May 20thPrioritizing “Calling, Developing, and Supporting Church Leaders”
This is the tenth in a series of reflections from Executive Minister Michael Pahl on our new MCM Vision & Mission Statement, approved at our 2026 Gathering.
“[Christ Jesus] himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph 4:11-12).
Christ knows the church has always needed leaders—and he has always provided them. But it seems to me that as Mennonites we haven’t always agreed with Jesus on this.
Sometimes it seems we don’t agree with Jesus that the church needs leaders at all.
We frequently appeal to “the priesthood of all believers,” taking this to mean that no one person should have more authority than anyone else in the church, that we make decisions collectively and not by one person’s decree. But that’s not what this doctrine is about.
The priesthood of all believers is first and foremost about our access to God. We don’t need a priest to mediate our relationship to God; we have Jesus as our High Priest, we need no other. And so we can all, each one of us as believers in Jesus, “approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
The priesthood of all believers is also about us reflecting God’s character and extending God’s reign in the world. This idea comes from the covenantal language of ancient Israel, where God declares them to be “a priestly kingdom” within the world (Exod 19:6). This language is picked up in the New Testament and applied to God’s new messianic community, the church: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9).
This thread actually originates in an even earlier biblical story: the first creation story in Genesis 1. There, humans are created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26-27), a phrase which, in its ancient Near East context, evoked the notion of a vassal king or queen representing a more powerful monarch, or a monarch representing a god. Human beings have been created to be royal priests and priestesses, representing God and furthering God’s reign of life, light, and love throughout the rest of God’s creation.
To draw this back to our opening quote from Ephesians, all of us—together and equally—do “the work of ministry.” Yet we need leaders who can “equip the saints” to do this ministry—and this requires investing these leaders with a certain amount of decision-making authority.
In fact, the New Testament provides ample evidence of various structures of authority and designated decision-makers within the early church—apostles, elders, overseers, and more. We who are being led are told, “Obey your leaders and submit to them” (Heb 13:17). We who are leaders are commanded, “Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock” (1 Pet 5:3).
Christ knows—and so should we—that we need leaders in the church, of various kinds: some to shepherd us spiritually; some to direct specific, practical ministries; some to teach, passing on their wisdom; some to oversee all these ministries of the church. These leaders must not “lord it over” those being led, and so our impulse toward reducing power imbalances is a good one. Yet we still need these leaders, and we do invest them with a certain amount of power among us.
There’s another way we don’t always seem to agree with Jesus: that he will indeed provide the leaders we need.
We agonize over a shortage of people to serve on committees, lead worship, teach Sunday school, and more. We wring our hands when a pastoral search takes longer than we’d like. These are very understandable—and very real—concerns.
But just as Christ will build his church (Matt 16:18), so Christ will provide the leaders we need (Eph 4:11). Our task is to discern these leaders among us, to encourage them to respond to God’s call, to provide opportunities and resources for them to be formed as leaders, and to uphold them as they take up this call to be a leader in the church, whether as an ordained pastor or as a lay person.
And this is what the second missional priority in our new Vision and Mission Statement is getting at. As a regional church, we need to “Call, develop, and support church leaders who can guide the growth and nurturing of our congregations.”
This important task will take all of us working together.