Category Archives: Elders

Shepherding and coronavirus

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It’s a quiet Sunday morning. More quiet than usual. It’s almost 8. Usually I’m in full-on rush mode by now, trying to get dressed, stop by and say hi to my mom, then make it to church to get communion ready or prepare for the praise team or have a quick prayer time with a friend or pick up dead cockroaches in the hallway or… well, you get it.

Now there’s social distancing. Semi-quarantine. No service at our church building. Our assembling will be online. I’ll stop by the building around our normal assembly time (I live 5 blocks away), in case some didn’t get the message. Otherwise, I won’t have much contact with anyone outside of family.

I’ve been an elder for almost two years. Things that I’ve known in theory have become more real to me. Especially at times like yesterday morning when we were trying to decide what to do about our assembly. As we talked, I was reminded of a an important reality: we were called to shepherd the University Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas. Our responsibility is to look out for the welfare of our flock. Spiritual welfare. Physical welfare. Emotional welfare.

We aren’t the shepherds of every congregation in Abilene. As we met, other godly men were meeting to wrestle with similar decisions concerning their flock. They would decide based on what was best for their people.

We certainly aren’t doctrine-setters for other Christians. Not even official doctrine discerners for others.

On this issue, we made the best decision we could keeping in mind our flock. We quite literally thought of each one by name, as we later went over our membership lists to divide them up for communication purposes. We thought not only about this Sunday morning but the coming weeks. This was a decision for our time, our people, our context.

Other Christians are doing the same. God bless each of you as you discern what is best for your people in your moment in your context.

May we recognize the necessity of this occurring for all decisions, not just those related to coronavirus. Let’s not worry about what others will think, others will say, or what meme on Facebook will criticize our choices. And let’s not sit on judgment on the servant of another (Romans 12:4).

Happy Sunday. He is Risen! And His church lives.

Elders, families, and law keeping

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gavelRecently I was discussing some topics about elders with some friends on the Internet. Specifically, they were questioning the need for an elder to be married and to have children.

In his Declaration and Address, Thomas Campbell expressed:

That although the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are inseparably connected, making together but one perfect and entire revelation of the Divine will, for the edification and salvation of the Church, and therefore in that respect can not be separated; yet as to what directly and properly belongs to their immediate object, the New Testament is as perfect a constitution for the worship, discipline, and government of the New Testament Church, and as perfect a rule for the particular duties of its members, as the Old Testament was for the worship, discipline, and government of the Old Testament Church, and the particular duties of its members.

Many of us, myself included, have moved away from this way of seeing the Bible as some sort of constitution for the church. One can look at Exodus and Leviticus and see what religious law code looks like; such language is absent from the New Testament.

For some, that means that the New Testament is little more than a snapshot of how the church was then; at best we’re seeing one possible expression of Christianity.

I view the writings of the New Testament differently, specifically the letters. I see in them an expression of how things should be. We take things like culture and context into consideration, but we don’t use them to render the epistles meaningless.

Especially when looking at elders. Among the things we see in the New Testament are the lists of elders’ characteristics in 1 Timothy and Titus. These letters are written to churches in very different situations. Timothy was in Ephesus, where the church had functioned for decades. Titus was on Crete, where the church was apparently just gaining a foothold. Because of this, when we see things in the list that overlap, those teachings are especially powerful.

So it is with elders and their families. It’s especially telling in Timothy, where we’re talking about men who aren’t new converts. Even so, Paul tells Timothy

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? (1 Timothy 3:4–5)

You expect these instructions to be given to Titus (and they were: Titus 1:6), who wouldn’t have the luxury of seeing how candidates had behaved themselves in church for years and years. But even in Ephesus, Paul says that the home life of a man will show his aptness for the job of elder.

That’s why elders need to be married. And have children.

“Is that a law? Will we go to hell if we do things differently?”

It doesn’t seem to be stated as a law. For me, it’s like the need to change the oil in my car. The owner’s manual doesn’t state that as a law. I don’t know of any state or federal regulations that require me to change the oil in my car. But I trust the car manufacturer and other knowledgeable people who have told me of the need to perform this needed maintenance. Frankly, I’d be foolish to do otherwise.

I trust the New Testament writers to describe what is best for a church. I want to do what will edify the church. In my life, I want to do what will most please God. For me it’s not a matter of law. It’s a matter of trying to be the best Christian I can be.

So where did elders come from?

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elderLast month, I spoke at the annual Preachers Conference in Cuba. Our general topic was 1 Timothy; one of my assigned topics was “Elders.”

Two years ago, the whole conference looked at the theme of elders, so I wasn’t too excited about looking at the same material we’d seen then. I decided to start with the Old Testament and look at elders there. The New Testament church drew the concept of an eldership from somewhere. Given the Jewish nature of the early church, it’s almost a given that this idea of elders came from Judaism.

In the Old Testament, we see that the elders were the heads of the tribes and the chief members of each family (See 1 Kings 8:1, for example). That’s why we don’t see elders among God’s people until the book of Exodus; Genesis principally deals with a single family.

Then in Exodus, we see Moses dealing with the elders of Israel (3:16; 4:29; 12:21). From that group, he selected 70 “special” elders (Exodus 24:9; Numbers 11:16-30). These were the recognized leaders of Israel, leaders of each family that made up the nation.

As time progressed, each town came to have its elders (Deuteronomy 16:18; Ezra 10:14). They would typically meet at the gate of the city to discuss important matters (Deuteronomy 25:7; Ruth 4:1-2; Proverbs 31:23). After the exile, they came to form part of the Sanhedrin, along with the chief priests and teachers of the Law. (That description of the Sanhedrin is found numerous times in the gospels)

Now here’s where I start speculating (I didn’t share this in Cuba). The elders were the patriarchs of each family. I think they were the men who were physically unable to work or serve in the military. Because of this, they had the time to sit around and act as a governing body. They were respected because of their age and experience.

Either way, when the church began, the idea of older men discussing important matters and making decisions was a natural one. It took no special prompting for the church to follow this system of organization which they knew so well.

Bridging the past and the future

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Van Gogh shepherd

Tradition is the living faith of those now dead.

Traditionalism is the dead faith of those still living.

Jaroslav Pelikan
The Vindication of Tradition

Traditions of a church can provide an organic link to her past. They can also choke out the future. It takes discernment to have traditions without traditionalism.

Another reason that I think that, in most cases, the elders are the ideal ones to lead the church is their tie to history, their ability to bridge the past and the future. The average minister comes into a congregation and spends a limited number of years. He’s not part of the past of the congregation and probably won’t be part of the future.

A wise minister recognizes the temporal nature of his work. He doesn’t defer to his elders on everything nor kowtow to the youth at every turn. He works to shine God’s Word on the church’s present situation, helping provide insight that might not be there otherwise.

A strong eldership provides the knowledge of the past with a desire to prepare the church for the future. It allows the minister to focus on God’s Word and its application to the congregation, while the elders focus on shepherding the flock.

Lots of ideals there. But I think a healthy congregation has an eldership that refuses to be a board of directors and a minister that refuses to be CEO. They choose to walk the path of the Lamb rather than the cold cobblestones of Wall Street.

The leadership of elders

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Van Gogh shepherdWhen you listen to preachers talk, many of them complain about their elders. It’s a bit like men and mother-in-laws, as far as stereotypical relationships. It’s just supposed that preachers and elders will be at odds.

Sometimes that does happen. The church is made up of humans. I think it can be especially hard when the preacher and the elders are from different generations. Then all of the tension that we’ve been talking about this week enters into the equation.

The churches of Christ have typically been an elder-led movement. Some have intentionally sought to change that, wanting to give the preacher a more prominent role.

I don’t buy it. I do agree that elders should take the lead in shepherding, which is one of the reasons I dislike the trend of calling a preacher “pastor.” Elders should be pastoring. The fact that our society expects it to be done by the preacher shouldn’t change that.

Many have wanted to follow the corporate model, with the elders serving as a board of directors that hires the CEO (preacher) and lets him run things as he sees fit, until he loses their confidence. I don’t see that as a healthy model for the church. You can’t parallel an organism like the church with an organization of this world. There are some principles that will overlap, but no corporation is the Spirit-filled body of Christ.

I don’t think elders rule. I don’t think elders dictate. But I do think that elders lead. Or should, at least.