Calvin Synod Herald, 2001 (102. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2001-01-01 / 1-2. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD 5 little help from other Christians. They looked around and quickly learned how the earlier arriving Americans governed their churches and picked up some of their ways for fair election practices and ownership, with new words like trustee and incorporated. However, they found out quickly that it is one matter to erect a church building and call an authorized minister, and another to attend to the multifaceted aspects of ongoing church life. There was the matter of paying bills regularly due, the filing of tax exemption forms, firing the pot stove or coal furnace and cleaning the church yard, auditing treasuries and then supporting the minister newly arrived from the old country with a wife and their children. Who would organize the Sunday school and teachers, and go to Classis meetings? Who would receive new Members and undertake the difficult tasks of discipline? New responsibilities arose at every turn for the worker turned steward of God’s church, which would not be handled by orders of monks or nuns under clergy supervision. Who would see that all this was done? With new authority went also a new, great and very solemn responsibility, for this was the Lord’s house and His holy people! III. Looking back to the New Testament churches (Acts 6:1- 6), the Reformed churches avoided the anarchistic Congregationalism rampant in much of America, and took up the Calvinist forms they had seen at home and evident here in the Dutch Reformed, German Reformed and English Presbyterian communions. While acknowledging the leadership role of the ministers, the churches selected new Presbyters (Elders) from their membership to serve in partnership with the Pastor. In adopting the English language forms in usage in their locales, or in supporting denominations, we find them using such other terms as Consistory, Council and Session, or Presbytery, to name their governing bodies. And govern they did, in the Calvinist way. Chosen to be men of “good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom,” they were set apart and installed by their Pastors in holy offices, and in practice assumed the role of the former landlords. Unlike the Congregationalists and Baptists, frequent meetings of the whole church were not held to ascertain the Members wishes on virtually every subject. The Elders were expected to be informed, by investigation and experience as well as the minister’s counsel, and then to determine and follow through on the best course of action. The advice and approval of the congregation was needed only on the most crucial decisions, to assure their rights and secure their support, in such matters as church building projects, the purchase, sale or mortgage of properties, the decisions on denominational affiliation, and the election or dismissal of ministers - an ancient right regained in the Reformation. As a parent should love every child equally, so must the good Elder and the Pastor love every Member, even the most problematic, for the sake of the soul God has entrusted to them. Because Consistory meetings often deal with people in the most personal terms, their abilities and their clashes, these meetings are not usually open to others. As with the Pastor, it is necessary for Elders to hold many things in confidence - something apart from a cloak of secrecy, to protect the person. Elders and Ministers serve God when they have the trust of the church’s Members and the interest of all God’s people at heart, with different gifts but the same Spirit. IV The basic principle of the Elder’s role in the Calvinist church’s form of government is that of divinely inspired leadership by the most competent and spiritually inclined Members of the congregation, in partnership with their Minister, also called by God and elected by the congregation. It is essential to good order and success that only the finest should be nominated, elected and continued in office. They must understand that although they were elected by the Members this only confirms that they have been called by God to serve Him faithfully. It demands of them, as of the Pastor, an appropriate life-style, speech and character that honors God and reflects favorably upon their congregation and the whole Church of our Lord. “Elders are appointed,” says a Reformed ‘Book of Worship’, “to assist and support the Ministers of the Word in the general government of the church. They form, with the Minister, in each particular charge, a council in common for the spiritual supervision of the flock which is committed to their care. They are to be the advisors and counsellors of the Minister in the discharge of his holy office; they are to be him as hands and eyes, acting with him and for him, and representing his presence throughout the Congregation. It is their province to go before the flock in the way of Christian example, to watch over it in the Lord, to take an active interest in its spiritual welfare, to feel a responsibility for its condition, to be at hand in all circumstances with spiritual aid for its necessities and wants. To them, moreover, in conjunction with the Pastor, belongs the whole discipline of the Church, in its power of the keys, as exercised both in the form of censure and in the form of restoration.” It continues, they “are appointed to assist and support the Pastor in those ministrations which pertain to the more outward needs of the general household of faith. They are to aid in securing the funds necessary for the support of the Church in its various activities. They are to labor among the people in making known to them the needs of the Church, fostering the principle of stewardship, and thereby cultivating the spirit of liberal and cheerful giving. In discharging these duties, however, they must not lose sight of the true spiritual character of their office, which, although it may be thus occupied with outward and temporal things, yet remains a proper branch of the Christian ministry, requiring virtues and merits of like sort with those which are needful for the office of the ministry in its more exalted character.” As the Minister, Elders are also required to declare that they “recognize the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God and the ultimate rule of Christian faith and practice,” and that they themselves are required to be in obedience to the lawful authority of the Church and its denomination, bound by their Constitutions and Bylaws.
