Now that I’ve finished the sermon series about church leadership, it’s time to publicly share our plan for potentially embracing shared pastoral oversight (or a plurality of elders) at Lake Hills.
What I’m about to write exists in video form on the church’s YouTube page.
Some History
Although I’ve never been part of a church that functions quite like I now believe the Bible teaches. I grew up in the Free Will Baptist denomination–a group of people for whom Lynsey and I have great love. Most FWB churches have one pastor and a group of deacons–very similar to Lake Hills, except there is a lot more voting in most FWB churches.
Over time I’ve come to hold to a model of church polity called elder-led, deacon-served, and congregationally-governed. This model is, in part, what I preached about in the series called “Who Leads the Church?” at Lake Hills. Obviously, I find it most biblical–otherwise I wouldn’t have preached it! 🙂
Before moving to the Region, I knew I wanted to be part of a church that either had elders or would consider pursuing that model. The search team and deacons talked about all of that with me before we came nearly two years ago.
After having been here a few months, the deacons, Pastor Adam, and I began studying about this topic in the monthly deacons meetings. We read two books over several months together, discussing them chapter by chapter. One is this one. The other is this one.
I also came into conversation with Alex Strauch, former professor at Colorado Christian University, and founder of Biblical Eldership ministries. He is like the Yoda of eldership. He gave us many books and answered many questions for us.
After all of this, combined with much prayer, I submitted a plan to the deacons and they approved it. Now it’s time to share the plan with everyone at LHBC. So far, I’ve been to every Sunday School class and have talked about it. I also hope for every Life Group to watch the video linked above and discuss.
The Plan and Documents
The plan is found in this pdf. I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet to watch the accompanying video while looking at the pdf of the plan.
I talk about this in the video, but I’ve also been working on training up some men to serve as pastor-elders. There is a document called “Pastor-Elder Development Track” that explains that process. Find that document here.
If anyone from LHBC is reading this, whether you’re a member or not, ask any question you have by using the contact feature in this blog. Or, you know, talk to me, Pastor Adam, Pastor Chewy, or any deacon at any point.
May the Lord be praised as we seek to obey Him through His Word.
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