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Weighing the Tough Issues Relative to Local Church Governance

Here are some issues and questions to ponder in determining which form of government may be best within a local church.

I stood at the altar consoling weeping young people immediately after a church business meeting in which their beloved pastor received just under the two-thirds vote needed to sustain his pastoral tenure. A little more than one-third of the congregation had determined the destiny for all. The scores of young people crying around me were not members and did not have a vote.

A few of the old-timers had decided the pastor was getting too many new people into the church; and if they didn’t stop it, their power base would be broken. They would have never explained it in those terms; but as an outsider conducting the business meeting, I think I knew their real agenda.

That was many years ago, and the church has never been the same. Clearly congregational government had not worked.

It had become an impediment to growth and served only to enhance the entrenched power of a clique determined to keep control on power.

Go with me to the opposite extreme. The pastor of a church did not trust congregational governance. He handpicked elders to govern. Over time, this small ruling clique ran the church into the ground. Years later, only five percent of the congregation is still around. Neither those who attended the church nor the district officials could penetrate the defenses erected by this self-perpetuating eldership.

Take one more example. A well-established Assemblies of God church of about 200, with over 40 years of history in the community, elected a new pastor. Prior to his selection, the church in earlier years had reached as high as 400 in attendance. Often when a church is in decline, a church board simply does not have sufficient skills to properly evaluate the applicants for the pulpit. This pastor had an initially engaging personality that hid a passive/aggressive personality bent on control.

In today’s urban environment, church members typically do not stay and fight it out as had been the case in an earlier era. They vote with their feet. Within a few years, the church membership had dwindled to the size of the pastor’s personality and leadership skills. Since the membership hovered safely over the 20 minimum status for General Council affiliation, the pastor was able to gain control by clearing the membership rolls of all but his loyal followers and family members. He led his loyal cult into removing themselves from the Assemblies of God. Within a couple of years, he persuaded them to sell the debt-free property for over $1 million and place the assets in his nonprofit evangelistic association so he could do worldwide ministry—a code name for his retirement. He legally stole a church that others before him had sacrificed to pay for.

All the above cases are real. Each shows the weakness in the governance structure of the local church.

What can be done?

Biblical forms of church governance

The Assemblies of God has always believed and practiced that congregational government is both a preferred biblical and practical model. There is plenty of Scripture to warrant this view. The Jerusalem church elected the replacement for Judas (Acts 1:15–23) and selected deacons (Acts 6:1–7). Not only is there a New Testament basis for congregational government, we have also experienced these benefits: (1) it has permitted a sense of ownership by the local church, thereby promoting a greater measure of personal responsibility for the well-being of the body; (2) leadership must be in touch with the membership to sustain election—their authority derives not from the appointment of a bishop (superintendent) but from the people’s earned respect; and (3) persons with strong leadership gifts flourish in a congregational atmosphere where there is not the fettering of an overreaching hierarchical church denominational bureaucracy.

The New Testament also supports an alternative model of church governance based on eldership. Look at the churches founded by Paul. You may search long and hard, but you will not find local leaders being elected by young and immature congregations. Selections were made by Paul’s appointment (Acts 14:23), or his representative’s (Titus 1:5). Elders are to look after all the flock of God to resist the wolves that prey (Acts 20:28,29). Never does Paul counsel a church in trouble to raise its flag of "Don’t touch me; we are a sovereign local church" when devourers are on the loose.

Demas, Alexander the metalworker (2 Timothy 4:10,14), and Diotrephes (3 John 9), to name a few, were leaders who would have subverted the good congregational government of any church. They needed a footprint of eldership from outside their local church on their stubborn necks.

Clearly, there are problems in any form of local church government if leadership is unwise or self-seeking, or if the local church itself has a history of unwholesome spiritual pathology.

Resolving church-governance issues

How could the three problem cases given at the beginning of this article have a different outcome?

The church where the pastor was voted out? In this instance, the pastor made a fundamental leadership mistake of not processing new adherents through the membership class and membership rolls. These nonmembers, had they been members, would have given him a comfortable margin to proceed with his leadership in a growing church.

Also, the church bylaws would have been better served to include this provision: a pastor who fails to receive two-thirds of the vote may continue his tenure for 1 year if he receives a majority of the votes. This would permit the pastor a year of grace to work for healing and to add new members. Then, after 1 year, if the pastor failed to receive two-thirds, his tenure would end.

The church where the elders took control? Self-perpetuating eldership ultimately kills a church because there is no way to break their monopoly on power. The problem is avoided by spiritual oversight from outside.

During my time of overseeing district-affiliated churches as an assistant district superintendent, we created appointed boards for over 160 of our 430 churches. The pastor nominated whom he wanted on the board—Pentecostal laypersons inside and outside the church, as well as neighboring ministers. These were then approved and appointed by the district superintendent. The functioning of the boards was regularly reviewed to ensure accountability. The superintendent had the authority to vacate any or all positions on the board in the event that became necessary.

One of the churches under this system grew to over 1,200 people and did a $3 million church construction under this model of governance. They were reluctant to apply for General Council affiliation because that eldership model had worked so well. Perhaps this form of governance mentoring permitted them to adjust well in subsequent years to the congregational governance now in place.

The church stolen by an unethical pastor? In the Assemblies of God, we must either be content to live with such risks, or we must change our system to permit outside intervention.

Let’s face it. Churches are different. If you place authoritarian leadership and democratic congregational church governance on a continuum, then a church like Corinth, with its multiple divisions and doctrinal chaos, needs a more authoritarian system of church governance. A mature church like Jerusalem appears to have operated well with congregational decisionmaking.

[Parenthesis: apostles and prophets. Some are advocating that local church governance function according to the fivefold ministry of Ephesians 4:11,12, and therefore the leadership direction of the church be set by local apostles and prophets. If Paul meant his words to be taken in that manner, it’s rather strange that when he met with the leadership of the Ephesian church at Miletus on his way to Jerusalem, the leadership consisted solely of elders—not apostles or prophets—and it was to the elders he gave the charge to be "bishops" and "pastors" (Acts 20:17–38, especially verses 17 and 28). Read also the position paper, "Apostles and Prophets": www.ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/4195_apostles_prophets.cfm.]

At the start of this new century, we would do well to realize that governance for local churches requires some flexibility, that one style does not necessarily fit all. The dangers lying on the opposite sides of the continuum are twofold: (1) an authoritarian, dictatorial, and ego-centered control (always masked behind a guise of "spiritually strong leadership"), and (2) an entrenched voting bloc within a sick church that votes out any pastor under whom the church begins to grow.

Determining the best form of church governance

Here are some questions to ponder in determining which form of government may be best within a local church.

1. How new is the church? If it has been in existence for less than several years, then the scales tip in favor of operating more by an eldership type of government until there is sufficient maturity to operate within a congregational model. The church would be well-advised to function as district affiliated, benefiting from the insight and help of spiritual overseers.

2. Is the church deeply divided and unable to reconcile its members peacefully? Congregational government will likely result in one side’s winning and the other leaving. An alternative is eldership so the congregation, for a time, is given a rest from voting on anything. This church likewise would benefit from being district affiliated for a season.

3. Is the church growing stagnant or declining? The choices a declining church must make to reverse its downward trend are often so painful the members either do not recognize the problem or are unwilling to change things even if they do see what needs to be done. Such a church could vote itself into district hands, but that is not likely to happen. Our present system does not provide any other solution for this very difficult issue.

4. Is the church healthy and growing, with effective incorporation of new members and well-thought-through bylaws? Then, the congregational model works well, and becomes a vehicle for the further spiritual maturation of the membership. They can participate, like the Jerusalem church, in the vital choices of leadership and church direction.

In our Fellowship, there is a wonderful partnership of pastors, ministers, district and national leaders, and local church members and boards. Within the counsel of this circle of relationship, there is wisdom. We need one another and a multiplicity of approaches for the full outworking of God’s plan for the local church.

—George O. Wood, D.Th.P., is the general secretary of the Assemblies of God, Springfield, Missouri.