Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Elder's Basic Training and Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Royce Snyman

Elder’s Basic Training - Part 1

Elder’s Basic Training - Part 2

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training - Part 1

Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training - Part 2

Current Issues Facing Local Churches & Their Leaders

Father in heaven, we want to thank you for another day today.

Thank you for camp meeting and this opportunity to be in a place like this and take advantage of all these different seminars.

And especially today, we want to talk about elders' responsibilities and the task that lies before the leaders of the church.

And we pray that you will bless what we do today.

You have a little booklet like this, a little folder, and today's training is already in there.

And if you take that out, it will be a place for you to take notes.

I haven't given you any additional note paper, because if you take more notes than what's on this page here, you're going to be saying more than I say.

But anyway, here's the information for you and for you to be able to take notes.

I encourage you to put your name on it so that it doesn't get mixed up with somebody else's and sometimes people leave things behind and that way I make sure it gets back to the right person.

I'll have another handout for you tomorrow for tomorrow's class.

This is a 2 class seminar presentation for leaders in the church who are elders.

But let me also explain to you that I am training for elders today and tomorrow, deacons on Wednesday and Thursday.

You need to know what deacons are supposed to do.

Because you are, as you will see, especially tomorrow's class, you are responsible for the other leaders in the church.

And if you don't know what they do, you can't help lead them.

And 1 of the things that they do is participate with the elders in things like visitation and the like.

It's sort of by accident that the Deacons class follows this and it's sort of by design because I can't do everything all at once.

I used to do separate classes and for a longer period of time, but I am doing this sequence and I hope it will be helpful to you to know what deacons do along the way.

And then on Friday we have a leadership class dealing with current issues in the church and how to handle issues that sometimes bring conflict or confusion and the like.

Let me tell you, you are facing this today whether you know it or not.

And I could give you an illustration of that, but I'll save that for later, because it's happening in our churches on a regular basis.

And these are very difficult times in which we live, but not unexpected, because the Bible said it would be like this.

So today's training is going to be fundamental, it's going to be basic.

Now how many of you are brand new elders, never been an elder before and have no clue?

But you've never been an elder before and you're new to being an elder now.

How many of you have been an elder before but never taken training before?

How many of you have taken my training in particular before?

I almost thought I'd ask you what you're doing here, but I won't do that.

We always benefit from training and even though sometimes what I do here in these first couple of classes is repetition, we always learn from repetition, and we always learn how to do our work better.

The material that I'm using today comes to us out of the Elder's Handbook.

How many of you do not have an Elder's Handbook?

The Elder's Handbook is available at the ABC, you can get a copy of the handbook, and I'm taking this material out of the Elder's Handbook as a basic fundamental text.

Elders should have an Elder's Handbook and they should have an Elder's Manual.

I assume they have a Bible and have access to the spirit of prophecy, all right?

But those other 2 tools are very important in your work as elders in the church.

You need the Elder's Handbook, which is a blue book, and I really ought to have that in the notes, sorry that I don't.

It's the Elder's Handbook, and it's the Church Manual.

In 2020, General Conference will be meeting in Indianapolis in the Lake Union, coincidentally.

And when they meet there, they will make changes to the church manual.

They will make changes to the church manual.

It may be that they put an and here where there was a but before or who knows, but they will make changes to the church manual.

Usually they are more substantial than that and they can be very substantial, those changes.

Every 5 years, the church manual changes.

You should get a new copy every time so that you're up to date on what happens, especially in relationship to substantial changes.

The church manual is changed in session, and that will be 2020 next year.

It usually takes about a year before they get the new edition out.

So I just want you to be aware of that process.

So Michigan Conference is partnering with the General Conference Ministerial Association in providing this material today and doing it and I'm grateful for it.

I'm gonna start with the elders call and qualification.

Many times when you are asked to be an elder from your local church, the nominating committee, especially the first time, the nominating committee meets together and they go through their routine, they're looking, we need an elder, we need an elder, we need more elders, we need 5 elders, whatever, they go through.

And they start looking at the list of qualified people.

They look for even people sometimes that aren't qualified.

They start getting desperate, They need people to lead.

Then they call you up on the phone and they say, we need you to serve as an elder.

Would you be willing to serve as an elder?

Well they get up on the platform on Sabbath morning and they have a morning prayer and read the scripture.

We wouldn't be calling you if you weren't qualified.

I mean, you know, sometimes that's the nominating committee process And it shouldn't be that way.

It should be a very spiritual process, and I'm going to tell you many nominating committees do that, so I don't want to be misunderstood.

But it should be a very spiritual process.

They should be looking for spiritually qualified people.

They should be looking for people who are willing to put in the time necessary and we'll talk a little bit about that as well because you need to be able to know what your responsibilities are.

The most important thing that I can tell you is that you are called by God.

God calls an elder to be in their position of responsibility in leading the church.

The call to be an elder is a call from God.

The nominating committee, if they're doing a spiritual work, are praying and asking God to lead and I believe most committees do exactly that.

They understand their responsibility, their spiritual responsibility, and they understand that the church is a spiritual entity and they understand that the key leaders in the church are spiritual leaders.

Now sometimes we have fallen back on some things like we decide who's qualified, not by the spiritual qualifications, but by what they may, well, we'll talk even about that.

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

That's why I take the time today to remind you of the qualifications, because this is a serious leadership responsibility.

If you think that you're only being asked to serve by asking people, calling for the offering on Sabbath morning, by reading the scripture reading, or having a prayer on Sabbath morning, and that's really all you do, You don't need to be ordained to do that, but you do need to be ordained to carry out the work that God has called an elder to do.

You're elected by the congregation And it shouldn't be because you hold some position of importance in the community, or because they have been, an individual has been successful in business, or are wealthy.

Unfortunately, sometimes that's exactly the way it's done, but it shouldn't be that way.

They should be chosen first for their spiritual qualifications.

You were chosen by God not because you're wealthy or because you're this or that, but because you have been asked to be a servant of God and to represent Him in that local church.

You have no official position or authority in the church unless you've been elected by the congregation.

The reason that is important is because you are appointed by the local congregation to be an elder.

If it's the first time that you are chosen to be an elder in your life, you must be ordained for that.

But you are ordained for life, but you are not ordained for life to that local church's position.

Series

Elder's Basic Training and Deacon & Deaconess Basic Training

Elder’s Basic Training - Part 1

Transcript

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