An Important Note To Students And Teachers
The first four lessons of this series challenge you to give serious consideration to selecting the men you wish to serve the congregation as elders. These first four lessons are not presented as the complete information you need to make your selection. They are merely an aid. They are just a part of the total information you are asked to consider. Hopefully, these lessons will challenge you to think. They are designed for class discussion instead of lecture. A part of the spiritual growing process will result from the sharing everyone will do. By this sharing, hopefully each class will do three things: (1) Have an enlightening introduction to the confusion that commonly surrounds the selection process. (2) Focus on the substance of the questions Christians often ask. (3) Think about things Christians too rarely consider in seeking effective congregational leadership.
The rest of the lessons focus on this premise: in some specific way, every Christian in a congregation provides some level of leadership. Christians lead collectively as a congregation. Christians lead individually by being examples and illustrations. Whatever the level of leadership a Christian provides, the basic principles are the same. He or she places trust in the God who sees in secret. The objective is service to others in order to glorify God, not to seek a position for self. Christians serve in a sense of honor to become who God made them to be spiritually. They want to possess and use the spiritual abilities they have, not evade them. They want to be useful to God in building His kingdom of faith-filled servants that He envisioned. They are Christians because they want to be, not because they have to be. They use their abilities and their lives to lead others to Christ because they want to, not because they have to. The sense of privilege permeates who they are and what they do.
This series of lessons seeks to do two things. It seeks to be a part of providing a congregation with leadership that will be spiritually effective. It seeks to challenge each Christian to lead in accord with the fullness of his or her ability at the level that provides opportunity to represent God and Jesus Christ.
May the study provide you understanding and challenge you to develop spiritually!
