Grace Fellowship Church
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Grace Fellowship Church Governing Elders’ Covenant
The primary responsibility of the Governing Elder team is to discern and do God’s will for Grace Fellowship Church together, as a community of elders. We recognize that our spiritual health and relational wholeness creates the con- text in which discernment takes place. Therefore:
1. We continually pursue oneness with God individually by spending time in His presence, engaging in His word, praying, confessing our sins, repenting, loving well the people God has put in our lives and by honor- ing our professional and ministry commitments. We pray regularly for our church and our elder team.
2. We love and honor one another in our thoughts, words and deeds. We affirm and submit to one another’s gifting and experience. We tell one another when we have been hurt or offended and resolve any conflict with urgency. In humility and grace, we offer forgiveness and receive it from one another, believing the best about each other’s motives.
3. We agree that in His love, God longs to show us His will for our church and that God will reveal His will to us as we humbly seek him through Spirit-empowered discernment practices.
In a Spirit-empowered discernment process, we believe that the Spirit of God is active in and among us and is lead- ing us to the discovery of His will for our church. These principles and practices mark our Spirit-empowered dis- cernment:
1. We acknowledge that in order to discern God’s will, we need His Spirit to move in us and among us. Therefore, we engage others to pray for our elder meetings, retreats and other gatherings where discern- ment will take place.
2. Each member of our team has a unique and important contribution to make to each process. Therefore, each elder comes prepared, both spiritually and by completing any advance assignments. Each member speaks when prompted by the Spirit to do so and does not hold back. We do not move forward on any new decision or initiative unless there is full agreement to do so. This means that if even one elder does not be- lieve that we should move forward, we wait, and do so in peace. However, full agreement to move forward may be reached when a minority of elders either does not fully agree or are not fully sure, but believe that the Lord is urging them to submit to the others in this matter.
3. Each of us enters the discernment process holding loosely our own ideas, opinions and preferences about the matter, trusting fully that God’s wisdom will come through our corporate discernment. We are willing and open for God to change our hearts. We are seeking His will, not our way.
4. Each matter for discernment is framed as a question about which we are seeking God’s leading. As we dis- cuss each question, we agree with one another that we are gathered in Jesus’ name and that He is in the cen- ter of our circle. Therefore, we offer our thoughts, impressions, questions and any other input to the center, to Jesus. We do not debate or argue with one another. Differing views are welcomed and are brought in a spirit of peace – offered to the center. We do not have any responsibility or desire to win others to our view, but trust that as each member of our team offers his or her input to the center, the Spirit of God will bring agreement among us on the question at hand in a spirit of oneness with each other and with God. 5. We will persevere in prayer and humble engagement with one another until God has brought us to peaceful conviction regarding His will or we will wait.
6. There are important steps toward discernment. These steps are listed below. Some matters that we discern together are of great weight for our church and others less so. Therefore, each discernment process may not formally follow each of these steps, but the spirit of these steps is present as we gather together for discern- ment. The steps toward Spirit-empowered discernment are:
a. Framing clearly the question to be discerned. b. Grounding our process in a guiding principle(s). c. Shedding our egos, preconceived notions, assumptions and biases. d. Rooting our discernment in the wisdom of Scripture. e. Listening well to one another, to God’s Spirit within us and drawing in the voices of others from whom we sense we need to hear on the question. f. Exploring thoroughly all possible options and pathways. g. Weighing the alternatives for where we sense God’s Spirit directing us. h. Improving each alternative and particularly the final alternative. i. Closing by selecting the course that we sense God’s Spirit has given the greatest weight. j. Resting for a time before final declaration to assure God’s peace is with us.
7. Even after humbly pursuing to discern God’s will, we fully recognize that we are a team of fallible human beings. Therefore, we continue to listen to hear God’s voice for confirmation or correction and willingly seek forgiveness when the Lord brings to our attention that we have missed hearing His voice.
This Covenant was conceived over the course of many years of learning from the Lord, from one another and from valued mentors. It was agreed to and memorialized at our retreat on January 22, 2013. We commit to the Lord, to one another and to the Grace Fellowship Church family to honor this covenant and we ask for God’s Spirit to em- power us to do so.
January 22, 2013 The Governing Elders of Grace Fellowship Church