Elders meetings

I’m in a “blogging funk”, not because I don’t have anything to blog about but because I have too much and am not sure where to start. Let’s talk about elders and meetings today. “I’ve never been an elder but I play one on TV”...no, that’s another blog. Let’s start that again, I’ve never been an elder but I have been to more elders’ meetings than most elders. I’ve attended them for nearly 30 years now. I know I haven’t seen everything, but at times it seems like I have either seen it or heard it. I saw an elder get so angry he stormed out of the room and never came back. But I heard of one so mad he picked up a chair to throw at another elder. I’ve heard of elders sulking, pulling power plays, and refusing to discuss matters when they weren’t going to “get their way”. I heard of an eldership who told a preacher: “We’ll behave like Christians if you do” - to quote Kenan “what up with that?”

BUT, in the hundreds of elders’ meetings I have been in the ugly ones have by far been the minority. The above craziness is what you hear about but occurrences like those are so very rare. One a 100-1 scale more often I’ve seen men who love the Lord, who treat each other with respect, who are compassionate, caring, and benevolent in both actions and attitude, who give freely of their time and energy taking on criticism with rarely as much as a “thank you.” I’ve seen shepherds.

Over the years I’ve seen plenty of models for elders’ meetings (I’m often a guest in elders’ meeting but I’m not in every one). I’ve worked with elders who only met when they wanted to, I’ve worked with elders who had closed meetings and others that had totally open meetings, I’ve seen elders who met weekly (and who met weakly - sorry I couldn’t resist that soft ball I served up to myself), I’ve seen elders who met with staff and without staff, I’ve seen elders who had a weekly meal together in which they didn’t discuss “business”. Since there is little to guide us in the NT on this there are all sorts ways of these things.

I want to tell you a few things about the elders’ meetings at Spring Meadows. Not that they are done perfectly by these men but there are a few things that are special about their meetings that they’ve picked up along the way:

Our elders have, as best I can tell, four types of meetings:
1. Official, good ole’ fashioned elders’ meetings. No, they don’t have a specific night but sometimes enough “stuff” accumulates that they just need to plan a meeting. Often there are people to pray with or about, people who need to talk or work through an issue, or shepherding matters that call for a meeting time. Shepherds would do well to shepherd though. Way too often matters make their way to the elders that have nothing to do with what they are supposed to be! Our elders have been good to ask that question - “Is this something that we should do/discuss or is it something we need to pass on to someone else quickly?” I’ve found that elders get unintentionally bogged down in at least two way: First, they spin their wheels on matters that someone else could and should handle so that they don’t have to deal with the tough stuff that they know they have to deal with. Seriously if you can talk for an hour or two about what rooms need bulletin boards then you don’t have to deal with the person who needs to be shepherded but is a challenge to shepherd. And two, if we have a long list of say ten items to discuss put the one that is going to take the most time at the end. The intention is good but by the time you get to that matter it is so late or you are tired or don’t want “to get into it” so it can be put off till next meeting. To avoid this we have three other types of meetings.
2. “Stand up meetings”. I don’t know where I first heard that term (they used to call them “short elders’ meetings” at Granny White but a couple of our guys might take offense at that nomenclature here :)) but it is befitting of what our elders often do and it makes sense. These happen when there is a matter or two that should only take a moment - and isn’t that a lot of stuff that sometimes gets drawn out in meetings? So, in these meeting you can’t sit down. That keeps it brief. If we sit in “our assigned seats” we tend to wander and to draw stuff out. YES, some decisions, some issues, some challenges take a long time to deal with but many don’t.
3. “e-mail” meetings: Now, e-mail can be misused and abused, nuances like voice inflection and volume can be misunderstood, so you’ve got to be careful with e-mail. But over 90% of ALL Americans have e-mail accounts (that includes children), so all or most all of your elders have e-mail. Some matters just don’t need a meeting and if we meet over everything we get “meeting out”! So our elders will decide some things via e-mail. For instance when the Haiti earthquake hit, our deacon over “people helping” wanted us to help. Obviously we were going to do something. No meeting was required just push “go”. But in case anyone wanted to know, the elders are aware a fund was started.
4. “Non-meeting meetings”: Yeah, I know, strange title. Once a quarter or so we will plan a time together away from the building (a change of setting keeps them from falling into a typical pattern), over a meal, in which we can’t deal with a list of issues but have to focus on one thing! We will sometimes bring in a resource person to help us think that “thing” through, someone who knows the area the elders are discussing and can give the group insight. Typically an outsider who has experience on helping lead a congregation through the area being talked about. And in these times the elders deal with some of those issues that they never seem to have time to discuss at length.

A couple of other things that I’ve seen that our shepherds do. One, it is symbolic but they keep an open Bible at each meeting - this is to remind them of the greater authority in the room. They also spend a good amount of time in prayer together, always closing anytime a guest is with us with a prayer. They often will close the meeting with a
time of “how are things at your house”, an idea we got from Jerrie Barber when he was a resource person at one of our “non-meeting meetings”. This allows the shepherds to shepherd each other and reminds them that they each have their own struggles and challenges.

There are other things unique that I have seen and like but this has already gotten way too long. What have you seen elders do IN MEETINGS/WITH MEETINGS that is special?