SERVANTS WHO LEAD / LEADERS WHO SERVE: Week 1 - The ROLE of Elders

As the elders developed our mission statement, we also began to understand the role of the elders in the discipleship process at church, because ultimately discipleship is the outcome of that mission.

And so it’s important to know that our elders have buy in to the mission, and to the direction of discipleship at PBCC. Next week we will be having our annual congregational meeting. It’s at these meetings that the official members of the church vote to affirm a couple of things: 1) the budget proposed by the church board; and 2) the new officers of our church as it stands as a non-profit corp.

It was recently that we came to the realization of the importance of studying the principles of church leadership found in the Bible. Many of you may not even know what an elder or deacon or deaconess is supposed to DO, much less know the qualifications.

Having church elders – is that like having a congressman representing you and your opinions to the church board? Is church leadership REALLY modeled after the great American government structure? What does the Bible teach about the way a church is to be run? That’s what these next two weeks are going to be about for us.

We’ll begin this morning with an overall principle that is the key to everything else we’ll look at for the next few weeks: Pastoral oversight of the church is to be a team effort.