New World Church 2

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

It is imperative that I give a context for my last message for the purposes of some to be able to appreciate why elders are essential for the health of the church.

And I will start by asking some obvious questions.

Can pastors fall in sin?

Can pastors backslide?

Can bishops forsake the faith?

Do Christian leaders encounter temptation like other believers and can they also fall?

Why all these questions?

Many ‘average’ believers think that their leaders are infallible. Many think that the presence of a position in the spiritual is total insurance against anything the devil can attempt.

Sadly, they also live as such.

Why then did Jesus close His sermon with this warning?

How could He say He does not know people who had been effective in ministry?

It simply means that it is possible to start right in the things of God and end up irrevocably lost.

And the Bible flows with example after another of the same.

From Balaam to Saul to Hezekiah to Asa to Uzziah.

And in the New Testament, from Judas to Ananias to Demas to Diotrephes.

Ministers are fallible too.

1 Corinthians 10:12 is also addressed to us ministers, and probably more.

Treating a fallible being as infallible is literally killing them spiritually because they have no capacity of handling themselves at that level.

Remember an incident in the recent past when there was an uproar after a bishop impregnated his parishioner?

Then what happened?

Other bishops scrambled a defence that was laughable. They repented on behalf of their colleague.

You would wonder whether he had been representing them in that bed of sin. Or probably he had.

Word on the street was that that sheep just became wayward and did the unthinkable.

During those trysts, girls are supposed to take interventional contraception. And in case conception still happens, there is enough offering money to fund abortions.

Sadly, that is quite widespread in church circles.

A friend who had been a gateman/ watchman of a flat in a posh estate told me of his disgust when he would see a revered and ancient archbishop bring girls, different girls, some his granddughter’s age, to an apartment he had rented there for sex purposes. And you can be sure that those sin excursions were funded by tithes and offerings.

If you are able to hear people who work on those expensive hotels and exclusive getaways, you will be nauseated by the things you hear about the conduct of some of those senior clerics you admire; from drunken fights to obscene language to sex orgies.

And the list goes on and on.

But as always, I will hasten to add that not all are like that.

There are a few who have not stained their garments and have kept to the straight and narrow conscientiously. These are the ones who make this post urgent because they will be lumped together with these rotten caricatures of ministers. Because very few, especially the unbelievers who desperately need our witness, can tell between a sheep and a wolf garbed like a sheep, which is what these conmen are.

Accountability is not there to question someone’s commitment to the cause of Christ. It is not there to hinder the performance of someone’s ministry. It is not there to doubt the anointing.

Accountability presupposes the limitation and fallibility of man, however anointed he is.

In fact, accountability starts at the point that the anointing is evident. It starts at the point that the ministry is portent.

And that because it is very difficult to fall into pride when we are struggling to establish anything. It is impossible to fall into sin when we are building foundations.

Saul did not start disregarding God’s word when he was ‘fighting’ for acceptance but when his army was fully behind him.

You might also remember that David fell into sin after he had more or less vanquished his enemies and sent his army for conquests for the fun of it, and that in distant lands.

All these characters we see in the Bible who fell from grace did it more or less at their pinnacle.

We must therefore start the accountability early to forestall that. And only elders have the Biblical mandate to handle that.

I am sure that most of those excesses are driven by the pressure to continue functioning beyond the Biblical mandated time, especially because they refused to mentor others to take over their positions when the time came. They felt threatened instead of relieved when their vigour waned.

Like Saul, they then started fighting the move of God using those ecclesiastical offices.

Those other sins and abominations are just fights to maintain relevance.

Yet had they just listened to the One who called them they could have simply taken the elder role.

This could have released them to serve an even bigger and wider constituency.

As an example, I receive calls from ministers I have never met or even heard of who were referred to me for ministry. And I am sure it is because I am available, and untethered to structures. They can trust me to keep their secrets because nobody can coerce me to divulge them since I am not in anybody’s employ.

They also know that they will have my undivided attention.

To the ant ministers, an elder appears like an idler because he is always found at the city gates.

But you may remember that it was at those city gates that Mordecai was able to thwart an assassination. And apparently nobody else in that gate even knew how he was able to do it because they didn’t even know that he was the one who intervened.

An African proverb summarises the role of the elder.

A seated elder can see farther than a young man on an elevated platform.

I will later look at the reason/s ministers are scared of becoming elders when their time comes.

For example, why do senior ministers refuse to take sabbatical leave? Why do they always refuse to retire when the time comes? And why do they change church constitutions to extend their stay in those offices when they are most qualified to serve as elders?