I am a minister in the Lord’s church and want to get your understanding of what authority elders have over the minister.\u00a0 I guess I am interested in how detailed can they be in managing the preacher?\u00a0\u00a0 I am told I must do a weekly report and email it to the elders and I have done this for almost 3 years now.\u00a0 I have been told to give the elders the sermon titles and scripture readings that go with them 3 months in advance and I have done this as well.\u00a0 Now I am told that they are wanting me to give a short blurb with each sermon.\u00a0 I have a good relationship with my elders and in the over 4 years I have been here there have been only 1 or 2 issues on minor things we disagree with.\u00a0 We have had 70 immersion into Christ in 3 years and things are really going well.\u00a0 My question is do the elders have this right or is this more lording?\u00a0 How tight of a reign do the elders have over the minister?<\/p>\n\t
It appears to me that you are working for the elders and not for the Lord.<\/p>\n
“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock<\/em>” (I Peter 5:2-3).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Greek word katakurieuo<\/em>, translated as “being lords over,” means “to become master, gain power over (someone or something), to subdue.” … “This mastery pertains most frequently to dominion over other people in the sense of ‘lording it over’ them (Matthew 20:25; Mark 10:42).” It appears the elders in your location are doing precisely this.<\/p>\n
Let me recommend to sermon outlines, “The Rule of Elders<\/a>” and “Elders Who Rule Well<\/a>” for your study.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I am a minister in the Lord’s church and want to get your understanding of what authority elders have over the minister.\u00a0 I guess I am interested in how detailed can they be in managing the preacher?\u00a0\u00a0 I am told I must do a weekly report and email it to the elders and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[123,667,1511],"class_list":["post-16628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-elders","tag-organization-of-the-church","tag-preachers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29544,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-there-a-conflict-of-interest-if-a-man-is-both-a-preacher-and-an-elder-or-deacon\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":0},"title":"Is there a conflict of interest if a man is both a preacher and an elder or deacon?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question that I am struggling with. I can't find any scriptural reasons against what has been done at our local church but still have an uneasiness about it. We have a smaller church whose membership has been trending down the past several years since our minister\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28918,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-is-in-charge-the-preacher-or-the-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":1},"title":"Who is in charge, the preacher or the elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeff, I'm forced to ask this question: between the ministers and the elders, who is in charge of a local congregation? Where that I am, there is a serious power tussle between the two. The ministers say, since they teach the men to become elders and also ordain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25118,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-elders-responsible-for-the-employment-of-preachers\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":2},"title":"Are elders responsible for the employment of preachers?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I enjoyed and appreciated your article on\u00a0the work of the evangelist.\u00a0 I find it quite different from many by what you might consider institutional churches of Christ. I am concerned about the final paragraph on the selection of the minister.\u00a0 As I understand first-century history,\u00a0 many preachers were involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68309,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-arent-the-elders-helping-me-to-learn-to-preach\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":3},"title":"Why aren’t the elders helping me to learn to preach?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 8, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I hope this email finds you doing well. I have a question. I finally got to preach and teach for a month in another congregation. I asked the elders in my church to attend one day and give me pointers. One finally attended, but all the elders said that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9101,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-the-elders-and-preachers-constitute-the-church-in-decisions\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":4},"title":"Do the elders and preachers constitute the church in decisions?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been a member of the church of Christ for some time now. My family and I moved to another congregation to help out because they were very small. My wife and I began to have difficulties in our marriage. She decided to take our problems to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18777,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-you-correct-a-preacher-when-there-are-no-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":16628,"position":5},"title":"How do you correct a preacher when there are no elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, The question I have is this: What should a person do in this situation? In the church I currently attend, we do not have any elders for several years. I see some things that are creeping into the church. For example, when my congregation had elders the preacher\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}