Starting With Some Questions
Here we are, starting something new, yet it is not very new at all. It is a new ministry for me, but the idea is as old as Scripture. The idea is that the church needs teachers, but not just anyone should be a teacher. James tells the church just this when he writes, "We who teach will be judged with greater strictness." (James 3:1, ESV) With that in mind, I would like to ask some questions to get you thinking about how teachers are trained and selected within your church. Before we do that, though, I want to be clear that we are talking about all teachers in the church, not just the teaching or lead pastor. Anyone in the church who fills a teaching role, be that a small group leader, youth leader, Sunday school teacher, or any other teacher, will be held to a higher standard. So, how does your church select teachers for the various roles within the church? Does every teacher go through the same process? Is there initial or ongoing training for these teachers? Is there a doctrinal standard that each teacher must meet to be qualified to teach in the church? These are all crucial questions that a church needs to consider.
A Responsibility
From the outset, it is essential to understand who is ultimately responsible for all the teaching that goes on in the church. When Paul meets with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he tells them that they are to "Pay careful attention to yourselves and all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers" (Acts 20:28). See what he is saying here? The elders or overseers are told to be watchful over everything that God has given to them. This includes the things that are being taught within the church. As a matter of fact, the issue of false teaching is addressed in the next couple of verses, where Paul tells the elders that "fierce wolves" will come from outside and from within. It is because of this warning that the church needs to be vigilant when it comes to what is being taught in the church. It is the elder's responsibility to keep a close watch on the teaching, as Paul writes in 1 Timothy. This means all the teaching, not just your own. It means not allowing someone to teach false doctrine in the church that the Lord has placed in your temporary care. Someone may object at this point, especially if you are in a situation like mine: how am I supposed to watch what everyone is teaching? I am just one man. This is where ongoing training and searching come in.
A Proposal
The goal of this ministry is to help churches and to get them thinking about how they go about looking for teachers and training them. It has been the practice for a long time within many Baptist churches, especially smaller rural ones, to outsource the preaching and to have whoever is willing to teach smaller classes. This is something that needs to change. A church that cannot raise up teachers and elders from within is a church that is going to die. A church built on the strength and character of a single winsome pastor will fall apart. The church must start today to seek out potential elders and ministry candidates. To actively train them and hold them accountable. Those new converts that are full of vinegar need to be pointed in the right direction and nurtured so that they do not run off course. Even the children's teachers need to be held to a high doctoral standard. After all, it is not the teacher of adults who are treated with a millstone around their neck (Luke 17:2). I propose that churches start having regular, ongoing training on expositional teaching.
Regular and Ongoing
I want to break that down a little bit. Regular and ongoing should be relatively self-explanatory, but there is an important aspect that I want to emphasize. When you have an ongoing training program, it is easy for new people to join in at any point. The way we currently do it at our church is that each month, the elders and any other teachers or potential teachers sit down and review a book we read that month. The books deal with a wide range of topics, from systematic theology to cultural issues, but the point of the discussion is always to relate the reading back to scripture and the application it has to teach. Because each month is somewhat self-contained, someone new can jump in anytime. The only requirements for attending are an interest in teaching and reading the book. How we do it is not the end all be all, and you may have some great ideas on how to address ongoing training, but the focus needs to be on exposition. When you meet, ask questions like, what does the Bible have to say about this? Note that this question differs from where I can find this idea in scripture. The difference is in bringing something out of scripture rather than trying to find support for an idea in the text.
Summing it up
What is being proposed is that churches actively seek out and train ministry candidates in expositional teaching. We want to help in any way we can. This blog will function as ongoing encouragement and discussion on critical points that need to be addressed by anyone teaching within the church. Teachers are to be held to a higher standard. Not just the pastor but every teacher. Being a mother or a school teacher does not automatically qualify someone for teaching in the church. Being a gifted public speaker does not mean that person should be allowed to teach in the church. Teachers in the church are held to a higher standard, and it could be argued that the children's teachers have an even higher standard. So, let's embark on this ministry together. By God's grace, we will see churches transformed by the power of his word.
Soli Deo Gloria
Comments