Church Leadership | Bellevue | June 14, 2026

Spring Lake Church – Bellevue

Sermon: Church Leadership

Teacher: Jack Guerra

Passages: 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, Acts 20, Hebrews 13, and Ephesians 4 

In “Church Leadership,” we explore what Scripture teaches about the calling, character, and responsibility of church leaders through passages including 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, Acts 20, Hebrews 13, and Ephesians 4. God calls leaders to shepherd His people with humility, integrity, sound doctrine, and servant-hearted care. This message reminds us that healthy leadership equips the church to grow in unity, maturity, and Christlikeness. Join us as we discover God’s design for leadership in His church. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is going to be a fun series. Every week. Be ready to come in to ready to squirm a little bit. So before I get too uncomfortable, I want to make a quick announcement. In three weeks, I believe it is from today, is actually July 5th. On July 4th, we will not be having our Saturday evening services. So fill up on brats, burgers, and dogs, go watch some fireworks. And in this service, be ready to squeeze a little bit and make some room for our Saturday congregation, Saturday group, who usually joins us because they'll be in here and in the 1030 service. So put that on your calendars, at least in the back of your mind, and you'll hear more about that in the weeks to come. But we do begin this week uncomfortable. And the whole goal of this series is honestly to talk about stuff churches usually don't want to talk about. I don't know if you remember a few months back, this is before we even came up with the title. We said, hey, we want to talk about things that churches need to discuss. And we threw it out on social media. And both church and unchurch folk alike responded with enough topics that we could have done this for a year. Individual topics. We narrowed it down to 12. And that's going to be this summer series, which is going to be a fun and uncomfortable one. And instead of, and in the fall, we'll get back to a study of the book of the Bible. We'll get more into that at the end of summer. But this will be more of a systematic study, which means we'll be looking at topics and saying, what does the Bible have to say about this? And that's what the highlight of it is going to be. My topic to launch this series is going to be church leadership and more specifically, church hurt. Because in a room this size, those of you joining us online, maybe lakeside room, family room, all of us experience church hurt. And it's not because church is bad and God is mean, it's because we're human. And some of you right now, actually, I know this because I get the messages, you've been hurt by church, and that's why you're watching at home today. And my goal, my heart is that we become the body of Christ who cares for one another, recognizes where we're where hurt happens, and discusses what's the best way to deal with that. And understand, hurt happens from the pulpit to the pew, and from the pew to the pulpit. My fourth year here, there was a group that wanted me out. Surprise. And the elders agreed, that's our that's really the ruling body of our church, is our elders. They agreed to meet with this group of people and they asked me, they asked me to be in the room, but they asked me to stay quiet. I'm so good at that. And everything that came up of all the topics that were run down through the list, not one of them was doctrinal. None. It had to do with song selection, a ministry that we either highlighted too much or didn't highlight enough. Service times, the closest thing one person said, I waited too long to get into the Bible in my message. Like that was their entire beef. And most times that's kind of how the flow happens. But church hurts happens sometimes when we don't get our way. But I want to flip that too. Well, let me tell you one other. I have a pastor I'm acquainted with, and I've heard this before. He had a person in his congregation come to him and say, Listen, you're my shepherd as my pastor, so I expect you to be on call 24-7. That's a little bit unrealistic. And it happens and it works both ways because I've also been in churches and in situations where I've heard the pulpit, I've heard the preaching be a place of manipulation. I've heard shots across the bow at people in the congregation that maybe the pastor didn't want to deal with directly, like the Bible says to. So instead, they take shots in what they say in the message. Or they manipulate things financially or whatever a vote or whatever they want to say for things to go their way. I've seen it work both ways. And unfortunately, this can become such a hurt that people say, I'm done with church. I've been accused of manipulating things or the vote in the congregation or doing my own salary. Listen, I don't set my salary. We have an elder board, we have a finance team. I'm not the one who sets my salary. And I want to stop for a minute because as we talk about church leadership, you have to understand we have an elder board, we have many leaders in this church. We have an elder nominating committee who go above and beyond, and you don't see the work they do behind the curtain. But I'll tell you what, Spring Lake moves forward because of them. Do we have any either now or previous elders or elder nominating committee people in the room? Can I just see a show of hands? I know I see some of you in here. Okay, one, two, three, four. Good. You all, if you see a hand up, please thank these people because they are why Spring Lake continues to move forward as we pray and seek God's face in the process. So that's the local side. Let's move out and broaden the picture and look at the national side. How many pastors have we seen recently fall? How many pastors who were trusted on a national and sometimes international scale, who the scandal becomes released to the press or becomes unveiled that they thought they could keep hidden? Somebody sent me an article last night of another church almost the size of a lot of the towns around here, where the pastor had to be removed because of the way he led and dealt with people so harshly. Like, what is church leadership actually supposed to look like? And I want to take a moment also and plug. We have something called lead class here at Spring Lake. It's one of my favorite things we do. You're gonna hear more about it at the end of service. Uh, but it really is leadership, both from an individual perspective, from our church perspective, and then from within the community. So take note of that. But what I want to do this morning is I want to take a group of passages. I can't cover all of them. As a matter of fact, if you use the UVersion Bible app, you're going to see more passages than what I'm able to cover this morning. And I want to look at what the Bible has to say about leadership. From there, I'll give a small uh synopsis of kind of what it says, and then a few thoughts on my own. Now you're gonna notice the passages on the screen, and you're not gonna see any points, not to be mistaken for a pointless message, because there are points I want to make, but today I'm gonna really focus on the screens on the passages, okay? The first passage we're going to look at is 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. Now, if you look in the uh UVersion Bible app, you'll also see Titus 1, 5 through 9. They overlap a lot. So I'm just gonna stick with 1 Peter 3, 1 through 7 for our discussion this morning. So it starts. Here is a trustworthy saying Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. Now, what you'll notice in this passage and several others is when we talk church leadership, I'm not just talking pastoral or elder role. You're gonna see terms like teacher, shepherd, overseer. All of these are used to talk about people who help lead the church forward. My goal isn't to look at the historical context of each of these titles. As a matter of fact, we're not gonna get to cover this one, but in Acts, I think it's Acts 6, you see a shift in the way leadership is done. It happens multiple times. So titles aren't something we should get stuck on. What uh Timothy starts with here, Paul starts with with Timothy is what's the character going on on the inside of you? Leadership should start with what's inside of us more than what looks good on the outside of us. Timothy and Titus are clear about that's what a leader is, more than a job description. The next passage is 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 1 through 4. And Peter goes from personal integrity to integrity in dealing with the church. It says, To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ's sufferings, who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care. Watch over them, not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be, not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but by but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. So Peter really gives us here uh three exhortations. The first one is if you're shepherding, if you're leading, do it gladly and willingly. Do it gladly and willingly. Don't do it with a bad attitude, don't do it with an oppression of people or a looking down, because that shows up in how you lead. What you see in the pulpit, you'll see in the pew. And if you have a grumpy person on this side of things, guess what's gonna show about there? I've seen it time and again. The challenge is love the fact that God has gifted you and called you to do what you do. Is it always easy? Absolutely not. We're dealing with people. But Peter says to do it with a good attitude, he says, do it eagerly, not out of greed or shameful gain. The motive is the work and not the income. We'll talk about that in a minute, too. But the motive is the work, advancing God's kingdom. And then out of that, how do we do that? He says, by being the example. If a leader can't live it, they shouldn't be leading it. If a leader can't show out of their own life what they're preaching, then they're gonna negate the words that come out of their mouth. Peter says, Have a good attitude, be all about the work, and live it yourself. Why? Because the chief shepherd, Jesus, according to Peter, when he comes, he will reward those who do it well and with a right heart. Next passage, back to 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 19. It says, The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For scripture says, Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker deserves his wages. Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. So, first of all, be careful of accusations. Make sure there's more than one person. When accusations have come, speaking of Spring Lake, come against me, are is there more than one? And we have an elder board who does field these things. And listen, we've had those meetings. But then comes this concept of double honor. And in this, as I was reading on this this week, there's, yes, there's provision involved, financial provision and also proper respect. What does it take to live in your community? And you hear this in let's be real, we've all seen the pastors who use this for personal gain, that use this to manipulate a sermon or manipulate giving for their advantage. But I want to tell you the other side. Years ago, I was looking at where to go to seminary and I was visiting a seminary, and they said, Well, we have churches that will hire you while you're a seminary student. I was like, that sounds great. Good experience, be able to preach. And they said, but here's the catch. They don't want your resume, they don't want to know your experience, they want to know the bottom dollar number you'll accept. And the lowest number is who they hire. There was a pat there was a guy going through before me. I met him afterwards, and he actually really connected with the congregation. He was like, I would like to stay and be the pastor here. And they said, No, we found someone cheaper. That's how to find a man of God right there. A family that's serving the Lord. Paul's saying here, listen, don't be cheap. Like, take care of those who teach and do it well so it's one less thing to worry about. Once again, we cover more of this in lead class. Our next passage goes to James chapter 3 and verse 1. And several of these now will tie together. James says, not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. What's taught is what establishes doctrine. What establishes doctrine is what we live and believe. It's how we understand and get a deeper understanding of who Christ is. With greater responsibility comes greater expectations of by God. Luke 12 tells us this, Hebrews 13. Teachers will be judged with a greater strictness since we're accountable for more. I understand this. And that is why even the people who do the announcements are vetted before they ever touch any platform on any campus. And I want you to know, I didn't take a poll, but I can tell you as a fact, our teaching team takes their responsibility to their jobs and the responsibility seriously. It is an honor to teach and preach here. It is an honor to open God's word and study it together. And this is an amazing place. You all are an amazing group of people to teach the hunger and understanding and even the questions that come are something honestly most pastors wish that their congregations would do without. So thank you for being great in learning and understanding. We take this seriously. Acts chapter 20 and verse 28. It says, Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of God's church, which he bought with his own blood. Always remember it's God's church. God's church, which he bought with his own blood. Who bought the church with his blood? Who came to earth in the form of a man? Jesus. So he's saying God came in the form of Jesus and bought this church with his blood. It doesn't belong to any person. It's not Jack's church or Troy's church or Dallas' church or Dan's church or Mark's church. And I use those names, guys in this area. We may do things differently, but I know they would stand behind that statement as well. They believe and understand whose church it is. It goes to next verse, Roman, uh Hebrews chapter 13, beginning at verse 7. It says, Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Remember your leaders, calls for ongoing respect and remembrance. And what do we remember? Not just messages, but how do we live? Does our life negate the words coming out of our mouth? One thing we've tried to always live here is what you see is what you get. Who we are on a platform and when we're all shiny on Sunday should be the same person attitude-wise when you catch us in sweatpants, not pajama pants. I don't think any of our staff would wear pajamas pants in public. I may be wrong. But flip-flops and Walmart, we're going to be the same person. Don't just do it because someone is a skilled talker. Watch their life as well. And what you see is what you get. It takes us to verse 17. If we live it right, look what it says. Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. There's that account again. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you. Interesting word there. Submit. Great un-American word. Submit to your leaders. But he's not saying to do it blindly. Submit to your leaders and have confidence in them as you've seen them live it out. They've proven it. And that should be the case in any church leadership, whether it's a life group leader or a biblical counselor or an elder or a men's or women's group leader or one of the pastors on team. You should be able to see it lived out first. And when we live it out well, it's an earned trust. It's a joy and a blessing to everyone involved. Why do we need to do this once again? We give an account to God. Last passage, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 16. It says, So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. I think we have some work to do on that one still. The whole maturity thing and working to be more like Christ were all a work in project. Verse 14. It says, then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. We all link together, that's the supporting ligaments, and we work together to become more like Jesus. That's the goal. That's why church leadership is in place, to point us more and more and more often, and in a better representation, every chance we get to be like Jesus. That should be the heart of what we do. So to summarize it, it is church leadership should be to have the heart of a shepherd, sacrifice and service, sacrificial love and willingness to serve. That's how Jesus did it. It's also the responsibility and care, feeding, teaching, and protecting. That's how Jesus did it. And to live a life of integrity and character. And that's how Jesus did it. Let me give you a few personal takeaways. Some of these are from me, some of these are things I've read along the years that I've jotted down notes. I'll be glad to give you some resources if you'd like afterwards. But before I do that, I want to remind you of something. It's a statement I heard a couple of weeks ago, I think stands very true for the church. Safe landings don't make the news. Plane crashes do. And when it comes to the church, I want you to know every week around this country, there's a lot of safe landings. There's a lot of good pastors, good church leaders, solid churches teaching God's word correctly. They're not the ones that are gonna make the news. It's the train wrecks that do. Do you know the U.S. aviation system handles 45,000 flights with 2.9 million airline passengers every day? And yet we have people afraid to get on planes because of a crash in 2019. There's a lot of plans that land safely and take care of the people well. And I would say there's a lot of churches every week that their primary goal is to take care of churches well. Not liking kids' ministry or a certain elder or preaching style or a song is not a train wreck. It's a personal taste. So then what do we look for? Like what's the warning signs that things may be going wrong? The first one I would say is be aware where there's not accountability. Be aware of churches or positions of any leadership where there's not accountability. In the leadership role, if the stage lights are brighter on you than they are shining from you, you're cooked. The light of Jesus in us should be more important and easier seen than any light that shines on us. I'm gonna be honest. In my late 20s, early 30s, I don't know if I could have handled the success that Spring Lake has had. I had to develop something deeper in me before God could have me prepared for the work he wanted to do through me. And that took accountability. Are people free to obey God or terrified to disappoint a person? That's manipulative. If it's all about that one person, there needs to be accountability in that structure. If the brand is holier than the truth, we have a problem. If it's about the clothes or the shoes or a style, we have a problem. We need an accountability there to say who is the spotlight truly on? Is it on Jesus? And once again, this can be in any area within the church. It can be in a children's or a youth ministry area, a worship team area, it can be in a life group. Is the light shining on Jesus? If a pastor or anyone cares more about their likes on social media than becoming more like Jesus, there's a problem. And it revolves around them. I had a professor in college, he was a pastor for 50 years, Dr. Richardson. And one of the things he taught us was when you find a leader who battles with both pride and insecurity, you have a mess on your hands. Because the pride always has to keep them up front, and the insecurity will kick in anytime someone else has the spotlight. I know of a situation where there was a lead pastor, and anytime anyone would speak beside him, he would go back and count. If there were sales of CDs or DVDs, he would go back and count and watch. Did they watch their videos more or mine? Pride and insecurity will sink the ship. That needs accountability. There's no allowance for arrogance before a holy God. And understand, God is not insecure. He does not need our vote or our post. He is God no matter what goes on. Whatever you won't deal with, we'll deal with you. As churches, we need to keep this clear. Leaders don't tolerate Jezebel and don't be bought by them. That's an accountability piece. And I want to say this too as a warning. Be careful of YouTubers who get a great following by going on rants. I've met some of the pastors of some of these YouTubers who will jump on and say that they're the one telling you the Bible right, and they will call out pastors they've never met. And they will accuse them of things based on a soundbite from a sermon years ago. And they themselves are under no accountability. And they think because they've got a following, they don't need it. That's not biblical. Be careful of what you see on social media as well. So accountability. How do I respond if I'm not seeing it? First of all, I want to challenge you to this, and it kind of piggybacks off that last line. Make sure you're being discipled by shepherds and not celebrities. Someone that you can know, even if you don't know them personally, at least you know their life and their character. And not a celebrity, someone you can turn on and turn off who's three time zones away. That's where it starts in relationship. And please, you're not being discipled by AI. Get in the scriptures for yourself. It shouldn't still shock and grieve us when this stuff happens with leaders. But it also should drive us to Jesus and not cynicism. Why? Because your saving grace is being connected to Jesus, not to any pastor. I can't save anybody. Neither can Ryan or Jeff or Bill or Adam. We can't save anybody. Your saving grace is that you're connected to Jesus. Don't live in fear of the church or any church leader. Fear the Lord. We hold each other accountable. There's that word again. But our understanding and our relationship, our leadership comes from the Lord. Don't respond. What about when it's done to me? Because once again, if I bet if I pulled the room, we've been in the spots where church hurt has happened. Don't respond to Jezebel's like Jezebel. Don't become spiteful. Don't become attacking. Watch your heart, keep it clean and pure. Jesus on the cross, death, the picture of evil itself, incarnate, acting against him, said, I don't hold it against them. Lord forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. God can deal with this stuff. And I would challenge you, respond in wisdom and not wound. Don't trade attack for attack. Respond in wisdom and not wound. And if it's time to leave, which sometimes that is the case, do so with Matthew 18. Talk to them. Go with someone else. And then if that doesn't happen, you let leadership know, and then you may need to leave. There are times where Jesus told his disciples, shake the dust off your feet as you're walking out of the city. But do it well. Here's what I want to close with. I want to challenge you. Be praying for church leadership. Don't just show up on Sunday morning and expect it to happen because there is a lot that goes on all week long and on the weekends. The maximum amount of people you can reach is also the maximum amount of people we can hurt. I understand I live in a glass house. I understand people see me not just in church after I've showered and got a smooth shave. They see me when I'm out in the city as well. People I know and people I don't. And I don't just live in a way that, what if someone's watching? I live in a way that I hope you see Jesus no matter where I am. How I'm treating my wife, how I'm treating my kids, how I'm treating the sales clerk. The challenge for all of us is remember, we're leaders, we're setting an example. We're lights. We're setting an example. And remember this too. The enemy, our enemy, the devil, is nothing if not patient. He waits for an opportune time. It says about Jesus after being on Mount Temptation. The devil went away for an opportune time. He's nothing if not patient. Please be praying for your church leaders. That may be Spring Lake, that may be the other amazing churches around Green Bay and Brown County and beyond. Be praying because once again, it's not just preparation for the battle, it is the battle. Remember this in closing. Safe landings don't make the news. Crashes do. This morning and every morning, there's a lot of great pastors, great church leaders, elders, life group leaders, biblical counselors, seeing life change happen, not because of them, but because of the power of God's word, in effect. Would you write your heads with me, please? Now, in a room this size, I'm sure there are some people, including myself, who have been burnt by human beings who attend church. Some of you may be watching online right now and you stay away from church because you say, I'm tired of the game. I'm tired of dealing with the politics or the abuse or the manipulation. I want to challenge you not to run from God in those moments, but run to Him. And as a church, can we have humble attitude? Maybe sometimes to admit when we're wrong, when we mess up, we fess up. But also to be able to love those who walk in our doors, who may come in hurting, battered, maybe they've been abused, maybe it's something they left and they didn't leave right. But it takes time to heal and own the moment we've had. Abundant joy, having a peace and a patience, a kindness, a gentleness, a mercy, a self-control, the fruit of your spirit, evident in our lives. I pray, Lord, for all the churches around Green Bay, and may we be the light, the city set on a hill that you've called us to be. May we lean properly into your scriptures, promoting and presenting the truth. And I pray for pastors and elders or whatever their church leadership may call it. And Lord, I pray that we serve in a place from a place of humility and not a place of pride, from a place of shepherding and not a place of manipulation. God, may we reflect your heart for people in all we say and do. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.