A Burden Lifted

After the initial feelings of sadness of leaving the flock that I shepherded for 14 months, that sadness has turned into relief. For the first time, I did not feel I must attend the rehearsal tonight or worried about the spelling of the lyrics or the loudness of the music. In fact, twice I asked for the standing mike to be fixed but it fell on deaf ears, but I went ahead singing solo without the need of the mike - "I ask You for Jerusalem" during the Christmas Day service with about 55 adults present.

I thought I included myself as a musician since there was no musician present over two consecutive Services, a first in my four pastorates since my first pastorate in 2003. When leadership fails, everything else fails with it. 

A relief in that it will soon be no longer my responsibility to care for the flock. Even during my Christmas-New Year holidays which turned out to be one of the busiest times of ministry as I prepared for 36 hours for the New Year's Eve service at church attended by just under 30 adults as again we failed to advertise the service until the day before. 

But many are blind to the need for leadership or a leader making sure things happen in the right order and in the right way. The shepherd is one who leads from the front and the sheep hears his voice (John 10). How can we run the Lord's house haphazardly, leave it musician-less, run into our own houses and celebration while neglecting the house of God? In fact, the Christmas theme was "I must be in my Father's house", where in the 2nd sermon on the 14th December I preached about the cleansing of the temple by Jesus in Jerusalem when our Lord was filled with zeal for His Father's house (John 2). 

No wonder Paul made it a requirement that a candidate for eldership must be first tested and approved as a good husband and father, managing his household well, his children obedient and not rebellious, as believers themselves. He must be a man of one woman meaning not divorced and then remarried for that would disqualify the person as an elder. Yet many fall short of such lofty standards but they happily carry on as elders and leaders of the church.