95. Assistant Shepherd

Single House Churches will now begin to appoint “Assistant Shepherd”.

Assistant Shepherd is someone of opposite sex to the single shepherd-in-charge who can assist the shepherd in ministering to the opposite sex members in his/her house church.

Single house church is the most ideal when lead by a married couple. There are two reasons.
First, it gives singles a healthy model of a married couple who can show what it means to serve God together in marriage. It helps them dream of forming a godly family one day and also to get a glimpse of the “reality” of marriage (and even parenting if the couple has a child) in advance. Secondly, when the single house church is lead by a couple, the male shepherd can minister to male members and the shepherd’s wife can minister to the female members. But when a single is leading a house church, ministering to the opposite sex member can be challenging. By appointing an assistant shepherd, it can help alleviate certain challenges of female leader providing care to male members and vice versa.

So from now on, every time there is single house church multiplication, if possible, new house church will have a shepherd and an assistant shepherd of opposite sex. If the assistant shepherd moved to the new house church, then the original house church will select a new assistant shepherd.

Unlike a shepherd who is chosen by his/her members, an assistant shepherd will be selected by the shepherd. Though assistant shepherd is not chosen by the members, such appointment is the church’s official measure of supporting the ministry of the shepherd members have chosen. So if you are in a single house church, please trust your shepherd’s choice and honor your assistant shepherd’s authority as he/she begins to minister to you. Please trust that your shepherd will choose the right person who is qualified to lead alongside him/her.

We have a great single house church lead by a single. I honestly doubt if I can serve the same way if I was a single house church shepherd. We as a church are trying our best to help the single shepherd’s ministry as much as we can so we can raise more young leaders and reach more unchurched people through the house church ministry.