Tag: Elders

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Church Pastors

Move Toward Elder Leadership By Developing Pillar Men

The guiding ideas for bringing change to the leadership culture and structure of the church will be to re-engage with the realities of the Pastoral Epistles. Some quick emphases will be:

1 Tim 3.1-7

  • Men who are Aspirational (v 1).
  • Male, not Female
  • Character qualifications dominate
  • Well-Ordered Home Life 
  • Not a Novice Convert
  • Can teach (could be private or small group mostly, not just preaching/teaching). 

2 Tim 2:2 “Entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also”

  • Seek Trustworthy Men
  • Seek Teachable and Teaching Men
  • Have in view a Four Generation Ministry

But where do you start?

Here is a simple (but challenging) plan for implementation.

1. Men’s Mentoring Ministry — The Pillar Men

Prioritize the younger men, since they are moldable, teachable, and still have uncluttered aspirations.

De-prioritize the older men who are not already like-minded, since they are set in their views, less teachable, and their aspirations tend to be clouded by other competing motives. 

Nevertheless, esteem any older man who is godly since his character will be a living template for younger men.

This is not done to disregard women, but done as the baby step in a process of reformation. Once pillar men are in place, you can work to reform the women’s ministry. 

The Men’s Mentoring Ministry can’t be an “Elder-in-Training” ministry because otherwise, you will give men unrealistic expectations. 

Yet out of this crop of men, God will raise up the called, qualified men who can be elders.

Those who aren’t elders will be “pillar men”.  They will be godly men with healthy marriages and homes, who are doctrinally informed, but maybe lack teaching ability, or are unable to ‘do the work’ of a shepherd (demands of work, family, etc)

Among the ‘pillar men’, you will have your deacons, ministry leads, and general supporters of biblical reformation in the church. 

2. Make Pillar Men strong churchmen.

Every pillar man should be

  • a member (“meaningful membership”)
  • Serving in a ministry
  • Joining every committee, consultation, or any opportunity for the congregational voice to participate. (Don’t ignore the handbell choir committee or the quilting committee. These ‘non-teaching’ committees can have massive influence in a church!).

If you can’t insert pillar men to have influence on committees and ministries, then the pastor should personally engage those unaligned committees and ministries, while gradually isolating the influence of those unaligned groups.

For example, a pastor chose to preserve a senior ladies’ bible study on Sunday mornings rather than dismantling it, even though they completely changed their Sunday School set up. He didn’t give it large influence, but isolated it without shutting it down. This kept him from having a needless fight, distracting him from the changes he wanted to do. 

3. Turn your like-minded staff into unofficial helpers for committees that they don’t have a right to be on. 

For example, the Associate Pastor offers to type stuff up or send emails or bring food for a committee or board meeting that they are not entitled to sit on or influence officially.  

The goal is to orient the board toward favourable change by persuading them with hospitality first, and argument later on. 

Hospitality toward unaligned ministries/structures is the first plan of approach for soliciting change. I.e. Hospitality accrues relational capital. It prioritizes people first, then persuades them with principles later.

4. Use internships to add to your depth of like-minded pillar men.

One way to bring in men who are potentially elder qualified is to offer internships with financial remuneration. 

A single seminary/post-seminary guy can be brought in for an internship that is under one year long. But in that year (or 6 months, or 4 months), he brings youthful energy, support for your vision, and the appearance in the church that the ministry draws high quality men. 

Persuading your church to adopt your elder-leadership model, will require them to be excited about the appearance of new life, young leaders, etc. Although ‘youth movements’ can be viewed in mere worldly terms, this practical emphasis might assist you in overcoming opposition from ‘the old guard.’

Target young men from bible colleges and seminaries, even from outside your country.

  • Recruit from TGC Africa/Korea/ Latin America/ Brazil/ Australia churches?
  • Recruit from trusted seminaries?
  • Recruit from bible colleges? 
  • Find the like-minded guy from a church in your denomination?

Why would a young guy do the internship?

If there was enough money for him to eat and pay rent, he would jump at the chance to get church experience with a city church, and a likeminded pastor. 

Offer clear learning outcomes to the potential intern. 

Highlight the personal investment from the Senior Pastor. This will make the internship worthwhile. 

The intern can work at any number of needed jobs in the church, but the investment in him from the pastor will be the payoff. 

5. Change the culture of the church to prepare for constitutional changes

More men, becoming pillar men, creates a new voting block in the church.

Pillar men on committees (even seemingly meaningless ones) give organizational support for your vision/plan. 

When you go to vote or change the constitution, etc., you may still have a big fight. But you won’t be alone. You won’t be using a constitutional battle as the first attempt to persuade the old guard. Rather it will be the final stroke of persuasion in a systematic approach. 

When the constitutional fight comes, you will have many pillars who will personally support you and help you to stick to it. This is essential for big changes like you’ll propose. 

And even if you, the Senior Pastor, gets fired, you will have established a growing new culture of pillar men who can support the next pastor to bring the change that is needed.

If you are a man who would like to be invested in to become a ‘pillar man’, then consider coming to Calgary, Canada and joining the church that I pastor. Reach out to me through our website at info [{at}] calvarygrace.ca

We also offer accredited theological education through Union School of Theology, with the Graduate Diploma in Theological Studies and the Masters Degree in Theological Studies. Although we are located in Canada, both degrees are accredited with the UK university system. They are church-based, with pastoral mentorship. Contact me if you are interested in joining us beginning in September 2020.

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unsplash-logoMauricio Artieda

Categories
Church Clint Ministry Pastors Theology

6 Things to Ask An Elder Candidate

When a candidate for the office of elder is being examined, it’s necessary for the examiner (likely the senior pastor, or another designated pastor) to have a series of talking points and questions to ask.

Normally an elder candidate will have to do some type of theological project, most likely an exegetical or theological essay which shows his ability to discern biblical truths and articulate them clearly. He would also have to be able to defend his conclusion against other positions and especially false doctrine.

Assuming that the potential candidate has been in a discipling process, having been tested in different ways, these talking points could be used to apply to a potential candidate. They are given as suggestions for a way to further discover the qualifications outlined in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and all the rest of the biblical characteristics for elders.

Below are six areas to consider in examining the potential candidate.

1. Personal

  • Share Testimony
    • Used Alcohol or Illegal Drugs; Any anti-depressants? 
    • Viewed Pornography [_____]
    • Marriage: 
      • Honest, objective pastoral assessment of your marriage. 
      • What is your wife’s view of your calling to ministry?
      • How does your wife’s ministry in the church potentially relate to being married to a pastor (Eg. is she active in women’s ministry; or faithful church member; etc).
      • What is the spiritual maturity of your wife compared to yourself?
    • What is your temperament? 
    • What are the scenarios when you are most easily tempted to be angry?
    • What are the scenarios when you are most easily tempted to be depressed?
    • Briefly describe your personal prayer life.
    • Briefly describe your practice of family worship, couple’s devotion or other spiritual leadership in your home. 
    • Is there anything you haven’t told us that could be revealed about you that would be scandalous or potentially disqualifying? 

2. Doctrinal

  • Statement of Faith
    • Compatibility. 
      • What are the points of the Statement of Faith which you are 
        • More newly convinced of, 
        • Have had a lesser amount of reflection upon?
      • How different is this church in doctrine, compared with a previous church, and the most influential church your wife has come from? 
    • Influences
      • Identify the major influences on your theological development (both positively and negatively).
      • What are the areas of theological study you have given a lot of attention to, and less attention to?
    • Possible Doctrinal Questions (These can be expanded depending on the candidate, the length of the examination, and the prerequisites completed):
      • How many wills does the Incarnate Son of God have?
      • How many wills does God have? 
      • What does divine simplicity mean? 
      • State briefly your view of the sign gifts.
      • What is your view on divorce and remarriage?
      • Explain the difference between the Reformed view of sanctification and the Keswick view.
      • [____________]

3. Ecclesiastical

  • Compatibility
    • What are the areas of practice in this church (philosophy of ministry, worship/liturgy, cultural context, etc) which differ compared with a previous church, and the most influential church your wife has come from? 
  • Elder Role
    • What is your understanding of the application of the elder’s role:
      • Ideally according to Scripture
      • In practical application at your local church.
  • Is your potential role as an elder interchangeable with the role of the current pastor? Explain. 

4. Practical

  • What would the scenario of  “serving this church” look like? What would the scenario of “using or exploiting this church” look like?
  • What are the areas of ministry in which you are likely to be tempted? 
  • When your youth is ‘disregarded’, what is a) your fleshly style of response, b) your Spirit-filled response? 
  • When you have received feedback about the manner of your liturgical leadership or preaching, how have you felt when you received that feedback, and what have you done in response?
  • How willing are you to adapt your personal preferences in order to promote the mission of the church and the unity of the church? Give examples.  
  • Who have you personally discipled or mentored? 
  • Who has discipled or mentored you?
  • Explain the ways you are doing the work of an evangelist.

5. Logistical

  • Capacity
    • Do you have the realistic physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual capacity for you to undertake the work of a presbyter/bishop/pastor, recognizing your other roles/priorities:
      • As a husband
      • As a father
      • As an employee
      • Within your church context

6. Prayerful

  • Describe the life and ministry that you are asking God to cultivate in you.

unsplash-logoNik MacMillan

Categories
Church Clint Gospel Ministry Pastors Spiritual Growth Theology

Are You Making Progress?

“Do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels?” That’s the question I asked my elders last night. I was asking to see if they felt stuck, and not making progress in their ministry, marriages, families, and vocations.

As devotional meditation at the beginning of our elders’ meeting (we always start with prayer and the Word of God), I looked at the issue of “making progress” in Paul’s letters.

For Your Progress and Joy

My first question was to get at what was our reason for being in ministry at all. I asked the men, “Why do we remain and continue in this ministry?” That question is prompted by Philippians 1:25. Paul gave the answer in that verse when he said: 

“for your progress and joy in the faith” 

Phil 1:25

The Greek word for progress is prokopen (προκοπὴν). The idea likely had an early sense of cutting or slashing forward, but the word gained wide usage to mean simply ‘advance’ or ‘progress’.

So like Paul, the pastors can consider that their purpose for being in ministry at this time is for the progress and joy in the faith of others. 

Progress in Sanctification

Another way of putting it is to think that pastors serve the church to promote their progressive sanctification. As pastors shepherd people, they will make progress:

  • from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor 3:18). 
  • from immaturity to presenting “everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28)

So the pastors’ ministry is to serve in this Pauline way for people’s personal, joyous, progressive sanctification in the Christian faith.

The Progress of the Gospel

The personal progress which pastors promote for individual Christians doesn’t remain alone. That individual progress is part of the wider progress of the gospel. Paul outlined in the first chapter of Philippians, that various circumstances in his life were actually designed for the gospel’s progress. The ESV translates this same Greek word (prokope/ προκοπὴν) not with ‘progress’ but ‘advance’ in Philippians 1:12.

As much as we may care for the sanctification of the individual Christian, we can never lose sight of the fact that God is advancing the gospel, and pastors must shepherd people to carry that gospel forward. So as we “equip the saints” (Eph 4:12), we will see the gospel progressively advanced in the ever expanse reaches which Jesus commanded (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).

Pastors Must Make Progress

In order to serve the progress of others, we need to make progress. Paul exhorted Timothy to undertake a plan of personal development in gospel-born teaching and living. He commanded Timothy saying:

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. (προκοπὴν)

1 Tim 4:15

As pastors, we aren’t aiming to display our learning, or show off our preaching, or parade our piety. Nevertheless, people should be able to see our progress.  They should see that we are changing and growing. They should see that as our lives change, the church changes, and the entire ministry landscape changes, we are making progress.

Some of the areas we should make progress in are:

  • persevering through trials old and new. 
  • theological knowledge leading to worship, or courage, or humility
  • skill in handling ministry, preaching, relationships, the brevity of time

Progress in Life and Teaching

There are many areas that Paul outlines in his pastoral epistles, which pastors ought to make progress in by God’s grace. A great summary of them all is stated by Paul in the following verse when he concludes:

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1Ti 4:16 

These are wide categories. When Paul warns to keep watch on “yourself” it is all of life, inside and out. When he focusses on “the teaching” he intends both the expansive content of the faith as well as the growing ability to communicate it better. 

As we ended this meditation on pastors making progress, for the progressive sanctification of Christians and the progress of the gospel, I asked two application questions. Consider them in your own life:

  1. In what area would you like to make some progress this coming year?
  2. In what area do you feel you’ve made progress in this last year.

unsplash-logoEmma Francis


Categories
Church Clint Ministry Pastors Reformers Theology

5 Assessments of Pastors According to Calvin’s Geneva

In the Draft Order of Visitation of the Country Churches January 11, 1546 [1], there are some points made about what to watch for in assessing the ministries of pastors.

1. Doctrinal unity.

The first order of business was to make sure that the pastor maintained, “proper uniformity of doctrine in the whole body of the Church of Geneva.” This was done by having two Genevan pastors visit the country churches in order to, “enquire whether the Ministry of the place have accepted any doctrine in any sense new and repugnant to the purity of the gospel.” So the churches weren’t little labs where pastors could exercise their speculative experiments. They were expected to be fairly conservative, that is, unchanging in their doctrine.

2. Wise Application

Not only was the doctrine to be in line with the other Genevan churches, but there was also an expectation that the minister would preach with wise applications. He wasn’t to preach, “anything at all scandalous, or unfitting to the instruction of the people because it is obscure, or treats of superfluous questions, or exercises too great rigour.” In applying his expositions, the pastor wasn’t grinding axes or riding hobby-horses. How many ‘Calvinist’ pastors today are guilty of ‘exercising too much rigour’.

3. Congregational Support

The pastor wasn’t the only one who was held accountable. The congregation was urged to be diligent not only in attending church services, but “to have a liking for it, and to find profit in it for Christian living.”  Many congregations need to be reminded of their responsibility to support the pastor’s ministry and to like it.

4. Pastoral Care

Pastors were supposed to be engaged in ministry outside of the pulpit, through visitation of the sick and counselling. Specifically, pastors were to confront those who needed it, as well as applying counsel to prevent patterns of sin.

5. Pastoral Integrity

The last element that was examined was whether the pastor had a testimony marked by integrity.  Basically, did the pastor live as an example to others, leading “an honest life”? Also, the pastor’s reputation was checked to see if people viewed areas of his life as lacking self-control (“dissoluteness”) or being flaky (“frivolity”). Finally, the pastor needed to have a harmonious relationship with the congregation. And above all of these, he needed to have his family life in order.

These priorities are quite basic. But how often do pastors fail to maintain these basic emphases? May God grant us mercy to fulfill our duties.

[1] JKS Reid, Calvin: Theological Treatises, (SCM Press, 1954), 74

unsplash-logoSamuel Zeller

photo credit

Categories
Agrarian Pastor Church Clint Ministry Pastors

4 Ways to Identify Potential Elders

Many churches lack qualified elders. It’s not that they don’t have elderly men. They don’t have elders; that is presbyters (Ac 20:17,1Ti 5:17Ti 1:5, Ja 5:14,1Pet 5:1). These elders (who are also overseers (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 3:1,2; Ti 1:7), must meet the qualifications laid out in the pastoral epistles. The challenge is how to identify those potential office-bearers. Here are four ways to spot these men in your church.

He’s a Good Church Member

There is no sense looking at a man as a potential elder if he is not a good church member first. What I’m talking about is more than simply someone who has passed through a membership process. A good church member is someone who is faithful in attendance (Heb 10:25), faithful in the “one anothers” (a phrase used 100 times in the NT), and faithful in appropriate exercise of responsibility (eg. Heb 12:12-17), submission to authority (Heb 13:17), and promotion of the gospel (Matt 28:18-20).

Since the qualifications for an elder in Paul’s first letter to Timothy map out an exemplary Christian, then the potential elder ought to be a good churchman by design.

For example, if he doesn’t bother to attend the prayer meeting, he is likely not an elder candidate. That is not to say that a man on shift work or with a lot of evening work can’t be an elder. But there should be a clear indication that the local church is a high priority for him.

He Can Teach (with an audience of one)

There are men who are growing in the Lord, but they have a hard time expressing themselves in orderly ways. That of course, is what teaching involves: assisting someone to move from confusion to ordered understanding of the subject. Men who can teach have the ability to come alongside someone else and move them from point A to point B in theological understanding.

Being able to teach (1 Tim 3:2) does not necessarily require a man to be an orator or pulpiteer. There are many men who have less skill in public speaking. At the same time, a man who has a deep understanding of the bible, ought to be able to speak in an orderly way to someone else. One-to-one discipleship is a form of this kind of teaching. If a man can teach another man in a discipling context, then they are in the habit of ‘teaching’.

This one-to-one kind of teaching is important to recognize. Often men will like to lead bible studies or teach a class, but they have little interest in the patience and obscurity that goes along with one-to-one discipling. I have found that the men who don’t disciple, yet want to have public teaching roles will tend to view the bible and theology as a hobby. They will be energized by the study in the way that a fan is energized talking about their favourite team. Added to this can be the slight ego trip of being a centre of attention and being “made much of” by other people. By contrast, the man who is content to meet together with another guy in obscurity, yet help that man grow in biblical understanding— that man is teaching as a way of life. Maybe if that man is given an opportunity, he will teach publicly in the same effective, humble manner.

Confessionally Compatible

Since elders are office bearers in a local church, they have to confess the doctrinal parameters of that church. Much of this will be discovered by seeing if the man is a good church member. But more than this, a potential elder will have to be evaluated regarding his relative understanding of the doctrinal positions of the church. It is one thing for a member to submit to a doctrinal position that they haven’t studied too much, but it is another thing for an elder to have to teach it.

Added to this is a recognition of the doctrinal triage that exists in:

  • the statement of faith
  • the church’s constitution
  • and the existing ministries and policies.

By triage, I mean the ordering of priorities in terms of clearer or less clear and important or less important. If a potential elder elevates an obscure teaching to a high degree of importance or acts callously toward the way that his local church faithfully applies Scripture in practical matters, then he will likely create disunity among the elders and in the church. Everyone doesn’t have to think exactly the same, but there should be unity about what matters and what doesn’t.

Sometimes this means that the potential elder you develop will not serve in your church but someone else’s. If you have a generous spirit, you can recognize that on lesser matters in the triage, it is okay to differ. But that may mean that a potential elder will have to go to a different church that fits his understanding of things.

Capacity for the Work

There are many godly men who are faithful as church members and who can teach, yet they are not capable of doing pastoral work. They simply don’t have the time, energy or capacity.

It is not out of laziness or stubbornness. But some men recognize that their callings as husbands and fathers require them to work in such a way that there isn’t a lot of capacity left over for being an elder.

Since managing one’s own household well is a key qualification for an elder, the lack of capacity that a man has can be a signal that he is not called to the work. It is better to have the man continue as a faithful church member, than to have him over-extended into pastoral care and wreck his marriage and ministry.

Considering these elements can go a long way toward identifying potential elders. In the end, the wisdom of pastors and parishioners will culminate in wise assessments that can be recognized by everyone.