Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Christ as the Head of the Church

Several years ago, the senior pastor of the church at which I worked had to step down from his position. The resulting leadership vacuum was not instantly filled. The staff met almost daily, sometimes for half the day, to discuss decisions and what we needed to do to help the church function and go through the process of recovery. It became very clear to me how debilitating it was not to have a clear leader at the helm to steer the ship.

I must confess that during this interim period, I made some decisions and signed some approvals that no one had given me permission to do, but I knew that everything would grind to a halt if someone didn't keep the machinery greased. When the new senior pastor arrived, I gently let go of the power that I had temporarily (and benignly) assumed.

An old Latin proverb has often been quoted through the ages: "Power abhors a vacuum."

And yet, I am aware of several churches that have not only survived, but thrived under a kind of shared leadership. One person is the administrative elder, another the teaching elder, and another the pastoral care elder. By conventional wisdom, they should have crumbled or succumbed to a power-grab by someone. What makes them different?

I believe that, in their case, Jesus is the head of the church and they are all subject to his leadership. They are serving a greater vision that was planted in them when the church was founded and they are simply seeking to implement that vision under Christ's direction.

In Ephesians, Paul says that part of the maturing of the church is to begin to operate with Jesus as the Head. "From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Eph. 4: 16).

A way I have often thought about this is that the church is the perpetual motion machine, defying the second law of thermodynamics (that all things tend towards disorder or decay). It works when two things are in place: 1) Christ is the head, and 2) love is the lubrication.

John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard, used to share his conviction that Jesus wants to be the head of the Church.

To use the picture of vine and branches that Jesus gives us in John 15, "Apart from me, you can do nothing" (John 15: 5). Each of us, when we are vitally connected to the life-giving vine, will not only receive life from him but produce fruit.

Are we willing to get out of the way and let him lead us? Are we willing to let his leadership fill the power vacuum?

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