Eldership: Seating, Texting, etc.

Many years ago Julie and I used to sit towards the front of the auditorium and then for some reason we decided to change our seats and moved to the very back row. That turned out to be a good move for us. Here’s what I’ve learned.

As an Elder when you are sitting on the back row you can see the whole flock. When you are sitting in the front you can’t. Things that can be seen from the back include things like who is missing, visitors and any activities that might need to be addressed.

Sometimes strangers with requests including homeless come in the after services have started. It’s good to have a person in authority in the back to address those folks.

Sometimes members come up to me with a note about something that needs to be announced when they ordinarily would not feel comfortable walking to the front to give said note.

Sometimes I see members crying during the services or who walk out crying that may have needs that I can address.

I do a little bit of texting during the services. If there is some kind of issue I can text the other Elders and inform them. If there is a security issue where the security person in the back may need a little help I can text the other security people.

If there are several visitors who need to be greeted after services and I know I can’t get to all of them I can text my other hospitality experts to help out. I can even surreptitiously take a digital photo from my cell phone of the visitors and text it to our super greeters.

Once services have started I can assess who is missing and text a message that we have missed them.

When the kids are filing out to go to class I can give them all a “fist bump”.

One of the down sides to sitting on the back row is some of the members like to slap me on the back of the head or tap me on the opposite shoulder to make me look the wrong way. Just joking… that’s not a downside… they’re telling me that they are comfortable with me and that they love me.

I’m not saying that all the Elders need to sit on the back row but at least one does because it’s hard to shepherd the flock when you can’t see the flock.

Julie and I didn’t move to the back row because we did some in depth analysis or because of the wise council of a spiritual sage. We did it by accident and like a lot of things in our lives it just worked out for the good.