Episode 104: On Transitioning to Elders – Part 1
How can churches transition elders in a healthy, biblical manner? During this episode of Pastors Talk, join Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman as they discuss adding elders to your church leadership. From how to handle conflict to de-escalating hostility when shifting to a plurality of elders, Leeman and Dever offer advice for new pastors on slowly integrating healthy practices into their church and encouraging the recovery of congregationalism.
- Why Do We Need Elders?
- De-escalating Combativeness When Transitioning Elders
- Advice for the New Pastor
- Facing Opposition as a Pastor
- The Importance of Recovering Congregationalism
Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m Jonathan Leeman.
Mark Dever:
I am Mark Dever.
Jonathan Leeman:
He sure is, and welcome to this episode of 9Marks Pastors Talk. 9Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches. Learn more…
Mark Dever:
At 9marks.org, to the glory of God.
Jonathan Leeman:
But don’t enter to the glory of God into the URL.
Mark Dever:
I think it’s good to put that everywhere, man.
Jonathan Leeman:
You should, but don’t put it in the URL.
Mark Dever:
SDG. Soli Deo Gloria. J.S. Bach.
Jonathan Leeman:
I was going to say, is it true that he really wrote that at the end of his-
Mark Dever:
Why would you ask me that?
Jonathan Leeman:
Manuscripts. Because you’re a historian guy, you know such things.
Mark Dever:
I’m old, I have CDs, I read liner notes.
Jonathan Leeman:
All right. All right.
Hey, Mark, how many elders were at CHBC when you arrived?
Mark Dever:
Only myself. I was the only recognized elder.
Jonathan Leeman:
And so the basic structure of the…
Mark Dever:
And they used the word pastor.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. So you were the pastor and then you had deacons.
Mark Dever:
Yep, there were deacons.
Jonathan Leeman:
And you had committees, various committees.
What are the Committees?
Mark Dever:
Lots of committees.
Jonathan Leeman:
Did the deacons have power? Did the committees have power? Who made the decisions?
Mark Dever:
Yeah, both. The deacons had power, the committees had power. I think it was a pretty subtle thing. I don’t think it was very controversial.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. And that was pretty common… Would you say that was more, that structure you just described was more common back in the mid-90s and previously than it is said today?
Mark Dever:
I would say that would be the dominant structure in the 20th century among at least Southern Baptist churches in the US, probably more widely than that, but at least that.
And I think now in the, nearing the end of the second decade in the 21st century, that’s probably still the largest, most common structure, but I think it might be a minority by now, or at least, you know, it might be 60% of the churches instead of 95%.
Why Do We Need Elders?
Jonathan Leeman:
What I want to think about with you today, brother, is transitioning from that to a plurality of elders, and specifically elder-led congregationalism. And if we have time at the end, maybe the other direction too. Okay. You have an elder-ruled church.
Mark Dever:
Who becomes convinced of congregational responsibility?
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. So that’ll be kind of time depending.
An Elder Ruled Church
Mark Dever:
Well, one thing on this conversation as a whole, whether we’re talking to those normally structured Southern Baptist churches or a church that just has a pastor and really hasn’t thought about structure much, or an elder-ruled church that’s wondering, oh, should we give the congregation more say? To sort of get people to lay their guns down and walk into the same room.
I just want to say, most churches are going to try to be obedient to what they see in scripture about this. So even the elder rule churches are going to try to acknowledge the congregation’s role in some way usually. And even the most congregational churches are going to try to acknowledge the role of leadership and the pastor or pastors.
De-escalating Combativeness When Transitioning Elders
So if we realize that there’s often a spectrum in these conversations and try to scale back or de-escalate any kind of combativeness that I think tends just to reinforce people in the positions they begin with.
Jonathan Leeman:
Who are you saying that to? Are you saying that to the churches listening or to the pastors listening?
Mark Dever:
To the pastors listening.
Jonathan Leeman:
How do they put their guns down? Because they’re supposed to lead change. Not to say you lead with guns, but I mean –
Mark Dever:
Or lead to continue doing what they’re doing if it’s biblical.
Jonathan Leeman:
I guess I’m asking how do you de-escalate?
Mark Dever:
By getting people who are in different positions than you are to see how you’re trying to acknowledge the truth of what they’re saying and here’s how you’re doing it in your structure. As you have conversations with two or three other pastors who may have their churches structured differently than yours.
Jonathan Leeman:
So when you got to CHBC, how did you de-escalate?
Mark Dever:
I used a statement to the search committee saying, look, I could preach at this church for years, decades with no other elders recognized and I could be okay. But I just do think this is what the Bible teaches. So this is what I will teach when I come to it.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. And you told them that you disagreed with their structure during the interview process.
Mark Dever:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Explain that, tell that story.
The Church Should have Elders
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I just tried to say at the end of our first sort of long meeting, they hadn’t asked me any theological questions and I said, let me think what you wouldn’t like about me if you knew. And I thought of a couple of things and one of them was the church should have elders.
And that’s apparently the thing that bothered them more afterward, I was told later by someone looking back. I simply said that it’s clear to me in the New Testament that the local church, so individual churches had more than one elder. I don’t assume they were all paid. It’s not just the church staff. And I thought that’s a model that we should follow today.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now, if they had said to you, yeah, that sounds fine, but we’re not going to go in that direction, would you have come to this church anyway?
Mark Dever:
Probably because I mean, I don’t know, it’s hard to know, but I would try to…
Jonathan Leeman:
Would you accept a church? Would you say to guys out there who are candidates right now or thinking about candidates at some point, would you recommend they go into a church where they won’t accept or say they won’t accept a plurality of elders?
Mark Dever:
Well, won’t accept and say they won’t accept are two very different things.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, so I would say it.
Mark Dever:
I would try to get them in a position where they won’t say that. Okay. So I’d try to avoid that sentence being said. I would actively manipulate the situation to make sure that sentence is not said.
Jonathan Leeman:
How does one do that? You just gently guide the conversation like a good dancer can lead his partner.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s vague. That’s not helpful.
Mark Dever:
But I think what you want to do is realize that you’re going to be the one teaching the Word for years. So all kinds of things they think right now, they may not be thinking 12 months from now or four years from now.
And you need to believe in the power of the Word and that the Holy Spirit uses it. So getting them on record about everything they don’t believe that’s an error right now is really counterproductive.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. You don’t want to back them into corners.
Mark Dever:
No. They then feel they need to defend.
Jonathan Leeman:
Defend later on. Sure. Okay. So you told them…
Mark Dever:
Now, if it’s in their church statement of faith, we do not believe a church should have a plurality of elders. Well, that’s a different matter.
Jonathan Leeman:
You got here in November of 94, December? Late 94.
Dever’s Journey in Preaching
Mark Dever:
I moved here in July of 94 and attended through September and the last Sunday of September was my installation and I began preaching the first Sunday in October.
Jonathan Leeman:
But it took you three, four, five years to change the constitution where it had a plurality of elders. Was that 98?
Mark Dever:
Four years.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, fill in that four-year gap. What did you do during that four-year gap to get from one to the other? How did you lead the church in that direction?
Mark Dever:
Had conversations with people as it came up. I was teaching through James on Wednesday night. It took a little by-path on elders when the elders are mentioned. When I would have elders in sermon series. I wasn’t planning them for that, but I would talk about them.
I got a bunch of copies of John MacArthur’s little book, I think it’s just called Elders. He had a little booklet back then that I didn’t agree with everything in it, but that was really useful because I could give out a copy and no, I don’t agree with everything in here, but you know, it’s pretty good. Do you want to read this?
Jonathan Leeman:
That lowers defensiveness.
Mark Dever:
It does. And it was true. But I mean, I disagree with almost nothing in there, but there was a little bit. I mean, John’s a little bit more elder rule, but it was super useful. He always faithful with scripture. He pulls together the examples, lays them out there.
And I said, listen, when you read this, just finish it. Let me know what you think and give it to somebody else in the church. Cause we only had like 120, 130, 140 people and I got 40 of those. So those things were being passed around a lot.
Jonathan Leeman:
Were you making special efforts to disciple, teach, and train the deacons? Cause they were the leaders at that point.
Mark Dever:
No. No. I mean, some of them, yes, but not because they were deacons, just because, I mean, we’re dealing with such a limited universe of people here at Jonathan. We’re talking about 130 people, all max of those, maybe 50 are going to be male of those, maybe 15 are not going to be retired. Of the ones that are retired, we’re talking about, you know, so we’re just talking, we’re talking individuals here.
Jonathan Leeman:
Sure. But your own experience, notwithstanding. Wouldn’t you say that as a general principle, if you’re going in and you’re trying to lead change at a structural level like this, you’re going to say, hey, start with your leaders?
Mark Dever:
In part, not only. Okay. I think the only way is to be disastrous. I think you want to see the general populace as well as teachable people.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. What you’re doing in your sermons, your Wednesday night Bible studies, handing out
Mark Dever:
Hopefully in a discipling ministry.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. So in the meantime, are you sitting in on all the committees?
Mark Dever:
Because I would have young punks come along on motorcycles and I would hang out with them.
Jonathan Leeman:
Seriously, anybody who’s listening to this is so tired of that story.
Mark Dever:
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Jonathan Leeman:
Would you go to the committees on your motorcycle or not?
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
You’d sit in on all of them.
Mark Dever:
I could sit on all of them. I think I sat in initially on a lot of them and then didn’t need to keep sitting in on some of them.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Okay.
Mark Dever:
I mean, there was literally a flower committee. There was a kitchen committee. There was an everything imaginable committee.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right.
Mark Dever:
Would you encourage a pastor to generally do that? Maybe at first just to get a feel for what’s going on. Yeah.
What do you Communicate to the Elders?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. More thoughts on how you taught the congregation from a plurality of elders. Anything else specific that you were trying to communicate?
Mark Dever:
No, it’s just, it’s so clear in scripture, you know, Acts 20 is a great text to go to, 1 Peter 5.
Jonathan Leeman:
But you’re preaching expositionally, you’re preaching through the gospel of Mark. A plurality of elders doesn’t…
Mark Dever:
That was just the first few months. That was October, November, December.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. But my point is it’s not like exactly in a lot of texts.
Mark Dever:
Well, but no, I went to the epistles. I went to the general epistles. I went to the Pauline epistles. I had multiple opportunities to help.
Jonathan Leeman:
Here’s what I’m trying to get at. Are you just waiting until you happen to be going through one of those texts or are you finding other opportunities as well?
Mark Dever:
Yes. I’m teaching on Wednesday night and I may have had a special address, I think, by Don Carson, the united Sunday School class on elders once.
Jonathan Leeman:
I actually remember that one.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
But you’re not doing special addresses. A lot of guys go into churches and they’re like, hey, I’m going to start with a sermon series on the church and they do eight weeks on the church.
Mark Dever:
I didn’t do that.
Jonathan Leeman:
Good idea, bad idea generally?
Mark Dever:
You’re bringing all the potential issues and conflicts about that to the surface. It just depends on if your church is in a good place to have that. You know, let’s say you and Shannon just got married. Do you want to have your first 10 conversations on here are 10 issues we disagree about.
I mean, you could do that. That’s a way of front-loading problems, but it may be putting a heavy load on a week back. So I don’t know. You need to, it’s just going to vary from church to church. I’d rather build them up first normally with just some good exponential preaching where Jesus and the gospel are central, where true conversion is clear.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, and as you’re doing that, they’re learning to trust you and don’t feel like you have a special agenda.
Mark Dever:
Well, yeah, well, they understand the agenda is the gospel and I’m going to try to be faithful to scripture.
Jonathan Leeman:
Faithful to scripture, yeah. What opposition did you receive in those early days? What were some of the arguments people used against a plurality of elders? Do you recall? So long ago at this point, you may not remember.
Arguments Against the Pluarilriy of Elders
Mark Dever:
Well, honestly, there weren’t arguments against a plurality of elders as such. There were simply dismissive comments about the overall importance of the topic, that it wasn’t that important.
Jonathan Leeman:
Didn’t people call it a power grab?
Mark Dever:
Oh yeah, sorry, that. But when you got down to the arguments for it, people didn’t really have arguments. I mean, it was transparently biblical.
Jonathan Leeman:
What were the concerns they raised?
Mark Dever:
Well, the only concern that was said early on is that it was a power grab. But once I think we began to flesh out what things would look like, that kind of fell away because people could see that it was this group of people who would really be replacing all the committees. So it was this group, not me. And I think as they were working with me, they could see like, I’m not going to be grabbing all the authority because I don’t want to make all those decisions.
You know, I want other people to be making decisions because that way they have to think about it. They have to be involved. So they just could tell it was not my style to say, I want to make all the decisions.
Jonathan Leeman:
So in one sense, you are divesting yourself of authority in the thing. And another sense you are transferring authority.
So what do you do if you’re the guy, you’re the pastor of this church, and you have a couple of headstrong deacons who like their turf, and they’re going to oppose this because they recognize that they may not be elders in the new regime.
Mark Dever:
And that’s pretty common, I think.
Jonathan Leeman:
They’re committee chairman of some type. And they realize again, they may not have a…
Mark Dever:
Because most of those committee jobs devolve to the elders.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right, exactly. So how do you deal with that? Any counsel?
Elders are Biblically Qualified
Mark Dever:
I think you speak about it openly, and clearly, but in a friendly fashion. Now this is going to mean that the deacons and the committees aren’t making these decisions anymore, but it’s because we’re saying that God has given the local church elders that meet these biblical qualifications, and we’re saying they’re literally the best ones to lead us in making these decisions. And there’s no biblical qualifications for being on a committee.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. Okay, but now –
Mark Dever:
So I think just saying that, it’s saying it in a friendly fashion, saying it again and again.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. So I’m a Deacon. Yeah. I’m responding to you. You kind of suspect I just want to hold on to my turf. Yeah. And you don’t think that I’d probably be a deacon in the new administration.
Mark Dever:
You wouldn’t be an elder.
Advice for the New Pastor
Jonathan Leeman:
An elder. And I kind of sense it too. Yeah. But I’m not saying that. Yeah. I’m just saying, Oh, Mark, you know, you don’t see lay elders anywhere in scripture. It seems like they paid their pastors.
I don’t have a problem with the number of pastors. I mean, sure you got that, but this whole unpaid pastor thing, I’m not so sure about that. What are you saying to me in that conversation.
Mark Dever:
Titus 1:5, 1 Timothy 5:17, a show where there seeMark Dever is a plurality of elders. You can’t imagine there’d be a plurality of full-paid positions in a town initially.
And to Timothy, Paul even seems to distinguish those who you pay well, whose job, whose labor is teaching the word versus the other ones.
Jonathan Leeman:
So again, you’re not addressing the real issue in the room for me because it’s about turf for me. You’re just pointing to the Bible. And you’re letting…
Mark Dever:
And if I get to know you well, you and I may go for a walk and I may say, Tom, is this really just an issue of you’re going to miss being in on these discussions, these decisions? Or are you really thinking like, this is best for the church because of this reason and this reason?
Church Constitutions
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. So when it finally came to the point where you’re going to put us in a new constitution, can you give us just a quick rundown of how that went? Matt Schmucker and I looked at literally 100 church constitutions and Baptist churches around the world.
We cobbled together a new constitution. Much shorter than what was our existing constitution at the time, more general, and not as specific in every detail. We then handed that to the deacons, the deacons then handed it to a small committee, the small committee handed that to the deacons, the deacons then handed that to a committee, half of the deacons and half of the others.
They then handed that back to the deacons, the deacons then handed it to the congregation in a series of three congregational meetings in which we debated, had open conversations with no motions, the constitution in thirds, and finally at the end of the third conversation, we voted whether or not to take the new thing as a whole.
Jonathan Leeman:
I feel like hearing a story once where you said you, one of those committees, I guess, I don’t remember the specifics, you deliberately wanted guys in that who were kind of argumentative.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. So after the initial take by the Deacons, the first committee we sent it to was composed of three guys.
Jonathan Leeman:
Did you pick those guys?
Mark Dever:
Oh yeah. Eric, Ethan and Bruce.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. And why were Eric, Ethan and Bruce the right guys to pick?
Mark Dever:
Because Ethan and Bruce were very careful theological thinkers. They wouldn’t necessarily agree with each other or me on everything. And Eric can get anything through any group. So Eric could be the one.
So they got back to us pretty quickly saying, Oh, we’re ready. And I said, wait, so all three of you agree on everything? And they went, Oh no. I said, no, no, no, you have to go back. All three of you have to be with everything in it. And then it took them nine months.
Jonathan Leeman:
Wow.
Mark Dever:
God bless them for the time they put in on it.
Jonathan Leeman:
But then you knew you had three supporters. Yeah, that’s right. And they had thought about it well. So the document we ended up having after these two years was a far better document than the one Matt and I wrote.
And I told people when we began this process, I didn’t care how long it took. I’m in no hurry. I’m not trying to get anywhere. If this takes 15 years, that’s fine. 10 years, that’s fine. Three years, that’s fine. I just, whatever.
Jonathan Leeman:
And again, that lowers the temperature.
Mark Dever:
Two months, that’s fine. That’s right. Because I just wasn’t trying to press it.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now, at one point, did you say, you asked the congregation to pick three different speeds from among three different speeds? Was that after you adopted it?
Mark Dever:
Yeah. That’s when we voted for it. We had ready-to-go three different adoption speeds, a quick, a Mark Deverium, and a slow. And we in the congregation picked the Mark Deverium.
Jonathan Leeman:
Meaning it’s going to, we’ll take the next year and a half or whatever the number was to
Mark Dever:
We voted in May and it would be all be in place then by January.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. According to that Mark Deverium speed. With Yeah.
Mark Dever:
With the quick speed, I think it would have been all in place by the end of the summer. And with the slow speed have been like a year and a half.
Jonathan Leeman:
Did the committees continue to operate after you passed the constitution?
Mark Dever:
Yeah. The line we told everybody was keep doing what you’re doing until somebody takes it out of your hand because we did not want things just to get lost in the cracks.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Any other overall lessons, brother? I think I’m going to kind of end that story there. Unless there’s something I’m missing.
Mark Dever:
I would mention the Phil Newton Matt Schmucker book.
Elders in Congressional Life
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh yeah. Elders in Congregational Life, which Phil Newton wrote the play-by-play commentary in which he describes the exegesis and theology of a plurality of elders and what happened to his church. And he tells some stories of what happened in his church. Matt Schmucker definitely does though more of the storytelling, more of the color commentary on, on this story that Mark is describing. So you can get an in-depth…
Mark Dever:
And Andy Davis can give you still a different story in his book Revitalize.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Both are helpful volumes. Any lessons that you would draw from all of that, Mark, for other guys in leading their church to…
Mark Dever:
Be humble, be happy, be biblical, be honest, be confident, talk to everybody, talk about so much that they’re tired of talking about it. Deal with any objections in good faith and yeah, as clearly as you can.
The Importance of Recovering Congregationalism
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. Now, anything to say coming from the other end, because it seems like when the 9Marks started, that was more the common conversation you were having with people. But in recent years, it seems like you’re having the opposite conversation.
We have an elder rule structure, but you’ve not done that personally. You’ve not walked that church into congregationalism.
Facing Opposition as a Pastor
Mark Dever:
Well, I say correct, but in a lot of ways, a lot of these old conservative Baptist churches have the pastor having so much authority that although there may be a kind of – by deacons or committees, in a lot of ways, it really is the pastor has all the power. So it’s a lot more like elder rule sometimes in these Baptist churches. And you’ve got to divest that.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, I remember that. I remember that story you told of the older gentleman. Standing right there. Yeah. And he was a committee chair.
Mark Dever:
Of the missions committee.
Jonathan Leeman:
And he wanted your input on what we should do with the missions budget that year. And I called him by name and I said, brother, that’s why we have the committee. That’s why you’re chair of that committee. So you guys think through that.
You guys bring a recommendation. And then he just broke down in tears. He said, we just want what you want to do. You know, sweet kind, and I just said, yeah, that’s why you’re there. You go do that work.
Jonathan Leeman:
Amen. Okay, so for the church moving from a plurality of elders though, to elder ruled, sorry, to adding congregationalism. Yeah, I think what you and How do you lead on that change?
Mark Dever:
I think what you and I have both probably been a little surprised by is in recovering congregationalism self-consciously, we’ve brought up conversations that haven’t been had, it seems like in a lot of circles, in three or 400 years. Even if you go and look at congregational, the denomination, congregational histories from the 19th century, denominational histories, they’re more like about their tribe.
They’re not really thinking about the principles that made Anglicans into congregationalists initially. They’re just thinking about, then the congregationalists did this, do, do, do, do, do, and they founded this school and this school and these churches and they’re getting institutional histories. They’re not really recovering the dynamic ideas that gave rise to those institutions.
Who are Congrestionalists?
Jonathan Leeman:
You’re talking about the big C congregationalists.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. And so what you and I have done, I think unwittingly, we’ve re-released what was an extinct species almost, that is the convictional Congregationalists. We’ve noted it in scripture, where Baptist historically noted it.
And when Baptists are a washing multi-site, CEO, follow me, I’m the leader, God has gifted me to bless all of you by making sure more thousands of people listen to me every Sunday in these 50 different locations, than we’ve actually suggested, you know what, there is a Bible New Testament role for the congregation, which will lead you to shape your churches differently.
There’s a reason why our great-grandparents didn’t just add on a second service or a second site, but they either built a bigger building or started a new church with part of their congregation. And those congregations were geographically centered.
So I think that fits with what we’ve been saying about the role of the congregation in Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Timothy 4, Galatians 1, and we go on and on and on, noting the responsibility of the congregation.
So that’s what you have to teach. And as these elder rule churches become sensitized to that issue, some of them are going like, wow, we really do need to understand that we’re not necessarily always right. And there does seem in the New Testament to be a role for the congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
So if I’m coming from that side of things, presumably you’re going to start right where you started in your transition, which is teaching, passing out resources, spending time. Did you ever have people saying, Mark, gosh, you’ve pointed this out to us. We need to do this before you got there.
Mark Dever:
Do you mean in this church they became convinced?
Jonathan Leeman:
In this church. Because I’m wondering if guys would get it from the other side too. They start teaching congregations and the church says, hey, wait a second, this has implications.
Mark Dever:
I’m sure that happens. I can’t remember if that happened here.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah. I’ve heard stories of elsewhere of that happening.
Mark Dever:
I certainly have too.
Jonathan Leeman:
So step one, if I’m coming from the other side…
Recovering Elders
Mark Dever:
Spurgeon said that’s what he did with recovering elders at his church actually.
Jonathan Leeman:
And then you just start with a members meeting? If you’ve never had them before, you just throw one in, hey, we’re going to do a members meeting.
Mark Dever:
Well, you explain it. Why you need to have a meeting where you can do this, this, and this, and then you do that at a meeting.
Jonathan Leeman:
And presumably it may involve changing your constitution, explaining to them what responsibilities they have and so forth. It’s going be a very similar process.
Mark Dever:
A very basic part of this is just asking yourself if you’re a pastor, how are the members of your church supposed to know what duties and responsibilities they have as members if you don’t teach them that?
So go to your New Testament or go to old books by Benjamin Keach and Benjamin Griffith and see what these early Baptists said the responsibilities of members are for their churches and reproduce those things and have those conversations.
Jonathan Leeman:
Any last thoughts, Mark, on this bigger question of leading governmental structure changes? Because it’s a sensitive topic, obviously. Who’s making the decisions? Makes people insecure, and panicked. Any final, larger thoughts?
Mark Dever:
Just avoid the specifics until you first have the principle that this is determined by God’s Word.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m sorry, what do you mean by specifics?
Mark Dever:
Don’t talk about whether Tom’s going to keep being a deacon.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right.
Will the Deacon become All Elders?
Mark Dever:
Don’t talk about whether the deacon is just going to all become elders. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about has God said in His Word how the church is to make decisions. Yeah, good. Where do we see that? Let’s get those things real clear. Let’s get them down on paper. Let’s make sure we all agree on that before we get more specific.
Jonathan Leeman:
Good word. Thanks for your time, man.
Mark Dever:
Thank you.
Show Notes
Revitalize: Biblical Keys to Helping Your Church Come Alive Again — Andrew Davis
Elders in the Life of the Church: Rediscovering the Biblical Model for Church Leadership – Phil Newton and Matt Schmucker
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