CHURCH QUALIFICATIONS

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My father, who is a pastor, and I have been discussing about Church Qualifications a few months ago, and I remembered writing on a similar topic years ago. And today, because I have a few minutes to spare, I decided to write down what I can remember about a sermon that I heard in church (Horizon Christian Fellowship) years ago. The sermon was on the book of Jude.

Verses 3 and 4 of the said book reminded me of something. Here they are:

"3: Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
4: For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ."(I think this is the American Standard Version. I forgot where I copied these verses, sorry.)

What caught my attention is the phrase "there are certain men who crept in secretly" in verse 4. Naturally, the word "secretly" doesn't mean that these people joined us in church without us knowing about it. Whenever there are visitors/new people in church, we always happily welcome them, and after several Sundays of these new people being in our church, we encourage them to join our group activities (like Youth Services, Cell Group, Bible Studies etc.), and sometimes, these new people are encouraged to be part of a certain ministry (be a Youth Group officer, teach Sunday School, be a part of the Worship Team, etc). And, if you ask me, this is where the danger comes in.

I am not saying that all new people/visitors that come to our churches are "ungodly men" as verse 4 says (which is a generalization already and is bad). What I am trying to say is that church leaders should be careful who they include in the different ministries inside the church. When I say "ministry" here I mean the formal structures in the church that labor to accomplish God's work here on Earth. I've already given examples above, which include, teaching Sunday School, being an officer in the church, being a member of the worship team, etc. I believe that the aforementioned ministries should be handled by people who have track records in the church, Christians whose lives are known by the church to be exemplary and above reproach, Christians who actually live the "fruits of the Spirit"; Christians who are spiritually mature.

Sometimes, churches have the tendency of looking at a person's "earthly" qualifications whenever they place a certain person in a particular ministry. For instance, there's this lady who have been going to a certain local church for several Sundays now. The church leaders found out that she finished Education in college. The church needs a new Sunday School teacher and so, without much ado, they made the lady one of the Sunday School teachers because of her qualification as an Education graduate. What if the lady has a questionable reputation in her community? What if she practices things that are considered unbiblical? Wouldn't it be better if the church leaders checked the lady's spiritual life first? And even her life outside the church? Even in our professions/jobs, the Human Resource Department (HRD) does background checks on us. HRD speaks with our previous employers, asks us to submit our NBI Clearance and all such other requirements. Shouldn't the church do likewise? Of course, I don't mean the NBI Clearances and all those, but at least, the local church should make an effort to first know the person better before allowing her to participate in the church's ministries.

When I was in college, we "fellowshipped" at Doane Baptist Church, Iloilo City. When we first arrived there, my father personally endorsed us to the Senior Pastor (I think it was Ptr. Akut at that time. Not sure about the spelling of his last name though) of said church. We were already Christians and pastor's kids at that, but we still needed the endorsement of our pastor (my father). Also, we did not join the church's ministries right away. I think it was about a year later that we joined the church choir and I started to teach in the Children's Centers. After all, even if we were already Christians and pastor's kids, the people in that local church needed to see our daily, personal lives first to be sure that we were not only professing Christians but real Christians.

I believe our "church qualifications" are different from our "professional qualifications".

I hope I got my point across.