Though many may be associates of either senior pastors or business owners, it is virtually impossible to understand the pressures, sacrifices, and weight of responsibility that rests upon the shoulders of effective senior leaders. The following points illustrate some of the hazards of executive level leadership.
The Evangelical church has been in flux the past several decades—going from one extreme to the next—and in many respects losing its center. Thus it is really hard to define what an Evangelical is today except for the very ambiguous definition of a person who believes the Bible is the word of God (there are even varying degrees of this within Evangelicalism) and in salvation through the vicarious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
As a product of the Word of Faith movement in the early 1980’s I will forever be indebted to the books and teachings of Kenneth Hagin, Smith Wigglesworth, John G. Lake, T.L. Osborn and the like.
I have written numerous articles alluding to the fact that culture has changed and continues to change theology, biblical interpretation and the way we do church. I wish I could say that historically church leaders have allowed only the Bible to transform their thinking. But the truth is that we are all products of our cultures! Even when we try to be objective, our objectivity is in the context of our cultural surroundings, thoughts, vocabulary and education.
First and foremost, before we even get into the wisdom principles, I want to establish the fact that it is definitely God’s will for Christians to prosper. This does not mean that saints automatically prosper, or that every Christian should become a multimillionaire. But Scripture does teach that we should aim to be in a position financially in which we have more than enough to meet our needs so that we can be generous and aid other people (read Deuteronomy 28:12-13 and the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10).
Following are the expanded notes from a speech Bishop Mattera made on August 7, 2011 to 150 political, business, and military leaders in the African nation of Rwanda, including the Speaker of Parliament.
This speech was delivered on July 24, 2011 in New York City at the Let the People Vote Rally for Traditional Marriage
Some erroneous views have been articulated by some in the Marketplace Movement in regards to their relationship with the local church. Their teachings have either dismissed the proper role and function of the local church in regards to the marketplace or replaced it with a “mobile church” mentality in which a “church” or “congregation” exists “whenever two or three are gathered in His name,” thus legitimizing “church gatherings” in their offices and ministry or association meetings that are disconnected from typical local church congregations.
As a new Christian in the late 1970’s I was naïve and thought all Christians followed the teachings of the Bible and formulated doctrine and church polity objectively from the sacred Scriptures.
Ever since the fourth century, when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, the church progressively went from a decentralized “saints” movement to a temple-centered “clergy-dependent” movement. We went from focusing on marketplace presence to building elaborate cathedrals with clergy-led rituals. We went from people “being the church” to people “going to church”. I call the latter mentality “the box church”.
