CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Appointing New Elders in House Church Fellowships

Appointing New Elders in House Church Fellowships
Since each house church functions within a fellowship, when a church appoints new elders it will affect the other churches. As a result, the churches normally seek the counsel of the FOB when appointing new elders (as do the church planters when working in a new congregation in the fellowship).

This chapter deals with the question of how to appoint elders in fellowships of house churches. In the initial stage, church planters work with prospective leaders, and when these men have been proven, recommend them to the congregation for ordination. However, this procedure obviously must be modified to involve the other churches in the fellowship once the church planter has exited.

In an active fellowship with a Fellowship Overseers Board, leaders are normally developed by being mentored by an already existing leader on the board (see "Activities List", Appendix 17). This can be an official designation (usually the future leader will be designated as a "shepherding deacon") or it could be unofficial, as part of the normal work of discipleship, but with leadership included in his training.

We hold to the principle that the church ordains, but in our case we define the church as either the individual house congregation or the fellowship of house churches. Which is involved in ordaining, and what place does the mentor play? The board? We suggest including both as follows:

1. We believe that a primary responsibility of leaders is to recognize and train other leaders. Not all leaders may be reproductive leaders, but some should be (Cf. Ephesians 4:11f). With this in mind, the mentor should be the one to initiate the procedure for ordination. Others might encourage him to begin the steps, but he should be the one who recognizes when the time is ripe. He could begin the procedure with either of the following steps (both need to be taken, but the order may differ depending on circumstances).

a. The mentor could bring the matter to the house church for prayer and consideration.

b. The mentor could bring the matter to the Fellowship Overseers Board for prayer and consideration.

In either of the above cases the mentor seeks confirmation of a calling for eldership for the shepherding deacon in question.

2. If the response is positive from both the board and the church, then the person being considered should see this as a leading of the Lord. The man might still refuse on Biblical grounds, but needs to do so with great care, realizing he may be disobedient to God's call upon his life, since this call has been confirmed by others.

3. If the above steps have been taken and are positive, then the house church can move toward ordination. We recommend that the ordination be a Fellowship event. All the ordained elders in the fellowship (and any church planters) participate in the laying on of hands.

Key Principles
1. Leaders (mentors) are responsible to recognize and train leaders.

2. The board acts as an advisory board for further confirmation.

3. The congregation is finally responsible to confirm the calling of a man to be an elder.

Questions for further thought
1. Study through the book of acts and see what practices you can glean from the early church?

2. What principles may undergird these practices?

3. How many second generation of elders do we see being raised up? Why might this be? How does it cloud the way elders raise up new elders?

4. There has been a lot of controversy around whether apostles are always necessary to ordain elders. What do you think about this? Defend your answer.

5. Develop a time/event line for ordination of your elders. What events need to happen in order for them to be ready? What do you need to do to prepare them? What is the time frame for these steps.