My dear teammate,
When we think of the Church, we must never forget that the Church is the body of Christ, and that we are simply its members. Unless our Lord is allowed to be the Head, we as members cannot be functional. Every local church must be a faithful expression of the true Church, as she is revealed in the Scriptures. By contemplating the glory of the Church, we reflect that glory in our local churches, bringing spiritual transformation.
No part of God’s revealed Word expresses this more forcefully than Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:11-16. The gifts of the Lord of the Church to His body are the believers, gifted by the Spirit, to function in the Church’s five-fold ministry: outreach, proclamation of truth, evangelism, shepherding, and teaching. Many of these that the Lord gives to His churches become the joints and ligaments of the body, with the responsibility of equipping others, so that every member can rise to his full potential, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness in Christ. As the church grows up into the Head, it is from Him that the whole body, joined and fitted together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Therefore a fundamental value of the Church is to keep focused on equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, as the leaders constantly remember that the effectiveness of their ministry is not how well they do ministry, but how well they prepare others for ministry, and how well they minister through others.
In this way, ministry is not measured by what we do for the Lord, but what He does through the members of His body.
May our Lord keep you focused on the potential of the members of the body, instead of being preoccupied by their problems.