A Discussion about Worship and the One-man-paid pastor system

AuthorGwendolyn Wehage

Frank Jenkins
When nearly every "pastor" who is seen as the leader has been trained in the seminaries where they teach cultural church practices you will find most of them following what they were taught, much of it based on effectiveness more than scripture. And, today the seminaries are teaching acceptance of cultic practices not realizing they are counter to the Word of God.

Also when Paul said; "all Cretans are lazy gluttons he was reflecting what the culture was like. Probably not every single Cretan was lazy and gluttonous, but since most were God warned the people about the culture as a whole.

Generalizations are understood to be just that "generalizations" not all-inclusive.
When we accept the wrong on the basis that "not all are like that" then we are giving a pass to the wrong things in a culture, allowing it to grow only brings more wrong things.

The entire one-man pastor system is against the instruction of God given by Paul in the new testament. Any time a system violates the directions of God it does not matter if it is "working out" which we see has not worked, then the system grows more intensely unbiblical and disobedient.

God gave us the criteria for an elder and that there should be a plurality of leadership, we need not do our own thing, thinking we can do better than God commanded.

Man always wants a leader they can see rather than trusting God, the Holy Spirit they cannot see.

Ed Kassar

Frank Jenkins I think the main point is worship.
How do people actually worship?
"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." (Hebrews 13:15) However with the one man ministry every aspect of true Christian worship is missing.
The hymns are chosen before hand.
The chosen leaders are all who can give praise.
The Holy Spirit is silenced under the thoughts of the leaders.
Yes there are men and women who are gifted, yet those gifts also are given to the members of the Church as well. However gifts need to be applied in the proper place. Women are instructed to be quite in the Church, however children ministry, women's groups and woman Bible studies,... are places they can use those gifts. If not hindered under the clergy laity system as normal.
The Bible and its teaching are for all men and women to understand and walk in the soundness of the Word of GOD, not just a few.
The clergy laity system has destroyed these Godly principles shown in Scripture.

Ed Kassar

Frank Jenkins brother I'm not disagreeing with you about gifted people. Yet I would suggest letting the Holy Spirit do HIS job in the Body of believers.
"But when *he* is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming.He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce [it] to you. All things that the Father has are mine; on account of this I have said that he receives of mine and shall announce [it] to you."
(John 16:13-15)

Ed Kassar

"And to the angel of the assembly in Laodicea write: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. Thus because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see. I rebuke and discipline as many as I love; be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me. He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne.He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.(Rev 3:14-22)
"I am about to spue thee out of my mouth." The way the church makes Jesus feel, Nauseous.
HE stands at the door. What a harrorable state for the church to be in. Jesus is not in it but outside waiting for a open door.
This is why, I'm concerned.

Ed Kassar

Frank Jenkins I highly doubt revival.
Many assume that we are living before the time of the "spanking up" rapture. What we find before the LORDS return is a departure from the truth, and the true Church. Yes religion may flourish as we find that there will be a one world religion upcoming as the antichrist appears. So I can only assume that there will be many false faith appearing in days to come.

Frank Jenkins

Ed Kassar Again that is not the case in all churches!
Hyms and songs of worship all Glorify God and uplift the soul!
Spontaneus Worship is also needed!
There are many spirit filled churches!
But in the case of Women they are according to Apostle Paul are not to Teach or assurp athority over men!
But they are a Blessed in Womens Ministries and Childrens Ministry God always has a place for Spiritual Women!
GODS Church is Still flourishing and I believe Revival is coming!

Frank Jenkins

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AuthorGwendolyn Wehage

Frank Jenkins The things you describe are human traditions you were accustomed to, this does not make them alright merely because you like them or they seem right. We must always defer to the Scriptures asking the Holy Spirit to guide our thinking.

Mark 7:13 "13 Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”

Many years ago I began praying that God would show me only truth. That He would open my eyes to the humanistic traditions that were in the church so that I would be obedient to Him. It was astounding all the things He revealed to me through His Word and the Holy Spirit that were counter to the teachings of Christ. Anyone who prays for His truth will find themselves counter to the Christian culture of our day.

Frank Jenkins

Ed Kassar I Understand your Concerns but God will Guide each individual that seeks him in the spirit and puts the word of God close to his Heart!

The Church is US. The building is a place to Gather share ,Pray , Hear Gods word and Worship !

It is each Person who must Seek Gods Truth and Give Praise and Worship to God!
The Apostles Admonished Churches and Praised followers in the Church!
We must Not fixate on Organizations as much as Individuals being Deciples of Christ each one being an Example in our Walks and in Churches we attend!
We as Deciples answer to Christ and must Focus on His Message!

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AuthorGwendolyn Wehage

The moment we give a pass to one tradition it will lead to a mindset of setting aside God's Word for other traditions that work against God and the gospel.

AuthorGwendolyn Wehage

Ed Kassar Amen!!!

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AuthorGwendolyn Wehage

Frank Jenkins God will never guide a believer to do anything against His own Word. The Holy Spirit is the very essence of His Own Word, He will always lead the believer to do His Will as instructed in the word of God. There is no new revelation for man to draw from, it is all in the Bible and clearly laid out for us to follow.

John 14:15 "15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever."
John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"

The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, when men lead us they are sharing the Word of God as given in the Bible, not their own ideas or methods, but the truth of God's Word. Accepting man's way thinking it can be as good as the Scripture is adding to the Scriptures.

Proverbs 30:6
"Do not add to His words
Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar."
To use our own traditions to worship God is disobedience, it doesn't matter if they appear to work well, if they are disobedience then they are trusting in man not God.

Worshipers Filled with the Holy Spirit

The only "worship leader" in the gathering of believers should be the Holy Spirit. If a group is using human beings as the worship leaders" then there is a humanistic bent to the group.

God never commanded the church to appoint leaders over the worship other than Jesus Christ.

John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…":

If anyone is following a person they are not following Jesus Christ. There is only one mediator between the believer and the Father and that is Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5 "5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all—the testimony that was given at just the right time."

Our husbands are not the mediators between us and God, wives are not mediators, church elders are not mediators, no one in the church is a mediator between the believers and God the Father, only Christ is the mediator.

If anyone is following a man they cannot be following Christ.

The Holy Spirit brings glory to God the Father, human leaders bring glory to themselves and to others, not to God.

John 16:13-15 "…13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you. 15 Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you.…"

When we come together to worship every word, every prayer and every action should glorify Jesus Christ, not ourselves. We come together to speak of Christ, to pray in His name, to speak of His attributes and what He did on the cross. Anything else in the gathering detracts from Him and elevates the world and self.

Believers are not to come together to vent their political views, pray for their own needs, or to focus on anything in the world. We come together in worship to speak of Christ, glorify Him, and seek His Face. Today's churches do not worship as God commanded, they are coming together, as a rule, to glorify themselves and beg for their own stuff.

Teaching is another matter, this is where we get into the deeper principles of God's Word, His promises, and His purposes, it also is not a time to vent about politics or commiserate over problems of the world.

We take our troubles to God all the time, in prayer meetings, in our homes when the purpose is to petition God, this is separate and different from the time of worship.

Putting the Lord's Supper at the end of a gathering just to say we did it without spending time in prayer to glorify Him, expound on His Word and praise Him for His Own sake, not to do anything else but worship about Him.

The American church and perhaps the churches in the world today to put on a self-oriented time of venting, begging for our needs, and praising self. It is not the worship God speaks about in His Word.

I once heard a preacher praise the gathering from the pulpit on how good they were all doing. Frankly, it disgusted me, there out to be weeping and solemnness in a church gathering, no one was so perfect during the week that they would be praising themselves rather than convicted over their failures during the week to be cleansed of their flaws and failures.

Worship toward God is nothing about us, it's all about Him.

In conclusion;, the time of worship is all about Christ, all about Him and nothing else, this is worship.

The American church views God as a genie in a bottle to do our bidding, mostly to make us feel more spiritual and as though we have done our "obligation" by attending the building they call a church.

Is it any wonder the church as a whole has become apostate? People do not know what worship is nor do they seem to care. I notice too that most Christians do not speak of Christ even in the gathering, they let the "leaders" do it and only to entertain rather than equip the saints to go from the gathering to be strong in their witness for Christ in their communities.

As one preacher said it well, we have the pulpit people and the pew people. The pulpit people elevate themselves because of their education and the pew people believe everything they say without question, even reviling anyone who says something different from the pulpit person.

In the description of worship in the Bible there are no "pew people and pulpit people." Everyone worships and the Holy Spirit is the leaders.

Read 1 Corinthians 14:26-38

"26 What is the outcome then, brothers and sisters? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things are to be done for edification.

27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, it must be by two or at the most three, and each one in turn, and one is to interpret;

28 but if there is no interpreter, he is to keep silent in church; and have him speak to himself and to God.

29 Have two or three prophets speak, and have the others pass judgment.

30 But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, then the first one is to keep silent.

31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted;

32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets;

33 for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.

As in all the churches of the saints,

34 the women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.

35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

36 Or was it from you that the word of God first went out? Or has it come to you only?

37 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment.

38 But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.'"

There is no mention here or anywhere else that we should have a one-man paid pastor to lead everything. The idea of the one-man pastor system came from the Catholic church many years ago, the entire hierarchy system was man's concoction, not God's.

God intended for the Holy Spirit to be leading everything according to His design.

The one-man pastor system has done away with the leading of the Holy Spirit as well as denying that Christ speaks in the heart of every believer.

It is human nature to be lazy and just follow a man rather than seek Jesus Christ Who dwells in believers. It is easier to follow a man they can see than to follow Christ Who is unseen.

The modern church is in a colossal mess because of the lie the devil has spoken, that is that gatherings must have paid men educated by human colleges to lead the gatherings. Trusting in the Holy Spirit has been mocked and demeaned as people are led to the slaughter by other power-seeking men who love their notoriety.

We are living in a time of great apostasy, we will not be able to find men of God who are not sucked into this worldly man-centered gospel according to their own mindsets absent of the working of the Holy Spirit.

We must remain, faithful, just know that this faithfulness to God's Word will cause division and will isolate us from those who love their worldly man-centered worship. We agonize in our Spirit over the foolishness and lies that are coming from pulpit people, knowing this is one of the signs of the end of the age.

Luke 18:9-14 "9 Now He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:

10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

11 The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’

13 But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

14 I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”"

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Subtle Miracles and Strong Faith

We have no need to see God because we walk by faith and Jesus Christ lives in us. I have no doubt that people are seeing a god sent by satan to deceive them.

Many people love to see sensational miracles to get attention on themselves or to build their faith because they have weak faith. It diverts people from Christ to the "miracle", a form of religious sensationalism.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 "…6 Therefore we are always confident, although we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, then, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.…"

Personally, I don't feel a need to see a miracle to have strong faith, otherwise, it would not be faith. I do see miracles from time to time but they are so subtle that only someone with faith will know they are miracles.

Hebrews 11:1

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Who or What Do You Speak about the Most?

When the world is obsessed with something then we can rightly assume something is wrong with it. 

What things is this world obsessed with:
Exercise,
Outward beauty
Self
Materialism
Personal achievement
Perfect food
Praise

When we are obsessed with something its what we speak about the most.

Do believers speak of Christ more than anything else? Just asking!

All the hype about Exersize has destroyed Character and Damaged the Body

When the world obsesses over something we know it is probably not of God. We live in a western world that is obsessed with physical exercise, "healthy" food and outer beauty, perhaps we ought to see the source and purpose of this and question whether it is Biblical or not.

I am convinced this "exercise crazed" mentality of the western countries has actually shortened the lives of those who work out hard every day. They are so invested in "appearing" beautiful on the outside that they are damaging the organs and the spiritual aspect of one's being.

Back in the day, everyone worked harder than many of us today and their life expectancy was shorter. Why would the life expectancy be shorter for those who had difficult labor jobs? I am convinced that working very hard all their lives wore out their organs and ability to heal.

Notice, when we have an illness or injury the doctors' advice is to "rest." When someone works out every day in intense ways, lifting weights or running, they are damaging their organs muscles, and bones. It is not seen until later in life when these things begin to have problems.

Walking was given to human beings because it was necessary and even served us well to be able to live life, however, running was given as a panic response to danger, not to be done every day unless the job required it as in war or physical labor for strength for heavy jobs an extra need for muscles to be strong. Many people in labor jobs who have to work physically hard every day have a shorter lifespan than those who live more sedentary lives.

When we have an illness the doctors tell us to “rest” allowing our bodies to heal. It makes sense that resting is far more advantageous than exercise for the body to have immunity strength.

The people I have known and if you read about the lives of those who have lived to be 90 and beyond you find that they were the ones who did not vigorously work out every day.

There is a problem of wearing out our organs, bones, and muscles through continual abuse. Why would anyone think abusing our organs, muscles, and bones every day would cause them to grow better when with anything else we see the wear and tear of use that degrades everything else we use?

This idea of physical exercise as necessary is not scientific nor is it proven in statistics that one who exercises lives longer. Even the articles that claim a longer life because of exercising say one only gains from 3 to 8 more years than the one who does not exercise. I would suggest that those who live longer are not living longer because they exercised but lived longer because their body healed better from illnesses, but only for a short length of time.

It might be akin to saying a person was healthier because they walked every day when the truth might be that they walked every day because they were healthier in general not because the walking made them healthier but because they could walk because they were healthier. Cart before the horse!

1 Timothy 4:8

"8 for bodily training is just slightly beneficial, but godliness is beneficial for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

It makes sense that walking to do a job is the means God gave us and is all we need. Anything more intense than walking is of little value, God said so and I believe Him.