Team leadership of a church has some utterly unique dynamics. In this chapter, we will explore how a group of elders leads the church together. We will think about how the team operates, consider the relationship between the elders and the pastor or pastors, and observe the distinct differences between a shepherd- leader model and a corporate- governance model of leadership. Our aim will be to map an overall framework for understanding team leadership of the local church.

 

The Elder-Led Church: How an Eldership Team Shepherds a Healthy Flock by Murray Capill

A well-known proverb of unknown origin declares: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

In many ways, that proverb sums up church leadership. There are plenty of churches with a sole leader who is able to go quickly. He is free to make the big decisions, set the agenda, cast his vision, and inspire the crowds. Next to such an innovative, agile, charismatic leadership style, other churches look clunky and the wheels seem to turn so slowly. But the saying suggests a limitation to leading alone. You might be able to go fast, but it is better to go far.

Decision-making will be slower when a church is led by a body of elders, but it will benefit from the wisdom of many. Plural leadership provides a range of checks and balances to help avoid folly and rein in the potential for a sole leader to amass more influence than he can handle. The track record of high-profile, celebrity evangelical pastors who have had insufficient accountability is a sober warning to us all.

Many books on leadership largely assume a sole-leadership model and imply that the pastor is the main leader of the church. The elders might be some kind of accountability body, but they are not really the leaders of the church. But the Bible simply does not know a model of sole leadership in the local church. We saw in the Bible’s narrative that the elders are a body or council of men who are respected senior members of the community of God’s people, giving wise counsel and direction to the people, speaking for them, and bearing responsibility for their spiritual well-being. Together they are shepherds, overseers, leaders, and stewards. Their specific ministry, as a body, is the ministry of providing clear leadership.

Leading as a Team

As we saw in chapter 2, leadership is about taking people on a journey. Leaders have a clear sense of what God wants, they make plans for how to move toward that end, and they lovingly and clearly help people go there. They know that the goal is maturity in Christ, and they work out what is needed to help move the church community toward that goal. It involves setting direction, planning, decision-making, resourcing, training and equipping, and supporting people all the way. This ministry of leadership is essential to church health. It is this kind of leadership that clears the fog and provides clarity.

Providing such leadership is demanding, which is precisely why it is such a blessing that the responsibility never rests on the shoulders of just one person. The ministry of leadership is a team ministry. But how does plural leadership actually work? How does a group lead a church?

When my sons were young, I spent Saturday mornings watching them play junior soccer. At five and six years old, most of the boys had no idea about positional play. They moved as a mob to wherever the ball was. Some were out in the front, quickly moving onto the ball. Others held back on the edges, secretly hoping that the ball didn’t come anywhere near them. Only in time did they learn that there is great merit in spreading out across the field, with forwards and backs, wings and centers. That would allow them to play to their strengths, develop a game plan, and save a lot of energy, since they wouldn’t all have to be everywhere all the time.

Some eldership teams operate like junior boys’ soccer teams. Each elder is basically expected to do the same thing as all the others: the same number of pastoral visits, the same up- front roles, the same time investment. But their overall game will be far better if they learn some positional play, both when they meet together and when they engage in church life.

When meeting together, the elders gather as a group of men with leadership capacity. As they discuss an issue, different voices come into play. One has an enormous heart of care and compassion for people, and though they all have a pastor’s heart, this man understands people and human needs in a unique way. Another has a sharply strategic mind. Another is a detail person, while someone else is a Bible giant. Of course, they all know their Bibles well, but this person brings greater scriptural perspective to bear than the others. Part of the dynamic of team leadership is learning to benefit from the varying perspectives of different people.

As they move from meeting together to ministering in the body, they again do so while recognizing their distinct giftings. Those who are gifted public speakers are called on to speak from the front of the church, while elders with greater people skills are drawn into more complicated pastoral situations. Some have more time to engage in ministry, while the young father with small children at home is encouraged not to overcommit. One might make very few pastoral visits because he is heavily involved with the youth ministry. Another, who really is a born leader, is asked to step back from the care ministry he greatly enjoys in order to develop some specific plans for growing an area of ministry.

For an eldership team to operate like this, the elders need to spend honest and vulnerable time getting to know one another. I am proposing not painful team-building games but conversations about their passions, gifts, dreams, fears, sweet spots, and nightmares. They will need to encourage one another, pointing out strengths that someone doesn’t see in himself. They will also need to gently suggest that someone is not best suited to a particular role, even though he would love to have it. This is simply Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts in the body applied to the body of elders. Are all ears? Are all hands? Absolutely not. But all need one another.

This sharing of the leadership load is one of the great benefits of team leadership. Just as Moses complained that the burden of leading God’s people was too great (Num. 11:11–15), so a sole pastor, while far from being in the position of mediator for all of God’s people, will often be overwhelmed by the weight of expectation, the burden of difficulties, and the ceaseless demands of care. The Lord raised up seventy Spirit- filled elders to assist Moses, and today, he has raised up godly men in every church to share the leadership load. The pastor will feel great relief when he can talk over every problem with other wise men, no major decision ever resting solely on him, and care for the flock a shared responsibility.

Not only does team leadership provide essential support, it also reins in individual pride and arrogance. No one person can call the shots. Any idea must have enough merit to win the approval of the team as a whole. Pastors have built-in accountability, and team members must listen to voices other than their own, consider ideas that they would never have come up with themselves, and defer to the group as a whole when personally they would have made a different choice.

The Team Captain

Eventually a junior boys’ soccer team discovers the importance of having a captain. You can’t have all eleven boys on the team calling the shots on the field. Someone has to take charge. In the context of eldership, this means that although leadership is given by the team, the team needs a leader.

It is common to speak of the leader as “first among equals” or, in a famous Latin phrase, primus inter pares. The leader is not more important than the others and his vote is not worth more, but it is recognized that he is a leader of leaders. “Although elders act jointly as a council and share equal authority and responsibility for the leadership of the church, all are not equal in their giftedness, biblical knowledge, leadership ability, experience, or dedication.”¹ Dave Harvey notes that if there is no appointed leader, someone will inevitably emerge as the leader, and the risk is that it may be the person with the loudest voice rather than the greatest wisdom.²

Arguably, Peter was “first among equals” in the apostolic team. He was the spokesman who was often the first to speak and most readily up front.³ Similarly, Paul was clearly a leader among leaders. While we must be careful in drawing lessons from an apostle such as Paul, it seems sound to at least observe that not all New Testament church leaders had the same roles. Paul clearly oversaw other leaders such as Timothy and Titus, and they evidently had prominent leadership roles in churches that had several elders.⁴ He was also frequently the leader when he and Barnabas were on mission together. Alexander Strauch adds other examples, including Peter, James, and John, who are called “pillars” of the church (Gal. 2:9).⁵

In the local-church context, a full- time pastor or senior pastor will typically act as the eldership team captain. As a full- time worker, and in many churches the only full- timer, he has his eye on the game more constantly. As the preacher, he has the greatest amount of up- front leadership time in the life of the church. As the elder who has usually had the advantage of more extensive theological training, he is well placed to bring theological discernment and perspective to leadership issues. The pastor or senior pastor is most naturally positioned to be the team captain. So as Harvey observes, “Though the authority for the church inheres in the entire eldership, a wise elder team will look for one among them with humble character, leadership gifts, and public ministry skills to fulfill the role of senior pastor.”⁶

While it is most common for the pastor or senior pastor to take up this role, it is plausible that an elder other than the pastor is best suited to be the team captain. Some who are gifted to teach and preach, and are therefore supported by the church to do so full time, may not be the most naturally gifted leaders on the team. There may be others on the eldership team who more readily think strategically, foresee what lies ahead, take a lead in making plans or setting direction, or have greater skills in leading a team. The eldership team will need to engage in an honest conversation about who should be the captain. This does not mean who will chair their meetings; that is another role again, although the two can go well together. Nor is it about who has the best ideas. There may be several elders who are capable of thinking strategically, bringing fresh ideas, keeping the big picture before the whole team, initiating new areas of ministry, or addressing key theological issues. Such depth of leadership talent is a great blessing, but the team still needs a leader of leaders.

If this is not the pastor, there will be some interesting dynamics to negotiate. The pastor will need both humility and security to be able to focus on teaching, preaching, and equipping the saints, while allowing someone else to take the lead on the eldership team. High levels of communication and synergy will be needed between the pastor and the lead elder. There must be great clarity on who has what role, and how the two will relate to each other as well as to the wider eldership team. A lack of clarity will invite future conflict.

Similarly, if there are multiple pastors in a church, it will generally be best if one is designated the lead pastor. It’s not that he is more important or more capable than the others, but the staff team, like the eldership team, needs a captain. The most common scenario will be that the main preacher is both the lead pastor and the eldership team captain. If he has the gifts for that, it will be the most natural approach.

So what is the role of the team captain or lead pastor? He is the person to whom the others look to help the team stay together, stay focused, stay sharp. He is a pastor to the pastors, an elder of the elders, with “a unique call to care for the plurality as a whole.”⁷ He will be a key initiator of conversations that need to take place, reviews that should be undertaken, and new ideas to be considered. He will be the one who lands an issue.⁸

But while the leader of leaders is an initiator, he is not a lone ranger. Decisions are made by the body of elders. “Senior pastors do not exercise headship over an eldership team, nor do they possess the right to elevate themselves. They should neither act independently nor create a subtle culture where hyper- deference to their wishes is the norm. The senior pastor is called to build a team, not a personal ministry. His effectiveness should be measured by the maturity of his plurality, not his social media following.”⁹

Over the years, I have repeatedly found myself in the role of team captain, wanting to rethink, sharpen, change, or initiate something. So I usually end up writing a short paper. Having thought through an issue over some time, I put my ideas down on paper and bring it to the elders. What happens next is always fascinating. Sometimes, but not often, the elders look at the idea and say: “That’s wonderful. Let’s go for it!” More often, one of the elders will immediately say, “But what about X?” And to my shock, I realize that despite endless thought, prayer, and effort, I have completely overlooked something basic. At other times, the idea goes down like a lead balloon and, to mix my metaphors, I have to eat humble pie on the way home. But then, occasionally, the balloon is reinflated sometime later. Someone else comes up with the idea and everyone thinks it is great. More humble pie. Time was needed for the idea to gain traction, or maybe the first timing was just not right. Most frequently, the idea is subjected to prolonged thought, revision, development, and eventual adoption. Here is the benefit of team leadership with a leader among the leaders. The result is better than the eldership team with no leader, and better than a sole leader whose ideas are not subject to the scrutiny or input of others.

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1. Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, 3rd ed. (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth, 1995), 45.
2. David T. Harvey, The Plurality Principle: How to Build and Maintain a Thriving Church Leadership Team (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 45.
3. In fact, it seems that there was some internal structure to the apostolic band. Four times in the New Testament, the list of the apostles is given (Matt. 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13–14), and each time not only does Peter’s name come first, but the first four names are the same, though the order of names two to four changes. Similarly, the next four names are always the same, though the order changes, and the final four names are the same, with the order changing, except that Judas Iscariot is always last. See Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1971).
4. See Gene A. Getz, Elders and Leaders: God’s Plan for Leading the Church: A Biblical, Historical, and Cultural Perspective (Chicago: Moody, 2003), 217–23; Strauch, Biblical Eldership, 45–47.
5. Strauch, Biblical Eldership, 45–47.
6. Harvey, Plurality Principle, 41.
7. Harvey, 57.
8. Harvey proposes that a senior pastor is custodian of the team, catalyst for action, curator of culture, captain of communication, and liaison for partnerships. See Harvey, 56–67
9. Harvey, 65.