Understanding Church Leadership 14
By Pastor Raphael Adegoke
16Woe to you, O land whose king is a youth, and whose princes feast in the morning. 17Blessed are you, O land whose king is a son of nobles, and whose princes feast at the proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness. (Eccl 10: 16-17)
All thanks to God who is ever willing to bless us with His presence. May we never run out of His presence in Jesus’ name. Amen! Last Tuesday, we considered foresight as one of the attributes of a servant-leader, but today we shall be considering stewardship.
Stewardship is the conducting, supervising, or managing of something especially the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. As leaders, God commits both tangible and intangible resources to us and it is always our duty to carefully and responsibly manage them.
The first tangible resource God commits to us is the people we lead and our first responsibility towards them is to take them to Heaven or beyond the level they are presently. If they are sinners, our first assignment is to turn them to saints through the Holy Spirit and if they are already saints, our first responsibility is to build them to maturity.. That is why a leader must keep growing in the Lord so he can keep raising the bar of genuine maturity for the ones he leads. At any point your followers’ spiritual maturity is above yours, then you spiritually lose the right to lead them. At that point, the truth is that your leadership over them is just positional, not spiritual and for such followers God will always raise secret leaders for them outside your domain that will continue to raise the bar for them.
Furthermore, other tangible resources God commits to us to manage include money, structure (building), materials, e.t.c. In managing money, especially when it comes to managing it in relation to a people, we must know that which is primary and that which is secondary. While it is good for the Church or Christian organizations to have savings and acquire properties, this should never be done at the expense of the souls of men. Foremost, we must not mortgage the souls of the people to get money from them for savings and property acquisition. Also, we must never shy away from our basic responsibilities over the people because of savings, materials or property acquisitions.
Imagine, if Jesus returns today, what happens to a lot of millions or billions in our corporate accounts that could have aided soul winning or the spiritual growth of the ones Christ is actually coming for, but reserved for properties that will remain here on earth? This is not to say we should not have savings or acquire properties for the Kingdom sake, but the souls and welfare of men should never be traded for these. Our ability to manage both these resources for the Kingdom sake is the measure of our stewardship. So, God is calling us back to holistic stewardship if indeed we desire to be a good servant-leader.
Pastor Raphael Adegoke is a Pastor in Christ Apostolic Church (Nigeria & Overseas) and a Lecturer in Christ Apostolic Church Theological Seminary.
