Hello all,
So the focus of my church at the moment is on growing our church. I have thought about this a lot and i believe that the primary way to do this is to follow Gods word as best as we are able.
However, my church does not seem concerned with this. One obvious example is that we have female elders. From my understanding of scripture, it is clear that one of the qualifications for a church elder is that they are male.
It is therefore my belief that if we were to appoint male only elders, this would please God and in return He would bless our church and help us to grow not only in numbers but also in each church members love of Jesus Christ: or at least start us moving in that direction.
The problem here is this: i believe that bringing this idea up will cause controversy and conflict and i am reluctant to be the person who causes division and ill feeling in my church and probably getting a reputation as a trouble maker/ contentious person.
However, it seems to me that if God redeems a person and chooses a church for that person to worship Him in, He would be more likely to send them to a church that cares about following His word thanone that is seemingly unconcerned about it.
Therefore my question is this: would addressing this issue/topic be the right thing to do or am i acting like a pharisee? because i am to-ing and fro-ing over it a great deal.
Sometimes i think it is not a big deal, but then i also wonder about Paul entering our church and looking at our elders board. Would he overlook this? or would he weep over our hard-hearts? Is the Lord pleased that we are disregarding a seeminlgy clear instruction as to how we are to order a church that pleases Him? or is He also unconcerned over the point? Would He want me to focus on something else? is this a trivial point?
