Ministry models that expand widely (or veer wildly) beyond the ordinary means of grace and diaconal care require specialists, coordinators, directors, apparatchiks…and structures. Titles and quasi-offices multiply at least sevenfold. Different conceptions of the church’s mission actually produce different types of churches. This creates difficulties in a connectional denomination where common order is the basis for both fellowship and accountability.

Recent events ought to prompt us to think about presbyterian principles which (because they are biblical) are the best way to provide for the Savior’s sheep in a rightly-ordering church. The ascended Christ gave not only gifts to men in the form of officers, but also a form of church government. (see the PCA BCO Preface)

A “senior pastor” is one elder among many (as Peter, Paul, and the unnamed elders were at the Jerusalem Council, Acts 15:23) and has no extraordinary authority.* Unfortunately, some—usually large—presbyterian churches become de facto staff-led rather than elder-led. The senior pastor becomes the CEO leading (pastoring?) the large and powerful ordained and unordained staff. The modern notion of “vision casting” sometimes seeps in from the wider evangelical megachurch milieu, giving the top man even more supposed authority. It is an open question whether the megachurch model can remain (or ever be) presbyterian in any real sense.
Large churches, with the best of intentions, find simplicity almost impossible to retain. They almost inevitably become service providers and more (not worship) services are added thanks to abundant funding and facilities…which must be used! Churches have complicated organizational charts that resemble those of civil governments, institutions, or corporations. A church with an HR department has probably become too large to be effectively governed on presbyterian principles.
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We may never know why God brought a particular providence into our lives. But we do not need to know. What we need to know is that God is wise, righteous, and gracious. What we need to remember is that even hard providences work out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. 

I can imagine the widow of Nain walking beside the casket of her son, her only son. Her support now gone, she trembles from the aching loss and the fear of insecurity. Or think of Jairus. His daughter near death, his only aim in life was to bring Jesus to her bedside. But before that happy meeting could occur, she was gone. Scripture is succinct. Its descriptions are concise. The widow wept and Jairus was obviously ready to fear. The responses are not uncommon. We perhaps know them well.
But is there help for those who suffer a difficult providence? It may surprise some to discover that the chapter on providence in the Westminster Confession of Faith provides pastoral guidance for those who encounter difficulty along the way, and it is a wonderful word to those who have ears to hear. But before the balm can be applied the Divines are eager to help us answer one simple question, how far does the providence of God extend? (WCF 5.4)  The answer may unsettle the reader, however that is by design. By telling us that the providence of God extends to the first fall “and all other sins of angels and men” we are being told that nothing, whether good or ill, escapes God’s sovereign appointment.  But how does that help?
First, in section five, we are reminded of God’s character. Notice the way God is described: he is wise, righteous, and gracious. This is the first thing a person who endures a difficult providence must be told. Why? Because he may infer that God resembles his hard experience.  Such is not the case.
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When the house crumbles to dust because of the action of the termites, it is not because they desired such a denouement: it was, rather, a natural consequence of their conduct. The destruction wrought by the adherents of Woke ideology is a good deal more deliberate. 

In his great book titled Russia in 1839, the Marquis de Custine called the Tsar “eagle and insect.” He was eagle because he soared high above the country over which he ruled, completely alone, taking it all in at a glance, but he was insect because there was nothing too small or trivial for him to interfere with: he or his power burrowed into the very fabric of society as a termite burrows into the fabric of a wooden house. There was no escaping him.
This is the image I have in my mind of the operation of the adherents of Woke ideology. They have a grand vision, at least implicitly, both about the nature of the society in which they live and what should replace it. Insufficient, incoherent, or absurd as their vision might be, it actuates them. As human history demonstrates, intellectual insufficiency is no bar to effectiveness in the search for power; indeed it might be an advantage insofar as more scrupulous searchers after truth and goodness are riven by doubt.
On the other hand, nothing is too small for their attention. Being visionaries, they can infuse their slightest actions with the most grandiose theoretical significance. This gives them self-importance and confidence that they are doing what once might have been called God’s work. Triviality is thus reconciled with transcendence. They are part of the movement of History with a capital H, whose right side they both define and bring forward by their actions.
Of course, the metaphor of eagle and insect is not perfect. The eagle is sharp-eyed while the adherent of Woke ideology has cataracts. When the house crumbles to dust because of the action of the termites, it is not because they desired such a denouement: it was, rather, a natural consequence of their conduct. The destruction wrought by the adherents of Woke ideology is a good deal more deliberate.
The notion of those adherents as cultural termites came to my mind (not for the first time) when I bought a book recently. It was Conspiracy on Cato Street by Vic Gatrell.
Professor Gatrell is a good, perhaps even a great, historian. His writing is magisterial and as pleasurable to read as any novel. The Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820, in which a group of impoverished working-class men planned to kill almost the entire British cabinet and thereby start a revolution, was of interest to me in part because it may have had an important indirect effect on medical history.
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