A NOBLE TASK Eldership and Ministry in the local Church NEIL SUMMERTON ~..._: lr"~h.nk.ng faith MILTON KEYNES COLORADO SPRINGS HYDERABAD Copyright© Neil Summerton 1987 Second Edition 1994 Digital Edition 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licencing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P9HE. The right of Neil Summerton to be identified as the Author of this Work has been •:sserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Summerton, Neil Noble Task: Eldership and Ministry in the Loca I Chuch. - 2Rev.ed I. Title 262.15 ISBN: 978-0-85364-515-3 Typeset by Photoprint, Torquay, Devon. Published by Partnership and Paternoster, 9 Holdom Avenue, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MKIIQR, U.K. Printed and bound in Great Britain by AlphaGraphics, Nottingham. For MRS ISOBEL STORDY CONTENTS Preface 9 Preface to the second edition 12 The need for effective eldership 15 PART A-PRINOPLES AND PRACTICE OF CONGREGATIONAL ELDERSHIP I. The calling to eldership 1. Qualifications for eldership 23 2. Appoinbnent, recognition and retirement 31 11. The office and tasks of the elder 3. The five-fold task 41 4. Pastor 49 5. Teacher 57 6. Ruler 65 7. Leader 73 Ill. The dynamics of collective leadership 8. The effectiveness of the eldership group 83 9. The elders and the deacons 93 10. The elders and the (rest of the) congregation 101 IV. Education for eldership 11. Preparation and development of elders 111 Appendix 1 to Part A: Gift, ministry and office in the New Testament 119 Appendix 2 to Part A: The ministry and leadership of women 133 PART B-FULL-TIME CONGREGATIONAL MINISTRY 12. Principlesandobjectives 151 13. Patterns 163 14. Impacts 173 15. Conclusion 185 Appendix to Part B: New Testament practice in supporting Christian workers 189 Further reading 193 A. Eldership and plural leadership 193 B. Ministry of woman 195 C. Pastoring 195 D. Teaching 199 E. Leadership 199 F. Congregational strategy 201 G. Worship 204 Training opportunities for congregational elders 205 Index 209 PREFACE The preface of any book is the place for excuses and apologies! This one has its origins in a series of articles which appeared in Harvester magazine between October 1984 and November 1985. That will be clear enough to the discerning reader, since in preparing the script for publication in a consolidated form I have for the most part made only rather minor changes. There are two reasons for this. First, the nature of my life as a civil servant, church elder, and husband and father (too often in that order) is such that an extensive revision would probably never be completed. Secondly, encouragement and criticism received in response to the Harvester articles from the United States and the Antipodes, as well as from Britain, suggest that, despite my narrow experience and knowledge of the churches, the subject matter answers to real needs and questions in congregations of (Open or Christian) Brethren* origins in a number of places. It therefore seems important to bring the material together as soon as possible, so that it may easily be consulted while it meets a felt need, even if some rough edges remain. The scholar in me finds this deplorable. The administrator reminds me that a timely work which meets much of the requirement (if only it would!) is preferable to a superior piece of work which arrives at the dockside only long after the boat has left! One consequence is that I have done little to generalize the text to make it immediately applicable to congregations outside the Brethren tradition. But in any case I doubt whether that would have been well advised. For 25 years I have been a member of a Brethren congregation and an elder there for 14 (though I was originally an Anglican, am effectively a strict Baptist when at our 9 10 A Noble Task house in Suffolk, and some of my best friends are Mennonites, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Pentecostals!). Insofar as the following chapters carry any conviction, it is in my judgment because they are rooted in that personal experience. To seek to generalize the analysis and application would have the effect, I think, of removing much of the force and authenticity of the text, so that it would seem lifeless and anodyne. That said, it remains my conviction that the interest being shown in congregational eldership, and in the implications of charismatic gift, in many denominations across the world, is such that there is much that the discerning reader can, with suitable transpositions, apply in their situations from the Brethren experience of eldership. In some circles which I have in mind, the influence of Brethren theology and tradition is so strong (chiefly because so many in leadership there stem originally from Brethren fellowships) that I believe that they would do well to ponder what I have to say, in the hope of avoiding errors of church leadership similar to those into which Brethren congregations have often fallen, especially when the first flush of renewal has passed. Thanks are due to a considerable number of people. I am grateful to the kindness of Jonathan Lamb, who made the pages of Harvester so extensively available for the original articles and who encouraged me to complete the monthly penance which they required. A number of others have encouraged by expressing the hope that the material would be brought into a more permanent form. I should thank especially all who have served with me in eldership of Cholmeley Evangelical Church in Highgate: they will recognize readily the great extent to which this book has grown out of our common experience, and how great is the gap between precept and my own performance as an elder. In addition, discussions with Or. Kenneth Brownell have been a great stimulus to thought about these matters. John Baigent, Harold Rowdon and Alan Kreider gave much help with the details of further reading-! do not claim to be so well read! My wife, Pauline, and sons, Ian and Matthew, are only too well aware of how much I owe them: it is they who have paid the highest price for this text. To assert that responsibility for everything included in the text lies with me alone is no less sincere because it is customary. Inevitably, prophecy is imperfect (1 Corinthians 13:9). But it is my prayer that this manual bears marks of the prophetic and will accordingly be of use in building up the church (and not simply, as in a few cases of which I have heard, in encouraging good men to stand down from eldership-I suspect from that very fact that it is Preface 11 they who should have stayed and others who should have stood down!). Highgate, London June 1986 * In what follows, I refer to the denominational connexion by the term by which they are commonly known among Evangelical Christians in the United Kingdom, viz 'Brethren'. I do so even though with the passage of time that is becoming less and less satisfactory: many congregations of Brethren origins do not now accept the designation, and informally congregations commonly identify themselves by saying that they 'were Brethren'. This results partly from the disadvantages of being erroneously identified by the ill-informed with the Taylorite Exclusive Brethren, and partly from the very welcome influx to many churches of new Christians who know nothing of their congregation's origins. For the moment, however, such congregations are often much more influenced by their Brethren origins than their members credit. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDffiON In preparing a new edition of this book, I have considered carefully how far changes to the earlier text are necessary. Inevitably, with the passage of time and further experience, my own views are changing. So are the Brethren and former Brethren congregations to which the book is primarily addressed, and the wider environ­ ment in which each congregation is seeking to be an expression of Christ's body in the world. For the most part, I have however adopted the approach of minimal change, partly because I still substantially agree with what I wrote, and partly because that would again ensure publication sooner rather than later. Of course, if I were writing from scratch now, some important emphases might be expressed a little differently. If anything, the passage of time has convinced me more than ever of the need for positive, Spirit-filled leadership, seized by a vision from the Lord, for congregations of Brethren origins; and of the need for flexible teams of full-time and part-time supported workers, working closely with people in secular employment, to spearhead the task of church renewal, planting and re-planting, particularly in urban areas. This leadership needs to be coupled with a wide exercise of spiritual gifts across each congregation and a deep experience of the liberty of the Holy Spirit so that those gifts can be exercised to the full for the benefit of the whole body. All this calls for a good deal less caution and fear in some congregations; and a willingness to entrust ourselves to the Lord in the knowledge that he will not take us anywhere that is bad for us (Luke 11:11-13). The concluding sections on further reading and training oppor­ tunities have been revised to take account of information available in the autumn of 1993.