Elder Recommendations

To the best of our understanding, the church in the New Testament was composed of individual congregations each of which was overseen by a group of men called elders.
Scriptural references to the activities of New Testament elders can be found in Acts 14:23, 15:2-6, 22-23, 16:4, 20:17, 1 Timothy 4:14, 5:17-19, James 5:14 and the qualities of these men are recorded in 1 Timothy 3:1-11; 4:15-16; 5:17; Titus 1:5-11; and 1 Peter 5:1-4.

The most common questions I hear pertaining to this process is about the gender of these individuals. We, as a church, have quite obviously empowered women at every level of leadership but when we have studied this question multiple times, our conclusion has been that for whatever reason, God seems to have given the responsibility of eldership to men, so this is the pattern that we follow. This includes myself who is a member of the eldership.

We prefer that each person selected to serve as an elder be someone who has served as a ministry partner of TMC for a minimum of two years for a number of reasons

1. That length of time allows them to understand us as a church and for us to know them.
2.   We want people who are active in ministry because of our axiom, “everyone called here is called to be a minister” and because
3. We want eldership to be a role and not become an identity for those selected.

We try to find two men each year to serve three year terms but the actual number has been 1, 2 or 3 and not everyone has been able to complete their length of service so we are practical rather than legalistic.

1. 4 week Elder Recommendation Period (September 25-October 23)
2. Elders meet on October 25 to decide who to invite to the breakfast on November 5 to give them a “taste” of what serving as an elder is like at TMC.
3. Interviews of prospective candidates will be held between November 7-11
4. The names of those being proposed by the elders to become elders will be given to the congregation for a two week comment period to either affirm those being selected or present biblical reasons why they shouldn’t be installed. This will  run November 20 through December 4
5.nstallation of the new elder/elders will be on Sunday, December 11
6. We will honor our outgoing elders on Sunday, January 8. Those exiting this year will be Jeff Ebbing and “Scotty” Scottorn.

If you have any names you would like to have considered, you have through Sunday, October 23 to email me at Randy@ThunderMountain.org.