Learning to listen to Jesus as a Church . . .
Have you ever come out on the losing side of an argument with Jesus? Martha did. When Mary left her alone in the kitchen to do the work of feeding lunch to over 12 people, Martha nearly lost her wits. And what was Mary doing while her sister was toiling away in the kitchen? Mary was in the living room, sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him. Serving Martha was clearly bent out of shape by sitting Mary (Luke 10:38-42).
But in this case Jesus comes down on Mary’s side, declaring that she had chosen “the good part and it shall not be taken away from her.” Mary’s primary focus lay in listening carefully to Jesus. In doing so, she sets an example for all believers of what should be their priority.
We at Blessing Point take an additional application from Mary’s example that spiritual leaders often miss. How does an entire church listen to Jesus? How do God’s people as a body get a bead on what He is saying to them?
There are several methods Jesus uses to speak to a church as a body. We unpack them in our book The Eighth Letter (Churchsmart 2014). One of those methods is recognizing how the Holy Spirit speaks through the variously gifted people in your church. It is a lost skill among most modern church leaders.
We know believers have spiritual gifts according to Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. What we don’t realize is how Jesus uses these gifts to communicate to your church. Leaders need to understand that it is not only the gifts themselves that they need to focus on, but also the interaction between those gifts.
Let’s say a difficult moral issue arises at your church, like maybe a pregnant teen. One person with the gift of prophesy (a strong sense of justice) speaks to the issue strongly about what God says is right in the situation. Then another with the gift of mercy (a strong sense of compassion) addresses the same issue from a perspective of the need to deal carefully and tenderly with the teen and her parents who may be wounded and/or afraid by the situation they are in! Both messages are generated by the same Spirit working through the different gifts.
Another illustration: In a church business meeting, the missions budget for the next year comes up. Someone with the gift of faith speaks to the need to stretch themselves, trust God for more resources, and to believe He will supply them. Someone with the gift of administration is more risk-adverse and thinks prudence is more important. The former wants to take bold action, regardless of the cost. The latter is more cautious and insists on not spending more than is available.
Maybe you’ve witnessed such tensions between gifted leaders and congregation members. If so, you are watching the body of Christ doing its unique work. God speaks through both sides of the issue through the gifts. Leaders need to know how to hear Him and discern the right response!
We often interpret tension between the gifts as something unhealthy, when it is the exact opposite. We should see it instead as the Spirit speaking through the plurality of a church’s gifted people. However, like Martha, in our serving we have lost our capacity to listen to how He speaks to us. We need to wait until all the “parts” of our church body know they have been heard, know that we recognize God’s voice in what they have to say, and are being careful to weigh the communication.
It’s by listening to the Spirit speak through all the gifts that you begin to get God’s balanced perspective on issues facing your church. He gives these gifts and their perspectives so those who operate as the “head” in the church (pastors and lay leaders) can know what He thinks. But they have to learn to “sit at His feet and listen.”
How do you actually know when one of these perspectives from a gifted person in your church is what God is saying to you? It will resonate with the entire group present, whether a board, staff or business meeting. By “resonate” we mean that the sum of a body’s “parts” present in the room senses that what they are hearing is indeed from the Lord.
When churches take steps without such resonance things begin to go askew. A church finds itself in dangerous territory when it acts either without a clear message from the Lord or silences one of the voices because of the tension it creates. In such cases, things like politics, consensus-building (not the same as resonance), manipulation, persuasion, and/or the will of dominant individuals begins to shape the direction of a church, and not the Holy Spirit.
When this happens our serving and our priorities may have gotten in the way. Our church’s chosen path might appear to make sense on a pragmatic level, but in reality it has now gone off track. We have not learned how to listen to Him corporately, and how He uses the Body to speak.
Jesus came down on the side of Mary who sat at His feet, listening to Him. Likewise, may your church be one of those that learns to hear what He is saying to you as a body.
Have you learned how to sit at His feet and listen to Him as a church? If so, what have you found helpful to the process? If not, what tends to get in the way of doing so?
Rev. Mark Barnard serves as President of Blessing Point Ministries and is coauthor of The Eighth Letter.