Plurality of Elders or CEO model?

Sounds like a typical autocratic fundamentalist church to me. in my experience, these are the type of churches that are prone to grow very large, but if for some reason the pastor decides to leave (or is forced out for some moral ethical reason - the pastor at Harvest church in N. Ft Worth comes to mind)can easily crash.

If this pastor is not open with finances, or decision making it would scare me out of there.

 

Not an elder type guy, believe strongly in the congregational model of "governing" a church. The I am king of this church because I am the pastor is foolishness that needs to go the way fo the hand crank washing machine!

 

You may believe in any particular kind of government until you begin to see believers who are no more than regular chruch attenders become leaders in a church with no direction or are rather whimpy and are embarrased and try to save face when they are called upon to pray or do something. I have seen the trajedy first hand.

It is not about government so much as it is about leadership. Leaders are leaders when they have people who look to them for leadership. It is imperative that all elders/pastors be discipling others. Just imagine a reproducing church without leaders who reproduce. It doesn't happen. If the leaders are not making disciples they are not leaders. They are just decisionamkers. Might I say they are poor decisionmakers at best.

 

I pastor a smaller church and rely on the board to help make decisions. Yes I do make many decisions for the church. Some of the people don't like it, (they would like to be in on every decision) I cannot see having a meeting every week or more often. The men of the church have been going through the book "They Smell Like Sheep" by Dr. Lynn Anderson. It is a good book on the Biblical model for leadership.

 

My church's third quarterly congregational conference meets this Thursday, and it gives me yet another chance to puzzle over how my church's system works.

Whenever we have these official church meetings, the deacons present lots of recommendations to the congregation. We vote to either accept or reject these recommendations.

Unfortunately, if I, a member of the church, want to present something to the congregation, then I must see a deacon. If the deacon deems it as significant to present to the church, then he will present it. If not, then it dies.

Getting any financial/tithing records turns into a nail-scratchingly hard affair as if I'm not privilaged to those records. Even when we talk about the budget in our conference meetings, our trustees never let us keep the financial summaries that they pass out to each member.

What kind of system of government does my church employ? We have our pastor, a board of deacons, and a board of trustees (who take care of the financial/assets).

From a member's point of view, I really do not see the purpose of our congregation's participation in the meetings because I do not see how we play a part in helping our church shape its character.