The Church Hierarchy

The Church Hierarchy: Why the Salvation Army means Salvation!         Kelly Durant   9-23-09

Matthew 16:18 

 ¹⁸And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Leadership is like a rope, if the leader pulls the people with him, they come, but if the leader pushes the people with the rope, then no one goes anywhere!

There is emphasis within the SA to do things with the Servant Leadership style. There are many ways to lead according to our own personality, or our own idea of how we interpret things, but our idea often gets in God’s way.

The verse today focuses on Peter who had to learn some extremely hard lessons with Jesus to not be so proud and God humbled and humiliated him because of his and over confidence. But in Acts 10:34 ³⁴Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:  God had to get Peter and his boasting personality out of the way so Jesus could live and work in him!

The correct Christian way to lead is with the attributes of Christ and that is leadership with the kingdom mission in mind, self disinterested, with righteousness, true concern and love for others, humility, and evidence of good works.

Last week we discovered some faults with churches that promote prophesy and false doctrines which cause many to stumble and live under a curse instead of a blessing. Today we will examine the hierarchal system of government in the churches. Ask yourself, what system works best to win souls to Jesus Christ?

What I love about William Booth, the founder of The Salvation Army was that he was firm in not accepting the Calvinist predestination doctrine which gave many pastors in his day and even today the luxury of not needing to go out to win the lost because salvation was already predetermined by God so preaching Salvation to the world was no longer needed?!,

Imagine the comfort some preachers assume, they think, I will just minister to my people in my comfortable world and ignore following Christ’s, the disciples, and Paul’s example of reaching out to the sinners in the community.

Founder William Booth believed what the Word says that “whosoever will can be saved” and he said to “go for souls and to go for the worst”. This message and special mission implies that everyone in his church must share the gospel with everyone out in the world reaching them with their spiritual and physical needs: and no matter how much of a sinner a person is, they can be saved by Jesus’ grace!

Due to this correct application of the scripture, The Salvation Army movement became one of the most active churches  ever to exist in history in the community with street preachers on the corners everywhere taking the gospel to others they way Jesus did. It didn’t take long for the establishment of thousands of homeless shelters, rehab centers, and worship and community centers to appear everywhere all around the world.

Jesus made it clear to go to the people in the world in Matthew 16:18 

 ¹⁸And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
There are several different interpretations, some say Peter was the rock who started the church, others interpret Jesus reflecting that He is the rock, either way both were strong as a rock, but the main point is God’s church is invading hell with the beautiful saving liberating gospel of Jesus Christ! Hell cannot stop us!
Peter was the disciple that went into the community after Jesus ascension and preached and won 3,000 souls one day, and 5,000 on another! The image is hell’s gates are shaking because the church is out in the community on the Satan’s turf freeing souls from hell!.Satan loves power and hierarchies, remember how Hitler had his!  Jesus did not promote the image that the church is shaking behind their own gates, worrying about how terrible Satan’s works are, hiding their selves from the world.  
Some people when they see the Salvation Army, they think “Army” like in the world and they get mind images of and an unforgiving hierarchy set of leaders existing ready to punish you by making you run 20 miles at midnight if you do something wrong. That is very far from the truth! Hierarchy in the SA serves not for power abuse as in the world, but just for order, as established by Jesus for the business of preaching of the gospel.    
Most everyone in The SA are loving and caring leaders and despite the hierarchy established as a checks and balances system, there is a lot of freedom for Captains to work and reach the people in the community the way each Captain chooses, whether it be to reach the young, old, imprisoned, city fathers, or street people.
What concerns me though is the resurgence of the old type of tyrannical hierarchy being dug up and reapplied within many churches today by many church denominations around us bringing in an archaic type of rule oppressing church member’s freedom, making the church be confined to the bottleneck of the will of the pastor and consequently dividing us as Christians from each other by mismanagement.
I will elaborate why pastors with this system are hurting us all with a little church history so my point of how we have the best becomes evident. You are aware it was Constantine in 333AD that established the Catholic Church and the church and state then were one and the same with a centralized feudal power. This Theocracy power played the role in society as the accuser, judge, and executioner all on one!
The church was a hierarchy governing in a feudal system of surfs and Lords. All people were expected to fall into place by economic status by serving the King or governor and his abusive under Lords.  Respect by serving the King was synonymous to serving God himself since they concluded God was allowing that person to reign no matter how much of a tyrant they were! Remember the church at that time controlled people totally because they told them what truth was and what the Bible said, the people lived as victims to their impositions.
Most people are familiar with the quote, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, this is what the Christian world lived under for well over a millennia until finally a liberator was born in 1483 named Martin Luther. We are familiar that Martin Luther started the protestant movement which protested against this cruel heretical oppressive system that had survived by oppressing and hiding the truth and governing others without any internal checks and balances for too long. Common people were prohibited the Bible and if you questioned authority you fell out of favor, you were tortured and probably killed!

But Jesus said John 8:32  ³²And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!

Luther discovered the real truth God by reading the Bible in seminary and started dangerously teaching, “Fide Solo” , by “faith alone”,. How did 2 words change history with a change of world view? Because the church in the 1500’s was getting unimaginably powerful and rich from the common people claiming that money given to them could free their souls from hell and even free a dead relative from hell who lived a sinful life. The gospel was a big business!
It was liberating the exposure by Luther that anyone could be saved by faith alone in Christ and not by costly deceptive church cons and burdens. Imagine the church teaching that money would buy salvation! Luther was a scourge on their shameful heresies and abuses and God protected him to accomplish his mission of liberating others and translating and printing the Bible in German for all to read!
The protestant church free from the hierarchy immediately flourished in Europe despite hundreds of thousands of people dying as martyrs opposing the established theocracy. By the late 1600’s, freedom to worship as one chose took on various forms by different groups of people, such as the Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, and later the Pentecostals movements as we know them today. This desire for freedom to worship without the control of the abusive hierarchy provoked the spread of the gospel with new converts, the building of new churches everywhere, and immigration to the United States for freedom to worship freely and throughout the world.
You know what they say about history, “That those who do not know history are bound to repeat it.” Many churches today are sadly repeating the error of allowing pastors to become too powerful by misapplying the Word and manipulating people and this is reestablishing again an archaic oppression by feudal Lords!
What we see in the church today, and recall we are in the endtme observing the church in apostasy, is a reversal back to this old system of the establishment of a hierarchy where the church pastor as a hired boss who dominates his flock under systems permitting him to become rich from the poor sheep under him in the name of the gospel.
One clear example is the Iglesia Universal in Brazil. In the 70’s & 80s they, and the other protestant churches, would preach sermon after sermon against the abuse Catholic church with their old hierarchy and idolatry establishing their church as the saviors who could free you, their victim and captive.
Now it is reported by many news sources from many countries that this church and others have apply an abusive hierarchy and  they oppress members for money and then “lauder money” so it arrives to the leaders who live in luxury. They sell their own version of “Holy water” and very expensive special Bible courses. They are now being persecuted in Brazil, Mexico, and many places because their pastors are getting too rich from the members from their exploitation and abusive misapplication of the Bible. Is this new type of church that helping the poor in the community as the Salvation Army? To the contrary, these lazy wealthy pastors believe their only mission is to preach on Sundays since they are so anointed and better than anyone else. They lay heavy burdens on their people and they have infected other denominations that pastors should be made rich from their people, and do as they please all week like the Pharisees!
Matthew 23:4
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
What shocks me, and I am sure you too, is that more and more everyone observes that pastors from other churches take the attitude that they are the total authority in charge of everything in the church, just like a king with full power, and they make everyone under them do their job just as they say. They want to live with all the benefits of a luxury as a TV evangelist’s lifestyle without carrying out any civil or ministerial responsibilities. They ignore the fact that the pastor’s life according to Jesus requires the giving up everything as He taught, to “forsake all that we have to preach the gospel!” These are like the rich young ruler who refused to follow Jesus in reverse, these are people who claim to follow but do it for riches!  
One Soldier one time told me, you know why so many people envy you here and want to usurp you and get your position for their selves, don’t you? They perceive you are a king! Because in their (my) country, the pastor has the same power as a company boss, and the role of a boss is different from the one in USA. There being a boss implies you handle the money as you please, you only have to work if you want to, and then you just command everyone else to do your work!
I can tell you I do not get the luxury of having any of those 3 things! Yeah, what a great life, money, no work, and power! Who wouldn’t want that? How do people imagine that is possible and that anyone can get all this power for their selves just by taking it and just moving their tongues in the ears of others to gain position and wealth?
How did we as a culture get to the point of accepting abusers? It is in this country abuse goes from Wall Street down to the pulpits!
Some pastors do have sin, laziness and pride which God will judge them. This is happening due to the result of a degenerated culture that is living less in tune with how God wants them to lay their lives for others, and more in tune with what they can benefit from the church!
Let me confirm with a real life experience I had with someone bringing in the old hierarchy into the Salvation Army. The Hispanic Corps I attended in Atlanta had a change of Officers and got taken over in 1999 by a newly arrived pastor form another church, an newly appointed Aux, Captain from another denomination. Things immediately were different with him. He first wanted to show off his spirituality by long prayers and one hour sermons and 2 and 3 hour services which became his custom. Former Aux. Capt. Parra would explain in private how the SA has their system was messed up; that the job of a pastor is not to do social work because other churches don’t do that, helping the poor, so he decided he would not even give help to anyone. He did not go into the community making friends and he even disliked the uniform. He radically changed the music in the Corps to his liking, and he would preach against the divorced woman or anyone who would question his ways. He was an unthankful tyrant bringing in the old hierarchy. He was benefiting from the Salvation Army church and disrespecting it and using the people doing nothing but criticize and disregard the internal rules and regulations opposing the church he should have been loving and leading with servant leadership. He soon left with all of the members and started his own church in 2001. That’s when my wife and I were asked to take over as sergeants of the Corps with 0 members.
These postures and misguided attitudes of pastors of these church influences is causing lot of people to be very disillusioned with the church because it leaves no church system free of totalitarian control, neither the established Catholic, nor the Protestant.

In Atlanta, Ted Turner, the owner of CNN has a plaque on his desk and it says, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way!” Leadership involves a person leading a group of people but HOW he leads makes all the difference in the world!

I am personally pleased with The Salvation Army’s leadership and I think this blessed organization is becoming one of the last few amongst the churches to be free from corruption due to their doctrine of holiness, free from abuse from the hierarchy. Since we are capable of freeing others with Jesus and our system of service with love, we need to get started winning souls!  The SA means real Salvation from the abusive churches!