Mark Driscoll’s The OX: Qualifications of a Church Planter
From The Resurgence 2008 Text and Context Conference
(Notes are my own, so forgive any sloppiness)
The OX: Qualifications of a Church Planter (1 Timothy 5 – Don’t muzzle the Ox)
Jesus at the top of the Org Chart
Under Jesus, Pastors/Elders/Overseers
Elders are men who must be qualified AND called of God
- Moses, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Saul, Jonah
- Acts 20 – Shepherd the flock
Church planters have to be called of God
Don’t pursue eldership unless you sense God’s call
Eldership begins with a sense of calling from God and heart’s desire to be an elder
Be aware of your own sense of calling
Call the trained vs. train the called
- Look for God’s Call
- Train him to lead
1 Timothy 2:12
- Biblically allow women to teach in your church to other women (complimentarian)
- Quiet – peaceable spirit
- The government of the home is reflected in the government of the church
- Man is the Head, women is the helper
1 Timothy 3
Counting Characters, not rocks
Takes Time
Relationship to God
- Be a man
- Need to be “the dude”
- A man needs to be a man
- Does what he is responsible to oversee
- Takes responsibilities for his responsibilities
- Loves
- Serves Jesus
- Is Humble
- Has Character
- Elders set the standard of quality for manliness in the church
- Above Reproach
- Catch-all category
- Able to teach (the scriptures)
- People actually learn
- Recipient not communicator centered
- Is the bible effectively articulated so that people can be transformed?
- Doesn’t mean able to preach
- Not a new convert
- A mature Christian
- Be seasoned by mature elders
- You’ll experience frustration
Relationship to Family
God takes care of your family through you
God 1st
Family 2nd
Ministry 3rd
- Husband of one wife
- one-woman man
- pursuing, desiring, loving one woman
- Jesus loves his bride the church, we have to model that
- Ask your wife if you’re a one-woman man
- He is a good daddy
- submissive children
- Love your kids
- pastoral work and fathering are inter-related
- as able, involve kids in ministry
- you want your kids to love what you love
- Seeing your kids love Jesus is more important than any ministry
- Manages his family well
- Provides for family financially
- Hard working
- Not extravagant but exemplary
Relationship to Self
- Sober minded
- Mentally and emotionally stable
- Eldership is having a front-row seat for sin and depravity
- Mentally and emotionally stable
- Self-controlled
- Disciplined life of sound decision making
- Not a drunkard
- Not addicted
- Don’t fight over the alcohol issue, be a man of your word
- Not a lover of money
- Financially upright
- Don’t fight for more money
- “Poverty Theology” reaction to “prosperity gospel”
Relationship to Others
- Respectable
- Worth following, worth imitating
- Hospitable
- Welcoming strangers – non-Christians
- If not for this requirement, elders wouldn’t evangelize
- Homes need to be open to strangers
- Don’t want pastors to love people and no-one gets saved
- Closed Home
- Random Home
- Not an extension of the church foyer
- Be discerning
- Not violent / even-tempered
- Spiritual gift of self-control
- Gentle
- Kind
- Gracious
- Loving
- Patient
- Not quarrelsome
- Not divisive
- Well-thought of by outsiders
Church planters need spiritual gift of Apostleship
Offices and Gifts in NT
Office of apostleship closed with the apostles
Offices and Gifts in NT
Office of apostleship closed with the apostles
- Church planting and missionary gift
- Starting church from scratch is different than taking over role at church
- Leader
- Evangelist
- High Enteprenerual ability
- Communicator
Other Things to do
- Pray a lot
- Read a lot
- Manage church (1 Peter 5)
- Give account to God for the church
- Rightly use authority God has given to you
- Teach the Bible
- Teach sound doctrine
- Refute false doctrine
- Work hard
- Follow laws
- Prepare other preachers/teachers
- Equip the saints
1. Clearly define as an elder what the role of your wife is
- She should be a mature Christian who serves in church as mature Christian
- Her first job is to serve her husband and family
- Wife can only do wifely and motherly jobs. All other church jobs can be delegated
- Other marriages in church photocopy elder’s marriage
- Wife’s not free staff
- Don’t let others define your wife’s role
2. Among the Elders, there must be a “First Among Equals”
- Elders act jointly as a council and share equal responsibility for the church
- All are not equal in gifts, experience, determination
- Someone needs to lead
- Leader of the leaders, needs to have vision
- Vision comes through Elder team but comes from Leader
3. Some Elders are
- Prophets
- Teach, Preach, All about Doctrine, Discerning, Refute error, Rebuke, Call to Repentence
- Strong in Reformed theology
- Teach, Preach, All about Doctrine, Discerning, Refute error, Rebuke, Call to Repentence
- Priests
- Love People, Hospital Visits, Love counseling and shepherding, culturally connected, encouraging
- Missional / Emerging theology
- Love People, Hospital Visits, Love counseling and shepherding, culturally connected, encouraging
- Kings
- Love systems, policies, procedures, teams, measurable results, effective/efficient organization
- Megachurch world
- Need elders from all groups
- Some combos
- Piper – Prophet/Priest
- CJ Maheney – Prophet/Priest
- Driscoll – Prophet/King
- Seed your team with multiple types and read outside of your tribe with the humility to learn
- Have Discernment to know what not to agree with when reading/studying outside your tribe, isn’t theological conviction