The teaching for the next couple of E4’s will centre around church leadership and in particular the role of Elders, Deacons and the “Church Meeting”.
Now I know what you’re thinking.
“Isn’t there anything else more useful that we could be hearing about? Surely there must be something (anything in fact) that’s more relevant to “whole-life missionary discipleship” than stuff about church government?”
Well, here’s the thing:
The church is a reflection of God’s Son. That’s why leadership of the church is of utmost importance. The church is how the great hope – eternity with God in Christ – is to be seen. In the time between Christ’s ascension and His return, Christians in covenant with one another – loving and caring, encouraging and sharing, correcting and bearing over the years – present the clearest picture of God’s love that this world can see. (Mark Dever in Elders in Congregational Life, Phil Newton)
If the church is the hope of the world (and I passionately believe it is), if it exists to reflect Jesus to the world (as Mark Dever says) and if it’s designed to display God’s plan of salvation to the heavenly realms (as Ephesians 3:10 says) then how the church is organised and led must matter. It must be the case that the stuff in the Bible about how to arrange things concerning church leadership is important to pay attention to because, to put it bluntly, it impacts the greatest enterprise that’s taking place on the face of the planet.
For a long time now I’ve been prayerfully considering what the Bible has to say about the important role of Elders and Deacons and our Leadership Team spent part of an away day twelve months ago reflecting on some of the issues. I’m planning to share some of this material at E4 with the aim of strengthening our understanding of what the scriptures teach and also to encourage people to pray into what we discover.
If you’re around it would be great to see you for the first of this series which will be on Sunday 28 February, 11:45am.
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Great news! In essence we have a leadership team who are fullfilling the roles of Eldership and "Deaconship" in the same meeting. To separate out those two functions and appoint people with the relevant gifting makes a lot of sense. Looking forward to hearing what the leadership are thinking about this.
ReplyDeleteOf course Church Leadership matters - but the detail only matters to those who belong.
ReplyDeleteThere are only 52 days (plus a few specials)in a year when people can walk into our church to find out what it is all about and it is advertised in the Lymington Times that the services are for everyone.
These ones aren't as they are totlly irrelevant to the vast majority of people in Lyminmgton - where as the message of the saving grace of our Lord is VITAL for all to hear.
I am convinced we should appoint elders, so let's do it.
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