Date Posted:18:14:25 06/07/02 Fri Author:Melissa Burke Subject: Electing New Elders
Good Afternoon. I discovered this website through a search on the net and have enjoyed reading all the articles. Currently my husband and I have been discussing whether or not to "place Membership" at the church we've been attending. We moved here last July and have been faithfully attending and participating and serving since then.
We had decided not to because we felt that we're already members of God's Kingdom and our being faithful to that particular congregation should "identify" us with them. The article I read on this website concerning the same issue put a lot of our thoughts into words!
Now to my question. I was having this particular discussion with some other women - some who happen to be spouses of some of the leadership at our church. They wanted to know when we would be placing membership. I said we're already "members". So that led into a wonderful discussion about being members of Christ's Body and so forth. Basically I said no, we won't be "coming forward" during service to do this. We're involved in different ministries - we're faithful attenders and so forth.
So one woman was very concerned about this. She, too, has never placed membership with this particular church because she's just gone there for a long time and is a Christian and just assumed she was a "member". So, the spouse of a leader at the church was saying that even if you aren't a member of that church you will still be treated as though you were - in the directory, pastoral care, etc. The only difference would be that we can't vote on different issues - such as voting for elders.
Okay now to the question - why are we voting on elders? I'm a little confused over this issue and wanted to know what your experiences have been. In our last church they did vote on men who had been put before the congregation after having question and answer sessions. I never thought about it until now. My thought is that if the man is qualified to be an elder and he desires to be an elder - why are we voting? Who determines if he is qualified? Other elders? How do you really know through question and answer sessions?
