On Elder Selection Process, with Bobby Jamieson (Pastors Talk, Ep. 221)
How should churches select elders and what should that process look like? On this episode of Pastors Talk, Jonathan Leeman, Mark Dever, and Bobby Jamieson discuss what the elder selection process should look like in a church. During this conversation, they flesh out the steps of nominating, interviewing, and approving elders in your church. They talk about important qualities that you should look for in potential elders and who doesn’t qualify to be an elder.
- What Should Your Elder Selection Process Look Like?
- Qualifications To Consider When Selecting Elders
- Who Should Not Be an Elder?
- Who Should Nominate Elders?
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:
Hi, this is Jonathan Leeman.
Mark Dever:
And this is Mark Dever.
Jonathan Leeman:
And welcome to this episode of 9Marks Pastor Talk.
Mark Dever:
Pastor Talk.
Jonathan Leeman:
9Marks.
Mark Dever:
An elephant and a drum at the same time.
Jonathan Leeman:
It feels like a zoo at times, but we are trying to bring it all together to build healthy churches. Learn more at 9Marks.org.
Mark Dever:
And we brought your little brother along today.
Jonathan Leeman:
My friend.
Bobby Jamieson:
So true.
Jonathan Leeman:
And former colleague and an elder of another church than my own, R.B. Jamison.
Mark Dever:
The only 9Marks author around that challenges you for prolificness.
Jonathan Leeman:
proliferation.
Bobby Jamieson:
Maybe, proliferation.
Mark Dever:
Bobby Jamison
Bobby Jamieson:
We each have four kids.
Jonathan Leeman:
Why are you
Mark Dever:
RB Jamison the third?
Bobby Jamieson:
Well, Bobby,
Jonathan Leeman:
But you publish under both.
Bobby Jamieson:
Both, you know.
Mark Dever:
If anybody’s never seen your face, they know you should be called Bobby.
Jonathan Leeman:
What do you mean by that, Mark?
Mark Dever:
Youthful face, smile.
Bobby Jamieson:
Inability to grow facial hair.
Jonathan Leeman:
You don’t look like an RB. That’s like a British thing.
Mark Dever:
You Jonathan look like an RB.
Jonathan Leeman:
I don’t know.
Mark Dever:
I think people are rapidly losing interest.
Bobby Jamieson:
This is more of a Bobby conversation.
Jonathan Leeman:
The topic today was introduced by our good friend Raymond Johnson.
Bobby Jamieson:
Yay.
Mark Dever:
He was a pastor up in Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s right. Outside of Ferris.
Bobby Jamieson:
Christchurch, Westchester. Look him up.
Jonathan Leeman:
And he sent in listeners, this is something you might try. I’m not saying that can happen, but he sent us a whole list of questions, like a page of questions on the elder selection process.
Mark Dever:
So he did Alex Duke’s work for this.
Bobby Jamieson:
He’s just doing your job for you.
Mark Dever:
Why don’t you give him Alex’s paycheck this week?
Jonathan Leeman:
And Alex sent a few more of his own though. And I also tweeted. I said, hey, I’m going to be doing this conversation on –
Mark Dever:
Love you, Alex.
Jonathan Leeman:
Elder selection process and what questions you have. And I had a few people coming in and giving me more questions.
Bobby Jamieson:
So that makes Raymond kind of a lay 9Marks elder.
What Should Your Elder Selection Process Look Like?
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, he’s a, he’s a fair enough, fair enough. Good. Okay. You’re just very brief.
What’s your elder selection process? Give me sort of the walk us through the timeline and I’m looking to spend two minutes on this. I got a lot of follow-up questions.
Bobby Jamieson:
Sure. Well, most of our elder’s meetings, start with an executive session. There’ll be elders only, no guests.
Most of those executive sessions will have some kind of conversation looking out for potential elders. We have a little list that’s just a way of keeping track of brothers that we’re considering and that’s very wide and broad.
Jonathan Leeman:
Do this in every elders meeting?
Bobby Jamieson:
Just about. Yeah. 30 minutes. It’s about 30 minutes. And so some of those conversations might be a handful of conversations about different brothers and different levels of maybe readiness or desirability.
If there’s a rough consensus that enough brothers know a guy and he seems to be kind of far enough along in his character qualification that it makes sense to look at him more seriously, we will invite him to come to the table, which means he’ll be part of an elders meeting. He won’t be voting, but he’ll be talking.
And when he comes to an elders meeting, we’ll spend that first executive session asking him a bunch of questions. Second executive, certainly
Mark Dever:
Everything from personal questions to theological questions.
Choosing Elders
Bobby Jamieson:
That’s right. We actually have a questionnaire that’s about 20 questions that the brother will fill out in advance just to give us some stuff to look at and follow up on. It’ll cover, you know, his testimony, family work, personal purity.
Mark Dever:
He will likely be well-known to many of the elders already.
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah:
Jonathan Leeman:
Does that list exist for publication?
Bobby Jamieson:
I don’t think there’s any reason it couldn’t be. Is it out on 9Marks already somewhere?
Mark Dever:
Alberto who really exists seems to say it is out.
Jonathan Leeman:
Is it on our website?
Bobby Jamieson:
It exists to the degree that Alberto exists, apparently.
Jonathan Leeman:
OK, great.
Mark Dever:
Which is pretty substantial. Ask his family.
Bobby Jamieson:
So then we’ll ask a brother kind of follow-up questions. That coming to the table is not an official sort of sparking off a candidacy.
It might be that nothing happens after that. It might be that…
Jonathan Leeman:
And you make it very clear to people ahead of time, hey, nothing may happen after this.
Mark Dever:
We try. I would say 50% of the time, nothing happens afterward.
Jonathan Leeman:
Oh, wow.
Bobby Jamieson:
We try to make that clear. If a brother desires to serve and the elders want him to serve, we will bring it to a vote on whether to nominate him. That vote has to be unanimous with an asterisk, meaning zero no votes. That’s because we want to preserve each elder’s esteem and respect for each other elder to help each elder be able to submit to the other elders.
Jonathan Leeman:
You don’t want to work through tough pastoral stuff with somebody who you don’t even think should be at the table.
Bobby Jamieson:
Exactly. So some brothers have more sensitive consciences about how well they think they need to know a guy in order to vote for him.
So we do allow for like one or two abstentions. That’s not a no-vote, it’s just not voting.
Mark Dever:
And so long as they’re not presenting anything, obviously, there would be a serious disqualification.
Bobby Jamieson:
That’s right. As long as they’re just thinking, I just don’t know them well enough, but I’m happy to trust you guys.
Mark Dever:
It’s merely a lack of positive absence.
The Role of the Elder’s Wife
Bobby Jamieson:
Exactly. So then we would vote to nominate the man to the congregation and we would check with a man’s wife, a couple of elders would check with his wife to make sure she’s willing for him to serve and supportive of him serving.
Then we have members meetings every two months, so we would nominate a man at one member’s meeting. We then explicitly invite feedback from the congregation, including asking members to tell us if they plan to vote no and tell us why.
That’s partly so that we can learn if members see anything we’re not seeing. It may be that we’re seeing the same stuff and evaluating it differently. It might be that members are helping us see some stuff that might be more critical. And occasionally a man might withdraw a nomination or the elders might withdraw his nomination if we think there’s something more substantive that’s come to light.
Mark Dever:
That’s been very useful.
Bobby Jamieson:
Assuming nothing disqualifying comes up, we continue to desire him to serve. We then have a ballot vote in the next member’s meeting. That’s his officially being recognized by the congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
Not by hands, not by voice, but on a piece of paper.
Bobby Jamieson:
On a piece of paper, yep.
Mark Dever:
We’re trying to maximize the ease of voting not just to make the vote the strongest support for the person’s eldership that we can.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right.
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah. And then at that point, he is an elder. And then we have a new elder installation, a kind of prayer laying on of hands, taking vows.
Jonathan Leeman:
A few weeks later.
Mark Dever:
No, usually the following Sunday.
Bobby Jamieson:
As soon as possible.
Jonathan Leeman:
You can schedule it.
Mark Dever:
Instead of the pastoral prayer.
How Long is the Elder-Instillation Process?
Jonathan Leeman:
So that whole process, informal conversations, inviting a guy to a table, more conversations, nominating, two months. How long is that process? Is that six months, or eight months?
Mark Dever:
Well, the long part of the process is the fact that any man that we nominate will have almost inevitably been discussed for literally years.
Jonathan Leeman:
Right. OK. So once you invite somebody to the table, all right.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. That’s yeah. Bobby did, did right to put that at the beginning of the process, because after these years of conversation with this one brother comes forward to the point of being asked to come to the table and participate in an elders meeting so we can watch how he would interact, get his comments on how he would vote on how we interact as an eldership.
By that time it’s probably pretty close to us thinking like, yeah, let’s go ahead and nominate him. So sometimes it’ll be the very next members meeting we’ll nominate them. But often there’ll be something else that comes up or something in his life, something he wants to wait on for six months or a year, or something that we identify we want to work on.
So about half the time, not much else happens for a while, but about half the time it will go on quite quickly to the next members meeting. And then two members meetings later voted in as an elder.
Jonathan Leeman:
I can think of one step in the process you forgot to mention, which was usually having a conversation with the wife.
Bobby Jamieson:
Oh, I just mentioned that.
Mark Dever::
He did mention that. You were before the nomination. Your questions that Alex didn’t write.
Bobby Jamieson:
Thanks, Alex. Love you.
Mark Dever:
Raymond, you’re amazing.
Jonathan Leeman:
To what extent?
Mark Dever:
Double Raymond’s salary.
Does the Elder Selection Process Depend on the Church?
Jonathan Leeman:
Triple. Will the process be dependent on the age and the maturity of the church?
Mark Dever:
That’s a good question. I do think that the age of the pastor, of the other elders, and of the kind of members you have, active in your church will probably influence who can well serve as an elder.
But I want to be careful with that even because that sounds like you’re saying you need elders that are older than the average age of your members. And there are so many brother pastors who go into small elderly congregations and those sweet elderly saints are happy to accept 30 or 40-year-old elders.
So I think you’re right to raise, it does matter. You should think about that. But there are so many exceptions to a general rule that I would just say.
Qualifications To Consider When Selecting Elders
Jonathan Leeman:
So can a man be qualified in one church but not in another?
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I think so. Qualified is a strong word, but I think it can be prudent.
Jonathan Leeman:
It can be biblically qualified.
Mark Dever:
That’s right. Prudent from deserving one, not as prudent in another. Do you agree with that, Bobby?
Bobby Jamieson:
As long as they’re making it a matter of prudence, yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, a question Alex did ask right here on my little paper is what situations would you encourage a church not to make a qualified guy a pastor or an elder?
Mark Dever:
Well, myriad.
Jonathan Leeman:
Give me three.
Mark Dever:
A guy is an incredible teacher of the word and he’s got three teenage daughters at home and he’s just really needing the time at home and everybody can see that. Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
OK.
Mark Dever:
Bobby, we can do this tennis back and forth with several examples.
Bobby Jamieson:
Oh, I mean, one might be, I’m trying to think of ones where he would not self-select out necessarily if a man has some real uncertainty about any kind of live possibilities for leaving. You know, I think our congregation does a nice job of accepting men who might not necessarily be around very long but are still able to serve. But if it’s kind of concrete on the table, might be leaving very soon, that might not be the time to appoint a new elder, even if he’s totally qualified.
Elders Should Be Giving Financially to the Church
Mark Dever:
If a man seems visibly very supportive of the church and godly and able to communicate, but he’s not given anything financially to the church in a year.
Jonathan Leeman:
I was going to get to a giving. Let me just tangent there since you brought it up. Do elders look at the giving of would-be elders? You look at financial records, did you pull them out and be like, well?
Bobby Jamieson:
We don’t look at financial records, but in that questionnaire, there’s a question about something like, do you give regularly to the main budget of the church?
Jonathan Leeman:
If the answer is no,
Mark Dever:
You say at least a conversation. It may be a brother teaches publicly and he doesn’t do that well teaching.
And he actually says things that show his construct, his understanding of something in the Old Testament that’s significant is false. And so otherwise he’s commended himself. But at this point, we might want to pull him back.
Bobby Jamieson:
And you are or aren’t doing that as a matter of qualification.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, that sounds like able to teach.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s become clear to us then in the process that he’s not quite as qualified as we thought he was.
Personality Balance Amongst Elders
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m going to come back to be able to teach in a second. What about personality balance? That’s something that comes up a lot.
I don’t want too many guys who are just like the pastor and to think like him. We need guys who are more counseling guys.
But you got another guy who’s just like the pastor because he’s a preacher type. So we’re going to hold off.
Mark Dever:
And I think Ephesians is clear that the elders are gifts of Christ to the church. So I want to be humble about the kind of men the Lord raises up and trust that, yeah, elderships will certainly have a character, a personality to them.
I think all the men who serve in our eldership are not just like each other. Yeah, Bobby, what would you say?
Bobby Jamieson:
You know, if I’m a pastor of… If I’m in a new pastorate, there are no other elders. The guy I’m most confident in being an elder wants to be a full-time preacher down the road.
And right now he teaches Bible at a classical Christian school for high schoolers or whatever. So he looked a lot like a guy who’s going to be a full-time pastor. I mean, if I just think he’s the most mature, most qualified, maybe there’s a couple of guys who feel like they could be ready in two to five years.
I don’t feel like I need to wait for some more, you know, personal or subjective criterion of difference. I’m happy to take this guy now and hope that those other guys are ready when they’re ready.
Who Should Not Be an Elder?
Jonathan Leeman:
I want to go through the examination process. Theological acumen. How much do you expect a man to have?
Bobby Jamieson:
I mean, one way to look at it is, can he, does he not only affirm the church’s statement of faith, but can he in a basic level intelligently explain it and point out some errors and help kind of direct people back to the truth, not in a technical way. He doesn’t have to be reading Turretan.
He doesn’t have to be able to give a sort of historical theological lecture on every article of it. But if you’re thinking about Titus 1 .9 of giving instruction in sound doctrine and refuting those who contradict it, I think in a way it’s a more practical test.
You know, can he help explain the Bible better? Can he help draw someone back to it if they’re going away, Australia in a particular direction? So I think I would not impose a criterion of, you know, formal education.
And I don’t know really how to articulate it besides just saying, does he help people understand the Bible better and obey Jesus better? And there’s an element of teaching and correction in that.
Mark Dever:
I think that the idea that the elders all have to understand the Bible to a certain level that’s better than lay members of the church is often represented by having a second statement of faith that’s more detailed for the elders. I think that’s not flexible enough to represent the reality of the situation.
So I’m not a fan of doing that. I think you want to have the statement of faith of the church that everybody understands. And then as Bobby’s just said, some people are going to be better at explaining it.
And the ones who are best, maybe they’re the ones you pull on staff, or at least it’s from that subset. They’re the ones that you would have. I’d be full-time first of the five kinds of support, I know that in our own church, we’re in a season right now where for a few years now I’ve pulled back the statement of faith membership class to be me or maybe me and Bobby teaching that normally because there was a period when we were letting just anybody sign up for it.
And while I often sit in the new member’s classes, sometimes some of the lay elders didn’t do that well in answering the kind of questions that come up from new members on those things. And I just thought this is where we do need this. The more depth that we have asked for and paid for on our eldership of having staff elders with theological training.
Jonathan Leeman:
Why isn’t a solution there to make sure those lay elders are theologically equipped to answer those kinds of questions?
Mark Dever:
We’re always doing that. But the members that are people are coming in to look at membership. There’s just an infinitely broad set of questions they may ask.
Bobby Jamieson:
That class invites questions from so many different angles. You can’t necessarily, you know, have every lay elder go reading systematic theology.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now I remember when let me offer a criticism but then the counterbalance to that. I remember when I was an elder at CHBC and kind of for the first time, this was like, I don’t know, 08, 09 or something, and a guy would come in, we’d all ask questions, we’d go around the circle, we’d all ask questions, and there were character questions and family questions and there was what I at the time felt like to be a dearth of theological questions. And so, I would feel a certain duty to ask about some basic… doctrinal matter.
Mark Dever:
I often do that still.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, I remember you would do well. Then I would compare us to what the PCA does, where every guy’s got to be examined. Even the ruling elders have to be examined, as I understand it, on Westminster Confession.
Are you concerned that you’re not doing enough of that relative to, say, some of our Presbyterian brethren? Now, the counterbalances, I remember thinking, oh, we don’t do a lot of that, but these guys are all pretty sharp theologically. Somehow it’s working, even though the process wouldn’t suggest it should work.
Mark Dever:
No, again, I’m encouraged that the elders have a hunger for God’s Word and have shown an ability to be reliable guides to others, as the example Bobby was giving earlier when somebody asks them about something in scripture. So while, yes, I want all of us to come to know more, I don’t want to put the bar higher than it needs to be for the churches to function and multiply.
Jonathan Leeman:
What’s the bar available to teach?
Mark Dever:
I think it has to be an understanding of God’s Word and an ability to teach it accurately to someone else, whether that’s in a written form, or one-on-one discipling forum a small group Bible study forum, or a public lecture, or sermon.
Jonathan Leeman:
When I read through the pastorals, I see an emphasis on teaching that’s sound, right? That’s what Paul is concerned about. So my inclination is to say, able to teach is primarily about the
soundness, the faithfulness, the accuracy of a man’s teaching, and only secondarily on this kind of common grace gifts of rhetorical skill and so forth. Would you agree with that?
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah, I think so.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
What Character Qualities Should a Church Watch Out For When Choosing Elders?
Jonathan Leeman:
What kinds of character questions come up in the examination that you would encourage guys to especially watch out for?
Mark Dever:
Well, I think character is going to be one of the things we’re going to feel more familiar with when they walk in.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because you’ve been watching them.
Mark Dever:
Well, because of our knowledge of them and then their repute that’s what’s brought them to our consideration.
Bobby Jamieson:
I’m thinking of the questions we ask in the questionnaire. I mean, it would involve, how are you trying to lead your family. What do your personal habits of devotion look like?
How are your relationships in your workplace? If it is a secular workplace and how, you know, how would people…I think we have a question, would anyone be surprised to learn that you’re being considered as a leader in your church?
We do ask questions about sexual purity, you know, not looking at anything inappropriate in particular. And, you know, we try to get at some of the more horizontal virtues of, you know, humility, teachability, charity, handling conflict, you know, that certainly one thing we’re going to be especially looking out for is how does a brother handle… disagreement? How does a brother handle giving and receiving correction?
Mark Dever:
How does he deal with authority? Having authority or not having authority?
Jonathan Leeman:
Does he create conflict?
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Seems like some theological types can do that. My comment on that is I think there are a lot of people who feel passionate about the truth and they just stand on it and they can create tension. I think theological –
Mark Dever:
Do you think more of John the Baptist or of Jesus?
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, I think John the Baptist and –
Mark Dever:
Paul or Peter?
Jonathan Leeman:
I think Paul, for instance –
Mark Dever:
James or the beloved disciple John?
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m not dissing on theological knowledge. I’m trying to combine that with pastoral skill and compassion, which I think all of those guys demonstrated. True?
Mark Dever:
Amen.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s all I’m saying. Mere theology by itself isn’t enough. I’d like to think of myself as a theological guy, but I hope I’m more. We can probably cut all that out.
How Do You Measure Humility in Elder Candidates?
Mark Dever:
Oh, I’d definitely leave that in. That’s why people listen for those real moments. Didn’t script that, did you, Raymond?
Jonathan Leeman:
No, he didn’t. How do you discern the difference between whoever aspires aspires a good thing and a desired position of leadership and power?
Mark Dever:
Bobby, you go first. I have some thoughts on it, but you go first.
Bobby Jamieson:
Sure. I think one would be, is a brother taking the regular spiritual initiative to do good to other people in a variety of settings, personal relationships, serving people in practical ways, being eager to just build up other people in ways that could be prominent or public, like teaching, doing a Sunday evening devotional or leading a course seminar, or it could just be, you know, someone evidently investing in other people spiritually, is he seeming to be diligent about doing the work and more concerned about doing the work than about being recognized or being sort of thrust forward or being given a particular prominence?
So I think that’s a pretty good test case. Yeah, I don’t think a guy has to have this, but I like when I see it that there’s a degree of hesitancy or even drawing back a little. Oh, I don’t want to consider myself as worthy or deserving of that.
Yeah, it could become crippling or a kind of false humility, but I like it if a brother says, Oh, I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’m not sure I’m qualified for that.
And my assessment of him is sort of outpacing his own assessment of himself. That’s a kind of healthy thing.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s a superb answer. I would sign onto all that. The only thing I would add is if you’re a new pastor, you’re in your first two or three years of pastoring, you will have strong guys come in who know theology well, who will almost insist on being pastors.
Do not appoint them as elders. That humility Bobby’s talking about is hugely important, both for representing the theology they say they believe and for practically working with other elders and for loving the sheep well without being too rough on them. And there is a kind of –
Jonathan Leeman:
So you’re saying theological knowledge by itself isn’t enough.
Mark Dever:
Certainly saying that, but there’s a breed of people who seem entitled. And I find this in the church as well with people who want to be elders and it’s some of the more awkward social interactions I’ve ever had in England or here with people who would come into the church with this mighty assumption of themselves.
And it was just, it was kind of embarrassing, but I think if you’re a new pastor, you might be thrown a little bit. You might wonder, ah, he does seem to know his Bible well. Maybe he should be an elder.
And I’m just really doubled down on what Bobby just said. If there’s not that evident humility in the thought of the office. That humility can go along with the aspiration to be an elder that Paul praises to Timothy.
You know, in 1 Timothy 3:1, it’s a noble thing to desire this task. But at the same time, you want a sense of the task being above you.
Bobby Jamieson:
Mark, are you thinking that part of the factor you’re observing there, and I’m not saying all of it, but just one element would be a kind of land-grab mentality of a new pastor, oh, I can kind of get in and get a piece of this ministry.
Mark Dever:
That’d be one way it would happen.
Bobby Jamieson:
One aspect.
How Do You Find Qualified Elders at a Small Church?
Jonathan Leeman:
One brother on Twitter asked me the question when I asked about this. What do you do if you’re the pastor of a small church and there may not be any eligible men to be elders? How much should we be influenced by the ideal of having multiple elders move toward accepting a…
Mark Dever:
That is such a good question. That is the situation of so many pastors. And brothers, let me just say, I pray for you or brothers in situations like yours so often, because you can’t make elders out of nothing. They are gifts Christ gives the church.
And sometimes you look over your 70 people and you think like, I can’t with any honesty say I see a brother here who is an elder or I can radically change my idea of the elder and name these three responsible husbands and fathers and call them elders. I think they’re saved. That’s a hard situation.
Who Should Nominate Elders?
Jonathan Leeman:
Who should nominate elders? The congregation, the elders?
Mark Dever:
We’ve decided it’s most appropriate if the elders nominate, but there’s a kind of nomination we encourage the congregation to do and that we regularly encourage congregations right to the elders and bring names to us. That is a kind of nomination.
The difference is it’s not a publicly done thing so as to require a public comment from the elders on every name nominated. And the reason I don’t think that’s edifying for the church to do that is then you’re just bringing out everybody’s business in front of everybody all the time, anytime any one member would want to bring up any one name.
You know, and it’s just like, you know, the brother is struggling in his marriage with anger right now. There’s been good progress made. Yeah, it’s not going to be helpful to what’s going on in their marriage.
Jonathan Leeman:
Does Act 6 give you any pause on that matter? The fact that the nominations seem to have come from the church.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, I bet the apostles gave them some guidelines. Yeah. when you look at
Jonathan Leeman:
Godly men of good repute.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, exactly. And so when you look at who they picked and the makeup of the men they picked, I think for a specific task like that, it made entire sense. And also the church has just come together. So yeah.
How Much Should the Congregation Know About the Elder Selection Process?
Jonathan Leeman:
How much does the congregation know about the elder selection process? How much should they know?
Mark Dever:
Well, first of all, how much do they care to know? I mean, there are some people who just want to know everything and there are other people who are bored stiff if you mention anything about polity and process. So I think it varies a lot.
Jonathan Leeman:
What do you say to the church when you nominate the man about the process?
Bobby Jamieson:
We read out the qualifications and affirm that we think the man meets them. We’ll give just a brief synopsis of who he is, his family, his kind of involvement in the church as kind of a refresher, you know, to just to help people see here’s some of the ways he’s served and benefit of the congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
Do you give instruction on how to, if they object?
Bobby Jamieson:
We do. I mean, we just encourage them to and even in a sense charge them to speak to the elders about that to let us know of that concern or that an intent to vote no and the ground of it. And we just indicate that that’s part of the reason why we have that two-month lag period.
So we kind of remind people in every member meeting the elders are, you know, putting this man forward if we continue to intend to that nomination. We’ll bring him to a vote in two months time.
Mark Dever:
It’s a super useful time One thought I’ve been having recently I shared with Bobby yesterday was I think it’s good for us as elders when we bring somebody up as a nominee and we’ve gotten some, I would say pretty mild pushback from just a member or two, and we’ve given time for them to deal with that. And our view of the person hasn’t changed fundamentally in their nature and character and ministry in the church.
It’s good, it’s healthy then for the elders to put that same person back up so that it’s clear that there’s been resolution and the questions that we looked at, the judgment was a good judgment. That person’s name is not besmirched wrongly by having had it pulled back.
How Should Churches Handle Pulling a Nomination?
The people who felt some concern, have we trust dealt with that and worked through that. Yeah, this is a dynamic thing, but it’s not you have 17, you know, really good men and then all these 200 guys who are just like subpar, but it’s a, the eldership is a dynamic thing in a church and there are new people being added even as others roll off and the Holy Spirit’s at work and guys can grow and mature.
Jonathan Leeman:
Maybe a handful of times you’ve pulled a nomination.
Mark Dever:
Maybe more than a handful.
Bobby Jamieson:
Well, and some of those might be a brother choosing to withdraw.
Mark Dever:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We always try to present it that way.
Jonathan Leeman:
Because feedback came that he felt a conscience burden about.
Mark Dever:
Oh, I would say that happens 25 % of the time.
Jonathan Leeman:
What, where a guy pulls his own name back?
Mark Dever:
Well,
Jonathan Leeman:
after you nominate?
Mark Dever:
It’s always a combination.
Jonathan Leeman:
It’s a conversation between the elders and the guy. Well, sure.
Mark Dever:
Well, feedback comes usually to the elders. The elders share it with the guy. Then all kinds of various things may happen.
Jonathan Leeman:
A quarter of the time, really.
Bobby Jamieson:
That seems a little high to me.
Jonathan Leeman:
I don’t remember that from my years on the board,
Mark Dever:
but maybe 20%.
Jonathan Leeman:
A number of times. OK. Whatever. Whatever.
Mark Dever:
It’s not a rare event.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s awkward.
Mark Dever:
I could start listing a bunch of names right now.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m sure they’d love that.
Mark Dever:
They?
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, you said a bunch of names.
Mark Dever:
You could have said we, but anyway, go ahead.
Jonathan Leeman:
I don’t think so.
Mark Dever:
Keep going.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s an awkward thing to do, nor a funny thing to do.
Mark Dever:
I agree.
Jonathan Leeman:
Deserving of a drum.
Mark Dever:
Nobody would do that.
Jonathan Leeman:
No, exactly.
Mark Dever:
I mean, Alberto is bored during these sometimes. So you never know what he’s going to do with his drums.
Jonathan Leeman:
How do you do that with the church? That’s awkward.
Mark Dever:
It is awkward. It tests people’s humility.
Jonathan Leeman:
Wife’s humility.
Mark Dever:
Tests their love for the Lord, and tests relationships with each other. Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
There’s just no easy way around it.
Mark Dever:
I mean, it’s helped hugely by humility on all parts.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
But yeah, probably any comment on that? We’ve seen that dynamic happen a few times.
Bobby Jamieson:
We have. I do think it’s important to help people recognize, you know, like a nominee, potential nominee, and his wife, that this does invite public scrutiny.
Jonathan Leeman:
This is what you’re getting into.
Bobby Jamieson:
Exactly. This is what you’re getting into. So you do run a risk of some awkward and public conversations.
Mark Dever:
Well, it invites them.
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Dever:
Literally.
Jonathan Leeman:
At the same time, if you’re unwilling to ever pull a nomination, that also questions the integrity of the process.
Mark Dever:
Oh, sure.
Jonathan Leeman:
Questions the integrity of your congregationalism, right?
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
Elder’s willingness to listen to the church.
Do Not Hold the Elder Selection Process to a Perfectionist Standard
Bobby Jamieson:
I appreciate what Mark’s saying about, you know, keeping it from becoming a kind of perfectionist standard. You know, so if an issue is addressed and there’s a little bit of time that goes by, then yeah, it can be appropriate. We remain fundamentally convinced of his fitness and we think he’s handled this criticism and concern in an appropriate way.
And at the same time, we also don’t want to give the impression that we will always agree with criticism that comes in or we will always view it as being as significant a matter as some church member might. In other words, we might hear that criticism we might kind of see the basis that they’re looking at in the brother’s life, but just go, oh, we just, you know, either we don’t think he’s sinned.
We see this differently than you do, or we recognize that there might be, you know, this might be a little bit weaker area of his character, but we don’t at all view it as disqualifying him from being above reproach. But we can’t have a perfectionist standard for elders or none of us would be elders.
Jonathan Leeman:
But fair to say sometimes criticism will come in. You agree with it. You pulled the nomination.
Sometimes it comes in. Maybe you don’t agree with it, but you recognize it’s enough of a stumbling block for enough people in the church. You feel like, hey, let’s just pull back for now.
Mark Dever:
Generally with those, we try to go ahead. We want to make it clear it doesn’t need to be unanimous.
Jonathan Leeman:
One.
Mark Dever:
If the person pulls back unless they just decide that without consulting with the elders, which does happen, we need to feel there’s some purchase, some credibility in these two or these three members saying, ah, this person felt proud or unteachable or unsympathetic when I come to them with problems.
Jonathan Leeman:
20 people are saying that the elders fundamentally disagree. You’re going to push it through.
Mark Dever:
If 20 people are saying that there’s just no way the elders are going to fundamentally disagree. That’s just not, that’s never going to happen. Now that could happen in our constitution and we only need 75%.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, right.
Bobby Jamieson:
66% these days.
Mark Dever:
Is it 66?
Bobby Jamieson:
Yeah, we lowered it.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, we did.
Jonathan Leeman:
You did?
Bobby Jamieson:
We did like four years ago as part of a big, you know, a bundle of little constitutional revisions.
Jonathan Leeman:
I leave and go to another church and look what happens.
Mark Dever:
And I don’t even remember. Yeah. But it’s because we’re pretty sensitive to any criticism. So if somebody brings criticism, I would say most of our nominees will get some criticism and then it’s a matter of us trying to sort through what do we need to follow up on or not. And it’s not always clear.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, just to kind of state the point, there’s a difference between one person showing up and 20 people showing up. Where’s that line? That just takes a lot of wisdom and discernment.
How heavy is this? How real is this? And may the Lord give wisdom to elders as they think through this. Any other comments, brothers, on elder selection, assessment, examination, nomination, obviously ends with a vote, but anything else in that whole process?
Mark Dever:
I’m just so thankful for brothers in our church who’ve been willing to serve as elders. It is hard work. It invites criticism. It’s hugely encouraging to me that I’ve been able to work with literally scores of men as shepherds in this church.
Jonathan Leeman:
Amen.
Bobby Jamieson:
Amen. Praise God.
Mark Dever:
Thanks, guys.
Jonathan Leeman:
Thank you.
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A weekly conversation between Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever about practical aspects of the Christian life and pastoral ministry.
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