On June 9, 2011 James Macdonald wrote a thought provoking blog about church government. I want to share some from his blog since we are currently in transition from a Congregational form to an Elder form of government....
1) Congregational Meetings Are Forums for Division: When church life is going well, the leaders of a church struggle to get a quorum for decision making. When things are going wrong, every carnal member lines up at a microphone to spew their venom and destroy the work of Christ in the church. Satan does want to rip church unity to shreds like a devouring lion (1 Peter 5:8).
2) Voting Is Not Biblical It may be a tradition of some wonderful streams of church history, e.g. Baptist, but it is not biblical. There is not a shred of biblical evidence for a congregation voting on what its direction should be, but many church members believe it is their ‘God-given right’ to stand in judgement over the Pastors and Elders that are seeking to lead them.
3) Eldership Is Sometimes Unpopular Elders are responsible to “shepherd the flock” (1 Peter 5:2), which is often a very dirty job. Calling out sin, dealing with those who have fallen and seeking their restoration (Galatians 6:1-4), these responsibilities put Elders in positions where doing the right often means doing the unpopular.
4) Congregationalism Crushes Pastors Statistics tell us that a pastor typically leaves a church because of 8 people. I could retire now if I had banked a hundred dollars for every time a Pastor wept to me on the phone or in person about the crushing weight of a local ‘church boss’ who would not listen to Scripture or reason or God’s Holy Spirit.
5) Priesthood, Not Eldership of All Believers Sadly, this has led in many congregations to the Eldership of all believers—where each person, regardless of training, giftedness, fruitfulness, experience, etc., considers their thoughts about the future of a given congregation to be of equivalent value. Satan uses this expectation to create in people a demand to be heard, an insistence that their thoughts on the future of a church—no matter how quickly formed, or singularly held—receive validation equal that of a Pastor/Elder.
Thanks James for sharing! May God continue to lead us as a church body in this transition to Elders!
Loving and Leading,
Jeff Powell
