A question that has been in and out of my thinking for many years, and is back in it at the moment, has been the discernment process for calling individuals to ordained office.  One particular manifestation of this has been the church nominating committee having a certain number of positions to fill on the session or board of deacons.  Do they just keep going until they fill all the slots, or do they stop and leave positions vacant if they can find no more willing individuals who they have discerned to have the proper God-given gifts and talents for that office?  In many Presbyterian churches I am aware that there is some pressure to fill the slots because each elder or deacon has a particular program area of responsibility:  we need an “outreach elder” or there is no one for the “food pantry” deacon yet.  I was very happy when my own church dispensed with the elders being assigned to oversee a particular ministry and simply made them the governing body with responsibility for “shepherding the flock.”

I’m writing on this now because I am having a very “hurry up and wait” day at work.  You may know the type:  there are an endless series of short jobs for the computer to do.  Short enough that you really can’t leave and do something else but long enough waiting that you have some time that you need to fill.  Well, I filled part of it with some web surfing in directions I had not ventured before and came across an interesting blog called “ Building Old School Churches.”  Even if you are nowhere near being an Old School Presbyterian church there is some interesting material there.  What caught my attention today was a post by Andrew Webb titled “ On Whether to Vote to Ordain.”  In the post he talks about an experience he had early in his career at a presbytery meeting when a candidate was examined to be a pastor, the discomfort he felt with that candidate, and the guidelines he formulated from talking with experienced ruling and teaching elders about it.  His guidelines, with his emphases, are:

1) Remember
that Presbyteries aren’t rubber stamp operations, we are gate-keepers,
and we’ll be called to account by God for every man we let into the
sheepfold. So ask yourself, “is that man a true shepherd or something
else?” No church absolutely has to get someone if that someone was
never really meant to be a pastor. Calling the wrong man will do them more harm than calling no one at all!
2) Anyone can graduate from seminary, my wife could graduate from seminary but she isn’t qualified or called to be a pastor. Not everyone who graduates is called.

3) If you are
in doubt, ask yourself, “would I be able to stomach this man being the
shepherd of my own family?” If the answer is no, don’t vote for him. Christ’s other lambs don’t deserve less than your own family!
4) Go home
and read Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 [vs. 17-36]
and treat those words as Christ’s advice to you.

I would add that we are a called covenant community and it is the responsibility of the community to be gathering around candidates, helping them discern their call and their gifts and talents throughout the candidate process, not just at the examination.  And furthermore, once God has spoken through the vote of the community to affirm the call, it is our responsibility as members of the community to support, nurture, and guide that person as they live into that call, even if we voted in the minority.

I know that within my presbytery the candidates committee has done a good job mentoring and discerning calls with candidates and I have been satisfied with all that have come to presbytery, the ministry committee, or a search committee of which I have been part.

Do we do as good a job with ruling elders when we ask members of our churches to serve on session?  What could we do better before and after the elders are elected and ordained to develop their gifts for the ministry?  Are our sessions bodies that are seeking to be guided by the Holy Spirit and discerning where God is leading the church, or a group that gets together to “get the business done” once a month?  As an example, on presbytery committees that I have chaired I always insisted, no matter how late the meeting was running, that we did not just “close in prayer” but that we closed in prayer for each other and our churches and church members with a sharing of joys and concerns.  In many cases I suspected that several people wanted to get out of there and get home, but as a community, holding each other in prayer is one of the most important and powerful things we can do.

So as members of the covenant community we have responsibility for who is ordained as a minister/teaching elder, ruling elder, or deacon and we should not just leave it to the nominating committee or candidates committee to do the work for us.  Their work is important and most do it well.  But in the end the call of God through the voice of the people comes from the larger community.