Seventh-Day Adventist Elder Guide To The Pastor Elder Team

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Elders Handbook: The Pastor Elder Team

Seventh-Day Adventist Elders Handbook Study Guide To Chapter 3 The Elder As Church Leader

Subjects > Religion > Seventh-day Adventist > Seventh-Day Adventist Elders Handbook Study Guide
Page 51

Paul's example of the working together of pastors and elders: "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" - (Phil 1:3-5, RSV)

Pastor's Part

• Train
• Delegate
• Communicate

1. Training

• Church organization and administration including spiritual gifts
• Church growth
• Care of new converts
• Worship leadership
• Preaching
• Visitation
• Function and chairing of committees
• Pastor-elder partnership

NOTE: Home Study International has a correspondence course available on the work of the elder. There is also an Elder's Handbook Teaching Guide available from the Ministerial Association. See also Seventh-Day Adventist Elder Guide To Resources To Support Elders

2. Delegate

3. Communicate

Pastors with multiple churches may consider bringing all the elders together on a quarterly basis.

Agenda for elders meeting:

• Spiritual - emphasize personal spiritual growth
• Report on assignments
• Schedules for preaching
• Material distribution
• Brainstorming ideas for church programs
• Evaluating programs

Elder's Part

Four principal responsibilities of the elders on the pastor-elder team:

• 1. Find time to work
• 2. Maximize pastor's strengths
  • Skills congregations expect of pastors are too varied to be possessed by one person: theologian, preacher, spouse and parent, administrator, soul winner, trainer, counselor, visitor, promoter. This ia wide continuum stretching from introverted to the gregarious extrovertive personality.
• 3. Compensate for pastor's weaknesses
  • Read Roman 12, analogy of church as body.
  • Strengths among the elders should make up for any weakneses of the pastor.
• 4. Pastor pastoral family
  • It's elder's responsibility to minister to the pastor's family, and to the pastor. This can be difficult for pastors to accept from those they pastor.
  • "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2)

How Elders Can Help Pastors

• Accept the pastor's humanity
• Be ministers of encouragement (like Barnabas)
• Be a listener
• Publically support - Elders should give testimony to the church about the pastor's successes
• Annual pastor's day
• Offer yourself to help the pastor
• Resolve congregational conflict - If you can be used to bring people together, you can relief one of the biggest pastoral stressors.
• Insist on spiritual renewal time
• Insist on family and recreational time
• Encorage provision of anonymous counseling (professional counseling)
• Pray for them, and let them know you are praying for them.
• Encourage the pastor's spouse
  • Defend the right of the pastor's spouse to find her own place in the church consistent with her gifts, not the memory of a predecessor's gifts
• Pastor the pastor's children
• Help a new pastoral family get settled

Get the General Conference Ministerial Department video "How to Love Your Pastoral Family"

Other sections in this chapter:

• The Pastor Elder Team
• Church Planning
• Church Elections
• [Leadership Styles]?Create
• Committees
• Church Standards And Discipline
• Relationship With Conference And Mission
• Study Guide
• Break Out Session

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