Category Archives: Elders

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A Pastoral Pop Quiz

Training Elders

Elder Candidate Training began last night at IDC and we always start our officer training in the same way: a surprise “Bible & Theology Exam.” Some might call it cruelty, others might call it prudent, but I call it “lively spirituality.”

The pop test is an entertaining and interesting way to start the period of assessment and instruction. We don’t take up the tests and grade them. When each candidate is finished we come back together and walk through the questions. The exercise is simply meant to encourage the officer candidate in his knowledge of God’s word. Some men will take the test and find it challenging. To a man, these brothers have responded with something like, “The test has shown me how much I need to grow.” Others have taken the test and done extremely well. We want those brothers to be encouraged to keep up their good work in His word.

Take Them & Use Them

Here are the two tests we use with some explanation of each:

Exam for Elders. Our elder training is a long affair of about eight months. Intentional conversation at training meetings and our theological questionnaire give us a great sense of the candidate’s theological aptitude by the end of training. This exam lets us tease out the amount of precision the candidate currently has regarding God’s word.

Exam for Deacons. Our deacon training is not nearly as long or exhaustive as what we do with elder candidates. This exam is thus broader in nature than the elder one, testing out the candidate’s understanding of biblical and theological basics. I put this together a few years ago for incoming pastoral interns at Providence Church. While the elder exam is in multiple choice format this one is in more of a short answer structure.

Feel free to download, adapt, or trash these exams for your purposes. If you want another option check out Kevin DeYoung’s “100 Bible Knowledge Questions.”

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Another Round of Elder Training

Training Elders

We are about to begin a second round of elder training at IDC.

Our first round began in September 2013. I spent the first nine months in our church’s existence looking for a few faithful men who: 1) had the character of an elder, and 2) were already doing the work of an elder. Three men were found and they all agreed to jump into a six-month candidacy phase. Two eventually were installed as elders in April 2014.

THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

The candidacy phase is a time to test and train. Books, lectures, and questionnaires become demanding – yet kind – friends for everyone involved. The resources are meant to solidify each man’s areas of convictional strength, while at the same time exposing areas of growth necessary for healthy shepherding.

My greatest burden in the training is to tease out the candidates’ beliefs in matters of ministry philosophy. One wise pastor encouraged told me several years ago, “One of the things I’ve discovered is that its possible to get elders who have all the theology right, but still have issues later over different philosophies of ministry. That was the most significant challenge we faced in our first 3-4 years.” It’s advice I’ve yet to forget.

I’m remembering it afresh as we stand on the threshold of another round of elder candidate training. Here’s the content we are using to tease out theological and philosophical convictions this time around. I hope it might be a launching pad of sorts for your own elder candidate training.

Download a PDF of IDC’s Elder Training Schedule.

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Know the Sheep

Know The Sheep

What is the most undervalued aspect of faithful shepherding? What is that key essential to rightly leading the flock that it seems we are so prone to miss?

Take the helpful shepherding matrix from Tim Witmer’s masterpiece The Shepherd Leader: Shepherds know, feed, lead, and protect. Which of those four elements are you most likely to neglect?

I think it is no stretch to say if the average elder body is weak anywhere it’s on the issue of knowing the flock. Few elders need to be convinced of the necessity of teaching and overseeing the congregation, but I wonder how many actually labor to increasingly know their sheep.

JUST LIKE THE GOOD SHEPHERD

Every elder of a local church is an under-shepherd of the True Shepherd. Our shepherding is supposed to be a  humble reflection of His perfect pattern, which includes a deep, intimate knowledge of the sheep. In John 10:14-15 Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”

Do you know your sheep?

Everything depends on a growing knowledge of our sheep. It’s why Witmer says, “The most basic responsibility of a shepherd is to know his sheep.” Shepherds who know their sheep well are the ones best equipped to wisely lead their congregation on all kinds of matters: What book of the Bible should we study next? What applications does our church need to hear from this text? What issue of discipleship do we need to address? How are we doing in evangelism? Is there a sense of disunity that is growing unchecked? Are we unified on our stewardship of God’s resources?

We can’t lead ’em if we don’t know ’em.

PICK UP THE PHONE

Let me offer one simple suggestion for elder bodies who want to better know their sheep: give ’em a call.

Witmer wisely says, “While grand plans of ‘every member visitation’ should not be jettisoned without due consideration, it is crucial that an approach [for knowing the sheep] be embraced that is practical both for the elder and the member. One such approach is the use of the telephone. . . . Before shrugging off phone contact as the realm of telemarketers and political appeals, don’t underestimate the impact of a personal call from someone who has concern for your well-being at the forefront.”

I can absolutely affirm that final sentence. Whenever I call a church member to check in they almost invariably say, “I so thankful you took the time to call.” A few minutes on the phone go a long way to not only knowing your sheep, but building and perpetuating church unity.

A VERY GOOD PLACE TO START

Recognize that if you haven’t built a culture of “knowing” into your shepherding it might be a bit awkward for elder and church member at the beginning. But shepherding with knowledge is great gain.

If you don’t have one, create an up-to-date membership directory. It could be one that’s never printed off and resides in the ubiquitous Cloud, or maybe it’s one you print off and put in your Bible. It just needs to be current and contain pertinent contact information.

Then, in conjunction with your other elders, take some sub-section of the covenant body whom you will contact in a given month. Our elders normally take two pages per month, which means each man has about five household to contact. The ideal is to always have a face-to-face meeting. When scheduling doesn’t let a meeting happen I usually shoot the husband of the home and email that says something like, “Give me a call when you get a chance today or tomorrow. I just want to hear how you guys are doing and how we can serve you and pray for you.” Most people will usually respond quite quickly and let me know when they’ll give me a call. You could of course go about it differently. The point is to have consistent communication with all your sheep.

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Shepherding One Another

Shepherd Each Other

When we installed our first group of elders at IDC we immediately put into place schedule of meeting twice a month.

Little did we know it wouldn’t be enough.

TWO LONG MEETINGS A MONTH

We meet on the first and third Thursday night of each month from roughly 7:30-10:30pm. The first monthly meeting is a “Member Centric Meeting (MCM)”. The bulk of each MCM is taken up with updates and prayers on about fifteen different family units in our membership directory. Prior to the meeting our elders delegate which family units they will visit/reach out to. They then come to the MCM with any pertinent updates and specific prayer requests. We’ve found that it takes us, on average, roughly 90 minutes for discussion and prayer on fifteen families. This shepherding plan is always the first order of business on MCM nights. The rest of our MCM time is normally occupied with administrative matters pertaining to body life and proactive shepherding.

The third Thursday night of each month is designated as an “Issue Centric Meeting (ICM)”. The average ICM is occupied with some theological or philosophical matter in the church. Sometimes the ICM has dealt with pressing issues like “what we believe about deacons” or “future building plans” to an overarching theological matter of unique importance like “a biblical understanding of sanctification.” We’ve found it incredibly helpful to have unhurried and specific conversations about things that count when it comes to our understanding of Scripture and application of it in our church body.

But we noticed early on that something was missing from these meetings: personal shepherding.

A THIRD MONTHLY MEETING

After all, we elders need to shepherd each other as well. Yet, the pressing matter of church life seemed to always crowd out opportunities for sustained reflection on how each man is doing spiritually.

So we added a third meeting, one where we can hold each other accountable and pray for specific needs and desires. This meeting is more informal and usually happens on the third Friday morning of each month from 6:00-7:30am. We share about current advances in holiness and struggles against sin, often counseling one another in the things of God. We all love to read so we’ve currently used this time to discuss a book that has unique emphasis on pastoral piety. The first book we’ve worked through is David Beaty’s study of M’Cheyne’s spirituality, An All-Surpassing Fellowship.

LONG-LASTING FRUIT

Now, I recognize that every church is different and thus every elder board will be unique. Many people hear about our three monthly meetings and say something, “Wow, that’s a lot! I don’t think we could do that.” And in some circumstances they definitely can’t. Frankly, as our church – Lord willing – grows and elder body expands, three monthly meetings may not always be our practice.

But let me tell you something, the Spirit has worked within us a sense of spiritual unity and joyful camaraderie that I don’t think we’d have otherwise. And I’m jealous to keep such a spirit among our shepherds. As David said in Psalm 133,

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
    when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
    running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
    running down on the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
    which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
    life forevermore.

Eldering is hard work and demands much time; maybe even three meetings a month! But rejoice in the labor. Trust the Spirit will do a work within you that is immeasurably greater than you would imagine.

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Looking for Elders

Finding Elders

It is the sine qua non of eldership in a local church: “He must be able to teach.” That aptitude singles a man out for shepherding service in a way no other qualification does.

Therefore, discerning a man’s aptitude to teach is always of utmost importance.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

No small amount of ink has been used to define what it means for a man to “be able to teach,” but thankfully we really don’t need to get ourselves into a tizzy trying to interpret the phrase. Paul functionally defines the qualification in his parallel instruction to Titus. In Titus 1:9 he writes, “He must be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” That’s it: he must be faithful in instruction and refutation. Not one or the other, but both.

9 CONSIDERATIONS FOR FINDING TEACHERS

The question then becomes, “How do we find these faithful teachers?” In his wonderfully wise book Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons Thabiti Anyabwile gives the following nine considerations:

  1. Pastors must look for ways to provide men in the church opportunities to teach in order to assess giftedness and ability.
  2. Assuming a man has had a number of opportunities to teach, how capable is he?
  3. Does the man show pastoral sensibility in his teaching?
  4. Is the prospective elder committed to exposition (or the church’s preaching philosophy)?
  5. Are others edified by his teaching?
  6. Does the man disciple others?
  7. Is the man theologically mature and supportive of the church’s theological distinctives?
  8. Can the prospective elder defend the faith?
  9. Is the man himself teachable?

Yes and amen to each one.

HIS CONVERSATION IS SATURATED WITH SCRIPTURE

The older I get the more I’m convinced there is another consideration we must keep in mind when looking for potential elders: Does he speak with the language of Scripture in ordinary conversation? Yes, a man’s aptitude to teach is so easily seen in his preaching, but many elders – particularly lay elders – will do most of their teaching in a conversational or dialogical contexts. And what we want are men, like good Mr. Bunyan, that we can prick anywhere and increasingly find their blood to be “bibline.”

We should then ask questions like: Does the man answer common questions with relevant quotations and applications from Scripture? Or is his counsel largely taken from personal observation on the world and experience? Can he naturally converse about the things of God? And does his involvement in such conversation reveal a depth of understanding uncommon to the average church member? Or does he reveal a lack of familiarity with God’s word by its ordinary absence in his common conversations?

The man must be Bible-man in every station and with every person. And I just think if he is indeed gifted with skill in instruction and refutation (Titus 1:9) we would see it and hear it.

Could it be that a man’s ability to speak Scripturally is the initial non-negotiable of the elder’s sine qua non?

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How to Use Your Church’s Confession

Confessions of Faith

Few church documents are more important that a church’s Confession of Faith (Statement of Faith is the more common contemporary moniker). Yet, at least in my experience, few documents are as little used as the congregation’s “pattern of sound words.”

In 2012 Carl Trueman did the entire church a great favor by publishing The Creedal Imperative. If you need any convincing of why a local church needs a confession, stop reading this post and go read his book. It’s that persuasive.

For me, as one already convinced of creedalism, the best part of the book was the final chapter where Trueman discusses why a confession of faith is useful. He gives eight reasons. Let me briefly mention them here, with any helpful elaboration, and then consider how a church can uses their confession.

8 REASONS WHY A CONFESSION OF FAITH IS USEFUL

  1. Delimits the power of the church.Church officers cannot just preach whatever they want. A confession “describes the message the church is to preach, and it limits the church’s power to what is contained in the document.”
  2. Offers succinct and thorough summaries of the faith.
  3. Allows for appropriate discrimination between members and office-bearers.“The bar for full communicant church membership is quite low: a simply but publicly coherent profession of faith in the line of Romans 10:9-10 is sufficient.” Yet, what biblical and theological competency is required of office-bearers? The simplest way to codify it would be to say they must fully subscribe (some denominations allow for exceptions) to the church’s confession of faith and be able to teach such truth.
  4. Reflects the ministerial authority of the church.
  5. Represents the maximum doctrinal competence that can be expected from a congregation. A confession “represents the church’s doctrinal and pedagogical aspirations.”
  6. Relativizes the present. Confessions are immune, in a good way, to the passing fads and tastes of the present. “Yes, the present is where we all live and breathe, eat and drink; but the creeds and confessions of the church connect us to the past and indicate that our identity is rooted in that past. This is in line with the thrust of biblical teaching.” Timothy was not to be innovative, rather he was to hold fast to the patter of sound words given to him by Paul.
  7. Helps to define one church in relation to another. A confession “serves transparency because it allows those outside to see what a particular church represents. . . . When someone visits the congregation, it is useful for congregants to be able to point them to a succinct summary of the church’s position on key doctrinal topics.
  8. Maintains corporate unity.A church is united insofar as it defines and agrees upon what is biblically true. A confession of faith is thus a document that fuels unity.

3 WAYS TO USE YOUR CHURCH’S CONFESSION

If a confession of faith is beneficial in all these ways, how then can a church use the confession in a way that brings doctrinal continuity and convictional harmony? Here are three ideas:

Use the confession in your church’s gathered worship.This is something I hope to continually do more of at IDC, but there is no reason why a church can’t regularly confess – through a corporate reading – some portion its confession of faith. It could be an article that has a direct link to the sermon, a clear expounding of a truth you are about to sing, or maybe it doesn’t have any clear link other than being a fantastic way to proclaim unity in Christ.

Use the confession in discipling relationships.A few of our elders have gone through the 1689 London Baptist Confession with different men in the church and been met with a great response. Many different churches I know of will use something like Grudem’s Christian Beliefs to train there members in systematic theology, but why not use the church’s confession of faith? A good and accurate confession is like a succinctly packed systematic. And all our members need resources succinctly packed with biblical truth.

Use the confession in elder and deacon meetings.We use the confession in all our office-bearer training, but we are growing in our consistent use of the documents in our actual meetings. It seems wise, for example, to consistently read a portion of the confession at your elders’ meeting and reflect together upon its truth. This further cements the doctrinal foundations in church leadership and helps fuel unified understanding of what the church confesses.

Confessions have a unique ability to promote clarity and unity in a local church. So why don’t you dust yours off and wield it to help build a vibrant witness to the world.

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Jet-Fuel for Your Ministry of Prayer

Pray Persistently

Faithful pastors are ministers of the word and prayer. I don’t think I am out of line to say that most pastors struggle with the latter more than the former.

If my suspicion is correct then a remedy is needed. Prayer, as Bridges said, “is one half of our ministry, and it gives the other half all its power and success.” We will never be truly powerful in the pulpit if we are not powerful in prayer. Strategies for prayer-closet diligence abound, but let me offer one today you may not have considered before.

Here it is: spend time in your elders’ meetings praying for church members by name.

I’ll eventually get to how this relates to persistence in private prayer, but first let’s consider what praying for members by name in our elders’ meetings can look like.

WE MUST BE DOING THIS

I trust you need not be convinced that pastors ought to be praying for church members by name. But you may never have seen or heard how elders can integrate this into their regular meetings. Here’s how we do it at IDC . . .

First of all, we have two elders’ meetings each month: a “member centric” meeting and an “issue centric” meeting. These meetings usually occur on Thursday nights and run for 3-3.5 hours. Having two meetings each month gives us great ability to deal with pressing matters of oversight (normally at the “issue centric” meetings) and retain much time for shepherding through prayer.

At each “member centric” meeting we will pray through two pages of our membership directory, which is normally about 30 individuals. One month prior to this meeting, usually via email, each elder will delineate which members on the directory’s next two pages he will contact1 to discern how they are doing spiritually. From these conversations our elders arrive locked and loaded to the next month’s MC meeting with prayer request and spiritual updates.

When we come together at the MC meeting we usually settle some brief ministry matters before going into the time of prayer. Once we’re ready, we read off the first family unit (either a single member, or married couple), then elder who contacted them offers shares the update and points of prayer. After the update is given, one of the elders prays specifically for the family unit.2

The goal is to spend 5 minutes per family unit between the update and prayer, so going through two pages takes us between 90-105 minutes.

I can speak for the rest of our elders in saying we believe this is the single-most important and life-giving thing we do as elders.

HOW IT FUELS PRIVATE PRAYER

Now, back to the original point of this post: how does this practice fuel the pastor’s private prayer?

First, it helps me have somewhat recent knowledge of how every member of our church is doing. So as I pray through one page of the directory each day I am able to pray with specifics in mind.

Second, I find I am more burdened to pray for members after the MC meeting. It has an unexpected power in driving me to my knees in intercession.

Which leads to a third point. Faithful pastors are those growing in intercession and supplication. We are prone to focus all our prayer time on personal petitions for our family and skill in ministry, but we must balance that with the lifting up of others to God. Practicing intercessory prayer in the elders’ meeting flexes my prayer muscles and prepares them for diligence in private prayer.

Just as private prayer fuels public prayer, I’ve found this maxim to be true: group prayer fuels private prayer.

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  1. Face to face contact is preferred, phone call is second, and email is last. ↩
  2. We just go around in circle praying for each unit, so sometimes the elder who provides the update prays for the member or members himself. ↩
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Thabiti & Trendiness

9781433529924mOne of my favorite books on church officers is Thabiti Anyawile’s Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons. Many books on elders and deacons offer sustained exegesis on 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Thabiti’s work fills a gap by offering sustained applications of the relevant texts.

With warmth and wisdom he offers brief explanations of each qualification and then helps us discern how to spot those qualifications in the life of a given man.

SEEING SOBER-MINDEDNESS

1 Timothy 3:2 says an elder must be “sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable.” Sober-mindedness connotes a man who is watchful and circumspect, one who is free from the excessive influence of passion, lust, or emotion. Likewise, a self-controlled man has control over his inward state and outward actions, and is not given to rashness or foolishness.

Anyabwile says, “Where sober-mindedness and self-control reign, there you have a respectable man. He lives a godly, ordered life.” Thabiti then provides five questions to help us spot a sober-minded, self-controlled, and respectable man. The second question may be a bit surprising. But he is right on track.

TRENDINESS IN LIFE

He writes, “Is a man trendy? Is he a lover of fads, bouncing from one new thing to another?”

A trendy man places emphasis on novelty, so by definition things outside himself exert control over him. He hungers for the ever-changing, ever-elusive ‘next great idea.’ He may be ‘down’ with the coolest in the congregation, but the very basis of that acceptances stems from the kind of instability that works against sobriety, watchfulness, and self-control.

We might see this in his style of dress or other purchases (cars, etc.). While we do not wish to be prudish about outward things, outward trendiness might be an early warning sign of trendiness in the more important world of ideas. Is this a man who chases every new church fad or model for doing church? Is he drawn to novel theological ideas? Trendiness nearly destroyed the church from within, and such things should be avoided. Instead, we should look for men who are steadfast in their resistance to fads and unhealthy trends and who adopt a consistently sound, biblical view of themselves, the world, and God. (68-69)

The root concern then with trendiness is it may display a gravitation towards novelty, which becomes a massive issue when we get into the world of doctrine.

TRENDINESS IN DOCTRINE

Later on in the book Thabiti returns to this topic in his chapter on “What Good Pastors Do” and the section “Elders Watch Their Doctrine.” One way elders can watch their teaching is to “avoid novelty and fads.” Anywabwile writes,

Most error starts with novelty, with a desire to say something new or innovative. But few faithful teachers want to be doctrinally innovative. . . . Paul tells Timothy to avoid irreverent, silly myths. The good pastor will follow Paul’s counsel. The world clamors ceaselessly for new things. It wants ingenuity and breakthroughs. There is something about the human heart that craves to be an original, to be unique. But great explosions of error occur when a pastor’s combustible lust for cleverness and originality mingles with the fuel of worldly desire for novelty. (157-158)

So, when examining future men for ministry, put ’em through the trendiness test. It is not innately wrong or foolish, but it may belie a soul prone to ride faddish waves of faith and practice. What we want is men who surf on the old paths of prophets, apostles, and our Lord.

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A Document for Unity and Maturity

Training Elders

Yesterday I offered some thoughts on why an elder confession of faith is valuable in the life of a local church.

Today I want to offer two quick points of how it is valuable.

PRACTICAL BENEFITS OF AN ELDER CONFESSION

Unity. I think we can all agree that we are unified insofar as we agree on what’s true. A church’s under-shepherds are to be models of Christ before the church. One thing elders must model in their labor together is the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. An elder confession of faith, when done well,1 greatly increases what the elder board agrees on theologically. Such agreement can only increase unity.

Maturity. An elder confession of faith represents one of the best discipling tools a church can have. I am increasingly convinced that the best systematic theologies the church has are historic confessions. They are precise and concise; two qualities average church members appreciate. If your elder confession of faith represents a more detailed and thorough – yet harmonious – articulation of the faith than the confession for church members, what you thus have is a document that details theological maturity. So, the confession for membership represents the seed of theological and biblical awareness and the confession for eldership the ordinary maturation that seed.

Our elders are currently walking through the elder confession of faith with about 10 different men in our church and I have heard nothing but excited feedback. I think it would be the same for you.

  1. By “done well” I mean not drawing unreasonable lines in the doctrinal sand. ↩
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An Elder Confession of Faith

Training Elders

One of the best parts of our recent elder training process at IDC was the use of an Elder Confession of Faith. Our church members subscribe to a revised version of the New Hampshire Confession (1853), while our elders also subscribe to a revised version of the Second London Confession (1689).

Allow me to postulate these next two days on the value of an elder confession – or affirmation – of faith. Today I want to address why they are valuable and tomorrow how they are valuable.

TO USE OR NOT TO USE AN ELDER CONFESSION?

Should a church have more stringent standards of subscription for elders than other members of the church? Mark Dever says, “No.” In his excellent book A Display of God’s Glory Dever writes,

I know that there are many godly, congregational, baptist churches which, in deciding to have elders, decide also to have different, more stringent standards of subscription for elders than for other members of the church. . . . While the desire for exemplary maturity in the elders of a congregation is healthy and even biblical, this means of achieving it may leave something to be desired. Do we see such clearly modeled in Scripture? No.

He fears that such a formal requirement would tend to move the church to a more “clergy-dependent” position. It’s a very rare day when I find myself disagreeing with the Bishop of 9Marks, but I side with Piper on this one.

About fifteen years ago the elders at Piper’s church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, “felt the need to define what they believe and teach for the clarity and continuance of Biblical faithfulness in the church.” Piper, surprise surprise, was charged to write the first draft. What became known as The Bethlehem Baptist Elder Affirmation of Faith is a model of biblical clarity and conviction.

I came very close to using it with our elders. My historical sensibilities led me to go with the revised 1689 Confession to show, in some sense, historical solidarity with the Baptist tradition.

DRAWING IN THE DOCTRINAL SANDS

The clear witness of the New Testament is that one needs to only make a credible profession of faith to be received into membership in a local church. Thus, the confession for church members ought not to draw more doctrinal lines in the sand than Scripture. It ought to be clear on Scripture, God, the gospel, and the church. Going much further than that would make subscription for members unnecessarily restrictive.

In fact, here is a screenshot from a handout we use in our membership class to show just how ordinary our church confession is:

Screen Shot 2014-04-22 at 3.31.43 PM

Now the question when it comes to elders is, “Should there be a higher level of subscription?” Or maybe a better way to word it is, “Should there be a more detailed level of subscription?” In my view the answer is, “Definitely.”

The ecumenicism of the New Hampshire Confession is fabulous for church membership, but is lacking when it comes to eldership. I could see a  continuationist, convinced cessationist, progressive dispensationalist, and confessing covenant theologian all agreeing with the document. I don’t think that’s a bad thing for church membership, but for an elder board such diversity of theological conviction undermines unity in theology and philosophy. Few would probably disagree with me here.

So then a more detailed confession that draws simple – yet appropriate – lines in the doctrinal sand is valuable for testing and teasing out the convictions of elders candidates. I wouldn’t advocate a document that draws such lines all over the place, but it would draw foundational lines.

Here’s are two simple examples of this works out at our church with the New Hampshire Confession (NHC) and the Second London Confession (SLC):

  • Agreement with the NHC means subscription to the infallibility of Scripture
    – Agreement with the SLC means subscription to the infallibility and sufficiency of Scripture
  • Agreement with the NHC means subscription to the sovereignty of God
    – Agreement with the SLC means subscription to sovereignty of God and compatibilism

So the elder confession allows us to “up the ante” of theological conviction, which I believe is a good thing the more a person increases in leadership responsibility. One way to think about it as when you join a church very few things are in the “closed hand” of theology, but the further up and further in you go the more get put into confessional fisticuffs.

THE AIM OF UNITY

Titus 1:9 says an elder “must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

Elder confessions of faith, when done rightly, help existing elders more sharply discern what doctrines a candidate would teach and which doctrines he would refute. So rather than creating a more “clergy-dependent” church, the document actually increased Ephesians 4 type realities: unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, equipping saints unto unity in the knowledge of the Son of God, and speaking the truth in love.