Q/A Elders and Trustees pt 4. Working Together in a supportive and honouring culture

Charity, Church, Elders, Equipping, Trustees
  A culture of Honour Harmony and mutual honouring are vital ingredients for a successful working relationship between elders and trustees. Where there is tension, or competitiveness for authority or recognition, there is discord, which does not honour God. I chaired the trust for the Church of Christ the King in Brighton for over 30 years and was an elder for about 25 of those years. Throughout that time I sought to lead the trustees with an attitude of support and honouring of the elders while not shying away from asking penetrating questions. I felt this was the best way to serve the eldership; we could be a sounding board on which vision and values could be developed. With our expertise we could enrich and strengthen their decision-making with knowledge…
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Q/A Elders and Trustees pt 3. What is a Trustee?

Charity, Church, Elders, Equipping, Trustees
  The primary roles of a trustee of a charity are legal and financial, specifically Safeguarding the charity by ensuring that the objects and purposes for which it exists are observed both inclusively and exclusively i.e. not operating outside the purposes for which it exists Ensuring good stewardship of finance Trustees are not governmental over the ministry and direction of the church; that is the elders’ calling. Listen There is a third important role which I will deal with first; being an informal ‘sounding board’ of the church members to the elders. Sadly, people sometimes put elders on a pedestal, something I hate and something that no good leader would ever seek. Jesus put a towel around his waist and washed the disciples’ feet. But the people may nevertheless be…
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Q/A Elders and Trustees pt 2. What is an Elder?

Charity, Church, Elders, Equipping, Trustees
  As we consider the relationship between elders and trustees it is important to know what the distinctives are of these two bodies of people. God-commissioned First, elders must be those who are recognised as being commissioned by God. One day they will stand before the judgment seat of God and be asked to give account for all the people in their care (Heb 13:17). If they have never been commissioned (ie maybe have just seen ‘elder’ as a title) there could be a few embarrassed faces! So laying on of hands for eldership is no light matter and should follow a period of serious prayer and seeking God's mind. And this comes after there has been a thorough testing and proving of such men according to Biblical principles. Job…
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Q/A Elders and Trustees pt 1. Authority

Charity, Church, Elders, Equipping, Trustees
  I am now returning to another of the questions I have been asked to address. This one is the most common of all the questions I am asked. It relates to the relationship between church elders and trustees. It is a good question and one that is important to consider seriously as, sadly, I have seen churches split apart because the relationship between these two bodies has been one of tension and disagreement. Authority and the church The core issue is ‘Who has the governing authority over the church?’ In order to answer this it is necessary to consider what, or rather who, the church is. At its simplest the church is a community of Christ-followers who are seeking to live out their faith in total obedience to Jesus, led…
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Leading a church to minister with the Poor pt 3. The structure of a ministry

Charity, Equipping, Poor, Social Enterprise, The church
We have now looked at two topics: how to make church life more accessible to those who are poor or in need so that they can 'hear' the gospel, and how to identify what particular ministry we should be carrying out in our church. In this interview Andy Cottingham considers some matters related to running the ministry. Form a Charity? The church is an integral part of the community. A charity has a separate life. So it is with great caution that a church should consider forming a separate charity and there must be safeguards in the governance to prevent any such charity becoming independent of the church. Andy addresses this in the talk below but I have also written about it in a previous series. Relationship with other agencies Typically there are several agencies…
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Charities and the Church pt 6. Good practice between associated charities

Administration in the Church, Charity, Equipping, Poor
Last time we saw how there can be an argument for having a separate charity for carrying out some ministries, particularly the social action ministries, but that this is not always necessary. Nevertheless, where it is advisable eg for fund raising purposes, safeguards should be in place to keep the ministry closely integrated with the other activities of the church. With this model the ways in which a ministry is viewed from within the church and from outside differ. From within, the people need to see all the ministries of the church in the same light, an expression of kingdom life in the community. They do not need to understand, or even be aware of, separate charities under which different aspects of the church function. From the outside (the ‘world’)…
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