In The Eye of the Storm

Part II
The Second Phase of the Church
Corporate Relationship Concept

Chapter 8

Operation Problems of Church Leaders

We have been comparing the church to a seagoing vessel and discussing how each person on board can fulfill their God-given anointed responsibilities as they are trained, equipped, and reproduced. In this way, the church will be prepared for the storms it inevitably will face. We must be aware that Satan does not like to see a church unified where everyone flows in their God-given functions and anointings. He will try whatever he can to destroy God's people, especially those anointed for leadership.

In times past, fierce pirates roamed the seas and harassed and plundered ships on the oceans of the world. Today, Satan roams the earth seeking whom he can devour. He is out to steal, kill and destroy. If we are ignorant of Satan's schemes, particular problems may occur in various local expressions of the church, and before long, we have "enemy pirates" wreaking havoc on the church. Some leaders may find themselves in the midst of a fierce storm that pitches and hurls their "ship" relentlessly.

Although I've only scratched the surface, listed here in this chapter are some problems church leaders may face. By anticipating Satan's attacks, and walking in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, we can avoid these pitfalls.

Idolizing Leaders With Strong Personal Charisma

Sometimes, when there is a strong charismatic personality leading a corporate church, the people tend to idolize that leader. Often this happens with evangelists and teachers because they can bring about tremendous moves of the Spirit with their dynamic ministries in the Body of Christ.

For example, an evangelist with a young and growing church speaks enthusiastically about the kingdom of God and walks in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Satan, of course, will try to thwart this move of God in any way he can. New Christians, especially, may begin to idolize the evangelist.

At first, the evangelist will rightly sense the excitement of the people moving in the Spirit. But if he takes his eyes off Jesus and sees how the people respect him and look up to him, a temptation may creep in to accept that idolization. Soon the idolization becomes a power unto itself and motives him instead of the Holy Spirit. His ministry becomes the center of focus and pivot of his priorities.

One who accepts idolization can be severely damaged spiritually because the idolization becomes a substitute for the Holy Spirit. In fact, as we discussed earlier, an evangelist should not be the primary leader of a church in the first place.

An evangelist's work is itinerant. He should move on after evangelizing an area. When he stays on and tries to organize and lead a church, there are often disastrous results (see page 45).

The same is true of a dynamic teacher. His ministry is also itinerant, and like the evangelist, he needs to be coordinated with the rest of church leaders (apostles, prophets, pastors, and so on) in order to be most effective.

A group of people that follows after a leader because he has strong personal charisma may begin to think of their church as superior. They may fail to see themselves as brothers and sisters in Christ with all those who are born again. An exclusive air may permeate the group, and God's Spirit will be hindered from going forth in power.

Idolatry of any kind usually takes place gradually and subtly. Until the Holy Spirit reveals it to us, we are often blind to it. Once a leader realizes he is receiving idolization from his people, he needs to repent. God does His part to deliver him and to set him free.

Lord, You are the One who gives us life. You understand us, love us, give us strength and motivate us to make the right choices, energized by the Holy Spirit. We look to you for the source of life—not to anyone or anything else. We want to love You, and You only, with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our minds. We refuse to substitute anything for You as our highest love. Our ministry responsibility comes after our love for You. Cleanse us of receiving honor for ourselves, that is only due Your precious Name. Release your forgiveness and mercy to us and cleanse us from this uncleanness.' Thank you for Your deliverance. Help us to walk once again in accountability to You and others so that we can move as One Body focused only on You and Your plans for the church.

Emotional Rather Than Spiritual Involvement

People express emotions in two different ways—in outward expressions or inner feelings. Inner feelings involve love, joy, peace, sorrow, rejection, anger, hate, etc. They are communicated by the outward expressions of laughing, talking, dancing, singing, yelling, crying and so on.

How you feel about a situation or relationship are your inner feelings. These feelings are based on fact. If someone hits you, based on the fact that they hit you, you might feel anger or shame.

Inner feelings must come under the control of the Holy Spirit, so that He can allow our lives to be filled with agape love. We can allow ourselves to be dependent on our emotions and be pulled and tugged by every whim of those "emotions, or we can choose to be totally dependent on the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 14:32 says, "The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets." According to this Scripture, we can control our emotions—they are subject to us—the choice is ours.

A leader who does not have his emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit will do all sorts of irrational things, and his spiritual condition and those of his people will deteriorate. For example, a deacon may get emotionally involved with helping someone manage their finances. The person they are trying to help may have a "welfare mentality" or a mindset that demands that the deacon takes care of all his needs rather than trusting God to do so.

A deacon who allows someone to place a guilt trip on him (which becomes the motivating factor in the relationship) will be completely 'drained spiritually. The need for the gift of discernment is needed to meet this problem. If the deacon cannot get his emotional feelings under the control of the Holy Spirit, he should get off the case, because there will be no spiritual solution when he is manipulated by another.

A pastor, too, can get easily involved in the problems of his people because he has a heart that "bleeds" for his sheep. Since most cell leaders have a "pastor" or "father" heart, they must learn early to become spiritually, rather than emotionally motivated.

Emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit can be expressed properly. A pastor with a true pastor's heart, can be compassionate and listen to people's problems, but subject them to the vision that God has for them.

Peter and John did not give money to the poor, crippled beggar reaching out for alms, instead, they gave healing to him. A leader will see the people's needs from God's viewpoint. He will give them the spiritual solution God wants—not necessarily the solution the people want. In this way, the power of the Holy Spirit can deliver people from their problems, and they will learn to lean on the power of God.

Ministry Without the Anointing

I do not think this subject can be overemphasized. The entire purpose of writing this book is to show how God will build His church when everyone finds and understands their anointings and responsibilities within the Body of Christ, whether in a cell setting or a corporate church setting.

When everyone is working together, serving each other in their Holy Spirit anointing, the church will be a place where ministry happens and the church is built. God's Word tells how God designed His body to work together, "God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased" (I Corinthians 12:18). God specifically organized the body so that every person would have a function or job to do according to how He anointed that person. Everyone is needed, wanted and gifted to do their part.

However, sometimes people fall into a trap of giving a spiritual status to some ministry jobs over others, or they become motivated by a certain pride or affinity to a certain leadership role and try to pick their own positions in which to serve, rather than seeking to discover what God's anointing on their lives truly is. The results are ineffective leadership.

For example, if I think that the ministry of a pastor is greater than that of a teacher, I am exalting and categorizing ministry gifts into rank rather than showing the diversity and uniqueness of each person's anointing and humbly thanking God that we are not all arms or noses or eyes in one body!

When a person is in a ministry job position without being anointed for the task, the church slides into mediocrity. Although the job may get done, a leader in a wrong role can cause much disruption to God's people. A leader not functioning in his Spirit-led, anointed role is like a nose functioning as an arm. It renders the whole body ineffective.

For instance, sometimes an evangelist will step out of his role and involve himself in other areas of the church. I believe evangelists may have the greatest weakness along this line, because as outgoing, capable people, they seem to be able to do nearly everything! Even if they are capable of other tasks, if they are no longer ministering as evangelists when they have been anointed to bring in lost souls, they are causing the Body to lose power and effectiveness.

Similar results happen when a pastor is in an overseer's role, a prophet is in an apostle's role, etc. A person should qualify for his job only according to his anointing. How does he receive this anointing? The next chapter will explain in detail the importance of receiving the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon us to anoint us for service so we can bear spiritual fruit that lasts. Read Chapter 9 carefully, and you will find the solution to a "ministry without the anointing."

It is possible for a leader to lose his anointing. It happened to Saul in the Old Testament. It happened to Judas in the New Testament. A leader who is not heeding the apostle and prophet's advice is often the one who loses his anointing.

Rather than having the attitude of "Apart from Christ, I can do nothing," thus "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me," he will start do the job on his own strength, refusing accountability. Slowly, progressively he loses his first love, like the church in Ephesus.

Acts 19 records that the church at Ephesus, upon first hearing the good news from Paul, experienced the living Lord, burned their idols and witnessed miracles. But since that first visit, their love for the Lord had waned. The same can happen to a person's anointing for a task in the church—it can wane and fade and even be lost.

Heavenly Father, help me to continually abide in You so that I can bring forth abundant fruit as I walk in Your anointing. Let the power of Your life fill me and cleanse me of all pride and confidence in myself As a servant leader to God's people, help me to humbly perform the task you have designed for me, not coveting other ministry gifts, or trying to be someone I'm not.

Thank you for the diversity in the Body and the joy as all parts work together in unity. Help me to have complete confidence in You and continually be overflowed with the Holy Spirit. Without Your anointing on my life, I cannot be effective in my place of service. But I know that when I understand my anointing and walk faithfully in the Holy Spirit's power, I will spiritually prosper and produce fruit that will in turn reproduce more. Then, You can build Your church through me according to Your divine plan.

Relying on Professionalism

When leaders are selected because of their professional credentials rather than their anointing for the job, a work of God can be watered down little by little, and God cannot continue to build His church through that group. Throughout history, whenever there was a move of God, the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the life of the founder was evident.

Usually years later, in this now established denomination, the requirements for leaders increased. Bible School or seminary becomes more important than having an anointing for the job. Of course, God is not against professionalism. Apostle Paul was highly trained and Luke was a physician. But professionalism without an anointing will stunt a move of God.

A case in point is one of the largest denominations started in the 20th century with a mighty move of the Holy Spirit. The group grew rapidly, mainly because individuals with evangelistic anointings on their lives started up many churches. Over the years, these first leaders retired or died and were replaced with pastors who had graduated from the church's seminaries.

At a recent conference, church leaders were astonished by a survey which showed that less than half of their members had experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit—a basic tenet of their faith and doctrine. Professionalism, as a criteria for leadership (which by-passed spiritual experiences and spiritual anointings) had crept into the church. The requirement for a spiritual anointing had been replaced by a requirement for professional degrees.

Every person has a particular anointing on his life to serve the Lord in some capacity. Some are called to public leadership responsibilities and some are called to behind-the-scenes kind of ministry. Each person should know his calling and realize that he is vitally important in the body of Christ. We need all parts of the body functioning together to be effective.

No one should claim superiority because they hold more professional degrees or are better equipped with skills and gifts. All this "equipping" will be useless without God's anointing. We all need each other. A requirement for serving in the kingdom, no matter what our responsibilities, is to have a heart yielded to Jesus Christ.

Burnout

Western culture calls it burnout. I believe burnout is really one of the attacks Satan wages against a church leader. Burnout occurs when a leader or individual is overloaded with work and finally reaches a breaking point.

When a cell leader or corporate church leader reaches a breaking point, a spiritual numbness permeates his being. Constant tiredness, disillusionment and frustration is a "wake-up call" that a leader is doing too much. He probably is not delegating authority to others and is trying to do all the work himself.

Many leaders who reach burnout, drop out. They may find themselves in a state of depression that causes them to completely lose their faith and trust in God. It is a serious condition in which to be.

Often the tremendous amount of responsibility given to some leaders and the way some churches are structured lends itself to this condition. That is why I believe God is calling the church to get back into small group ministry. In this way, everybody can get involved in the operation of the church, rather than just a select few.

Every Christian is called to minister and be involved in the building of His church. As each believer imparts what they have learned to others, they reproduce themselves, taking the load off their own shoulders and spreading it around to others.

Too High Expectancy

Is it possible to have too high an expectancy for our leaders or those we serve? Yes! When we expect too much, we forget we are all sinners saved by grace. Instead, we are measuring the leader or the people we serve by our inflated standards.

The result is that we become totally dissatisfied with the leader or the people. We begin to expect immediate responses to our requests We see only their mistakes, and those things we do not care for in their personalities, and it becomes very hard for us to see the power of God working in their lives. When this happens, we move out from under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and serious interpersonal and leadership problems occur.

There are no super-Christians in the body of Christ. We all are simply pilgrims traveling through enemy territory under the grace of God. A prayer God will answer is this: "Lord, show me myself" He will show us and it may not be what we want to see, but will be humbled by His revelation of grace.

When we are trained through the home fellowships to understand the sovereignty of God and what to expect from people walking in the grace of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we to give credit to God. We will no longer have unrealistic expectations of our fellow believers.

Understanding Personalities

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Scripture commands us to d: it, but how can we obey it? What about those people who rub us the wrong way^—those who we feel really need changing?

Every person is born with a temperament that makes him not, 'tie It also provides him with both strengths and weaknesses. Personality is the outward expression of our temperament.

Personality differences can become a source of irritation and cause major problems if we do not understand them. Sometimes, in the church, personality clashes are misinterpreted as one person being less spiritual than another. Other times differences in personalities cause major power struggles. For example, an evangelist sees all people in light of evangelism and his own personality. A teacher sees all people in light of teaching. The same is true for apostles, prophets, pastors and so on. If we make no effort to understand those personalities that are different from our own, we may find ourselves having trouble relating to people.

We encourage all of our cell leaders in Russia to use the temperament charts (see page 66) so we can help them understand themselves and those they serve. In this way, we can also advise them of potential problems they may encounter and help them to solve them. We tell the cell leaders that personality profile test are a tool to use to help us love, respect, accept, and encourage people around us who have different anointings than we do. There are many fine profiles that can be taken to understand human behavior. However, we should never use personality profiles as the final authority on a person's personality.

When the Holy Spirit lives in an individual, it must be under-stood that his natural temperament can be disciplined and directed by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Holy Spirit can release a person from the weaknesses of his personality and give him new freedom as he begins to manifest new supernatural characteristics in his life.

The idea that there are basically four different types of temperament was first proposed by Hippocrates, a Greek philosopher and physician. While much of his theory has been rejected, his classification of temperaments is still accepted:

The choleric temperament is outgoing, practical, independent, active, optimistic and decisive. He readily makes decisions for others as well as himself, and seems to be a born leader. He thrives on adversity, with a stubborn will to succeed. He tends to take a firm stand on issues and does not waver under pressure. Studies indicate cholerics represent about 3% of the population. They are the apostles, overseers and administrators in the church.

The sanguine temperament is generally cheerful, witty and enjoys people. He readily sympathizes with others, and sincerity gains him many friends. His decisions tend to be based on feelings instead of reflective thinking. He tends to be outgoing and noisy, but not always as confident as he appears. Sanguines often are good salesmen, teachers, actors, entertainers and public speakers. They represent about 11% of the total population and include the evangelists, preachers and exhorters in the body of Christ.

The phlegmatic accounts for the largest temperament group, or approximately 69% of the total. His is the slow, calm and easygoing temperament. He seeks, enjoys and is comforted by steadiness, stability and security. He is not easily motivated beyond his comfortable daily routine. His consistent, controlled exterior hides a broad range of emotions, abilities, and an appreciation of the better things in life. Phlegmatics are often good counselors, accountants, scientists or diplomats. In the church, they are often the pastors, counselors, helps people and general Christian workers.

The melancholy temperament tends to be analytical, gifted, self-sacrificing and perfectionistic. Naturally introverted, he does not make friends easily, but is a steady, faithful friend, probably the most dependable of the temperaments. He tends to anticipate problems in any project because of his exceptional analytical ability, appearing pessimistic to others. Many artists, musicians, inventors, and philosophers are of this temperament, which represents 17% of the population. They are the prophets, writers, musician/worship leaders, and teachers in the church.

We must be aware of the fact that these are four basic temperaments, and no one person is a single type of temperament. Most people are a blend of two or more temperaments, but for our purposes the important thing is to recognize basic temperaments and the relationship to ministry. All four of the basic temperaments are needed to perform the various ministry functions for the church. No one temperament is better or more spiritual than another; each has strengths and weaknesses.

God does not want us to be dominated by our weaknesses and shortcomings. We need to use our strengths and overcome our weaknesses through the power of the Holy Spirit, so we can use our God-given temperaments to build the church.

Personality Profiles

Choleric Temperament		Melancholy Temperament
apostles, overseers, administrators		prophets, writers, music/worship, teachers
Controlled by:	Controlled by:	Controlled by:	Controlled by:
Holy Spirit	Satan	Holy Spirit	Satan
born leader	angry	analytical	antagonistic
confident	bossy	creative	critical
courageous	domineering	detail oriented	depressed
goal oriented	impatient	gifted	easily offended
independent	inconsiderate	goal oriented	moody
organized	inflexible	loyal	pessimistic
productive	opinionated	perfectionist	self-centered
self-sufficient	proud	reflective thinker	suspicious
strong-willed	unsympathetic	sensitive	too meticulous
		self-disciplined	unforgiving

Sanguine Temperament		Phlegmatic Temperament
evangelists, preachers, exhorters		pastors, counselors, helps, workers
Controlled by:	Controlled by:	Controlled by:	Controlled by:
Holy Spirit	Satan	Holy Spirit	Satan
compassionate	disorganized	calm	careless
enjoys life	easily angered	dependable	fearful
enthusiastic	egotistical	dry humor	indecisive
friendly	exaggerates	easygoing	lazy
generous	insecure	efficient	opposes change
optimistic	obnoxious	good listener	sarcastic
people oriented	undisciplined	kind	self-protective
sincere	unproductive	likeable	stubborn
spontaneous	weak-willed	people oriented	unenthusiastic
expressive	emotionally instable	sympathetic	unmotivated

Making and Breaking Covenants

One of the ways Satan tries to destroy the work of God in a body of believers is in the breaking of covenants. A covenant is an agreement between individuals or between God and individuals.

For example, Jonathan and David made a covenant between themselves (I Samuel 18:3), and God made a covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:13). When a covenant is made, it is expected (by God and individuals) to be carried out, because every covenant contains stipulations and laws.

When an individual first becomes a new believer, he makes a covenant relationship with God. As a believer, he is now also in a covenant relationship with brothers and sisters (born-again believers) throughout the world.

Another covenant that can be made is the covenant between a husband and wife, committing to a life together. It is not hard to see the devastation of broken covenants between husbands and wives.

The breaking of the marriage covenant through divorce causes broken family relationships and intense heartache. In a body of believers, when leaders and others are involved in the heart-rending experience of a division or disagreement through a broken covenant, the result is often confused, broken Christians who find their lives in a spiritual shamble.

Covenants can be for a period of time or forever. The key is for them to be clearly understood. In the house fellowship setting, you make a covenant with your spiritual family to take your part and responsibility in the family. In a corporate church setting, you may make a covenant with other leaders to work together.

In both settings, there are social relationships and working relationships. When people move beyond their initial social relationships to work together with a common goal within cell groups, they are developing their working relationships. Likewise, leaders in the corporate church must develop a clear working relationship for their covenant to be successful. It's like courtship and marriage. Courtship is a time of social interaction, but the relationship becomes a working relationship after marriage and with it the ensuing responsibilities of a family. As mentioned before, many couples fail to make this adjustment between a social relationship and a working relationship, and their marriage covenant breaks apart.

In the church, leaders often fail to make this same adjustment between a social relationship and working relationship. Understanding and communication breaks down between the leaders, resulting in broken covenants, broken lives and fractured churches.

Once a covenant is broken, it takes a long time until all the hurts begin to heal. The ensuing wreckage of broken lives can only be mended by the supernatural healing of God's forgiveness.

When someone breaks their arm, it is a painful experience. First, a cast must be placed on the arm to set the bone. After that period of time, the arm may need therapy to strengthen it again. This, too, is a painful process.

The same is true of broken covenant relationships. Sometimes, individuals, hurt by broken spiritual covenants, refuse to use their "arm" again because it causes too much pain. In this way, they become spiritual cripples for the rest of their lives.

The Body of Christ must reach out to their fellow believers who are nursing their hurts. God is in the business of restoring fallen believers, and He challenges us to do it in a spirit of love. Satan would like to see the Church divided, and he has won many victories in the past. But Jesus Christ is coming back for a church without spot or wrinkle; He will continue to bring restoration and healing to His people.

Faith In Religious Tradition

One of Satan's final strategies against the Church is to entice people away from life in the Spirit and have them develop a faith that sinks into religious traditions. Faith in religious traditions could be defined as our way of doing things—our form—a sacred comfort zone.

Although religious traditions in themselves are not necessarily bad (they probably wouldn't have become traditions unless they once had value), if they are adhered to at the neglect of hearing from God, they become an idol in our lives because we put faith in these traditions. Jesus often had to approach the Pharisees about trusting in their religious traditions which had become strongholds to their spiritual growth.

If you look at church history, you see church tradition (orthodoxy) developing into an ethnic culture. The Spirit of God could no longer move because tradition became an end in itself. The attitude that the culture must be preserved at any cost prevailed. Ethnic groups with their cultural preferences then resorted to violence to preserve the culture or religious tradition. Everyone who did not fit into their culture became the enemy.

God wants us to worship Him directly, and with a total commitment. The bridegroom is waiting to come back for His church, the bride. But faith in religious tradition often stands in the way.

Leaders need to constantly evaluate why they are doing things in the church. Are they practicing certain things because God has told them to, or is religious tradition the guiding factor? In the corporate church and in the cell group setting, we need to be constantly alert to things that become a form or ritual without the Holy Spirit's anointing because this will always lead to a decline in one's personal relationship with God and turn into religious tradition.

I know of a large religious group with a strong religious tradition, but if you ask them about their personal relationship with God, they don't even know it exists. They are agnostics. Still, they maintain their religious tradition, go to war for it and maintain themselves as an ethnic group. In fact, many wars being fought around the world today, if carefully traced, are started by ethnic groups trying to preserve their culture and religious tradition.

Throughout history, countless lives have been lost over this issue. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel fell into the trap of trying to preserve themselves by constantly fighting wars with others and among themselves. It is the curse of the ages—it is Satan's plan to use people to try to preserve dead religious tradition.

Years ago, I too, found myself totally locked in religious tradition. The Spirit of God could not talk to me because tradition was first and foremost in my mind. It was an idol in my life.

I believe it takes as much of the grace of God to get people out of religious tradition and into the flow of the Spirit, than it does to take an alcoholic or drug addict out of his addiction and into the grace of God. Both are so powerful and addicting that it takes a miraculous deliverance. Faith in religious tradition is probably one of the most terrible sins of the church of all times, but many tend to ignore it.

Religious tradition is easy to fall into. If you would try to adhere to everything that is written in this book, you could develop a religious tradition rather than be moved by the Spirit of God to discern exactly how God wants you to implement what you read. God wants us to be filled with His love and motivated by the power of His love to accomplish His plans.

It is only through the power of love, manifested in the life of the believer that faith in religious tradition can be put to rest. God wants to deliver people from putting their faith in religious traditions and instead get them into the flow of the Spirit so that He can build His church!

The call of the church is to go out and present the gospel to all people. The real call of God is to embrace all brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of their denomination or ethnic background. Jesus taught the Jews that they needed to embrace the Samaritans rather than look down on them. They were called into a kingdom of love. Even today, out of many ethnic groups, God is calling out a select people who will worship and praise His name. These people arefree from faith in religious traditions that stifle the Holy Spirit's work in the church. Instead, they work together in unity to see God's kingdom advance in power.

Ownership

Many church leaders succumb, especially in western culture today, to the feeling of ownership within a body of believers. When the leader feels possessive about the group of people he leads, he is stepping out of his area of stewardship. Feeling ownership often leads to self-gratification. He begins to build his own empire, and his personal ambitions take over rather than being led by the Spirit of God. The leader becomes more concerned about where he stands as a leader and what the ministry can do for him than his concern for his people.

He may also make an idol out of the vision God gave to him for the group of people he leads. A vision is basically a blueprint of God's plans. That vision should be shared with the corporate church so that others can help implement the vision in God's timing. If a leader makes an idol of the vision, he will assume absolute authority and have an owner mentality about his group rather than simply having the heart of a servant. A leader should always have the attitude of serving others so that they can be built up in God.

If a cell leader, for example, takes pride in the success of his cell group, and speaks of my cell, my church, mine, mine, mine—he is making an idol of his success and is no longer humbly serving the people and his God. God cannot bless this kind of pride and selfishness.

Moses was a man who had to learn the hard way. Despite the fact that God used him in a great and majestic way to take the children of Israel out of Egypt and by giving him the law on Mt. Sinai, Moses fell when he took things in his own hands. He didn't wait on God but took ownership for God's people when he struck the rock. Owners tend to take things in their own hands because they feel they own the situation. For Moses, the result was that he never got to go into the promised land.

Solution: Anointed Leaders Must Look to Apostles and Prophets Who Need To "Stay in the Spirit"

Although Satan is doing his best to diminish the effectiveness of the church and to nullify its testimony by causing all manner of problems among those who lead, God said He will build His church and the gates of Hell will not overpower it. Despite the problems in the church of today, God is calling His people to be reconciled with the brotherhood—to walk in unity with brothers and sisters in the body of Christ and flow together in the power of the Spirit.

God is calling His people to soul-shaking repentance and self-examination. Our prayer needs to be, "Have I fallen in any of these areas? Lord, examine me and reveal to me by Your Holy Spirit if I am submitted to any of the above failures as a leader. Cleanse, purify, release and deliver me. Wash me in the blood of Jesus."

Self-examination is important in our daily Christian life so that we can keep on track. A leader anointed by God will continually lay his position (responsibilities) on the altar like Abraham laid Isaac on the altar. God will test the leader to see if his position is an idol.

Operation problems of leaders boil down to one thing: Who is controlling that leader? Is the Holy Spirit in control or do controlling spirits control the leader? Anything that motivates a leader other than the Holy Spirit, is a controlling spirit.

As a leader, if you want to prosper, you will make sure you are listening to the Holy Spirit and looking to the apostles and prophets as they also rely on the Holy Spirit to give advice and guidance. With their input to design and navigate the church, you will be covered spiritually and can expect God to do great things in your local church.

You can be fully confident of God's call and approval upon your life as you lead out in the anointing of God and bear spiritual fruit. Pastors need not worry about becoming overly emotionally involved with people because they will be working with other leaders to balance them. Evangelists will be fit into church operations so their anointings can be utilized to the maximum as they work in accountability with God and others. Dynamic teachers will not accept idolization of any kind from those they serve, instead they will reflect His glory as they work together, being balanced by other leaders as they work under the direction of the Holy Spirit and with the help of the apostles and prophets.

In the next chapter, we will elaborate on the importance of being "pollinated" by the Holy Spirit before we can bear spiritual fruit that reproduces itself. Walking in the Holy Spirit's power is the key to ministering in our anointed roles in church life.