Foundations of Christian Leadership, Mentor's Guide, MG07

1 4 0 /

F O U N D A T I O N S O F C H R I S T I A N L E A D E R S H I P

• Specify the ways in which a bishop functions as an apostle, charged with the ongoing care of new churches and their leaders, doing all they can to ensure the protection, edification and development of them. • Give evidence how the bishop functions as a spiritual director, providing challenge and encouragement to budding ministries and churches as they mature in Christ. • Sketch out carefully the importance of pastoral and church association, both as it relates regionally through the locale church, and through affinity and shared identity. • Argue for the role of the bishop-level oversight being given to urban churches in association with each other, and how that ministry might flesh itself out among urban congregations. • Review the blessing, benefit, and reward of faithful obedience to the call of the Christian leader as bishop, with the prospect of exercising authority in the Kingdom of God. Col. 1.24-29 - Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, [25] of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, [26] the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. [27] To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. [28] Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. [29] For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Paul’s zeal for the Church is one of the most noticeable features of his remarkable apostolic career. No commentator on the great apostle can possibly miss his unusual zeal for Christ, for the Gospel, and for his desire to fulfill his ministry. He counts all things as loss for the supremacy of the knowledge of Christ (cf. Phil. 3.4-7), and he counts his life as nothing so he can fulfill his course with joy, and the ministry that he received of the Lord Jesus. His own testimony makes this zeal visible to all: “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the Filling Up What Is Lacking for the Church

Devotion

page 338 2

4