In Part I of Call to Action I talked about the first reason God gave the church (body of Christ) the gift of leaders. In Ephesians 4:11 we read that God gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers. The first reason is to equip the church for the work of the ministry. The church leadership trains up the church body, who in turn goes and does the work of the ministry, which is serving in their community and sphere of influence. Today I want to talk about the second reason God gave us the gifts he did in our church leadership. We see in the latter half of verse 12 church leadership exists to edify the church body. My dictionary defines edify as a verb that means to instruct or benefit, especially morally or spiritually and to lift up.
