As a teenager and growing believer, what I wanted to be was an elder (not a preacher). A husband and father first, and then a church elder.
Initially, I had a fairly provincial concept of what the “elder” role entailed, but that concept eventually grew. In the ideal, I soon came to see the elder as essentially pastoral, and I started thinking of it more as a hybrid “shepherd-elder.” An elder was a man who took care of people individually and collectively—much like I thought a shepherd must take care of sheep. (I find both similarities and differences between this role and the typical “church pastor” role in most protestant churches today.) My dad became one of these shepherd-elders while I was in college, and he cared for people in multiple ways.
During my 20s and 30s, I grew critical of the standard ways in which elders operated in churches. They seemed primarily to be a layer of “management.” While most wanted the elders (not the preaching minister) to be the top layer, that didn’t always occur, practically speaking, and that raises the question of whether anyone should be thinking with such a pecking order in his mind in the first place. Few truly examined the status quo with a critical eye. There seemed to be little hope of growth in the right directions. My own better-than-most congregation gave me more heartburn than the churches that were more off track.
Let me explain. After my early 20s, I wouldn’t have affiliated myself with a church that seemed to have no hope or potential, but when my congregation stagnated or resisted what to me was a clearly positive direction, I tended to react with greater intensity. Those who at times called themselves “shepherds” and seemed to understand pastoral, servant leadership but who acted more often (publicly, at least) as corporate directors were more culpable than those who simply swallowed the general legacy of single-pastor-led congregational life. I suppose I applied a presumed principle inherent in the parable of the “talents”: better things were required out of those to whom much insight had been given. There was, then, a lost hope for me: if a congregation I’d invested in saw the right things and talked the right ways but didn’t take enough affirmative steps in the right direction, I became more disillusioned, with waning hope for positive change.
Around this time, there was an uprising of sorts in the C of C—a force that countered what they saw as progressive “change” within the associated congregations. To an extent, the threat they perceived was an illusion. There was by no means a single force advocating change, yet there certainly were changes afoot.
And I was a change-driver in my small corners of the Christian world. I was working closely with teens, both individually and collective; I led and planned assemblies and classes, and more. I continued to see myself as a future shepherd-elder-pastor. Yes, in my world, those were all about the same basic thing, which wasn’t just right. It didn’t strike me to question that no one person should even try to be all those things. Earlier on, I simply figured I would eventually have children, and I could then become one of those leaders that most people called “elders.”
My vision for my life changed during my late 20s and 30s. By my 40s, it changed again, and I knew that I would never be an elder. More significantly, I no longer wanted to be one. And yet I pastored. I guided. Once in a while, I cared like a good shepherd.¹
I also had thoughts of being a deacon/minister/servant. Yes, these words are all found in English Bible versions as renderings of the same Greek word. Despite the de facto scenario in some churches, in which deacons are seen as junior elders or as future elders, there is no such precedent in our scriptures. The notion of “deacon” is not that of a fledgling or developing “elder wannabe.” A deacon proper has a function, an area or task group in which to “deac.” This is no “office” for an “officer.”
Aside: As a faculty member in a Christian college, I was trying to build an ensemble’s esprit de corps, and I found that this group had never had “officers” like its sister ensembles. In this group, I turned the “officer” word on its head, instead describing the roles in terms of ministry and service. Rather than having a president and vice president, etc., the group would have a lead organizational minister, a minister of organizational promotion, a devotional coordinator, and hospitality servers. Although my descriptions and conceptualizations and verbalizations were a bit overwrought, I still smile on them. Below, in the footnotes, I’ll paste in the conceptual rationale from the “officer” information I published to this student musical ensemble a dozen years ago.²
Now, back to my earlier period of intensely involved worship leadership in youth groups and with the entire congregation, my role included developing a songbook supplement. These were also the days of overhead transparencies for contemporary music, long before PowerPoint had begun to be used in churches, and I more-or-less managed the box of transparencies that were used on many Sunday and Wednesday nights. During that period, Jim, a friend had two young children. was officially made a deacon for finance. His family and household, combined with his vocational training and position, made him suited for this position. yet this friend noticed what I was doing. Good-naturedly, yet a bit jealously, he commented once that I was the one who really should be a deacon and that I was doing the more important work. I began to ponder when I was really doing important work, and I couldn’t have cared less most of the time whether I was recognized as a deacon or shepherd or not. This general feeling remains to this day.
And now I come to the pedestrian, the earthy, and the self-centered. I spend a lot of time handling “stuff.” This is part of what I learned as a child made one fit to be a deacon in the church. One managed one’s own affairs. I took this to mean that one’s family finances were in order, one’s children did not behave noticeably badly in public, perhaps one’s house and yard were reasonably attractive, and things were not out of control in one’s personal life.
I often have these thoughts in mind as I handle stuff. Sometimes it’s organizing, sometimes it’s getting financial matters in order, and sometimes it’s just having a peaceful “feel” in one’s home, so one can sit and think and read and talk and be. It never seems to be all handled, yet I can look around me and feel relatively good that most things are relatively in order. There is little fulfillment, because life is not as it should be, but I suppose I handle “stuff” better than most.
I’ve preached a few sermons in my life, but I’ve never wanted to be a preacher per se. I still never want to be a corporate board administrator/elder of a church, although I continue to care and feel pastoral towards some. I still don’t care whether I’m ever made a deacon of a church. But I do want to have my stuff in order, so that I have “margin” and space in my life—in order to be have room to serve and to care about others.
When, O Lord, will there be energy, margin/availability, and opportunity to care for others again? I’m asking. I’m asking intensely. When that time comes, will I have the attitude of the One who did not consider equality with deity a thing to be held onto, but rather took human form and served? O Servant of Servants, make me one, too.
¹ One of the little things I did in order to show interest in the lives of those with whom I was closely associated was to visit their home congregations when I could. I continued to do that even until about four years ago, wanting to get to know the souls and what else they were influenced by. This practice came to a grinding halt with one particular church visit. I basically knew what I was getting into, but when I finally forced myself to go where this person went, I was incredulous that a man of such apparent spiritual depth and knowledge could waste his time in such a place as the one he attended on Sunday mornings. At that point I felt like not like a shepherd or even a peer (this person is older than I) but like an onlooker while wolves devoured common sense. To be fair, other aspects of life also necessitated that I stop caring for others this way. It was not only this particularly challenging church visit.
² The following verbiage is taken from an organizational document posted for my college orchestra in 2010:
“As we continue the relatively new organizational dynamics in the Houghton Philharmonia’s story, may we ponder seriously the Christian character advocated in the New Covenant scriptures. The spirit enjoined on us all by Jesus includes such aspects as poverty of spirit (Matt. 5:3) and the servant heart (Matthew 20:20-28). Clearly, our Master Teacher and Lord wants us to develop and exhibit attitudes of service in all our spheres of influence; the Christian should be more interested in service and community than in positional authority and hierarchy.
This foundational concept—one of Christian ministry that is more given to deeds of service than to hierarchical position[1]—is at the heart of the officer servant roles established in 2007. Those who wish to be considered for “office” should therefore be willing to work—to serve—the Philharmonia, the Greatbatch School of Music, and Houghton College. Though there will naturally be some decision-making authority and de facto “position” involved, officers should not primarily be motivated by thoughts of position.
[1] It is interesting to note that the single Koiné Greek (the New Testament language) word diakonos is alternately translated deacon, minister, and servant in our English versions of the New Testament scriptures. Biblically, there is no conceptual distinction between deacons, ministers, and servants. In all these word-concepts, service to the group is implied. The British government terminology (Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Housing, etc.) might originally have had this fact in view, and we are following this nomenclature with the Philharmonia officer/servant roles. You may also note the non-hierarchical order in which the offices are listed. 🙂 Ministry is service, and our officers will serve.” – Houghton College Philharmonia, B. Casey, Fall 2010
does it? Amos 5:24 notwithstanding, justice doesn’t seem to roll like a river, either. Au contraire: unfairness and ironies run rampant. Since we are stuck in time, it is only sporadically that we experience God’s justice.
Sometime later, I put one of these variants on a car. It’s a little less “in your face,” not having the Greek letters, and so possibly less noticeable. I also eventually became uncomfortable with this one, so I didn’t carry any kind of Christian symbol on my car for quite some time. When I got another car last year, I got the items shown below. I put the green plate on the front and the license plate frame on the back.
Earnestly Speaking 