Biblical Callings and Democratic Principles
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The Early Church: Our spiritual ancestors in the New Testament wrestled with many of the same concerns we do now. What can we do to fulfill God’s calling in our individual lives? And how can our individual gifts be combined to meet the challenges of our historical context? The Early Church developed a clear trend based on what they learned from Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. The disciples embodied this reality well. The Book of Acts in our New Testament (which we will cover in a few weeks!) makes clear both the struggles as well as the victories of this model of church leadership. Regular people called into the service of God can accomplish more than we imagine. Still, then and now, problems arise that must be addressed.
Baptist History: Church history can be quite messy. Our Baptist ancestors emerged in tough times with fairly radical congregational intent. That is, our Baptist forebears in the 1600’s generated high controversy and faced considerable persecution. One of their radical ideas?
Congregational Democracy: Baptists contented that congregational leadership should be democratic. The autonomous local church was called upon to select leaders exemplifying spiritual maturity and positive leadership. Biblical principles formed the bedrock the character of these leaders. And the model of the early church in Acts 6 shaped the servant-leader focus.
Connections and Collaboration: Over the years, churches like ours develop working models which fit with the nature of the church’s setting along with the makeup of the congregation. In our case at First Baptist Decatur, we maintain this clear connection to our biblical callings and democratic principles. And we, as with most other Baptist churches like ours, recognize the high value of collaboration. This is true both with our community, as well as with our professionally trained pastoral and administrative staff members. We understand this necessity in order to fulfill the vast amount of actions and interactions our church leads, facilitates and promotes every week, all year long.
The Calling and Ordination of Deacons: In our worship service this Sunday, we have the high honor to ordain eight new deacons to provide the kind of servant leadership our church has come to rely upon. Emerging from this three year pandemic, we are now particularly poised for a number of exciting initiatives. Just this week, we have hosted meetings that are proving essential to what we hope and believe God is calling FBCD to in the coming days.
I look forward to seeing many of you this Sunday as the final portion of our One Service Sunday at 11:15 a.m. which will be devoted to ordaining these eight new deacons for our church.
Love, David
David Jordan
Senior Pastor