I’m in charge of scheduling the worship leaders for a small church of Christ. Recently I was approached by an unsaved regular attendee, who wished to participate in leading our body in different aspects of our Sunday morning worship service — prayer, reading, communion, etc.\u00a0 I approached our elders for guidance, as it just doesn’t seem right to me.\u00a0 We all agreed to pray and further study the subject.<\/p>\n
I’m finding that the Bible seems somewhat vague on this particular topic.\u00a0 Am I limited to interpreting general Christian principles, or can you shed some light or scriptures that you feel will help clarify God’s position concerning this matter?<\/p>\n\t
“My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment<\/em>” (James 3:1).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When a person leads others, whether it is in teaching, songs, or prayers, he is responsible for what he states and he is accountable for where he leads others. If a person has not obeyed Christ in becoming a Christian as the Bible taught, why would there be any consideration of him leading the congregation in some act of worship? When a person is not a follower of Christ, then he is either untaught or is unstable in his beliefs. Such a person can easily slip and pervert a teaching of Christ, as Peter said happened with Paul’s teachings, “which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures<\/em>” (II Peter 3:16).<\/p>\n
As Jesus pointed out, “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?<\/em>” (Luke 6:39).<\/p>\n
Tell the man that you would love to have him as a Christian and a member of the church, but until he is willing to faithfully follow Christ in all that the Lord commands, he cannot lead the congregation.<\/p>\n\t
Response:<\/h2>\n
Thank you very much, Mr. Hamilton!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I’m in charge of scheduling the worship leaders for a small church of Christ. Recently I was approached by an unsaved regular attendee, who wished to participate in leading our body in different aspects of our Sunday morning worship service — prayer, reading, communion, etc.\u00a0 I approached our elders for guidance, as it just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[448,667,84],"class_list":["post-44983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church","tag-organization-of-the-church","tag-worship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":34310,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-group-split-off-from-a-church-to-worship-in-the-same-location-at-a-different-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":0},"title":"Can a group split off from a church to worship in the same location at a different time?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Recently a portion of our congregation (approximately 30 out of 110-120) started meeting at a separate time from the normal time but in the same building. On Sunday we meet in the morning for Bible classes and worship and then in the evening again for another period of worship.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60134,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-help-my-girlfriend-see-the-importance-of-pure-worship\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":1},"title":"How do I help my girlfriend see the importance of pure worship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 31, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I grew up in the church of Christ and my girlfriend grew up with a Baptist denominational background. When we started dating, she began coming to church with me. We talked about the differences and she claimed to have been saved at a younger age even though she was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45093,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-we-leave-our-current-church-because-of-unbiblical-practices\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":2},"title":"Should we leave our current church because of unbiblical practices?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am currently attending a church of Christ where I was baptized and continue to worship. I have been studying the Bible through your very informative website and have realized that a lot of things taught on your site are not practiced in our congregation, which has made me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69287,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-non-christian-serve-in-worship\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":3},"title":"Can a non-Christian serve in worship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a great deal of respect for your website and the articles on it. However, I don't agree 100% with everything. I have worshipped in congregations that have and don't have a fellowship hall; neither bothers me. The congregation installed elders and deacons, which has caused some problems.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36199,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-attend-a-christian-fellowship-instead-of-a-church-while-at-college\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":4},"title":"Can I attend an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship instead of a church while at college?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeffrey, Hope you are well. I have been a Christian for 12 years now. I am going to college this fall. I'm very excited. The college I am going to, while not a Christian college per se, has a very active Varsity Christian Fellowship complete with its own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16773,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-can-give-communion\/","url_meta":{"origin":44983,"position":5},"title":"Who can give communion?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: We have a doubt about administering communion; that is, who can give communion? We are seven who as started a church and now it has grown to 30 people. We have one leader but none of us is ordained. Now, who can give communion? Or should we find an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}