Father’s day is approaching quickly. With this celebration
in the back of my head I've been thinking lately about the concept of raising
sons and daughters. Not necessarily my own children, since I’m not married yet
haha, but spiritual sons and daughters.
The concept to me seems like a very normal thing, something
that should just naturally be happening. However, my time away from my home church
taught me very differently. When in college I had the opportunity to visit many
different churches and talk to many different ministers. I was disheartened to
see that the idea of raising up sons and daughters wasn't really one that was
fully developed.
Some may had used language like ‘Yes, this is my son in the
faith.’ Yet as I talked to them I found it to be more of a master/slave
relationship rather than father/son(daughter) relationship. Many of them there seemed to be lack of true
honor for anyone who does not serve as a Sr. Pastor at a church.
I remember one time when myself a handful of Youth Ministry
students & Pastoral Ministry students sat across from a blessed mature
saint. I remember the rise of emotion and awkward expression that came over
each one of us as we heard the following words.
“I know some of you are going into Youth ministry, but at some point you’ll have to grow up and go into real ministry.”
I’m not going to lie to you, at that moment I felt incredibly
hurt and angry at this gentleman. He
truly felt that there was no true ministry outside of Sr. Pastoral Ministry. I
can’t necessarily blame him though. He was raised to believe this. He wasn’t
the first minister I’d seen express this sentiment and he certainly wasn't the
last.
What saddens me is the concept of master/slave as a way of
raising up ministers is extremely non biblical. Paul’s own word to Timothy in 1
Timothy 1:2 says otherwise.
“To Timothy, my own son in the faith…”
That word
son is “teknon” which means child. The sentiment
of a father & son relationship is
very clear.
Recently I saw a Facebook post another minister. I want to
make it clear that I do respect this man of God and the great ministry that he
has. In this post he talks about his
early days as a minister and how he’d go to different meetings and would see different
great men of God. He talked about how much respect he had for these men. While I do agree there is a level respect
that young men & women need to have for those who came before them, there
was a couple of sentences that made my heart hurt for this man.
I would paste and copy the exact text so as not to
exaggerate what was spoken, but sadly he has since taken his post down. But in
essence he said that he would not dare to speak in front of these men or presume
he had something to add to the conversation when in their presence. This
thought is the master/slave mentality that will and is killing the church.
People are leaving churches hurt because of this mentality.
Men and women are leaving the ministry because of this mentality. In my own fellowship, Assemblies of God, as
of March 9th 2012, the average age of a minister was 54. Why is
this? I believe it’s because the church is NOT raise up sons and daughters.
As a church ages it MUST learn to raise sons and daughters
to take on the responsibilities of the church. If slaves/servants were enough
to accomplish the plan and purposes of God then why would He send His Son? A
son knows the heart of the father. A son
knows the mind of a father. A son knows the true wishes and intentions of a
father. Whereas, a slave/servant knows only
that which he is commanded.
So faithful ministers of the word of God, I implore you,
raise up sons and daughters in the faith. Raise up the next Timothy. Love them,
train them, and release them into their destiny & their callings.
