I finally got these awesome Texas Rangers onesies up to the boys in Tulsa–Elliott and Samuel are ten weeks old now–just in time for our baseball team to be officially mathematically eliminated from the pennant race. The grandsons are right on the edge now, in the very first stages, of responding to us with their eyes and smiles. Even a little intentional noise here and there, a distinct sound that might could be interpreted as an attempt at a word. I spent a good chunk of my weekend trying to get them to laugh and say “Grandpa.” Carrie-Anne had much more luck getting grins–she’s sweeter than I am and they know it. We ran some errands together and ate out a couple of times on Friday–that’s Elliott with the travel drip and the shades. And it doesn’t matter what you call these things they wore to church on Sunday, those are two cute little guys!
By God’s grace, we just concluded a smooth, drama-free, Holy Spirit led, and healthy shepherd selection process here at GCR Church. We ordained six new elders on Sunday–Eric Augesen, Lan Bundy, Craig Dawson, Roy Geer, Mark Helferich, and Jarrod Hutchinson–to join the current group of eight, to give us a terrific team of godly men committed to shepherding this church in the name and manner of our Lord Jesus. By all accounts, Sunday’s ordination ceremony was a beautiful and inspirational moment for our whole congregation.
We want these services to feel like the whole church is participating in ordaining these new shepherds and affirming and blessing the whole leadership. We want the charges and pledges to go both ways–the elders make promises to the church and the congregation makes promises to the elders. And I believe we have developed a model ordination ceremony that any church in our CofC tradition would find lovely.
First, we gathered around our elders and prayed thanksgiving and blessing over them. We asked all fourteen of our shepherds and their families to step out into the aisles so we could get to them, and we got out of our seats, put our hands on them and our arms around them, and talked to the Lord about them. We thanked God for the dedication of these men and their wives to seeking the Lord and following Christ and serving his Church. We expressed our love for them to the Father. And we lifted each of them–these men, their wives, their kids, their ministries, their service to our congregation–to the Lord in faith and trust.
Next, we brought all fourteen couples to the stage and their children and grandchildren presented the new guys with beautiful shepherds’ staffs as symbols of godly leadership. We want these staffs to serve as reminders that they are called to lead us with the same priorities our God lays out in Ezekiel 34: lead us to good pastures where there is peace and rest, keep the big strong sheep from running over the smaller weaker sheep, keep all of us from butting heads with each other, search for the lost and bring back the strays, and bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.
And then we charged our elders with the specifics. I started the charge, but we had our other members of the church stand up in the middle of the congregation to also address the shepherds with our expectations. It went like this:
Allan: On behalf of the church family here at Golf Course Road, in the presence of our God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit; believing that we have not acted in haste, but have prayerfully depended on our God; we charge you men to be faithful shepherds of our flock.
Then Chuck and Bonnie Sohl stood up from their seats on the east side of the Worship Center: Believing that the Spirit of God has called you this ministry and that you are a gift of his grace to our congregation, we charge you to accept this calling with humility and compassion. We charge you to devote yourselves to prayer, to commit yourselves to the ministry of God’s Word, and to consecrate yourselves to the earnest shepherding of our church.
Elders: By God’s grace, we will.
Then Alan McGraw stood up on the west side of the room and read the next lines: As you shepherd us, will you submit to the Lordship of Jesus and to his example by taking the very nature of a servant and considering the needs of others more important than your own?
Elders: By God’s grace, we will submit to the Lordship of Christ, to his church here at GCR, and to one another. We will sacrificially serve the church with humility and compassion in the name and manner of Jesus.
Then Colton Rau, one of our teenagers, from the front pews, representing our young people: Will you diligently seek the Lord in ways that we can follow, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ?
Elders: By God’s grace, we will train ourselves for godliness; we will pursue the way of righteousness, faithfulness, gentleness, and love.
Next, it was Allison Brown from way in the back: And will you guard this church as the blood-purchased possession of Christ?
Elders: By God’s grace, we will teach and admonish in humility, encourage and support in love, and faithfully lead and protect our brothers and sisters at GCR as our Lord’s most prized possession.
At this point, I asked the entire congregation to stand and I asked them two questions, to which they responded in unison. First, do you acknowledge and publicly affirm these godly men as your shepherds and receive them as your elders as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church?
Congregation: Yes, we acknowledge these men as elders ordained by God and we receive them as our shepherds and as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church.
Will you love and pray for these men, will you work together with them, in humility and unity and good cheer, will you give them all due honor and support in the leadership to which our God has called them?
Congregation: By God’s grace, we will obey and submit to these men, so that their work will be a joy and not a burden.
Then I asked all in the church who agreed to affirm by saying, “Amen.” We all did. And then Eddie Lee, one of our former long-serving elders, led us in a beautiful congregational prayer of thanksgiving and blessing over the whole thing.
It wasn’t just six guys on the stage and a prayer. It was our whole church, from the youngest among us to the oldest, in the aisles, on the stage, asking and answering questions, making eye contact, making promises, giving and receiving blessings and hugs, saying prayers and being prayed over.
We do not “install” elders; that’s what you do with dishwashers. We ordain them. We affirm them. We charge them and bless them and use holy words to lift them up to the Father. It’s relational. It’s between a church and its spiritual leaders in the presence of God. It’s not an “installation.” It’s a sacred moment in the ongoing story of what the Lord is doing in and through his people in this place. Treating it as such will inspire your church. It will bless your shepherds. And it will honor our God who brings us together in Christ Jesus.
Peace,
Allan
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