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Are you familiar with this thought, "That's the pastor's work"? Also, perhaps, "That's what we are paying him for"? We think we are just 'ordinary' people, we work for a living and we pay for the leaders of the church. When we have any problem that needs prayer, we can go to the leaders, etc. Of course, the Lord Jesus is the Head of the church, and He has appointed some people to have special responsibilities in the church (Ep.4:11,12). If we look at these verses, we can clearly see that their responsibility is to help us to grow so that we can carry out the work of building the church! We, the members of the church, are more in number than the leaders. While they equip us with whatever gift God has given them, it is really our responsibility to make sure that the church grows! What God means by the growth of the church is not primarily an increase in number, even though that is also important. "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (v.13)! The most important aspect of church growth is that the members become more and more like our Lord and Saviour, in our character.

If the leaders don't understand this, but think of growth in terms of increase in size, number of churches, types of activities in the church, impact on society, etc., all of which are important, the church will miss out on the primary goal of the Head. He gave His life to restore us to a living relationship and fellowship with Him. That is not possible if we remain carnal, natural or only interested in earthly blessings. The commission that Jesus gave to the church was to make disciples from all parts of the world. It becomes clear when we remember that a disciple is a learner, who is following the Master to become like Him. That term 'disciple' is meant to be applied to all of us, and not just to the apostles.

There are two parts to this for each one of us as 'ordinary' members. The first is to grow personally and become like our Lord. The way this can happen is when we recognise that our fleshly desires are opposed to what the Lord wants, and learn to deny ourselves in order to obey our Lord (Lk.9:23). Reading the Bible for ourselves, listening to messages from godly people, praying for the daily help of the Holy Spirit, and following the Lord must be the norm in our life.

Secondly, each of us has a role in teaching, guiding, comforting, encouraging and helping one another according to the special gift and responsibility God gives each one of us (1Co.12:4-7). We are all different and what we do may not be prominent or even noticed by others. God uses the illustration of our body where different members carry out their function and help one another. We receive, we also give. Our faithfulness is in how we carry out our special tasks for the Lord and one another. Now we can see how we cannot just leave it to the leaders.

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