Voices

There are many voices in our world today.   Perhaps never before in the history of the world have there been so many voices.  Everyday we are bombarded by a myriad of voices - on the radio and television, through social media and advertising, and the many people who speak into our lives.  Family, friends, school-mates, neighbours.  

The issue with all these voices is that the messages we hear are not at all similar.  Voices tug at our minds and hearts and pull them into all sorts of directions.  We have seen this vividly lived out through the COVID pandemic.  For more than two years we have been told by most that we need to get vaxed while other voices tell us vaccinations are either not necessary or dangerous to your health.  Or both.   For decades we have heard the voices of those who speak about women's rights and those who speak about the rights of the unborn.  Take any major debate on issues such as  LGBTQ, WOKE, the Great Reset, Climate Change, and most current, the unrest in the Ukraine.  The voices are many and varied.  Which voices do you listen to?

As church leaders we also are surrounded by many voices.   Not just the voices 'out there' but also the voices 'inside' - inside our churches.  In my years of pastoral ministry I have heard these voices.  The voices of congregational members.   Committee members.  Church council.   The administration board.  Guests on Sundays.  And others. These voices, like the voices in society, can tug in all kinds of directions.   Who do you listen to?

In 1 Timothy 3, the apostle Paul gives us the changeless, must-have, character qualifications for church leadership.  He mentions things like being above reproach, faithful to one's wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, and so on, for a total of 14 qualifications.  But there are other, often-overlooked characteristics that effective church leaders share.  In this series of articles I want to look at eight of these characteristics.   The first one is this:  effective church leaders listen to and obey the voice of God.

Amid all the voices that pull church leaders in many directions, the one voice church leaders need to hear and listen to above all others is the voice of God.  God does speak.  David, in Psalm 29, praises the God of creation who allows his voice to be heard in the wonders of all that he has made.   Seven times in this Psalm David refers to "the voice of the LORD" being heard.   In another psalm David celebrates how the heavens declare the glory of God.  He writes:  "Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.... their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." (Psalm 19:2,4)  But then David goes on to talk about the written Word of God.  While creation "uses no words"(v. 3), God's laws, his decrees, and his precepts "make the simple wise" and provide guidance to live a God-fearing and God-honouring life (see Psalm 19:7-14).

Yes, the voice of God is heard in creation, which the Belgic Confession calls a "beautiful book".  But the voice of God is most readily heard in the written of God, the Bible.   As Phillip D. Jensen and Tony Payne write,  "The Bible always assumes that God's written word continues to live and speak to God's people today.  The words of the Bible are not dead letters trapped in ancient parchments; they are the living and enduring words of God." (Guidance and the Voice of God)  This is why the apostle Paul tells the young Timothy to equip himself and others by the Holy Scriptures which are "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16)

To be an effective church leader the one voice you need to listen to above all others is the voice of God.   While other voices might pull you in certain directions, what is God saying to you by his Spirit through his Word?  Do you hear his voice?  If you are not in the Word of God, how can you expect to hear the voice of God?   And to hear the voice of God requires much more than a simple reading of a passage of Scripture or listening to a sermon preached.   To hear the voice of God one needs to meditate on the Word of God.  Meditation is the practice of settling in a verse or passage and allowing the words to speak to us about what God wants us to know. (see Genesis 24:63; Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2; 19:14; 39:3; 48:9; 77:12; 104:34; 119:15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148; 143:5; 145:5)  As writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "In meditation God's Word seeks to enter in and remain with us.  It strives to stir us, to work and operate in us, so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long.  Then it will do its work in us, often without our being conscious of it." (Life Together)

Throughout my four decades of pastoral ministry I have learned that the more I meditate on the Word of God, the more I have a sense of what God would have me do in life and in ministry.  And day by day I hear God speaking to me.  Not in audible tones, but through the whispers of my thoughts, emotions, desires, and instincts.  As Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola write, "the more we grow into the likeness of Christ, the more we know by instinct what the Lord wants in a given situation, rather than having to be told by some external means." (Jesus Speaks)   

While God speaks to us by his Spirit as we meditate on the Word of God, let us not discredit the fact that God also speaks to us through others in the church.  No church leader has a monopoly on the voice of God.  That is the beauty of being part of a church and as leaders, to be part of a group of elders, a church council or session.  All church leaders and members, all growing in Christ-likeness, are urged to "speak the truth in love" to one another. (Ephesians 4:15)  When this happens, we ought to ask ourselves, "What might God be saying to us through others?"  A message of encouragement.  A word of rebuke or correction.  A truth to help us become more like Jesus.  Are we listening to God's voice spoken through others?  And are we willing to follow the leading of the Lord?  When we are willing to listen, "from Christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does it work." (Ephesians 4:16)

As you listen to and obey the voice of God, with David you will exclaim:  "The voice of the LORD is powerful.  The voice of the LORD is majestic." (Psalm 29:4)