How a Church Leader Leads

(7) Bob Dick - How a Church Leader Leads - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ftipk-K00

Transcript:
(00:01) uh this year's theme as we are all very aware we have our notebooks it's all been emlazed is being a spiritual leader for those of you who are watching us online there were some excellent presentations this morning that delved deeply into aspects of being a spiritual leader u meaty topics questions and scriptures an important thing to realize even for those of you that are are not here and for the ladies is that every single one of you is destined to be a leader not just every man every man and woman
(00:43) listening to this sermon remotely destined to be a leader that's the role of a first fruit you know Jesus Christ at one point in time talking to his disciples simply said to them "You 12 men are going to be sitting on 12 thrones ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel in the kingdom.
(01:08) " Now at that point in time they were no more prepared or worthy of that position as we say than the man on the moon but he said "Look you have a destiny the destiny for you 12 actually 11 and one appointed just before Pentecost in 31 AD each one of you is going to be over an entire nation well everyone listening to this message either here or remotely will one day be fulfilling some function of leadership so this is training time this this is this is uh this is school this is the time when we practice the lessons uh go through the drills and work on experiences that are related to that now as I said there were some
(01:59) excellent presentations this morning later this afternoon uh I expect your Mr portiuses will be interactive is that true so this will be the collective minds of 30 plus men who will be uh ruminating on and discussing aspects of leadership and if you uh peaked into your manual under Mr po Portius's presentation you get to see all sorts of different avenues that he's going to go i'm going to take a niche so it's a broad broad topic i'm very happy to see a good portion of it covered this morning and to know another good portion of it will be covered this afternoon and
(02:43) I will focus then on a smaller area i'm going to talk about a church leader and how he leads and our focus is going to be an exposition on two verses in fact I can only see for a moment going to one other place in the sermon and the rest of it will be fully within the two verses in Ephesians 4 uh the sermon will be an exposition on Ephesians 4:es 11 and 12 the intent from the beginning in preparing this message was to try to kill two birds with one stone to talk about leadership in the church which is
(03:22) the theme and also to do so by means of exposition i counted heads roughly since I don't know all of you and I don't know what all of your functions are in various areas but even with a rough count a third of you in this room speak in church and and possibly it's larger than a third but I know just going down and counting one two three four a third of you speak in church and one of the most valuable speaking skills of a leader in the church is the skill of being able to give an expository message so if you wish to be a leader and
(04:13) develop a skill very valuable to you just a word of advice this this is one that has great value within the church several months ago I was talking to someone and they gave me an inter office memo dated June the 16th 1994 and I looked it over and it was a it was a memo between a church pastor and his regional pastor and the church pastor was sharing with his regional pastor elements of church leadership described in Ephesians 4:es 11 and 12 now I could tell by the context that the regional pastor had been given the assignment to work on
(04:58) some training manuals for the ministry and the pastor was sharing with him some thoughts about valuable information and he went to Ephesians 4 11 and 12 and gave what I saw as an outstanding exposition on those two verses and as this came up and I was asked if I would fulfill the role of giving a sermon I thought why reinvent the wheel you know one one one of the phrases in the church is plagiarism is good uh nobody owns nobody owns inspired biblical thoughts uh it's not your personal property there's no C with a little circle around it after after an inspired thought and I watch seasoned
(05:42) pastors and they're amusing because as they hear somebody speak and the light bulb comes on uh they leave the sermon and start writing down the notes that will go into their next sermon that was inspired by that particular point and I say I know what's going on and uh good enough so uh I thought I'll pass along the substance of that inter office memo and I'll I'll add of course the relevant pieces to this time and this date in this audience and do so respectfully with due credit uh the pastor back in 1994 was Mr david Johnson and he was
(06:22) pastoring churches in Arkansas and Louisiana and he in turn uh acknowledged uh his source of inspiration which was wast uh uh Mr corbett I noted in each one of his segments on the page all of them went back to wisests so he recognized Wuest's word studies for from the Greek New Testament for the English reader and he took it out of the preface to the pastoral epistles and so all of that was put together he then passed it along and I'd like to share it with you but before we launch I said there were two objectives and
(07:13) respectfully I need to at least for those of you who are not familiar with what expository preaching means is to give you a definition so you you know what we're talking about expository preaching is preaching that involves a systematic approach and an in-depth approach so in terms of how it's gone about it's not random it is systematic and it's not a shallow superficial summarization it's a deep dive it is also on a specific passage often times a verse a small number of verses or in some cases because of the
(08:00) way the writer was writing about a specific section of scripture that is all talking about the same thing and its aim its aim which is most important is to uncover the original meaning and context of what that speaker is reading to you what did what did it originally mean to the people who were reading it or hearing it what was the context what was the setting and then to explain what the Bible means by what that segment says so let's go to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 now I'm assuming let let me see a show of hands so I know how many of you are on the same page how many of you are
(09:05) reading along with me in the New King James Version okay I I figured it would be the majority of you so this is this is reading from the New King James and the question is how many positions are being described in Ephesians 4:11 so we have Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 and Paul says to the church at Ephesus let me get into the New King James wouldn't help if I was reading from the same thing I've asked you to read from new King James Ephesians 4:11 and he gave and he himself gave some to be apostles some prophets some evangelists
(09:57) and some pastors and teachers all right so Paul is talking about positions how many did he describe okay the hands that I have seen that are not afraid to volunteer an answer are all are all raising four fingers there there are some that are raising five fingers since I have a hand that doesn't work too well I could never do nanoo nanoo uh there are three positions in Ephesians 4:1 so the first piece of exposition there was a famous Englishman by the name of Granville Sharp who was noted as a Greek scholar in his day
(10:59) and he was so noted that one of the principles of reading Greek actually was given his name and it's called the Granville sharp rule and so those who understand the Greek and there are multiple commentaries if you went to them I found at least four commentaries that understood clearly what verse 11 was saying to a Greek reader they would understand the following now listen carefully this is the only really pointyheaded piece of this sermon all right so so you're going to have to listen carefully and I may I may read it
(11:46) twice to you because this is Granville Sharp's rule quote when two nouns are in the same case connected by the word kai which is and so we'll read it again when two nouns are in the same case connected by the word and the first noun having the definite article you noticed when Mr corbett was going throughs and he went through those three words and each one he emphasized that there was a the in front of it if you go back to the notes the this the this in a moment in a moment we'll turn to another translation and you will find that multiple translations instead of the word some have the word the
(12:46) article so when two nouns in the same case connected by the word and the first noun having the definite article and the second noun without an article even though some is not an article in the way we see it it's some apostles some prophets some evangelists and some pastors you know I have to back my own trolley up uh I said three there are four not five okay there are five names here but there are four offices the second noun without an article refers to the same person and is a further description of him
(13:41) let's read this in the NIV and I'm sure that some of you are probably sitting there reading it from the NIV the NIV makes it much much easier it reads "For Christ himself gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers there is no article before teachers and so the office of pastor is also the office of teacher which is the first element of leadership that is important to recognize when we talk about church leadership and I hope all of you are extrapolating especially those of you who are not here in Tacoma and Olympia because the the
(14:36) principle is the principle is the principle uh this is not simply about men who are in charge of a congregation the principle applies to anyone who has visibly or invisibly on their pocket leader and a leader whether it's a pastor whether it's an elder whether it's a deacon whether it's a youth worker whether it's somebody working with hall setup whether it's somebody working with the PA system it it doesn't matter a leader is a leader is a leader but here as Paul was describing offices the pastor was also a teacher and so fundamental to his function
(15:24) was that of the ability to teach somebody else and when you look at teaching within the church and you say "Okay I'm I I set up chairs i I I work with uh the snack table i I do this i do that." Uh it isn't automatic in your mind that teacher plays a role one of the easiest ways to look at it is if you're already 60 70 or beyond and then you become fully aware that your job is to make sure you've trained your replacement and the only way you do that is teach it may be vocational here's how you do it and it's all hand work it may be cerebral let me give you
(16:13) a manual and you can read this and then we'll talk about it but every one of us sooner or later if we understand leadership responsible to train somebody to step into our shoes and it doesn't matter what the function is so we're all teachers we're all teachers so you back the trolley up and you say "Do you want to be a spiritual leader?" One of the key qualifi qualifications is the ability to teach and it doesn't matter what your function is that you do you need to be able to train somebody to do what you're doing
(16:54) if you're not there someone can step in and it seamlessly goes on without a hiccup then you're succeeding so number one in Ephesians chapter 4 is that Paul is talking to the church of Ephesus and he says every pastor has two offices he's a pastor and he's a teacher and you can't separate the two now another question we saw regardless of translation that when we got down to the bottom of the list we were talking about pastors as one of the positions what is a pastor pastor first of all is a Latin word do you know what the Latin word means
(17:52) what what it what it mean what it meant in Greek shepherd i heard a voice i didn't see a face to go with it shepherd pastor is simply the Latin word for shepherd so it's not not a matter of well if you're going to be a good pastor then you also need to be a shepherd no the word pastor means shepherd and so when he says Christ gave apostles prophets evangelists and he gave shepherds who are also supposed to be teachers mr shide was uh earlier in the English Standard Translation the English Standard Translation handles this word or this verse beautifully
(18:47) it says and it captures everything that we have discussed so far in this one translation verse 11 English standard and he gave the apostles article the prophets article the evangelists article and in the English standard version the shepherds article and teachers and there's a beautiful little footnote behind the word teacher that says or shepherd dash teachers it's a hyphenated job title you're not a pastor shepherd and a teacher you're a shepherd teacher and so anyone that sits in a leadership position
(19:55) should look at where they are and say "My job is to shepherd this process." And at the same time as I'm shephering the process I'm educating those who are with me there's a beautiful story very short very succinct but very powerful story about shephering it's an anecdote from the Middle East where a man who was not from the Middle East was in the Middle East watching a flock of sheep moving along and he was conversant with the realities of shephering in the Middle East and so the flock of sheep was coming down the road and he was looking for the shepherd and it was a sizable flock and he's looking and there
(20:53) at the very back of the flock is a man behind the sheep and as the man arrives he looks at him and he says "I thought the custom in the Middle East was for the shepherd to lead the sheep." And the man looked at him and said "Oh I'm not the shepherd i'm the butcher everyone understood that the shepherd leads the sheep he doesn't prod them from behind it's not a go get them it's a stand in front and lead we all understand in fact it came on the table earlier as we were talking uh in one of our earlier sessions we we
(21:48) touched the edges of it uh and and in the manual is the is the famous within the church famous Edgar Guest poem about I'd rather see a sermon than hear one anytime there is there is nothing that garers respect more than people seeing a person who wears a title of leader setting the example that he's telling them that they are supposed to live and there's nothing that thwarts leadership more than the man who's telling people how they should live being known for not living that way one of the greatest costs of teenagers and young adults in the history of any
(22:43) church doesn't matter which church it is is seeing leaders who may be very eloquent in telling them what they ought to do and how they ought to do it and reading the scriptures about where God says they go do it and everyone knows that he's not doing it there's nothing that totally takes all the desire all the conviction all of the passion out of being in a place more than having a leader who people realize bears none of the qualities that he's standing up there and reading with all sorts of majesty and passion to the
(23:26) people who are sitting in front of him conversely the man may not be that eloquent a speaker he may not be that impressive from the pulpit and when everyone knows he lives everything he says they don't care you know they may smile and and and you find at times in member-to-member conversation they they will joke about some of his speaking weaknesses but with respect it it's a you know it's it's not his strong suit uh be nice if he were better at it than he is he's not but to us it doesn't make any difference now that there is a powerful leader
(24:19) there is a powerful leader so the ESV in this particular case has captured all the elements of verse 11 it captures all of Granville Sharp's rules that everything that had a the in front of it was a was a freestanding individual but the minute the the disappeared that one connected to the last one that had a the in front of it and so Paul said the last of those is God has given shepherd teachers shepherd teachers ephesians chapter 4 and verse 12 carries on where we were and I'm I'm going to ask you just simply not to look at verse 12 do me that favor i
(25:30) realize most of you probably already have but take your eyes off your Bible because I want to read this one to you out of the old King James all right and you realize you realize upfront I'm setting you up so I'm there's no there's no mystery in all of this i already did it once and you said "Fool me once shame on me fool me twice.
(25:58) " You know fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me so I I'm setting you up again i'll tell you right up front but as you read as people did all the way up until what was it the 1960s or so uh when the New King James finally came off the presses so from 1611 onward everybody was reading Ephesians 4:11 and 12 and this is how they were seeing it you get the blessing of modern translations that uh do a better job on this but in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 12 we'll do the same thing how many functions are described so I'll do the running start i'll read verse 11 and then we'll just seamlessly move into 12 he gave some apostles and
(26:46) some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints comma for the work of the ministry comma for the edifying of the body of Christ that's how King James version reads for the perfecting of the saints and that is a comma for the working of the ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ well the appearance is as as all of you can see is that this shepherd teacher has three jobs and so he has marching orders on his job description his job description has you are to do this number one you are to do this number two and you are to do this
(27:32) number three the only problem is there aren't three there are only two and as we go through the exposition of verse 12 we will look at those and we'll do a deep dive into what they are but the reading of the King James version presented us with four problems you're already seeing since I'm moving between New King James English Standard Version and NIV that when it comes to expository preaching although unless you don't know it it's not going to do you any good but as you do expository research you will find a reality that's common
(28:21) rarely does one translation capture every sense that the Greek intended perfectly and sometimes it takes a composite of two three or four translations each one contributing a better understanding of one segment of the Greek to get the whole picture and that's the case with Ephesians chapter 4 11 and 12 now the King James version presents four problems the one we've already discussed there's an appearance that a pastor has three segments to his job description and I've already told you that's not true another one is it describes at the
(29:05) beginning of verse 12 that the first one is the perfecting of the st saints if I were to ask you what that means I would expect if I can put words into your mouth that you would say that's ambiguous that's ambiguous so we need to clear up that ambiguity it says for the work of the ministry we also need to clarify what that means and the last is for the edifying of the body of Christ and I don't know anybody today except people who stand in the pulpit who use the word edify six days a week i never talk about edifying i might talk about eating but I
(30:06) won't talk about edifying so unless you're in the pulpit Bible study edify is not a word that's a part of your vocabulary so we got four things we've got to take care of let's first read the New King James and ask the question how many roles verse 12 in the New King James it says "For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.
(30:42) " Now we've lost a comma rightly so and instead of three functions two functions for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ we've clarified two things with one action the leader has not two fun three functions but four and though we didn't say so we clarified what the word perfecting means what did the New King James put in place of perfecting equipping now you've got something you can grab a hold of don't you perfecting man I can go I can go all over the globe with perfecting but equipping now the focus has come down to where I
(31:45) realize I have to give somebody something the implication is there's a job to do and this person doesn't have the tools and so I have to give them the tools and then they're equipped to do the job so so we solved one overtly we solved the other covertly by just simply seeing that the word perfecting disappeared and equipping took its place what are the implications well first of all as we've already seen a leader must be a teacher and he has to teach both by mouth and by deed one without the other is not going to
(32:40) cut it he has to both be able to teach verbally but he also has to be able to demonstrate an example that people can respect secondly he's responsible to to equip those that he's teaching with the necessary tools so that they can do a job giving them upward and onward and marching orders and they have nothing to work with is of no value let's now go to the NIV here in the NIV the rendering of Ephesians 4:12 addresses the two remaining issues that I said were created by the new by the by the King James because now we see in verse 12
(33:39) that you're equipping them for what ministry disappeared you see we see ministry differently than they saw ministry i checked in through British customs years ago and I walked up to the customs officer and he he looked at my passport and he said he asked me what I was and I said I was a minister and I lived in England two years and had nothing but very courteous treatment and highly respected the English but I got a very rude response from the customs officer because he informed me in no uncertain terms that I
(34:29) was not a minister i was a clergyman because to him a minister was not what I did well here's a case where we use the word minister and it isn't what Paul said they did he said 'Your job is to equip those people you lead for works of service and that's what ministry means a minister is a servant and so ministering is serving and if you're equipping people to minister you're equipping people means you're giving them the tools necessary so they can serve that's your job that's your responsibility so that the body of Christ and edify goes away which is a stodgy
(35:31) stuffy old word that people hear and they say I recognize the word what does it mean well that's something else so that the body of Christ may be built up if I contract with somebody to build a house for me it's going to be of absolutely no value unless somebody has equipped them with the necessary woodworking tools to start the framing and that house is not going to be built up without somebody having tools i won't go there uh it's not necessary the the long section of 18 verses in 1 Corinthians chap 12 where Paul and when I said 18 verses that's a lot of
(36:22) coverage where he talks about the members of the church and everybody's different they're not all eyes they're not all ears they're not all mouths and not all feet they're not all hands it takes every single solitary organ to make the body and one of the most beautiful things he says in that is that God has placed everyone where they are i could no more run the PA system back there than the man in the moon i teased the fellows that were back there about all the wires and all the boxes and all the switches
(37:08) if you put me back there goodbye Tacoma goodbye Olympia and uh whoever's up here better talk louder because none of you are going to hear anything from a microphone because I haven't a clue how to do it i have a flower garden and I love flowers i couldn't arrange flowers if my life depended on it because I am linear all the purple ones would be in a row all the white ones would be in a row and all the ferns would be in a row and everybody would look and say "What in the world did he do but the ability to make something look natural?"
(37:51) I don't have a skill we've got a lady who's newer in Portland who must have a flower garden the likes of which I can't imagine and all summer long there are floral arrangements that would blow you away i just sit look at them and say there's the service so you can go down the line it doesn't matter what it is i thoroughly enjoyed the pictures on the screen earlier today where you had the little kids helping with moving chairs uh there's there's no more eager group than little boys especially from this size down and you
(38:39) can treat them in one of two ways you can treat them as an absolute nuisance or you can begin recruiting take your pick if your view of leadership is equipping for service you say to yourself you probably consume more time working with you than if you just get out of the way and let me do it myself which would be true but you're equipping no one for nothing so you haven't gained you haven't gained an inch everyone who trains realizes in training you consume more time and more energy on the front end of training anyone for
(39:25) anything than if they would simply get out of the way and let you do it yourself and those those who are not shepherd teachers lead that way let's get out of the way i can do it better i can do it faster than you can just stay out of my way those who are Ephesians 4:11 and 12 leaders understand you invest the time to take the person who doesn't know to bring them up to where they do and eventually they will do it every bit as good as you do and in some cases you will have the delight if you're not a proud person of seeing them do it better than you do and you actually improved
(40:16) things so the NIV took care of the other two problems this is about making sure people have the tools for works that serve the body and all of it with the vision of building it better bigger than it was i remember year years ago as a student in Brickwood it was a spring of holy day days of unleven bread all the student body was there and that constituted the biggest church in England and they invited the London church to join us and so we had the largest gathering of people in England short of the feast of tabernacles and I don't remember whether I was in my junior year or I was in the spring of my
(41:12) senior year but I was just walking around i I'd walked into the hall uh looking you know to join a a chat conversational circle and uh Randart who was one of my instructors walked up to me and he looked at me and you know it's out of the clear blue it was it was blunt it was to the point and I was dear in the headlights he said "Uh Bob can you lead songs?" And I said "Yes.
(41:40) " He said ' Then do it now I had never led songs in a setting in my life and this is the biggest gathering of people in England outside of the Feast of Tabernacles and he simply walked up and said "Can you lead songs?" And I said "Yes." He said "Then go do it." And so I led the hymns for the first day of unleven bread in brick wood but in the spirit of what I just read to you in verse 12 though it was a deer in the headlight uh no advanced notice question and go do it situation I'd had four years of spokesman's club i mean excuse me I'd had three years of spokesman's club and I'd three years of
(42:25) of speaking in those there had been instruction on song leading there had been the basic education on what 34 time looked like what 44 time looked like what it looked like to start a hymn on downbeat what it looked like to start it on an upbeat uh what what the pauses were that you needed to hold all the instruction was there even though there was no formal doing he knew that he knew in that sense that men like me he could have gone to three or four other men and done the same thing but he knew that men like me had
(43:06) as Ephesians 4:12 said we had been equipped and so he simply yanked the cord said "You've been equipped then do it then serve." And though it was a bit of a start and a bit of a shock I went up and I led the hymns for the first day of unleven bread let's summarize everything we have two verses jam-packed from the first word to the last word with substance none of the substance totally obvious by any one of the translations and so it requires expository research it requires everything I defined to you earlier where you've got to do a deep dive and you have to do it in an orderly
(44:09) fashion moving through it in a systematic way and going below the surface down to where the Greek in this case mind was at the time that this was written and then see its application today 2025 church of God our setting So in these two seemingly simple verses Paul is summing up a major portion of the responsibility of leadership within the church and as I said to you it is addressed to pastors we all know that but it's not difficult to simply take the word pastor out and put it to anyone in any function within the church who's
(44:57) doing something of serving and placing on their table and say "How do you prepare someone else to do what you're doing go do it go do it." So in summary he started by saying a pastor of any good a pastor or any good church leader must be a teacher he must be able to help members gain in understanding and ability you know part of it is head knowledge and part of it is coaching but that's his role he's a teacher he says that the leader leads he's not the butcher walking along hurting the sheep how does the 23rd Psalm begin
(46:00) the Lord is my I shall not what he leadeth me beside he restoreth if you're reading the old King James it uses lead twice if you're reading the New King James and NIV it says lead in one place and it says guide in the other place you ever taken a trip where the guide is walking along behind the group i haven't i've been on tours the guide's the one you follow my family was in Yellowstone uh a week ago i saw the name tags on people with their tour name i saw all the people walking along behind them and I realized there's the guide and there's the bus load of tourists and the guide
(46:48) is taking them to wherever it is he's he or she is going to show them the leader leads i was pastoring a church that had said had had 75 youth in it back in the mid70s and one of the members came up to me and he said "Uh I want you to come over and talk with me uh about something that I have in mind.
(47:16) " So I went over and he said "We need a boy scout troop with 75 kids half of those were boys these were teenagers between 12 and 18." I said "Yeah." I said "That that sounds fine." Uh my older son had been a cub scout and been a weeblow and then we bailed out because the next step up was almost all Sabbath anything of any importance was Sabbath so after we blows it was well we call it quits and I said I I think it sounds great he said well I was a scout master for x number of years and I've done this and I've done that and I said sounds absolutely fine i'm I'm all supportive well when are you going to start he said oh no no no i'm
(47:50) I'm I'm not going to scout master i'm telling you what we need and you go out and find a scout master and I looked at him and I told him I'm telling you bluntly what I told him more politely that if you're not willing to lead it then there's nothing to lead don't come to me with an idea and then bail on leading you have the talent you have the skill you have the experience if you bring me an idea be prepared to lead he wasn't we didn't have a scout troop it was very simple our philosophy at that time and after that time was we will entertain any idea
(48:28) of an activity in the church if you are willing and have the ability to lead it we've hosted Northwest Weekend for so many years i don't know that anybody has a totally accurate count one time a young lady came up to me and she said "I think we'd need this particular activity.
(48:50) " And I said and and she said and and I want to do it and I said give me a business plan tell me what the activity is tell me how you plan to run it and tell me what it will cost and she said "Okay." And she came back to me in a week or two and she had "This is the activity this is how it will run and this will this is how it will cost.
(49:14) " I looked at it they were all very very practical and they were well organized and I said "Go do it." And for several years it was automatic that when Northwest weekend came she managed that particular aspect of Northwest Weekend paul further said that through that leadership the leader is giving the followers the ability to do what they couldn't previously do equipping he's giving them the ability in some cases it's teaching them the skill and the other is simply getting the impediments out of the way so that they can move forward you know a a a minister
(50:00) a minister can stop growth in two ways by not teaching and by telling people either overtly or by sending the message I'm not going to give you permission to do it so he says that leadership the leader is giving the followers the ability to do what they couldn't previously do he's equipping them by training one opportunity two and the focus the focus of the shepherd leader is works of service helping those who follow find ways they can contribute to the functioning of the church within their skill set i want to read you the final paragraph in closing
(51:02) of that inner office memo and my suspicion is that last paragraph may have been taken directly from whies but it says quote "But that clearer more accurate translation." So it's it's summing up that now we have done a deep expository look at at Ephesians 4:11 and 12 that clearer more accurate translation and understanding of Paul's Greek here would again revolutionize the ministry of a pastor he would see that God called him to be a specialist he was not to do all the work of the church not even a large part of it he was to specialize in training the saints
(51:47) in the pews to engage in Christian service and he would thus be multiplying himself and his efforts and instead of being a superintendent of an old people's rest home he would be nurturing a beehive of activity he would begin to be in God's eyes a successful pastor