Elders—The Church’s Lead Disciple-Makers

[Ed. Note: For more articles like this, check out the latest 9Marks Journal on Discipling in the Church.]

Are you an elder in your church? Then you should be one of the church’s lead disciplers. You knew that this was a key part of an elder’s job description, right?

Let me back up just to make sure it is clear. If I had to pick one image to best explain an elder’s job in the local church, the choice would be a no-brainer: the New Testament predominantly portrays elders as shepherds. Both Paul and Peter urged elders to shepherd their flocks (Acts 20:28-31; 1 Pet. 5:1-4). The writer of Hebrews called believers to submit to their leaders who “keep watch” over them “as men who must give an account” (Heb. 13:17). Peter said that elders serve as under-shepherds of the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). Many of an elder’s duties—including teaching the Word, guarding against heresy, modeling godliness, pursuing wayward believers, overseeing church affairs, and praying for members—can be summed up within the simple picture of a shepherd tending sheep.

But what’s the goal of shepherding?

Elders shepherd church members in order to help those members grow up in Christ. Elders tend the flock in such a way that believers develop from spiritual infancy to full-grown Christ-likeness. Overseers labor in hope that the sheep will move beyond a needy, self-focused, toddler Christianity to an adulthood of serving Jesus and leading others to Jesus.

Paul identified Christian maturity as the reason Jesus gave various leaders to the church, including pastors (i.e., shepherds):

It was he who gave some to be…pastors and teachers to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13)   Continue at Jeramie Rinne