Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Elders Basic Training

Royce Snyman

Elders Basic Training - Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you for a new day and a beautiful morning here at Camp Meeting.

We pray that as we begin this class and in learning about the basics of being an elder, I pray that your Holy Spirit will guide our conversation and that our time will be well spent as we seek to understand the purposes and the job description of an elder and how to carry that work out.

May your Holy Spirit guide us, I pray and I thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Well really glad that you're here and we're going to take a look at some of the work of an elder today.

I've given you a book that looks, a little notebook that looks like this, and if you would take it, I just want to show you what's there.

We have 2 sessions of elders training, basic training.

That's today, this morning, and tomorrow morning at the same time.

And I'm doing a elders training, I mean a deacons training on Wednesday and Thursday, And I don't know how you feel about it, but I think elders should know what deacons should be doing.

And you are, elders are leaders in the church, And that's the place you need to be.

It doesn't hurt you to learn how to be in 1.

And so we're going to have a deacon and deaconess training on Wednesday and Thursday, and then on Friday I'm going to do a class that is talking about helping your church to grow as a leader, that's part of the work of an elder as well.

So this is a leadership course, and even though it has some different titles, the parts for an elder actually carry through all week.

And I would encourage you to participate in that.

So if you take this out, this is what we're using for today.

Tomorrow I'll give you that presentation here.

So I want you first of all to know what's in your notebook.

Also there are some blank pieces of paper underneath the class evaluation.

And if you want to take notes, you can either take notes on the printout of the handout from the class, or you can take it on the notebook, on the notebook paper if you would like to do that.

If you need something to write with, we have that too.

Looks like everybody's doing alright with that.

And so that's the material that I'm giving you to be able to work with.

Okay, let's dig into what we're gonna be talking about.

The first thing we wanna talk about is the Elder's Call and qualification.

This material that I'm going to be sharing with you comes out of the Elder's Handbook.

And we had a little trouble in the last year that there didn't seem to be an Elder's Handbook available.

They printed them and then they ran out and it's my understanding they're available again.

So if you don't have an Elder's Handbook, I encourage you to go up to the ABC and get a hold of 1 of those because I'm only hitting some of the highlights.

I'm able to use just parts of it and focus in the main items.

I want to talk to you about the calling and election of an elder.

First of all, to be an elder is to receive a call from God.

It's not just your local church, that's important, but the real important role that you have is the role of being a leader in the church.

And you want to make sure that that's your calling because there's nothing worse than being in a position that God didn't call you to when he begins to put burdens on you that you didn't realize were going to be something God expected of you, and if you didn't really get that call from God, then you realize the challenge that you have in terms of carrying that work out.

God is the 1 who calls an elder to their responsibility.

Elders who realize that their calling comes first from God will appreciate the importance and the seriousness of the leadership responsibility.

There is a tremendous responsibility upon the elder.

If you don't mind passing that sign-up sheet to the back, we've had 1 more person join us, so great.

So the work of an elder is a very serious task.

In some places, not so much in Michigan, but in some places in the world, elders serve as assistants to the pastor.

And really that's the way it ought to be even in Michigan, in the United States as well.

That is the work of an elder, is to assist the pastor.

We'll talk a lot more about that later today and tomorrow as well.

It is a very serious responsibility and an important task.

The election of an elder after an individual receives a call from the Lord to do this and sometimes that call to be an elder comes through the congregation.

There are people who say, I've never thought about being elder, I don't want to be an elder.

I remember when I was pastoring 1 of the churches in this particular case, the Kalamazoo Church.

And while I was pastoring, I noticed that there were people that I could see that God was, would be able to use in elder responsibilities, but they were hesitant to take that responsibility.

As a matter of fact, they were even asked to do it from time to time, and I'm talking about different individuals, and they backed off or said no or whatever.

They just chose not to take that responsibility.

It's interesting to me that today, 20 years later, those individuals are elders.

And what it sometimes does is takes time for the call to settle in.

There's more than 1 pastor who resisted that call and went off as an electrician first or did this or did that and then finally realized wait a minute God's been calling me for years I've been running from this call and now it's time for me to do that work that God has called me to do." We've got several pastors in the Michigan Conference that that's their story.

And so that happens even to elders, and sometimes it's when the nominating committee selects an elder, wow, I'd really never thought about doing that, wow, I'm not sure.

And then they begin to realize, you know, I really have sensed that God's been calling me to this responsibility.

And it's not because of a person's wealth or because they run a business or their importance in the local community they're being called to be an elder.

They're being called to a position of being an elder in the church for a reason of their spiritual leadership and the opportunity they have to share.

They have no official position or authority in the church unless they have been elected by the congregation.

They are ordained for life, but not elected for life.

I want to make sure I correct that and maybe making the mistake helps to clarify that.

You might be elected this year and not elected next year.

You don't have to be reordained if you were elected the following year back into being an elder, but when you're not elected, you're not an elder.

If you're elected by the congregation and you're not ordained yet, what's that process?

I'll answer it simply because I don't think I really get into it later.

But the process is when you're elected, that means that you should be ordained and that should take place shortly after your election and shortly after you take office.

So in other words, let's say the nominating committee process is going through March and April and May of the year.

So by the end of May, the election is completed, the nominating committee report has been accepted by the church, and you are an elder in the church.

Perhaps the officers actually take effect in July, because that's a typical calendar for a local church.

It should be as early as the first Sabbath whenever the pastor is able to be there because sometimes that becomes a scheduling issue or whatever.

But it should be done by an ordained pastor, they should be doing that.

And they might be more than 1 or you may be the only 1 if that were the case.

And then you would be ordained at that time.

You are ordained then in the local church.

If you go to another church, you know, 5 years later you transfer to another church and somewhere along the line they elect you to be an elder, you do not have to be ordained again, you've already been ordained, okay?

I should say that's the ordination for life.

But the election is only when you're elected by the church.

To take a little bit of a biblical look at this, in the New Testament the elders job description is outlined there somewhat briefly, but still clearly.

As you look at the experience of Paul, going from congregation to congregation, he speaks about the fact that he appointed elders there, and in that case, they were working under the leadership of the Apostle Paul, and he always made sure that there were elders that were elected to that congregation and appointed to that congregation to be able to work there.

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

Would you bow your heads with me, please?

Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity, this nice morning here at camp meeting, beautiful sunshine outside, and coolness of the weather keeps us awake, and we're just grateful for all that you do for us.

We pray that you will bless our training time today, that your Holy Spirit will guide our instruction, that you will help me in the words that I share and us as we listen and learn together today.

May your Holy Spirit be in charge of all that is done here.

We pray and thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well, today we want to get into the second part of this Elder's Basic Training class, and I want to be able to spend some time focusing in on that today and having some opportunity to discuss that a little bit more so I want to begin though, we're going to deal with several areas today.

The 1 I want to have the most time for, at least not to feel rushed with, is the visitation section.

But I want to spend, because this is basic training, there are a couple other areas that I want to spend a little time with as well.

And 1 of those is the elder and the worship service.

And be able to concentrate a little bit on that area because this is the area that elders are most likely to recognize they are responsible for it and to to be invested in it to some extent.

So I want to talk to us a little bit about that.

I remember as a pastor some young people kind of not really getting the idea of what worship is all about.

For some people the idea of worship is coming into church and I sure hope the pastor's going to have a good sermon today.

I hope that there's going to be a nice orchestra playing and a nice choir singing because I want to be entertained.

Now, people won't tell you that, but they exhibit that thinking by the way they respond to what happens in the church service.

They see the worship service the way Hollywood produces whatever.

It's for entertainment, it's to get our attention and to keep us engaged.

And if it's not doing that, then it really hasn't been what we expected it to be, so maybe we're not gonna come anymore because it's not meeting my needs.

Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be providing a quality church service.

That doesn't mean that people that are doing special music shouldn't practice.

That doesn't mean that people are doing the scripture shouldn't know how to read it and what they're saying.

I don't know, but she's short on chairs and she wondered where they went to.

Okay, well we understood they only had 15 people in there, so we took some of the chairs because my next class has a lot.

The door won't open, so you can't get through that.

You take what you need, but I need them back afterwards, okay?

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right.

So we're talking about worship is encountering God.

That really is what worship is all about.

We want people to be able to understand the purpose of worship.

But if we don't understand what worship is, we can't help people to understand what worship is.

And so that's why I'm taking the time to be able to explain this.

When the children of Israel got together to worship together, they were coming not to be entertained.

I wonder if there's gonna be a lightning bolt today so we can get excited.

I wonder, you know, that isn't what worship was about.

The people were coming for an encounter with God.

They were coming there to meet God, to spend time with God.

They were coming there and when they came and God was there, they were on their knees, they were prostrate, they were coming before God with humility.

This was an encounter with a God who created them, the God who led them out of Egypt, the God who was the God of creation, and they realized what this was all about.

And so that was part of that whole experience.

And Ellen White puts it this way, she says, the whispering and laughing and talking which might be without sin in a common business place should find no sanction.

Don't take, You won't want to take those.

Take the white ones and we'll get the white ones back, okay?

Sorry, I just knew that she wasn't going to want those chairs, unless she wants to clean them for me.

So what this is helping us to understand is this worship is coming before God and that is the experience that God wants you and me to have and that's what you and I are leading out with in our experience in worship.

That's why we want the best quality we can provide, because this is exhibiting God.

The problems that we deal with in relationship to worship services that many of our churches are small, very small.

Ellen and Ray, you have a small congregation in Reed City.

Dan, you're in Ann Arbor, that's a larger congregation.

You have more people resources to work with.

Victor, you're in, can I call you Victor?

You're in Cherry Hill and you're kind of in between, probably more the size of Reed City, and your resources are somewhat limited.

The people that you have to choose from, but that doesn't mean that the people that are there, they're not performing, but the people that they're leading out can't be prepared and doing the very best that they can because they're doing this for God.

We want visitors who come to the church to not see Hollywood, we want them to see sincere people prepared to serve God and to represent God in the church.

And the statement here is just reminding us of the fact that this sanctuary is the place where we meet God.

Now we wanna talk about some of the aspects of worship right now.

First of all, worship includes adoration.

That is, we're coming to worship God, to adore Him, to recognize who He is, and this is done through expressing our adoration through singing and prayer.

Some of our smaller churches have a hard time because they don't have anybody to play the piano.

You can have it, it happens from time to time.

And if they happen to go on vacation, what are you going to do?

And you don't have anybody to be able to provide that, and those are some real challenges along the way.

I'm a pianist, but no 1 can sing with me.

Victor, I don't know if you're still kind of watching that thing for me.

I don't know what it's actually doing right now, but yeah, you got the routine down, so that's really great.

So at any rate, we want again to be doing the best that we can in singing and prayer.

We are there to affirm God's goodness, recognizing His worthiness, and it also reverences His presence.

That's why the sanctuary needs to be a place that is reverent, because God is holy and to be lifted up.

And if we are acting though it's a commonplace, then we are taking away from the worship of God.

Worship is a time for the proclamation of God's word.

Notice that there are several different aspects to our worship.

Proclamation of the Word comes in the preaching.

We are going to talk a little bit about sermon preparation a little later in our presentation today.

It should result in someone having an experience with Christ, with God, and renewing their relationship with Him.

We need to renew our relationship with God every single day, correct?

So when we come to a worship service, we should not be surprised that this is a place to meet God and to renew our relationship with Him.

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Elders Basic Training

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

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Elders Basic Training - Part 1

1h 5m

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

1h 16m

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