Friday, March 19, 2021

How to Lead a Spirit-led Church

 


The way to lead a Spirit-led church is to be led by the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the church's leader, not you.

To do this, you must walk closely to the Holy Spirit. This is the first thing you must do in leading a Spirit-led church.

This requires, on your part, time and focus and intentionality. You must intentionally spend time with the Holy Spirit. You cannot multi-task this time with the Spirit. Blessed are the mono-taskers, for they shall hear from God. If you are too busy for this, you will end up with a You-led church.

You must have a deep, abiding, praying life. There simply is no substitute for this. Talking about this does no good. You must do it.

You must cultivate a growing, ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. You must do this, before doing anything else in the church.

You need to hear from God, every day. 

This requires growth in spiritual discernment. Spiritual discernment is in direct proportion to intimacy with the Holy Spirit. The more familiar you are with the Spirit, the more you will grow in ability to separate the voice of God from the world's competing voices.

You need to disciple your people in living the abiding-in-Christ life, the listening-to-God life, the discerning-the-Spirit life. As this happens, practice corporate discernment. Discern what God is saying through your people.

You have to risk everything on this; viz., on the conviction that the Spirit is now saying "Do this," "Go here," "Do not do this," and so on. You must hear the voice of the Spirit, and, when instructed, you must follow the Spirit's leading.

This means you must give up control. A control freak is incapable of following the Spirit. To be led is to give up control.

These are the things you must do, in leading a Spirit-led church.


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For more detail see my two books.

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church