We ought not to make any conditions of our brethren's acceptance with us but such as God has made the conditions of their acceptance with him.
Matthew Henry

The question of authority cannot finally be settled, though, until another issue is resolved: trust. Since a pastor's authority in the church is derivative, the question becomes "Do the people trust this leader enough to give him or her the power to operate?" Roy Price, pastor of The Alliance Church, Paradise, California, has done a great deal of thinking about trust: "My experience has been that real authority comes only out of a trust relationship. I've been in churches where trust between pastor and congregation was nonexistent and also where there was a high level of trust, especially between pastor and board. The difference in what I was able to accomplish was great. "One church held an underlying suspicion about any new program or idea. That meant a hesitancy to accept my leadership. "I learned my lesson there. Since then, one ...

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