A Culture of Equipping

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the PCA is not deciding who may do which task. It is becoming churches where every member actually ministers. Many congregations affirm the priesthood of all believers while functioning as though ministry belongs almost entirely to paid staff. Others rightly emphasize participation but unintentionally diminish the unique responsibility Christ has entrusted to ordained shepherds. AMR envisions something better:

Imagine churches where elders intentionally identify, encourage, and deploy the gifts of the congregation… Where women disciple younger women with wisdom and theological depth… Where older men invest in younger men… Where deacons mobilize saints for works of mercy… Where members naturally pray with one another, bear burdens, welcome strangers, teach children, encourage the discouraged, and speak gospel truth into everyday life… Where officers rejoice not because they are doing all the ministry but because they are equipping others to do it. Such churches increasingly embody Christ himself.

Contrast this vision with our cultural moment. The American church is in a time of cultural change. This reckoning with abuses of leadership in our past and present has in some cases led to healthy and helpful calls for repentance, a “deconstruction” of ministries that were harmful. Yet in other contexts, it has led others to destruction: a rejection of the church entirely or a dismantling of Biblical structures and doctrines. Thus the American church today is tempted toward two opposite and unbiblical overreactions: a temptation to flatten Christ’s ordered offices in the name of equality; a second to elevate ordained office in a way that minimizes the ministry Christ intends for every believer.

The Poverty of Clericalism vs. the General Office of Every Believer

One of the striking features of the New Testament is how much ministry belongs to ordinary Christians. This has often been called the “General Office of every believer”—the Reformed way of describing the priesthood of all believers and the shared ministry entrusted to every Christian. When Paul describes the church, he rarely pictures a congregation gathered around a few gifted leaders while everyone else watches. Instead, he speaks of a body “joined and held together by every joint” that “when each part is working properly, makes the body grow” (Eph. 4:16). Peter tells believers to use whatever gifts they have received to serve one another as faithful stewards of God’s grace (1 Pet. 4:10). Paul urges the Corinthians to pursue spiritual gifts “for building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). The New Testament envisions a congregation alive with mutual ministry.

Yet this flourishing does not happen apart from leadership. Christ “gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers” for a purpose: “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:11–12). The ministry belongs to the whole church because Christ first gives shepherds to prepare his people for that ministry.

This conviction lies behind AMR’s theological vision:

“Because, through his elders, Christ the Overseer of our souls equips his people to participate in this mission and to build each other up into a community that increasingly embodies him, we commit to structures of ministry that encourage among all members the godly exercise of spiritual gifts…”

The order is important: Christ builds his church by giving ordained shepherds who equip the saints for the work of ministry. But those shepherds are not the church’s only ministers! Their calling is to cultivate a congregation in which every member—men and women alike—increasingly speaks the truth in love, bears one another’s burdens, admonishes, encourages, serves, teaches appropriately, shows mercy, practices hospitality, and exercises every gift Christ has supplied.

Every generation of the church faces the temptation toward clericalism. Clericalism assumes that meaningful ministry belongs primarily to ordained officers while everyone else becomes a spectator. Ministry becomes something performed by professionals rather than shared throughout the body. It is antithetical to our Biblical convictions and our Reformed history.

This temptation has appeared in many forms throughout church history. Sometimes it has elevated clergy into a spiritual class distinct from ordinary believers. Sometimes it has unintentionally developed through church culture, where members assume that discipleship, counseling, evangelism, visitation, mercy ministry, and spiritual encouragement are primarily the pastor’s responsibility.

The Westminster Standards point us in another direction. Christ has indeed established ordained offices for the government, teaching, and oversight of his church. Yet all believers share in Christ’s anointing, offering spiritual sacrifices and confessing his name before the world (WLC 63; WCF 26). The ministry of the church is never exhausted by the ministry of its officers.

Healthy Presbyterian churches have always understood this! Some of the most transformative ministry happens around dinner tables, in community groups, in hospital rooms, over coffee after worship, in youth discipleship, children’s ministry, mercy ministry, neighborhood evangelism, and quiet conversations where believers patiently apply God’s Word to one another’s lives. When elders faithfully equip the saints, the whole body grows.

The Poverty of Egalitarianism vs. the Goodness of Ordered Ministry

If clericalism diminishes the ministry of the congregation, egalitarianism obscures the distinct offices Christ himself has given to his church. Affirming the ministry of every believer does not eliminate Christ’s distinct offices. Scripture simultaneously expands ministry to the whole church and preserves ordained leadership.

The New Testament does not oppose authority to participation. Rather, it joins them together. Christ appoints elders precisely so that the whole church might flourish.

Presbyterians have long confessed that Christ governs his church through ordained elders who exercise spiritual oversight under the authority of Scripture. This ordering is not a reflection of cultural preference or human hierarchy but of Christ’s wisdom for the health of his people. For that reason, AMR rightly opposes “an egalitarianism that eradicates the order ordained by Christ.”

This statement should not be understood negatively, as though the primary concern is preserving boundaries. Rather, it is profoundly positive and seeks to protect a God-given good.

Because Scripture roots the office of elder in creation rather than merely church pragmatics or cultural norms, AMR understands the church’s ordered ministry to reflect—not erase—the goodness of sexual difference. Egalitarianism flattens out the Biblical gift of gender, treating sexual difference as irrelevant to Christ’s ordering of the church. Yet Scripture teaches that there is inherent glory in being a man and inherent glory in being a woman. These differences are not obstacles to ministry but gifts to be received with gratitude. Men and women together share in the General Office of the church, while Scripture also preserves distinct responsibilities within Christ’s ordered church.

Christ gives ordained leadership because he loves his church. It is not a historical mistake, but a timeless gift. Just as the body requires both bones and muscles—structure and movement—so the church flourishes when shepherds faithfully shepherd and every member faithfully ministers.

The question is never whether every believer should participate in ministry; Scripture answers that with a resounding “yes!” The question is how Christ has ordered that ministry for the building up of his church. AMR therefore celebrates both the General Office of every believer and the complementary gifts of men and women as expressions of Christ’s wise ordering of his church.

Speaking the Truth in Love

Ephesians 4 provides the heartbeat of this vision. Christ gives shepherds. Shepherds equip the saints. The saints speak the truth in love. And, as every member does its work, the whole body grows into maturity. This growth is measured not simply by organizational effectiveness but by Christlikeness. The goal is “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Mature churches are rich in personal holiness, marked by communal virtue, and equipped with practical wisdom for faithful living in every sphere of life.

That is ultimately why AMR rejects both clericalism and egalitarianism. One suppresses the gifts Christ has given his people; the other disregards the order Christ has established for those gifts to flourish. The risen Christ has provided both gifts and shepherds. We need both! As elders faithfully equip and members faithfully minister, Christ continues his work of building a church that increasingly displays his own life to the world.

TE Geoff Bradford has served as the senior pastor of Christ the King Presbyterian Church in downtown Raleigh, NC since 2011. He is a native of Kingsport, TN, then attended Davidson College, where he met his wife, Susan. Susan is Geoff’s true love and ministry partner. They have raised 6 sons and done a lot of ministry together–at Liberti Church, which they helped plant in Philadelphia, and now at CtK. They love their boys but now also enjoy finally having daughters(in-law) and a granddaughter.