Andrew Seely wrote a post with some thoughts about what it means to be an elder in the PCUSA. He thought it would be interesting to see what other Presbyterians thought.
You can also get to the article here.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
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2 comments:
I read that post yesterday and found it confusing. I would comment there but I can't figure out how to do that.
It sounds like Andy wants elders to do more, but in our church the elders do a lot more than what he lists -- they do pretty much what the Book of Order suggests they do. And it sounds like he wants everyone else in the congregation involved in ministry, which in my experience most of them are. We hear a lot in our church about discernment of gifts and working to complement each other's and it seems to happen with reasonable frequency. I would be more specific, but I'm not sure what the OP is getting at.
We have changed our congregation's paradigm and it seems to be working in that we have more participation, fewer burned out elders, and a healthier church. (The change was introduced in late 2003 and it's taken this long to get things clarified/working.)
No longer are elders "allowed" to run one of the ministries. We now have a large staff of paid & volunteer ministry coordinators who run things while the elders spend their meetings looking at the big picture and reporting on contacts with "their members" (our congregation is divided into shepherding groups). Elder/Deacon teams connect with members for spiritual and pastoral care.
The key term -- which is also a Biblical model -- is equipping. If you want to hear more, send me an email. I can even send you a flow chart. It's pretty cool.
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