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Preparing the Church for Version 2: Part 2  Please read Part 1 first

Pastors, Elders, Deacons and the Forgotten Mission

In Preparing the Church for Version 2.0, I argued that the modern church has become very good at gathering people together, but not nearly as good at helping them become a functioning Body of Christ.

The question that naturally flows from this is: If the Church is supposed to be a living, interconnected Body rather than an audience sitting in rows, then who is responsible for making that happen?

Over the last few months I have found myself wrestling with that question more and more. Not because of some theological debate, but because of what I see every Sunday. People faithfully attend church week after week, yet many remain largely unknown to one another. New people arrive. Others quietly disappear. Life-changing events happen in the lives of congregants and often only a handful of people know about them.

Which raises an uncomfortable possibility. What if the problem is not that we have forgotten how to do church?

What if we have forgotten what church leadership was meant to accomplish in the Body?

Every organisation has leaders.

Businesses have managers.

Countries have governments.

Schools have principals.

Sports teams have coaches.

And churches have pastors, elders and deacons.

But there is one question I rarely hear asked. What exactly are they supposed to do?

Not what they actually do. Not what tradition says they do. Not what denominations expect them to do.

What did God appoint them to do?

That may sound like a strange question, but it is an important one. Because if we misunderstand the purpose of church leadership, we will inevitably misunderstand the purpose of the Church itself.

So lets have a look at what the Apostle Paul says about Church structure. In Ephesians 4 starting in verse 11 and extending to verse 16. Let’s look at it in some detail. It’s critical structural instruction:

11: And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, (why?)

12: for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, (why) for the edifying of the body of Christ, (why)

13: till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (why)

14: that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

15: but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--

16: from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

From this amazing scripture and clear structure, it can be seen that verse 11 and half of verse 12, is instruction to the leadership of the church. The rest is for us, the Body of Christ! Do you realise the huge responsibility that we have as the Body. And that responsibility is never going to be lived out in a Sunday church service and a once a week home group.

Verse 16 speaks of “the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share,”. Notice the last part, “every part does its share!” Body, the growth and stability of the Body of Christ is not the leaderships responsibility. It's ours! Us who faithfully sit in the pews every Sunday. The leadership's responsibility is to equip. The Body's responsibility is to function. When either side neglects its role, the whole Body suffers.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let’s get this straight. The leadership in my church is there to make sure that I am equipped to play my part in the Body of Christ. My job is to make sure that I “join and knit together” with the rest of the body so that I add spiritual and personal strength and value to the Body

If the leadership equips and the Body functions, the Church grows.

If the leadership equips but the Body refuses to engage, the Church struggles.

If the Body wants to function but the leadership fails to equip, the Church struggles.

God's design requires both.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the modern church is not that we have forgotten how to gather.

Perhaps it is that we have forgotten why we were gathered in the first place.

 

Author: Mark Deavall 19 June 2026