{"id":92639,"date":"2025-12-16T17:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T23:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=92639"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:13:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T23:13:55","slug":"churches-preparing-for-elders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/churches-preparing-for-elders\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches Preparing for Elders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\tby Don Bunting<br \/>\nvia\u00a0<em>Biblical Insights<\/em>, Vol. 15 No. 2, February 2015\n<p>If a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country (Matthew 13:57), then it should not surprise us that it is difficult for churches to appoint and submit to elders. While we may dream about qualified men moving in from elsewhere, reality shows us that elders are found within the local congregation.<\/p>\n<p>Attitudes necessary for a church to properly follow elders do not spontaneously materialize on the day of appointment. That includes the feelings about elders in general and about the particular men being appointed. Proper attitudes must grow over time as knowledge and confidence increase, so that spiritual leadership is readily accepted.<\/p>\n<p>How do churches prepare for God&#8217;s design in church leadership? As in everything, we need to understand the Lord&#8217;s will and intent through the scriptures and discern and apply those principles spiritually. Every spiritual failure is the result of worldly thinking and carnal conduct. To prepare for elders, the members of the church must develop spiritual qualities and behavior.<\/p>\n<p>God intends that His churches be served by elders (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). So churches need to talk about, pray about, and study about elders until they are properly in place. Churches may not appoint men who do not meet God&#8217;s qualifications (&#8220;<em>A bishop then must be<\/em>&#8230;&#8221; I Timothy 3:2), so by implication, churches can exist and function without elders. Such a church is handicapped &#8211; a spiritual body functioning without necessary parts. Choosing to continue without elders when men are available to serve is a violation of God&#8217;s will. A desire for a good eldership must be cultivated. Submission to God&#8217;s instruction in this matter is essential to faithfulness.<\/p>\n<p>God&#8217;s kingdom is a monarchy with Christ as King, Lord, and Head in His church. His authority is absolute &#8211; His word is final. That word is revealed through apostles and prophets, proclaimed by evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13). With or without elders, the church is not a democracy, and a representative body does not lead it. In every age, God&#8217;s people have been led by the older, wiser men who, by His word, represent God, not the people<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fathers in the age of the patriarchs<\/li>\n<li>Elders in the days of Moses and Israel<\/li>\n<li>Elders in the Lord&#8217;s church.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One danger of the business meeting is that it might teach us to value and protect the idea that every person has a voice, that everybody has a right to be heard, and that the majority decides. Such a model is not preparing us to yield to the older, follow the wiser, or trust the spiritual. Even in our necessary meetings to make decisions about our work in the Lord (without elders), we need to begin thinking in terms of following spiritual shepherds rather than a democratic model.<\/p>\n<p>If you can&#8217;t trust your elders, who can you trust? Love &#8220;<em>bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things<\/em>&#8230;&#8221; (I Corinthians 13:8). Do we optimistically believe in our elders? The sheep are willing to follow the shepherd because they know his voice &#8211; they know him (John 10:1-6). A shared history and a mutual love serve as a basis for optimism and trust. Elders cannot lead and will not even be appointed where jealousy and suspicion flourish. Worldly wisdom teaches: &#8220;A preacher should not be an elder because then he will be voting on his own salary.&#8221; Carnal thinking suggests that there must always be an odd number of elders, so there will be a tiebreaker in a vote. Suspicion says that &#8220;the elders can&#8217;t all be brothers because then you have one family running the church.&#8221; Principles of the world are not needed as safeguards or checks and balances in the Lord&#8217;s church. The spiritual principles of the gospel protect the church from these fears and suspicions. We must not fear an elder or eldership because of worldly attitudes toward one another. God&#8217;s qualifications for elders provide a strong foundation for trust. To prepare for elders, let us trust one another.<\/p>\n<p>The only power an elder possesses to rule and lead a congregation is the willing submission of each member of the church. Just as a husband has no power to compel his wife to submit and obey, an eldership cannot compel a church or a church member to do anything. The Lord&#8217;s direction compels the wife and the church to submit, but the husband and the elder cannot force obedience. The power of the shepherd is the investment of trust and love that the sheep have placed in him. His appointment is the product of that trust and love. If a church really wants elders, it needs to nurture a love for and confidence in the older, spiritual servants in the church.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Don Bunting via\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 2, February 2015 If a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country (Matthew 13:57), then it should not surprise us that it is difficult for churches to appoint and submit to elders. While we may dream about qualified men moving in from elsewhere, reality&hellip;<\/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,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[123],"class_list":["post-92639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-elders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":62667,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-are-elders-missing-in-so-many-churches\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":0},"title":"Why Are Elders Missing in So Many Churches?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 14, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Roger D. Campbell We read about \"the elders of the church\" in the New Testament (James 5:14). In the Bible, \"the elders of the church\" refers to those brothers who serve as the overseers of a local flock of God (Acts 20:17, 28). They also are identified as shepherds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50044,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-difference-do-elders-make\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":1},"title":"What Difference Do Elders Make?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew Bassford via\u00a0His Excellent Word Yesterday, a friend of mine Facebook-messaged me, asking precisely the question in the title.\u00a0 Apparently, they'd been having a conversation with a friend, and the subject arose.\u00a0 It has the sound of a rhetorical question, which says something interesting about the experiences of members\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46916,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/elders-and-church-decline\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":2},"title":"Elders and Church Decline","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford \u00a0 Recently, there's been a lot of chatter on my Facebook feed about a survey of churches of Christ conducted by an organization called 21st Century Christian.\u00a0 According to this survey, attendance in such churches has declined by about 10 percent since 1990. I have no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/gallupattendance-300x225.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30186,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/plurality-of-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":3},"title":"Plurality of Elders","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by J. W. McGarvey Sentry Magazine, September 2002 There is no proposition in reference to the organization of the primitive churches upon which scholars and critics are more perfectly agreed than that every fully organized church had a plurality of Elders. So nearly universal is this agreement that a man\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83691,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/gods-wisdom-in-church-leadership\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":4},"title":"God&#8217;s Wisdom in Church Leadership","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Gibson God always does it right the first time. Take, for example, church leadership. What church leaders are called in the New Testament What many people do not realize is that in the New Testament, there are at least three terms used synonymously: 1) pastors, 2) overseers (also\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94578,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-are-the-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":92639,"position":5},"title":"Where Are the Elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Brad Harrub, Ph.D. Walk into many congregations today and ask a simple question: \"Do you have elders?\" Far too often, the answer is the same: \"No\u2026not yet.\" Sometimes that answer has been given for 10 years\u202620 years\u2026even 40-50 years. But that should cause us to pause and ask a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/shepherd-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/shepherd-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/shepherd-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92639","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=92639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}