The most undertrained group in churches are elders.
Most church elders are not on staff at their churches. That’s not just thinking about very small churches that can’t pay one of their elders, but most eldership teams are going to be majority non-employed by their churches. As an aside, don’t call these guys ‘lay elders’ in settings that believe they’re all equally ‘ordained,’ it’s demeaning. I think it’s good and right that the majority of an eldership team is going to be made up of people doing ordinary jobs in the community your church is in.
There might be a few situations where an alternative arrangement is a good one, but I can’t think of many. I’ve certainly heard the argument that very large churches need all their elders on staff so they can move more quickly. That’s the sort of argument that exposes assumptions about ministry, because I think that’s exactly the reason they shouldn’t. It’s likely that there are many churches out there that move too slowly, I haven’t been in that sort of church myself but I believe they exist, the fact that we make an argument about wanting to have a structure that lets you ‘move quickly’ is probably proof you aren’t one of those. Pastors are gardeners. Sometimes you just need to watch the trees grow.
So most pastors or elders are not paid by churches. They’re godly older men who’ve lived good lives before the Lord and have been called to bear the pastoral weight of that body of Christ. They probably haven’t had theological training, even if those among them who are paid have done (though even that is often not true). They probably haven’t had pastoral training. They may even not have had the opportunity to explore the qualifications for elders with other elders in such a way that helps them see where to structure their time and their lives.
My simple suggestion is this: we should train them.
I’ve been an elder in two churches. I’ve got over ten years’ experience of it. I’ve not been paid a salary by either church. I do have some theological training, though not anything that was aimed at ‘me’ (actually, in my case, all in secular academic settings, which makes me good at writing and thinking but doesn’t do a monkey’s for my pastoral skill). I’ve learned plenty on the job, I’m just cresting into middle age so inevitably there’s a lot more to learn. Wisdom takes time.
I got a little bit of apprenticeship style training. In one network they did run days and weekend for me, which was welcome; though I don’t know if it was training, it was primarily refreshment, which is also important.
When I say ‘we should train them,’ I include myself in both the ‘we’ and the ‘them,’ which I appreciate might be self-defeating.
We don’t necessarily need to start running courses. I like developing a training course, and I’m good at it, but it’s not always the right thing to do. We probably need apprenticeship style relationships most of the time.
I have three suggestions of things which might help us to make some headway here.
Apprenticeships
An apprenticeship of a ‘younger’ elder to an older is a good idea. Most of the time its going to be helpful if that’s from a different church. That’s partly about power dynamics, it’s partly about the potential for groupthink, and it’s partly because connections are good.
Some younger elders might manage to arrange this. Most are overwhelmed by the important work they have to do and trying to focus on the person in front of them. It behoves older elders to seek them out.
I also think this is the sort of think that networks and denominations can make easier. You could make it a requirement if you wanted, but even if all you did was facilitate it by suggesting its helpful and then acting as a bit of a matching service it would have dividends.
Of course the quality of this sort of thing depends a lot on the individual relationship between the two men. You can’t control for that, but since ‘discipleship’ is ‘apprenticeship’ perhaps we should start with Jesus’ model for training.
Initial Training
I suspect for most that would be a great help, but we can go further. I wish someone had taken the time to go through the Bible’s requirements for elders with me in great and weighty detail before I was first appointed. There is much fruit for reflection on what you should do in those texts, but it would also help us stop focusing on tasks and instead focusing on character. That’s the point here, and as has been much commented on has probably been talked about without being acted on a lot in British circles for the last fifty years or so.
There are countless wonderful exceptions—and more exceptions than cases—but we’ve all seen some of the examples of when it all goes wrong.
The thing is, to do this well is probably quite time consuming, though it’s time well spent. It’s another occasion when economy of scale could be helpful. The average church is not often appointing more than one elder at a time, so banding together with another few churches to run something for those elders you’re considering appointing or have newly appointed could be really helpful. This is another occasion when a denomination or network (which is a denomination with better fonts) could run something that would be helpful for people.
In my opinion the focus would be on those character requirements. I’d do an evening (or however its structured) on each, which some exposition, some free discussion about what that looks like in practice, some personal reflection on where you’re individually at, and a lot of prayer. This sort of thing has to be materially structured with those who have other jobs in mind—which rarely happens because they’re designed by pastors—not costing the participant (even if it costs someone) and at times that work for them (which may well be at the weekend), probably with some healthy flexibility built in.
Development
Then, wouldn’t it be great if we could offer similar things for those who are already elders? Training days on particular pastoral topics, more theological or biblical development, and opportunities to be refreshed.
Now, much of this already exists in various forms, but it’s rarely pitched to elders. There might be lots of reasons for this, but a large one is those material factors. Whatever you offer probably shouldn’t need them to take much annual leave. It should probably be infrequent and flexible. It should probably be paid for by churches rather than individuals (and costed with that in mind).
It shouldn’t just be a course, but be accompanied and embedded with mentoring. That’s back to my first point but is probably more important than a course nine times out of ten.
It should also be responding to what elders are actually asking for. I suspect most elders wouldn’t mind some more development, but we should ask what they want and how they want to receive it. I am offering my own opinions on what I’d want, partly seeing so many church based training things that are pitched at staff rather than at elders and are structured in that way, often excluding elders entirely.
If your elders can’t afford to read the books they want, or to build a commentary library if they preach, sure you could lend them the books but it might do them more long term good to give them a small book budget. I’ve been the recipient of this from one of the churches I’ve been an elder at and it’s been very welcome. When I first started preaching a lot I asked and was told I should sacrifice to build a library myself. I did that, significantly, and I’m glad I did. But I’m not sure that was the right response from that church.
There will be other examples—perhaps they’d really like you to fund them to go and see a Christian counsellor or similar rather than buy them books, I’m sure there are other possibilities.
Is there any money for this? Who knows. But, if we believe our own rhetoric about elders, I suspect we could find some.
Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash
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