What Does the Bible Say about Church Government?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Acts 15, Acts 16, Acts 21, Acts 6, Matthew 18

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-does-the-bible-say-about-church-government
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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well first let me give you some resources so if you want more information we do have a position paper on Church government which is available on upci.org under resources so you can actually read a description of how we're organized and the biblical reasons for it so it goes into much greater detail than than we're going to be able to do here in the next few minutes also I have a book called The Apostolic Church in the 21st century it has a number of chapters on Ministry Church government how we should operate in contemporary culture and the of course it's all bible-based so let me give you a brief overview of church government as far as the various denominations are concerned there are basically three types of church government the the first is called hierarchical which would be represented by the Roman Catholic Church where it's top down so the pope and the archbishops the Bishops they determine um they make the major decision for the church so for example a local church or Parish uh the pastor is appointed by the hierarchy not by the local people and the pastor can be moved to another location by the hierarchy so it's top down the the the National Church owns all the buildings that's hierarchical in the middle is what's called Presbyterian which is represented by press returns of Reform where it's a mixture of ministers and lay leaders called Elders that that are elected by the uh or chosen in the congregation but those leaders have jurisdiction not only over one church but over a group of churches so in other words a local church is not in control of its own destiny but the leaders of the region both the ministers and the chosen lay leaders of a region collectively would make decisions for a local church and then we have what's called congregational which the United Pentecostal Church International basically follows the essential point is this the local church is self-governing so the local church elects its Pastor the local church owns its property the local church makes has its own bylaws and while they need to have certain similarities to belong to the upci we don't just all anything and everything for example there must be a doctrinal identity that we agree with but within parameters the local church can choose its own bylaws so how it conducts business can be different from another church in some regards the local church decides who is a member the local church decides who will be a volunteer employee or a paid employee the local church who decides supervises the activities the headquarters doesn't the district doesn't and so that's called congregational now we do have a local church government that we recommend it's in our manual and it becomes the default so if a local church does not adopt its own bylaws we already have bylaws provided for it but as I said the local church could adopt its own and modify or tweak it make some choices of its own and for all credential Ministers of The Upside manual is available uh through upci ministers.org and it's um uh it's got um the local church government that I just mentioned it's also got um resources for local churches so various other policies that would be useful and helpful for the local church but the point is all these things are recommended it's up to the local church to decide now uh we do so we do recommend in that form that there be a church board which would represent the congregation so some decisions could be made by the church board some decisions need to be made by the whole Congregation of voting member so things such as purchasing property uh approving a loan for a building electing a new pastor or voting for church board members typically those who be voted on by the entire congregation so we would recommend at least one business meeting per year uh to conduct the necessary business then the church board can handle more routine business or business throughout the year and we usually think of the pastor as the chair of the church board so it's congregational the local church Discovery self-governing but with strong pastoral leadership we do believe that's biblical now when you study the Bible there are principles of leadership and when you study the New Testament there are principles for Ministry and church government they're not a lot of details and I think that's intentional I think God designed it that way to give us flexibility so on the local level as well as the national level there's a lot of flexibility and I think that's intentional because circumstances change and so what is the most effective way for a local church to be structured or even a National Church to be structured in first century Palestine may be different from 21st century Palestine or 21st century America and so because of the differences of culture Society laws Etc God allows flexibility but there are certain principles that we can see so I say the church's local is self-governing but they're not independent so for example when the early church had a dispute over could Gentiles come into the church as Gentiles or did they have to uh be circumcised did they have to become Jews first well there was a conference a council in Jerusalem all the apostles and Elders came to Jerusalem so that would be the equivalent of what we would call credential ministers and they discussed they debated it doesn't say they took a formal vote but somehow they reach a consensus they had pros and cons that people in support people in opposition they prayed they studied scripture and cited relevant scripture the leader James the brother of the Lord got up and announced what he thought was the decision they all agreed with it they said it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us and they produced a written document of here's what we agree on so by some means of debate and possibly Vote or at least gauging the support they reached to consensus they agreed they approved a written document then they appointed delegates to go to the various churches so that's all in Acts 15 in Acts 16 you see people like Paul and Barnabas going to local churches saying here are the decrees from the Council of Jerusalem here here is what we decided and we're asking every local church to follow it they didn't expect that a local church would say you know we're rejecting that we're breaking fellowship with the United Apostolic Pentecostal Church International you know they were United um they were Pentecostal they were Apostolic they were a church and they were International so um I think it's fair to say to use a label such as United Pentecostal Church International although we don't think that we're the only people in the body of Christ but I do believe there's a notice there the local church were not churches were not deemed as independent but interdependent and you also see leadership for example when Paul wrote to Titus Titus was over Crete which was an island in Greece with a number of towns and Villages and so Paul said you need to ordain Elders in every church so set up local or church leadership set up pastors well if you think through that you see several layers of leadership you don't see a detailed description of how it interacts but Paul said in Galatians that he was recognized by the apostles in Jerusalem as the Apostle to the Gentiles so maybe it's a little stretch but maybe I could say he was the global missions director at least for the Gentile world but they recognize you have you're called by God to lead our Outreach among the Gentiles so an exercise of that Authority Paul speaks to Titus and gives instructions to him Titus is the leader over Crete more than a local church he's leading a group of local churches then he's supposed to set churches in order Elders in each Town well they would be leaders over the the lay members of that town so I see okay here local church members they have Elders or pastors the pastors are accountable to the district superintendent of Crete if you want to use that terminology and and the district supervative Crete is accountable to the Gentile global missions director and you see in Acts 21 Paul himself comes to Jerusalem as he did in Acts 15 to give an account to the apostles and Elders in Jerusalem so to the larger body so he felt accountable to them now it was not a strict hierarchy because we find in Galatians that Paul could rebuke the the Apostle Peter saying you're doing wrong you need to change your ways so even the highest leaders though were accountable to one another and were accountable to the general body so I see such things as accountability organization also go back to acts 6 when there was a dispute over the widows of the Greek speaking Jews they they felt like they were being mistreated discriminated against and so the apostles told the congregation pick some qualified people here are the qualifications they need to have wisdom they need to be full of the Holy Ghost but pick these some people that can administrate the business of the church and we will lay our hands on them and commission them notice the lay members and the preachers got together to choose qualified lay leaders to administrate the business Affairs of the church namely collection of money to buy food and distribution of food to the Widow so everybody's treated fairly the Greek speaking and the the Aramaic or he breaks speaking uh people all felt like they were being treated the same and the Apostle said we've got to devote ourselves to prayer the ministry of the word we don't have time for all this other stuff so we need like leaders now some of those leaders became preachers Stephen and Philip seem to go beyond their initial calling but you might see here the Genesis of what is later called in the New Testament deacons because that word simply means ministers or Servants of the church or what we might call I would say they're the equivalent today of church board members or department heads senior leadership team so the Ministers of the church I would say are the equivalent of the elders the lay leaders of the church I would say the equivalent of the deacons so what you see is uh shared governance so the local members participated in the governance of the church so it wasn't hierarchical like the pope or like the general superintendent going to a local church and taking over it wasn't even the pastor having Soul discretion he worked with you know the elders the the pastors worked with the lay leaders so while the details can vary as I've explained I do believe a Biblical form of church government would be the local congregation basically controls its own Affairs itself governing the local congregation has elders and I think or pastors and I think there is a senior Elder which I that's a long subject but I do believe there is a pattern of a senior leader for the local church that we would call the pastor or senior pastor but there's a shared governance there are lay leaders such as deacons but the whole congregation has a part there have a part in the worship they have a part in participation they have a part of the government so so shared governance Mutual accountability and interdependence not independence of local churches but interdependence where they're all integrated into a body you can also see in the writings of the the letters of Paul the letters of John they commend certain ministers and say receive them they warn against certain ministers who have gone into false Doctrine or have split churches and they say don't receive them well that process of recommendation and withdrawal of recommendations is more formalized in what ministerial credentials and ministerial discipline so all the elements that we have for our church government are present in the New Testament in principle but the details are to be worked out and I think this is for appropriate because Jesus said in Matthew 18 and he talked about a church disputes a discipline a personal difference between members should be resolved by the church he also talked about Binding Together in prayer and he also talked about coming together in in worship that he would be in their midst and and so he says where two or three gathered in my name and we're two or three agree on something um and all in that context including the solving Church disputes he said whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on Earth would be loose in heaven and I don't think that means unbridled discretion but I think what we can say is when the church is sincerely trying to follow God's Will and God's word and Implement certain policies or procedures to fulfill that well then God will honor it and back it up so the principle of being ordained for ministry that's in the Bible in many places but the procedure of how someone would qualify that's left us and we have a particular procedure and we could change it but I think God is saying I will honor that so when you when somebody follows that procedure and gets ordained I will put my anointing and blessing it'll be more than just an organizational ritual it'd be more than just a paperwork uh it will be a spiritual thing as well because I will back you up and when you discipline a minister because of their failure to meet qualifications I'll back that up too and so I think it's a cooperation where we're trying to follow the principles of the Bible especially what we see in the New Testament and we ask God to put his hand a blessing and anointing upon our efforts