The committed members of The Work of Christ have the ultimate responsibility for our community. The most fundamental decisions for our community are reserved for the fully committed membership of the community acting as a deliberative group. And on a day to day basis, we as members need to build the type of community we want to be part of. Each one of us needs to take a concern for our life together, and for building up the body. Much of the initiative in our life together and in our mission comes from members of the community, who pray, seek God’s direction, meditate on His word, and receive guidance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit that can enrich our life and fuel our mission.

But for a body to be effective, it needs a head. The purpose of Christian leadership is to meet that need. Christian leadership then is first and foremost a service for the good of others. Some members of our community have been appointed by the body to take governmental responsibility for the community and its life.

As such, in our community, the warrant to lead comes from the consent of the members: community members come under the authority of our community by freely making a covenant to live a certain way of life, and committing themselves to those things that make our life and mission possible. They freely ask to be held accountable to their commitments. The reason leaders can ask people in our community to do or not do something is because the members have freely given permission, and even asked, the leaders to do so. Members do this out of zeal for the Lord and gratitude for our life together, and thus actively support what makes that life possible.

Members of our community hold the Bible as foundational and directive for their own lives, and for our life together. When it comes to leading a Christian community, we believe that the basic Biblical example is that of a group of men together taking overall responsibility for the group, and then being assisted by other men and women in leading and serving the body. This setup also reflects our community’s nature as somewhat of an extended family, with fathers of individual households caring for the broader family.

In our community, the men that fill the overall leadership role are referred to as “Coordinators”, and in council, they are responsible for leading the life and mission of the community.

• They decide on major direction, policies, and the outreach objectives of the community (though as noted above, they are not the sole source of initiative or guidance for the community or its outreaches)
• They decide on the teaching and formation to be given to all members of the community
• They speak on behalf of the community: both representing the Covenant to individual members, and representing the community to people and groups outside the community
• They oversee the outreaches of the Community, and decide all major service assignments
• They oversee the finances of the community (and their work in this area is reported to the community, and submitted to external audits)
• They encourage and support members in living our way of life
  

The Coordinators of our community are assisted in leading and serving the community by Senior Leaders. The Senior Leaders who are and who work with the women, Senior Women Leaders, have a particularly important role (outlined below) in our community.

• They organize and supervise the pastoral “small groups” for women, and provide and serve as pastoral workers and mentors for the women in the community
• They provide instruction and encouragement to all the women; they also help to give formation to younger women, help to teach on marriage and family life, and train up capable women as leaders
• Additionally, they take a special concern for the community’s children, and the marginalized and needy
• And while all members provide input and feedback to the Coordinators, Senior Women Leaders provide unique counsel to the coordinators. They do this systematically when they meet regularly with the Coordinators; but more so, they do this informally, by working closely with the Coordinators in the pastoral care settings of the community, and by working with them in the programs where women have special gifting and responsibility
  

When the community gathers together—especially for formal events and for worship—we think it should be led both in a way that aligns with our leadership principles, and also in a way that people can infer our principles. All our members have a responsibility for our worship environment: playing music and singing, offering a prayer from the front, sharing an inspired sense, giving a testimony, and praising the Lord. But we ask the Coordinators to take overall responsibility for leading and ordering our prayer meetings. They also are the main ones that teach in our community; we do this because we want to be consistent with what we see in scripture, but also because we see teaching as an exercise of authority.

Teaching often involves instructing people in godly thinking and acting, according to the teaching of Scripture. And—within a covenant community—it sometimes involves calling people to do the things they have promised to do. As such, we think teaching should be done by those who have been commissioned by the community to exercise this leadership role. Hopefully, our Coordinators are and will work towards being inspiring, engaging, and overall “good” speakers; but their public speaking ability is not what mainly qualifies them to teach in our community.

There are exceptions to these general rules, such as subject matter experts presenting on their specialty, guest speakers from other churches or Christian groups, and opportunities for potential coordinators to speak or lead for community evaluation. However, we don’t want exceptions to become the rule: we want the primary experience of our members to be being led and taught by the people that they have appointed to these tasks. And we don’t want to do things that confuse our members, or undermine their confidence that the community is being led in the way to which they have agreed.