Eldership in Church Life (Pt. 1)

Over the next two weeks, we are going to be talking about a subject that is absolutely critical to the health of the church. It’s not something we talk about much. As a matter of fact, there’s an obscure seminary word for it that most folks have never even heard of, it’s church polity. It just means how the church is governed or led. It’s how the church makes decisions.

That may not seem like a big deal to you. But if governing is dysfunctional, it affects everything. If you don’t believe me, just look at Washington. We are in a partial government shutdown because the government has become so dysfunctional. The church has too much at stake to become dysfunctional. It’s got too much at stake not to be led well and to make decisions well.

Thankfully Mount Gilead has been blessed with good leadership for many years. Not only good leadership, but people who trusted their leadership. Hopefully I’m doing my job well, but I stand on the shoulders of great men of God who gave great leadership to this church to make it what it is today. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Cholie Holloway and Tom Anderson, faithful pastors of Mount Gilead before me. Bro. Cholie pastored here for 13 years before Tom Anderson who pastored here for right at 30 years before he retired.

Not to mention, faithful laypeople who I will not start names because I could never name them all.

To have a church that is blessed, you certainly have to have faithful men and women of God. But you also have to have a system of authority in place so that decisions get made and the work of God gets done in a way that the Kingdom of God expands and the disciples are continually made. That’s where church polity or church governance comes into play.

The Scripture certainly has a lot to say about this, which I am going to get to soon.

At the most fundamental level, almost all Baptist churches are congregational in their polity. What I mean by that is that we believe that the church is the bride of Christ and the authority for leadership comes from our spiritual husband, Christ. Or, the church is the body and the authority comes from the head of the church, Christ. Any authority to lead the church comes from Christ to the body of Christ. And then, authority is given by the body to the church’s leadership. Authority is given to the leadership through the congregation.

Most Baptist churches agree upon that. However beyond that churches have all kinds of differing view on how the church should be lead. And, I don’t believe most Baptist Churches have a system of governance that is set up the way which is most biblically consistent with what the Scripture teaches about the subject. I’m going to talk about that in a little while.

When you look at Baptist churches, you’ll find all kinds systems set up to make decisions. Think about the churches that you have been a member of in the past. I bet you can identify. Some churches are:

A. Deacon-Led

These are churches where the deacons are elected by the church. And no decision gets made that is not made or at least approved by the deacon body. The problem with that is biblically the deacon body was not created to run this way. Biblically the deacons body was created to be leading servants to help care for the many service opportunities and needs that go on within the body of the church. Deacons were simply meant to be lead servants in ministries of the church.

A. Deacon Led

these are churches where the deacons are elected by the church. And no decision gets made that is not made or at least approved by the deacon body. The problem with that is biblically the deacon body was not created to run this way. Biblically the deacons body was created to be leading servants to help care for the many service opportunities and needs that go on within the body of the church. Deacons were simply meant to be lead servants in ministries of the church.

Why are so many Southern Baptist Churches deacon led? The answer is more traditional than it is biblical. And, it makes perfect sense how it came about. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, most congregations were relatively small so they couldn’t afford to pay one pastor to stay on the field full-time. So, churches would be quarter time churches or half time churches. So the pastor would travel around to 3-4 churches a month and would only be there one Sunday a month. In that environment, the pastor couldn’t be the only authority for leadership because decisions had to be made when the Pastor wasn’t there. But, instead calling me who were qualified to be elders and ordaining lay elders, the churches often just looked to the deacons to provide stability.

B. Committee-Led

As churches grew, particularly through the 1940s-80s, it became in vogue to have the church be committee led by lay people. The church would have committees for everything. I once pastored a church that had 21 committees. The toilet would break and we would have to call a committee meeting. I was like, “Why don’t we just call a plumber?” It was a colossal waste of most peoples time. Often times, a committed makes a decision that has to be approved by the deacons. So you have a combination deacon led and committee led. These usually occur in situations where people didn’t trust their pastor and staff. These people clearly didn’t. Which is one reason that couldn’t keep a pastor for much over 3 years…including me! This is the most ineffective form of leadership I’ve seen in churches. It is not even remotely a biblical form of church polity.

I would much rather have ministries than committees. The difference is that committees make decisions for other people to do. Ministries make decisions for themselves to do.

C. Pastor-Led

This is certainly a better approach than the other two models. This is still a congregational polity, but the Pastor cares for most of the day to day needs of the church. He doesn’t call a committee meeting; he calls a plumber.

He works with the different ministry teams in the church to support them and make sure they are working toward biblical values and goals that he’s set for the church. He leads the church, setting the direction and vision of the church. He protects the doctrine of the church.

He loves the people of the church, cares for the people, equips the people, teaches the people. This can only happen in a church where there is strong trust in the pastor and a high regard for the role of the pastor. This model has many very good attributes. It makes for a unified church that avoids a lot of power grabbing situations that undermine the mission of the church.

Mount Gilead had this type of polity for many years. It has its weakness. Don’t often see one pastor overseeing the entire church alone. The only place that I see what could be considered it in Scripture is in the 7 churches of the Revelation where John is commanded to write a message down and give it to the “angel” or “messenger” of the church. Most people take this to mean the pastor. And, I don’t dispute that. Even today churches that have various types of church polity has a main leading pastor, teaching pastor, senior pastor. That doesn’t mean others could not be in the eldership with him.

The second problem is this, the foundation of leadership in a church needs to be wider than one man for the church to be strong. Make the base of leadership wide and strong and an a mighty church can be built on it.

*I mentioned earlier that I followed Pastor Tom Anderson who had pastored here for almost 30 years. He was a great leader of a pastor led church. He was a benevolent dictator. He loved the people and the church, but nothing happened unless he gave the OK.

When I got to the church, I asked about bylaws. They told me, we don’t really know about bylaws. We just do whatever Pastor Tom says. That is all well and good if you have a pastor that has been there 30 years. He has earned the credibility of the people. He’s been there in the good and the hard times. He’s married couples, been there when babies were born, and been there when grandparents and parents died.

This polity was not helpful when this 34 year old pastor took over that role. I didn’t have trust of the people to be able to lead effectively this way. I didn’t know the people and they didn’t know me. This was one of the reasons I had a little of a rocky start.

In 25 years, when I had over the reigns to someone else, I don’t want him to have to go through what I went through.

So, what am I proposing?

D. Elder-Led

A plurality of eldership

A pastor and an elder are the same ordained role in Scripture. Pastor, Elder, and Overseer are all the same office in the church. The difference in a pastor led church and an elder-led church is that an elder led church has a plurality, or multiple elders to be a leadership body in the church.

This is the model that we see most clearly in the New Testament. One of the clearest places that we see this is in Paul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey.

Acts 14:23 ESV

23 And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 14:23

They appointed plural, “elders” in every singular “church.” This is not the picture of one single elder, or a group of deacons that run the church and hold the pastor accountable. This is a picture of multiple elders in every church.

This provides a far greater foundation of authority in the church rather than the authority being supported by one man. And, I believe it to the prominent polity presented in the NT.

Some might say, “Elder-led sounds a lot like deacon led.” What’s the difference between elder led and deacon led? There are two big problems when deacons try to serve in an elder role.

1) If deacons serve as elders, no one serves as deacons.

This is what happens in deacon led churches. The deacons take on a decision making and final authority role in the church and no one actually does the ministry of service. There comes a since of you work for the church and it’s our job to make sure you do what you are suppose to do. That is no way to grow a healthy church.

*The first church I pastored had this type of polity. There were a number of senior adults who were home bound. I was living in New Orleans and driving up on the weekends, visiting the hospitals and the homebound and leading worship services.

About 8 months into my pastorate, I asked the deacons to help me visit some of the homebound widows. They didn’t waste any time telling me that that was my job. I told them I understood, I would continue to visit, but the Scripture teaches that it is primarily their job.

Acts 6:2-4

Acts 6:2–4 ESV

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:2-4)

Now I’m not saying that pastors shouldn’t visit. We should. But deacons have a service role. That started a firestorm of debate and argument in that room. They basically told me that they just weren’t going to do it. I asked, “Why not?” They said, “it won’t work.” I said, “It is the Word of God, it will absolutely work. It’s God’s design. The patriarch of the church look at me in a rage and said, “It may be the Word of God, but it won’t work here!”

So, suffice it to say, there was not a lot of great ministry coming out of that group. Deacons don’t need to be elders because we need them to be deacons.

2) Deacons don’t have the same qualifications as elders.

When deacons try to be elders they take terrible deacons, but they also make terrible elders. The reason is that they weren’t created to be elders.

*It’s like trying to use a hammer to do the job of a wrench. You could try to use it but you are really just going to make a mess.

When you look at , you see the qualifications for both elders or overseers and deacons. They are similar, but there are a few difference. One major difference is that elders must be able to teach.

We will talk more about that next week, but for now think about this question. Why is it a requirement that all elders be able to teach. Not all elders will necessarily be in a teaching role.

Here’s why: the people making the decisions for the mission and direction of the church need to know God’s word. If the people making decisions don’t know God’s word, the church won’t ever be the church God desires.

Elders have to know God’s word because part of their job is to protect the doctrine of the church. I’ve never seen a deacon led church actually do this well.

*Right now Andy Stanley is making a lot of waves talking about the New Testament replacing the Old Testament therefore the Old Testament law is not binding on Christians. That’s why he said that the 10 commandment is not binding on Christians anymore.

Andy Stanley is one of the best communicators in the nation and certainly one of the best leaders. That is not in question. But, he’s making some easily observable doctrinal mistakes, like confusing like confusing Jesus fulfilling the law, not replacing the law. And confusing things like food laws with moral laws.

I’m not exactly sure how his leadership structure is set up, but I can tell you this, it is the role of the elder body to keep the senior pastor for making these kind of mistakes.

An elder led church, provides a proper amount of accountability for the pastor; much needed accountability that also serves to protect the church.

That’s why I don’t think simply having the paid Pastor/Associate pastors serve as the elders. At the end of the day, the Senior Pastor is the boss. If a staff member is worried that it may compromise their job, they are probably not going to do a great job of holding the Senior Pastor accountable.

So, not long after coming to Mount Gilead I realized the need for pastoral accountability, so as we developed the by-laws I asked the church to nominate 6 men who would serve as my Pastoral Advisory Team. They had to be biblically qualified as an elder in the same way that I am. I talked to several men that were nominated. Out of that process, God clarified 6 men that would served in this role.

staff

Andy Maxwell, Carl Blackman, Patrick Davenport, Greg Vinson, Jim Whaley, and Bobby Martin.

That was 8 years ago. Since then, we have studied eldership and I have been treating them as elders for the last 7 years. Each of these men and served this church well, acting as elders. We’ve been through some difficult times that I wouldn’t have had the wisdom nor the credibility to lead the church through by myself.

It’s time to officially ordain these men as elders and to adjust our bylaws to reflect this biblical polity. When we do things God’s way, we get the blessing of functioning by God’s design and being in God’s will.

A couple of questions that are often brought up is:

1)Will these lay elder be paid. The answer is no. There is scriptural backing to have have fulltime paid elders in the church, as well as, unpaid lay elders.

1 Timothy 5:17–18 ESV

17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

The double honor is that the primary teaching elders are fulltime elders are worthy of double honor. The double honor is generally considered to be the wages referred to in v.18.

Also, this does not compromise the leadership role of the Senior Pastor. The Senior Pastor is still considered a “head among equals” among the elders. The elders are the church’s servant leaders. The Senior Pastor provides leadership and direction for these leaders and the church.

This will require a bylaw change. We have copies of the Proposed Bylaws at the exits. Take one per family and read them. Next week, Sunday Morning, I will preach a more formal message on eldership, qualifications and functions. Sunday Night, I will answer any questions that you have have about the process.

Then on February 3rd, we will have two votes. First, to make the bylaw change. Second, to ordain these 6 men as lay elders at Mount Gilead.

“To our minds, the Scripture seems very explicit as to how this Church should be ordered. We believe that re is no power in Church officers to execute anything unless they have the full authorization of the members of the Church. We believe, however, that the Church should choose its pastor, and having chosen him, that they should love him and respect him for his work’s sake; that with him should be associated the deacons of the Church ...; and the elders of the Church to assist in all the works of the pastorate in the fear of God, being overseers of the flock. Such a Church we believe to be scripturally ordered; and if it abide in the faith, rooted, and grounded, and settled, such a Church may expect the benediction of heaven, and so it shall become the pillar and ground of the truth.” Spurgeon, “The Church Conservative and Aggressive” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 7, pp. 658-659.

“To our minds, the Scripture seems very explicit as to how this Church should be ordered. We believe that re is no power in Church officers to execute anything unless they have the full authorization of the members of the Church. We believe, however, that the Church should choose its pastor, and having chosen him, that they should love him and respect him for his work’s sake; that with him should be associated the deacons of the Church ...; and the elders of the Church to assist in all the works of the pastorate in the fear of God, being overseers of the flock. Such a Church we believe to be scripturally ordered; and if it abide in the faith, rooted, and grounded, and settled, such a Church may expect the benediction of heaven, and so it shall become the pillar and ground of the truth.” Spurgeon, “The Church Conservative and Aggressive” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 7, pp. 658-659.