Part 2 of Basic Training will teach organizing for and carrying out various special services of the church including communion and baptismal events, and how to work with the local church pastor and board.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

<p>Part 2 of Basic Training will teach organizing for and carrying out various special services of the church including communion and baptismal events, and how to work with the local church pastor and board.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Elder, Deacon, Deaconess Basic Training

Royce Snyman

Elders Basic Training- Part 1

Deacons and Deaconesses Basic Training- Part 1

Deacons and Deaconesses Basic Training - Part 2

Managing Theological Conflict in the Local Church

Elders Basic Training - Part 2

Father in heaven, thank you for a beautiful, sunshiny morning.

And we're always grateful for life and health and the opportunity to serve you.

And sometimes Lord, we struggle with those health issues, but we're grateful that you still care about us and that you lead us moment by moment.

So Lord, as we meet together, may your Holy Spirit guide us and may we be drawn to service and to being able to learn how to serve you better.

All right, we left off yesterday and talking a little bit about caregivers and working for the care of the sick and needy.

And 1 of you came to me yesterday and indicated you'd had experience yourself on the receiving end of that.

And that's an interesting direction that we have to go.

I'll also mention a little bit about conflict.

We're gonna get into that a little bit later today.

The next chapter in your book is talking about business managers.

You may not have thought about it that way, but the responsibilities of deacons and deaconesses has in the more recent traditional experience of the deacons and deaconesses, has centered around the physical plant of the church.

In other words, the deacons are usually the ones that are assigned to make sure that the physical plant of the church is being taken care of.

And that is the 1 focal point that has carried itself into the responsibility of the deacons.

That means opening the church, closing the church, making sure it's locked, and maybe mowing the lawn, you know, arranging for janitors or being the janitor, I don't know, it depends on how that local church all works out.

And I say being the janitor, if you've got more than 1 deacon, you might share that load.

I don't, whatever it is to take care of God's house, to care for the physical plant, to maintain it when there are repairs that need to be done, and some of those kinds of things.

But 1 aspect that hasn't been thought of is the oversight of some of the management of the church.

As Elder Mitchell has become the president of our conference here in the last few months, I know 1 of the things that he said to some of the committees that he works with is that we don't, ministers, are not trained to be business people.

And I've had a lot of lay people over the years say, you pastors are not trained to be business people.

I don't know how they got to that conclusion.

There are some who have been trained and I've heard of pastors who've gone and got a Master's in Business Administration and some of those kinds of things, but 99% of pastors don't do that.

The real calling is to ministry, to be a pastoral minister and to care for the needs of the congregation, to spread the gospel message, to preach the truth, to share in Bible studies, and in evangelistic meetings, and all of that.

But if you really take all the tasks that church members sometimes think is on the docket for the pastor, there's about 5 full-time jobs in that list of material in there, and then church members say, well pastor you get paid to do that, how come you can't get it done?

And part of it is that's not really what God intended for the pastor to do.

And when pastors get into the mode where the church places the responsibility for everything on their shoulder, I'll tell you what begins to happen.

Ministers in North America, both Adventist and non-Adventist, about a third of pastors who start ministry don't finish ministry.

And many of them fail to stay in ministry after a relatively short period of time.

The stress is terrible in terms of what happens unless you have made a full commitment to the Lord and you recognize your call.

Now, some people get into ministry shouldn't be in ministry, All right?

And when they just walk in the door and say, I'd like to be a pastor.

Now we ordain them after 4 years because that gives time to prove their ministry as Ellen White says we should.

They should prove their ministry, and that is that they are recognized for accomplishing what God has called them to do.

All right, all of that to say that 1 of the areas that needs to be cared for for the church is the business management.

And I don't mean it's not a business that you're managing.

It is the financial structure of the church that needs to be cared for.

Now there's a little bit of history in here.

If you look on page 63 in the first paragraph it says, Deweese, that is an author, makes reference to the work of RBC.

Howell, a Baptist pastor, whose writings were very influential to the Baptist Church during the 1800s.

DeWeese says, although Howell favored deaconesses, he influenced the Baptists in the 1800s to assign administrative business and financial matters to male deacon bodies, thereby excluding women.

Now that's just a little bit of a history, it's not a theological statement or whatever, but he's just pointing out the issue in relationship to business managers.

And then on the bottom of page 65, he goes into his conclusion, which goes over to page 68.

And he says, it may be concluded from the review of the works in chapter 7 to 11 that the New Testament reveals little information about the existence of female deacons or deaconesses and the role that they played in the first century church.

In that Greek word, and he goes on and he talks a little bit more about that.

Then he goes on into page 67 and he says that, and he's Speaking historically now, he says the fourth and final role is primarily carried out by a board of all-male deacons, is the role of business managers.

Baptist churches began assigning this role to their deacons in the 1800s.

They're influenced by the cultural trends of American society to adopt this style of management.

During the second half of the 19th century, the all-male corporate board of directors emerged.

As the churches embraced this style of management, deacons drifted away from ministry and focused their attention on management.

The exclusion of women deacons or deaconesses and management decisions was a factor in the decline of deaconesses during the 19th century.

Some churches still assign the role of business managers to their deacons.

Others believe that deacons are for service, not to run the church.

Now, I really, all that particular section is doing is giving you a little bit of a history, but he comes back to these particular areas later on, and I'd like you to look over at page...

And here is where he's talking about, in that chapter that we were just reading, he was talking about the history.

He was not trying to tell us what we should or should not do or encouraging us in job descriptions.

In chapter 20, he's now into the section where he's talking about job descriptions.

We'll come back to some of that, but he talks about deacons and deaconesses as physical plant managers.

The first paragraph on page 153 says, The Seventh-day Adventist Church manual and the manual for church officers present a vivid description of the deacons' responsibilities in regards to maintaining the church properties.

When the deacons perceive this work as being an opportunity to witness for God, they will count doing it a privilege." And then they list a number of things here.

Number 1 at the bottom of the page, oversee the janitorial work being certain that the church including grounds as well cared for.

Number 2, see to such needed repairs as broken windows, etc.

Number 3, bring to the church board or finance committee suggestions for major repairs and improvements.

4, see to the care and proper distribution of the church hymnals in the sanctuary and have them properly placed and just basically keeping the sanctuary free of litter and that kind of thing.

5, have the offering envelopes properly placed in the racks.

6, have the pulpit furniture properly placed, microphones checked, et cetera.

7, open the church building before or after, should, before regular meetings and locked after the service is concluded So what you're looking at here and then going on into page 155 and the number of items that are listed there including proper ushering and Taking notes of visitors number 6 appreciate that 1 a lot.

I'm on page 156 Visitors and newcomers number 5 checking carefully at each service to see nothing is lying about Tomorrow the appearance I mean you just get a sense here that we're dealing with a number of things from the physical plant to also what's happening during that service.

Now my wife likes to tell a story and I think when she was a little child somewhere she went there were deacons and they had long rods.

And I can't remember if it happened to her or it was happening to family or whatever.

But the deacons would go around on Sabbath morning, you know what they did with those rods.

If you fell asleep, they'd tap you on the head or swat you upside, I don't know what they did.

In this day, that's probably called assault.

But in those days, it was keeping you awake and whatever the case may be.

I'm just saying it talks about reverence and it talks about some of the things that need to be cared for, not only the physical plant but what's happening during the church service and caring for that.

Now again, please, on the recording and everyone, that's not what I'm suggesting.

I'm just saying that that's what has happened in relationship to deacons.

But the 1 thing I do want you to recognize with deacons and deaconesses, 1 of the major ministries that you can accomplish on Sabbath is noticing who's in church on Sabbath morning.

And I'm talking about members and non-members.

Somebody in your church should be taking attendance.

If you're not taking attendance, you don't care about your people.

I said it that way to make a point, and I know you care about your people, and that's part of the reason you're here.

But I said that because I want to get your attention.

Series

Elder, Deacon, Deaconess Basic Training

Deacons and Deaconesses Basic Training - Part 2

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 5 - Mining the Manual

1h 16m

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training- Part 1

1h 11m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 13: Disturbing our Monotony

1h 15m

Elder's Basic Training and Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training - Part 2

1h 4m

Financing Yourself

Financing Yourself- Part 3

1h 11m

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training- Part 1

1h 12m

Back to Christ’s Original Design

56m

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Mission of Attendance and Involvement

1h 4m

Personal Ministries

Special Forces Training - Part 4: Community Service

37m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 15: Missing Member Ministry

51m

Elder's Basic Training and Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training - Part 1

1h 6m

Deacons & Deaconesses Basic Training

Deacons & Deaconesses Basic Training- Part 2

1h 9m

Sound Doctrine