This week we complete our series on Spiritual Leadership. Remember the reason for the series? As has been mentioned multiple times, Spiritual Leadership is being emphasized this January for three reasons: 1) congregational understanding of biblical spiritual leadership, 2) care in the calling of spiritual leaders, and 3) the need for increasing our spiritual leaders. I would like to focus here on the third reason for leading us to consider Spiritual Leadership. As the current spiritual leaders of Parkwood, we believe that now is a critical time to call new shepherds and servants.
Why do we need spiritual leaders now? We need spiritual leaders because of growth, campuses, and obedience. The first reason is growth. We need to increase our spiritual leaders due to numerical growth. Parkwood has grown by approximately one hundred members annually in recent years. These new members illustrate tremendously more shepherding and serving responsibilities, as well as significantly greater ministry potential. In accordance with the physical growth, we must increase the number of shepherds and servants at Parkwood. Gratefully, we have also experienced proportional spiritual growth, which provides us with quality members to whom we may communicate this need for spiritual leadership.
Increasing spiritual leadership is wise for the second reason of campus development. The growth of the main Gastonia campus is apparent, but added to that growth, we must consider our Kings Mountain campus, our active sending to the Lake Wylie campus, and future plans for others campuses. Parkwood is growing. While we must make decisions to account and plan for that growth, we must not be content to monitor our current situation alone. If we do so, we will be unprepared for the future and will eventually turn inward. The heavenly Father is broadening Parkwood’s reach for the sake of the gospel, and we must prepare for Lake Wylie and future campuses by increasing our spiritual leadership.
Not only is it wise to call more spiritual leaders, it is necessary for the sake of obedience. Parkwood should increase her spiritual leadership and more men should respond because God is calling some to be spiritual leaders. If he is calling, then current leaders must call; and if your Father is calling you and your church is calling you, then you must respond. Be stewards of God’s grace. Be stewards of his Word (Titus 1:7-9). Your stewardship is from joy, and your stewardship is for obedience – remembering, brothers, the accounting of Hebrews 13:17. We could be wrong, but we don’t think so. We think the Good Shepherd is calling spiritual leaders to be shepherds and servants. Is God calling you? Are you going to be obedient? I pray for the unidentified shepherds and servants among us that you will identify yourself, answer the call, and be obedient that our God might use you in his church for the sake of his gospel to shepherd and serve his people.
Whether or not you are called to vocational ministry, everyone is called to ministry. Remember, the extraordinary realization is the ordinary nature of the qualification (1 Timothy 3:1-13). If God is not calling you to spiritual leadership – in the formal sense of serving as shepherd or servant – he is certainly calling you to maturity and to ministry; and, in that regard, this spiritual leadership series is for every follower of Christ. But if you believe that you are called vocationally to shepherd or serve at Parkwood, please do not delay your obedience. In consecration and prayer, write your letter today communicating the Lord’s call on your life as you understand it. If you do, you may find that you are part of the Father’s provision for Parkwood’s growth and campuses, and in so doing will be obedient to the One who purchased the church with his own blood (Acts 20:28).
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