7 Shared Values Series:
An Elder-Governed Church
A pastor is a man called by God and affirmed by the church to lead and shepherd the people of God through the ministries of the Word of God.
Slide 1:
Sovereign Grace Churches’ 7 Shared Values
1) Gospel-Centered
2) Elder-governed
3) Complementarian
4) Continuationist
5) Missions
6) Interdependence
7) Reformed
“Jesus Christ reigns as head over His church, and He gives to His church elders (or pastors) to govern and lead local churches under His authority. We believe that men, qualified by both character and gifting, are to serve as elders, shepherding God’s people as under-shepherds of Christ. A church’s health is to a great degree dependent on the health of its elders, and so our aim is to strengthen the current elders in our churches while identifying and training new ones.”—Sovereign Grace Churches
“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”—1 Timothy 3:1-7
“Yea…that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more…raise up unto himself certain young men whom he may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of greatness, the majesty, the holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake,’ who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the master’s approval when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will witness ‘signs and wonders’ following in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”—George Whitefield
“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” —Hebrews 13:20-21