J.R. Briggs - Eldership and the Mission of God: Equipping Teams for Faithful Church Leadership

To the elders of The Renew Community and

The Evergreen Community.

Your leadership is worthy of double honor

(1 Timothy 5:17).

T he church doesnt have a mission; Gods mission has a church. And the calling of the church, first and foremost, is to seek Gods rule and reign. As leaders called by God to lead in local Jesus communities, we cannot divorce mission from discipleship. Everything we do on mission must be saturated with the ethos of discipleship in the Way of Jesus. We will never be the movement Jesus imagined unless we first embrace and attempt to express discipleship in its authentic Jesus-imaging form. As Bonhoeffer shared so prophetically before the start of the Second World War, a Christianity without discipleship is a Christianity without Christ.

Thats why I am excited about this book. While this is a leadership book, it is much more of a followership book, teaching us to become kingdom agents who follow the founder of this movement of hopeand then in turn equipping, empowering and unleashing all of Gods people within their unique callings. This is not a call for elders to embrace an inwardly focused fortress mentality, but rather to guide the church into the destiny that Jesus intended for it. This is what leadersand specifically eldersin mission-focused contexts must strive after.

When it comes to church leadership, too much is simply assumed. Throughout his letters to the early churches of Asia Minor, the apostle Paul addresses issues that are crucial to becoming faithful, passionate and compassionate Jesus communities in new frontiers. But his instruction is not comprehensive: many issues are left unaddressed. There is, as the authors of this book state, significant freedom of form in Gods community. While there are biblical guidelines given for our instruction for mission there is also a deep need for trust in and reliance upon the Holy Spirit as we seek to bless the world in Jesus name.

J.R. and Bob give us something fewif anybooks on church eldership have offered before: an accessible mission-directed primer on faithful leadership in localized, contextualized Jesus communities. Many have written on the topic through a biblical/theological lens. This book certainly addresses these perspectives, but its real value in my opinion lies in the way it specifically addresses eldership through an apostolic/missiological lens. It takes the question seriously, What has God called us to be and do in our current cultural context? This focused view of contextually expressed biblical leadership is desperately needed in the North American church today. Thankfully, this book is not written from a theoretical ivory tower of generalities, but is rooted in on-the-ground experience, lived out in two very unique contexts.

Regardless of the size, age, geography, denomination or doctrinal conviction, every church is called to align with Gods mission. My hope all along has been to help reawaken the suppressed apostolic imagination at the root of the Christian story and to encourage all of Gods people to participate in it. Additionally, my hope is that this book will compel us to forego the prevalent version of decaffeinated Christianity and instead cultivate a missionary ethos that ignites faith communities to participate in the unrestrained and uncorked adventure of life with Jesus.

Alan Hirsch
Missiologist, speaker, founding director of Forge Network and author of The Forgotten Ways

W riting a book about eldership is like talking about someones bone structure. On the surface, it sounds uninteresting and slightly awkward. But imagine a human body without a skeletal structure. It would be unable to function appropriately, lacking the necessary shape, form and movement needed for human activity. It would also look incredibly unappealing.

When we meet people for the first time, we first notice their hair, eyes, smile and other body parts that help to facilitate social connection. Yet it is the skeletal structure that offers support that is vital to the health of the body. Undoubtedly, we would recognize a body without bones as seriously unhealthy. Because church leaders are concerned about the health of the body of Christ, it is crucial to enter into a careful exploration of the skeletal structures of our churches.

When most people think about their faith communities, they immediately think about relationships or serving opportunities or preaching or worship. They think of stories and friendships and conversations with othersthe relational receptors of the church. They dont often think about the structure of the church unless something is drastically wrong. When a church lacks structural health, that local body suffers, and theres no hiding it.

In his letters to New Testament churches, the apostle Paul spent a good deal of time and energy writing about structure. Often he started with the bone structure. When the bone structure of a local church was unhealthy, like a good physician, Paul addressed the situation, working carefully to correct it. Sometimes these churches were experiencing relational stress fractures, doctrinal bone breaks or ecclesial osteoporosis.

But Pauls work of setting the bones back into proper alignment wasnt to restructure for efficient management, security or personal comfort. His intent was to establish a healthy structure of relationships that enabled these communities to be uninhibited and unhindered in a focused, white-hot pursuit of Gods mission. Paul wrote about the structure of local house churches striking the proper balance between giving enough instruction but not giving too much. And, as well explore, structure is important for mission, but overstructure can stifle it.

So why write a book about eldershipor more specifically, about eldership oriented around Gods mission? Because it carries significant implications for becoming and remaining faithful witnesses in the world. If Paul spilled significant amounts of ink writing about mission-aligned leadership structures in the early formation of churches, why do we need more information about the role of elders today? Because few talk much about it, and it needs to be addressed.

Pauls groundwork on eldership is valuable and irreplaceable, but its context is critically important. Some elements of eldership are clear in Scripture, but many things are left unaddressed:

• What are elders day-to-day or week-to-week responsibilities?
• How were elders selectedand how should we select them in our church?
• How long should elders serve?
• What did elder meetings look like, and what should they look like in our context?

Why does Paul leave these important details out of his writings? Because he wants each unique community to wrestleby way of prayer and discussionwith what it means to faithfully bear witness to the gospel in a particular context.

That we must take up the task of embracing biblical eldership seriously is clear. Our responsibilities seem to be clear, but we need to prayerfully discern how they are embraced and expressed in our unique contexts. Just as human bodies operate on basic biological and physiological principles, churches operate on theological and missiological principles. And yet each body is unique, with its own strengths, pathologies, birthmarks, personality and distinct traits that set each of us apart and give us our uniqueness. Local churches are no different.