by Missionary David R. Cox
By the indigenous character of a NT Church, we mean it is autonomous. We define autonomous as: (1) self governing, (2) self supporting, and (3) self propagating. This free tract will explain why we as a local church are independent.
Self-Governing
means that all executive decisions are made at a local level. We see the pattern
of this in the Word of God that the pastor of a flock of sheep makes the
majority of the "executive decisions", (the important ones that are day to day).
I say "most" because few pastors of animals in the Bible were in themselves
owners of the sheep. Normally the owner was somebody else, even the father and
family, and the son is the shepherd, like David as a boy.
God as owner makes the direction and overall decisions about the sheep, and the individual pastors have to respect these decisions and directions from God. Practically this means that a pastor cannot overstep his bounds. He cannot "write off" people because it is not within his abilities, rights, and powers to do so. We (pastors) must deal with and serve those whom God gives us, and not "run off problem families" from the church because personally we don't like something about them.
As a local church, the church decision making process should be something like this: (1) the pastor is who makes the executive decisions. (2) the pastor has a small group of spiritual men who also have great input into these decisions (but always the buck stops on the pastor's desk). (3) the congregation needs to understand the why and be motivated to get behind what these decisions are, so there is a proper place for congregation discussion where they ask questions and discuss their views on things, as well as vote on issues if it is something that is possible to vote on.
Ask any parent if they open the discussion of what we will eat for supper, and the parents will be out voted every night for pizza instead of good nutritional food that kids (and parents need). Perhaps once in a while pizza is good. But some things you just don't open up to vote because your responsibility before God is such that you cannot allow it. In the end analysis, it is not what the congregation wants, nor the elders, nor even the pastor, but what God wants. That is the law that cannot be overturned.
See also Tract: David Cox - Why we are independent
God's plan is to establish small groups of believers organized into local churches so that these groups of believers can carry on the work of God. It is absolutely Satanic to believe and work on the basis that small is unbiblical, and only large organizations with millions of dollars in buildings and resources is the only way God can work, or we can work biblically. It is simply not true.
Part of this plan of God that we see in the NT hinges on the self-supporting nature of the local church. Yes things are more difficult this way, yes things would be easier if you joined the First Heretical Denomination around the corner and they would give you a super sized church with air conditioning, heat, great facilities, etc. but no it is not of God. Satan will "buy us out" if we allow him to do so. Simply put, there are groups out there that highly want you, and they will give you money if you will sell your soul to them.
Let's first of all ask why they are like that? If they are so great, why do they want me a small church, a pastor with a small flock? Why even make an offer to help us? The reason is very acute. These groups get big by a process. The process is by diluting doctrine. They join, and rejoin, combine, and mix with doctrinally rotten people and beliefs. These rotten doctrine groups cannot reproduce themselves because they have denied evangelism way back; it was one of the first doctrines and practices they gave up when they sold their soul to the devil. That being the case, they cannot get people to come without bribing them. They are no "moralists" among their group any more. I would define a "moralist" here as a person who is a Christian (a member of the group) because of principle and not because of what they can carnally get out of the group. That being the case, handouts only work when there are stuff to give away, and when the bill comes to pay, somebody has to pay. These groups typically get the left over buildings and assets after they have drove the join-in people into the ground, and the real Christians among them have left, and the rest are not interested in an every Sunday type of religion.
So the evangelism that these groups do is pure ecumenicalism. They increase by perverting other groups naive enough to believe their "good intentions" of helping you. They bring in the group and pervert it, and you wither and dry up spiritually, but in the mean time, you contribute to the monster.
Your people have to be taught to support the work of God among them.
There are two key points here: (1) supporting the man of God among them, (2) supporting the church. First above all, we must understand that all NT principles, examples, and precepts center on the work of God being concentrated in a man of God, and not in an earthly, human organization. Paul's ministry never became an organization. Peter and the apostles each had ministries based on their person. Once they departed from the faith (Demetrius for example), they were branded, and nobody supported them. When these men of God died, the donations to their ministries stopped, or perhaps only continued to their widows and then they stopped when their widows died. Their own children had to establish their own ministries, and there was no such thing as "riding on the prophet's coat tails." Every minister must establish his own ministry on the basis of his own calling, spiritual qualities, and proof of his past ministering.
We start with every Christian must be a member of a local church. This means much more than attending. It means they must participate completely in that local church. We never find a NT Christian without a local church, unless it is a missionary establishing a new one. This is the only pattern and model we can conclude from the NT. Part of this participation is the responsibility to support economically that church where he attends. There are never any indications of people giving outside of that local church, but always through their local church to groups outside.
Tithing
is a key concept here, and below is a tract (CLICK ON THE TRACT IMAGE TO GO
TO IT) which I wrote to establish biblically the concept of tithing as
essential for every Christian. Another key concept here is Gal 6:6 "Let
him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good
things." Simply put, if you are saved, you have a spiritual burden to return
economically to those that teach you. Your minister should "live of the gospel"
(1Cor 9:14 "Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel
should live of the gospel.")
Our
big hearted brother who sacrificially give up a salary in order to have a church
are just wrong. Many very good pastors work secular jobs refusing to receive a
salary (an amount in which a person can live on without starving to death). As
good hearted as these men are, the problem is not in the little income of the
church but in the wrongness of these pastors to teach their people the clear
teachings of Scriptures on this matter.
I wrote another tract (CLICK ON THE TRACT IMAGE TO GO TO IT) on this issue showing the church's and church member's obligation to pay a livable salary to their minister. Here we need to digress for a while. I say it is the church's obligation AND THE MEMBER'S OBLIGATION, because many churches have set up a deacon board or elder board in which they want to block any meaningful salary for the pastor. The idea is to starve the minister. This is wrong also. If the member sees money coming into the church and their minister not having a salary they can live on even though the income should guarantee it, that member should by pass the block and give directly to his preacher. The system does not remove the responsibility from the individual Christian to "communicate". If the system is the problem, drop the system and do it direct.
Another problem here is misplaced values in the church leadership. They contribute to "ministries" and even to "missionaries" and leave their own minister in misery. I am a missionary who has lived totally from missionary donations since 1983. I have ministered in Mexico all of that time, and I am an American, born in Charleston, South Carolina, not having any Mexican descendent or background. My point here is that missions should not take the priority over supporting your own minister (laboring in your church on a full time basis). Missions comes in after that obligation for the pastor is taken care of. I don't think that a church has an essential need for 14 full time paid ministers, and then start a missions program, but when there is at least one full time paid minister, the obligation on the home front is taken care of.
In
a lot of cases, churches are simply too small to have a full time minister, or
at least this is the reasoning given. DCox -
How to Support your Pastor.
The synagogue system was set up to offer places of worship and learning to the
Jews throughout the world, even where there were little opportunity for anything
of any size. Their rule is a working guide for us in this. If there were 10 wage
earning men in the group, then each giving a tenth of their incomes, they can
pay a full time minister (rabbi in their case). In many of these cases the small
church would be hard put to come up with this simple requirement.
The solution for us is in evangelism. All Christians and churches should be evangelizing because God has commanded it, but this comes from another angle. The small church should be evangelizing in order to correctly fulfill their biblical obligation towards their minister. In our times of people traveling 1-2 hours to and from work, it is not too much to ask people within a 1-2 hour range of the physical church building to consider coming into that fellowship. Most of the time the reason is not because people don't want to come so far, it is because the church people refuse to evangelize in the first place. Even though this doesn't "sound" "spiritual", the bottom line is that the financial crunch of not being able to pay the minister is a direct result of the lack of dedication of the church to do its duty in evangelism.
The bottom line is that the Bible teaches that the church members should support financially their ministers. There are a lot of questions and clarifications in this, but the bottom line is that it is sin when they don't. This is still sin even if the minister accepts working a secular job instead of receiving a salary for his work in the ministry. It is spiritually unhealthy when the church refuses to accept the responsibility to fully support at least the pastor. Personally I know and have been in many such churches, and I don't think there is malice in these pastors' hearts, but even so, we must insist on this doctrine as much as purity in salvation. I do not think it is wrong that a pastor accept such a situation where he will have to work a secular job while he works in the ministry. The error comes in not forcefully teaching and pushing to achieve financial stability and independence for the local church. Most new churches and usually churches which have suffered a trauma (pastor left, or a church split) may go into this position, but it is not necessarily wrong to be in this position, just to accept it as the way things will always be without working and fighting to change the situation to what the biblical norm is. Paul mended tents, but he also wrote 1Cor 9:14, and the point is that it is not sin for a pastor to do some secular work, but it is wrong for a church to refuse to fully support their pastor.
Christianity today has proposed that the entire concept of "church" or "local church" is simply an impotent failure of God. Without roving evangelists, Bible memorization ministries, Christian colleges and seminaries to prepare our people, without mission boards, the church as we know it won't exist, so say many in Christianity. This is their attitude towards the local church. Only a huge church that is well tied into a Christian college really is granted that they can do anything by themselves, but of course they never do. Churches don't get involved in Christian education on a ministry (producing ministers) level, but on a children's school (K-12) level so that they can receive all the Christian school teachers that these schools produce. For some years in the 1980s it was almost so strong that it was considered a sin for a local church not to have a Christian school. Thousands of those Christian schools have failed now, and left the church in disaster. The limited efforts of a small church were spent in a Christian school instead of evangelism, and now Christianity is in full decline in America. Where do we look for our salvation now? Not the Bible, but back to the Christian universities and seminaries that they tell us how to fix the problem we are in.
If
we go back to the word of God, we find nowhere in Scriptures that a Christian
school exists like we are told today is essential in Christianity. As far as
K-12 schools, the authority and responsibility has always been on the parents,
and not an outside organization. As far as training Christian young people and
new converts, it has always been on the local church. As far as training
ministers of the gospel, it has always been on pastors training pastors in the
context of the ministry of a local church, never in a school.
It is something difficult to accept at first, but God simply didn't approve
the classroom method to learn moral principles. The format of teaching religion,
morals, and moral information and principles is in a sermon in a local church.
It was at times taught by a person's minister in homes, but again as a part of
the local church. Within the thinking of God, there is a very strong need for
the minister to be physically present and known by the "student" that a
classroom situation won't accept. Schools and seminaries hide their teachers
allowing students to have interaction with them in only limited and arranged
situations so that the teachers can protect themselves. The teachers don't go
out on door to door evangelism with the students (except those who teach that,
and they are usually pastors who are not theology teachers). The pupils don't
see the teachers in the bad moments of life, when there kids are acting up, when
the parents are frustrated, fighting, or otherwise living a normal life. This
makes the teacher a super Christian without the ups and downs of normal
Christians, and in fact, there is no super Christian except Christ. God teaches
us through putting our ministers in hard situations, and we watch their
spirituality or carnality to learn to be like them, however they are. This
coupled with regular teaching of Scripture from the same person is what fleshes
out our spiritual education.
See my tract - David Cox -
The Example of the Man of God.
No Christian school, college, nor seminary can prove this. The teachers are too many as are the students. Moreover there is no bonding between teacher and student as they labor side by side in the more menial things of the ministry. This is where we go back to the Bible and see the example that God gives us for our spiritual teachers is that he must be our pastor. In the context of sheep and shepherd, animal caretaking, we see that the pastor slept and lived with the sheep on a daily basis. This meeting the immediate needs of the sheep because he is there, always at hand on a local and physical level is missing in the school idea of Christian schools. This being with the sheep when they are happy (birthdays, anniversaries, birth's of babies, etc) and when they are sad (deaths, sickness, problems, etc) and when they are in need (financial, husband-wife fighting, parent-child problems, etc). The pastor is there for these people through the good and bad in life, and this gives the pastor the right to "meddle" in their life and point out where they are wrong, and to encourage them to do right.
Christian school professors have no "validity" in this respect because they only know the students on a financial, economical basis. "I give you a class and a degree (which is worthless in anything spiritual), and you give me money." The only biblical model there is given to us, is the model of a pastor in a local church. Some may point to the Socratic method of teaching that Christ used in wandering around from hilltop to hilltop teaching his disciples, but it is interesting that that form only worked for Christ, and once Christ was removed to heaven, even the term disciple is dropped from the Bible references. In Acts, as a historical book, we see the word "disciple" used, and it is used much in the gospels, but none of its forms are used afterwards, when we would think that this is the most powerful and needy time for discipleship. It was, but the idea of disciples and the master was quickly dropped with the ascension of Christ.
Mat 23:7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men,
Rabbi, Rabbi.
Mat 23:8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even
Christ; and all ye are brethren.
Mat 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your
Father, which is in heaven.
Mat 23:10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even
Christ.
Mat 23:11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
What this passage teaches us is that we are not to hold anyone as a "Rabbi" (teacher), nor as a spiritual "father" (whom we must absolutely obey, for only God occupies that place), nor anyone a master (guru or spiritual expert teacher).
The point is that God has commanded us to use another format for teaching and being taught, and that is that we examine the spiritual life of a mature Christian who would teach us, and on the basis of his testimony that we have personally observed over a long period of time, we follow his spiritual example. My tract, David Cox - The Example of the Man of God, explains this more in depth. But this is the model which works to change a life forever. Head knowledge will not stay in the head for long, and little of it ever enters the heart, therefore, we must insist on being spiritually taught by the man of God which we observe on a local and regular basis. In education, there is a saying that "more is caught than taught." This is exactly the principle here.
It gives me chuckles when I see Christian Universities waffle on these issues. First, they have no respect for any pastor (all are incompetent in their sight except for the ones who donate big time to their particular school, or who send a lot of students there way). If you think they do, then simply ask them when was the last time they honored some pastor that was not loyal to their school? They honor pastors regularly, but none outside their circles as a rule. The only honor they extend this people in giving them honorary doctorates or asking them to come speak at the school is to say this pastor is loyal to us.
But at the same time they strike through any value that pastors could have in teaching a young Christian, they turn around and want pastors to teach the preacher students. If the best teachers are pastors, why don't the students go join that church and serve locally in the church under that pastor and learn in depth from him? There is a working principle in all of this that few understand. That principle is that churches are impotent, and pastors are worse. The school has to commercialize and monetize everything so that they get gain and control (influence and fame also) over the process or it is branded as worthless.
In almost any context, if you suggest that two men are wanting to take a pastorate, both the same age, one with a doctorate from a school, and one serving the same time under an elder pastor who taught him individually, the estimation is that the PhD is the best, and the other is laugh, a joke. Why this conception? Especially why this conception since for most of the 2000 years since the NT, all ministers were trained under an elder pastor in a local church context. Oh, did I forget that most seminaries and Bible schools want their students to train under a pastor in a church internship? This would give credence to their education TO PASTORS WHO DEMAND THIS, but yet they themselves charge the students for this, and the students are given a brief few months without any real close contact with the pastor and the church ministry and problems.
Mat 10:8... freely ye have received, freely give.
The principle we are to follow is simple. We charge nothing in the ministry, but we teach God's commands concerning the Christian's obligation to support his church and minister, and then we receive donations. The new Christians don't understand and don't give usually until they mature some, and the mature Christians bear the entire burden of the church expenses as well as the minister's personal living expenses. This is the model God leaves us, and as such, it is not the model in any Christian school or seminary. Some churches have a seminary to train their preacher boys, and this is exactly what the Bible model is, a hands on training situation where both the minister is seen "doing it" live, and the students are learning by principles taught as much as watching it "live."