Hey do you mind if I use a thread like this in my guild? Things are a little slow right now.
sweatdrop But anyway, I took notes in church this morning, and I'll share what was said by my pastor.
Our church is undergoing the process of electing elders in our church for the first time. The title of the sermon was "Elders: Who and What" and he talked about what the qualities of an elder should be.
First he should a clip from the movie "Martin Luther" where this one bishop was telling people that they could save their loved ones by paying the church and he basically scared them into doing it. There was this one mother who had a crippled child, and the bishop said "Would you like to save your crippled girl? Then pay the church!" or something like that. So she ended up doing it and she honestly believed she had saved her daughter. Then she showed her certificate to martin luther with and excited face. Martin looked at it and was outraged. He said "This is only paper. You should trust in God's love for your salvation." He started walking away with a long face and was determined to do something about this. He wrote this big list of 95 thesis against the granting of indulgences, which was what the bishop was doing, and nailed it to a church's door. It showed a bunch of people reading it, and when the bishop read it he got very angry and then the clipped stopped.
These are my notes (with the bible verses included):
1.) Elder as a Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-3)a.) lead or guide to life-giving nourshiment
b.) Tend and care for the sick and wounded
2.) Elder as Protector or Guardian (Acts 20:27-32)a.) Intercept those seeking to harm the Church
b.) Interced on behalf of the Church
c.) Interpose themselves between the church and threats or dangers
3.) Elder as Biblically-oriented Teacher (Titus 1:5-9)a.) Think from a biblical perspective
b.) Able to teach (and teachable himself)
c.) Concerned with how the church views and obeys the scripture
d.) Prays Scripture (how he talks, forms words and sentances is all from saturation of the Word)
4.) Elder as a Christ-Like Example (;1 Peter 5:3, 1 Timothy 3:1-7)a.) Characteristics of Elder from Scripture (remember
Titus 1:5-9)
5.) Materialism as an Example (let's say someone is in trouble with credit card debt)
a.) A Shepherd (would be concerned about his materialstic heart)
b.) Guardian (would pray and talk to him about it, and pray for the church)
c.) Teacher (talk with him for weeks to help him get out of the credit card debt)
d.) Model (Not being a hypocrite and doing what he's teaching to help people do it too.)
Yeah that's it. If your pastor or elder doesn't follow this criteria....you might want to change churches or talk to someone (even the pastor or elder) about how it could change. I know this might not be extremely important.....but also if you want to be an elder or a pastor or anything like that, you should think about these things too. Well, thanks for reading this (it was kinda long, I know
sweatdrop )
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