The priesthood of the believer was a foundational doctrine of the Protestant Reformation that opposed the Roman Catholic dogma that human priests are mediators between us and God. The doctrine of the priesthood of the believer reveals that Christ has made all believers priests in the New Testament sense, who are able to offer New Covenant sacrifices (praise, hospitality, giving, and consecration of ourselves to God) and have direct access to God through the Holy Spirit.
Disciples are the basic building blocks of the kingdom of God, “living stones” that the Holy Spirit builds into a fitting “house” or temple for God.
Jesus did not command the church to reproduce churches, but to make disciples. When disciples are made, churches are sure to follow. When churches are planted without disciple making being the top priority, we fall short of the mark.
The church is not a building. It is a living, moving “body,” which has the capability to reproduce itself at the discipleship level. Disciples have the ability, through the Holy Spirit, to multiply ourselves. In fact, that is our primary mission. We are to love God, love people, and make disciples.
Just as God commanded Adam and Eve, and afterwards Noah and his descendants, to multiply and fill the earth, so Christ mandated the church to “go and make disciples.”
That is our mission given by God. God’s mission supersedes every other mission that the local church may adopt.
Christ gave the church what some call the “five-fold” or “ascension gift” ministries – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, whose responsibility or function is to equip the church to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11).
The task of the church and the five-fold ministry is to equip and make disciples who will make other disciples.
The question facing every missional church, then, is how are we to teach, train, and equip disciples who will go and make other disciples? What vision, information, understanding, wisdom, and ministry skills need to be imparted that will enable our people to become effective disciple makers?
Priesthood of the Believer
We start with a core commitment to the doctrine and practice of what some people call the “priesthood of the believer.” This doctrine was crucial to the advance of the Great Awakening, especially in the South.
But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 (NLT)
The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers states that all believers in Christ share in his priestly status; therefore, there is no special class of people who mediate the knowledge, presence, and forgiveness of Christ to the rest of believers, and all believers have the right and authority to read, interpret, and apply the teachings of Scripture.
The propensity to think of “clergy” as a special class of people over and above the “laity” persists today, even in Protestant churches. It is part of the human condition for those in leadership to carve out a secure niche for themselves, and it is convenient for the rest of us to consign ministry responsibilities to the “professional” clergy instead of accepting our role as ministers.
The only way a church can effectively multiply disciples is by acknowledging and promoting every disciple’s duty to be a representative or minister of Christ in his or her own right.
This does not mean that everyone is part of the five-fold ministry. Rather, the job of the five-fold ministry is to equip the rest of the church to do the work of the ministry. In other words, those in five-fold ministry are increasingly successful as they move more to a coaching role, allowing their disciples to take on more and more responsibility.
In my experience, a small percentage of senior ministers make the commitment to do this. We convince ourselves that without extensive Bible training, people are not to be trusted with the Scriptures. We set the bar higher than did our Lord, who turned over the church to men with whom he had spent three years training, but who still did not understand many basic things. The “seminary trained” Pharisees criticized these disciples as being unlearned men. Jesus believed and knew that the Holy Spirit is a more than adequate “on the job” instructor.
Disciple making churches are willing to risk putting average people into ministry and leadership responsibilities.
Any gospel movement that rapidly expands must do this. The genius of the Great Awakening in the Carolinas was the willingness of church leaders, such as Shubal Stearns, who led the Sandy Creek Separate Baptist Church, to equip and commission average people to be preachers, ministers, and leaders. This is no small thing. It takes a radical commitment to the priesthood of all believers to properly develop and launch disciples and to be an effective disciple making church.
