Steward Leadership - Fruitfulness

    This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders.

We continue our series on steward leadership as we examine some major themes of stewardship. Today I want to share about a prayer I recently heard from a Nigerian pastor.

To review, a steward is defined as “someone who manages resources belonging to another person in order to achieve the owner’s objectives.” In our context, we are managing resources provided by the Lord for our Village Church Planting work.

Here is Pastor Isaac’s prayer from just a few weeks ago. “Above all, we pray that we will be more productive for your Kingdom.” Let me say that again. “Above all, we pray that we will be more productive for your Kingdom.”

As I break down that prayer into its parts, I see three points that he made.

He began with “Above all”. This implies a first priority for our leadership. Exemplary steward leadership places an emphasis upon fruitfulness. I will share further in my next podcast about the importance of accountability. Our “Owner,” God, like the owner in the parable of the talents (you can read this again in Matthew 25:14-30) expects a return corresponding to what He has entrusted to us.

Secondly, in Pastor Isaac’s prayer, he prayed that we might be “More productive.” Fruitfulness is the earnest desire of steward leaders. One of the scriptures that motivates me greatly is Luke 12:48b. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” “Demanded” in the New International Version is a very strong word. In the New English Version and several others, this is translated as “required.” As I studied this verse, other translations used “expected” or “responsible.” The clear point of this instruction is that the Lord will hold steward leaders accountable to be fruitful with the resources entrusted to us.

Finally, he closed his prayer with the words “For Your Kingdom”. I appreciate this. You see, Christ’s Kingdom is to be the beneficiary of our service. We serve not to build our reputations or to call attention to our personal ministries. Steward leaders serve not to seek positional promotion or advancement. Jesus taught this in His Sermon on the Mount. We are to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) Sometimes acclaim or promotion may follow our service, but these are a byproduct, not the objective, of our steward leadership.

Next time, we will continue our study of steward leadership. This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters and leaders.

Prophetic Gifts for Multiplication

 

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis, and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters. 

In my last episode, I mentioned that the word “apostle” is often misunderstood because it has so many different meanings for different churches. Even so, we need to be looking for Christ to provide apostles to our churches just as He promised in Ephesians 4. We need people, gifted by God, to be sent out and start new churches where none has existed before. That is the work of an apostle!

Ephesians 4:11,12 tells us “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. Wow, the first word on that list, apostle, is often misunderstood, and so is the second one: prophet. Even so, Christ wants to give His churches prophets so that the Body of Christ may be built up. But for the Church, what is a prophet?

A prophet has God-given strengths to encourage the church and to identify situations in the world that grieve the Lord. A prophet proclaims truth from God and calls believers to obedience. Prophets strongly rely on prayer and spiritual gifts to accomplish the ministry. 

But when a prophet fails to walk in the Spirit, negative traits may appear. The prophet who fails to submit to the Spirit may have a condemning attitude or become arrogant because of their spiritual insight. He or she may claim to prophesy without having heard to Lord’s voice or understood His word in the Bible. And he or she may interrupt others to speak an inappropriate word.

Your churches need prophets just as they need apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Your churches need both encouragement and correction. They need leaders who spend much time in prayer and who are willing to speak messages from God. Prophets energize the evangelistic and church planting ministry of a church by calling church members to action and by providing encouragement to those who do obey.

But are you looking for men and women with prophetic gifts in your midst? Jesus said he would give our churches prophets. If we are to be good stewards, we must look for prophets to emerge, accept and encourage their ministry, correct them when they fail to walk in the Spirit, and give them a place to speak messages from the Lord. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

My prayer for your churches is that God will provide the gifted men and women of God you need to do his will, to grow and multiply!

This has been Multiply! And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #Prophets