In Exodus 18, Moses is basically serving as the police, the judge, the crossing guard, the family therapist, the pastor, and the DMV all in one, to about 600,000 Israelites! Jethro, his father-in-law, a brand new believer, says, “Moses, you’re going to kill yourself. And that will make my daughter sad, so let me help you out here. God never intended for you to do this all by yourself. So subdivide the people,” he tells them, “into groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Moses, you can still serve as the visionary and the teaching pastor and even the Supreme Court, but let other leaders handle everything else.” Through this, God shows us that in his community, leadership (and ministry) is supposed to happen at all levels. The church is never supposed to be a ministry built around one person. Every believer has a role in the ministry.
We see a nearly identical thing happen in Acts 6 with the birth of the church. The apostles are running themselves ragged trying to do everything, so they appoint other leaders, in this case “deacons,” to help lead and take care of the people. At the Summit, we’ve tried to take Jethro’s advice by dividing pastoral care into manageable chunks. We have groups of hundreds on the campus level, under the direction of a campus pastor, staff, and shepherding elders. Then, there are the groups of fifties, each overseen by shepherding elders and ministry leaders. Each campus elder oversees about five or six small groups, and every small group has leaders who are over groups of ten or so.
One of the things that is most encouraging to me in our church are all the stories I hear of how well people take care of each other on the small group level. I can’t tell you how much it thrills my heart when I hear about somebody in our church going through a rough time, and I give them a call and ask them if they need anything, and they tell me (and I hear this a lot), “Oh, Pastor, it’s been a tough time, but the body of Christ has been awesome. We’ve got meals and people helping with our kids, and they have a prayer chain going.” I usually hang up the phone and bow my head and say, “Thank you, God, for letting me serve among a people so committed to loving and caring for each other.”
I know that sounds counterintuitive, given the size of our church. Often, people look at a big church like ours (especially a multi-site one), and they’ll say, “This is just a production and a big show,” or “That’s just a cult of personality.” And I get it, but the definition of a cult of personality is when the ministry is centered around one person, and that’s the exact opposite of what we are building. Here’s how I know that: I would say without any caveat that our church is better pastored now than it was when we were only about a thousand, all meeting at the same location, with everybody considering me their primary pastor. Not only do we have more pastors, elders, ministry leaders, and small group leaders, but we also have a higher ratio of leaders to people than we ever have. It’s not been easy, but our pastoral care is more robust now than it was when we were smaller.
People often object, “Well, I don’t want to be at a church where I’m not personally connected to the pastor.” Which sounds like a holy response, until you dig into it a little bit. If you need to be known by the lead pastor and only the lead pastor, that feels like a cult of personality to me. I often say, “Do you want help, or do you want me? Because if you want pastoral help, we can supply that. In a church our size, it can’t always be, and it shouldn’t always be me.” I may not be the one who walks into your hospital room. (In fact, you don’t want me walking in your hospital room; if I walk in your hospital room, that’s bad news.) But you will have someone, because we’ve done what Moses and Jethro did in Exodus 18.
A big church, a big congregation, doesn’t have to be an impersonal church or an anonymous church, and it certainly doesn’t have to be a cult of personality. At the Summit, we fight hard to keep it from being that. God has grown our church, and we’re grateful for that, but that doesn’t mean we have to be impersonal or anonymous. But at the same time, I’m not apologetic about our growth. I know it creates issues, messiness, growing pains, and traffic problems, but our calling is to reach this city. I always say, “We don’t have a megachurch; we have a megacity, and we’re trying to do whatever it takes to reach that city.” When people complain to me about our growth, I kind of want to say, “Well, who do you want me to uninvite?” You know who loves a growing church? Someone with a son or daughter that’s walked away from the faith. A grandparent who is concerned about their grandchild. They love our growing church. You know who doesn’t like it, a lot of times? Those who like their comfortable seat.
We’re just trying to reach one more person. And yes, that creates a mess. But it’s a mess worth making, don’t you think? People say, “But with all these people coming, they need to be discipled.” Yes and amen, and we’re working hard on that. Would you help us? Or, “But when you do one of those big baptisms, I think some people slip in there who probably shouldn’t be baptized.” Sure, maybe. We actually try to have good conversations with people, we don’t rush it, and we end up telling a lot of them it might be best for them to hold off for a few weeks to figure this out more. But also, how about some perspective? When Peter preached at Pentecost, and 3,000 people got saved, they were all baptized in a day. I’m sure that felt a little chaotic. And I’d be willing to bet that a few people even slipped into the baptismal who weren’t quite ready to be baptized. Or how about this one? “Well, J.D., you’re all about numbers.” I freely admit it. We care about the number of souls saved. We care about the number of marriages restored, the number of prodigals brought home. Each number represents someone precious to Jesus, and so they’re precious to us, too.
Growth creates problems, but those problems are worth it. Jesus left the 99 to go after the one. That’s what, by God’s grace, we’re going to do too. So at the Summit, we are committed to growing—that’s our evangelistic commission—but we are committed to doing so in God’s way—in ways that are not impersonal, where leadership is shared, and people are taken care of. I know we get things wrong—we do have growing pains. I know there are people who have tried to get connected, and it’s been really hard. I know that some have felt neglected. What I’ll tell you is that A) I am sorry, B) It’s definitely not our intention, and C) Would you give us another shot? We’re all in this together. So let me end with three quick applications for all of us:
1. The church needs more leaders!
Some of you need to step up to be small group leaders, ministry leaders, and elders. The church needs you. You may say, “Well, I’m not sure if I’m qualified.” First Timothy 3:1 says that if you have a desire for leadership in your heart, that’s usually a good thing, often from God. And if you’re not qualified yet, we’ll work with you to get you there. Let someone at your church know so they can help you take the next step.
2. Start “one another-ing.”
There are 59 “one another” commands in the Bible. You can’t obey them if you’re not connected. And those commands are just for leaders to do for their members. The way this is supposed to work is that each member takes care of the others. You don’t need a structure to do that; just do it. A big part of how God works in your life is through other members of the church. The church is a body, and the way the body takes care of itself is through other members of the body.
3. Are you a member of the church?
All of this points to being deeply involved in the community, knowing and being known. I say this all the time: Church is not supposed to be an event you attend; it’s supposed to be a community that you belong to. So get off the sidelines and get involved. Go from being just a believer to being a belonger. Membership puts you in a covenant community: It makes you an officially recognized part of the church and usually gives you more of a voice in what happens within the church and its leadership. Don’t be a “common-law member,” shacking up with a church every week but never making it official.
God’s community was never meant to be built around one person. It was meant to be an interlocking web of love, in which every believer has a role in ministry. It’s messy, it’s complicated, and it’s often painful. And it’s worth it.
Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A, serves as a Council member for The Gospel Coalition, and recently served as the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica are raising four awesome kids.
"Editor's Note: Pastor JD Greear's "Ask the Pastor" column regularly appears at Christianity.com, providing biblical, relatable, and reliable answers to your everyday questions about faith and life. Email him your questions at [email protected]."
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