As I travel to other churches and conferences, people often say nice things like ‘things seem to be going well at your church’. My reply often causes a slight awkwardness as I say ‘I don’t have a church’. As they wonder if there has been a change in my circumstances which they have missed, they usually follow up with another question. ‘Aren’t you leading a church in Exeter?’ ‘Ah you mean Rediscover Church – yes I’m still serving the Lord there, but it’s not my church – it’s Jesus church!’.

At this point the ‘penny drops’ and they realise what I meant by my initial answer, but I suspect they may think I’m playing a game of semantics. So am I just trying to be awkward with my language or is this more significant? Let me give you my reasoning and i’ll let you come to your own conclusions as to my motives.

Clarity of ownership is important

If you visit a friend and they say ‘make yourself at home!’, it probably means, get comfortable and feel free to make good use of the facilities. What it doesn’t mean is ‘go ahead and contact the local estate agent, put our house up for sale and receive the sale price into your bank account’ – only the legal owner has the right to do that.

Likewise you may sit down to enjoy the fresh bean to cup coffee that their machine has dispensed but notice a number of defects in the property. Making yourself at home doesn’t mean you are now responsible to repair these defects – the responsibility is the owners. Even in a house rental system, the tenants are usually required to obtain permission from the landlord before making any changes to the property.

Ownership opens up rights and responsibilities that are unique to the owner – and there are rights and responsibilities regarding the church that belong to God and not us. Get these wrong and we find ourselves in all sorts of difficulty.

Purchase of the church:

Acts 20:28 Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Jesus paid with His own blood to purchase the church and any attempt to take ownership is misguided. He’s the owner!

Building of the church:

Matthew 18:18 and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.

He bought it and He will build it – its idea, formation and future destiny is in His hands not ours!

We are stewards not owners

So the church belongs to God – so should we just put our feet up? Definitely not! A theme of stewardship runs throughout the bible: right from the introduction of Adam, through the Old and New Testaments, including the words of Jesus and the letters to the churches. Everything we have has been entrusted to us and we will give an account for how we have looked after it. Even in the verse I earlier quoted from Acts 20:28, we are instructed to shepherd the church, but of course the scriptures reveal that it is the Lord who is our shepherd, so even in the process of shepherding we are ‘assistants’.

When I arrived at Rediscover Church, the community was into its 84th year since starting its expression in the city of Exeter. During those years there have been a range of leaders and pastors who have carried the baton – and now it was in my hands. As I stood in front of the gathered community to introduce myself I said ‘Good morning – my name is Mark and I’m not the new senior pastor of this church. The senior pastor of this church remains unchanged – He is the good shepherd, the One who has promised to build His church – His name is Jesus. I’ve come to be his new understudy and I will seek to listen to the Senior Pastor really well, to follow His instructions and obey whatever He asks of me and us.’

I’m an under shepherd and want to be the best steward I can be of this privilege – I want to take hold of that which, in His grace, has been entrusted to me – but it’s not mine, it’s His. He has invited me, as He has invited us all, to ‘make ourselves at home’, but He has the rights and the responsibilities not me. If I can stand before Him one day and say ‘I did my absolute best to serve that which you entrusted to me: I sought to listen to you, to follow your ways and make the most of every opportunity’ then, irrespective of the size of the church or the influence I have, I believe I will hear a ‘well done’ – and that is what we should live for!

Sadly over the years, I’ve seen leaders get this ownership issue wrong by thinking the church is theirs. They hold onto it with controlling power and assume rights and responsibilities that don’t really belong to them. At times I’ve witnessed leaders benchmark their personal value from the seeming success or failure of the church – and in pursuit of increasing their value they strive, push and even bully others to make it happen.

The church exists to point people to its true leader and not us. We are meant to be a sign post and not a destination. When I buy my wife flowers, she doesn’t looked at my feet saying ‘I appreciate the way you have walked to the florist to get these for me’, she never looks at my hands saying ‘I love the way you’ve carried them so wonderfully’. No she looks at my face before gushing with appreciation and love. The bible describes the church as being like ‘a body’ and Jesus is described as the ‘head of the church’. Whatever we do, we should desire people look to the head and not the body.

Our language helps establish our culture

Now I realise there is a danger in what I’m about to say – I’m about to raise questions about the appropriateness of some familiar language in church leadership circles. I don’t believe that such language has been constructed with a wrong motive but I do believe it’s worth asking whether our language conveys our heart. If you, or anyone in your church use any of the terms I’m about to mention, it doesn’t necessarily mean there is a problem, but it would be worth considering how our language best captures what is in our heart. Let me start with a softer tangent regarding language – I don’t believe we should have ‘times of worship’ but ‘lifestyles of worship’ – so introducing a worship band during a gathering under the auspice that they are going to lead us in a ‘time of worship’ may not convey the true story – we know what we mean but others may assume from our language that worship is something we do at certain times. I’m sure there are many such examples in our regular church language that don’t accurately convey what we mean – but if we think that our language is not that important then I believe we need to think again. What about some of these expressions then?

I love my church: it’s great that you love the community of believers that God has called you to serve alongside, but two things: 1) there really is only one church in the world 2) it doesn’t belong to you.

I know that for most of us, such a saying is simply a way of conveying the particular congregation we are committed to, but let’s check our hearts and make sure we don’t think it’s ours. We sometimes fail our own expectations on this issue at Rediscover church, but we try and take away expressions that can be understood to convey any sense of our ownership.

I’m the founding pastor: thank you for your sacrifice and diligence in those early days of establishing the community but two things: 1) Jesus founded the one church many years before your parents even had a romantic twinkle in their eyes 2) is the use of that title a way of soliciting some special favour and trumping other opinions with a sense of your rights? If so, I think you need to let go before you find you’ve cashed in heavens ‘well done’ for a fleeting influence over others.

I know that such a phrase is more often used as a way of honouring people which is a good thing, but let’s ensure this doesn’t become a title which forms the basis of overplaying ones influence.

In summary

Stewardship does not mean laziness. I’ve often found it instinctive that I look after things better that are borrowed than things that are owned. If I use my own lawnmower then I quickly shake it off before storing in my garage – if I borrow someone else’s lawnmower then I make sure it’s returned in better condition than I received it.

Stewardship is one of the greatest privileges we can know – to think that God would entrust what’s His to us is mind blowing. Let’s serve Him well and keep looking towards eternities ‘well done my good and faithful servant!’