My name is Dustin Paulson, and I love the Church. I feel like I have to lead with that statement as the very first thing I write here because, at least in my experience, if a Christian is seen as bringing criticisms against the Church, the local churches, or the leaders/pastors/elders of them, they are often then accused of “hating the Church”. I don’t hate the Church. I spent 18 years serving the Church, the local church, and the leaders of the church as a youth minister. I did so without pay, lest you think of me as a “Christ-monger”. I did so without say in the decisions and direction of the church, as access to serve as an elder or on the board was shut off but to only four people in the church; the pastor, his wife, and the heads of the original 2 families that were in attendance at it’s founding. So while there are some regrets and resentments in my recollections of the past two decades, there isn’t hate for neither the institution nor the oversight of the Church. The Church is the people of God, the bride of Jesus, and I love them because I love Them. So yes, while it’s true that the purpose of all this is to bring criticisms against (and I promise, complements of) the Church, it’s done in love by one of it’s own.
I began to follow Jesus in 1996 as a senior in high school in Dodge City, Kansas. Growing up, I would have called myself an agnostic, or maybe a deist at best if you pressed me, but not a theist, and certainly not a Christian. I had no religious upbringing; I was a wild pagan growing up in the Bible Belt of America. Church wasn’t something my family “did” on Sundays, or any other days. I didn’t own a Bible, and had never even held one (that I can remember) until I was 18. I had attended different churches before with friends, if I spent the night at their house on a Saturday, or if they invited me to their youth group for a fun night. I had no real interest in religion, though, so I would only go out of boredom (Remember… I lived in Kansas).
On January 2, 1996, at 12:02 am, all that changed for me.
A good friend of mine from school and work had been sharing with me about God, religion, eternity, Heaven, Hell, sin, and my spiritual condition. It wasn’t a meaningless argument born out of boredom at work that we were having, as he was genuinely concerned for my well-being. It was a discussion that picked up each night at work after school. He would share a truth, I would counter with attempts to poke holes in it, and this went on for multiple topics spread over two weeks. In the end, I still had questions, but one answer I had for sure was this: I believed there was a God that I was guilty of rebellion towards, and were I to die then, I would be found guilty as a lawbreaker. This terrified me, and so having called my friend to ask “if we could do that prayer thing”, I waited for our next time at work so that I could make things right with my Maker.
That was 1996. By 1998, I knew that I wanted to serve the Church somehow. By 2000, I had graduated Bible college and set out to do that as a youth minister. I moved halfway across the country, took a position at a church plant that was wholly voluntary, and spent the next 18 years serving the Church in a small town in Ohio. It was in those nearly two decades that I began to study the Church. Ecclesiology. Presbyteriology. I was asking and seeking the answers to the questions I had of “What does biblical, historical church leadership look like?”, “What are we getting right in the Church of today?”, and “What are we getting wrong?”
All of this is about all of that.
I came to see that there are four “Overs” in the Church; 3 different expressions of and 1 rebellious reaction to leadership that range from center of the road, to in the ditch on either side, to off the road altogether and out in the field somewhere. These expressions are as follows:
Overseer
Overdoer
Overlord
And Overruler
The Overseer is the biblical and historical watchman for an assembly. He’s not perfect, but he’s qualified and appointed and faithful to his duties.
The Overdoer is the poor guy who, either due to a lack of help and/or multitude of expectations from his assembly, or due to his fear to let anyone help him, is going to work himself to the point of burnout in ministry, and ruin in the other areas of his life.
The Overlord… this guy is something else. He loves the title. He loves the best seats. He loves the greetings. He loves the preeminence. He is exactly what you think he is, and worse.
The Overruler isn’t an appointed church leader at all; they are self-appointed leaders, rebellious to godly leadership, complainers, gossips… the kind of people that you half expect the ground to open up and swallow.
My plan is to go into each of these in detail, to examine them in Scripture and history, and to hopefully help the Church and those that oversee it walk in the path of godly oversight. I hope that the Overseer is encouraged by what I write. I hope that the Overdoer will see his errors and correct himself and his situation to avoid burnout. I hope that the Overlord will see his errors and repent to avoid disqualification. And I hope the Overrulers come to love godly oversight and reject their rebellious hearts, thoughts, words, and deeds.
I love the Church. It’s because I love the Church that I also love local churches. And it’s because I love local churches that I love godly oversight of those churches, and love those who oversee them in godliness. Amen.
~ DPaulson
“And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.” – 1st Thessalonians 5:12-13 NKJV
The 4 Overs 