This year at our Friday May 2 6pm outdoor Season kickoff. TOV will be commissioning Paul Lazzaroni in his gifting as a shepherd (pastor). We will start at 6pm with praise and worship and transition into a teaching and commissioning service. Towards the end of the night, we will call Paul and His wife Megg up and commission them. Paul is completing his BA in Biblical Studies from Covenant Theological Seminary (CTS) and will be installed as a TOV associate pastor. Tov also affirms women in Ministry and that the two have become one and therefore will be recognizing Paul and Megg together. Upon completion of His BA in Biblical Studies at CTS Paul will be enrolled in The King’s Commission School of Divinity in their Master of Divinity program. Friday night he will be presented with a certificate of ordination from TKC and the International Association of Theological schools (IATS). If you have walked closely with Paul, I want to personally thank you for the investment you have made and the fruit that it has and will continue to bear in our TOV community.

TOV believes in the priesthood of all believers. That means that from the opening pages of the Bible we believe that our vocational identity was to live out our giftedness as an ambassador that represents Jesus and His Kingdom. We believe that every believer is called this way and that it is a process within sanctification. However, some are recognized by the body as leaders that shepherd the shepherds.

Pastor – Shepherding those who shepherd

In this sense, we are recognizing Paul’s gifting. As TOV is not into titles, we view a commissioning of one’s life in relation to the recognition of the community and the fruit they bear. This is a functional calling based on unique gifting, spiritual maturity, and sacrificial service. We are setting apart Paul as one who has made the decision to live set apart and wholly devoted to shepherding others out of meekness and sacrificial love. To some regard TOV is hesitant to use the term “pastor” as it isn’t in the Bible. (The Greek in Eph 4 uses the term poimenas which is better translated shepherd.) Therefore, the term is a bit of a theological construct of humanity. We also believe everyone in some way functions ministerially. So, the term also becomes problematic in that sense. However, we do recognize in a modern definition of the word as someone who is identified as a central leader of the body of Christ. In that sense both Paul, myself, and my wife Krista are identified as those that are recognized and functioning as TOV shepherds who shepherd.

In a sense we recognize every believer this way, but in another sense, we see the Biblical example of those that lead the shepherding, and the world refers to these people as pastors. So, will you call him Pastor Paul from here on out? Well, I guess I will leave that up to you. I think He would prefer you just call him Paul. At the same time, it makes complete sense that nearly every other church uses the title pastor before someone’s first or last name. We certainly are not saying it is wrong or that churches shouldn’t do that. The roots of TOV are to return to a first century style church and they didn’t seem to call anyone pastor back then, so out of consistency, that is more of our reasoning. We also like to think this roles self sacrificially with the New Testament descriptions such as a gardener, one who cultivates growth.

1 Corinthians 4:1-2

“This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”

Today’s leadership structures in the church are based on a contemporary hierarchical and positional mindset. According to the positional mindset terms and titles like pastor, elder, bishop, deacon, the 5-fold ministry positions/offices, etc. are positions of church leadership or “ecclesial offices”.

By contrast we would believe that the New Testament vision is that of a functional mindset. Each of these “offices” in the positional view are actually giftings and not a position. Leadership in the New Testament places a high premium on the unique gifting, spiritual maturity, and sacrificial service of each member. It lays stress on functions, not offices. It emphasizes tasks rather than titles. Its main concern lies in activities like pastor-ing, elder-ing, prophesy-ing, oversee-ing, apostle-ing, etc.  Positional thinking is hung up on nouns, while functional thinking stresses verbs. 

Jesus was pretty clear on hierarchy in Matt 20:25-28 in that it should “not be so among you” and led by example from an upside-down kingdom perspective of complete self-sacrificial servanthood exhibiting power under rather than a power over.

Jesus on hierarchy:

• Worldly leadership operates on the top-down command structures. The Kingdom of God operates on leadership that is not positional and that flows out of meekness and sacrificial love.
• Worldly leadership is based on rank. The Kingdom of God operates based on Godly character.. Christ’s description of a “leader”- “let him be a servant”
• Worldly leadership is measured by greatness and prominence. In the Kingdom greatness is measured by humility and servanthood.
• Worldly leadership use their positions to rule over others. In the Kingdom of God leaders deplore special reverence “to regard themselves as the younger” (As the one with least power) or power under.

In Matthew 23:8-12 Jesus comes against the titles of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law- positional authority

• In the Religious climate of the Jews a class system existed made up of religious specialists and non-specialists (clergy and laity?). Yet in the Kingdom all are brothers and sisters in the same family.
• In the Religious world leaders are recognized with honorific titles (Pastor, Elder, bishop, minister, director, etc.). In the Kingdom there are no distinctions or titles- we are all a kingdom of priests unto our God.
• Religious leaders lead through outward prominence and display. In the Kingdom we wash feet as humble lowly servants.
• Religious leadership was rooted in status, title, and position. In the Kingdom everything is rooted in inward life and character.

 Jesus comes against both the worldly view of hierarchical power and the religious view of positional authority. Why? Because they stunt the organic nature of his body. They impede the functioning of the gifts when just the “professionals” do all the “kingdom work”. And they create a 2-class system in the church.

Submission

We hear a lot about submission to authority in the church but in reality we have “no king but Christ” and the key verse in the New Testament for submission says:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph 5:21)

• Submit= hypotasso= voluntarily yield
• Jesus is your only spiritual covering- there is not case in the Bible for any man or religious leader to be so.

The view of oversight in the NT church is about the whole body operating in their giftings and being discipled by those who are wise, mature, and have the character of Christ in them. This is what leadership and oversight looks like rather than the CEO structure that focuses on offices and hierarchy which hurts the church.

We need all the gifts to be a healthy body.

• Apostolic work sets the culture and plants, waters, and weeds in the community. They are often itinerant workers plowing new roads for the kingdom.
• Prophets are covenant enforcers exhorting the body to stay on course and listen to the Lord for his vision.
• Evangelists embody the gospel message and share it boldly through invitation, which results in a growing community pursing discipleship.
  • We talked about hospitality as the primary method of early church discipleship
• Shepherds/Teachers help the church in times of personal crisis (shepherding) and cultivate the church’s spiritual life by revealing Christ through the exposition of Scripture (teaching).
  • We noted that shepherd-teacher are combined here (4 fold?). This is also the only mention of “pastor” in the Bible and it’s better as shepherd and it’s plural. In 1 Peter it is a verb and here it’s a noun acting as a verb (function not position)
  • Also when someone says there are no women pastors in the Bible you can also say there are no male pastors in the Bible.  Shepherding is biblical but it’s not a position.

Ephesians 4 describes these as “ascension gifts” not “ascension offices”

Does Romans 12 list a 7 fold ministry? Does 1 Cor 12 list an 8 fold ministry? No! Hardly anyone takes there lists hieratically so why Eph 4? We may have up 22+ gifts listed in the Bible but there are more.

How do we get to a better place?

Every day is completely, wholly given to Jesus and the calling to be a disciple and make a disciple by Jesus’ definition not the worlds

• You don’t give your time, treasure, and talents to the world in any way, they are reserved solely for Jesus
• You train up your kids as your primary responsibility and your core act of making disciples
• You live intimately with Him and present deeper devotion to the king and His kingdom within your family and surround yourself with one accord of a body of believers that think the same way.
• Don’t be immersed in the world, let the world find Jesus through you. Offer living water at each and every opportunity. You don’t need to drink the worlds water anymore.
• Bring your gifts to and for the body each and every day
• Meet regularly as a spiritual family communing with Jesus as a central strand of life together
• Your best should be given to Jesus, everything points that way
• Work repeatedly and regularly to present yourself completely devoted to Him (a living sacrifice) and your spiritual family of disciples.
• Get back to God’s ideals, perhaps 7 feasts for 7 days and each sabbath together; or perhaps that was just the beginning of what God wants. Eventually in a recreated heaven and earth we are going to be in fellowship not just 7×7 but completely. That should be the goal today too, not once a week, but wholly given in complete life pursuit. That is the thrust of the New Covenant disciple, not just a tithe, or a first fruit, but all in all the time.

What would it look like if your spiritual family lived this way. Can you imagine it? Could you survive in America? What if you had 10 families that made this commitment. Your gifts enabled housing out of debt. (pipedream, impossible? I think your limiting yourself and God) You shared what was “needed”; you provided for not only your own but the others. You all learned to live this way. I would actually venture to say that it is not only possible but is the ONLY Biblical model and is a recipe for amazing life in Jesus. You might conduct a business but it is surrounded together in Jesus. Maybe the Amish building houses together weren’t too far off from a New Testament picture of working together, they just got hung up on legalism along the way.

In short, whenever the church gathers together, its guiding and functioning principal is simply to incarnate Christ (1 Cor 12:12)

The Edenic Ideal:

We always take everything back to God’s ideals. The Bible begins and ends with Eden. New Creation has broken into the present through the resurrection, so the church should be living according to God’s ideals in our communities even if the world looks completely opposite.

God’s eternal purpose was to have a people in relationship with him working in equality under God’s kingship. This is God’s ideal for his church too. Each of us bringing our gifts to the altar/table and using them to image him to creation.