Leadership

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The way Jesus and His disciples thought, spoke, felt and acted is totally different than what I see and hear from pastors in many of our typical American churches. I will discuss the differences between the early church when the New Testament was written and our modern churches in America.

The role of the pastor in America needs to be examined from a Biblical and supernatural point of view. I have been studying, meditating in and memorizing the Gospels and the book of Acts during the past few years. The function of the leader in the church is very interesting to me. I use the word leader, pastor, preacher and shepherd interchangeably.

Ezekiel 34:4 shows what the shepherds did not do in the Old Testament. God desires His shepherds to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, seek the lost and go after the strays. Most of the pastoral function should be to gather, heal and restore people.

Jesus is the model shepherd (John 10:10, 11 & 27). He came to reveal who God our Father is and who we are as His children. He preached the good news of the kingdom, taught in the synagogues and healed every sickness and every disease among the people in the land of Israel about 2000 years ago (Matthew 4:23-25 & 9:35-38).

If we follow the example of Jesus, pastors are designed to bring freedom and healing to people. They are called to lead, feed, cherish, care and protect the flock in the supernatural anointing of the Spirit (Matthew 16:16-17, John 21:17, Acts 20:28, Ephesians 4:11-12, 1 Peter 5:2-3).

The Holy Spirit is very clear concerning the purpose of His anointing on the model shepherd in Luke 4:18 &19:

1) To bring good news to the poor (life, freedom, wholeness).
2) To set the captives free (from iniquities, strongholds and addictions).
3) To bring recovery of sight to the blind (spiritual and physical).
4) To relieve those who are oppressed (by the devil).
5) To proclaim the year of Jubilee (restoration).

God desires us to have a spiritual, romantic and emotional relationship with Him. He longs for us to fall in love with Jesus more and more every day. Today we train pastors to teach the Word of God, but our culture has infiltrated the whole spiritual, mental and emotional makeup of many of our preachers. We have developed many pastors who function like secular school teachers, CEO’s and marketing directors with a cognitive, rational, logical and analytical mindset. Our culture has penetrated and influenced the purpose of many pastors so much that many American churches are no longer salt and light (Matthew 5:13-14).

If pastors do not know the Lord intimately in the Spirit, they really do not know Him (John 6:63 and Philippians 3:10). Brainpower communicating information does not transform people. Unless the Holy Spirit works for them, in them and through them, all human efforts are futile and vain (Psalm 127:1).

If pastors are not anointed by the Holy Spirit, the devil may use religious spirits to stop freedom and healing from happening. Religious spirits are demonic spirits that operate through the cognitive and analytical mindset. They appear as counterfeits of the Holy Spirit. They are extremely crafty just like a well designed counterfeit dollar bill that is almost exactly like a genuine one. They are so similar to the Holy Spirit that is almost impossible to distinguish the difference between them. Sounding eloquent will draw large crowds and offerings that may impress people, but it really grieves the Lord if He cannot feel and speak through us and do what He did in the Gospels and Acts. Only the Holy Spirit operating through pastors can bring freedom so that people can be transformed into the image of Christ, do His will and set others free with the pure love of God.

Leadership influences everyone in the church. An anointed pastor will produce an anointed church. A religious pastor will produce a religious church. The average American church is a clear reflection of the pastor and many of our churches are religious. Most of the Jewish rabbis during the time of the Gospels and Acts were religious. The “religious system” is diabolical. It restricts people from experiencing the destinies that God has designed for them to fulfill.

I am not blaming anyone or pointing a finger. I inherited many iniquities and I understand what it feels like to be oppressed with religion, but I also understand what it feels like to be free from the penalty and power of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Today, people are tormented with shame, fear, resentment, frustration, anger, confusion, sickness and disease. They need love, peace and joy. They need hope and healing. They need freedom from sin and death. Whether a pastor has a few people or thousands of people in his flock is not a reflection of failure or success. The Lord looks at the thoughts and feelings of the people. Are people being made whole by the love of God through His Word and the Holy Spirit in their spirits, minds, emotions, bodies, relationships, belongings and money? Is the fruit of the Spirit growing in the people? (Galatians 5:22-23)

During a break after my first quarter of theological seminary in Southern California, I spent a week with my parents and friends in Boise, Idaho. An evangelist named Ann Wright from Amarillo, Texas was having a meeting in my parent’s house. I was so full of spiritual pride that I wondered how God could use an older lady like her.

My encounter with her changed my life forever. She was anointed like Jesus was in the Gospels and His disciples were in the book of Acts. For 26 years she was my spiritual mentor. I met her in March of 1977. She went to heaven in May of 2003. She lived 91 years on this earth. I had inherited every iniquity you could think of and Ann brought healing and freedom to me and my wife. She literally saved our lives. Even though she was David Wilkerson’s first house mother when he first started his ministry in New York, very few people really know who she really was. She did not act like a typical American preacher. She was anointed by God and she reflected the image of Christ more than any person we have ever met.

In Matthew 10:1, Mark 3:13-14 and Luke 9:1, we can see how Jesus ordained his disciples. He gave them authority over demons, sickness and disease. He used them to turn hurt into healing and pain into power. God desires us to be free from oppression (Acts 10:38). Multitudes of people were drawn to Jesus in the Gospels and the disciples in the book of Acts because of the pure authority and power of God demonstrated in His love, grace and mercy. That is the way Ann healed us and taught us. She was not off balance in any way. She was full of love, grace and mercy. She was full of wisdom. She was full of authority and power from God. She lived just like Jesus did. She was completely dependent upon our Father in heaven. The fruit of the Spirit characterized who she was.

As I have painted a picture of who she was, you may feel that my perception is inaccurate. I did not say she did not have any faults. She was so full of the unconditional love of God that it was very difficult to see any shortcomings. She was fully human and fully alive.

The examples of Peter, Stephen, Philip and Paul as revealed in the book of Acts are astonishing. Look at Acts 2:14-39, 3:1-26, 5:15-16, 6:8, 8:4-8 & 14-16, 9:32-43, 13:6-12, 14:1-10, 16:16-18 & 25-34, 19:1-6 & 11-12, 26:17-18, 28:1-10 & 30-31. I saw and heard Ann do those same things in my own life and in the lives of others. Miracles confirmed the Word of God that they preached.

The most amazing aspect of Ann’s life was the revelation knowledge she had of who the Lord is and who we are if we are as new creations in Christ. Romans 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:18 & 10:4-5 and Ephesians 4:22-24 were revealed to us by the Holy Spirit working through her. I understand what the Apostle Paul experienced by being indoctrinated in the law. It took him years to experience the grace of God in his own life. It took years for the Lord to bring me out of religion, tradition, ritual, intellectualism, witchcraft, perversion, rejection, failure and other iniquities and strongholds.

Consequently, God has given me His supernatural love and compassion for people. I have seen Him convert many people and heal many people in their minds, emotions, bodies, relationships and finances as I have prayed and taught the Word of God.

Pastor Ted Roberts from East Hill Church in Gresham, Oregon is the first anointed pastor my wife and I have ever known. Even though I had been a pastor for 22 years, my only mentor had been Ann Wright. Even though he is the pastor of the largest church in Oregon, he has always treated me like an equal pastor. When the Lord called us to East Hill Church in March of 2003, Pastor Ted invited me to be a pioneer pastor. He required each of his pastors being sent out to plant new churches to complete their Restoration Ministry program in two years. We completed the first program called Wounded by Shame, Healed by Grace. My wife and I were amazed at the deep healing and freedom we experienced. We completed the second program called Healing the Father Wound. Again we were amazed at the miraculous healing we received. Our final course was Boundaries. We were transformed in amazing ways. The Lord gave the pastors at East Hill revelation of how to produce healed healers.

Pastor Ted is the first pastor who really knows me in the Spirit. When we moved to Boise, Idaho in January of 2004, he covered us and prophesied to me what the Lord wanted to do in our lives. God is thoroughly preparing us to bring transformation to our community.

If there is any hope for the church in America, we must have pastors who are being renewed in the spirit of their minds, being transformed into the image of Christ and falling in love with Jesus and their wives and loving others as Jesus loves us (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Ephesians 4:22-24 and John 13:34-35). They cannot divorce the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit from preaching and teaching the Word of God with good and honest hearts (Mark 3:14-15 & 16:20, Acts 2:22, Romans 15:17-19 and I Corinthians 13:1-13).

The purpose of God in our lives is to conform us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). Ephesians 4:11-12 reveals that the purpose of pastors is to equip (restore as a physician mends a broken bone) believers to be transformed into the image of Christ by modeling, imparting and training them. The goal of pastors is to build up the body of Christ both quantitatively through genuine spiritual conversions in people (the heart of sin being replaced by a spirit alive to God) and qualitatively through believers growing in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). We must have pastors who have resurrection power confirming the Word of God with the Lord’s overflowing grace upon us (Acts 4:33). They cannot function as vessels of honor without constantly seeking the Lord and being transformed into His image in ever increasing splendor.

If pastors allow Jesus to think, speak, feel and act through them, the influence they have may be significant in history. Notice the influence of One Solitary Life:

One Solitary Life
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in an obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years he was an itinerant teacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never traveled, except in his infancy, more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
While he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through a mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth, his seamless robe. When he was dead, he was taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed grave through the courtesy of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of all human progress. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has this one solitary personality.
-Unknown author

Stay tuned for the the process of how you can be transformed into the image of Christ and fulfill the destiny that God has designed for you!

Copyright © 2005 By Daniel W. Woodworth

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