The Anointing of a singular founding Pastor can go so far. They may draw a few lost souls into the Kingdom and several families that are already saved but feel that the Pastor is their Pastor and that Church is their Church Home. And that is a good thing; in ministry there are people who are there for a reason, some there for a season and others are there for life.
All Biblical Churches are basically a family of families who worship The Lord Jesus Christ and are learning, growing and loving each other in the revelation of Jesus and those precious souls need an Anointed Pastorship to oversee their development much like parenting oversees the development of a child.
This Pastoral Anointing is precious and very endearing to me. However, the Anointing of a Pastor isn’t necessarily a gift for Evangelism. It’s hard to Pastor spiritually dead people. They don’t need a Pastor just yet, they need an Evangelist who will confront them with the Kingdom of God in power and authority— leading them to repentance.
While the Evangelist “Goes unto all the world and preaches the Gospel” the Pastor “makes disciples” and together they both are fulfilling The Great Commission within their respective gifts and callings.
Every ministry starts with one person hearing and obeying The Call on their life. It starts with a RHEMA WORD that is confirmed by other elders in the Body of Christ or by simple pure fruit of the operation of the respective gift that cannot be denied.
As the ministry grows and more people come with their respective gifts (time, talent, treasure) grow into an ensemble of gifts operating in one accord holding up the senior of that para ministry, e.g., Prophet, Evangelist, Biblical Teacher.
However, a Pastor’s calling is different even though it starts as an individual obeying God it grows from one Pastor into a Pastorship family of families beyond Help Ministers into other Pastorships or Para Ministerships reproducing after its own kind. —“For the building up of the Body” amongst other descriptors for Five-Fold Gifts found in Ephesians 4.
So, every Church or ministry starts with one person but by the very nature of Five-Fold Gifts ministries multiplication is inevitable. Not every Church will have all Five-Fold Gifts In residency but all Church should have relationships with all the Five-Fold Gifts God Himself has given for the benefit of all.
However, it is smart for a Pastorship to have resident Missionary Evangelists— able ministers of the New Covenant sent out regularly— even daily, if that Pastorship wants daily growth.
A business will have a sales department but a church won’t. And the Pastorship will wonder why they are not growing.
It’s not just proper marketing techniques, it’s the Anointing that makes the difference. A excellent biblical Pastorship may not speak to a Lost soul until they are Born-Again.
I can testify to this personally. One of my childhood friend’s family went to church and I had happened to spend the night there. Of course they were insistent that I go that Sunday morning. The Pastor was an excellent biblical teacher but I did not get saved that day. Months later, that same friend introduced me to a missionary outreach worker for an evangelical organization that went to high schools. On May 8th 1985 we went to Mc Donald’s and he explained to me what it meant to be born-again and by personal revelation of the absolute biblical truth, I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. The difference was the Anointing on that brother. The Pastor wasn’t speaking to lost people even though he gave an invitation to come forward to receive Jesus but the message never gave me a why I should receive Him as Lord and Savior. I’m sure it was a good message to believers but I was a young Catholic boy who didn’t understand the need to turn my life over to Jesus.
When I went back to the same Church and listened to the same Pastor I was leaning forward and enjoying what that Pastor had to give— now I was born again and could receive what believers received from that Pastor.
No Pastor has it all even within the Pastoral gift with other Pastors— much less the Anointing to minister to the Lost. Sure they can as any good student of the Bible give a proper biblical explanation on certain things but usually there is a specific Anointing on that brother or sister God has seen fit to put us in a interdependence NOT CODEPENDENCE but interdependence. This is why I am pro-ensemble Pastorship with one first chair in charge. One Pastor, one church just isn’t the model the New Testament gives and it’s proven to be unhealthy for the Pastor and the flock. It creates a bottleneck for the flock when only one person gets to do all the talking— even though an Evangelist or Prophet is a solo artist, if you will, a healthy Pastorship is not.
The Church service is unto the Lord not unto the Lost (Evangelism is unto the Lost, this doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit will not lead the Pastorship to hold special outreach meetings in the Church but the primary goal of a Church is for believers in the fellowship of the Spirit unto the Lord). And a true New Testament Church will allow the Holy Spirit to operate without resistance or complications in a godly order under the authority of the Word based Pastorship with many gifts in operation.
Some Five-Fold Gifts can have a dual office. Some Evangelists are Prophets are also Evangelists and some are Pastor Evangelists and their respective churches have that flavor. Therefore we cannot judge all Churches and ministries to be cookie cutters. There are manifold gifts and ministries — 1COR12:4–11, EPH4:11-12, 1PET4:10.