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We have a prayer where we do confess sin before God but there is not a actual public pardon as done by a minister. My aunts church (PCUSA) does this in her church.
Pretty similar here. I'm not sure the pastor is a teaching elder exactly but part of the national session (I might be wrong). We have a separate committee for maintenance although they do work with the elders.
In PCUSA and I believe other groups, the term "teaching elder" means in effect pastor. In Presbyterian theology there are only two NT offices: elder and deacon. So the pastor is viewed as one kind of elder. The session members are called "ruling elders". Perhaps your terminology is different.
Hedrick's terminology is pretty much universally correct with respect to Presbyterianism. There is differentiation in Elders in the New Testament. The terms Ruling Elder and Teaching Elder did not generate itself in a vacuum.Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm right. My understanding is the elders are part of the local session. The pastors are not actually part of the local session but the national session. For church business at the session level the pastor(s) can place votes in situations of ties. I don't know if it is simply my church but our pastor has the practice of not placing any votes on business in the church session and allows all tied votes to fail.
Hedrick's terminology is pretty much universally correct with respect to Presbyterianism. There is differentiation in Elders in the New Testament. The terms Ruling Elder and Teaching Elder did not generate itself in a vacuum.
Historically, Ruling Elders have been chosen from amongst the congregation for the purpose of administrating the church. Teaching Elders have generally been reserved for the teaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Teaching Elders are approved by the Presbytery in the great majority of the Presbyterian Denominations. There are some exceptions. Whether the writers of the New Testament intended to equate Teaching Elders with Pastors is probably debatable, and a case could probably be made for either yea or no.
However it is not important. It is certainly not an issue to divide over.
That is not to say that there is any order of importance between Teaching and Ruling Elders. Both are Elders, both should have the respect due their position. They merely have different functions.
That is the majority report of Presbyterianism. It is also true in my own denomination the EPC.Anyway from the OPC website from a Q&A you can take it how you wish:
"As to the implied questionwhy do ministers have their membership in presbytery instead of in the local church?in some Reformed traditions, particularly those of Dutch heritage, ministers are in fact members of the local church. In our own denomination the membership of ministers is in the presbytery, though such ministers have communing fellowship with the local church.
There are three reasons or arguments in favor of this practice: First, we expect our ministers to have a broader range of responsibilities over the whole work of the church than do the elders. Their responsibility, more than that of the elder, is in the region. (Yes, individual elders from the different congregations are also called to serve the regional church through their presence and voting at meetings of the presbytery, but not all elders are called to do such.) Second, we recognize the need for a large measure of specialized education for our ministers that we do not require for our elders (e.g., knowledge of Greek and Hebrew). Consequently, we think it more proper that they are subject to the examination and oversight of others with that same level of training. Finally, since the ministers are members of presbytery, that fact makes any discipline of them, or any dispute over their call to a particular church, immediately the concern of the presbytery. This provides a large window for the regional church to view the happenings, and to participate in working to promote the purity and peace of the church."
Below is a link to the ARP directory of public worship. There is no hard and fast rule that each church use the same order of worship but this in my understanding of it is more of a guide. At the very end there are 4 different orders of worship listed but these are not mandatory.
http://www.arpsynod.org/pdf/Standards/Directory of Public Worship.pdf
The current orders of worship (i.e. things more recent than Westminster) are all PCUSA. The most recent is from the 1990 hymnbook. While an excellent hymn book, I wasn't so happy with the communion service. Many churches use a separate one, which is fairly close to the one that's in the new hymn book. I'll be interested to see whether the ARP picks up the 2013/14 hymn book. Our congregation is moving to it. It's got a lot of good new hymns, and the liturgy looks good.
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