Tim Clark’s Blog

As a pastor I’ve always loved Exodus 18 and Acts 6 because of the wise and practical action that the leaders took to distribute the work of the ministry. I just think it makes good organizational and strategic sense to do this, and I’ve regularly revisited these passages to rethink how I could put those principles into practice.

This year, as I was meditating through Exodus in my devotional reading, I had a new thought. God told Moses at the time of his calling (Exodus 3) that He would use Moses to lead His people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, and that the first important stop along the way was to be the mountain of God.

What happens at the mountain? This was where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, as well as where Moses stayed 40 days to receive the instructions for Worship. It’s where a motley but massive group of Jacob-descendants became transformed into the nation of Israel. If you had to pinpoint an important moment in the formation of over 4,000 years of Jewish History, or recognize an epochal event that would lead to the coming of the One who would fulfill the Law, I imagine that Moses’ time on Mt. Sinai would rank way up there at the top.

And here, the timeline is very important: Moses doesn’t get to go to the mountain (chapter 19) before he figures out how to give away ministry (chapter 18).

While he was busy being burdened “from morning till evening” sitting and having people come to him to make life and ministry decisions, he was never going to get to Sinai. Jethro’s advice to his son-in-law to distribute the leadership was not just a practical pastoral principle, but was an absolute mandate if God’s people were ever going to make it to their land of promise. Yes, the people had been delivered from bondage and formed as a community, but the Divine journey towards their ultimate destiny would not be reached if Moses continued to act as the hero-martyr and fill his days with things others could and should be handling.

Similarly, in Acts 6, the Apostles were not ‘above’ waiting on tables and serving widows, but they realized that if they were busy hoarding ministry from morning till evening, the things (prayer, preaching and distribution of ministry) that would move the infant church into its glorious promise would never happen.

How many congregations do we know that are right on the edge of amazing momentum into God’s design for them, but they will never get there because only the primary leaders are fully released to do ministry and make decisions? How many of those primary leaders can spend significant time listening to the Lord and responding in obedience while they are overwhelmed in the day-to-day needs of their people that others are competent to meet?

The life of the Kingdom was not ever meant to flow through only one person (in Exodus) or a small group of people (in Acts), and leadership bottlenecks often occur because of the pride of those who think they have to have their thumb on every decision. True, releasing ministry might make for mistakes and messiness (some of which will never even be seen or cleaned up), but if the alternative is a well-oiled machine that never gets a church to its call and promise, I’ll take the mess every time!