From a ‘Net-friend:

Given the attention church leadership is currently receiving, and has often earned, from the media, how’s this for an appropriate word for today’s pastors from 500 years ago?

“No one who has studied the matter will deny that in the course of history the fortunes of the Church on earth have been determined in such a way that its preservation from harm or its downfall have depended exclusively on its pastors or bishops. From the foundation of the world the Church has always maintained its strength and flourished when these have faithfully persevered in their mission with fortitude. And the contrary is also true, that things could not have gone any worse for the Church than when its pastors and bishops have allowed themselves to be corrupted by Satan and have been in one way or another ousted from their positions. So, to achieve his ends as quickly as possible, the devil’s chief concern is to stalk pious pastors and their ministry tirelessly, directing all the might of his vile nature solely to corrupting them, since their fall will of necessity bring in its train the collapse of the Church.” [Casiodoro de Reina (1520-1594), ‘Ecclesiam Christi’, trans. A. Gordon Kinder. Quoted by Marva J. Dawn in ‘Powers, weakness, and the tabernacling of God’, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2001, pp 73, 74.]

Marva Dawn does go on to add: “I would modify de Reina’s comment slightly because we know biblically that the health of the Church does not depend ‘exclusively’ on its leaders, but certainly their own spiritual robustness is the most prominent influence on true Christianity’s well-being.” [p74]

Have you got your personal intercession team in place? How’s your accountability network? Which aspects of the ‘powers’, or “the world’s notions of success and power” as Walter Brueggemann puts it in his review of Dawn’s book, might have crept almost unawares into your ministry?