In many mission areas, there is a severe lack of congregations with elders. I’ve spent most of my time in Latin America, so I can speak most knowledgeably about that area. What I’ve observed are churches that have existed for decades, yet aren’t even close to having elders leading their congregation. Besides some doctrinal issues, like the one I discussed yesterday, there are some practical causes to this:
- Churches from the States have given financial support to preachers overseas. That’s a situation full of potential for problems, from the difficulties in determining the level of support to the impracticality of overseeing a worker long distance. But one of the biggest problems is the creation of preacher-dominated churches. With no sense of accountability to the local church, no motivation to surrender control of congregational affairs, and a model of preachers doing elders’ jobs, the preacher can continue to say, “This congregation just isn’t ready.”
- We’ve established preacher training schools around the world. Where are the elder training schools? What are we communicating to our brethren by emphasizing ministers rather than shepherds?
- When teaching about elders, we’ve focused on the qualifications of elders and taught little about what elders actually do. Steve Ridgell, my supervisor at Herald of Truth, did eldership training in Africa last summer. The leaders commented, “We’ve never been taught any of this. All we ever heard was who could be an elder, not what they were supposed to do.”
We’ve historically taught that our churches were lead by the pastors, the elders of the church. In practice, we’ve too often followed a preacher-led model. Especially in our mission efforts. In the New Testament, elders were named very soon after the establishment of each congregation; we’ll know that we have a healthy model when we see the same thing today.
Tim, I guess it might be alright to try to teach people to become “Elders” but there is a great difference in Preaching, and shepherding. In my opinion, preaching is a job, shepherding is a duty. A call to duty.
As for preachers who don’t strive to fulfill their church leadership by seeking elders, I can only see that in this way, that preacher is the big fish in a little pond, or puddle, and don’t want to share that position. I know of at least one preacher who planted a church has been the preacher for approx 20 yrs, still no elders. something wrong here me thinks.
Unfortunately, Laymond, I think you’re right in many cases. I don’t know that it’s conscious, but there is a resistance to having to share “power.”
Grace and peace,
Tim
Unfortunately there are many churches in the U.S. that do not have elders, after many years in existence. Some of those are that way because they are mostly made up of women, the husbands not having the spirituality needed to even attend, much less become a part of the church. I am thinking mostly of the New England states and upper midwest. When we left Massachusetts to go to preaching training school, a preacher’s wife was very upset because she said the people in that area needed elders (which my husband was) rather than more preachers. I know she was right, but how to make that happen is still the question today – as you have written.
While in MA, the church there, having been an Exodus group, had three preachers being supported by other churches. One of those churches never, ever, came to see the work or how the man was doing. They continued sending their support after that man moved to Abilene to open a Bible book store. My husband wrote them asking that they discontinue sending money, but it took a year for them to stop.
Tim, looks like if you want a bunch of comments, you will need to write about ACU cheating at sports, but how they were doing it for the Lord.:) did you read preachermike’s blog? :)
One thing the elders should not be and that is handling the day to day business of the church. Their responsibility should be to get to know and look out for the spiritual life of the flock. Even the preacher should not be handling the day to day business, but leave that to deacons who are given the responsibility for those decisions. But unfortunately the preacher is the one who is in the building, and in the northeast, usually without a secretary to deal with UPS/FedEx deliveries, repair persons, etc.
Tim the reason I mentioned the comments on Mike’s blog is the obvious difference in a true christian comment, and a non-christian.
Ha, not ! how are we to know a christian when we see one. You think it is hard to find an elder. heck it’s hard to find a christian.