White Horse Inn Blog

5 Comments on “WHI-1048 | The Whole Counsel of God”

1. 
   Deb Felak
   May 9th, 2011 at 4:01 am

   Thanks for this broadcast. Our church (250)does have (13)elders and (16)deacons, for the leading and serving of the church. But I am increasingly concerned that the leading ministry (elders) is looking more and more like serving through committees like ministerial oversight (hiring and evaluation of paid staff), Christian education, missions, pastoral care (of congregation), youth ministries, music ministries,small group, etc, so much so that these elders have little time for growing in the knowledge of the word and the actual shepherding of the flock (through personal visits, teaching in Sunday School, etc). They have no time to study and teach. As a regular member of the church, benefiting greatly by the teachings of WHI, what is the best way for me to bring these concerns to my elders?

2. 
   Kevin McCubbin
   May 9th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

   Hi Deb

   It sounds like the governing structure of your church at least recognizes a biblical model of shepherd-elder as distinct from deacon; congratulations. Speaking as an Elder in a typical evangelical church, this is often not the case. Very often I find myself swimming upstream against the flow of the man-centered wisdom of church growth vision and methodology. If your church is struggling to maintain a biblical eldership (or has a vision to institute one), the starting point is going to be trusting God to provide for His people. Moving from there I have found the following:

   a) Ensuring qualified eldership, Elders who are commited students of the word themselves, who demonstrate the gifts of pastor/teacher, who are accountable to the word, who see teaching and sheperding as central to their call to Eldership.

   b) In absence of qualified men, the repetition of key concepts (foreign to many evangellical ears); like admitting there is a standard of ecclesiology that is beyond our selves and what ‘seems right in our own eyes’. This means admitting the notion that Christ will build his church through the means he has ordained (and explaining what that means), not through the means we invent (and explaining the difference). There needs to be an appeal made to the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture to regulate church life and mission, over and above that of tradition or ‘good ideas’. This is a huge point, and it has to be hit time and time again. Often I find that many leaders in the church, Pastors included, simply do not have the categories to even understand why it is a problem (for instance) to have elders focused on marketing campaigns and performance appraisals.

   c.) It will be concensus around the scripture that will win the day. It will give us the lenses to see that there is a problem and will help to secure buy-in from the leaders.

   c). But if the L.P will not see the problem, you will need bold men on the board who are prepared to stand on scriptural convicions.

   It has taken a couple of years in our church repeatedly questioning the current orthodoxy of church growth to make even the slightest inroads towards shepherd/teacher and away from business manager. Often men want something to do that they can achieve, thus all the busy work.

   The resources available on WHI are invaluable, and have been extremely helpful building a base of understanding within our church. Do like they say, download the podcasts, burn them and hand them out to key people in your congregation to open up the conversation.

3. 
   Deb Felak
   May 10th, 2011 at 10:26 am

   Thanks Kevin. You have given much to consider and pursue! Blessings!

4. » Friday Round Up Effectual Grace
   May 13th, 2011 at 8:48 am

   [...] as they walk through Paul’s farewell address to the elders of the church of Ephesus in Acts 20 here. Print [...]

5. 
   brad ingle
   August 7th, 2011 at 7:55 pm

   Good show

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