Another "Christian" leadership article outlines how wannabe pastors are being trained to be hirelings...

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I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. -- John 10: 11-13 (ESV)

https://careynieuwhof.com/7-things-that-get-harder-as-your-church-grows/

We have written before regarding different "Christian" leadership gurus who have taken the purpose driven model of church growth and placed it on steroids for up and coming pastors. The teachings are usually carnal in nature and filled with the human wisdom that the Bible says we ought to avoid. It is always couched in the most pious of terms. It is always about "reaching more for Jesus" but they never stop to examine what Jesus they are reaching people with. The Bible teaches us that people can place their faith in false christs and false gospels that can only lead to false salvations. This is how so many people will stand before our Lord and Savior on the last day after serving in churchianity their entire lives only to discover He never knew them.

A simple example would be someone who fell under the false prosperity and word faith teachings of Joel Osteen. After hearing nothing about their sin and need to repent they are led in a quick and dirty three sentence prayer and told they are saved. They spend decades at Lakewood serving and loving the false christ they were led to. To the natural observer -- they love God. The problem is He never knew them to begin with. The Purpose Driven Church teaches unbiblical practices and normalizes them in order to "grow the church." The problem is that they do not stick to Scripture so while their individual church may grow that does not mean the actual kingdom is growing at all. The fact that Osteen can pack 55,000 people into a service is a sign of worldly approval, not divine blessing. One of the leadership gurus we often refer to is Carey Nieuwhof and his latest article can be found at the above link. This article is about the seven things every leader of a growing church or organization struggles with. I have eliminated four of these items from this discussion for different reasons. The first elimination is the notion that you cannot know everyone's name. It just seemed a rather silly point to make. The next two eliminations are leading leaders instead of people and learning to say no. There is no need to discuss these in depth because it is redundant in the article. It is all part of the pastor moving further away from the sheep, as you will see. The fourth elimination is related to having organizational systems in place and to that I would agree with Mr. Nieuwhof. God is a God of order, so long as your systems to not dictate whether people actually are served. The remaining three items however provide a frightening insight into how modern day pastors are being warped in their thinking. They are the core of purpose driven leadership training. Remember, Nieuwhof is a sought out mentor on leadership within the church. People pay him for this type of advice and counsel. Let us reason together beloved and see that what he is creating is a generation of hirelings, not pastors.

"I'd be the first to admit that I'd rather be part of something that's growing than something that's stuck or dying, but growth doesn't mean your issues disappear. What's true in church is true in any organization or business." -- Carey Nieuwhof

There are two glaring points from his brief introduction. First of all he all but admits that he equates running a church to running a business. Yet what is true in business need not be true within the church and one can make Scriptural arguments that it should not. The pastoral role is not supposed to be that of a CEO, despite what Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Church would teach you. Break it down reasonably beloved. A business has a product. What would the church's product be? Christ? Eternal life? Salvation? These are not tradable commodities. Yet the purpose driven model does not even market these as the product. Instead it is relevance. It is temporal blessings from the Santa-Jesus they sell. It is entertainment through carnal worship and experiences. It sells a cult of personality with a charismatic speaker who relates to you where you are at. Do you think 55,000 people show up at Lakewood because Joel Osteen preaches the Gospel? No. It is because he tells them exactly what they want to hear with a little "god stamp" of approval. But Lakewood is a fine oiled business machine; make no doubt about it.

The second problem here is the assumption that unless there is exponential growth then something must be "dying" or "stuck." In the carnal world of business this might be true but not in the realm that God operates in. To Carey Nieuwhof everyone should have a mega church. Not according to God however. Acts 2 makes it crystal clear that God alone is responsible for the horizontal growth of the church. The pastor is responsible for the vertical growth of the sheep the Lord has entrusted to him. So if God gives a pastor 200 sheep and another 50, neither of them are performing badly if those numbers stay constant, increase or dwindle. The only true metric of pastoral success is the relative maturity of the sheep he shepherds. Nieuwhof continues:

"1. The senior leader being less available - As your church grows, you need to begin a transition away from being available all the time. If you don't, you will implode or your church will stop growing. You can be generally available to 20 people. You will wear yourself out trying to be consistently available for 200 people. You'll die trying to be available to 2000 people. Frankly, you'll never even serve that many people because it's humanly impossible, even if you worked 7 days a week, 20 hours a day. People will just walk away, their calls unanswered and their needs unmet." -- Carey Nieuwhof

So according to Nieuwhof and purpose driven teaching, as a church grows the more distant the shepherd is supposed to be from the sheep? Beloved there is a reason why Jesus gave us this analogy of shepherding. There is not a sane shepherd in all of history that would distance himself from his sheep if he got more sheep to be responsible for. He cannot even fathom being there for 2000 people! He thinks you would die if you tried! That is what happens when you are relying on yourself and carnal means instead of the Creator of the Universe. God runs the church! If you think that you cannot shepherd 2000 people then it is time to raise up a leader to plant another church so that all sheep can be tended to. Therein lies the fundamental disconnect that Carey and purpose driven leadership gurus suffer from. The role of the church is to tend to the sheep -- not constantly be looking for new sheep. As we pointed out already, God decides who is added to the number. Tend to the sheep and preach the Gospel so that any unsaved people hearing it might be drawn by the Spirit. Romans teaches us that only the Gospel has the power of eternal life to save someone. Not our little cults of personality, marketing schemes, and slick packaging.

"As my friend Reggie Joiner says, the problem with needs-based ministry is there's no end to human need. Your church will struggle with the pastor being less available as it grows. But it will struggle even more if you don't restructure to grow bigger. To reach more people, you need to be available to fewer people." -- Carey Nieuwhof

What twisted and carnal reasoning is this! In order to reach more people you must ignore more? Or delegate them to other people who have not been called to shepherd the sheep? Absolute unbiblical nonsense. It is sadly ironic that he believes that there being no end to human need is a problem when it is the reason pastors exist! But again, his eyes are not on the sheep beloved. They are on the next batch of goats he can convince to say the magic three sentence prayer and show up each week. Does the Bible teach us that pastors need to be available to fewer and fewer sheep? Hardly:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly;not domineering over those -- 1Peter 5: 1-3 (ESV)

"2. The leader not doing everything - A companion of being less available as a church grows is the reality that a pastor can't do everything. Many pastors of small churches start out as jacks of all trades: preacher, pastor, chaplain, wedding officiant, funeral officiant, bible study leader, team leader, curriculum designer and even friend who drops by. As our church has grown, my role has become narrower and narrower. At 200 Pastoral care became a groups and congregational responsibility. So did bible study (which became small groups instead). At 400, I let go of graphics and design entirely (thankfully). I also got out of direct involvement in student and children's ministry as we hired people (I still share the vision, but no longer own the responsibility). At 800, I stepped back from leading and attending most meetings and almost everything else to focus on preaching, teaching, vision casting and senior leadership. If you want to grow, you have to let go. And, of course, as Andy Stanley says, by doing less you'll accomplish more." -- Carey Nieuwhof

The wildly heretical Andy Stanley is on record as saying that we ought to not use the term shepherd anymore because it is not culturally relevant. How absurd that Stanley thinks he knows better than God. How telling that Nieuwhof quotes him! The truth is that Stanley is not a shepherd and is uncomfortable with the notion of such because he is a hireling. That is what the purpose driven models create. When you view officiating the wedding of one of your sheep as a task, then you are a hireling. The key verses spell it out very clearly for us. The hireling does not own the sheep. Thus when the congregation grows to just 200 people the notion of pastoral care has to be outsourced! You know, taking care of widows and orphans or visiting people who are sick. A hireling has no time for that! Teaching your sheep to study the Bible? No time for that either. No point in trying to make sure the sheep are growing in the Lord and becoming healthy spiritually. I am staggered at the belief that pastoral care must become a "congregational" responsibility! Think about that for a second. The shepherd called by God to tend to the sheep thinks that it is the responsibility of the sheep to tend themselves! This is at just 200 people! This is the mind of a hireling beloved. The list of duties Nieuwhof lists however could be taken right from the Purpose Driven Church. Preaching (teaching) vision casting, and senior leadership. That's it. You need counseling, make an appointment to see the counseling pastor. Your life is falling apart, see our triage pastor. You want someone to visit you in the hospital; I will send one of the congregants. You are confused by a false teaching you heard recently, hey I am just a hireling. Let the wolves devour you all day long because I have vision to cast. We now come to the final point Nieuwhof wants to make about what pastors must deal with as their church grows:

"7. Dealing with critics - So once you start growing, all the critics will disappear, correct? Sorry to break the news"but just the opposite. They'll line up. You'll have internal critics who want things to be the way they used to be. After all, the people heading for the Promised Land always want to go back to Egypt." -- Carey Nieuwhof

I was wondering when Nieuwhof would get around to butchering Scripture. Yes, the people who dare to criticize the purpose driven vision are just like those stubborn Israelites whining about wanting to go back to Egypt. How ridiculous. Realize beloved that in this analogy, the purpose driven mega-church run by hirelings is "the Promised Land" and those demanding biblical accountability want to go back to Egypt. That is another frightening disconnect for people like Nieuwhof and the purpose driven leadership gurus. Everyone who disagrees is marginalized into the "critic" bucket so they can be neatly discarded. The Purpose Driven Church refers to this practice as "blessed subtraction"; where any dissenters are essentially thrown out of the sheepfold. This is actually taught to up and coming pastors! If you think it is a good idea for sheep to wander away from your sheep fold then you are a hireling and as the key verses teach us you care nothing for the sheep!

"But the critics are not just internal; growth attracts a growing number of external critics.

Our generation seems to specialize in encouraging leaders and organizations to grow and then criticizing them when they do. And before you accuse others, there's a 99% chance you've thought or said something negative about a large church pastor you resent. Growth attracts critics. It just always does." -- Carey Nieuwhof

Growth at the expense of the Gospel is in need of rebuke, according to the Bible. This is the point that Nieuwhof does not understand. Growth does not attract criticism, compromise does. I have never heard anyone criticize a church for growing. I have heard plenty of righteous criticisms for churches that sanitize the Gospel in order to grow. Churches that refuse to discuss sin and repentance anymore. Churches the remove all crosses so as to not offend the unsaved. Churches that think pastoral care should be outsourced to the sheep. Growing your individual fiefdom does not count as growing the kingdom Carey. It never does. Thankfully, he concludes:

"So how do you process the criticism when you're the one being criticized? The best way to process what your critics have to say is to understand why they say it. First, take whatever good there might in what they said and reflect on it. You're not perfect. You can learn and develop from it. But then process why the critics are often so mean-spirited. What usually fuels a critics' animosity toward success and growth? Three things: jealousy, a need to justify their own lack of progress, sin. Once you understand that a critic's arguments are often less about you than they are about them, you're free to show compassion and even concern for them." -- Carey Nieuwhof

Yes, criticism is always so mean spirited! No it is not. The problem is that people do not take constructive criticism as constructive and "leadership experts" like Nieuwhof teach more leaders to be just as sensitive. The flawed foundation is still here though as Nieuwhof has already concluded that every time someone criticizes it must be due to animosity toward success and growth. How transparently ludicrous. I have been at this awhile now and literally do not know one person who holds animosity towards true success and growth. Nieuwhof seeks however to make all criticism the enemy of the purpose driven pastor. So his parting vicious attack is that they are all reprobates. If you dare criticize your vision casting, purpose driven, cult leader than you must be a jealous sinner seeking to justify your own lack of progress. How utterly disgusting.

We see here however the goal of all of this. The goal is to deflect criticism back to the one pointing out what is wrong. The problem must be them. It's not about you! It is not about the fact that you now play secular songs during corporate worship! It is not about the fact that all your sermonettes are now self-help and motivational, instead of you know, Scriptural. It is not about the fact that you have people who are still goats or baby Christians leading your small groups or doing hospital visits. Nope. It is just sinful jealousy. Right Carey. The sad truth is that this article may as well be entitled, Seven Challenges a Hireling Faces When Moving the Church Away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

At least then it would have been honest.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- June 1, 2017

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.