Spiritual Authority in the Church

Introduction:

I am convinced that we stand at a critical time in the Church’s history in this country and in our Churches in particular:

• Some ‘New’ Church streams have dried up completely and increasingly one hears alarming stories of where others seem to be going. 
• There are a number of new ideas about Church  which have varying degrees of popularity e.g. Emerging Church; Liquid Church; Deep Church etc.
• The first generation of ‘restoration’ Church Leaders is getting old and dying off.  There is a need to handover to a new generation of leaders at every level. 
• ‘New’/’Restoration’ Church’s that have survived and flourished have grown big and diversified their ministry.  Often they now meet in large buildings and support a significant number of staff on their payroll.  These larger Churches tend to be run on a more corporate structure of department heads (Elders) working to a CEO (Lead Elder).
• There is a significant body of teaching promoting the importance of one visionary leader leading a successful growing Church. (Peter Wagner, Bill Hybels, Frank Damazio etc).
• We are planting many Churches and have a multiplying number of smaller Churches.  We seem content to have no Elders or one Elder in most of these. 
• ‘The Restoration of the Church’ issue is considered passé today.  The buzz issues are ‘mission’ and ‘social action’.  In many ways this is encouraging but the ‘restoration’ issues are still very relevant and we need to understand them and apply them. 

So the issues of Spiritual Authority and Biblical Leadership are more urgent than ever.  This paper is drawn together to provoke discussion and, hopefully, to help ongoing development in these important areas. >>

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Spiritual Authority in the Church