Get The Right Man
By reading reports from different sections of the country, it becomes apparent that many new congregations are springing up. Some from the ruins of former ones and some from natural growth of the kingdom of God. These things are encouraging to those that love the Truth and are working in the vineyard under much persecution.
In view of this progress of the church, much teaching and training must be done to enable each congregation to grow into a full grown, active body as it should. It is known that no congregation can rise above its leadership. It becomes necessary therefore to teach the people about church organization. One of the greatest problems facing us today is that of leadership. It goes without saying that the New Testament teaches that congregations of the Lord's church should have an eldership. Since it is taught in Holy Writ, then we should see that proper teaching and training are carried on in order to do God's bidding as soon as possible.
Some congregations have rushed head long into selecting elders and by so doing have hurt the cause no end. It is not according to the scriptures to appoint elders that don't measure up to the BOOK. We must never rush into selecting elders just to have them on the church rolls as such. Surely most of you have seen this very thing happen in the past.
On the other hand, we must not be guilty of refusing to work toward God's directive. Some preachers will not have anything to do with elders unless they can control them in some way or another. This control goes on even after the preacher has moved on to another work. This is not right and hinders the work every time it happens.
Let us work to teach the Truth about the organization of the church. It will prosper if we will. Scriptural elders are a must. Scriptural elders are aggressive in their activities. They will see that every person in the congregation has a job to do and that those that are assigned are able to perform the task. If elders know where their responsibility lies, they will, if they have the love of God in their hearts, perform that duty with fervor and kindness. Nevertheless, they will stand firm on what is right and not be carried away into every scheme that comes along. They will work out programs that will allow full cooperation of every member of the congregation. Things that are of controversy will be passed by if a positive way that is right can be found. To show the point, it would be foolish and show little wisdom, much less common sense, to start taking the money of the congregation and start sending it to some project that was a center of controversy. Especially if there were those that objected for conscience sake to the procedure. Elders that have the proper respect for God's Word and their fellow Christians will not direct the church into anything that will tread on the conscience of the members.
Many have come to the conclusion that aggressive elders means elders that are busy doing something to make the church respected in the community. You can never make the Lord's church be respected by those that are of the world. They don't seem to know the difference in an aggressive eldership and a digressive eldership. There is a vast difference. Now congregations need to know where the men stand on every issue that is troubling in the church before they are appointed to the office of bishop. Also it should be known just what attitude they will manifest toward those that differ with them on some points. Much sorrow and sadness will be avoided by looking them over first! The elements that are trying to lead the church into modernism are working just like the digressives did years ago. They are striving to slip men under cover in the eldership. By so doing they can control the property and faithful brethren will have to bow down or get out and start another congregation under the cloud of being called antis' and the like or even actually being withdrawn from. I know of some cases like that already. In other places they are trying to "pack" the eldership in order to gain the advantage. When one method fails, they are sure to try another and another until something works if at all possible.
Let us work hard to see that the right men are selected for the eldership. The Bible tells us about those men. If we will heed the requirements of the scripture, we can and will have Godly men that will stand for the Truth in all things. The next few years will see great changes in the churches over the country. Those that are drifting with the popular way will go even further. Yet, there will be many that will see for the first time just how far they have been led down the road of modernism and turn away. We need to teach the Truth as never before. It should be a crusade to all of us. As we develop leadership today, so shall be the church tomorrow.
There is a great need to get down to the issues of the day with a clear vision and this can't be done without first discarding personalities. We must have a positive program so that people can see the church at work in the doing of God's Will. Yes, we need aggressive leadership, a working membership and all with total commitment to God in all things. This is paramount for success. Then the prayer that Christ prayed will be answered. Christians will be busy establishing congregations all over the world. Christian play acting will be seen for what it really is. Those that try to please the world instead of God will be manifest. Truly the field is white unto harvest but the workers are few.