By Ed Thompson
Last month at a presbytery committee meeting, one of the members introduced themselves as a “learning elder.” I think they meant to say ruling elder; however, the more I think about it, the more I love this term. Would that all of us, teaching and ruling elders alike, become learning elders.
I think there are probably at least four things that all elders, teaching as well as ruling, need to learn.
One, we need to learn how to pray. We could say that the request, “Lord, teach us how to pray” inspired Jesus to give us the Lord’s Prayer. While that may be the perfect prayer and while it teaches us a lot about prayer, it doesn’t teach us how to pray in a hospital room. It doesn’t teach us how to pray for other members of the session or for other members of our church or for our neighbors. While my memory of my seminary education has faded somewhat over the years, I don’t remember being taught much about prayer. I think they either assumed we already knew how to pray or that we would figure it out once we received a call and were thrown into the life of a church. I guess that’s what happened, but I think our churches would be better off if we spent time learning how to pray and then more time actually praying for our churches and our members.
All things considered, I’m pretty happy about what I learned about preaching in seminary. Could they have done a better job? Absolutely, but they taught me the basics, and I’ve built on that foundation ever since. I think that’s probably true for most seminary graduates.
Most ruling elders though seem to have a phobia about preaching. They would much rather pay someone else to fill the pulpit instead of doing it themselves. I think ruling elders should learn how to preach. For some, that may mean preaching once a year or maybe once every other year when their pastor is on vacation, takes some study leave or gets sick and can’t stand in the pulpit on a Sunday morning. For others that may mean preaching once a month.
I was at a session meeting in Sylvan Grove, Kansas, when their elders made a commitment to take turns preaching once a month after their supply pastor decided to retire. They couldn’t afford a full-time pastor, and there weren’t a lot of options available for pulpit supply in western Kansas, so they decided that they were going to take on this responsibility themselves. I don’t know how long they were willing to do this, but I think they kept it going for at least two years.
Pastors, you could encourage your ruling elders to get involved in the Presby Prep program, or you could offer them some training on how to write a sermon and how to preach yourself. Ruling Elders, you could ask your pastor to teach you how to preach.
I think all of us could stand to learn more about being Presbyterian, specifically about our polity, especially the Book of Confessions as well as Reformed Theology. If you’re a recent seminary graduate, that may not seem like a pressing need. However, if it’s been 10, 15, or more than 20 years since you got out of seminary, it wouldn’t hurt to brush up on what you learned way back when. I dare say most of us probably have their fingers crossed when we get to the ordination question that asks about “the essential tenets of the Reformed Faith.” I have nothing against United Methodists, Lutherans, or even Baptists. We’re not better than they are. However, we are different. We need to learn how to articulate those differences, so we understand what it means to be Presbyterian.
Finally, I think we can all learn to be more permission giving. Too often, when someone comes to the session with an idea, we direct them to a committee. Sometimes, we require them to go to two committees, say Christian Education or Mission as well as the Finance Committee if there’s some cost involved. That gives us two chances to say NO. At least one, if not both committees will have the chance to say, “We can’t afford it. We don’t have enough members to do that. We tried that a couple of years ago (i.e. at least 10, if not 20) and it didn’t work.” We’re good at squelching enthusiasm. Instead of trying to find ways to stop ideas though, we need to learn to find ways to encourage ideas. It might work, and it might make a difference if we can learn to say YES more often.
I hope the phrase “learning elder” becomes more than just a slip of the tongue and begins to represent who we are. What do you need to learn?