Post by John on Aug 8, 2009 18:48:51 GMT -5
ELDERS WHY?
Our Church is divided over the matter of Elders I am puzzled as to why? .
At the Meeting that discussed it we were about 34 to 19 in favour and that was only from 53 members and compared with any previous decison on ministry that is a big split. The last time we were that divided was in the 1980's in seeking a replacement for Dennis Horwood.
What do all the rest think who were not there?
Our Church has a long history founded on our present site in 1774, those who came here then did so in support of their minister who had domestic problems by which his wife and he were divorced and she went back to London with their children. For this reason the Chapel Trustees at Abbey Lane banned the pastor from the pulpit for what they regarded as immorality.
Most of the members and congregtion moved first to Myddleton House Barn, and then to Upper Meeting when they had built it..
They moved as a body, minister, deacons, minute book, leaving only 12 members at Abbey Lane, and regarded themselves as the true continuation of the church established at Abbey Lane in 1691, formed in 1665 from the remnants of the 1643-1652 Presbyeterian Church, and the separatist groups in the district back to 1548.
At no time did they ever appoint Elders. Nor did the Particular Baptist Church at London Road, 1818 - 1939,
The Hill Baptist Church was formed in 1711 grouped with 3 Cambridgeshire congregations They had 4 Elders who rotated around the group, and when they split and became 4 separate churches each Elder became a Pastor of one church. and after that until they closed here in 1957, they never had Elders again.m and why?
Because the word "elder" is synonymous with "pastor" or as we call the office "Minister"
I have been reading up on Church History of the early centuries and later Baptist development including "The History of Baptists" by Thomas Armitage DD all 960 pages of it.
The early Church in the 3 and a half centuries before Constantine reshaped the church out of all recognition, had
Deacons, and people to shepherd the flock whom in different places were called by different names all of which meant the same in role. Elders, or Presbyters, or Bishops, or Overseers, or Pastors.
All shared the same roles not different ones or on different levels.
As the Apostles dispersed and died, the Churches of Apostolic times and for the next three and a half centuries and until Constantine reshaped the churches out of all recognition , had as it's pastors or shepherds presbuteroi from which we get Presbyter or Elder, in the Hebrew Churches, including Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, which had a large Jewish community,. and these were called episkopoi amongst the Gentile Churches, such as in the Greek area and in Italia, including Rome from which we get Bishops or Overseers.
At that stage the historical evidence points to all these terms being interchangeable for the same office of Pastor.
Pastors appeared in all the churches early, using any of those various titles which differed in different areas.
There was no hierarchical pattern as was developed later by the Roman Catholic Church and continued after the Reformation by the State established churches.
So there were two orders. Shepherds of each flock or congregation and called in different areas by the various names of pastor or elder or presbyter or bishop or overseer AND Deacons to organise the practical matters of the church.
No church had less than one pastor but a lot had teams of elders all equal in authority and responsibility.
Persecution was continually breaking churches up and the first target of persecutors were the pastors or elders so they had to have several per congregation so the congregations could be easilly split into smaller groups and their leadership changed. If persecution breaks out in Britain, and it may, there is no point in us having just one pastor who gets whisked off to prison and then we spend 6 months seeking another, we will need a shared leadership that can take control quickly.
Also we should not be content with the small congregation we have now. Do we beleve that it is possible for every human being to be saved or do we believe that only preselected people will be saved?. Are we Arminians as Hill Street Baptist Church were originally and London Road were later, or Calvinists as our church was from 1809 - 1848, the period of our greatest growth or are we a bit of both. We seem to vary in opinion quite a lot. Which ever view we have, we have to reach out to where the people are, to find the people God wants in the Church. They wont come to us.
The 9 congregations in Walden reach about 3000 people between them. That leaves 13,000 we don't reach. If God brings a lot of them into our Church we might even need to have different congregations meeting at different times on a Sunday and led by different people, elders who work together and meet together and share the responsibility. We need a bigger vision than we currently have.
When our fathers in the faith moved from Abbey Lane they moved out of a cramped building that could seat a few hundred and had about 100 people. 65 church members plus other people and children moved out and they built a meeting house that could seat 1000 people. What Vision!. Within 80 years the congregation was 700. By 1878 they were in decline but they wanted to build a Sunday School and Hall fit for the times so they built a new sanctuary that seated 550. Overs the years we have reduced the seating capacity but now while we can seat less we can move the furniture about and use the space to wider effect.
So for 235 years we have got by without Elders. Because we have had one Elder which we call a Minister.
But he has not done the work on his own.
For the first 124 years we had 2 deacons and they were to work closely with the pastor and elected for life, as had been the pattern since the 1640's, one to look after the money and one the writings - deeds, letters and minutes.
From 1844-1848 we had a second minister. Around 1856 two more deacons were appointed to help the old men and replace them when they gave up. So how did the church and the minister manage with so few leaders?
Well the minutes refer to "our managers" and to "overseers". We have no idea how they were chosen or appointed but they did the work of organising. We are unaware of any church rules before the 1890's.
In 1874 in addition to the two "life deacons" they appointed an annually elected Church Secretary and an annually elected Church Treasurer so the deacons by then must have been doing other things of a pastoral nature.
We had a lot of lay-preachers who served at our Mission at Sewards End, in other local Baptist churches when needed and in our Union Chapels at Debden and Wimbish, and assisting in our own congregation.
Sunday School was not a problem for the Church, as it was entirely self supporting and self staffing and was run by the staff not the minister and deacons. They also had a Night School to train young people in what we would call secondary and higher education, The Church did not take over funding teaching the children until the the late 1960's.
Youth work appeared to have it's own leaders and the women organised catering with a senior caterer and a big team of helpers.
The impression is of a community church that gladly did things together in groups and teams and left the Minister to preach and visit and involve himself in the life of the town as he felt led.
In 1898 the first formal Diaconate was formed and the number of Deacons increased to 6 and deacons Minuutes began
and Church rules were adopted. and revised in the 1930's, 1950's, and 1979.
Around 1908 the number of deacons was increased to 9. In 1930's the Women's Own Fellowship was formed that lasted over 60 years and the first Lady Deacons were elected [about 20 years later than Abbey Lane Church] Later the rules on Lady Deacons were relaxed so that we just had Deacons on equal terms and could have more than 3 women. Towards the end of the 20th Century we had more women than men, but now we are down to only one woman.
The Diaconate peaked at 12 Deacons, 4 elected each year for 3 years, plus the Church Secretary and the Church Treasurer annually re-elected and a Life Deacon 15 in all. At least half the deacons could preach and lead worship and there were additional lay preachers in the wider congregation. There were also other committees that did what our present deacons seem to do.
From the 1960's the Minister could call upon about 5 retired Baptist ministers living in the town to lessen his load.
Later we had two Ministers working together
As the 20th century waned so did the number of deacons and preachers.
Which brings us to where we are now. One minister plus youth pastors, a Treasurer, 7 Deacons and an Administrator
But one minister is not enough, he clearly needs more help. Hence the proposal to appoint Elders. What's the problem with that?
Is it with the idea that they be preselected by the existing leadership group? in effect vetted?. What is so unusual about that? If they are to work as a team they have to be able to do so in close harmony. Their appointment is still subject to the will of the Church Meeting to whom they are answerable.
If we cannot agree on Elders to provide the help, then we will need more Deacons as the proposed 7 will not be enough even without growth in the Church, and some of those Deacons will need to share the preaching and pastoring as in times past.
As to the Deacons being vetted by the leadership what is so odd about that? With Deacons sharing the work load and responsible for specific responsibilities we need to know that any candidates are equipped for the role needed and they need to know what will be expected of them.
In 1975 - 76 we needed a new Treasurer and after a year of asking we still had none and the existing Treasurer was then unable to attend Deacons meetings because of business responsibilities but carried on doing what he could, That was my first year as a Deacon. When I was first nominated for Deacon a retiring Deacon said "Are you going to be Treasurer?", and I replied "Do you think i should be?" and he said "Yes". So maybe he was being prophetic,
At the end of that year we still had no nomination for Treasurer so I became Treasurer for the next 6 years but I needed that year to understand how the Diaconate worked, and to understand how the Church was funded, and what the job entailed. It was after all 20 years since I had been church auditor with Jack, when I worked in an accountants office.
I was surprised to learn that there was any opposition to the appointment of Elders and I am still waiting to learn why the idea is so divisive.
######################
We keep being urged to pray about this issue, but we also need to think
As the apostles dispersed and died the Churches of Apostolic times and for the next 3 centuries and until Constantine ruined the Christian Church, had as it's pastors or shepherds presbuteroi from which we get Presbyter or Elder, in the Hebrew Churches, including Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria which had a large Jewish community. and these were called episkopoi amongst the Gentile Churches, such as in the Greek area and in Italia, including Rome from which we get bishops or overseers.
So all these terms are interchangeable for the same office of Pastor.
Pastors appeared in all the churches early, using any of those various titles.
The New Testament Church and on until before Constantine therefore had just two sets of leaders,- pastors and deacons.
Although as the pastors could have several titles so the Deacons also included Deaconesses.
They had deaconesses to concentrate on the women members and to baptise woman converts. In those days the evidence is that all candidates for baptism were baptised naked, so they had seperate services for men and womem but after infant baptism become the norm, after the 4th century widely, and completely by the 7th, the role of deaconess died out. Even locally in the period 1640 - 1680 there were women evangelists amongst the non-conformist seperatist congregations.
While the Hebrew Christians understood the idea of Elders meaning pastors and they could be quite young in their late 20's upwards, the Greek or Gentile Churches regarded the word Elder as being an elderly person, an old person. Someone to respect but not necessarilly a pastor.
So if we adopt Elders that means we are extending into a group the pastoral office - a shared ministry, not creating a heirarchial leadership of 3 tiers
In post Reformation times some churches had Elders but they were a group or team sharing the pastoral office and in smaller congregations they had one who became known in time as the Pastor.
Broadmead Baptist Church Bristol about 300 years ago adopted the system of a plurality of elders instead of one pastor, with deacons and deaconesses.
The nearest local Baptist church members in these parts [ Newport and Littlebury ] in around 1650 were members of Fenstanton Baptist Church, They had a pastor, but they also had Messengers [ Elders under another name ]. to visit the distant members of the congregation.
In the mid-19th century we had a Minister, two deacons, and overseers, sometimes called managers. Our church minutes don't tell us what they did, or how they were appointed. Yet with only 2 deacons and a membership around 300 and a congregation around 700, we may guess.
At that time the 4 main Protestant churches in the our town shared in the Walden Town Mission appointing a missioner to reach out to the 60% of the population who never went to church, his task was to got to homes, to visit, to see what could be done to help, to distribute tracts, and to ensure every home had a Bible and someone who could read it, or to read to them His role was a pastoral role, an elder, but he was not allowed to organise meetings or to preach.
Today he would be outreaching to the 80% who don't go to a church.
If we are to adopt the role of Elders we need a two thirds majority but if want a united church moving forward not papering over the cracks of a division then we need a consencus decison well over a two thirds majority
The Church in Acts began with 12 elders being the apostles and then e;leceted 7 deacons for specifi practical purposes
By the second century the Chuirch at Rome had 7 deacosn and 42 elders and the y were doing te preaching, evangelising, discipling
For decades we had 2 deacons appointed for life. then from 1898 we had a Diaconate of 6 with the 2 Church Officers This was increased to early in the 20th century to 9 and then late in the 1930s. 9 Deacons and 3 Lady Deacons, together with a Church Secretary and a Church Treasurer
The Early Church had both Deacons and Women Deacons they also had Elders and Women Elders but their elders were in effect pastors
The order of Deaconess continued in the Latin Church until the 6th century and in the Greek Church until the 12th. The roles ceased in the state churches when Deacons became Priests which was not allowed to women but they then became Nuns.
The churches for at least the first 300 years seem to have been self governing with their own autonomy, thousands and thousands of them, but with a tendancey to have been developed from particular town or city churches, some of whom assumed a dominance over others in their territory , as at Antioch and Alexandria, both of which disagreed with each other over a lot of things including Sunday versus the Sabbath, and the reason for and the form of baptism.
After Constantine's meddling in the Church these variously named roles took on extra definition and new responsibilities over the Church and in the Empire with Bishops responsible for groups of churches and then of districts, and provinces, and then developed the hierarchical systems of the state churches, some of which survived the Reformation.
But as late as AD 331- 370 Jerome wrote " The Elder is identical with the Bishop, and before parties had so multiplied under diabolical influence, each church was governed by a Council of Elders"
Neander writes " It is certain that every Church was governed by a union of elders or overseers [ bishops ] chosen from among themselves ; [the church members] and we find amongst them no individual distinguished above the rest who presided as first amongst equals"
They were to be rulers and guides and to conduct everything in conjunction with the Church assembled together, as the servants and not the masters, of whom they were to act",. to feed and rule the flock of Christ as shepherds, by kindness, instruction and watch care,
Interestingly in the Third Century the Church at Rome had 7 Deacons and 46 Elders . The Christian Council of Neo-Caesarea AD 314 - 325 decreed that "No church should have above 7 Deacons" and their only role was to dispense the Churches money to the poor and serve the congregation.
In the 18th century some Congregationalist churches in Holland and England reintroduced Elders. In our times more Baptist Churches in the UK are appointing Elders, and Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol, began the trend about 300 years ago with a plurality of elders; and with deacons and deaconesses whose sole role was to serve and care for the sick and the poor. .
Last week I was querying an email I had from a Church leader in Malawi and he tells me they have "overseers" in his Denomination who are pastors of one Church, but responsible for the care of a group of churches which may not have a separate pastor, which may vary from 5 to 10 to 20.
Gold Street Chapel for most of their history have had Elders and Deacons, and only in the past decade have they had a Pastor, but he is an elder amongst elders, as would be so of the Minister in the Baptist Church if we adopted elders.
The jury is out as to what must be done and what posterity will make of it all.
Our Church is divided over the matter of Elders I am puzzled as to why? .
At the Meeting that discussed it we were about 34 to 19 in favour and that was only from 53 members and compared with any previous decison on ministry that is a big split. The last time we were that divided was in the 1980's in seeking a replacement for Dennis Horwood.
What do all the rest think who were not there?
Our Church has a long history founded on our present site in 1774, those who came here then did so in support of their minister who had domestic problems by which his wife and he were divorced and she went back to London with their children. For this reason the Chapel Trustees at Abbey Lane banned the pastor from the pulpit for what they regarded as immorality.
Most of the members and congregtion moved first to Myddleton House Barn, and then to Upper Meeting when they had built it..
They moved as a body, minister, deacons, minute book, leaving only 12 members at Abbey Lane, and regarded themselves as the true continuation of the church established at Abbey Lane in 1691, formed in 1665 from the remnants of the 1643-1652 Presbyeterian Church, and the separatist groups in the district back to 1548.
At no time did they ever appoint Elders. Nor did the Particular Baptist Church at London Road, 1818 - 1939,
The Hill Baptist Church was formed in 1711 grouped with 3 Cambridgeshire congregations They had 4 Elders who rotated around the group, and when they split and became 4 separate churches each Elder became a Pastor of one church. and after that until they closed here in 1957, they never had Elders again.m and why?
Because the word "elder" is synonymous with "pastor" or as we call the office "Minister"
I have been reading up on Church History of the early centuries and later Baptist development including "The History of Baptists" by Thomas Armitage DD all 960 pages of it.
The early Church in the 3 and a half centuries before Constantine reshaped the church out of all recognition, had
Deacons, and people to shepherd the flock whom in different places were called by different names all of which meant the same in role. Elders, or Presbyters, or Bishops, or Overseers, or Pastors.
All shared the same roles not different ones or on different levels.
As the Apostles dispersed and died, the Churches of Apostolic times and for the next three and a half centuries and until Constantine reshaped the churches out of all recognition , had as it's pastors or shepherds presbuteroi from which we get Presbyter or Elder, in the Hebrew Churches, including Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, which had a large Jewish community,. and these were called episkopoi amongst the Gentile Churches, such as in the Greek area and in Italia, including Rome from which we get Bishops or Overseers.
At that stage the historical evidence points to all these terms being interchangeable for the same office of Pastor.
Pastors appeared in all the churches early, using any of those various titles which differed in different areas.
There was no hierarchical pattern as was developed later by the Roman Catholic Church and continued after the Reformation by the State established churches.
So there were two orders. Shepherds of each flock or congregation and called in different areas by the various names of pastor or elder or presbyter or bishop or overseer AND Deacons to organise the practical matters of the church.
No church had less than one pastor but a lot had teams of elders all equal in authority and responsibility.
Persecution was continually breaking churches up and the first target of persecutors were the pastors or elders so they had to have several per congregation so the congregations could be easilly split into smaller groups and their leadership changed. If persecution breaks out in Britain, and it may, there is no point in us having just one pastor who gets whisked off to prison and then we spend 6 months seeking another, we will need a shared leadership that can take control quickly.
Also we should not be content with the small congregation we have now. Do we beleve that it is possible for every human being to be saved or do we believe that only preselected people will be saved?. Are we Arminians as Hill Street Baptist Church were originally and London Road were later, or Calvinists as our church was from 1809 - 1848, the period of our greatest growth or are we a bit of both. We seem to vary in opinion quite a lot. Which ever view we have, we have to reach out to where the people are, to find the people God wants in the Church. They wont come to us.
The 9 congregations in Walden reach about 3000 people between them. That leaves 13,000 we don't reach. If God brings a lot of them into our Church we might even need to have different congregations meeting at different times on a Sunday and led by different people, elders who work together and meet together and share the responsibility. We need a bigger vision than we currently have.
When our fathers in the faith moved from Abbey Lane they moved out of a cramped building that could seat a few hundred and had about 100 people. 65 church members plus other people and children moved out and they built a meeting house that could seat 1000 people. What Vision!. Within 80 years the congregation was 700. By 1878 they were in decline but they wanted to build a Sunday School and Hall fit for the times so they built a new sanctuary that seated 550. Overs the years we have reduced the seating capacity but now while we can seat less we can move the furniture about and use the space to wider effect.
So for 235 years we have got by without Elders. Because we have had one Elder which we call a Minister.
But he has not done the work on his own.
For the first 124 years we had 2 deacons and they were to work closely with the pastor and elected for life, as had been the pattern since the 1640's, one to look after the money and one the writings - deeds, letters and minutes.
From 1844-1848 we had a second minister. Around 1856 two more deacons were appointed to help the old men and replace them when they gave up. So how did the church and the minister manage with so few leaders?
Well the minutes refer to "our managers" and to "overseers". We have no idea how they were chosen or appointed but they did the work of organising. We are unaware of any church rules before the 1890's.
In 1874 in addition to the two "life deacons" they appointed an annually elected Church Secretary and an annually elected Church Treasurer so the deacons by then must have been doing other things of a pastoral nature.
We had a lot of lay-preachers who served at our Mission at Sewards End, in other local Baptist churches when needed and in our Union Chapels at Debden and Wimbish, and assisting in our own congregation.
Sunday School was not a problem for the Church, as it was entirely self supporting and self staffing and was run by the staff not the minister and deacons. They also had a Night School to train young people in what we would call secondary and higher education, The Church did not take over funding teaching the children until the the late 1960's.
Youth work appeared to have it's own leaders and the women organised catering with a senior caterer and a big team of helpers.
The impression is of a community church that gladly did things together in groups and teams and left the Minister to preach and visit and involve himself in the life of the town as he felt led.
In 1898 the first formal Diaconate was formed and the number of Deacons increased to 6 and deacons Minuutes began
and Church rules were adopted. and revised in the 1930's, 1950's, and 1979.
Around 1908 the number of deacons was increased to 9. In 1930's the Women's Own Fellowship was formed that lasted over 60 years and the first Lady Deacons were elected [about 20 years later than Abbey Lane Church] Later the rules on Lady Deacons were relaxed so that we just had Deacons on equal terms and could have more than 3 women. Towards the end of the 20th Century we had more women than men, but now we are down to only one woman.
The Diaconate peaked at 12 Deacons, 4 elected each year for 3 years, plus the Church Secretary and the Church Treasurer annually re-elected and a Life Deacon 15 in all. At least half the deacons could preach and lead worship and there were additional lay preachers in the wider congregation. There were also other committees that did what our present deacons seem to do.
From the 1960's the Minister could call upon about 5 retired Baptist ministers living in the town to lessen his load.
Later we had two Ministers working together
As the 20th century waned so did the number of deacons and preachers.
Which brings us to where we are now. One minister plus youth pastors, a Treasurer, 7 Deacons and an Administrator
But one minister is not enough, he clearly needs more help. Hence the proposal to appoint Elders. What's the problem with that?
Is it with the idea that they be preselected by the existing leadership group? in effect vetted?. What is so unusual about that? If they are to work as a team they have to be able to do so in close harmony. Their appointment is still subject to the will of the Church Meeting to whom they are answerable.
If we cannot agree on Elders to provide the help, then we will need more Deacons as the proposed 7 will not be enough even without growth in the Church, and some of those Deacons will need to share the preaching and pastoring as in times past.
As to the Deacons being vetted by the leadership what is so odd about that? With Deacons sharing the work load and responsible for specific responsibilities we need to know that any candidates are equipped for the role needed and they need to know what will be expected of them.
In 1975 - 76 we needed a new Treasurer and after a year of asking we still had none and the existing Treasurer was then unable to attend Deacons meetings because of business responsibilities but carried on doing what he could, That was my first year as a Deacon. When I was first nominated for Deacon a retiring Deacon said "Are you going to be Treasurer?", and I replied "Do you think i should be?" and he said "Yes". So maybe he was being prophetic,
At the end of that year we still had no nomination for Treasurer so I became Treasurer for the next 6 years but I needed that year to understand how the Diaconate worked, and to understand how the Church was funded, and what the job entailed. It was after all 20 years since I had been church auditor with Jack, when I worked in an accountants office.
I was surprised to learn that there was any opposition to the appointment of Elders and I am still waiting to learn why the idea is so divisive.
######################
We keep being urged to pray about this issue, but we also need to think
As the apostles dispersed and died the Churches of Apostolic times and for the next 3 centuries and until Constantine ruined the Christian Church, had as it's pastors or shepherds presbuteroi from which we get Presbyter or Elder, in the Hebrew Churches, including Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria which had a large Jewish community. and these were called episkopoi amongst the Gentile Churches, such as in the Greek area and in Italia, including Rome from which we get bishops or overseers.
So all these terms are interchangeable for the same office of Pastor.
Pastors appeared in all the churches early, using any of those various titles.
The New Testament Church and on until before Constantine therefore had just two sets of leaders,- pastors and deacons.
Although as the pastors could have several titles so the Deacons also included Deaconesses.
They had deaconesses to concentrate on the women members and to baptise woman converts. In those days the evidence is that all candidates for baptism were baptised naked, so they had seperate services for men and womem but after infant baptism become the norm, after the 4th century widely, and completely by the 7th, the role of deaconess died out. Even locally in the period 1640 - 1680 there were women evangelists amongst the non-conformist seperatist congregations.
While the Hebrew Christians understood the idea of Elders meaning pastors and they could be quite young in their late 20's upwards, the Greek or Gentile Churches regarded the word Elder as being an elderly person, an old person. Someone to respect but not necessarilly a pastor.
So if we adopt Elders that means we are extending into a group the pastoral office - a shared ministry, not creating a heirarchial leadership of 3 tiers
In post Reformation times some churches had Elders but they were a group or team sharing the pastoral office and in smaller congregations they had one who became known in time as the Pastor.
Broadmead Baptist Church Bristol about 300 years ago adopted the system of a plurality of elders instead of one pastor, with deacons and deaconesses.
The nearest local Baptist church members in these parts [ Newport and Littlebury ] in around 1650 were members of Fenstanton Baptist Church, They had a pastor, but they also had Messengers [ Elders under another name ]. to visit the distant members of the congregation.
In the mid-19th century we had a Minister, two deacons, and overseers, sometimes called managers. Our church minutes don't tell us what they did, or how they were appointed. Yet with only 2 deacons and a membership around 300 and a congregation around 700, we may guess.
At that time the 4 main Protestant churches in the our town shared in the Walden Town Mission appointing a missioner to reach out to the 60% of the population who never went to church, his task was to got to homes, to visit, to see what could be done to help, to distribute tracts, and to ensure every home had a Bible and someone who could read it, or to read to them His role was a pastoral role, an elder, but he was not allowed to organise meetings or to preach.
Today he would be outreaching to the 80% who don't go to a church.
If we are to adopt the role of Elders we need a two thirds majority but if want a united church moving forward not papering over the cracks of a division then we need a consencus decison well over a two thirds majority
The Church in Acts began with 12 elders being the apostles and then e;leceted 7 deacons for specifi practical purposes
By the second century the Chuirch at Rome had 7 deacosn and 42 elders and the y were doing te preaching, evangelising, discipling
For decades we had 2 deacons appointed for life. then from 1898 we had a Diaconate of 6 with the 2 Church Officers This was increased to early in the 20th century to 9 and then late in the 1930s. 9 Deacons and 3 Lady Deacons, together with a Church Secretary and a Church Treasurer
The Early Church had both Deacons and Women Deacons they also had Elders and Women Elders but their elders were in effect pastors
The order of Deaconess continued in the Latin Church until the 6th century and in the Greek Church until the 12th. The roles ceased in the state churches when Deacons became Priests which was not allowed to women but they then became Nuns.
The churches for at least the first 300 years seem to have been self governing with their own autonomy, thousands and thousands of them, but with a tendancey to have been developed from particular town or city churches, some of whom assumed a dominance over others in their territory , as at Antioch and Alexandria, both of which disagreed with each other over a lot of things including Sunday versus the Sabbath, and the reason for and the form of baptism.
After Constantine's meddling in the Church these variously named roles took on extra definition and new responsibilities over the Church and in the Empire with Bishops responsible for groups of churches and then of districts, and provinces, and then developed the hierarchical systems of the state churches, some of which survived the Reformation.
But as late as AD 331- 370 Jerome wrote " The Elder is identical with the Bishop, and before parties had so multiplied under diabolical influence, each church was governed by a Council of Elders"
Neander writes " It is certain that every Church was governed by a union of elders or overseers [ bishops ] chosen from among themselves ; [the church members] and we find amongst them no individual distinguished above the rest who presided as first amongst equals"
They were to be rulers and guides and to conduct everything in conjunction with the Church assembled together, as the servants and not the masters, of whom they were to act",. to feed and rule the flock of Christ as shepherds, by kindness, instruction and watch care,
Interestingly in the Third Century the Church at Rome had 7 Deacons and 46 Elders . The Christian Council of Neo-Caesarea AD 314 - 325 decreed that "No church should have above 7 Deacons" and their only role was to dispense the Churches money to the poor and serve the congregation.
In the 18th century some Congregationalist churches in Holland and England reintroduced Elders. In our times more Baptist Churches in the UK are appointing Elders, and Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol, began the trend about 300 years ago with a plurality of elders; and with deacons and deaconesses whose sole role was to serve and care for the sick and the poor. .
Last week I was querying an email I had from a Church leader in Malawi and he tells me they have "overseers" in his Denomination who are pastors of one Church, but responsible for the care of a group of churches which may not have a separate pastor, which may vary from 5 to 10 to 20.
Gold Street Chapel for most of their history have had Elders and Deacons, and only in the past decade have they had a Pastor, but he is an elder amongst elders, as would be so of the Minister in the Baptist Church if we adopted elders.
The jury is out as to what must be done and what posterity will make of it all.