18 July 2026 Artios Workshop
I’ve been a church member for 45 years in 8 different churches,
14 years of which was in para-church ministry independent of local church oversight,
parts of 14 more years doing peripheral church ministry under local church oversight,
and 20 years as a church overseer/pastor.
I want to offer a Biblical basis for para-church ministry, then raise three action points for a healthy relationship of church and para-church, namely 1) Accountability, 2) Renewal, and 3) maintaining Distinctions.
It wasn’t long after I began fundraising for my first parachurch ministry position with the Student Foreign Mission Fellowship that I began running into people who refused to support me because they believed that all ministry should be overseen by the elders of local churches. That forced me to re-examine from Scripture whether what I was doing was Biblical!
What I realized as I went back to the Scriptures is that there have always been two complementary ministry structures among the people of God:
In the Old Testament religious system, there were prophets and there were priests. Sometimes they would merge in the same person like Eli and Samuel, but usually they were two different people like:
Moses the Prophet and Aaron the Priest,
Nathan the Prophet and Abiathar the High Priest,
Jeremiah the prophet and Pashur the High Priest,
and even moving into the New Testament you have John the Baptizer with his prophetic message and Caiaphas the High Priest.
The role of High Priest (or “Chief Shepherd,” as 1 Peter 5:4 puts it), was taken over by Jesus, according to the book of Hebrews, leaving the role of pastor/shepherd to continue in the New Testament church, while at the same time, prophets continued to minister within the New Testament church, for instance, Acts13:1 “Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.” (NKJV) To those could be added Agabus, Jude, Silas, and those in the churches of Corinth and Ephesus which Paul’s epistles affirm had the spiritual gift of prophecy.
As I observed this Biblical pattern, it jogged my memory concerning some articles on church history from a college class I took called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Not only are there two different religious roles of prophet and priest, there were two different ministry structures which supported those two roles:
The prophets from at least as far back as Samuel, Elijah and Elisha developed schools (2 Kings 2 calls them “sons of prophets”) in towns separate from where the tabernacle was. Meanwhile the priests oversaw the worship in the tabernacle and later in the temple. Additionally, by the time of the New Testament, the Jews had formed synagogues in every town, and when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the synagogues continued on without the temple sacrifices.
It should be noted that potentially anybody could participate in the temple/synagogue – men, women, old and young, educated or uneducated, rich or poor – everybody. But membership in the other structure, the prophetic band, or what has been called the sodality structure of ministry, required a second level of commitment to a specific ministry goal. The prophetic institution wasn’t for everybody; it was limited to certain people with a certain ministry focus, and that usually had to do with revival and foreign missions. (You may be familiar with the prophetic role in calling for spiritual renewal, but their mission emphasis might not be as familiar to you. Do you realize that all of the major prophets and many of the minor prophets in the Bible conducted at least part of their ministry cross-culturally in a nation outside of Israel!)
In the New Testament, Paul’s missionary band was different from a synagogue/church1.
Due to his extensive training in Judaism, it is likely that he formed his teams along the same lines as the Jewish teams that Jesus said “travel over sea and land to make one proselyte” (Mat. 23:15).
Paul’s sodality structure was commissioned by a local church in Antioch, and it planted churches, but it was limited in its membership to just a few Christians who had a special commitment to planting new churches in the Gentile world. He said in 1 Corinthians 1:17 “For Christ did not send me to baptize [that would be the work of a church pastor], but to preach the gospel… [to the Gentiles]”
Paul reported back to the church in Antioch, but they didn’t control his ministry, nor were they his primary financial support. The book of Acts does not indicate that he consulted with the elders at Antioch for his ministry decisions, but it does record him making decisions as the result of dreams and visions and counsel from other church leaders. The church did not control Paul’s mission; his mission team was a different ministry structure.
Dr. Ralph Winter noted in his article “The Two Structures Of God’s Redemptive Mission” that, as the church moved into the Middle Ages, the Roman Christians took on a more distinctively Latin cultural form in diocesan churches instead of synagogues, and in the development of monastic orders as their sodality structure. Although there was much interaction (both positive and negative!) between the cloisters and the dioceses, they were two separate structures, one that was open to all – the church, and one which was limited in membership and restricted to certain roles in the monastery or abbey.
The Reformation brought a strong reaction against the monastic movements while concentrating on preserving the modality structure of the church where all Christians could be members.
European nobility who were members of protestant churches began to fill the vacuum left by the renunciation of monastic orders and started societies to meet the needs of the poor locally and to send missionaries around the world, supporting these causes with their own money.
And, when Europeans moved into the New World and renounced monarchy and nobility, lay-driven societies proliferated in America to address social and spiritual needs2.
These organizations are where our modern-day para-church organizations and mission agencies came from. I believe we can consider them to be descended from the Biblical pattern of the Old Testament “Sons of the Prophets” and the New Testament Apostolic bands.
If it can be accepted that God’s people have always had a church-like structure as well as a para-church-like structure, and that God has instituted and blessed both structures, we can move on to consider the proper use of both structures without concluding that we have to do away with one or the other. I would like to suggest that Scripture demonstrates both structures to be useful in bringing spiritual renewal, but in order for that to happen, there must be strict accountability and a careful distinction kept between the two kinds of ministry.
The church and para-church, when operating healthily, can help each other bring spiritual renewal to the church and spiritual awakening to the world.
Who can deny that the great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel brought much-needed exhortation to corrupt priests and comfort to God’s people at a time when the church was weak?
Many of the reforms in the Medieval church came about through the influence of monks (like Augustine, and even Martin Luther) from sodality organizations who confronted church ministers over their inconsistencies with God’s word. Also, many of the missionary outreaches were conducted by para-church-type organizations.
Today, there are foreign mission agencies, evangelistic and apologetics agencies, as well as advocates of practical issues like the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention or Creation Ministries International or Voice of the Martyrs that offer specialized study and programs to help local churches, as well as specialized cross-cultural evangelism support structures.
1 Thessalonians 5:20 commands church leaders to “despise not prophecyings” and so, rather than rejecting all para-church agencies, it is right to wisely discern and make the most of para-church ministries that will be helpful to a given church body.
The blessing can flow both ways when churches embrace para-church ministry as a gift from God (with limitations). This can give opportunities for Godly, experienced church leaders to bring correction and wisdom to para-church organizations.
In Acts 15, the churches in Antioch and Jerusalem resolved a conflict between two missionary groups which were arguing over what to do with the Gentile converts that they were reaching with the Gospel.
Paul’s mission group was cutting all ties with Jewish synagogues and letting Gentile Christians form Gentile churches,
while a group from Judea was insisting that Gentile converts be circumcised and become Jewish proselytes.
Acts 15:22 gives the resolution, “...the Apostles and the elders and the whole church … sent this letter” (notice, its’ the elders and the church doing this!) with guidelines for Gentile converts which would allow fellowship between Jewish-background converts and Gentile-background converts without requiring the Gentiles to become Jews.
In the late 20th century, many Presbyterian pastors refused to partner with Campus Crusade for Christ, but my pastor linked arms with them because they were sharing the Gospel and making disciples, even though there were some doctrinal concerns. But he talked with them about his doctrinal concerns, and as a result, they made corrections to their “4 Spiritual Laws” tract! That’s a win-win situation!
I believe that the parallel structures of church and para-church are designed by God to bring spiritual renewal to one another when one or the other becomes weak or unfaithful. This, however can only happen when accountability is present and when the distinctions between the two structures are maintained.
Regarding accountability, there are three important accountable relationships:
First, each individual is accountable to God. We are responsible to study and obey God’s word and to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit on our conscience and our will. God brings chastisement against disobedience in the here-and-now, and, in the future, Jesus will bring every act to judgment when He returns (2 Cor. 5), so part of our accountability structure is directly under God.
Second, within both forms of ministry structure, there is intra-organizational accountability.
We are probably familiar with the Mathew 18 process for accountability within the church, and there is an accountability process for church leaders in 1 Timothy 5:19-25.
But in Reformed churches we seldom pay attention to the Scriptural accountability structure for the prophetic sodality. In the Bible, prophets were given the task of holding other prophets accountable to handling God’s word:
In 1 Kings 13 we have the story of the “man of God from Judah” whom God told to deliver a prophecy to King Jeroboam in Israel. An “old prophet from Bethel” tested this man of God afterward to see if he really had been sent from God, then the “old prophet” rebuked the “man of God” over his lack of integrity and declared God’s judgment upon him. One prophet held another prophet accountable.
Throughout Scripture, true prophets were tasked with exposing false prophets:
In 1 Kings 22, the false prophets flattered King Ahab that God was happy with him and would bless his campaign against the Syrians, but Micaiah, the true prophet, called the other prophets out as liars.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives instructions to a number of people in ministry about using prophecy, often focusing on the role of calling out false prophets and heretical theology (e.g. 2Co. 11:13,26; Gal. 2:4; 2Ti. 3:3; Tit. 2:3).
In 1 Corinthians 14:29, Paul says, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge... the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” (NKJV) Paul has the prophets providing accountability to each other – they are to “judge” each others’ messages, and they are to hold themselves in “submission” to each other. That is the Biblical pattern for accountability within the sodality.
Para-church organizations today often have a board of directors who evaluate the activities of the ministry and hold the executive staff accountable, and the staff should be “subject to” the authority of their particular organization. This is an important aspect of a healthy para-church organization. Those who do not have real accountability and submission should not be partnered with. I am cautious of ministries that are centered around one superstar personality, because of the tendency of men with strong personalities to gather yes-men around them who do not really hold them accountable.
In addition to accountability with God and accountability within your ministry structure, there is also accountability that the para-church can exercise upon the church and vice versa.
God often uses prophetic, itinerant speakers to help local churches get back on track.
And God also uses churches to hold para-church organizations accountable to their mission.
Sometimes that even means helping a parachurch organization realize that its mission is complete and that they don’t need to exist anymore, such as when the churches in Africa and South America started by Sudan Interior Mission and South America Mission told their parent mission organizations to shut down because the indigenous churches were mature enough to operate on their own.
My final point is that these complementary ministry structures must be kept distinct in order to stay healthy and bring accountability and renewal to each other as God intended.
Churches were not made to do the work of sodalities, and sodalities were not made to do the work of churches.
As Robert Frost observed, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
We can do this by teaching our congregations about the boundaries between the roles of the church and the para-church.
Each has its distinct purpose in God’s plan, but the health of the church can be compromised if we confuse the two – we must not look to one to fulfill the functions which God has given to the other.
The church is the modality to which all Christians should belong. God “gave” the “overseers/ pastors” to the church structure (Eph. 4:12) to “shepherd” and “watch” over the souls of their “flock” (1 Pet. 5:1-3, Heb. 13:17), and that means you should be accountable to a church elder and you should truly function as a member of a local flock where you are known and where you can exercise your spiritual gifts.
Certain para-church organizations can feel like a really big deal right now. I remember the “I Found It” evangelism campaign in the 1980’s and the “AD 2000” world mission initiative in the 1990’s – they were all-consuming ministries, and my family and I poured ourselves into them, but now thirty years later, most of you have probably never heard of them. In the larger scheme of time, non-profits come and go; the church will continue-on long after all the contemporary para-church organizations have faded away, so we must be sure that Christians realize that their investment in a para-church ministry is short-term and make sure that they are also investing their lives long-term in the church.
Membership in a sodality structure – whether it is a subscription to a podcast or a formal membership in a specialized ministry structure like Gideons or Christian Businessmen or Christian Medical Association, is not a replacement for membership in a local church. You can be a good Christian and not be a member of a para-church organization, but you can’t be a good Christian and not be a member of a local church body.
The para-church organization is (and should be) more narrowly-focused on a particular issue than the church is called to be. That means that the church needs to be the “big tent” which addresses every aspect of Gospel ministry to God’s people, and it means that the para-church should only seek to stimulate growth in one ministry-area of the local church. When a church narrows itself down to only one aspect of Gospel ministry due to the overbearing influence of a very persuasive para-church ministry, or when a para-church ministry widens its ministry to do everything that a church should do, there is a significant problem.
Your church may have limited funds and may decide to support Bible Translation instead of Campus ministry, and that’s fine if it’s a financial decision, but when K. P. Yohannon started convincing local churches in America to stop sending out workers into Christ’s harvest field and instead send money to his GFA organization because missionaries from India are cheaper, that was an encroachment of a sodality upon the mission of the church.
I had the same problem when I was fresh out of college on staff with the Student Foreign Mission Fellowship. My wife and I were members of an inner-city church that had started as a reconciliation ministry between blacks and whites in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a wonderful church, but the sodality that I worked for was focused on sending missionaries to unreached peoples. Well, leaving America to plant churches in other countries just didn’t make much sense to the folk in our church who were drowning in the poverty and brokenness of urban America. I, however, thought that the narrow focus of my sodality structure should be the main focus of every church in America. My immature zeal for only one particular cause (of missions to the unreached) caused tension between me and my church. I encourage you not to repeat my youthful mistake of thinking that the mission of any given para-church organization is all there is to the church. It may be a great stimulus to a church, but it’s not all there is.
Another form of encroachment that happens – particularly with the large para-church organizations, is that they lose their original focus on a particular issue and start trying to do everything, eventually taking over the ministries of word and sacrament and shepherding which God has given to the local church.
When I worked with InterVarsity, I discovered that some InterVarsity college ministry groups were holding Sunday worship services complete with baptisms and the Lord’s Supper.
I’ve noticed even with local college ministries that they often provide such a comprehensive worship, discipleship, and fellowship context that students who become Christians through a college ministry often see little need for accountability and shepherding within a local church. I see far too many college students who cherry-pick attendance at multiple local churches without forming a real, long-term, accountable relationship with any church. The harm to the church is great when new converts have to un-learn dysfunctional patterns of Christianity instilled in them by a para-church organization that has overstepped its Biblical bounds.
It can go the other way too. Sometimes churches abandon their God-given functions and try to act like sodalities instead.
Especially with the recent rush into online worship services, many churches have completely lost their connection to the holy ordinances and to keeping watch over souls.
I have even heard of church pastors leaving local church ministry and investing themselves full-time in podcasting because they felt that local church ministry was a waste of their time because they could be reaching millions over social media whereas they could only reach hundreds through local church ministry.
This only contributes to the contemporary phenomenon of Christians who have no interest in being taught, discipled, and held accountable by the pastor/elders of a local church, but rather look for the entirety of their spiritual nurture to come from podcasts by eloquent speakers whom they have never met.
In 1837, Rufus Anderson, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions outlined the characteristics of Sodalities as being 1) Pragmatic, 2) Ecumenical, 3) Lay-driven, 4) Media-oriented, and 5) Directed toward new things. I realize these are not Biblical metrics, but it is a bit alarming to see how many churches since then have turned themselves into something that wouldn’t have been considered a proper church in the 1800’s. By abandoning theology, cutting loose from denominational traditions, moving away from professional clergy, and focusing on media and novelties, many churches have lost their identity as a church.
On the opposite extreme, I’ve heard conservative church pastors express the wish that all the para-church ministries could be gotten rid of or placed under the control of local churches. I have had some wonderful experiences with local church-based youth ministries and a local church-based mission agency, but subsuming all para-church ministry under the authority of local churches is not the Biblical resolution of the tension between the roles of church and para-church. I shudder to think of how any local church board of elders would be capable of overseeing the translation of God’s word simultaneously into 3,000 different languages, together with all the reference materials, training schools, computer networks, and support structures involved in that massive enterprise that Wycliffe Bible Translators conducts. God allows us to form ministry structures which are bigger than one local church.
There is a place, Biblically and practically, for the para-church, just as there is for the church.
Each must be faithful to its God-given mission and remain distinct in form and function, neither trying to become the other.
The church is not a club for elite Christians; it should be for all believers, and all believers should be a part of a local church. Membership in a para-church organization is optional. It requires a second-level of commitment.
The church, not the para-church should be where worship, fellowship, baptisms, the Lord’s Supper, the exercise of spiritual gifts, and spiritual oversight and shepherding takes place. The para-church should be focused on helping with a narrow set of needs and should be expected to pass out of existence once its mission is fulfilled.
God has given instructions about accountability to both the church and the sodality, and those instructions should be followed carefully.
When the church and para-church are operating like they should be, they should encourage and spur each other on toward love and good deeds.
1Note that James 2:2 calls a Christian church gathering a “synagogue.”
2In his commentary on America, Alexis de Toqville commented with amazement on the proliferation of such lay-organized societies.
