring church, and not allow the church to know what was going on and what the problems were, or not alert the church to problems that might be lurking in the shadows ahead. The preacher needs to communicate those feelings to the sponsoring church.
Fourth, it is the responsibility of the preacher to communicate his plans for carrying out the mutually agreed upon goals. I cannot overemphasize the importance of doing that. One of the great problems we face in any relationship is a lack of communication; a lack of talking about the obvious; a lack of talking about what needs to be discussed and needs to be shared. My wife continually reminds me of that fact — that I do not talk enough; that I do not communicate well enough. Sometimes we take each other for granted. Sometimes we take relationships for granted. Sometimes we take for granted that churches know things that they do not know. I think it is a mistake when preachers do not give good, detailed, complete reports about a work. The more you tell a church about a work the more a church feels a part of the work. If the preacher hides (maybe not intentionally), or fails, or neglects to fully communicate what is going on, people begin to become suspicious. They become suspicious because nothing is being said and nothing is being shared. So the preacher needs to communicate his plans — “This is what I intend to do to reach the goal”, “We are going to develop leadership”, “We are going to develop an eldership”, “We are going to establish a congregation in another province. Here’s how we are going to go about it.”, “Our goal is by the first of the year to have another congregation at a particular place. Here’s what we are going to do to achieve that goal.”
Next, it is the responsibility of a preacher to communicate problems and any proposed plans for redirecting or changing the work. It may well be that the preacher has to make an on site decision that will redirect the work, but if he does he needs to communicate that immediately to the church sponsoring the work and explain fully why that is being done.
Communication cannot be over-emphasized. Strained relationships can survive if there is communication. However, no relationships can survive without it. The preacher must keep the church informed of his plans, of his actions, of his accomplishments, of his failures, and of any changes that he anticipates in the work.
Finally, I believe it is the responsibility of the preacher, according to 2 Timothy 2:23, “to be gentle”; according to Ephesians 4:32, “to be kind”; according to Matthew 7:12, “to treat others like he would like or want to be treated”; and according to Philippians 2:4, “to be considerate of the feelings of others.”
If I were to give you what I believe to be a successful pattern for church-preacher relationships, it would be a pattern similar to this. It would be a pattern that would define what the church gives and what the preacher gives in order to bring about a successful relationship. If the church will give the preacher love, interest, understanding, and support; and if the preacher in turn will give the church love, interest, understanding, and support, that will create a relationship that yields zeal, the fruit of righteousness, and glory to God. The only way that will ever come to pass is when all parties to that relationships recognize their responsibility and fulfill that responsibility; so that it may move forward in a successful fashion.
Let me recap by pointing out to you very briefly that the responsibilities of the sponsoring church are:
1. To select the right preacher for the right job.
2. To support that preacher fully, morally, spiritually, and financially.
3. To establish and define goals.
4. To oversee and regulate the work.
5. To love and respect the man they have sent into the field.
It is the responsibility of the preacher to the church:
1. To go and preach the gospel.
2. To fulfill the goals of the sponsoring church.
3. To survey the needs of the mission field and communicate those needs to the church.
4. To communicate his plans for carrying out the mutually agreed upon goals.
5. To communicate problems and any proposed plans for changing or re-directing the work.
6. To be kind, gentle, and considerate of the feelings of others.
We will never be able to develop any kind of a successful relationship between preachers and churches until we define the responsibilities that every party in that relationship sustains to the relationships. When we know what our responsibilities are and then we go to work on fulfilling those responsibilities, the relationships will grow out of that, and the relationships will flourish, and the relationships will prosper. But if you put it in reverse it will never happen and disaster will be the result.
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