WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL MODEL FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP?

One of the reasons behind the proliferation of different Christian denominations stems from disagreement as to the proper, biblical mode of church government, or polity, to follow. And this in turn stems from the fact that the New Testament is not as clear as we would like regarding that subject. Actually, the NT appears to describe two somewhat competing or complementary forms of church leadership.

    A. On the one hand, you could say that the early church was spirit-led:

“When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” (I Corinthians 14:26b)

But this model comes with its own major questions: (a) Are all of these spiritual gifts still available today to Christians, or only the “non-sign gifts?” and (b) Paul goes on to say in I Corinthians that all must be done in an orderly manner. But who is going to ensure that order?

    B. As a second pattern, read through the Pastoral Epistles. The guidance given to Timothy and Titus presupposes a structured community governed more or less after the pattern of the Jewish synagogues with its elders. These male leaders appear to also appear under the name of presbyters or bishops. However, according to some denominational interpretations, these three terms may apply to different levels of church leadership. (I am leaving out the office of deacon since it is strictly defined in terms of a service role in the Bible.) And what exactly is the role of Timothy and Titus themselves? Are they equivalent to today's senior pastor, or are they traveling evangelists who are to set up local leadership in the church and then depart?

Thus, since there is no one model of church polity provided in the new Testament that is wholly free from ambiguity, perhaps we should turn to the question of which form of church government is the most effective. All I have to offer below is my own experience over many decades worshiping and serving in a number of different congregations, with the moves from one to the other mainly necessitated by changing work and family situation. And these experiences are strictly limited to attending evangelical, non-liturgical, independent congregations. However, all of these churches were more or less loosely aligned with some sort of denomination or church tradition.

I will make no attempt to describe the following congregations in the chronological order in which I experienced them:

    A church administered by elders who had a more or less permanent tenure and were chosen by congregational vote. The pastor was treated as the main spiritual resource of the church but served at the pleasure of the eldership.

    A loose-knit group of worshipers who adhered rather closely to the pattern given in I Corinthians 14, with rough oversight from a small steering group of gifted leaders who were there to insure that everything was done with decorum and that no one person attempted to monopolize the proceedings.

    A small democratically-run congregation in which all decisions were made by an open vote at frequent meetings after discussion of the pros and cons of the issues at hand. The church tradition demanded multiple eldership at the local level. Since we did not have more than one qualified candidate for that position, three men were chosen to be deacons who did everything from take turns preaching to teaching Sunday school to serving as church janitors.

    A semi-liturgical congregation with a well-developed system of government in which major decisions to be brought before the congregation for a vote had to first be approved by the board. Membership in the board included a chairman more or less appointed by a steering committee, the church treasurer, chairman of the deacons, chairman of the elders, and selected chairmen chosen from the various operating committees. The paid staff, including the senior pastor, were allowed to attend meetings unless told not to do so, but they had no vote.

    A church in which only the ordained staff members were considered to be elders. Deacons were strictly servants of the church but had no real oversight duties. Major issues were decided by congregational vote at monthly business meetings. But most of the key decisions were actually made behind the scenes by the various operating committees, with rotating membership and leadership chosen by the congregation.

    A rather large congregation which was elder-led by a group that was largely self-perpetuating. All of the ordained staff members were also part of the eldership, and the senior pastor more or less called the shots on most issues. Very few items were brought up for a congregational vote.

    An independent congregation blessed with a group of very godly and dedicated elders and staff. The elders interpreted their main duties as shepherds of the congregation and that informed all their actions. They worked very closely with the senior pastor with seemingly little or no conflict.

    A church affiliated with a large denomination which provided most of the Sunday school materials and to whom special missionary offerings were made every year. The eldership consisted of the ordained staff only, with a small rotating group of elected representatives from the church membership serving in an advisory role.

Despite the differences in types of church leadership, all of these congregations managed to function quite well in practice most of the time. And that is why I suspect that we weren't given any hard and fast rules in the Bible regarding which type of organization to set up. On the other hand, even congregations that on paper had almost identical types of church polity varied widely in their effectiveness depending almost solely on the nature of the people chosen to hold leadership roles.

For example, I have known elder-led congregations in which the “lay” eldership was chosen by (a) seniority, (b) spiritual characteristics, or (c) according to their wealth and ability as independent businessmen. Those in the first category often served reluctantly and gladly walked away from their responsibilities as soon as they could find a younger person to take their job. Those congregations which took seriously the qualifications for leadership described in the Pastoral Epistles seemed to be the most successful in identifying true shepherds as well as hiring a pastoral staff which was characterized by their servant hearts. The third group of elders tended to mirror the personalities of the staff members. All were used to doing their own thing the way they wanted to operate and with no coordination with or care for the other leaders or the congregation. To me, the overwhelming lesson was that practically any sort of church government will work as long as the scriptural guidelines concerning the spiritual character of the leaders are adhered to closely. I think that is why, for example, the Pastoral Epistles spend so much time outlining the spiritual qualifications of a church leader but give practically no guidance regarding their actual duties.

A few other personal observations regarding church government are listed below:

    Often, especially in small churches, the real power lies not with those officially outlined in the congregational by-laws, but with the richest, most influential, or most complaining person in the membership.

    One totally unjustified behavior is to join a church with the sole purpose of changing the way they do things to suit your own preferences. That is akin to marrying a spouse with the idea in mind of changing him or her after you are married. It hardly ever works and often leads to divorce.

    The same occasional conflict arises today between the two “biblical” models (A and B above) of church leadership. Since I have been an adult Bible teacher for many decades now, I have personally observed this sometimes good and sometimes bad relationship between the pastoral leaders (staff and elders) and those in the congregation who had the gift of teaching. As in many other situations, there appear to be two equally bad extremes to avoid.

One such extreme is seen when the church leadership washes its hands of all responsibility regarding what is taught or who does the teaching in the church, whether is in regard to Sunday school or small home groups. In one case, the pastor was so desperate to find anyone at all to teach, that for one semester he allowed an elective class for Sunday school devoted to home gardening techniques. At least that was a somewhat innocuous way for parishioners to spend an hour. But in other cases of which I am aware at another congregations, the results were decidedly negative.

As a teenager growing up in church, about the only things at all that I remember were two rather outrageous examples of teachers who never should have been put in that position. One was a pleasant enough woman who taught us that astrology was the method by which God ruled our lives here on earth. And then there was the man who taught the boys' class and spent his time telling off-color “jokes” making fun of minorities. Even the pastor's wife who taught the women's class was little better since she had a laundry list of sinful behaviors to avoid which included playing any card game with a deck having face cards in it.

One Sunday school class was taught by someone who can only be described as a modern-day Judaizer who was in love with all things Jewish. He spent his time teaching the class members about the Jewish rituals, and for a time even led a Jewish-oriented worship service to compete with the regular services of the church until the church leadership forced him to stop. Another similarly ignored Sunday school class was led by a business consultant who spent his time convincing the young men in the congregation that it was time for them to take charge and oust the older leadership of the church.

The other extreme, however, is just as disruptive to the proper workings of the church. That happens when a new minister of education is hired or a new group of elders comes in office, and they decide that they know much better than the Sunday school teachers (whether of children or adult classes) how a class should be conducted. And so without (a) much prior experience themselves as teachers, (b) even attending a single Sunday school class to see how it is run, or (c) getting prior feedback from the teachers, they begin making wholesale changes in how each class should be run. One thing they seldom take into account is that the teachers and leaders of each class are all volunteers, not paid for their efforts. And therefore undue burdens should not be placed on any of them in terms of time required to meet any additional duties.

One church I attended handled “the teacher situation” is a fairly reasonable manner most of the time. For one thing, they had an unofficial practice of coupling a new or inexperienced teacher with a trusted member of the staff or congregation for one semester of team teaching to see how the new teacher did before trusting him with a class on his own. That was the way I started teaching at that particular church soon after attending the congregation. However, at one point I had to inform the church elders that I could not in good conscience put in my name for actual church membership because I did not wholeheartedly subscribe to one of the twenty or so doctrinal points to which I had to agree. It happened to involve a tertiary issue regarding the exact details associated with the end times.

I found out much later that my admission actually triggered a whole elder's meeting to decide what to do with me. They delegated the Minister of Education to talk to me, after which he reported back to the elders. The compromise they suggested was that I could continue teaching as long as I refrained from ever teaching on that particular eschatological matter. I readily agree that it was completely their prerogative and duty to request that of me since they were the official leaders of the church. And in that manner, I continued to teach for years afterward, even though at one or two times I had to refer a question from the class to one of my co-teachers for a reply. And there was another time during a large mid-week presentation by a later Minister of Education when I had to refuse point-blank from responding to a question he posed to me, reminding him and the class of my prior agreement with the eldership of the church.

So in conclusion, I hope you weren't expecting any sort of resolution to the question of either the most effective or most biblical mode of church leadership because I don't think anyone is in a position to answer that question definitively. The best we can do is to adhere to NT guidelines concerning the quality of leadership that we should expect in the church, whatever that form of leadership is in your particular congregation or denomination.