April 8, 2022
As you've hopefully heard, we are taking nominations for the offices of Elder and Deacon this month. If you're new to Pear Orchard Presbyterian Church, the congregation nominates godly men annually each spring, and the officer training class begins in August (the months between nomination and training give the nominees time to begin praying about whether to go through training, and to begin reading for the class). From one perspective, there is no more important activity that you engage in as a congregation than the nomination and eventual election of elders and deacons—for in so many ways, as goes the leadership, so goes those who follow them. The Lord has blessed our congregation tremendously with faithful and wise men in these two offices, and it is a privilege for me to serve alongside them. Our elders are committed to shepherding the flock of God that He has entrusted to their care, and they take serious their responsibility to oversee the ministries of the church and the doctrine and life of the flock. Our deacons have a true heart of sacrificial service, caring deeply for the struggling and hurting, as well as attending to the material well-being of the facilities entrusted to us by the Lord. As the congregation grows, we desire more men who by God's grace will continue to move us forward in fidelity to the Scriptures, to the gospel, to holiness, and to Christ-like humility.
Last year, the Session approved a new rotation policy, and I want to remind you of that since it impacts the nomination process. Once a current officer has fulfilled his term (four years for deacons and five years for elders), he will take a one-year sabbatical. After that year, he may rotate back onto his respective body without being renominated, trained, or elected. If the circumstances in a man's life are such that he is not able or willing to rotate back onto active service after one, two, or three years of sabbatical, the official relationship which exists between him and the congregation would be dissolved. Per our Book of Church Order, he would not lose his ordination as an elder or deacon, but he would need to be nominated, trained, elected, and installed in order to serve again. So it's possible that you will nominate someone who happens to be in their extended sabbatical season, and so they will not be in training or on the ballot for election, since they will be rotating back onto their board per this new policy.
As you consider whom to nominate, let me encourage you to pray earnestly for wisdom. Read through Acts 6:1-6, I Timothy 3:1-13, and Titus 1:5-9, where qualifications for officers are listed. Read passages such as I Peter 5:1-5 and Philippians 2:1-11, where shepherding and serving are described. Who is already demonstrating the characteristics that God sets forth in His word for elders and deacons? Who is setting forth an example of faithfulness in attendance upon the means of grace, in leading his family (if married), in pursuing holiness in the fear of God, in serving the church in its ministries? For elders particularly, who is gifted as a teacher, someone you would trust to "exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict"?
Finally, I would ask you to pray for me as I prepare to train the men who are nominated, and for our elders as they approve the ones they believe are qualified to stand before you for election. These are weighty responsibilities, not taken lightly. Let's be in prayer that the Lord will continue to preserve this flock, granting us elders and deacons after His own heart, full of the word, full of the Spirit, full of gentleness, courage, character, and gospel zeal.