An old mentor of mine would often use the idea of prophets, priests, and kings from the Old Testament to describe different kinds of leaders in the church.

Kings are the institutional leaders, the ones with vision and daring. Obviously, in one sense, Jesus is the king of the church. But he does give leadership to people- think of Peter and the apostles in the New Testament. Priests are the religious leaders- the one s who teach the Bible and lead people to worship. And prophets are the outside voices, the ones who call the church back to God when it strays.

My take on the church in America at the moment is that it has too many (in practice if not in word) prophets, and not enough priests and kings. Too many people assessing the problems, raging at failures, criticizing leaders, and not enough starting new churches, shepherding old ones, developing new strategies.

You want a formula to write an evangelical book that will sell?

First, choose some biblical ideal. Something God clearly wants the church to have. Say, holiness, or outreach, or community, or care for the poor, or worship.

Second, think of lots of ways that churches are not doing this ideal perfectly. It will be very easy.

Third, use a thesaurus to come up with as many insulting adjectives that you can use to describe churches who are failing to live up to your ideal. Many of them can end with the suffix “-less”. Spineless, passionless, godless, uncaring, secularized, missionless, coldhearted, compromised, irrelevant, gospel-ignoring, compassionless, isolated, disconnected, fearful, and so one. This will compromise the majority of your first chapter.

Fourth, come up with a solution. Make it as ridiculous as you can. Make sure that if anyone actually implemented your solution, it would be sure to cause havoc in their congregation.

Fifth, don’t actually try implementing your solution. You’ll be too busy writing blog posts and giving seminars at conferences sponsored by the megachurches you spent your first chapter excoriating.

We have tons of these books. They’re not helping. Here’s a better idea: start a small group. Spend lots of time and energy and prayer making it as healthy as you can. Then, whatever your idea is, see if you can get the small group to do it. Then train a leader to lead another similar small group. And let him train another leader. It’s been working for 2000 years so far.

And whatever church you find yourself in, love it to pieces. Bless the pastor. Engage in the worship. And think about helping someone plant a new church. Love that church. Give yourself to it. The small percentage of people who actually do this- the priests and kings, generally have more impact than most prophets.

Of course we need the prophets. I suppose this post is actually along prophetic lines. But I can’t help but wonder how many are more self-proclaimed than God-driven.