Church "Elders" - can someone explain?

[hippiemamato3]

I have heard this expression used and I'm not sure I understand it. Is it people in the church who are simply older? More powerful? Is there a hierarchy in some churches? 

[Clemsondana]

It depends on the denomination.  Some churches have elders, some have deacons, some have both with specific job descriptions, and some have other forms of laity leadership (leaders who aren't ordained pastors).  In the denominations that I know about, it's a leadership role that members are asked to serve for a period of time (around 3ish years, I think).  Depending on the denomination, lay leadership jobs may involve congregational care (visiting or helping church members), committee work (my brother, an elder in his church, is involved in the search for a new pastor), serving communion, doing scripture readings or prayers during services, etc.  

[SamanthaCarter]

I am Presbyterian, and our form of church government has both elders and deacons. Both of these types of officers are nominated for office by the congregation, examined by the current officers and those that are deemed qualified are brought up for election by the congregation. Elders and deacons serve different roles, the elders are in charge of spiritual leadership, so it’s necessary that they can both teach and provide some level of spiritual counsel and protect the congregation from falling into harmful ideas. The pastor is just a very specialized form of an elder. Deacons are in charge of the more temporal needs of the church, they are in charge of helping members in need, mercy ministry to the greater community and care of church property. 

[Crimson Wife]

Some churches that don't have an administrative staff to support the pastor use volunteers from the congregation and call them "elders". The "elder" can actually be in his/her 20's, but most commonly they are retirees. To me, it would be a bit odd to use the term if ALL of them were young.

[hippiemamato3]

8 minutes ago, Arctic Mama said:

We use it in the biblical sense as in 1 Timothy 3:2, also translates overseer or bishop.  Deacons are another service office in the chudch.  But basically our pastoral staff and a group of men serving our body in the capacity of elder are approved by the body after being interviewed and voted upon in accordance with those qualifications.  We are a church that is a plurality of elders in terms of structure - non-denominational but formerly reformed Baptist. 

 

Deacon and Elder are church offices with specific qualificiations and duties as laid out in scripture, as well as our book of faith and order. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, but we are not all deacons or elders.  The elders are specifically all male, for one thing.

Why is that?

[hippiemamato3]

1 minute ago, Arctic Mama said:

Because of the scripture passage cited above.  We do have deaconesses, because that isn’t sex specific in terms of a service position.  But an elder is specifically noted as a husband of one wife, therefore a man.

1 Timothy 3:1-10 from the ESV

 

 

Interesting. Thank you for clarifying!

[Bensmom2]

I am Disciple of Christ and our role of elder and deacon sounds very much like SamanthaCarters Presbyterian explanation. We have an equal number of female and male elders. (The number doesn’t have to be equal. We just tend to  select both genders fairly equally). 

[GailV]

United Methodist Elders are ordained ministers of Word, Order, Sacrament, and Service.  Deacons are also ordained, but do not administer sacraments.  United Methodists also have local pastors who are not ordained (I think they used to be called "lay pastors" -- my grandfather was a lay pastor, and that sounds like what he did).  Any of these can be male or female.

I've been reading Richard Rohr lately, and his use of the term Elder is more about wisdom and insight developed over years of prayer, contemplation, and studying scripture.

[TechWife]

2 hours ago, SamanthaCarter said:

I am Presbyterian, and our form of church government has both elders and deacons. Both of these types of officers are nominated for office by the congregation, examined by the current officers and those that are deemed qualified are brought up for election by the congregation. Elders and deacons serve different roles, the elders are in charge of spiritual leadership, so it’s necessary that they can both teach and provide some level of spiritual counsel and protect the congregation from falling into harmful ideas. The pastor is just a very specialized form of an elder. Deacons are in charge of the more temporal needs of the church, they are in charge of helping members in need, mercy ministry to the greater community and care of church property. 

I am Baptist and this is what we do as well. Not all Baptist churches have Elders, though. 

[rebcoola]

Our church (technically baptist) is run by a group of Elders chosen from the congregation and includes the pastor. 

[Amira]

In the LDS Church, nearly all men over 18 are elders because they’ve been ordained as an elder in what we call the Melchizedek priesthood.  There are only a few groups of men who use the title though..  Men who are serving as missionaries are called Elder Lastname, no matter their age (so they could be 18 or 80) and our area and worldwide leaders also use that title.