So, I decided to look once more at the form for ordination of elders and deacons. What do I see? ambiguity of language. "We intend to ordain elders and deacons and install them...." Of course, "they received this task when Christ entrusted the apostles and their successors"... interestingly not presumably for specified terms.
The church order talks about equal honor for all offices, and then allocates 25 articles to "ministers" and only one lonely article to be shared between elders and deacons. Ministers don't need to be re-ordained when called to another church, but elders, even in the same church presumably need to be re-ordained over and over again? Even though they have not been deposed, or disciplined, etc. Then, is it equal in honor to allocate one combined form of ordination to two different offices, of elder and deacon, while the office of "minister" cannot even share a form with "evangelist" or ministerial associate??? In fact, there are two alternate forms for ministerial ordination, the second one being 6.5 pages long. This is allocating equal honor to all the offices? I don't think so.
Maybe this is part of the reason it is difficult to get elders to serve.
Maybe it shouldn't be about giving something up. Maybe it should be about starting something, or adding something. Like doubling your prayer time. Or reading three chapters of scripture every day instead of just a devotional guide. Or telling at least one new person every week about Christ. Or inviting at least one new person every week to a worship service. Or memorizing a spiritual song or a passage of scripture. Or spending two weeks on a mission at home or abroad, or in soup kitchen, where you can also do some of the inviting and telling as above.
Who knows, maybe remembering Christ's sacrifice in this way will help us to start new habits!
I've sometimes wondered whether we are better listeners when we are tired, when we do not have the energy to respond or to try to "fix" things, so all we can do is listen and absorb. :0) So maybe there is a gift in being tired, sometimes.
I think Paul was talking about people who were abusing the Lord's supper by being selfish, starting to eat by themselves at these meals, and being gluttons and not caring about those who had less. The meal was becoming a place of privilege, of elitism, etc. There was a lack of love at the meal. That is what was meant by not discerning the body of Christ. They did not understand or live from the example of Christ, who gave his life for us. The amount or type of food was not the issue. It was the spirit in which it was done.
I also have a problem if the Lords supper seems to be "owned" by a particular church or denomination. Or used as a "rite of passage". It should transcend those human earthly conditions by bringing us to an intuitive understanding of the true and complete body of Christ, all those who belong to Christ.
The larger the group, the smaller the percentage of people will talk. For larger groups, make sure you have mikes available throughout the room and people to bring the mikes to those who might want to say something. Perhaps use chairs rather than pews... chairs are moveable. And make sure people can move around, so have lots of aisles. If possible even 50 or more people can be seated in a circle perhaps with double or triple rows of chairs.
But the belhar is not a restorative justice issue, it is a paper issue of trying to adopt or sign something. A legitimate restorative issue would be a question like, are certain neigborhoods going down the drain because of who is renting homes there, and how do we react? or do we care more about the unknown in the foreign missions than we do about those who are different than us but who live nearby? Do we spend more time ministering to those at our economic level than to those who are wealthier or poorer? Have you been hurt by (and now distrust) a certain group of people? Has your safe church policy created an attitude of mistrust, and what can we do about it? Those kinds of things.
Perhaps your main question is: would it be harder to find elders if they felt pressure to preach a sermon once or twice in their lifetime, or once or twice a year, depending on circumstances? The question then needs to be asked, why would they be so reluctant? Who taught them to be so reluctant? As elders, they are supposed to be apt to teach. They are supposed to be able to teach and lead their households, and the household of faith. That is a main qualification. If they are reluctant to preach, are we putting unrealistic expectations on them? Do they not then have the respect they should have? Are they putting their confidence in earthly powers rather than in the power of Christ and his spirit?
The example you give of some small churches which has difficulty finding elders because they are expected to lead a service occasionally, not even write a sermon. And you say most professing adults would not feel comfortable with it. Its hard to imagine such a church; perhaps it is a brand-new church plant?
We have a small 25 year old church with only four council members. At least seven men take turns leading services and reading sermons, and i'm quite sure more would if asked. Many others take turns leading singing, children's stories, etc.
Perhaps you are referring to a church where everyone is over seventy years old, and is afraid to read?
But leading a church service, when necessary, is like feeding your children, or your neighbor's children. If you are asked to do it, you cannot in good christian conscience turn away like the levite and the priest did when the beaten traveller was lying along the road. If you cannot do this how can you be an elder? If you refuse to do this, how can you be an elder, much less a serving fellow christian who is part of the body of Christ?
If the requirement to lead and teach (which is a form of preaching) or expectation is removed from the elders, and it is only then that they will serve, do they really have the qualifications necessary? I am referring to spiritual qualifications, not to academic qualifications.
Preaching or leading services or reading sermons is not a performance. It is a spiritual service.
How do they become "equipped"? They learn by doing. Just like new parents having their first baby. First, let them read some scripture. Maybe next time let them read a prayer. Next time, let them prepare their own prayer. Next time, read a sermon. Then encourage them to read again, perhaps lead a bible study even once. Maybe after that write some liturgy, or write a sermon with some help. I don't say they should be expected to write sermons every week, or even lead bible studies every week. And if they write a sermon, it should be read and cleared first by a preacher or elder or consistory. But they should understand what it is and what is involved, because otherwise how can they understand to lead, or to share the gospel with others?
I don't thinnk it should be a requirement to write a sermon, for a person to be an elder. But it should be actively encouraged. Presently, we discourage it. This is against the message of scripture, and against what Jesus and the apostles would encourage us to do. It also makes for spiritually lazy elders, and spiritually ignorant elders.
Sometimes their wives might help them. Other times a friend or fellow elder or former elder or a preacher. In the end, learn by doing. A long process? That depends on the will and the effort. You are right that it will take some time to counter the clergy-laity exclusivity that the institutional church has institutionalized. In spite of the reformation, human nature drags us back to worshipping human beings rather than God. Or we worship academic education, or ceremony. Or titles. Ask yourself if this is scriptural. If it is godly. If it is edifying.
And if even the elders are afraid to lead, to bring scripture to friendly christians, then why should we be surprised that so many non-elders do not share the gospel, so many children fall away, and so many neighbors do not hear the word of the Lord?
Elizabeth, I appreciate your comments. They express a common perspective held by many. The problem is that we often seem to be "explaining' away the language of the church order. We turn good intentions into rules and regulations rather than suggestions and advice. This displays a lack of respect for individual congregations, and for local councils.
Certainly there are many reasons for congregations working together. Although in reality there also appear many reasons for some congregations to cut ties with a larger body. We need to be aware of when the congregations can work together, and when they need and require their individual ability to carry out their responsibilities.
We have a conundrum in our language when we describe ministry shares. We don't want to use the term "suggested contribution", and yet, that is what it is, since some churches meet it, others do not, and others exceed it. We implicitly admit they are not taxes or membership dues, but sometimes fail to be polite or considerate or respectful of the local church's responsibility to decide how to allocate its resources to various ministries, including ministry shares.
Elders and deacons will participate in classis when items are not couched in incomprehensible language, when shop talk and the club atmosphere that many pastors engender in classis and synod is eliminated, and when pastors encourage elders to speak, rather than pastors trying to imitate lawyers in their admittedly sometimes humorous and witty repartee. Classis is not a forum for pastors to outdo one another in their procedural acumen, or verbal gymnastics.
Over protection of our churches leads to churches without leaders, and to sick dependency on organizational structures, rather than on the Lord. I am not aware of an eleventh commandment anywhere that commands us to protect churches from trouble. We should provide the opportunity to help one another. We should also realize that rules initially intended to help and protect one another have unintended consequences to the spiritual maturity of the congregations. Too many rules makes the congregations progressively less mature in their spiritual lives. Eventually too many just live by the man-made rules and forgo making any significant decisions on their own.
I am not saying that common goals or hymnals or missions or relief organization is a bad thing. But we are always looking to add rules, rather than remove them, and we have professionalized the calling of the preacher, too much. We have created class distinctions and occupational distinctions that do not serve the cause of Christ.
Am I wrong or is it really true that we could not have classis and synod without the local churches? In other words, it is at the local church level that the huge majority of activity and life happens. This is where the word is preached, where catechism is taught, where songs are sung, where prayers are done, where people worship, where money is gathered. This is where communion happens, and where baptism happens, and sunday school reaches the children, and where bible studies, and choir, and cadets, and gems. This is where the grass is cut, where toilets are cleaned, and cookies are served with coffee and juice, where bulletins are printed, and where potlucks and visiting occurs.
This is where real governance happens on a weekly and daily basis. Where elders decide who will preach next, who will do the nursing home and senior's lodge services, and which community events the church will participate in. Where the church decides what preacher to call, which deacons to install, the carpet in the hall, the ministry in the mall. Where they decide which properties to buy, which mortgage to sign, which contractor to hire, which preacher to resign.
So does the church order reflect this? Or is the church order not really a church order at all, but a denominational order, a denominational guide? If you looked at the church order, and divided it by topics, would these topics be an accurate reflection of what a church should be focussing its attention on. Or is it telling us something about the health of our denomination because of the focus of the document.
Again I say, find a way to reduce the document length by half, by consolidating, removing, reducing. You will be amazed how much healthier the whole denomination will become.
As far as baptism and weddings, these are separate issues. If a justice of the peace can perform a wedding, then it is obvious that the ability to preach is not required in order to perform a wedding. This is a separate issue from the issue of elder leadership. However, there is no legal requirement even in the church order to prevent an elder from giving a message or preaching at a wedding, is there? And in a cursory look at the church order, I did not even see a reference there to ministers conducting weddings in the tasks section, but I probably missed it?
Baptism should be understood well by every elder. It is a basic sacrament. It does not require a PHD or a degree to understand it or explain it. If an elder does not understand it, how did they become an elder? Is it made more sacred by preventing elders from administering baptism? Does scripture demand that elders be ipso facto prevented from administering baptism?
I understand we want to make sure that preaching, and baptism, and communion meals do not become misused or abused. At one time, we did not allow people from other denominations to participate in lord's supper (we "guarded" the table, which some reformed churches still do). Then we examined people briefly before the communion service. Today, it is mostly a matter of a warning from the pulpit that goes along with the invitation for born again christians to participate. It is unlikely that preaching or baptism or lord's supper will be abused simply because elders do it, no more than when pastors do it today, as long as there is reasonable supervision by church councils.
In general, you will get better visions from individual churches, than you will from Classis. It is because churches are where the rubber meets the road. Classis may have some benefit also as a vision, and for some common activities, but will often be limited by the general requirement for consensus or agreement. Visions imposed from on high are usually not nearly as effective as those which are owned by the congregations and people who will impliment them and develop the groundwork.
Just as synod gets distracted with Belhar and other esoteric activities, classis also might get distracted by non-productive activities. This is less likely at a church level, in my opinion.
Posted in: Like a Mighty Turtle...
So, I decided to look once more at the form for ordination of elders and deacons. What do I see? ambiguity of language. "We intend to ordain elders and deacons and install them...." Of course, "they received this task when Christ entrusted the apostles and their successors"... interestingly not presumably for specified terms.
The church order talks about equal honor for all offices, and then allocates 25 articles to "ministers" and only one lonely article to be shared between elders and deacons. Ministers don't need to be re-ordained when called to another church, but elders, even in the same church presumably need to be re-ordained over and over again? Even though they have not been deposed, or disciplined, etc. Then, is it equal in honor to allocate one combined form of ordination to two different offices, of elder and deacon, while the office of "minister" cannot even share a form with "evangelist" or ministerial associate??? In fact, there are two alternate forms for ministerial ordination, the second one being 6.5 pages long. This is allocating equal honor to all the offices? I don't think so.
Maybe this is part of the reason it is difficult to get elders to serve.
John Z
Posted in: Give It Up!
Maybe it shouldn't be about giving something up. Maybe it should be about starting something, or adding something. Like doubling your prayer time. Or reading three chapters of scripture every day instead of just a devotional guide. Or telling at least one new person every week about Christ. Or inviting at least one new person every week to a worship service. Or memorizing a spiritual song or a passage of scripture. Or spending two weeks on a mission at home or abroad, or in soup kitchen, where you can also do some of the inviting and telling as above.
Who knows, maybe remembering Christ's sacrifice in this way will help us to start new habits!
Posted in: Give Ear
I've sometimes wondered whether we are better listeners when we are tired, when we do not have the energy to respond or to try to "fix" things, so all we can do is listen and absorb. :0) So maybe there is a gift in being tired, sometimes.
Posted in: The Elder and Lord’s Supper
I think Paul was talking about people who were abusing the Lord's supper by being selfish, starting to eat by themselves at these meals, and being gluttons and not caring about those who had less. The meal was becoming a place of privilege, of elitism, etc. There was a lack of love at the meal. That is what was meant by not discerning the body of Christ. They did not understand or live from the example of Christ, who gave his life for us. The amount or type of food was not the issue. It was the spirit in which it was done.
I also have a problem if the Lords supper seems to be "owned" by a particular church or denomination. Or used as a "rite of passage". It should transcend those human earthly conditions by bringing us to an intuitive understanding of the true and complete body of Christ, all those who belong to Christ.
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
I'm not sure it is useful to define congregationalism, dutchoven. It
would be a bit of a diversion of the issue, a discussion of a word, rather
than an implimentation of an idea. For myself, I realize that
congregations are churches, and no individual congregation is the church
by itself. But then, neither is one single denomination. I prefer, and I
think our church order recognizes that the authority originates at the
congregational level, and resides in the consistory/council. I simply
maintain that more respect should be given to that knowledge. I know that
most classies do take the local churches seriously, but the church order
has written in its language certain things that do not respect that local
authority. The fact that a majority of churches may have agreed to do
this, does not make it right or healthy, nor does it then become
consistent with the general principle of local church authority.
Taking away this responsibility from the local church is harmful because
it seems to absolve the local church of responsibility in areas where it
should be responsible on its own initiative.
The priesthood of all believers is something you already know. I am not
contrasting what pastors or preachers do with the priesthood of all
believers in this case. I am contrasting what they do compared to what
the elders do. The enlarging of the responsibility of the elders, will
indeed improve the priesthood of all believers, since it demystifies the
roles and jobs of the preachers and pastors. Even the use of the term
laity hinders the understanding of these roles. Such distinctions are
worldly and not scriptural, as far as I know.
These become hierarchical distinctions modelled after worldly desires and
designs for power. They are not related to what Jesus said, "I come as
one who serves."
Jesus washed his disciples feet, to show what they should do. Jesus
expected his disciples to preach, to share, to do without, to serve. I'm
sure He expected his disciples to teach and to expect the same from those
they taught. But today, we have put enormous barriers in the way for
disciples to preach to others, to teach others; and these barriers are
identified and strengthened in the church order. The psychological
barriers of hierarchy between ministers, pastors, preachers, associates,
elders are such that these names are used for positions, rather than as
descriptions of what they do.
When is the last time you have heard of an elder baptizing someone? How
many times do you hear of an elder leading the Lord's supper? How many
times does an elder pronounce the benediction, or how often does an elder
feel comfortable in raising his hands for a blessing? Why is that?
...john..
Posted in: Restorative Practices at Classis
The larger the group, the smaller the percentage of people will talk. For larger groups, make sure you have mikes available throughout the room and people to bring the mikes to those who might want to say something. Perhaps use chairs rather than pews... chairs are moveable. And make sure people can move around, so have lots of aisles. If possible even 50 or more people can be seated in a circle perhaps with double or triple rows of chairs.
But the belhar is not a restorative justice issue, it is a paper issue of trying to adopt or sign something. A legitimate restorative issue would be a question like, are certain neigborhoods going down the drain because of who is renting homes there, and how do we react? or do we care more about the unknown in the foreign missions than we do about those who are different than us but who live nearby? Do we spend more time ministering to those at our economic level than to those who are wealthier or poorer? Have you been hurt by (and now distrust) a certain group of people? Has your safe church policy created an attitude of mistrust, and what can we do about it? Those kinds of things.
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
Perhaps your main question is: would it be harder to find elders if they felt pressure to preach a sermon once or twice in their lifetime, or once or twice a year, depending on circumstances? The question then needs to be asked, why would they be so reluctant? Who taught them to be so reluctant? As elders, they are supposed to be apt to teach. They are supposed to be able to teach and lead their households, and the household of faith. That is a main qualification. If they are reluctant to preach, are we putting unrealistic expectations on them? Do they not then have the respect they should have? Are they putting their confidence in earthly powers rather than in the power of Christ and his spirit?
The example you give of some small churches which has difficulty finding elders because they are expected to lead a service occasionally, not even write a sermon. And you say most professing adults would not feel comfortable with it. Its hard to imagine such a church; perhaps it is a brand-new church plant?
We have a small 25 year old church with only four council members. At least seven men take turns leading services and reading sermons, and i'm quite sure more would if asked. Many others take turns leading singing, children's stories, etc.
Perhaps you are referring to a church where everyone is over seventy years old, and is afraid to read?
But leading a church service, when necessary, is like feeding your children, or your neighbor's children. If you are asked to do it, you cannot in good christian conscience turn away like the levite and the priest did when the beaten traveller was lying along the road. If you cannot do this how can you be an elder? If you refuse to do this, how can you be an elder, much less a serving fellow christian who is part of the body of Christ?
If the requirement to lead and teach (which is a form of preaching) or expectation is removed from the elders, and it is only then that they will serve, do they really have the qualifications necessary? I am referring to spiritual qualifications, not to academic qualifications.
Preaching or leading services or reading sermons is not a performance. It is a spiritual service.
How do they become "equipped"? They learn by doing. Just like new parents having their first baby. First, let them read some scripture. Maybe next time let them read a prayer. Next time, let them prepare their own prayer. Next time, read a sermon. Then encourage them to read again, perhaps lead a bible study even once. Maybe after that write some liturgy, or write a sermon with some help. I don't say they should be expected to write sermons every week, or even lead bible studies every week. And if they write a sermon, it should be read and cleared first by a preacher or elder or consistory. But they should understand what it is and what is involved, because otherwise how can they understand to lead, or to share the gospel with others?
I don't thinnk it should be a requirement to write a sermon, for a person to be an elder. But it should be actively encouraged. Presently, we discourage it. This is against the message of scripture, and against what Jesus and the apostles would encourage us to do. It also makes for spiritually lazy elders, and spiritually ignorant elders.
Sometimes their wives might help them. Other times a friend or fellow elder or former elder or a preacher. In the end, learn by doing. A long process? That depends on the will and the effort. You are right that it will take some time to counter the clergy-laity exclusivity that the institutional church has institutionalized. In spite of the reformation, human nature drags us back to worshipping human beings rather than God. Or we worship academic education, or ceremony. Or titles. Ask yourself if this is scriptural. If it is godly. If it is edifying.
And if even the elders are afraid to lead, to bring scripture to friendly christians, then why should we be surprised that so many non-elders do not share the gospel, so many children fall away, and so many neighbors do not hear the word of the Lord?
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
Elizabeth, I appreciate your comments. They express a common perspective held by many. The problem is that we often seem to be "explaining' away the language of the church order. We turn good intentions into rules and regulations rather than suggestions and advice. This displays a lack of respect for individual congregations, and for local councils.
Certainly there are many reasons for congregations working together. Although in reality there also appear many reasons for some congregations to cut ties with a larger body. We need to be aware of when the congregations can work together, and when they need and require their individual ability to carry out their responsibilities.
We have a conundrum in our language when we describe ministry shares. We don't want to use the term "suggested contribution", and yet, that is what it is, since some churches meet it, others do not, and others exceed it. We implicitly admit they are not taxes or membership dues, but sometimes fail to be polite or considerate or respectful of the local church's responsibility to decide how to allocate its resources to various ministries, including ministry shares.
Elders and deacons will participate in classis when items are not couched in incomprehensible language, when shop talk and the club atmosphere that many pastors engender in classis and synod is eliminated, and when pastors encourage elders to speak, rather than pastors trying to imitate lawyers in their admittedly sometimes humorous and witty repartee. Classis is not a forum for pastors to outdo one another in their procedural acumen, or verbal gymnastics.
Over protection of our churches leads to churches without leaders, and to sick dependency on organizational structures, rather than on the Lord. I am not aware of an eleventh commandment anywhere that commands us to protect churches from trouble. We should provide the opportunity to help one another. We should also realize that rules initially intended to help and protect one another have unintended consequences to the spiritual maturity of the congregations. Too many rules makes the congregations progressively less mature in their spiritual lives. Eventually too many just live by the man-made rules and forgo making any significant decisions on their own.
I am not saying that common goals or hymnals or missions or relief organization is a bad thing. But we are always looking to add rules, rather than remove them, and we have professionalized the calling of the preacher, too much. We have created class distinctions and occupational distinctions that do not serve the cause of Christ.
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
Am I wrong or is it really true that we could not have classis and synod without the local churches? In other words, it is at the local church level that the huge majority of activity and life happens. This is where the word is preached, where catechism is taught, where songs are sung, where prayers are done, where people worship, where money is gathered. This is where communion happens, and where baptism happens, and sunday school reaches the children, and where bible studies, and choir, and cadets, and gems. This is where the grass is cut, where toilets are cleaned, and cookies are served with coffee and juice, where bulletins are printed, and where potlucks and visiting occurs.
This is where real governance happens on a weekly and daily basis. Where elders decide who will preach next, who will do the nursing home and senior's lodge services, and which community events the church will participate in. Where the church decides what preacher to call, which deacons to install, the carpet in the hall, the ministry in the mall. Where they decide which properties to buy, which mortgage to sign, which contractor to hire, which preacher to resign.
So does the church order reflect this? Or is the church order not really a church order at all, but a denominational order, a denominational guide? If you looked at the church order, and divided it by topics, would these topics be an accurate reflection of what a church should be focussing its attention on. Or is it telling us something about the health of our denomination because of the focus of the document.
Again I say, find a way to reduce the document length by half, by consolidating, removing, reducing. You will be amazed how much healthier the whole denomination will become.
Just thinking.
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
As far as baptism and weddings, these are separate issues. If a justice of the peace can perform a wedding, then it is obvious that the ability to preach is not required in order to perform a wedding. This is a separate issue from the issue of elder leadership. However, there is no legal requirement even in the church order to prevent an elder from giving a message or preaching at a wedding, is there? And in a cursory look at the church order, I did not even see a reference there to ministers conducting weddings in the tasks section, but I probably missed it?
Baptism should be understood well by every elder. It is a basic sacrament. It does not require a PHD or a degree to understand it or explain it. If an elder does not understand it, how did they become an elder? Is it made more sacred by preventing elders from administering baptism? Does scripture demand that elders be ipso facto prevented from administering baptism?
I understand we want to make sure that preaching, and baptism, and communion meals do not become misused or abused. At one time, we did not allow people from other denominations to participate in lord's supper (we "guarded" the table, which some reformed churches still do). Then we examined people briefly before the communion service. Today, it is mostly a matter of a warning from the pulpit that goes along with the invitation for born again christians to participate. It is unlikely that preaching or baptism or lord's supper will be abused simply because elders do it, no more than when pastors do it today, as long as there is reasonable supervision by church councils.
Food for thought.
Posted in: Classis and Church Order
In general, you will get better visions from individual churches, than you will from Classis. It is because churches are where the rubber meets the road. Classis may have some benefit also as a vision, and for some common activities, but will often be limited by the general requirement for consensus or agreement. Visions imposed from on high are usually not nearly as effective as those which are owned by the congregations and people who will impliment them and develop the groundwork.
Just as synod gets distracted with Belhar and other esoteric activities, classis also might get distracted by non-productive activities. This is less likely at a church level, in my opinion.
Posted in: What's Normal
Try to use the opposites, antonyms in the same way? Are abnormal and extraordinary also synonyms? or do they carry different connotations?