Angels, Apostles, and Pastors

On the Importance of the Number Two

When I first came to Resurrection Assembly in Iowa City in Jan 2016, I met the pastor at the church who had been holding down the fort in the absence of an officially-named lead. Her name was Abby Anderson.

Historically, it has been customary in the Assemblies of God for all members of pastoral staff to submit their resignations upon the appointment of a new lead pastor. I don’t know where or when or why precisely this started (were they trying to mimic the transition to a new president?). But the practice really only makes sense where new ecclesial appointments are easy to secure and living wages are easy to come by. Neither of which are. Anyway, Abby was instructed by our district office to resign. She did, but I refused it.

I could see that she knew more than me about the church, the community, and a whole lotta other stuff. And I am thankful I didn’t exercise that (in retrospect) undue power.

Abby Anderson and I have formed a partnership that can only be described as spiritual—that is, prepared, established, and sustained by the Holy Spirit himself. I wanted to preach the gospel that our Lord says is for the poor (Lk 4:16ff). She was eager to do that very thing. She wanted worship and preaching to be intellectually rigorous and spiritually confrontational. I was eager to do that very thing. The list could go on.

We live in an age of personality driven, CEO-style, celebrity pastoral leadership where there’s one guy at the top. That’s clearly not biblical.

But what is?

There’s a lot to say on that front, but let me start here: When Jesus sent out his 72 disciples to announce that the kingdom was near, he sent them two by two (Lk 10). He did the same with the Twelve (Lk 9). And when you read the book of Acts, it’s Peter and John, and it’s Paul and Barnabas. There were two angels who entered Sodom (Gen 19). Is it not, then, biblical for pastors to pastor two by two?

This is worthy of some thought.