Alright, here we are, lesson two in our series Seven Habits of Highly
Effective Christians, Elders, Ministers and Deacons. I've already done one lesson on highly effective Christians. Today we're going to be talking about highly effective ministers and elders
and of course then we'll conclude with highly effective deacons. Now as I
mentioned in in the first session, this series or the title of this series
is based on a book by Stephen Covey, "Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People" and let me tell you a little bit about
this book if you've not read it before. In his book, Mr. Covey
reviewed two hundred years of "success type" literature, motivational books and so on and so forth stretching back two centuries, and he found that regardless of the age,
the culture, or the profession, effective and thus successful people shared common traits of character and what he
did is he reduced, he distilled all these down to 7 basic characteristics
of successful and effective people for the purpose of his book. Well, I've
used the same approach here using the Bible and my experience in church work over
the years to identify the seven most common
characteristics of effective Christians. So in this
session, as I mentioned, we're going to continue this series by
listing the seven habits of effective preachers and elders. So we begin with the habits of effective preachers. There are many, there are many, but I'm going to name only three, three very
important ones. Now I need to repeat that what we're
searching to do for all for Christians deacons, elders, ministers here is to describe those common habits that make these people effective. As I've said,
there are many who call themselves Christians, many who have been appointed
as deacons and elders, many who have been commended
to the ministry of preaching but are not very effective in these roles. For example, if just wearing the
title "preacher" made one effective, then any church could randomly select any old preacher to serve them as minister, but we know that churches don't
do this because they know from experience that not all preachers are
equally effective and some are not effective at all, the're just not good at
their jobs, just like any other area of work. And so in our
lesson today we're going to define the habits that
effective preachers and effective elders have and have cultivated in order to become successful at what
they do. Now as far as preachers are concerned there are three main habits or
characteristics that identifies the truly effective minister. These are described by Paul in his letter to a young evangelist
named Timothy in Second Timothy. So let's start with
habit number one. Effective preachers have the habit of purifying themselves. Highly effective
preachers have the habit of purifying themselves. Let's read
Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 6 shall we? Paul says,
"For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands." Now Timothy, to give you just a little bit of
background here about why Paul is writing this and why he saying
this in this particular letter, Timothy it seems was holding back in his ministry because of his youth, because of the many
distractions in the world, because of the fear of persecution by the Jews and certainly persecution by the Romans at this period of time in history. And so Paul encourages him to renew his gift, to purify himself continually by separating himself from those things that would hinder or distract or would slow him down in his ministry. You know, even preachers get into a rut. It could be a rut of fatigue or a rut of boredom or rut of laziness or sinfulness. It's usually a rut where the preacher
starts "majoring in minors" in order to avoid the true and the hard work of ministry. Now effective preachers
have the habit of purifying themselves on an ongoing basis in order to remain
fresh and open and sensitive to the Spirit's lead. Effective preachers cultivates spiritual
habits that serve to purify their minds and hearts continually. For example, they read the Bible continually, it's not something
they only do when they're preaching, it's a habit that they have on a daily
basis. They make time for personal prayer. It's interesting to note that a
lot of preachers, they're in situations where there's prayer
going on, an opening prayer, closing prayer, they pray for somebody else, but a lot of times preachers don't take
the time to pray themselves. A personal quiet time for just
themselves and the Lord. Effective preachers have a powerful and consistent prayer life on a daily basis. They also read and
study material that will expand their minds and their ministry. Of course you have to
read the Bible, but in addition to that, effective
preachers also read other material to open up
their ideas about certain issues, to give them a
better insight into church work and so on and so forth. They also cultivate relationships that keep them accountable. One
way to purify yourself is to have a friend, a brother in the Lord, someone in the church who's able to to
tell you when you're wrong, to tell you when you're putting the
wrong emphasis.Your preachers usually count on their wives
to do that for them, but you also need what I call an accountability
relationship with a brother in the Lord. They are also involved in
activities that serve the brotherhood in general
and not just the local church and they do this to expand their view of the kingdom. If the only people the preacher ever sees
are people in his own congregation, he doesn't know what's going on in his
city, in his state, in the country. You need to
kind of expand your mind and expand your view to
see what's going on in the brotherhood to have a better
grasp of things. Effective preachers understand the
trends and things that are taking place in the brotherhood and they also do what's difficult first. Oh I can't emphasize that enough. Effective ministers know that
it's important to do the hard stuff first. I once knew a preacher who hated to study and prepare lessons
but he did love computer work and office things so he would spend,
during his week, he'd spend three days getting the bulletin ready and
preparing mission reports with statistic sheets and pie charts and graphs and he'd run errands and he'd do the
office work and the accounting and all this and that and then finally on Saturday
night when he just couldn't put it off anymore he'd get down and get his lessons
together for the next day and you know what? By the time Sunday rolled around you
knew that he was just getting his stuff ready at the last minute, it would show. So effective preachers continually
purify themselves and their ministries in order to maintain the enthusiasm and the passion that characterized their original call into ministry. Highly effective ministers also preach, in other words, effective
preachers preach. Let's go to Second Timothy, we're
still in Second Timothy chapter one, and let's read verses eight to 12. It
says, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His
prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the
gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a
holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus for
all eternity, but now has been revealed by the
appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was
appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these
things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I
have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have
entrusted to Him until that day." Paul in this passage here is still passionate about the gospel even when he refers to it in a letter to a fellow believer and a fellow worker. Even though Paul has suffered for the gospel he is still completely convinced and
fully engaged in the spread of the good news, in other words nothing
stopping him. Effective preachers are effective
because they're excited by the message. They're
not excited about where they're going to preach the
message or how many people will be there. Paul is zealous in this letter and yet
he's only writing to one person. And so what makes preachers effective is that they want to preach, they need to preach. They need to preach in
season or out-of-season, whether it's a big crowd or a small
crowd, whether the hearers are friendly or skeptical, whether it's local or international or
in person, whether they're preaching on television
or radio, in print, on the Internet, they just want to preach. So effective preachers are convinced that the gospel is God's truth to man
and they are anxious, even uncomfortable, if they don't
get to preach. Effective preachers have to preach. Habit number three. Highly effective preachers persevere. Highly effective preachers persevere. When I say persevere, I mean
that preachers who succeed in ministry are those who are able to keep on keepin' on, they're able to last,
they're able to hang in there, they have a persevering spirit. In his
letter to Timothy, Paul encourages Timothy to persevere in three areas: first of all to
persevere in doctrine. Let's go back to Second
Timothy chapter one, this time in verse 13 he says, "Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the
faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells
in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you." And then
in chapter two verses 1 & 2, he says the following: "You therefore my son, be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me
in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who
will be able to teach others also. And so effective preachers are able to
persevere. Persevering in a doctrine or a teaching
means to continue diligently teaching God's Word even when it's inconvenient or when
people will not listen or when people will not obey. Persevering even when others oppose within the church and without and not being afraid to confront, persevering in the effort to
train others in the word and in the teaching of it.
The preachers job is to minister the word in every circumstance and successful
effective preachers make sure that they don't get away from
that primary task in their many sided job, easy
to lose focus. It's easy for preachers to kind
of lose focus and stop preaching the
word. And that brings me to the second area of
perseverance and that's persevering in ministry.
Effective preachers persevere in preaching the word and they persevere in ministry. Let's stay in 2nd Timothy,
this time go to chapter 2, verse 3, begin in verse 3. Paul says, "Suffer hardship with me, as a good
soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles
himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an
athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the
first to receive his share the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will
give you understanding everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my
gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal; but
the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things for
the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the
salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. It is a
trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He will also deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." Kind of a long passage there where Paul is talking about the
importance of persevering in ministry. In other words, there are many
distractions and temptations in the world and ministers need to be careful not to
be trapped in these. Some ministries are ruined
by worry or sinfulness because the preacher becomes more involved with something other than ministry on the side, and
eventually this thing leads to ruin. Successful effective
preachers keep their eye on the prize and their
hands on the wheel of ministry without making any detours. On a
personal note, throughout my ministry career I've been offered all kinds of
partnerships and different ventures but I always refuse because it would be a distraction. I don't want to be concerned about
anything other than my family and my ministry. I do not want to be distracted from preaching the gospel and
ministering to the church. So persevering in preaching the Word,
persevering in ministry and the effective
preacher, highly effective preacher, also knows how to persevere in the love of the church. There are many
more comments by Paul to Timothy in both his letters about being a good preacher, enough to fill out this entire lesson and a couple others. Suffice to say that the most effective
preachers that I've ever met and seen work are those who actually love the Lord's church. Understand what I'm
saying? Not just, "well they're good speakers and so they want to speak," but they actually love the people, they
love Christians, they love the Lord's church. No matter how they are treated,
whether they have preached in a big or a small church, whether they've been in the Bible Belt
or in the mission field, effective preachers continue to love the
Lord's church and sacrifice themselves for it. No matter how much education
you have or how skilled a speaker you are, if you do not love the church, you cannot
be effective as a minister. People can sense this and they'll respond to you accordingly. And so effective preachers, those who are effective in the work, are those who love the
church and persevere in loving the church
despite the things that happen. So let's summarize here. There are a
lot of people who wear the name minister or preacher. Colleges and
preacher training schools are producing a new crop every year, but effective preachers achieve success because they have cultivated 3 important
habits. Number one, they continually purify
themselves through prayer and the cleansing Word of God. Number two, they continually preach the gospel with
enthusiasm and avoid debates over issues and personalities. And three, they continually persevere in teaching the word to others, serving others, and promoting the Church of
Christ to the world. This is what they're about, this is what
is central about them. Let's face it, if the
only thing that you remember about the preacher is his hobby or his passion for football, if all you remember, "Oh yeah,
brother Joe, he was great preacher, yeah, yeah, oh he loved football. I remember
the time at the game we did this and he used to coach the kids," if you don't remember him for his passion for Christ rather than
his passion for football, something's wrong there. Of course, there are a lot of other factors that
contribute to successful ministry. Things like people skills and getting in touch with the culture of the people you're preaching to,
so on and so forth, however, the habits that I've just spoken of, a man will not become effective in
ministry no matter how many friends he has in the church or how he fits into
the local scene if he doesn't cultivate these 3 basic habits. Let's move on to effective
elders. We're going to do both of these in this particular session. Now it's difficult to say all that needs to be said about the role the elder so I'm going to have to summarize and compress
my comments into 4 key habits for effective elders, so I had 3 key habits for the preachers, 4 key
habits for the elders, ends up giving you seven. So let's begin right away, shall we?
Habit number one, highly effective elders are on guard. Highly effective elders are on guard. Let's go to Acts shall we? Switch
over, go to Acts chapter 20, let's read verse 28 to 30.
Paul is speaking to elders, his kind of farewell speech to them and he says to them in chapter 20 verse 28 he says "Be on guard for yourselves and for all
the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves
will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will
arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them." So in this particular passage Paul calls the elders together and he exhorts them to be on guard, to be on guard. And so effective elders, highly
effective elders, first and foremost the habit that they cultivate is that
they are on guard. first of all they're on guard for themselves. Effective elders watch themselves and
their conduct and their attitude first and foremost.
Elders who are not seen as striving to grow and develop in personal
spiritual maturity have no respect among the brethren and
without respect they cannot be effective. They can be the
elder but the question is being an effective elder. The
church will be patient and forgiving with a man and his weakness
if he is striving to improve it. More elders lose their
effectiveness because they mistakenly think that being an elder excuses them from having to deal with
sinful habits or sinful character traits such as pride or laziness or gossip or being angry or aggressive or worldly and that's not so. So elders have to be on guard and the first thing they guard is themselves. Secondly they guard the
flock. Effective elders understand that once they become elders
they have to change their priorities. Many times men take on the
eldership and they see it as like an extra duty, like a religious hobby
that they kind of add to all the other activities, but eldership is much like marriage, it
changes your whole life and it changes your schedule. The most effective elders are those that guard the flock 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not
just on Sunday and on Wednesday. It's not a part time job,
it's a full-time job. You can't be effective as a shepherd
without being deeply involved in the lives of the sheep seven days a week. Effective elders on guard,
they guard themselves they guard the sheep, they guard the Word.
Note in Paul's encouragement in meeting with them that there was no talk about buildings
or money or programs things like that, these were matters that the deacons were concerned about. We'll talk about that in our next section. Effective elders concerned themselves
about their ongoing personal spiritual development. They concerned about the need and the
direction of the spiritual lives of the members and the accurate teaching and preaching
of God's Word. And so effective eldering requires men
who resist the temptation to do the more tangible work that belongs to the deacons and tackle the more challenging and
demanding work of building the kingdom within the members. Too many elders regressed to being deacons, because it's easier to be
a deacon instead of going forward and doing
the shepherding work which is more difficult. It may not be more difficult physically but it's more difficult spiritually and emotionally. The word tells us that effective elders accept and excel in guarding themselves,
guarding the church, in guarding the Word against the world, against the forces of
evil and darkness. And so in order to be
highly effective, elders must first of all be on guard. Habit
number two, effective elders are on duty. They're on duty. Now this is a personal
observation but I've noticed that the most successful elders are the ones who carry the Shepherd's staff wherever they go, in other words, their lives are defined by their role as elders in
the church. You see it in the way they talk, you see it in the way they act, you see it in the way they react to things, in or out at the church. Some elders are elders when they're in the building or when they're at an elders meeting, but effective elders are elders at ball games or picnics or work. Wherever they are no
other role, whether it be in their job or their favorite hobby, no
other role is more emphatic then their role as elder. In other words, when they share with
other people that they serve as elders in their church, people are not
surprised. If you say, "well I'm an
elder in my church" and people say, "Really? Man I would of never guessed that,"
well there's a problem. What you want is "Oh, well I thought
you're the type of man that would probably serve in that way." So elders who are on duty realize that in this world there are so many lost sheep looking for a shepherd and they have been ordained by God to
find these lost sheep wherever they are. And so, highly effective elders are on guard,
they're on duty, highly effective elders are also on fire. Third habit, they're on fire. Let's go to Acts shall we? This time let's go back to Acts chapter 13, read a very important passage there. Acts chapter 13 beginning in verse 1. It says, "Now there were at Antioch, in the church
that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger,
and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with
Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were ministering to
the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for
the work to which I have called them.' Then, when they had fasted and prayed and
laid hands on them, they sent them away." Now I read these passages rather to point out that the elders, it says
they had prophets and teachers, teachers there refers to elders. I read this passage to
point out that elders were involved in the great mission work of Paul to the Gentiles. Now we read
that, we kind of gloss over it because we're in a hurry to read about what Paul was doing, but you have to understand at that time it took great courage to encourage and support this type of activity for Jewish Christians, but they were enthusiastic for the
gospel and therefore they sent Paul out. This was not a
great popular thing to send somebody out to preach to Gentiles. So it took
great courage to do this. So many times elderships are
reduced to being just decision-making bodies that give thumbs up or thumbs down for budget items instead, carpet color, that type of thing instead of being on the leadership edge of
launching new ideas and efforts to seek and save the lost and minister
to the saints; elders that are kind of fired up about evangelism or helping the poor or strengthening the church or providing the kind of leadership
that people will follow. Effective elders lead by example, but highly effective elders lead by inspiration and inspiration is what leads the church to do great things for God. These elders, these teachers here in Acts chapter 13 that was inspired leadership to lay hands and to commend Paul to go forward on this mission work that would cause a lot of consternation in the
church at the beginning, preaching to the Gentiles, very difficult thing. Alright so, effective elders are on guard, they're on duty, they're on fire, and then habit number 4, effective elders are on the same track. On the same track. In Ephesians chapter 4
verse 2, Paul says the following, he says, 'With all humility and gentleness, with
patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,
being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." So in this passage
we see that Paul understood that when you take people who are divided by culture, divided by social position, divided by education each with their own sinful flesh, when
you take people that have all these characteristics and you try to make one unified body out of
all these separate parts, you're going to have to work at it, it's
not going to be easy to unify people that have these traits. It is no different with elders and their
efforts to work together as a unified group. Why do you think that the qualifications for eldership stressed those things that enable a man to get along with other men. In First Timothy chapter 3 verse 2 to 7,
we're not going to read it, but there he lists 16 qualifications for an elder candidate, and of these sixteen, 8 qualifications referred to his ability
to relate to other people, especially other elders, because these
are the men he will spend a lot of time with. So what I'm saying is, effective
elders are those who truly are temperate and prudent and hospitable, not addicted to wine, or anything for
that matter, not confrontational, not argumentative, not self-willed, you know "my way or the
highway" type people, not proud, meaning they can admit
mistakes, they can apologize when they're wrong and so effective elders work on their relationship with each other. They invest time and effort into this for many reasons. First of all causing division and conflict among the
elders is always the first plan of attack for Satan, that's why it's so important for elders
to be on the same track, to work at the unity that they need to
have together in order to provide unified leadership. They're always under attack by Satan.
Satan understands if he can break up the eldership, it's just another step to break up the
church. And so effective elders work on this unity idea. Eldering also is a group task, not an individual task, so the more unified and team-oriented
the eldership is, the more successful they are and the
more successful they are as individual elders. Your success as an elder, your relative
success as an elder, is based on your relative ability to
work with the team, to work with the group. And then finally,
the church is a reflection of the eldership. A divided, do nothing eldership is going to
produce the same kind of congregation. So effective elders recognize that a healthy, open, unified group of elders is biblical in nature and a source of comfort and confidence
to the congregation. When we were kids, we didn't like
to see our parents argue, right? If you saw Mom and Dad arguing and
shouting at each other, it was kind of frightening, it was very disconcerting wasn't it? Well believe it or
not, we don't like to see our elders arguing either. We don't like to see division among our
elders, it frightens the congregation. So effective elders not only know this, but they take concrete steps to maintain
that unity of the Spirit and they work diligently at keeping
the peace among themselves and they do it for the love of Christ
and the sheep that He died for and into their hands the Lord has put
certain responsibility for them. Alright, so let's summarize this part, obviously again, so much more could be said about the
very important subject of elders, but these four, these four
critical habits will suffice. Effective eldering requires that men be on guard each day for the spiritual
well-being of themselves, the church, and the teaching of the Word. Effective
elders need to be on fire in order to inspire the church with
their zeal to serve the Lord and the church and the lost. If elders don't
inspire, who's going to inspire us? You can't subcontract out inspiration.
Inspiration has to come from within the congregation. You can't hire inspiration. And of course, they have to be a force
for unity and peace and reconciliation for the leadership as well as for the entire church. And so, effective leadership in the church is the first key to growth because the
church cannot grow beyond its leadership. Alright, well I hope that you'll continue to pray and support your
eldership, whoever is watching this. I hope that those people who are
hearing this lesson today, I hope that you'll always support and accept your elders, pray for them, encourage them, help them to be more and more effective as the years go by. Alright, so that's session
number two, the habits of highly effective
preachers, ministers, and the habits of highly effective
elders. Our next session we're going to deal with deacons and I hope you'll be with us
for that. Thank you.
