This is a brief sidebar on church leadership between the two posts I am doing on the training of Teaching Elders for the PC(USA).  A story on NPR this morning had an interesting quote about what makes a church:

“Is there public worship?” said the leader of the ministers group,Pastor Eric Williams, of the North Congregational United Church of Christ, in Columbus, Ohio. “Is it open to the public? Are there trained leaders who serve the church? C Street really has none of those marks that make it a church.”

This story is about the C Street Center in Washington, D.C., and a challenge by the Rev. Williams and 12 other clergy as to whether it meets the 15 requirements set by the IRS for classification as a religious institution for tax purposes.  That specific topic, or the center itself, is not what I wanted to discuss.  And no, I’m not going to run with that reference to the “marks that make it a church.”

What caught my attention were the two questions in that quote as to whether it is open to the public and has “trained leaders.”  Depending on what you mean by trained leaders, based on these two criteria the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would not meet this criteria (and therefore not eligible for tax exempt status).  Admission to the temples and to the temple ordinances are open only to members of the church by recommendation of their local bishop.

As for the training of leaders, the LDS church does not have specific individuals who take a graduate degree in theology and then are called by a church to be their pastor.  Does that mean they do not have “trained leaders?”  Rather, they have a model that a Presbyterian has to be impressed with that takes very seriously the idea of the priesthood of all believers and through their regular meetings from youth through adult they train all of the men in the church in the doctrine and theology of the faith so that, in theory, any of them are prepared to lead a congregation as the bishop.  For the LDS church, “seminary” is an early morning, before school, program to train the youth in their religion.

While the Presbyterian church is very attentive to the training and examination of our Teaching Elders do we put the necessary effort into the training of our Ruling Elders?  If we view the kirk session as a board of directors we look for Ruling Elders that have secular experience and leadership.  Leadership skills are always good and I don’t mean to discount those by any means.  But do we as a church also have regular ways of educating our Ruling Elders and future elders in the theology, doctrine and polity of the church?  In the PC(USA) elders vow to accept the Scriptures as authoritative — do we continually remind ourselves what the Scriptures say?  We “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions” and agree to be “instructed and led” by the confessions — but how often do we read the confessions for their instruction?  We assent to be governed by the church’s polity — but how well do we understand that polity and the theological basis for it?

If a church is to have “trained leaders” to be a church we need to be intentional about training the leaders, Teaching and Ruling Elders alike.

Rant done; commentary over; soapbox put away. Now back to the training of the Teaching Elders…