Building The Body By Gary L. McIntosh And Phil Stevensonنموونە

Day Four

One People

Scripture: 1 Peter 4:10

Becoming a fit church is directly proportional to the degree the people of God are active in ministry. This means that the heartbeat for a local church is the training of its people rather than relying on leaders alone.

The division of God’s people into two classes—clergy and laity—is unfortunate. The term “laity” (laos) derives from the Greek word for people, crowd, or nation. It designates those who belong to the people of God. The true laity are all those who have been chosen by God, called out of the mass of humankind, and are following him.

The idea of a separate clergy (kleros) class of people is not in the Bible. Evidently, the idea of a separate class of trained people called “clergy” came from Greco-Roman politics and slowly made its way into church language and practice. Yet the Bible contains no glimmer of the idea of a separate class of clergy versus laity. There is only one class of people—the people of God. The biblical words for God’s people are disciples, Christians, and saints (see Acts 11:26 and Ephesians 2:19). We are all one people.

God’s people are called and gifted to serve him. Some of the people of God rise up to become leaders. The role of these leaders is not to do all the work of ministry but to train the people to do God’s work. This means (among many other things) apostolic church leaders are to train people to plant churches, prophetic leaders are to teach people to declare God’s Word, evangelistic leaders are to train God’s people to reach nonbelievers, pastoral leaders are to train people to protect and care for others, and teachers are to train people to understand and obey God’s Word. 

We define personal ministry as accomplishing the purpose of the church through the members of the church. The overarching reason for training people to use their God-given gifts is “to the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). This “building up” spans the entire scope of growth: personal maturity, spiritual growth, and numerical expansion of the church. 

Fit churches train people to know their spiritual gifts, then they equip people to use their gifts, abilities, and skills in ministry. 

Does your church have a distinction between “clergy” and “laity”? How could your church better equip people to use their gifts?