Category: Church

  A culture of Honour Harmony and mutual honouring are vital ingredients for a successful working relationship between elders and trustees. Where there is tension, or competitiveness for authority or recognition, there is discord, which does not honour God. I chaired the trust for the Church of Christ the King in Brighton for over 30 years and was an elder for about 25 of those years. Throughout that time I sought to lead the trustees with an attitude of support and honouring of the elders while not shying away from asking penetrating questions. I felt this was the best way to serve the eldership; we could be a sounding board on which vision and values could be developed. With our expertise we could enrich and strengthen their decision-making with knowledge…

  The primary roles of a trustee of a charity are legal and financial, specifically Safeguarding the charity by ensuring that the objects and purposes for which it exists are observed both inclusively and exclusively i.e. not operating outside the purposes for which it exists Ensuring good stewardship of finance Trustees are not governmental over the ministry and direction of the church; that is the elders’ calling. Listen There is a third important role which I will deal with first; being an informal ‘sounding board’ of the church members to the elders. Sadly, people sometimes put elders on a pedestal, something I hate and something that no good leader would ever seek. Jesus put a towel around his waist and washed the disciples’ feet. But the people may nevertheless be…

  As we consider the relationship between elders and trustees it is important to know what the distinctives are of these two bodies of people. God-commissioned First, elders must be those who are recognised as being commissioned by God. One day they will stand before the judgment seat of God and be asked to give account for all the people in their care (Heb 13:17). If they have never been commissioned (ie maybe have just seen ‘elder’ as a title) there could be a few embarrassed faces! So laying on of hands for eldership is no light matter and should follow a period of serious prayer and seeking God's mind. And this comes after there has been a thorough testing and proving of such men according to Biblical principles. Job…

  I am now returning to another of the questions I have been asked to address. This one is the most common of all the questions I am asked. It relates to the relationship between church elders and trustees. It is a good question and one that is important to consider seriously as, sadly, I have seen churches split apart because the relationship between these two bodies has been one of tension and disagreement. Authority and the church The core issue is ‘Who has the governing authority over the church?’ In order to answer this it is necessary to consider what, or rather who, the church is. At its simplest the church is a community of Christ-followers who are seeking to live out their faith in total obedience to Jesus, led…