By e2: effective elders team
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline is an engineering marvel of the twentieth century. Spanning some 800 miles from its origin at Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska to its terminus at Valdez, it carries much-needed crude oil across Alaska’s mountainous and wooded wilderness. At its peak, the pipeline had a record throughput of just over two million barrels of oil per day in 1988. Today, however, oil production and throughput has dwindled to roughly 400,000 barrels a day–an alarming decrease of 75 percent (https://www.alyeska-pipe.com/historic-throughput/).
This is yet another challenge facing the energy industry, and admitting it, oil companies across the country and around the world are on a quest to find new oil reserves. Once discovered, wherever discovered, crude oil is then brought into production to help meet our ever-growing energy needs.
The local church is facing a similar challenge. The leadership pipeline has dwindled to an all-time low in that we are not producing the next generation of leaders, particularly when it comes to elders. Like the oil industry, we need to locate potential new elders, develop them, and then on-board these individuals to help meet the burgeoning needs of the local church.
Good News
At e2: effective elders, we have a front row seat to witness how God is on the move within the local church to produce the next generation of elders. Working closely with over 100 partner churches, we can see empty leadership pipelines refill.
Bridge Christian Church in Dubuque, Iowa (bridgeontheweb.org), contacted us as they had only one elder and no lead minister. But after a few site visits and much coaching, The Bridge ordained four elders and will soon welcome a new lead minister.
Rocky Fork Fellowship in Hallsville, Missouri (rff.church), was in a similar situation. Without a lead minister and having only two elders, we helped them identify, prepare, and set apart a robust team of six elders, and guided them in locating their new lead minister.
Palmer Christian Church in Palmer, Alaska (palmerchristianchurch.org), had no elders and no lead minister when we began to work with them, and after a two-year journey, we have had the privilege to help them onboard not only a new elder team, but also a new lead minister, who also serves as our board chair at e2.
Indian Creek Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana (thecreek.org), has used e2 resources to train and equip more than two dozen men to serve as potential elders. In baseball, a player is always “on deck” to go to the plate to bat. At The Creek, an ample number of potential elders have already been trained and are ready to “step up to the plate” to serve as elders when the need arises. It was at The Creek that e2’s earliest resources (our elder governance white paper and first five foundational books) were incubated and fine-tuned in the leadership context of The Creek, for which we will forever be grateful.
Additionally, e2 has been privileged to assist church plants in onboarding their initial elder teams. LifeWell Christian Church in Crown Point, Indiana (lifewell.church), invited us to help them train, select, vet, and onboard their first elder team by their third anniversary. Similarly, Current Church in Papamoa, New Zealand (currentchurch.nz), has asked us to assist them in ordaining their first elder team by their seventh anniversary in March 2025.
The Church’s leadership pipeline across these United States is suffering, but the news is not all doom and gloom. Across the country and around the world, numerous churches are refilling their leadership pipeline with next-generation elders. And every church can do the same if people are willing to make the effort.
In John 9:1-7, Jesus healed a man who had been born blind. After spitting on the ground, Jesus made some mud and put it in the man’s eyes. He commanded the man to go and wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam, after which, he returned home able to see. Similarly, in Luke 17:11-14, Jesus told 10 men with leprosy to go and show themselves to the priest, and as they did as they were commanded, they were healed. In both instances, Jesus could have healed these men on the spot with merely a thought or word; however, Jesus required them to make an effort to receive a blessing.
To enjoy the blessing of a full, robust, skilled, and spiritually-called elder pipeline, we must make an effort. And here’s how.
Three Essentials
In each of the previously cited churches (and in others like them), we have witnessed them make an effort to refill the elder pipeline. Three essentials have always been easy to spot. In the office, we often say they’re “as easy as ABC”:A for Admit, B for Biblical, and C for Course.
First, every church must admit that it needs next-generation elders. The local church must admit that their method of recruiting and onboarding elders is not working; that it is broken and needs to be fixed. This admission flows from Christlike humility. Proverbs 16:18 reminds us that “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” When a local church humbly admits that they can and must be more effective in producing leaders, healing begins to happen.
Second, every church must strive to be biblical in its method of recruiting and onboarding next-generation elders. For far too long, we have followed two flawed examples as unquestioned models for the organizational structure in the local church: the American government and the American corporation.
Like the federal government, we nominate and elect elders, along with a host of other “officers” in the church. These individuals serve stated terms and can then be re-elected. But we must remember this truth: whenever there is a vote, someone wins and someone loses. We actually produce disunity in the church, when the Word calls us to “make every effort to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Where is this model of voting found in the New Testament? Can we cite “book-chapter-verse” for using “yeas” and “nays?”
And like the American corporation, many congregations have church boards. Corporations began to develop and flourish in America’s Gilded Age following the Civil War when our nation’s first millionaires wanted to legally protect their wealth while still controlling it by being chairman of the board of directors. Local congregations established church boards, and then filled those seats by nominating and electing elders, deacons, and trustees. Again, where is this found in the New Testament?
LEGOs©, Tinker Toys©, and Lincoln Logs© all have something in common. Each comes with instructions. If children want to enjoy the toy, they build according to the instructions. Likewise, the local church comes with instructions: the Word of God. When we choose to build according to his instructions, God blesses the local church. It becomes healthy and that which is healthy, grows.
Third, every church must establish a course to produce next-generation elders. Think of this as a pathway to a desired destination. Each of the above churches set a date in the future as to when they wanted to set apart new elders, and then each of them worked backwards on a timeline to establish the course they would follow to recruit, equip, train, vet, and ordain their new elders. Time is required to read and discuss books. Calendars need to be synced for potential elders to shadow elders who are currently serving in their local ministry context. Only then can they know, by experience, how elders minister to people in the church. It takes time to plan and establish this course. Churches sometimes contact us in crisis and ask how they can have new elders next month. Yet, onboarding next generation elders is not as simple as turning a light on and off. It takes time and effort.
This third essential step in the process of refilling the elder pipeline must be intentional, deliberate, and thoroughly explained to those on this journey, while being thoroughly communicated to the congregation. People must understand the extreme care that is being used to prepare elders to serve the local church, and this course of direction may be quite different from a congregation’s past methods.
To help with this third essential, e2 has produced Operation Pipeline: Four Steps to Recruit New Elders in a Church, which walks readers through the process of onboarding new elders as they “discover, drill, determine, and deliver” (i.e., the outline of the book). We are most often asked, “Where do we find new elders?” This book draws on e2’s preexisting library, combined with newly written material, to provide four straightforward, biblical, practical steps to identify and incorporate new elders into a leadership team.
Time to Decide
Moses trained Joshua to lead. Elijah mentored Elisha to lead. Jesus taught his disciples to lead. Paul prepared Timothy, Titus, and others to lead. Who are you equipping to lead? Join the increasing number of churches that are intentionally and deliberately refilling their leadership pipeline. It’s time to hand the keys of leadership to the next generation of elders and watch them accomplish more for our King’s kingdom than we ever thought possible.
Lead well.
Founded in 2008, e2:effective elders has ministered to more than 12,000 church leaders nationwide, providing leadership coaching for elder and staff teams.
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