"Waiting On You"

“Waiting on You”

Robert M. Thompson, Pastor

Corinth Reformed Church
150 Sixteenth Avenue NW
Hickory, North Carolina 28601

828.328.6196   corinthtoday.org

 (© 2010 by Robert M. Thompson.  Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 1984 by New York International Bible Society.)

A servant heart is the core value of this community.

Something happened at Corinth last Sunday that was a once-in-a-generation major shift for this congregation.  The last time our bylaws were so thoroughly rewritten was forty years ago.  This change truly represents an internal transformation that changes how we think about church.  It just didn’t feel that way.

I’m speaking of the adoption of a new constitution and set of bylaws for Corinth – our official document that governs how we function and who’s in charge.  The change was voted on unanimously in a congregational meeting with no public discussion or questions.  I’ve told several people this week I don’t know if that means we did our advance work properly or nobody cared. 

I care a lot about these changes.  A team worked through the details of the constitution and bylaws carefully, but they were changed at my initiative.  If what we created in terms of structure totally self-destructs, I take responsibility.  If it works well, though, let’s give credit to all the people who took the seed ideas I presented and spent a lot of time thinking and praying over them to make them work.

The whole structure is a bit of an experiment, and I can’t promise it will work well.  It will almost surely need some tweaking.  But it is unique in the sense that I haven’t really seen a book on church organization that spells out a system for local church organization that looks exactly like ours.  It’s a new model.  Let me explain.

Over the forty years since our last major revision of the bylaws, Corinth had become too administratively top heavy and rigid.  I’ve been pastor for almost half of those forty years, so I take the blame for that result.  If you know me, you know I’m fairly well organized and schedule-oriented.  A church often takes on the personality of a long-term pastor, and it seemed to me we had created an organization that was, for the most part, efficient – but put too much of its energy into keeping the machinery afloat – having all the right committees and proper lines of authority and detailed descriptions of what every individual and group should do.  All that organizational detail is helpful, but it can make you feel like you’re doing the work of the Lord when you’re really just doing the work of the organization.  Those are two different things.

It seemed to me we needed a fresh look at our own heritage in the Reformed branch of the church.  Some of the structure from forty years ago removed the distinctive way that Reformed people have thought about how churches function, so we did some historical review to try to recover that.

Most importantly, we needed to return to the New Testament and how it sees leadership in the local church.  I don’t believe the Bible mandates a certain structure – that there’s such a thing as “biblical bylaws.”  But clearly there are some principles that should affect how we function. 

Acts 6 is a great example of a text that clearly lays out some of those principles.

Principle 1 – Listen

How does a church handle complainers?

Some of the change in our structure at Corinth is due to…well, complaints.  I don’t think complaints are all bad.  Conflict can be productive.  We tend to avoid it or run from it – at home, at work, in the church.  We shouldn’t.  Conflict can deepen our dependence on the Lord.  Conflict can refine our motives and methods.  Conflict can result in growth.

Watch how conflict unfolds in Acts 6.

Among the early Jewish Christians (and we’re still in the phase of the church’s life prior to the inclusion of Gentiles), there were some who had lived in Jerusalem or surrounding areas all their lives and spoke only Hebrew.  They had grown up resenting outside influences – political, religious, or cultural.  When Alexander the Great and his successors had sought to “Hellenize” the known world (spread Greek language and culture), many Jews resisted the effort.  Probably all of Jesus’ disciples were among the “Hebraic Jews.”

But some Jews came to Christ who had lived in other parts of the world.  They had no choice but to learn Greek and blend their Jewish culture with some Greek customs.  These “Grecian Jews” would visit Jerusalem or Palestine, sometimes relocating there.  Widows who had lived in the Diaspora often returned to their homeland hoping to be cared for by their spiritual kin. 

This blended Christian community had to care for their own needy members, and apparently established a common treasury from voluntary contributions.  Widows, who were particularly vulnerable in that society, could receive daily distribution of food or other necessities from the common treasury.

The Apostles – eleven of Jesus’ original twelve disciples plus Matthias who had replaced Judas – naturally took charge of the organizational life of the Christian community.  The crisis that hit in Acts 6 was that the Grecian Jews complained of inequality in the distribution of food.  Maybe they thought it was intentional, maybe not.  They just knew it was happening.  Widows in the Hebraic community were better cared for than widows in the Grecian community.

The Twelve responded.  They listened.  They didn’t malign the complainers and say, “How dare you accuse us of favoritism!”  We’re not told how angry or hurtful the complaints were.  It doesn’t matter.  There was a willingness on the part of the Twelve to care and to correct. 

Their system wasn’t a democracy – nor was it a hierarchy.  Those forms of church government hadn’t been invented.  It was a community, albeit with clear authority and responsibility owned by the Twelve.  They established a critical principle about church structure:  leaders need to be humble enough to listen, even to complaints.

At least part of the reason for our change in the bylaws is that I had heard some complaints about how financial decisions were made at Corinth.  Different people were telling me that it seemed like the financial decisions were scattered around among various boards and committees.  That does, indeed, give the pastor and perhaps the treasurer the ability to manipulate the decisions because everybody assumes somebody else knows what’s really going on.  Even if you never manipulate anything, there’s a perception that you do or at least can.

I thought it was a fair complaint, and one of the important pieces of our restructuring was to coalesce all Corinth’s financial decisions into one group, the Board of Deacons.  A structure that doesn’t value the feedback loop from the people it serves can quickly become arrogant.  Leaders listen.

Principle 2 – Lead

I love the response of the Twelve, beginning in verse 2:  “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God to wait on tables.  Brothers, choose seven men from among you are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.  We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The phrase “wait on tables” (v. 2) is the verb closely related to the noun “deacon.”  Another form of the noun is back in verse 1, “distribution of food.”  We’re too early to establish the role of “deacon” in the early church, but not too early to value those who serve practical needs so that others can prioritize spiritual oversight.

You should not hear in that an arrogance that says, “Food distribution is beneath us.”  Up to this point the Twelve had owned full responsibility for all administrative aspects of the fledgling church. They had surely invested a lot of time in personally delivering meals on wheels. As the church grew, more and more of their time was invested in administrative details, leaving less and less for “prayer and the ministry of the word.”

There’s so much here about what it means to lead.  Leaders have to release the Superman complex.  It’s egotistical to think everything that needs doing has to be done by me.  Or to say, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”  Leaders let go.

But leaders can’t be passive.  After they’ve listened, they need to be proactive in solving problems.  We’re not told about the meeting of the Twelve, but surely they got together and discussed the complaint before coming up with this action plan.  That’s what humble leadership does.  Leaders reflect, they pray, they discern, and they act.

I felt it was my responsibility to see emerging problems and potential conflicts in the system we had allowed to develop.  It wasn’t my responsibility to solve it, but to name it and focus the attention of the church leaders on a corrective course.  Leadership is not control or manipulation.  Leadership is initiative.

Notice, though, that the apostles led in another way.  They established two criteria by which the new team should be chosen.  Those entrusted with the new responsibility must be “full of the Spirit and wisdom.”  Really?  For managing the food pantry?

Absolutely.  My hunch is that the team was much larger than the seven.  The qualifications at different levels of responsibility may have been different.  But those in charge of handling the money, of making the decisions, of overseeing fairness – they needed to be men of spiritual maturity and grace. 

Immediately after this story, we learn how one of them, Stephen, went far beyond the call of duty.  Verse 8 says that Stephen was “a man full of God’s grace and power, (who) did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.”  He seems to have been the team leader of the seven since he was named first in verse 5.  Stephen boldly witnessed to Christ and by the end of chapter 7 became the church’s first martyr.  As he was dying under a volley of stones thrown in hatred and misunderstanding, he  prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit….Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

He was full of the Spirit and wisdom to the moment he died.

Principle 3 – Trust

What I love most about the response of the Twelve is that turned the next step over to the disciples.  Look again at verse 3:  “Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.  We will turn this responsibility over to them.” 

It looks like the apostles turned the decision over to the Grecian Jews – the very ones who had complained, who had felt overlooked.  And they didn’t say, “You guys come up with a plan or a list of nominees and bring your ideas back to us for approval.”  No, they trusted the Grecian Jews to choose new leaders who would oversee the new ministry team.  Then they “turned the responsibility over.”

These are the same men who only a short time before were arguing over who was greatest in the kingdom and who would have the most power at Jesus’ right hand.  They were so concerned about jockeying for position because their only concept of a kingdom included rank and authority and delegation and accountability.

The culture they now established in the church is it’s OK to release people to serve, OK to risk trusting others to discern and decide.  Church leaders don’t have to micromanage.    Luke notes that the plan pleased the whole group.  Leaders care.

The Seven are chosen, and Luke records their names in verse 5.  The names don’t mean much to us, except for Stephen and Philip, who became an evangelist.  His best known convert is the Ethiopian eunuch, whose story is in chapter 8.  But don’t forget his four daughters, who never married and also became evangelists (21:9).

Here’s what significant about their names.  They’re all Greek names, not Hebrew names.  All Seven were chosen from among the complaining constituency!  That’s so different than what we do.  We would say, “Now let’s be fair.  If you Greeks have 20% of the church (or 50% or 80%, whatever it is), let’s make sure the leadership represents each group proportionately.

The Twelve trust the Spirit and the Seven so much that they’re willing to say, “Even our own widows will now be dependent on your fairness and generosity.”  I like that kind of risk in a leader.

Principle 4 – Serve

The Seven were presented to the Twelve in verse 6, “who prayed and laid their hands on them.” 

“So,” Luke continues in verse 7, “the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”  Luke likes these wide angle lens summaries of early church history.

The ongoing ministry to the widows is not even mentioned.  Why?  Because service, when it’s done with a servant heart, is more often than not under the radar.  Servants don’t need to call attention to the fact that they’re serving.  They just do what needs to be done.  Sometimes they are visible, but they don’t need to be.  Sometimes they get patted on the back, but they don’t need to be.  All they care about is that the widows are fed, not that they get recognized for feeding widows.

There are so many people around here who serve like that.  Sometimes I notice them; most of the time I’m quite sure I don’t.  Sometimes I say thanks; I’m certainly aware that so often I don’t.

This past Wednesday night I took notice of one.  His name is David, and he was among the many parents and partners who helped the Confirmands pack Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  When it was over, he was still there helping to clean up and I said something out loud about needing to move one of the tables we had borrowed back to another building.  “Where does it need to go?” he asked as he folded up the legs.

About an hour later I walked through the kitchen after dinner and there was David washing pots and pans from the Wednesday night group.  I said something along the line of “Wow – everywhere I look you’re serving.”  About two hours later he had responded to a mass e-mail I had sent to men in the church about serving on the men’s ministry team.  “Count me in,” he said.

Just minutes after that e-mail, David posted this on my Facebook page:  “In response to your comment you made to me when I was in the kitchen, all I can say is Luke 17:10."

I am sure you know what Luke 17:10 says.  But I had to look it up, so let me read it to you:  “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Moving tables, cleaning tables, waiting on tables, whatever table work is needed, David will be there.  That’s a servant heart.  When we serve, the word of God spreads.

I pray God will give us hundreds of Davids.  I’m well aware there are different gifts and responsibilities, and not everyone can serve how and where David does.  That’s not what I mean by hundreds of Davids.  A servant heart is the core value of this community.

“What needs to be done?  What do I have to give?  How can I help?”

You have in your bulletin today about 60 different opportunities to serve with a Ministry Team.  We’re asking you to consider one or more of these.  If you’re already serving on a team, go ahead and place a “1” in the “You” column.  (If yours isn’t listed, include it on the back.)

We are not asking you to serve in ten different areas.  But pick at least one of these – that’s what we are asking every member and attender to do.  For the next step in restructuring and reprioritizing, we’re waiting on you.  Amen.