Elder Position Paper - Lesson 5

I. Overview of Leadership Tasks

In this lesson, we’ll look at the tasks of leadership. I said earlier that the pastorals don’t actually give a specific list of—an elder has to do A, B, C, kind of thing. But as you look at the different verses on leadership, you can get a general feel for the kind of things a leader has to do. Let’s look at some of those. There are six of them. 

II. Tasks of Church Leaders

First of all, they have to give oversight. As you would expect, that’s what an overseer does. In Titus 1:7, an overseer is God’s steward. So, it’s oversight reporting to God. In 1 Thessalonians 5:12, we are “to respect those who…are over you in the Lord” (ESV). In Hebrews 13:17, your leaders are “keeping watch over your souls.” In Ephesians 4:11, he gave some pastors or shepherds. In other words, there is a leadership structure for the church, and the basic task is they provide oversight, especially spiritual oversight over the church. But the second thing that they have to do is my least favorite thing to do, and that is to deal with conflict.

We have a really good class on conflict that Dr. Chuck Cocker did for us called, Response to Conflict. If conflict is one of those things you struggle with, if you don’t see it as a positive—I remember the person with the conflict, he was positive. I went, “What’s wrong with you?” He said, “Well, I don’t like conflict. I’m a people pleaser.” But anyway, go to that class and spend it as an elder board. Or maybe even when you’re looking at new elders coming in, ask how they are with conflict. “Are you able to handle it effectively?” 

When I was teaching at Gordon-Conwell, on Thursdays, I think it was, I’d go down to the university and play basketball with some of the students. There was another pastor that always joined us. Also, there was a very well-known scholar in this man’s church. I thought it must be kind of intimidating to preach with him in there. So, I asked the pastor, “What do you spend most of your time doing?” I expected to hear sermon prep because of this person in the audience. He replied, “Seventy percent of my time, conflict resolution.” Seventy percent of his time in conflict resolution! Dealing with conflict—it is absolutely essential for a leader to know how to do it. That’s why we have a class in it. But let me say a few things about conflict.

First of all, “We ask you brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thessalonians 5:12). So, part of the role of a leader is to admonish people. That’s certainly going to involve conflict.

In 1 Timothy 3:3, Paul writes that an elder cannot be quarrelsome. They were dealing with the issue in the church, but they were creating unnecessary quarrels. Then here you must have the Matthew 5:23-24 passage. And this is basically the passage that says that—let me put it this way: in Kent Hughes’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount it says, “If you know that your brother has something against you, leave your offering at the temple, go be reconciled, and then come back and offer together.” Now, what you have to remember is that the only place you could offer something was in Jerusalem. Jesus was speaking up in Capernaum, traditionally, the site of the Sermon on the Mount. So, you’re supposed to take a three-day walk from the temple, go up, be reconciled to the person, come back, and worship together. Wow!

The other verse is 1 Timothy 18 [recte Matthew 18:15], and most of us know this: “If your brother sins…” we know it. I don’t know how many people follow it, frankly. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” If we would just do that, and if leaders would just do that, I think half the problems in the church would go away. One-on-one, direct. That’s the first thing you do. You don’t go to the elders. That’s second, maybe. You don’t gossip and slander. That’s never okay. You go to the person face-to-face.

Robin, my wife, and I just went through a very frustrating, difficult time with a young couple where—I can’t be too specific here—but the elders were saying there is a perception that the wife is doing something wrong, so we’re going to do church discipline. 

I said, “Well, you can’t—’perception’? Who cares? I mean, at one level. Who are the people?” 

They said, “Well, we can’t tell you.”

I asked, “Why not?” 

They said, “Well, you know, we’re doing the work for them.” 

I said, “No, you’re not. You’re messing it up.”

One-on-one, direct, face-to-face. If churches would just do that, so many problems would go away! But we don’t do it. We rarely do it. 

But anyway, if he does listen “you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:15-16), an Old Testament law.

In other words, if you’re having a deal with conflict, you go to the person that is maybe talking about you or slandering you or gossiping about you or whatever. You talk to him face-to-face. If that doesn’t work, you take a second person, perhaps an elder, but at least a second person. If he, the sitting person, refuses to listen to you, tell it to the church.

Now, you better have a church discipline statement in your bylaws. Otherwise, if you tell it to the church, you’re going to get sued. So, make sure you’ve got a church discipline statement that members of the church, at least, have agreed to. “…if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:17). Wow! If we actually responded to gossip and slander biblically, that’s the church I would like to go to. I really would like to go to that church. 

So sometimes the conflict will be relational, sometimes it’ll be theological—we’ll get to that in a second. There are lots of different ways that conflict arises, but you have to handle it biblically, because if you don’t do the first thing, nothing that you do is going to work. Okay? It just doesn’t work. The only way to solve conflict is face-to-face. That’s why we really recommend taking the class that we have on Response to Conflict. It’s a great class, and it’ll be life-changing perhaps for some of you.

Number two, the task is you have to deal with conflict. Number three, leaders have to lead by example. In Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” See, leaders are examples. So, this is why I said earlier that the requirements for leadership are higher than they are for regular people, because people have to be able to imitate you. I think you have to be able to take your son or daughter and say, “That’s what a godly man looks like. Look at our elders (or look at that elder). That’s what a godly person looks like.” They’re going to be leading by example.

In 1 Peter 5:1–3, “So I exhort the elders among you…shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under…” We read this earlier, “not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.” You lead by example. You don’t lead by edict, unless something’s really bad and you have to. But you lead by example. What that means—that leads into point four—you have to be involved with people. The leadership has to be involved with people.

1 Corinthians 12:28, “God has appointed in the church…gifts of helping, [and] administering…” Those don’t happen if you’re not involved in the lives of the people. Again, I’m thinking of elders that are recluses, that are off, who are exerting power, but nobody knows them. You wouldn’t listen to them anyway, perhaps. But you have to be involved in people’s lives. You have to know your people, and you have to be a part of their lives.

Number five is hospitality. First Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8 both say an elder has to be hospitable. There’s nothing like table fellowship. I know some people may be in a studio apartment, so they have to go out to eat or what be the case. But hospitality, especially in Jesus’s or Paul’s culture, was really important. There’s nothing like breaking bread together to build relationships. I love how the NLT translates this: “He must enjoy having guests in his home…” (Titus 1:8). 

When was the last time you had someone over to your house—someone other than your inner circle? I remember when I was going to school in Scotland, I was the only unmarried postgraduate student. It was lonely, I’ll guarantee it. But the coordinators, they owned the—I think it was the Ford dealership for Northern Scotland. They were in the church. Whenever she started cooking on Sunday, she put in a big pot roast or something that could feed an army. Then when they went to church, they’d look for people they didn’t know. They usually picked me because they knew I lived in the dorm, but they would look for other people as well. They would say, “Hey, we have extra food. There’s an extra place at the table. Come on over. Let’s get to know you.” My goodness, was that good just for my soul!

I remember a sermon I preached on the Christian crockpot. Just throw some extra potatoes in the crockpot. I love crockpot—you may not—throw a little more meat, a little more potatoes and carrots, a little more mushroom soup. Have enough food to feed more than just yourself. Find someone at church that looks alone or that you don’t know. Invite them over. That’s just being hospitable.

Now we get to the really hard one in terms of tasks. Task number six is to be able to teach. This is actually the phrase that the Lord used to get me to start creating Biblical Training. An elder has to be able to teach. Well, where are they going to get trained to teach? They’re not going to sell their house and move to a faraway land and go to seminary and go, on average, $60,000 in debt. That’s just not going to happen for most people.

They have to be able to teach, which means they have to know the material. That’s why we have Biblical Training. First Timothy 3:2 says an elder must be able to teach. But the main verse is Titus 1:9, The elder “must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught” (ESV). There’s a commitment to the truth of Scripture, the kind of commitment that says, “I believe this no matter what.” They “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that [they] may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine.” They know what sound doctrine is. They know what healthy doctrine is. They know what doctrine gives life to your soul. The word ‘sound’ also means healthy. I prefer the translation, ‘healthy.’ But I lost the vote. Anyway, sound doctrine, healthy doctrine, and also to “rebuke those who contradict it.” Titus 1:9 is the main verse.

You also have Hebrews 13:7, though: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.” See, it wasn’t just Paul or Apollos or whoever wrote the book of Hebrews. It was their leaders. The leaders knew the truth, and they were able to explain the truth to their people. All right, just all kinds.

You’re just going to have to make a decision in your church as to what you’re going to require. But let me cover some of the important questions you’re going to have to deal with. First of all, is it ‘able’ to teach or ‘apt’ to teach? It’s a pretty important difference between the two. ‘Able’ to teach means you know the material and you have basic teaching skills and you can teach. ‘Apt’ to teach, the way I’ve heard it explained to me, is that they have the ability, but they don’t necessarily have to be teaching. Now, I understand why some people want to go with ‘apt’ because there are people that are able to teach, but now is not the right time. There’s validity in that. You know, you have young kids at home. You just, you can’t do it. You’re sick. You’re in financial straits. You’ve lost your job. You’re so involved in other aspects of ministry that while you’re able to teach, it doesn’t mean that you have to be teaching all the time. If you do that, you’ll burn out your leadership. 

But I think the word means ‘able’ to teach. Remember, the early church was all house churches, probably no more than 20 per house church. Why would you have someone, one among 20, who was able to teach but not teaching? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. So, I think they’re talking about these are the people that have the ability to teach. That means they know the material, and they have basic teaching skills. 

Now, sometimes it’s easier to define what something isn’t rather than what it is. This doesn’t mean that your elder has to be able to stand up in front of church and preach. That’s not what the text says. It’s not what the text means. I mean, if you have elders that can preach, that’s great. That’s a great way for people to get to know their leadership. But some people are terrified of public speaking. Some people just can’t do it, I understand that. Some people really can’t even teach a large class. My Sunday school class in Boston was 150 people. It would have been a lot to ask an elder to teach 150 people. But he has to be able to teach. And you need to set up what the parameters are. A small group of 10 people? Absolutely. Teaching one-on-one in a mentoring situation? Absolutely.

I would not want an elder in my church that did not know how to sit down with someone and have them explain the gospel or be able to answer the theological questions. I wouldn’t want an elder that was incapable of leading a small group. They’re not able to teach in that case. Neither apt nor able. So that’s one consideration. I think, too, that when you’re talking about ‘able’ to teach, it needs to be reflected in their life. The truths of the Bible are lived out through their lives. Someone that really knows the truth and can clarify it, can enunciate it, can describe it, it’s going to be affecting their life. You want to look at their life and ask, “Does he understand biblical principles? Is he able to communicate it?” This doesn’t mean that elders have to be formally trained.

One of the reasons for Biblical Training is that you can get any level of training you want in this website, anywhere from new believers all the way up to advanced seminary level classes. So, you don’t have to go off and be formally trained. But you have to be trained enough to see error when it creeps into your church, and it will creep into your church. There’s no question about that.

The minimum that my elders set, is they had to be able to explain every word of the statement of faith. The statement of faith that’s available in Biblical Training is my personal statement of faith. It’s basically what we had in church. It’s what governs our speakers on our website. Every word in there is important, and there’s a version of it that’s just the statement of faith. There’s another one with all the footnoted verses, so you can see where the statements come from.

Some people’s statements of faith are really complex. Some are so simple that almost a Buddhist could sign it. So, you’ve got to have the right statement of faith. But an elder has to be able to explain the statement of faith and what it says. I would also say an elder would have to be able to explain the way of salvation. I’ve been annoying people for a long time now for lots of different reasons. But one is I keep asking people, “What’s the minimum it takes to get into heaven?” Boy, people don’t like that question. I said:

You’re at a bus stop. You see the bus is coming. You’ve got two minutes till the bus is there. A 17-year-old co-ed—you’re in a university—a 17-year-old co-ed says, “You’re one of those divinity guys, aren’t you?” 

You say, “Yes.”

She says, “Well, what is a Christian?” 

That happened to me, and I did not have a two-minute answer. It was frankly terrifying. I was a PhD student, and I couldn’t answer that question. She got on the bus and left. I never saw her again. I went back to my dorm and spent the rest of the day coming up with a two-minute answer to that question. 

What does it take to enter into a relationship with Jesus, to live in relationship with Jesus now, and to live in relationship with Jesus forever in heaven? You need to be able to do that. 

I’ve kind of switched the question lately, and I’ve been asking people, “What is a Christian?” I need a definition of a Christian that a child can understand, that someone with no exposure to the church can understand. Also, it has to apply both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, because certainly Old Testament saints were saved. So how do you define that? 

I am shocked at how many people can’t answer that question. With some fear and trepidation, I went to my kids and I asked them, and all three of them had great answers. I went, okay, good! I’m okay there. But most people were not able to answer that question.

Your elder needs to be able to answer that question. What is a Christian? What does it take to live in a relationship with God for now and forever? I would say that’s the absolute minimum for the requirement to be an apt teacher. 

But also, they have to be able to refute error. This is where the Titus 1:9 passage comes in. If they hear something that’s contrary to the statement of faith, that’s contrary to the Bible, they have to hear it. Sometimes I think this is not only for Christian teaching, but also stuff that’s out there in the world. 

I saw a survey the other day taken by self-professing evangelical Christians. They let the people say whether they wanted to go through the interview or not. It was a series of questions, and the last one was, “Was Jesus just a good man or was he God?” Do you know how many self-professing evangelical Christians answered, “No, he was just a good man, he wasn’t God”? Sixty percent. What is being taught in our youth programs? What is being taught from the pulpit if 60% of self-professing evangelical Christians aren’t Christian? Because if you cannot confess with the mouth that Jesus is Lord, meaning Yahweh God, you’re not a Christian. Sixty percent said they thought he was a really good person. Elders have to be sensitive to this kind of thing and know how to deal with it. 

I remember in our church, we had three different people come in. I don’t think they were doing it together, but they all held the same heresy. One was a nice guy to talk to and kind of active with children’s ministry. Another one was active in high school ministry. He and my son became very good friends. They used to go work out at the gym together. Another one was a very good Sunday school teacher that if I had a cancellation, this guy could always fill in. 

But as I got to know them, they all believed the same heresy, and I don’t need to tell you what it was, but it was obviously a heresy. What do you do? Well, I stopped the current sequence of sermons I was preaching, and I preached a three-part sermon series on Jude about the faith delivered once for all to the saints and how you have to fight for it. I walked through over three weeks, and I just discovered—it’s only one chapter long—it wasn’t hard to do. Then I said, “Here’s what the elders’ decision is, that no one will teach anything here that’s contrary to the statement of faith. You can believe what you want, but you can’t teach what is contrary to the statement of faith. Also, you can’t teach in this church unless you’re a member and you’ve committed to the statement of faith.”

We identified a problem, and we dealt with it. They were not happy, they all left the church, and that’s their prerogative. But they weren’t going to influence the church, not as long as I was the pastor. You have to be able to teach and to know what’s true and what’s not true. 

Now, sometimes that’s going to cause dissension. It’s going to cause confusion. There’s an interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 11. If you think all division in the church is bad, you need to look at 1 Corinthians 11:19 (NIV), “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”

When you start teaching and saying, “This is right and this is wrong,” there will be differences. There will be divisions. That’s not bad. Sometimes these divisions, these differences, are necessary so that people can know the truth, and you can protect them. 

When I was teaching Sunday school, and somebody would give an application—and this application—this is not the actual content, but he had an application that was kind of out to lunch. I usually just kind of smiled and went on, and my wife said, “Bill, you can’t do that. People are going to think that if you’re silent, you agree.” How much more so is that true if people are teaching heresy in your church, and you’re silent? The people in the church will think that you agree. Don’t do that.

I would say, too, that this apt-to-teach requirement is an incentive for you pursuing leadership development. I know that some pastors think, “I just don’t need one more thing to do.” Well, have your elders do it. If your elders can’t do it, then there’s another problem. But you have to be committed to leadership development, because you will need to be nurturing your current leaders. But you’re also going to need to be raising up the next generation of leaders, and you have to have the time and the energy and the commitment to really pursue leadership development in your church. 

My secretary at church once told me, “Bill, there are about 25 people from Whitworth College, the local college, who would die to have one hour a week with you. Can you please do that? Now, they’re not going to become your leaders, but they’re going to go out to other churches and be leaders in other churches. Can you commit yourself to leadership development even at that level?”

Much to my embarrassment, I didn’t make the time for it. I wish I had. I wish I’d had a hand in training people for ministry, regardless of what church they would go to. But if you’re going to have people who are able to teach, you’re going to have to have made a commitment, first of all, to biblical preaching, because that’s the primary place that people learn, right? And you’re going to have to have a commitment to having a leadership development structure where you can teach and nurture and encourage people into spiritual and informed maturity. 

III. Reflection & Application

I know that was a lot, but there’s a lot that you can reflect on. If you want to on this, I would say, first of all, evaluate your current church. How are you doing? Is your leadership serious about training people for leadership? Do they know how to teach? Are they able to teach? Are they apt to teach? Do you have examples of good admonishing and bad admonishing? Can you talk to each other about what it means to admonish people under our care? I remember a situation where there was an elder and the kids were running around the foyer having fun, and he just started screaming at them. I pulled him aside and I said, “There are visitors here, and there are people that you are influencing. What you’re telling them is a way to deal with children is to scream at them.” He said, “Well, they might run into old people and hurt them.” So, I asked, “Is there any other way you can deal with this admonishment?” He said “No.” How are you doing in admonishing your people? Do you have any examples of people who lead by example? People who are so involved in people’s lives that they really do lead by example. They don’t have to say much, but people look at them and go, “Okay, that’s what a godly person looks like.”

You may want to ask your elders, “How many people have you had over to your house in the last quarter?” Because if it’s none, you have a problem. They’re not being hospitable unless it’s a very unusual circumstance. Are your elders teaching? Are they able to teach? Have you helped them to know how to put a talk together, even the art of teaching? How are you doing on that? What’s your commitment to leadership development in your church?