Crystal Clear Mandate For Leaders!

Year after year after year I watch pastors, elders, deacons, trustees, pastoral staff, lay staff, etc, miss the mandate on our lives as leaders. I don't get how leaders call themselves "called to ministry" and yet they either have never studied the word or they just completely miss how clear our calling is. God laid it out before us in Ephesians 4 EQUIP - BUILD UP! There's no time limit, the word says, "UNTIL" they are mature...over the years I've watched people condemn using people in ministry who are not yet Christ followers or who are immature in their walk or who struggle with life circumstances....I have learned it's my job to equip them and take them on the journey and it's Gods job to sort out how He wants to handle them. Leaders let's quit being God and start being leaders and bathe our lives with the word so we KNOW how to lead that brings honor to God and our ministries! 

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all. However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the Scriptures say, “When he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people.” Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself. Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (Ephesians 4:1-16 NLT)