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A Basic Overview of Church Leadership

Introduction

This document began as a topical letter addressed to the leaders of a local fellowship in the fall of 2008. I wrote it as a response to their request that we get all our thoughts on the table concerning what local Church leadership should look like, how it should function, and what these thoughts might imply to them as they were looking to upgrade their own leadership model. At that time their leadership model was, for all practical purposes, a very traditional protestant fellowship model which had at its apex a senior pastor, then a board of directors sometimes called elders, and a few folks doing other kinds of leadership works like children’s ministry or hospitality. There were two paid staff that included, of course, the senior pastor and the full time worship leader. Since that time many things have changed, and I believe they have been changes for the better.

This document might be read after the article at Churchthink I titled, “Receiving the Apostle” which was written earlier to the key elder at the same local fellowship.

Not everything I have submitted in what follows (the great majority of which is the original letter which forecast my sense of coming changes) was immediately agreed with or even followed precisely even up to this day. I say this with a sense of humor as I submit these thoughts to you for consideration because I smile when I realize that no man is smart enough to know how, when, and where everything “ought” to happen in any fellowship or gathering of the family of God. It takes us all to work this stuff out.