Eldership or Senior Pastor? What is the Biblical church government model?

So I have had some discussions recently with an associate pastor and have been studying a book called Biblical Eldership by Alexander Strauch. This gave me the desire to right a blog about this situation. In christian churches today you see two basic models, the more popular is a pyramid model with a senior pastor as the head and associate pastors ect under him. I will briefly touch on this.

The pyramid model so to speak is actually a model used in the business world. Where you have a head guy and the others in leadership branch off underneath him. There is actually mention of the would pastor only once in the Bible and it is used as a part of the office of elder. The truth is there should not be a head of the church, the senior pastor so to speak. God is to be the head of the church and the church government is supposed to be working in unison to pursue the will of God. The benefit of this system is it allows more decisions to be made in a shorter time frame as there is a leader that has the final say. It also gives the illusion of a man in charge, the face of the church. It forgets though that God is the head of the church and no one man should be in that position, it takes a worldly business model and tries to force it on the church taking the role of pastor, which is supposed to be part of the eldership and creating an entirely new and non Biblical role for the pastor. This has become a largely used system as it is easier to implement than and eldership working in unison for God's glory.

The eldership is the Biblical government the Bible has given to us. Everytime church leadership is discussed it is in the plural not a singular leader overseeing everything. The eldership is setup with God as our "senior pastor" so to speak. It is used as a group of men to make decisions in constant prayer, arriving at the point they believe God is leading them. It can fall into chaos when the men in it are more worried about getting their way then they are finding where God is shepherding the church. But just because that chaos is a possibility does not mean we should find a new way to run church government, that is other then what the Bible has taught us. "It is not enough merely to have an eldership; the eldership must be actively functioning, competent, and spiritually alive" that quote is taken from the book Biblical Eldership. I would like to quote a couple paragraphs from that book which can be found on page 115:

"Because the apostles knew that Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, was uniquely present with them as Ruler, Head, Lord, Pastor, Master, Overseer, High Priest, and King, they chose a form of government that reflected this distinctive, fundamental, Christian truth. This concept was no theoretical idea to the early Christians-it was reality. The first churches were truly Christ-centered, Christ-dependent churches. Christ alone provided all they needed to be in full fellowship with God and one another. Christ's person and work was so infinitely great, final, and complete, that nothing-even in appearance-was to diminish the centrality of His presence among and sufficiency for His people.
So in the first century, no Christian would dare take the position or title of sole ruler, overseer, or pastor of the church. We Christians today, however, are so accustomed to speaking of "the pastor" that we do not stop to realize that the New Testament does not. This fact is profoundly significant, and we must not permit our customary practice to shield our minds from this important truth. There is only one flock and one Pastor(John 10:16), one body and one Head(Col. 1:18), one holy priesthood and one great High Priest(Rom. 8:29), one building and one Cornerstone(1 Peter 2:5ff.), one Mediator, one Lord. Jesus Christ is "Senior Pastor," and all others are His undershepherds(1 Peter 5:4).
To symbolize the reality of Christ's leadership and presence over the local church and its leaders, one church that I know of places an empty chair at the table next to the chairman during all elders' meetings. This is a visual reminder to the elders of Christ's presence and lordship, of their position as His undershepherds, and of their dependence on Him through prayer and the Word"

So there you have it, Christ is our "Senior Pastor". We are to follow Him and Him alone. No human was meant to be the leader of the church, that job falls on Christ and Christ alone. I hope we can all put aside what we are used to and have grown up with to really take a good hard look on the Biblical model the Bible has given us for church government.


Tim Shrout