We have briefly discussed how the democratic principles born out of the church during the Protestant Reformation have blessed and set free many nations in this age. It is also the form of government which, when applied to the church, is considered by many to be one of the great inhibitors to the freedom of the Spirit to rule in the church. Certainly this can be the case, but it need not be. Historically, it was the Reformers applying democratic principles to church government that fired the greatest advance of the gospel since the first century through the Protestant Reformation.

After centuries of dominance by a pope, for individual Christians to be given responsibility and authority, causing them to take initiative to know the Scriptures for themselves, leading multitudes to have a reason for learning how to read, it released the Spirit to move in the lives of believers in a way that shook the entire world at the time. Great prophets and evangelists arose from the ranks of the common people, giving an even greater sense of the value of the most common believer.

An undeniable fact in both Scripture and church history is that when the Lord moves, He will initiate it through a leader. He gave the keys to the kingdom to a single person, Peter. It also seems that the race we are running is a relay race, and the keys get passed off quite frequently, such as they seem to have been from Peter to Paul. When the Reformation began, they seemed to go from Luther to Calvin to Zwingli, and others. To stay on the very tip of any spiritual advance is hard to do for more than a few years.

It does not mean that when someone is no longer on the very leading tip of a move of God that they are no longer useful, as such leadership is just one way the Lord can use someone. Many make their most lasting contributions to the health and longevity of a movement from a much less visible and stressful position. In fact, it is when a leader fails to see his part in the relay, and pass the point man in leadership, that movements inevitably begin to grind to a halt and stop moving, just as any relay race would.

Even so, it is obvious that a great deal of the governing of the church has come through individuals who have been used to lead. However, the most successful of these, like Peter and Paul, had councils of other apostles and elders around them which they also submitted to in many ways.

Peter did not go to the council before obeying the Holy Spirit to go to the house of Cornelius, but he went to them afterward to have his work confirmed and established as a doctrine of the church. If Peter had gone to the council first to receive approval for this action, it is likely he would have never gone to the house of Cornelius, and the Lord would have had to use someone else to open the door of the gospel to the Gentiles. However, Peter was free to obey the Holy Spirit, which enabled him to go to the council with fruit; the fact that the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles was to verify that this was indeed the work of the Lord. It was after considering this that the Scriptures were opened to them, and they remembered that it was prophesied that the Messiah would be "a light to the Gentiles" (see Isaiah 42:6).

So here we have established in the authority structure of the early church that an individual had the freedom to obey the Holy Spirit as he felt led, but it was not made a doctrine of the church until it was confirmed by the leadership council, which examined the fruit and the Scriptures to confirm it. This is a remarkable balance of freedom and responsibility, individual initiative, and corporate accountability. These are both crucial foundations of kingdom government. Not only does the Lord want His people free so that they can mature in the way that only freedom allows, but He wants to be free to lead His people, including anyone at any time. He also wants the authority of His elders, His experienced ones, respected.

Some of the people I know who are the most sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and will obey Him with radical faith, are also the most resistant to the influence of others over their lives. They are independent, "lone rangers," but the Lord does still use them very dramatically at times. These same ones, however, usually completely fail to see their own mistakes and the trail of serious problems that they also leave in their wake, which often cancels out the fruit in the way the Lord used them.

Those who find the balance, like Peter did, maintaining the needed freedom to follow the Spirit, but knowing that even the wisest or most experienced still see in part and know in part and therefore need others, are the ones who historically bear fruit that remains. To truly abide in the Lord requires both.

Just as Barnabas had to go and get Paul before either of them could be released into their own ultimate calling, there are divine connections which are often essential for us to make before the Lord will promote us to a higher level. Being truly joined to another person requires a basic humility, our knowledge that we do not have it all, but only part. God gives His grace to the humble.

The real key is to find a dynamic leader who is also humble enough to have a relationship with a council of true elders and leaders that they can submit to, and to have these other elders and leaders able to let the dynamic leader lead dynamically. Having the best understanding and plan about how this is supposed to work is not nearly as difficult as finding the people who can operate in this way, either the leader, or those on the council. To be in such a government takes extraordinary grace, wisdom, maturity, and humility on the part of all, along with a genuine and deep love and respect for one another that usually takes years to cultivate.

The key word in such a government is relationship. Few people, especially dynamic leaders, have ever had the kind of longevity in relationships that can produce this kind of flexible, yet responsible and secure government. Even the great and powerful relationship of Paul and Barnabas eventually broke up. However, because we are called to be a family first, not an organization, relationship is the key to the true government of the kingdom of God. Love is the foundation of true spiritual authority, and the Lord will greatly limit the authority He gives to those who do not have proven love.
 

A true relationship takes considerable investment from both parties. A true relationship takes all of the characteristics of love listed above. All people are unique, created differently, and just like the combining of two different metals takes a lot of heat, true relationships must be formed in the fire of real life. But just as any two metals combined will always be stronger than they were individually, those who endure the fire that any true relationship requires will be much stronger.

Leadership and government is a means, not an end in itself. The greatest leaders do not care that much about leading, but just about getting the job done, because they love those they are doing the job for. True leaders do not use the people for their own purposes, but they expend themselves for the people. True servant leadership is the only true kingdom leadership there is. True servant leaders will be humble enough to submit themselves in the right way to those who would serve them with a true love by telling them the truth.

Many books today are being written about leadership. Many are also being written about spiritual authority and leadership in the church, and it is a subject worthy of this attention. We will briefly touch on only a couple more important points about dynamic leadership and its place in the government of the kingdom, and then address how it needs to combine with some basic democratic principles that we have viewed.

Because one of the four basic purposes for which mankind was created was to have dominion, and every person is called to have some level of dominion or authority, we need to understand how some aspects of democracy can help individuals to mature in the authority they are created to have, and how it fits together with submission to the King. Of course, our goal for this is for His kingdom to come and His will to again be done on the earth just as it is in heaven.