Musings on Spiritual Matters

This post is not about politics or the election but about how elders come to make a decision. I assumed recently that the only way for elders to make a decision is by each individual elder voting on a certain plan, policy, decision, and personnel. Being an elder meant that you received one vote within the eldership. When difficult choices were made the elders all voted and whatever the majority was than this lead to the idea being approved or rejected. I must admit there seemed to be no other way for a eldership to conduct themselves. In there is, there is a consensus style of being an eldership in some congregations. I must admit this scares me. The reason is that one elder could stop every step for progress within a congregation. He could be “brother no” on everything. If this is the case, you no longer have an eldership but one man rule in the congregation. As my mentor says, this is the biggest problem in the church. One man or woman or family running the congregation. But consensus elderships are maybe a higher ideal than the voting elderships. But before a congregation can move to this direction, there must be complete trust in one another. There has to be a mindset on submission leadership not control leadership. The individual that is seemingly opposing everything needs to have the humility to submit to the overall direction of the eldership. But the majority need to take serious the concerns of the opposing opinion within the eldership. Not I am not sure if things have changed much. There are some for it and some against it. It still might be voting, but more of a silent voting. Everyone knows where everyone stands but the minority are able to submit to the majority or the majority submit to the minority. One can see this has stopping progress from happening in the congregation but would reinforce unity within the church. This is a great thought for future elderships. It is something that scares me but also something that seems biblical when the dynamics are healthy.

Related posts:

1. Open Question Night with Elders
2. Meeting With Elders
3. Make Elders Look Good
4. Managing New Elders
5. EXPECTATIONS FOR ELDERS

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.