Elders: The Care and Feeding of Elders in a Progressive Congregation: Honesty; Seminars

* It’s fine for ministers to collaborate with each other, but not against the elders. No block voting. Ever.

A minister feels oh-so strongly that the parking lot needs to be restriped. He’s afraid the elders will say no. And so he meets with his fellow ministers, saying something like, “I really need you guys to support me on this. When we meet with the elders, we need to all agree on this!”

Let me shell the corn, as we say here in West Alabama. That’s asking your fellow ministers to deceive your elders as to their true intentions. If they support you becauase you really need their support — to preserve your relationship as fellow staffers — then they aren’t supporting you because they agree.

The elders are entitled to your each staff member’s honest, individual opinion. No minister has the right to ask the other ministers to take that from the elders. And if your idea won’t stand up to honest evaluation by your fellow staff members and elders, it’s probably not all that good of an idea.

Therefore, if a fellow minister ever asks you to express a less-than-completely-honest opinion to the elders, tell him he’s out of line and refuse to go along. It’s simply not true that the staff needs to present a united front to the elders. Rather, their job is to give their honest opinions, even — especially — when they disagree with each other.

Try the Golden Rule out. Imagine that you’re an elder and the staff comes in and declares that the staff all agree on position X, even though many on the staff have reservations and concerns. Imagine you find out that the staff have hidden their true feelings and counsel from you because they value their relationships with each other more than their relationships with their elders. How do you feel?

* Use seminars to build relationships with the elders

We elders routinely invite the ministers to join us at any seminar we ever attend. We often discuss the lessons we learn on the way there and back. We’d greatly prefer for the ministers to be part of those conversations. And these road trips are great ways to bond while learning about how to be better at our ministry.

I think ministers would be wise to invite the elders to join them when they attend a lectureship or seminar. It’s unlikely all the elders could go, but just getting one or two there would be very helpful. Imagine this conversation —

Minister: “I just came back from this great conference. I learned so much about worship. We tried the XYZ worship experience thing and we really need to try it here!”

Elders: “What’s the XYZ worship thing?”

Minister: “Well, it’s hard to explain. You really had to be there.”

Elders: “How can we approve something when we don’t know what it is?”

Minister: “Trust me.”

Elders: “Why didn’t you tell us you were going. Some of us could have gone with you and learned about this new thing. Why put us in this difficult situation when you didn’t have to?”

Minister: “Why don’t you trust me?”

You see, in many churches, elder-minister relationships have been very unhealthy. Therefore, elders and ministers get into habits that damage their relationship — because they don’t intentionally seek to build a collaborative relationships. But doing things the same way that didn’t work before still won’t work.

And while we’re on the subject, if the elders don’t think to invite the ministers to their lectureship or ElderLink or other seminar, invite yourself. Ask whether you can go along. Most elderships will feel flattered to hear that their ministers want to spend time with them.

Look at this way — relationships are built by time spent together and experiences shared. There really is no other path. And seminar are a convenient way to spend time together and share experiences. Moreover, if the ministers wants to advocate for an idea learned at a seminar, it really helps to have an elder who heard the same speech or shared the same experience.