Institutionalized Eldership
I had an early morning meeting with Dick Foth today. Dick is a former pastor and college president and he has been my mentor since we moved to Washington, DC. When we sit down together it's like I take a deep breath and let it back out. He has a calming and re-calibrating effect in my life. So grateful to have a sounding board that helps me process life and ministry. I think everybody needs somebody they trust enough to let it all hang out.
Not sure how to say this. And I'm not trying to open a can of theological worms. But an elder isn't just someone who sits on a board. In the truest sense, I think an elder offers wise counsel in a more relational context. I just wonder if the church has instituionalized eldership via boards and bylaws so we "meet the law" but "miss the spirit." Don't get me wrong. I think an elder can be both spiritual and organizational. It's just so easy to institutionalize things.
I guess I'm saying I'm grateful for an elder in the faith!
Not sure how to say this. And I'm not trying to open a can of theological worms. But an elder isn't just someone who sits on a board. In the truest sense, I think an elder offers wise counsel in a more relational context. I just wonder if the church has instituionalized eldership via boards and bylaws so we "meet the law" but "miss the spirit." Don't get me wrong. I think an elder can be both spiritual and organizational. It's just so easy to institutionalize things.
I guess I'm saying I'm grateful for an elder in the faith!
10 Comments:
Mark,
Open that can please!! I so agree with you on that. I can look back on my entire ministry career and count on one hand the guys as elders in an institutional sense that I would have put up there in a relational, mentoring sense.
What haven't we institutionalized?
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Honestly, once you step onto an elder board, that commitment itself, in both time and emotional energy, really cuts into your mentoring time, when you factor in work time and family time as well.
I'm a mentor by nature, but my time available to commit to personal and small group mentoring has gone down since becoming an elder.
In fact, as we, in the leadership of our church, are seeking to build a stronger discipleship model, I've considered challenging each of our other elders to each pick a group of men to mentor individually or as a group. But I struggle because I have a hard time finding the time to commit to that myself.
A whole new paradigm of eldership would be required to really flesh this out.
Wow, that's a breath of much needed fresh air!
I have a feeling that we have put too much on the elders' plate. The elders should be the head of the church. With that being said, they are not the ones that have to make every decision. I think about when the deacons were started in the book of Acts. It was only because the disciples had too much on their plate.
Now maybe the elders have put too much on their own plate. Maybe it is other people putting it on their plate.
I feel for lawyervon -- "the elder board cuts into your mentoring time." I have heard other people say much the same thing. It always leads me to the question of "why be an elder?" if being a elder means just going to meeting after meeting.
One challenge is that eldership can be two different roles, so it's difficult to determine the best path to take or a balance between the two. It's something our elder body discusses frequently when we critique our job performance.
On the one hand is the role of visional organizational leaders, leading a church forward in the Great Commission. On the other hand is the role of spiritual leaders and mentors and caregivers. Finding a balance is difficult, and I've found that most elders lean stronger into one or the other.
One church I attended in law school in Kansas City (Overland Park, KS) -- Heartland Community Church -- actually broke their elders into 2 different camps: leading elders and pastoral elders. But one could also argue that the pastoral elders role is more fit for a deacon title. Since then, they've even added a 3rd group -- trustees who oversee the fiscal and administrative management of the hcurch. So, they now have leader elders, pastoral elders, and administrative elders. I think it's a great idea personally so long as those in the role qualify Scripturally and are called.
The other challenge is the lack of men of faith who are steeped in Scripture, walking with Christ and willing to step up and help in either the leadership or pastoral role. If we had a larger collection of men called and qualified to such roles, we could split the roles, but instead, we end up with a smaller pool of leaders filling multiple roles. Of course, that comes down to a discipleship process issue, which we're current working on developing more fully in our local church body.
There is inherent difficulty when the mentor (sounding board, encourager, advisor, etc.) is also in an official leadership capacity. When the pastor has a struggle with an issue, he has to think twice before being conpletely transparent with his "official" elder, because it could involve setting things in motion due to that elder's responsibilities to the congregation. At the church is serve, my lead pastor has an elected board of deacons, but he also has an informal "elder" board of men of his own choosing with whom he can be completely transparent. These men don't see themselves as "elected representatives of the congregation" and can feel free to love and occasionally rebuke pastor as the situation warrants. Every leader needs people in his life to will be truthful with him and with whom he can "let it all hang out".
Mark: I think you've really hit on something important here which hearkens back to the concept of spiritual direction - something we've largely lost in evangelical circles today. It reminds me of Eugene Peterson's book, The Wisdom of Each Other.
Plus, you've made a great, great choice for a mentor. Dick was the president at Bethany when I was there, and I honestly had a warm feeling come over me when I saw his name on your blog. Helping people re-calibrate is such a wonderful word picture of the essence of his ministry.
Great discussion!
In response to rwhitlow, I totally agree. I have found that my role as elder has actually relationally distanced me from many people. On the one hand, there is lots of confidential information and "history" on people that you become privy to as an elder, and lots of things you just can't talk about. It actually seems to downgrade your transparency with people.
You definitely get treated differently by people, and it may be as rwhitlow says -- that they don't want you think bad of them or become obligated to initiate some process. Funny thing is the relation distance dehumanizes the elder in their mind and blinds the other people to the fact that the elder has his struggles just as much as the other guy.
Interestingly, in our church, there has evolved what's called (for no particular reason) the Executive Team. It's the lead pastor, executive pastor, other senior pastors, an elder (me) and a big-picture, ministry-minded layman or two. It's become a good sounding board group for our lead pastor and executive pastor although it has no official capacity or authority -- in essence, it's a small group of pastoral, leader types talking through our church's issues and surrounding our senior pastoral staff with support and accountability on church-related issues in a safe environment.
Mark, looks like you've hit a welcome nerve!
I know John Wimber used to say that to find elders, look for people that "eld"! People that naturally mentor AND (just as important) people that WANT those people to mentor! *Grin*
Institutional board relationships can really stunt a spiritual gift of "eld-ing."
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