Someone asked: ‘What do we do with an unwelcoming welcomer who doesn’t greet people warmly, and sometimes chides them for being absent from church?’

My comment on this issue, from an ‘after the horse has bolted’ perspective.

At Blackburn Baptist Church we asked 60 key people on a Leaders’ Retreat to nominate who should preach / how often / at which of the three main services. The various columns allowed for the preaching pastors to be nominated, but also other people from within and outside our congregation.

I handed the results to my secretary who arranged the preaching roster accordingly. (Postscript: one of our senior pastors couldn’t cope with deacons, elders and others telling him how often he should preach: he’d obviously decided that himself in a lifetime of pastoral ministry. But that’s another story).

I had – and have – the strong conviction that we should all be accountable to others in any ministry – especially public/interactive ministries – in the church. Hence, I would commend the idea of subjecting ourselves to a representative group (the size a function of the size of the church community) in all these areas.

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.org.au/

Justice for Dawn Rowan – http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/