Last week, we talked about how a big church can care for people well by empowering both global leaders and local leaders. Let’s look more closely at how this dynamic works by comparing sheep-focused and flock-focused elders and deacons.

Sheep-focused leaders

Sheep-focused elders and deacons work in a local church, caring for the people in that local church. In the New Testament, we know that local churches had elders and deacons, even though we know very few of their names. They were not widely known beyond their local church, but we can assume they were widely loved by their local church.

At Mars Hill, sheep-focused elders and deacons remain almost entirely focused on their local church and local ministry. They do such things as:

• Lead the local mission
• Encourage evangelism
• Teach classes
• Organize Community Groups
• Prepare couples for marriage
• Pray for the sick
• Make hospital visits
• Mediate conflict
• Oversee church discipline
• Train up new leaders
• Conduct weddings and funerals
• Execute Sunday services and other programming
• Lead women’s ministry
• Organize children’s ministry
• Grow student ministry
• Encourage generosity
• Maintain church property and facilities
• Help new members get connected
• Guarde against false teachers
• Baptize believers
• Do biblical counseling

Some of these leaders will be on paid staff, but the vast majority will be unpaid volunteers.

The health of our entire church rises or falls with the quality of love and leadership that sheep-focused leaders provide.

Sheep-focused elders and deacons work in a local church, caring for the people in that local church.

We have organized Mars Hill to get many of the administrative responsibilities that burden the typical local church leadership team onto the expertise of a team of support specialists. This is done so that local church leaders can devote their energies caring for Jesus’ people.

In some regards, it might be helpful to think of this relationship like that in a hospital or a school, where an administrative staff relieves numerous responsibilities from doctors, nurses, or teachers so that they can tend to people by caring and teaching respectively. Sheep-focused leaders need to stay focused on their people and not distract themselves with details that flock-focused leaders are tending to.

Community Groups and Redemption Groups

As a general rule, much of the sheep-focused ministry is done in small groups, what we call Community Groups. These are sermon-based groups that meet weekly for a meal, application of the content of the sermon, discussion of Scripture, prayer, friendship, service to the community, and evangelism.

At Mars Hill, we have around 600 of these groups. We also have Redemption Groups, which are for people dealing with difficult suffering, sin that they have committed, and sin that has been committed against them.

The health of our entire church rises or falls with the quality of love and leadership that sheep-focused leaders provide.

Community Groups are ongoing, while Redemption Groups run for a season and then come to an end. We find that these groups are great opportunities for those with sheep-focused gifts to exercise caring leadership. They build up our church family and bring meaningful ministry opportunity to the leaders, nearly all of whom are unpaid and overseen by flock-focused leaders on staff.

Flock-focused leaders

Flock-focused elders and deacons work across multiple local Mars Hill churches. Flock-focused leaders spend some time shepherding individual people, but most of their energies will be spent helping to steward church resources (leaders, finances, technology, facilities, and policies) to help love and serve Jesus’ mission.

In the New Testament we also see various leaders working across various churches, most notably Paul, Timothy, and Titus.

It is virtually impossible to put together an organizational chart of Paul’s leadership team throughout Acts. The team is fluid and flexible. It includes men and women, elders and deacons, and people we don’t learn much about. Sometimes they are with Paul, side by side, while other times they are sent on ahead to prepare for his coming. Sometimes he leaves them behind to clean up a mess in his wake. Some people work with Paul for a season, others for many years. The impression is that Paul deploys whomever he needs, wherever he needs, whenever he needs, for however long is needed.

Flock-focused elders and deacons work across multiple local Mars Hill churches.

Ministry specialists

Flock-focused leaders help to establish and support sheep-focused leaders in our various locations. This includes our ministry specialists, who are the senior leaders over our various ministries. They work locally, but have authority to oversee their area of ministry across our church locations. These ministry areas include:

• Lead pastors
• Worship pastors/directors
• Executive pastors
• Children’s ministry
• Student ministry
• Women’s ministry
• Lead Pastor Residency
• Community Groups
• Redemption Groups
• Biblical Living

Support ministry

Flock-focused leaders also include our central support ministry functions, covering areas such as:

• Technology
• Websites
• Publishing
• Mars Hill Music
• Resurgence (including Resurgence Publishing and ReTrain)
• Preaching campaigns
• Eldership process
• Deaconship process
• Membership process
• Security protocols
• Human resources
• Finance (budgeting, accounting, auditing)
• Communications

Most of the time, flock-focused leaders will be paid staff simply because their area of responsibility is far too much to expect of an unpaid part-time volunteer.

Flock-focused leaders help to establish and support sheep-focused leaders in our various locations.

We have a lot to steward, and we want to be great stewards of all that belongs to Jesus. On the issue of stewardship, Gene Getz writes in his book Elders and Leaders:

It’s not a coincidence that the first reference to elders/overseers focused on financial responsibility (Acts 11:30). Though we’re not given any specific details as to how the Jerusalem elders distributed the money delivered by Barnabas and Saul (Paul), we can certainly “fill in the blanks” in terms of this Herculean task. They had to make sure these funds were allocated fairly and equitably to needy believers—not only in Jerusalem but also in other churches throughout Judea. Since this would have been an extremely time-consuming effort, these men must have appointed qualified assistants to help them.

Complementary leadership

Just as husbands and wives work together in a complementary fashion, with the husband being the leader, elders and deacons work together in a complementary fashion, with the elders being the leaders.

Similarly, elders working in each area of ministry do so in a complementary fashion, with a ministry specialist being the leader. Lastly, our flock-focused and sheep-focused leaders work together as equals, with the flock-focused leaders being the senior leaders who help the sheep-focused leaders succeed in their areas of oversight.

Sheep-focused leaders need to stay focused on their people and not distract themselves with details that flock-focused leaders are tending to.

Flock-focused leaders also greatly help in the planting of new churches. Since no single local Mars Hill Church has all that is needed to plant a great church, by working together under leadership that pulls our entire church together for mission we can do far more than we could possibly do if we were separated churches.

The flock-focused leaders not only help strengthen the sheep-focused leaders, but they also help to decide where we can plant a church next, and how.

Stay tuned next week for the third post in this series, in which we will discuss how to use “courts” to delegate authority.