DEMOCRACY

  Who is “in charge” at church?

  In America the people in charge are often those who make up the majority of the members in a congregation. Majority rule, or democracy, is often the guiding principle in many churches throughout the nation. In churches like that, the majority of the members determine what should happen in the congregation.

  One man visited our worship service some time back and joked with me: “It must be tough having 150 bosses” (our average worship attendance was 150).
  I smiled back and said “Oh, I don’t have 150 bosses. I only have ONE boss. But I do have 150 people whom I serve.”

  Majority rule (or Democracy) is a sacred tenet of our American society, and it’s easy to understand why it has such a broad appeal to church members. Depending upon the church, “majority rule” is either the church polity (as with Congregationalist congregations) or is an underlying tool used by those who want to have “their way” in their congregation (by asking for a church vote).

   With Congregationalist churches “the congregational theory strictly forbids ministers from ruling their local churches by themselves. "Not only does the minister serve by the approval of the congregation, but committees further constrain the pastor from exercising power without consent by either the particular committee, or the entire congregation” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregationalist_polity).

   So, what's the problem with democracy?
  First, church votes are not really Biblical (most "majority decisions" in Scripture didn't turn out well). But the practical problem with "church votes" is that they can end up creating conflicts and division within the local church. If the issue in question is contentious, people take sides, and that leads to bitterness toward others in the church who didn’t vote "with" them. Majority votes are the hallmarks of power struggles, and some have even ended up in legal battles in civil courts – a direct violation of God’s command not to take a fellow Christian to court (I Corinthians 6:4-8).

   Several years ago the congregation I now serve was experiencing a financial crunch. We weren’t even sure that they’d be able to pay me, let alone the bills. So people got nervous. There was a lot of talk about having chicken noodle dinners and car washes and other fund raisers to stave off budget problems. But there was a problem. Our Elders had a long-standing policy – fund raisers were not allowed. If our church couldn’t pay for its own financial responsibilities, the Elders believed it was inappropriate to ask the community to do it for us.
  This led to unrest in the ranks. There was obviously a problem and the Elders weren’t even going to consider their "obvious solution" to our financial bind.
  Things came to a head when a couple of my good friends at church came to my office door and said: “Jeff, we’d like to see the bylaws of the church.”
  Now any time anyone asks to see the bylaws, you know you have a problem. The only reason people want to read those boring documents is if they’re looking for a way to challenge a decision by the leadership. And, of course, I knew exactly why these men were wanting the bylaws – they wanted to find a way to overrule the Eldership on fund raisers.
  I smiled at them and said “Guys, I don’t know where they’re at. In fact, in the 12 years or so I've been here I've never seen them. But here’s the deal – if I ever do find them, and they say anything other than ‘what the Elders decide is what we’re going to do,’ I’ll burn them in front of the entire congregation.”

   That kind of ended that. And, of course, in time the financial crisis passed.

   Now, that’s not to say that the Elders shouldn’t look for feedback from the congregation. A good Eldership (as shepherds of the church, I Peter 5:1-4) should know their people well enough to ride easy when making decisions. Elders who become dictators and impose their will on the congregation can be devastating for the bride of Christ, as it would be for any bride. That’s why high-handed leadership styles are warned against in I Peter 5:3. Dictators - whether in the pulpit or the Eldership, or in the church at large - hurt churches because they forget that the church doesn’t belong to them… it belongs to Christ.

 ONLY Christ is the head of the church.
  He’s our boss. It's not a Democracy, it's a Theocracy (with Jesus at the top). Christ has placed the local Eldership in the position to make prayerful and loving decisions for the local congregation. But our boss has commanded both the Eldership and the membership to remember that “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, (Matthew 20:26-27).