“The Apostle Paul regarded the appointment of good “Elders” as vital to the healthy gospel witness of any church (Titus 1). When we read of the standards expected of Elders and consider the blessing or damage we could cause to our churches today, we need to recognise our own need of gospel ministry training. However long we have been in leadership, we must not be too proud, casual or defeated to think that we can neglect our need for training. If we love Jesus, we will want to serve his precious churches as best we can.”
Key reading (maybe read together as an eldership):
- Paul Tripp, LEAD
- Dave Harvey, The Plurality Principle
- Andrew Heard, Growth & Change
- Jeramie Rinne, Church Elders
Refreshing our vision of godly eldership
A good starting point for refreshing our vision of the role of the elder is 1 Peter 5:1-4
- Dave Harvey and Colin Hansen discussing the Plurality Principle on the TGC podcast
What is pastoral ministry?
- A ministry of Evangelism, Teaching, Governance
- To be exercised Willingly, Selflessly, Humbly (notes PDF)
More resources:
- Ray Evans on First Among Equals? (blog post)
- D A Carson, Some Reflections on Pastoral Leadership, Themelios 40:2
Training godly elders
- Ray Evans on Developing Elders (blog post)
- Revisiting Paul’s mentoring of Timothy (blog post)
- Rhett Harris ebook, Leadership Pipeline: Building the church through building leaders (PDF, epub)
- Ralph Cunnington and Orlando Saer on building a training culture (Reach resource)
Striving towards healthy leadership community
Rupert Standring, senior pastor of St Peter’s Fulham shares his summary of Paul Tripp’s LEAD and how they have sought to embed a gospel-shaped culture in their eldership:
Audio of the LEAD synopsis (24 mins):
