Elder Position Paper - Lesson 6

I. Eight Personal Qualities of Church Leaders

In this lesson, we will look at eight personal qualities. The first quality is, hands down, the most important: church leaders must be above reproach, or one translation says ‘blameless.’ In 1 Timothy 3:2, it’s about deacons, but it says they must be “worthy of respect.”

Your leadership must be above reproach. This does not mean perfect. You can’t hold your leadership to a level that is above what they’re ever going to hit. No one’s ever going to be perfect except Jesus. You can’t insist that they are perfect, but it means they need to be blameless. In other words, there can’t be any major ongoing thing in their lives, public or private, that, if known or if seen, would call into question the cause of Christ and hurt the functioning and the mission of the church. So, blameless, worthy of respect, but not perfect. 

From a little time I had in the Chinese church, this is a real interesting problem because a lot of the leaders don’t want to be called elders because their idea of blameless is being perfect. They recognize they aren’t perfect, so they have other names for the leaders in the church. That’s probably more a function of Chinese culture, at least Chinese church culture, than anything else. But that’s not what’s going on. I remember when I was there teaching and I tried to make this point. It was really difficult for them to hear.

They must be blameless, worthy of respect, above reproach, no major ongoing issues in their life that would affect the cause of Christ, but not perfect. You can make mistakes, that’s what you apologize for. But they have to be above reproach. 

Second, the elder has to be self-controlled. Paul has different words he uses to describe this basic concept. They can’t be quick-tempered, they “must be sober-minded, self-controlled…not violent, but gentle,” disciplined (1 Timothy 3:2-3). They have to be mature enough in their character to be self-controlled.

One way to say that is, I think, to say there’s a difference between responding and reacting. If an issue comes up in the church or there’s a problem or there’s a conflict or some kind of confrontation, if the person reacts to it, just flies off the handle, that’s an indication that they’re not self-controlled. But rather, if they respond to it in the right way at the right time, that’s probably an indication of being self-controlled. So not reactionary, but dealing with the issues, but in a controlled manner. 

Number three is that they have to have a good reputation. First Timothy 3:2 says, ’respectable.’ In verse seven, “Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders….” That’s an important point so that they “may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”

So, it’s really important that especially outsiders look at the leadership of your church and say, “He’s a good guy, he has a good reputation.” I remember a story that happened where there was a pastor whose son was in soccer and the dad was too aggressive, screaming and yelling and shouting at the refs, berating the refs, all this kind of stuff that we as Americans sometimes do. There were other people there watching this guy react. They were thinking he’s out of control. That Sunday, one of those people who had been in the stands walked into church, and she was in the back of the church. (This is a true story.) She walked into the back of the church and looked up and saw the pastor. She asked someone standing, “Who’s that?” The person said, probably, “Well, he’s our pastor.” The person who had seen the pastor at soccer said, “Hmm,” then turned around the left. Why? Because he had shown that he didn’t have a good reputation. 

I was somewhat guilty of this myself. I love basketball and my son worked really hard, and every once in a while, you’d have refs that just weren’t very good refs. I got called in on it and I said to myself, “Bill, you’re yelling too much at the refs. Well, they’re bad refs. Bill, you can’t do this.”

I said, “You know, you’re right. What can I do so I don’t get mad at the refs?” I was a photographer by training, so I said, “Tell you what, I’ll do all the video stuff. I’ll be down on the floor, and I know that as a photographer, I can’t say anything.” I went down there and shot videos for the rest of the year. 

You have to be careful on how you conduct yourself in public because people are watching. Then when they come to your church or they enter into a conversation, they realize that you’re a Christian and you’re a little or a lot out of control. It does affect the cause of Christ. So, they need to have a good reputation.

The fourth category is a very interesting one. It’s drinking. The admonition that the false teachers were drunkards and the repeated admonition that elders have to be careful with drinks shows this is one of the real problems in the Ephesian church.

In 1 Timothy 3:3, the elder can’t be a drunkard. In Titus 1:7, he must not be a drunkard. One translation has “not addicted to much wine.” The interesting thing is the word that’s translated here is a very strong word. We’re not talking about social drinking. We’re talking about—I think it’s in Proverbs—we’re talking about these people were “warriors of drink.” That’s the problem. If you’re a warrior of drink, you’re not eligible. 

I was checking the commentary, Pastoral Epistles, and Kelly, a commentator I quoted translates this “a slave to drink.” I wrote the word as a compound of ‘para’ meaning “alongside of” and ‘oinos,’ which means ‘wine.’ “The picture is of a person who spends too much time sitting with their wine.” I think that’s a helpful way to look at this.

Now, there’s a long history in the American church. Based on tradition, there can be very strong opinions about this. Some people say drink is always of the devil and you can never do it. My problem with that is God created the fermentation process. He created grapes and you dare not call what God created to be evil.

I was teaching down in South Africa. There were about one hundred people in a class, and we were in a break. I was coming up to 1 Timothy 4 that talks about some of these issues, and a participant came and shook his finger in my face and said, “Don’t you dare say wine is good.” Well, he had been a missionary in the townships where alcohol is a real problem. I said, “The Bible is pretty clear that wine is for the downtrodden and is to give a festive heart,” or something like that in Proverbs.

I know there’s a lot of abuse of wine. There’s a lot of abuse of overeating. There’s a lot of abuse of too much red meat. I mean, there are all kinds. You can take good things and make bad things out of them. But I was not about to call something God made, inherently evil and neither should you. On the other hand, there’s a long history of alcohol. Excessive alcohol consumption has caused unbelievable problems. 

You’ll need to decide as a church where you want to come out in this. Here’s an interesting question you might ask the elders: “For those of you who drink socially, would you be willing to not drink for a month? What about the month of January? If you drink socially, you probably drank a little more over Christmas. Here’s January. Are you willing to not drink?” Because if a person is unwilling to not drink, there might be a problem there. Anyway, they can’t be a drunkard, and you must find the balance between—you can’t call something God made evil, but you understand the abuse of anything that God created can be bad. That’ll probably stir up some discussions in your elder group.

Number five, an elder has to pursue good—you know, a lover of good, upright and holy. See, it’s not enough to just not do bad things. An elder has to actively pursue good things. The main example is the Philippians 4 test: “Whatever’s good, whatever’s lovely, whatever’s honorable, then think on these things.”

Well, look at the movies you go to, look at what you watch on television, look at the books you read, look at the nature of your conversations with people. Are you focused on the Philippians 4 test and actively pursuing good? It’s not enough to not do evil. Well, you don’t want to do evil, but that’s not enough. You have to actively pursue good. Are you actively pursuing good? 

Number six is finances. This is another big issue in the church. Whether you believe in tithing or cheerful giving, like you have in 2 Corinthians, that the church’s giving is woefully inadequate to do the work that the church has been called to do. Part of it is because people love money. One of the most ignored verses in the Bible is, “Wherever your treasures are, that’s where your heart is” (Matthew 6:21). People say, “Oh no, not me. I can give two percent of my income, but I don’t love money. My treasure’s not here.” Well, yeah, I mean, if you only give two percent of your money to the work of the Lord, your heart’s not right. It’s just not right. 

Finances are an interesting indicator. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this, but sometimes I think a church should ask for a prospective elder’s check book (if you still use a check book). Where’s he spending his money? Does he love money? Is his treasure in his money? Or as Randy Alcorn says, “Is he sending his money on ahead by giving it away?” I think this is such an important issue that you may want to look at personal and business finances.

Why do you do the job you do? “Because I want to make a lot of money.” Hmm, is that person a lover of money? There’s nothing wrong with making money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a lot of money. Christian ministries wouldn’t exist without major donors, for the most part. But where is your heart in all of this? How do you want to spend the money in the church? Do you love the money or are you willing to use the money to advance God’s purposes? That’s what Randy Alcorn says, isn’t it? “You send your money on ahead by using the money that you’ve been put in charge of because you’re a steward to advance God’s purposes.”

Number seven is humility. He must not be arrogant. Now, how do you determine if a person is humble? It’s really hard, isn’t it? One of the pastors—he was joking around with my son—said, “Hey, Tyler, how are you doing on the humble thing?” Tyler goes, “Nailed it!” No, he was joking. But how do you measure humility? Well, maybe the only way to really measure humility is in conflict. When there’s conflict, when people start having different opinions and strongly held different opinions, how do you respond in the midst of conflict, in the midst of pressure? That may be about the only way to just watch a person’s humility. Is he willing to listen? Is he willing to admit that maybe he’s wrong? Is he willing to change his mind? See, these are all aspects of what a humble spirit looks like. But it’s hard, you can’t measure, you can’t quantify it. But when you see a person who’s truly humble, I think you tend to know it. 

Number eight is, in terms of personal qualities, spiritual maturity. First Timothy 3:6, “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

How do you measure spiritual maturity? One required thing is to see a person over a long period of time. That’s why you may want to put in a time requirement. Maybe a person shouldn’t become an elder in church until they’ve been a member of your church for five years, so you’ve had enough time to watch them and see their spiritual maturity. 

I know of people that have sat in the church and faithfully listened. They have faithfully given for 30 years and they’re spiritual midgets. It’s like, why can you not understand even the basics of what the Bible says? I’ve known other people that have been Christians for a much shorter time that have grown exponentially and shown an unusual degree of spiritual maturity at a relatively young age.

This is one of those things where you can’t just assume because the person has been in church, has given all these kinds of things, that they’re spiritually mature. I knew a pastor that had an expression: “Some people like to sit, soak, and sour.” They like to sit in the pew or the chair, and they just soak up the teaching, but they don’t do anything with it. They don’t grow and they just sour. Well, unfortunately there are lots of people like that. 

On this whole thing of spiritual maturity, you must be really careful. How will you know these character traits? One way is to put them into a tough situation, put them in a situation of conflict, throw them in where things are difficult, give them a little power and see how they handle it. That’s the essence of seven-minute management. You start by giving someone a little bit of authority, a little bit of power. Then you watch what they do. If you like what you see, then you give a little more authority, you give them a little more power. But I do think that the seven-minute manager approach is a very good approach to watching how people will perform.

I have a good friend who is a pastor in Southern California. He has an amazing system that if you want to be a leader, you just can’t be a leader. You have to want to be in a small group. The small group leader is watching you, and by invitation only. If he thinks you’re doing a good job, you’re invited up to be an assistant small group leader. If you continue to do a good job in that context, the pastor over small groups invites you up to be a leader of your own small group. There’s a 200-page book they read that talks about theology and the history of the church. Then only if they have proven themselves are they invited up to leadership. If you’re in children’s ministry, you’ve gone through this process. 

Well, what is it? It’s a seven-minute manager concept. Give them a little authority, give them a little power, watch what they do and then invite them up if you think that they qualify. So, when you deal with these character issues, I think you have to do something like that. I know some people come into your church and they’ll appear to be shining examples of God-like maturity, I don’t know, and they could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So please take your time and watch their character and see what the character really is. 

II. Reflections & Evaluation

In your reflection, there are lots of things to reflect on. Where’s your dividing line between being above reproach and being perfect? Where are you going to draw that line? In your elder application process, you ask for recommendations from people outside the church. It would be an interesting thing to do. Have you seen the potential elder apply the Philippians 4 tests in any context? All right, are they trying to do good? If you ask them to stop drinking for a month, would they be willing to do it? Have you seen this person under stress in situations of conflict? How do they respond? Do they respond with arrogance and demanding and reaction? Or do they get reflective and do they respond in an appropriate way? Please be careful on the issue of spiritual maturity. We can really hide who we are as people. We can hide it from other people. We can hide it from ourselves. We can have a really good opinion of ourselves. But then when push comes to shove, suddenly what the Bible says doesn’t matter, and only what I think matters.

I knew a pastor that was in the process of being kicked out of a church. The people that were complaining about the pastor were asked if they have gone directly to the pastor. This one elder said, “Well, no, we’re doing it for him.” In other words, Matthew 18 is completely unapplicable. What you think is more important than what Jesus thinks. All right? What a tremendous lack of spiritual maturity to think you can bypass the clear unambiguous teachings of Jesus where you take over the role and you do what you think is best.

We were just talking to another pastor who was in the process of getting fired because there were certain perceptions about his wife. Perceptions? I asked, “Well, did they have—the people who have these perceptions of your wife—were they ever brought to you? No?” Okay, so the process was completely and totally unbiblical. When it comes to gossip and slander, if you skip the first step, then you’ll fail on all the other steps. See, a spiritually mature person would say, “We’re not concerned about perceptions. We’re concerned about this person getting with that person and talking face to face.”

You never know. Amazing things can happen. My father was a dean in a secular university. He had two department heads that just hated each other. They were always bickering and fighting. Dad finally had his fill of it. He called them both into his office and said, “You will stay here until you have talked face to face and have talked through your issues. If you come out not having done it, you’re fired.”

Guess what? They became best friends. Why? Because Dad forced them to meet face to face and to deal truthfully with certain issues. I don’t know any of the specifics, but I thought it was a great way to do things. So, put people in the crucible, put them face to face, see what happens. Anyway, lots of things you can reflect on.