Church Organizational Structure: The Case for Elders

(Part 2 of a 2-Part Series)

Rev. Dr. Jack L Daniel

Imagine the headline: “Archaeologists Discover Previously Unknown New Testament Document!” The article goes on to report that the document is an authentic first-century description by the Apostles of how a church should be organized. Suddenly, we would have the definitive church organizational structure. The finding would upend Christian history and ecclesiology and have to be added to the New Testament. It would also clear up, once and for all, the confusion around church organization. It would complete every pastor’s quest for the perfect church board. Alas, no such primary document exists. God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen flawed humans and several imperfect forms of government by which His church is to function.

In my previous article—“Church Organizational Structure: Help or Hindrance?”—I attempted to point out how important organizational structure is to the healthy spiritual functioning of a church. In this follow-up article, I want to explore what a healthy (if not perfect) leadership structure could look like. First, a quick flyby of church governance.

Three Historical Church Structures

Three basic forms of church polity have developed through the centuries, based on the three New Testament words used for church leadership. The words are Bishop, Elder, and Pastor. Because these three terms are used interchangeably in the New Testament (and there is no long-lost church bylaw to be discovered), they have yielded the three essential forms of church governance that appear throughout church history. The New Testament Greek word for Bishop is episkopos, meaning “overseer”; for Elder, presbuteros, referring to “an older, presumably wiser person”; and for Pastor, poimenas, usually translated as “shepherd.”

The earliest form is the episcopal system, arising sometime between the first and thirteenth centuries, depending on whom you believe. In some fashion, this form constitutes the structure of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, some Lutheran churches, and many other denominations. In this polity, final church authority resides at the top, with bishops who “oversee” the work of the many churches.

In the sixteenth century, the presbyterian system was born out of the Protestant Reformation and includes all forms of Presbyterian churches and many other denominations. In this system, local elders, including the pastor, exercise authority at the local level. Higher authority is further exercised at the presbytery level, with the presbytery being comprised from several churches. The highest authority is at the synod level, comprising representatives from the entire denomination.

The third system, called congregationalism, was also born out of the Protestant Reformation. In congregational polity, authority resides with the local congregation, with the Pastor, or shepherd, being the chief teaching elder. Congregationalism includes the Congregational denominations, most Baptist churches, the Churches of Christ, Pentecostal churches, as well as most independent and nondenominational churches in the world. The system claims as its biblical origin Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:20 that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” The first Congregationalists in England and New England (the Pilgrims and Puritans) held that elders chosen by the congregation, along with the pastor as teaching elder, would guide the church. In other words, true believers, gathered under the guidance of elders with the biblical teaching of a Pastor and the presence of the Holy Spirit, would be able to rightly govern themselves without the need of a human hierarchy. Congregationalists believe this system to be the full realization of the Body of Christ in the local setting. It is certainly the most democratic system, which, in part, may explain its worldwide spread (largely through Pentecostalism) in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Advantages of Eldership

 Each of the three systems of polity has its pros and cons, but as a lifelong congregationalist, I believe that a system governed by a plurality of elders (with the Pastor as the teaching elder) under the authority of the local congregation is the soundest of the three. It is an organic model based on the natural order of things. Globally, tribal elders seem to form the most ancient mode of human governance. The wisdom of a plurality of elders providing guidance in a family system may be the most natural form of governance. Endemic in healthy family systems like churches is a natural elder governance, even if that name is not applied. In healthy family-size churches (the most common church size), almost invariably, a small group of people act as the tribal elders. Their love for the church and their wisdom in its functioning may be all the governance a church requires. In such churches, it may not be necessary to formalize such governance unless or until the church grows and assumes the complexities that come with size. If your church functions satisfactorily with such an informal system, then trust God to use those tribal elders until a change is needed. In other words, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

However, sometimes the system is broken or unworkable. In the rest of this article, I will set out a model for bringing about change when the tribal elder system no longer functions or is even counterproductive. My church adopted an actual elder system many years ago, and for more than 30 years, I have observed and participated in this system. Under this eldership system, the church was and is pastor-led, elder-guided, and congregation-governed.

An Eldership Case Study

This system starts with elders since early congregational governance included elders functioning under the authority of the congregation. During the nineteenth century, eldership was largely abandoned in the so-called “free” churches (Congregational and Baptist) in favor of a more business-oriented system of church committees and a church council. Authority was deliberately shifted away from the pastor and distributed among the committee heads. The committee heads gathered regularly as a church council to report on their respective areas of ministry. In my first pastorate, my predecessor had dissolved the church council, an act that split the church and forced his early retirement. When I arrived as a “wet-behind-the-ears” first-time pastor, the church authority was divided between a board of deacons and a board of trustees. These two boards frequently clashed, with the deacons proposing plans and the trustees disposing of those plans because of a lack of funds in this small, struggling church. I would meet with both boards, trying and usually failing to get them to agree. You can imagine my frustration.  

Finally, one of the trustees, an older, wise, and godly man, approached me with a suggestion. This man was what Lyle Schaller calls a “tribal elder,” a person whose opinion is respected and whose approval is needed for any changes. A long-time member and a retired corporate executive, he saw my frustration dealing with the two committees vying for control. He explained that large corporations often cut through bureaucratic logjams by forming an ad hoc “coordinating group” to reconcile differences. He recommended forming such a group, and because it was ad hoc, the move required no change to the bylaws and no vote of the congregation. His lead in this initiative gave it immediate acceptance.

From that time on, this group, consisting of me, the chairs of the deacons and trustees, and the treasurer, would meet once a month. I would lead us in a brief devotional, and then we would set to discussing the needs of the church and making decisions to address them. The chairs of the two committees would then take the agreed-upon plans to their respective boards for consideration and implementation. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this “coordinating group” was a de facto eldership. The coordinating group worked for a number of years, but as the church slowly grew, we sensed the need to improve the system.

I began proposing a transition to an actual eldership. Our church leaders studied the history of congregationalism and the place of elders in it. We looked at the experience of local congregational churches that had an elder system. We studied the New Testament qualifications for elders. We held hearings to answer parishioners’ questions. Perhaps most important, we prayed. What follows is the structure that we eventually put forward, and the congregation adopted. Since moving to this structure more than 30 years ago, this church (from which I am now the retired pastor emeritus) has never had major conflict and, in fact, has enjoyed a period of remarkable harmony and vitality. It has continued to flourish under my successor, becoming one of the largest and most vibrant churches in the denomination of which it is a member. I attribute this success to the Lord graciously using prayerfully chosen, godly elders working closely with the pastor, with the consent of the congregation, under the headship of Christ.

Elements of Our Elder Structure  

• The elder board consists of six members, plus the pastor, who is an elder by virtue of his office (ex officio). We concluded a larger board would be cumbersome, making agreement more difficult to reach.
• Elders would be nominated by an ad hoc nominating committee. (Any candidates proposed by the congregation would be screened by the elders and pastor.) The congregation would vote on the slate of nominees at the annual congregational meeting.
• Elders (including the pastor as a fully functioning member of the board) would be responsible for overall church governance. This means their primary task is to seek the will of God for the direction of the church. The elders, through prayer, Scripture study, and listening to the congregation, determine the vision for the church. They then set annual goals for fulfilling that vision and prepare a budget based on the needs of the ministry staff for achieving those goals.
• Elders have oversight of the physical property of the church, delegating it to custodial staff and eliminating the need for trustees.
• Elders are appointed or elected for a term of three years. Because the New Testament presents elders as an office and not a spiritual gift, there is no reason to appoint lifetime elders and obvious reasons not to.
• Elders cannot serve successive terms unless fulfilling a vacated term or by a special vote at a congregational meeting. An elder can serve additional terms, but only after being off the board for at least one year. Some of our most gifted elders were invited back to serve additional terms.
• Women as well as men may serve as elders, as the denomination to which our church belongs welcomes women to serve in all offices of the church. Having both women and men as elders brings a wider variety of gifts and temperaments to the board, creating a more balanced governance.
• Each elder board elects a chair to facilitate the meetings. The pastor does not serve as the chair but coordinates the meeting agenda with the chair.
• The pastor chooses and manages the church staff, with the staff reporting solely to the pastor. The elders support the pastor in matters of staff discipline or termination. This precludes the common church problem of pastor-staff conflict slipping out of control.
• A mutually agreed-upon covenant binds the elders together in their functioning.
• Elder meetings begin with prayer for the needs of the church. Meetings are held twice monthly for 90 minutes.
• Elder qualifications are those found in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Candidates must be church members and have a record of faithful service in the church.
• Without question, our most significant elder rule was unanimity: all decisions required unanimous agreement, not a simple majority vote.

This provision of unanimity, in a very practical way, honors Christ as Head of the church. Believing that the primary task of elders is to discern what the Head is saying to the Body, we felt it inconceivable that Christ would speak differently to different elders. The evidence that the Body has been listening to the Head should be agreement, leading to unity. Almost always, full agreement is reached quickly. However, in those rare occasions of disagreement, the board postpones deciding and continues to pray, believing that Christ is not divided. (Over the years, a handful of decisions did take longer to reach unanimous agreement.) This provision has spared the church the division and acrimony that comes when a simple majority vote is the means of resolving issues. Majority rule pretty much guarantees that there are winners and losers following decisions. The winners feel justified and are tempted to be prideful, while the losers feel disconnected and are tempted to be resentful. These feelings are the seedbed for factions and church division. On the other hand, when the elders operate in harmony, the harmony extends to the whole church body. The unity of the body must begin with the leaders, and unanimity provides for that.

Further, the Eldership structure eliminates the need for committees. Instead, the various ministries of the church are delegated to the pastor and the staff, who then develop and oversee the ministry teams necessary to carry out the vision and mission of the church. The staff members—some paid, others volunteers—would manage the teams, made up of church members with appropriate gifting for their service and ministry. The staff would, in turn, be managed by the pastor, who would keep the elders informed of their progress toward the goals.

This whole system is built upon trust, a strong commitment to unity, and a desire to honor and follow Christ as our Head. The decision to revamp our organizational structure around an elder system many years ago was one of the most important ones the church made in the 35 years of my tenure. It enabled us to discern the vision God was giving and to set the direction to fulfill it. It allowed us to respond quickly to ministry opportunities and helped us work through difficult issues that the church family faced. Finally, it let us experience decades of spiritual unity and harmony, which continue still.