Eldership and Member Development

Obviously the congregation is made up of different members with differing abilities. The church is described in 1 Corinthians 12 as a human body. The body needs all of its parts to function properly.

If parts are absent or weakened then the church is “handicapped” and cannot function properly as God designed it. So then it is on the Elders to identify and develop talent in the congregation so that the church body can function properly.

Here’s the thing… talent can never be developed unless it is discovered and used.

Several things factor into the wasting of talent by not using it. In a lot of congregations the Preacher is the main guy. He typically does all the preaching and teaches all of the classes. After-all that’s his job we pay him for that right?. So you have a body part that is over developed while the other parts are wasting away. I’m not a fan of the one Preacher system (for several reasons) where the Preacher is used to the exclusion of the other members.

Another factor is micro-management by Elders. Some Elders feel like they have to do and control everything. I know, of some congregations where the Elders do all of the announcements for fear that someone might “announce” the wrong thing.

At Parkway we discovered a young man who in his early 20s had an incredible “presence” for making announcements. He was comfortable, spoke clearly and had good extemporaneous thoughts to share with the congregation. We have used him and I’m convinced still have not discovered his “ceiling”.

We’ve had young Song-leaders who showed ability and with use have really developed into excellent Song-leaders.

Talent and ability can never grow unless you use them. You can’t be afraid of talent making mistakes. In fact you want the talented people to make mistakes so they can grow and learn from it. As Elders, let’s not handicap the congregation. Let’s discover talent and use that talent so the congregation can be all that it can be.

Eldership and Communicating Your Mission

I’m afraid that for many members if you asked them what the mission of the church was they would reply… to take the Lord’s Supper, sing, give the offering, pray and listen to preaching… Failure… abject failure. Those things are “what” the church does. The mission relates to “why” we do those things. We do the “what” things to accomplish the “why” things.

The Lord’s Supper causes us to remember Jesus and his sacrifice. Singing is a memory device to teach us about God and to teach each other. The offering teaches us to sacrifice to help others. Praying teaches us dependence upon God for all of our cares and worries. And Preaching/teaching causes us to learn about God. These things (and others) help us grow spiritually as individuals and collectively as a congregation to demonstrate to the world (physical world and spiritual spiritual world) that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

That’s our mission and it’s a grand and challenging mission.

So Elders, as leaders, need to constantly communicate to the congregation why we are in business. Not just a collection of spiritual robots performing a mundane list of requirements but a living, breathing, growing, organic collection of spiritual beings waging war with Satan and pleasing our God and Father in Heaven.

Something You Can Learn from Dogs

I was recently at a seminar that provides service dogs for people who are handicapped and often wheel chair bound. I was struck by what the speaker said, that a lot of these handicapped people are mentally beat down because they are not normal and that feeling is validated every day by the way people look at them and treat them.

When this organization provides a service dog for these individuals a transformation begins to take place… the dog provides unconditional love… the dog cannot see the handicap. He’s blind to it.

And eventually the handicapped person begins to believe the dog that they are worthy of love.

Jesus Christ provides that kind of transforming love but the problem with that is it’s hard to buy into concepts. What’s easier to buy into is when the Lord’s people provide that kind of unconditional love. Then it becomes palpable and real and helps build faith in Jesus Christ.

So when we meet someone who is not like us and may wear the visible effects of a sin stained life don’t look at that handicap, don’t even look at it… look at the person inside and use the power of love that Jesus gave you to help transform them because eventually they’ll begin to believe in it and reject the lie that Satan has sold them and believe in Jesus Christ.

Friends... Lost and Found

I know two people who love each other and each wants to feel important to the other person… and yet they don’t call each other because they think the other person should call them. So two people who could have a much deeper relationship… don’t because of their expectations.

A long time ago when I was a Deacon I was really close to one of our Elders and then some church trouble came up and we found ourselves on different sides of the fence. The troubles were resolved but our relationship was never the same and then the old Elder and his wife moved away. I loved that old man… he had taught me a lot about the Lord and plus we were just good friends.

I hated it that we had lost our old friendship and then one day I told Julie, “I don’t care if he doesn’t like me… I like him” and I started calling him and talking with him and lo and behold our friendship rekindled and I found out that he had never stopped liking me and it just took me a little effort to find that out.

Carl Miller developed Alzheimer’s and no longer lives on this earth. I’m glad that we found our relationship before it was too late.

Put your pride away and call those people you love.

Eldership and How the Church Functions

You might see different things when you walk into a church service.

- Some churches are heavy on formality and ritualism and some are very casual and informal. - Some churches emphasize the Bible and Bible study. Some who emphasize Bible study may put much more emphasis on the New Testament than the Old. - Some churches are heavy on the social aspect of Christianity and the whole assembly may be punctuated with meals and snacks and such like with minimal Bible study. - Some churches emphasize acceptance of other people to the extent that they ignore open sin and do not hold their members to any level of accountability. - Some churches emphasize the positive aspects of God and de-emphasize God’s hatred of sin.

All the examples listed above are examples of churches who are out of balance. The dangerous thing about out of balance churches is that they may produce Christians who are also out of balance. The church functions to assist in the production of Christians who are the mirror images of Jesus Christ. To do so Elders must lead the congregations they have authority over by teaching the Bible in a comprehensive way… a balance of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Elders must not neglect the powerful social aspect of the Gospel of Christ and must encourage its members to fulfill their social obligations to each other. Elders should inform the congregations members that Jesus wanted his people to be sin-free and that open sin in the congregation will not be ignored. Elders should give careful consideration to how the congregations they work with function so that on The Day when these congregations of people are delivered up to God for evaluation they may be found healthy and whole.

The Wife of God

http://s186728045.onlinehome.us/mp3/RobPerkins-2014-04-13-Ezekiel.mp3

Eldership and Wives

The qualification in I Timothy 3 states that an Elder candidate “Must be the husband of one wife”. Usually there is a reason behind qualifications and one reason is that the man must be a family man and demonstrate good leadership qualities in his own family so that the congregation can predict his ability to lead God’s family. Not a bad reason but probably not the only reason.

Julie and I were married in 1973 one week out of high school. She remains some 43 years later the only girl I ever dated. When I became an Elder at Parkway she fully supported me in that… of course. Over the course of time I have seen her excel as a Bible class teacher. To this day I can still say she is stronger in the Old Testament than I am. Gradually I saw her taking on other tasks. Tasks that I never asked or hinted that she do. As you know I send out via email my “Church News”. She started copying that and handing it out to people who don’t have email… primarily older people. Her weekly “Church News” is different than mine. Hers includes a prayer list, plus all the emails that I have sent out to the rest of the congregation during the week. In addition, she’ll add anything encouraging that she might find.

Speaking of the “Prayer List” she is the one who maintains and updates that. I just forward it on. She also keeps up the “Membership Roster” which includes email addresses, birthdays and anniversaries. Every once in a while someone will thank me for an anniversary or birthday card. Everyone in the congregation receives those but they are not from me… they are from her signed “Rob and Julie Perkins”. BTW, she doesn’t get as many thanks as the number of cards she sends out but she has never complained about that.

She sees needs and encourages me to do something about it.

A while back I closed my fist and told her jokingly she was “quenching my spirit”. She said “I have been trying for 40 years to quench your spirit and so far have been unsuccessful”. And yet a while back I had 3-4 members who were kind of down on me and said (for the first time), “sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it”. A few days later she told me some things about what a fine Elder she thought I was and some other kind things and a light came on and I said, “this is about what I said the other day?”

She is vital in organizing church Pot lucks like the one we just had.

She’s a quiet person and some people don’t understand her. Several years ago one of our Hispanic members asked me if she was prejudiced. No she’s just quiet and not as extroverted as I am. She doesn’t like attention drawn to herself and I’m sure I’ll be in trouble for this but I wanted to illustrate what an Elders wife can do working behind the scenes and not seeking the limelight and how she has helped transform me.

I’ll never forget the day when a light clicked on for me and I thought…. She believes in me.And that has made all the difference.