One of the most frequent accusations against simple/house church is that there are no leaders. This is actually a false statement. Most simple churches have leaders and many have elders, the problem is they don’t function the way other leaders (pastors) function.

Here is a question I must ask though. Why is it leaders always talk about leadership; however, they have no one leading them? Let me ask this a different way. Who has your leader covered as I asked once before. People love to talk about leadership, especially leaders. Leaders love leading and God has called them (so they think) to lead you. God has called them to make decisions for you, for you to submit to them, for you to listen to their sermons, give to their vision and so forth. That may sound like an overgeneralization but I am speaking of the whole though there are some parts that do not work that way.

I guess I struggle with this. It is not that I don’t want people leading me, the problem is their leadership looks nothing like the leadership in scripture. Many of these so called leaders are not hospitable, you can’t even get to know them. Many of them have never labored among us, they actually demand that you pay them and will not serve you (preach sermons and assume the role of pastor) unless there is a good financial package on the table to compensate them. None of them have risked their lives like the leaders in the New Testament (read Hebrews, 2 Corinthians 11, 1 Thess 5,  Romans 16 or anything about the leaders under Roman persecution), yet all of them want you to submit to them so that you can obey Jesus. Here is a question for many leaders, what exactly have you risked? How have you labored? Can I see your life? Can I get to know you in a real way? Are you open for mutuality?

This may sound antagonistic but I don’t mean it that way. The sum of serving is not preaching sermons, reading commentaries, and writing books. That is not the serving we find in the New Testament. The serving we find in the New Testament sound like this:

26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33 I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. 34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Many want the rights of an apostle or one who preaches/teaches the word (1 Corinthians 9:1-12) but they don’t live like those apostles. Lets see how Paul proved his apostleship in 2 Corinthians 11:

24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

You see brothers this pick and choose theology is bogus and somebody has to stand up and call it what it is BOGUS! I am glad to see men running off to preaching conferences, but that is not service. I am glad to see man go to seminary, but that is not service. I am glad to see man reading commentaries and encyclopedias and extra-biblical works of the 1-3 centuries, but that is not service. I am glad to see man spending time in their bibles for good exegesis and to preach good sermons, but that is not service!

Everyone wants someone to submit to them, but nobody wants to serve. Everyone is called (I am not saying this calling is true only affirming the common mindset) to be a leader and says you should submit to them but again leadership begins with service. Leadership begins with reputation, practice, living it out amongst a group of believers. We love leadership here in America because it costs you nothing yet gains you everything. Man want to eat the fruit of being apostles but are living like them. So you can miss (miss means to bypass in the urban vernacular) Lionel Woods. I don’t believe in submitting to positions in the body of Christ. I believe in submitting to people who have lived a life worthy of imitating. Self-recognized men who call themselves leaders and then require others to submit to them based off of some wrong biblical interpretation won’t work. I will submit to all believers as I see the work of the Lord Jesus in their lives and as the Spirit speaks through them. All that other stuff, is just stuff and titles and positions and at the end of the day it looks more like a Franchise than a family!