Knowing and Growing
More quotes from Elders in Congregational Life: Rediscovering the Biblical Model for Church Leadership
Any congregation's spiritual leaders should major on helping the church to apply the teaching of God's Word.
spiritual leaders must keep alert to the church's spiritual development. This includes the positive aspect of knowing, teaching, and encouraging spiritual growth in the church.
submission to authority is often a test of our submission to God.
When one is grieving all share in that grief. By that same rule, however, one person's attitude affects the whole church. When someone in the church rebels against or even becomes secretly agitated toward spiritual leadership of the church, the whole body is affected.
The Baptist emphasis on congregationalism, combined with the early American emphasis on individualism, likely resulted in the decline of churches being governed through elder plurality.
