OT: Sheperding Groups in the Churches

[Helen in OH]

Hello,

 

My husband is on the session of our local PCA church. We just received a list of church members for the church that he is responsible to sheperd. If you are apart of this type of church government, what activities did you find spiritually beneficial? What did you appreciate from a sheperding elder? What helped you grow in and trust in Christ?

 

Thanks-a-bunch,

 

Helen in OH

[*anj*]

Hello,

 

My husband is on the session of our local PCA church. We just received a list of church members for the church that he is responsible to shepherd. If you are apart of this type of church government, what activities did you find spiritually beneficial? What did you appreciate from a shepherding elder? What helped you grow in and trust in Christ?

 

Thanks-a-bunch,

 

Helen in OH

 

I am a member of a PCA church (though for other reasons I am not able to attend it right now.)

Anyway, I'm wondering if this is something new in the PCA? We never had shepherding groups in our church.

If I did have an elder who was supposed to be shepherding me I think I'd like some of the following:

 

Time for fellowship, either with all of the people he's shepherding or just your family and our family. I guess the feasibility of that depends on the size of your church.

 

Sharing prayer concerns, and feeling like someone knew and was praying for my biggest needs.

 

Maybe a Bible study, especially if I wasn't already participating in one at church.

 

Those are the things that popped into my head first. I'm also hoping to bump up your thread because maybe Nancypants or Karenciavo will see it and chime in. I know that there are several PCA people here.

[Helen in OH]

Anj,

 

Thank-you for your reply. It is interesting in the PCA. We place such an emphasis on Preaching and Theology. Yet the role of elders is small. That is why I was asking what other peoples experiences were in their churches.

 

Helen

[Brenda in FL]

We have shepherding elders in our PCA church. Basically, the way I understand is that they are the elder to call if we have some sort of problem (illness, questions, prayer need, etc.)

 

There have been times that I have not been exactly sure who our shepherding elder is!! And so, I'm going to tell you how I think they should be doing their role!! :tongue_smilie:

 

I think that it would be important for the shepherding elder to call each of the members to which he has been assigned and let them know his role. Ideally, he should be able to encourage them to participate in other ministries in the church. If he has been assigned recent new members to your church - I think a social time with that family would be nice. Invite them to dinner, give them an informal time to talk about the church, its staff, its ministires, etc. That way they get to know you and they will call you if need arises.

 

It might be that your session has more specific guidelines in place for your shepherding elders and I'm sure that would be helpful.

 

Once we had a group get together with all the church members that our shepherding elder was assigned to. It was really very nice and allowed us to meet other members that we normally wouldn't have gotten to know.

[*anj*]

Anj,

 

Thank-you for your reply. It is interesting in the PCA. We place such an emphasis on Preaching and Theology. Yet the role of elders is small. That is why I was asking what other peoples experiences were in their churches.

 

Helen

 

In our church we had both teaching elders and ruling elders. We didn't have anyone with the title of Shepherding Elder though. Our session met with the Pastor twice a month, and any ideas for things to do in the church had to go through them. I know that they put a lot of hours into behind the scenes stuff. Some of our elders were/are also Bible teachers. One leads a men's discipleship/Bible study group. Others have taken turns teaching small group Bible Studies. I always knew that if I had a question or concern about something in the church I could go to one of them. There were some sticky situations that were taken first to the elders...before the pastor even.

 

The deacons dealt with more practical things like helping people move or finding someone to mow a lawn or even offering financial assistance to people in need.

[Jami]

PCA here and small prayer groups have been a significant part of our growth and inter-connectedness to others in our church. Our elders didn't necessarily lead each group, but I suppose with a large enough session that could work. I think there need to be places for believers to be incredibly open and vulnerable with one another, safe places. An elder can't shephard people who won't share their hurts and struggles because either they're ashamed, feel no one else in the church struggles with similar pains/issues, or who honestly think they're problem free. So the church in general and the elders by example specifically, can set up smaller groups or a general atmosphere where everyone recognizes the church is made up of broken people and it's safe and a rich, wonderful thing to bear one another's burdens.

 

These might not be helpful thoughts, I just don't think true shepherding can happen until the sheep see that the shepherd is safe and that they need guidance. :) Especially sheep who've been mislead by other shepherds and have the bruises to show for it.

 

Jami

[Happy]

I'm not PCA, but our church has elders as leadership. My dh is one. They divide the congregation up into groups and each elder is responsible for shepherding their group. It is to make sure no one is overlooked.

 

A phone call or an email or both is great. We make sure we connect with as many of them as possible face to face on Sunday morning. Hey, how are you? Is little Johnny over the flu? How's....whatever we've talked about previously.

 

Our goal is to have more folks over to our house for social and fellowship time. You really get to know folks when you spend time with them.

 

It's all about making connections and friendships. When the groups are re-shuffled every few months or so, I don't give up on the formers, I just add the new ones on.

 

I think asking what can we pray for you about is an excellent question to ask.

 

Love them!

[Melinda in VT]

. . . so take this with that in mind.

 

I've been involved in two different structures that seem to touch on the idea of a shepherding elder (although that's a new term to me).

 

Until I was 30, I was part of a church that had what they called Home Teachers. Each family was assigned a pair of men to contact the monthly, offer a spiritual lesson, and see if the family needed any help. In my experience, in most cases there was not a close relationship between the families and the home teachers unless they had been friends before. It was difficult to schedule time with all the families every month, and visits were frequently awkward.

 

Later, I was involved with a church that did Small Group Ministries. The group of 10-12 adults met twice a month for 1.5-2 hours to discuss various spiritual topics. (Periodically, the group engaged in a service project of some kind.) We all sat in a circle, and everyone had a chance to talk uninterrupted for each point/question. Best of all, before we discussed the main topic, we each went around the room and shared how we were doing that day. In my experience, the small group created more closeness and enabled more sharing of one another's burdens than the home teacher method.

 

Just my two cents, FWIW.

[Mama Anna]

I'm not PCA, but I think I've been in a similar sort of situation to what you're describing. What I really appreciated was the question from our elder, "How're you all doing?" As if he really wanted to know. When something came up (job, illness, etc.), we would be honest in answer to that question, knowing he would pray for us. He and his wife would have had us to dinner if it had worked out - that would have been awesome! (My baby and her baby came at just the wrong times for that to be convenient, then we moved.) One thing that meant so much to me, though; once when dh was going through a difficult time, our elder invited him to breakfast and they just hashed things out. It wasn't a "counseling" time, just the type of sounding board that I as a woman am constantly looking for in my friends. Dh is a heavy introvert and so often doesn't have close friends (due in part to the frequency of our moves) with whom he can do this.

 

So, if my advice would be that the following things might be appreciated:

 

Prayer

Fellowship (especially family-to-family, not just large groups)

a Listening Ear.

 

For what it's worth!

 

Mama Anna

[Janet in Toronto]

My mother was an elder in her Presbyterian Church in Canada congregation for many years. She had mainly older, single/widowed women in her care. She typically visited them once a quarter, called them periodically, prayed a LOT for their needs, and had small groups of them over for dinner from time to time. She would also take weekly bulletins to a couple who were unable to get to church, or sometimes pick them up for church if they needed a lift. She also delivered communion cards (which I believe they were to hand in when they took communion...I'm not sure of the process here.)

 

She is a retired OB/GYN and really has a gift for relating to older women. Her practice aged as she did (she did only GYN for the last 15 years before she retired, so she saw mainly older women). She is now in her 80s and is less mobile, so has given up her eldership, but she's still a prayer-warrior!

 

Janet

[Susie in SWVA]

I just sat down at the computer and noticed this thread. I am a ruling elder in an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (http://www.opc.org) which is very similar to the PCA. Our congregation (about 70 members) is broken down among the four ruling elders (who with the pastor/teaching elder comprise the "session") into shepherding groups.

 

At least once a year I try to have an appointment with each family or person in my group. At this meeting we (the pastor and I) ask about how things are going spiritually in the family, i.e., personal and family devotions and address church attendance issues. If there are children in the family we check on whether or not they are doing catechism and encourage them to do this. We also ask about ways that we can help them.

 

Informally, the rest of the time I try to keep up with what's going on in my shepherding group. This amounts to phone calls and inviting them over for dinner, usually on Sunday after church. This really helps me pray for them. And then praying for them reminds me to check up on them more frequently.

 

Although I could do better at it and some people are harder to keep up with than others I think this is a good system.

 

I am not the usual participant in this forum (my wife is) so I may not be able to continue in the discussion. Hope this helps!

 

BTW, in case you wondered. I am the "clerk" or secretary of the church session. "Kirk" is an old Scottish name for church, hence "clerkofkirk"

[Helen in OH]

Wow! I received some great feedback. Thank-you so much for your advice. Its a big help.

 

Thanks-a-again,

 

Helen in OH

[battlemaiden]

PCA here. Our last sheperding elder made an appointment to come over and brought a big pot of corn/cheddar chowder with him and his wife. We just sat on our couch and he asked, point blank, "tell me about your spiritual journey." So there! He was a wonderful, old, retired marine and I adored him. He was real, shared his faults, and sympathized with ours.

 

He took a real interest in our family (and all "his" peeps). That really was the most significant thing- and it was really significant.

 

Right now we don't have a sheperding elder and although the church is much smaller we still feel a little disconnected after 5 months. We have a large family that doesn't smoothly fit into any small mid-week groups or Bible studies, so Sunday morning is our only contact with the congregation- which is wonderful, but not quite enough to build deeper fellowship.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Jo