Celebration & Praying For Our New Eldership Team

If you have been coming to Aylsham Community Church for a while, you will probably take it for granted that the church is led by a team of elders.  But if you have only recently become a Christian, or come from a different church background, this might seem pretty weird for you.

Why Elders?

Certain principles of scripture underpin our attitude to leadership, government and understanding of how Jesus will lead His people, the Church, forward.

• Jesus ultimately leads His church (Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 28:18 etc)
• Jesus appoints people, by grace, to fulfil governmental functions within His church, to lead and care.  (Ephesians 4:11)
• Local church government is exercised in the New Testament through apostolically-appointed elders.  (Titus 1:5)
• We are called to willingly submit to the authority of those Jesus appoints.  (Hebrews 13:17)  This submission must come out of healthy relationships, trust, care and godliness.

In Practice

The responsibility of the Elders is the pastoral care and spiritual oversight, teaching and discipline of the church.

Elders are:

• Appointed by apostolic ministry (Acts 14:23)
• Always plural (Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5)
• Mature in character (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1)
• Recognised and in relationship, not imposed from outside.
• Elder in their local church, not across churches, but working in relationship with other churches.

Lead Elders

All elders must fulfil the qualifications the Bible sets for eldership, but the lead elder will have a unique contribution to make.  He needs to be a man who is able to lead a team of leaders ensuring that each of them is able to fulfil the call of God on their lives for the building up and blessing of the church.  The lead elder isn’t more of an elder than the other elders, but the other elders gladly submit to his leadership of them and in turn enable him to fulfil God’s calling.

New Eldership Team At Aylsham Community Church

In February 2012 Simon Gallagher wrote to the members at Aylsham Community Church saying,

I firmly believe that if we are to be faithful to the prophetic encouragement and the Apostolic input we have received as a church to build strong leadership for the future and for the growing work that God is calling us to, then the next step in this on-going process is to expand the eldership here at Aylsham Community Church.

Mike Betts, who leads the Apostolic team here in the East of England, will be with us as we join together for a time of thanksgiving and worship, celebrating God’s goodness to us and laying hands on, and praying for, our new Eldership Team – Simon Gallagher, James Taylor, Bruce Cairns and Peter Atthill who join existing Elders Marshall Schaitel and Keith Bonner.

Such occasions don’t happen that often in the life of the church and therefore I would urge you to make this event a priority in your diary as we celebrate this new chapter in the life of Aylsham Community Church.

Celebration & Prayer For Our New Eldership Team

Saturday 12th May, 7pm

Jubilee Family Centre, Aylsham