May 05, 2006
Handpicked Elders
Each church (or denomination) has their set of bylaws for governing the election of leadership positions and those bylaws can be changed. Biblical qualifications for elders and deacons don’t change, but I’m seeing more and more how they can be manipulated. Our elder nomination procedures now include completing a large packet of personality profile-type papers to fill out, not only for the candidate, but also for his wife. Next, the interview process which includes the wife, is held with currently setting elders and staff to determine if a candidate is qualified. If the candidate is acceptable, his name is then submitted for the congregation’s ‘endorsement’. The current elders and staff have the power to disqualify candidates even though the congregation, if given the opportunity, would deem the candidate Biblically qualified. I question whether our process is more about electing elders or removing obstacles.
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----After reading your thoughts about leader selection, I had to scroll back a bit on your blogspot to your April 28 piece: It's not all about you. You closed that piece by raising the question, "Can anyone please tell me who it is about?" The heart, mind, and lips want to so call out the answer, "It is all about Jesus!" And that would be the right answer, recognizing that Jesus made sure we understood it is also about one another.
-----Almost all of the men whom I have known to be elders in the church have been dedicated men, zealous for the Lord. Especially those men who are the current elders of the contemporary churches. They are certain that God is leading His church into a special vision that will produce the massive harvest of souls that precedes the end of this age. These are men with great hearts full of great ambition. And they are sure that it is all about Jesus. Therefore, they are being certain to preserve that vision by carefully crafting for the Lord an eldership that will abide in the vision.
-----And throughout history there have been great men very zealous in their dedication to God. They have given their attention to God alone and have studied His ways in their search to fully know Him. So they have been all the more certain of their God and His call to them to bring forth a new perception of Him upon the earth. You know some of these men as Buddah, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White (so as not to be sexist), Charles Taiz Russell, Ossama Bin Ladden. These men and women all have had great zeal for their God with special vision from Him.
-----OK, then, I admit with you, one does not know God and his zeal is not for God unless the God known is the God of the Holy Bible. So then let's name Martin Luther who led his followers into eventual war with the Catholic Church, John Calvin who embattled himself against the Arminians, and Ken Copeland who teaches the "blab it and grab it" theology of the prosperity doctrine.
-----The human mind is able to make up anything about God out of its meditations upon the Bible. Any theology can rise in the mind from the Word of God because of the bias of the human eye when it looks upon God alone. The more a theology refines in the mind with the eye focused on only God, the more the mind can twist the Word. Yet the more sure the heart becomes that God has been uniquely found! Finally, the only way that one's unique vision can be sheltered is to be certain it is surrounded by like minds with like eyes. That of course, to this kind of mind, is the meaning of the Biblical prescription for unity and obedience to the leaders. It is almost as if Jesus left His Bribe out to dry in the hands of generations of human leaders.
-----But that is not so. Jesus always makes righteousness possible. And He made it possible in His Church as well. He gave His apostles a key principle which they passed on to the early church - humility. But humility did not last long after those who had walked in their bodies with Jesus died out. The human attitude plus authority almost invariably forms a brew that is death to humility.
-----That is why Jesus was so careful to teach that it was also about each other. When we focus on God, the Bible, and each other, while laying ourselves aside (humility), then the mind does not strain to know Him. It simply experiences Him as the Holy Spirit becomes free to move through what is then the church. Jesus is truly there, just as He stated He would be.
-----So selecting elders for the love of the church involves assuring obedience to the Word as varifiable in behavior towards all. Selecting elders for the love of a vision involves much more.
Seems this method of selection is guaranteed to protect and preserve the policies and procedures of the current elders and staff. Similar to having members of Congress selected only by current members of Congress, or Supreme Court Justices selected only by sitting Justices. It doesn't seem to pass the common sense test.
Interesting comparison! Thanks for sharing.
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