Eldership; Unintended Consequences

Before actually talking about some of the consequences, I need to say that the elders didn't encourage or require anything that they didn't enter into themselves. The article by Larry Clark from my last post sets forth the attitude that all of the elders had. I will talk more about my decision to leave the Navy in my last post on this subject, but I can tell you that I would not have left the Navy if this decision had not been confirmed by the eldership.

There are several unintended consequences. I will list them in no particular order. The list is also not exhaustive; there may be more.

• Undermining personal responsibility -- People were freed from making their own decision.
• Giving opportunity to place the blame -- This is related to the one above. Since I didn't make the decision, if anything goes wrong, blame the person or persons who made the decision.
• Setting oneself up for disappointment with God -- When things didn't work out, not only could the eldership be blamed, but, since they were hearing God, it was God who let me down.
• Elders taking too much authority -- there was a tendency for the elders to "believe their own press". Since they heard the Lord and gave council, they could easily fall into the trap of feeling infallible.

I was asked in response to my last post, "what would I have done differently?" If I had it to do over again (knowing what I know now), I wouldn't make decisions for people. I would work with them to help them to make their decision. It would be theirs, not mine. This builds up their own sense of personal responsibility. The problem is that no matter how mature and wise a person is, no matter how well they hear God, they are not infallible. We all see only a part of every issue.

In my next post, I will address a specific unintended consequence that I found in my premarital counseling.

Eldership; Rationale (3)

The article posted above indicates how things began to change with the authority of the elders. When we began, authority was really not an issue. We just wanted to help in the pastoring of the church. A lot of young people were coming to Christ and entering the church. They had problems, needed help in dealing with those problems and also required help in knowing how to grow in their relationship with the Lord. This was the "job" of the elders. As we matured as an eldership, we began to help "manage" the church and the ministries of the church. This brought about discussions of the authority of the eldership. How far does this authority extend? How were the people, under this authority to act; of course submission. But, how far does submission go?

To start with, this was relatively benign. We were just trying to be helpful. Two things began to change this. First was the growth of community. Maintaining order in the households began to require help in making much more significant life decisions; marriage, job, education etc. Second, we the people, in trying to grow in our submission, submitted major life decisions to the eldership (see Larry's article above). Even as this was happening, most of us really weren't comfortable making big decisions for people. I personally became involved with some of these decisions -- but was always uncomfortable with them. I believe strongly in personal responsibility. People need to make decisions for themselves. Yet, in spite of these reservations, our conviction that order in the church required a "laying down of our lives" (major submission) prevailed. Thus, the scope of authority of the eldership continued to grow. As the authority increased, the opposite among non-elders (and elders alike), submission, also grew. This brought about some unintended consequences that I will discuss in the next post.

Eldership Rationale, (2)

Why did we come up with an eldership anyway? Certainly our purpose at the time was not to become mini dictators. The Scriptures talk of elders in both the Old Testament and the New. Particularly in the Old, Elders were generally -- well, the elders. But, they were not just old people, they were old, considered wise and were from the right families. They were consulted for advice and guidance. It was believed that they had lived life well and were to be emulated. In the New Testament, there was similar thought, but there weren't a lot of old, life-time Christians. Paul and other apostles seemed to have appointed those who were mature in the faith (even though by our standards they were fairly new.) An important passage of Scripture for our understanding was Acts 20:13-35. This is Paul's farewell address to the elders of the church in Ephesus. In verse 28 he tells them to "Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit made you overseers (episkipoi -- Bishops). Be shepherds (pastors) of the church . . ." It seems that elders functioned as those who oversee the affairs of the church as well as serve as pastors of the church. We attempted to fulfill those functions.

In order to carry out these functions we were organized as follows (much of this is from my faulty memory -- feel free to bring correction):

• Senior Elders -- Ken Pagaard (Yes officially pastor of the church -- but saw himself as pastor of pastors) Emery Fryer (Head of the Eldership), Wallie Gray, Larry Clark, Lehnis Lyons (left in mid '70s), Tom McCulloch and Sam Ballesteros (although usually not present because of his duties in Bogota). They guided the eldership in their oversight of the church.
• Elders -- Clay Ford, Bud Miller, George Burger, John Pletcher, Phil Woodend, Ed Dubois (left in mid '70s), Leonard Frey, Richard Hensgen and Art Alari (added shortly after the other elders selected). Responsible for oversight of church ministries. Many of us had specific duties. We also were involved in leading worship and in counseling ministries. The purpose was to help guide those less grounded in the faith into a more mature understanding.
• The Staff -- Those Elders who were freed to work at the church. These had specific areas of responsibility in managing the church. My duties are listed under my picture on this blog.
• Heads of Household -- This group included elders and non elders. Anyone who was head of a Residential Community household was a member of this group. Composition changed when households changed. Change was not unusual. I was a member of this group even though I was never a head -- I was in Westby household -- Ken was gone a lot and I helped lead when he was gone. I was known as the (k)not head.
• Ordained Pastors -- Those ordained and recognized as such by the American Baptist Churches had a special status. Ken and most of us really didn't believe in a special clergy status, but, in reality, Ken led the worship of the church -- preached and taught as the pastor. When he was absent, it was usually Larry Clark of Clay Ford who fulfilled these functions.

Elders, Heads of Household and the Staff me weekly in separate meetings. Many of us attended all three of these meetings. Speaking for myself, I loved the meetings, but I did get frustrated because we seemed to hash and rehash the same items from week to week and meeting to meeting. What I liked about the meetings was not discussion items, but the relationships with my brothers in the Lord.

As you can see, this all started innocently enough. We wanted to serve the Lord by serving the church. There was no strong desire to "be in control." Yet, this began to develop. What started as a group that facilitated innovation, became one of the biggest road blocks to innovation in the church. One last posting re our rationale -- hopefully tomorrow.

Eldership; Submission, Obedience and Discipline

This issue, Vol 1, number 12 of January 8, 1974 was posted on Facebook last week. I pointed out our salary structure for staff (an earlier post on this blog), but this article brought about a huge response. It brought out lots of memories about the whole issue of submission to elders and how this seemed to work out in the life of the church and the community. I promised to write a series of posts in five parts: 1) Our rationale, 2) Unintended consequences, 3) Unintended consequences seen in scores on the Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis (TJTA), 4) Real abuse, and 5) My experience in this regard. This is the first posting dealing with our rationale. Having started this, I probably will have two posts on this.

One of the key scriptures regarding elders and submission is Hebrews 13:7, "Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. (NIV)" Of course, we understood the word "leaders" to be "elders". I am indebted to Time Pagaard for sending me a copy of "Covenant for First Baptist Church of Chula Vista; A Commentary and Exposition" by Ken Pagaard. One section of the covenant states, " . . . I gratefully submit to my leaders . . ." Ken's exposition follows, " . . . in our culture, submission is a bad word. The whole emphasis is on independence, on a freedom which is in fact licentiousness. As a result we see the disintegration of our society and degeneration of our civilization. The Bible on, on the other hand, puts a great stock in submission. It is a key to order and harmony. It is the key word in all of our human relationships. In fact, one of God's primary purposes for us is to develop within us a submissive spirit. As someone offers to disciple you, count it an honor and privilege. It means a real gift of himself. It is an awesome thing to accept responsibility for another. The Bible says that your leaders " are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account." (Heb. 13:17) . That is why it counsels us in the same verse "to obey your leaders and submit to them." This is not a submission that is servile and a bondage. In our context and the scriptural context it is a very freeing thing as the whole relationship is one of love, for the benefit of the disciple. To submit to this is to have a teachable spirit. That is why we can do it gratefully.

In the beginning of our eldership submission and authority had very little to do with it. Initially there were a few men, mainly Emery Fryer, Wallie Gray and Lehnis Lyons, who were functioning as pastoral helpers. As we had a large group of young people entering the church in the early 70's, Ken needed help in providing guidance and support to these new Christians. Many men desired to grow in their relationship and leadership within the congregation. We began to hold an open meeting on Wed. nights. There was probably a group of between 25 and 30 men who gathered for worship and prayer. These meetings would sometimes until 2 and 3 in the morning. They were great! Somewhere along the line, it was decided that this was a functioning eldership, although not necessarily all in the group were elders. This continued for several months.

Somewhere around 1973 there was a feeling that we needed to solidify this eldership; we needed to identify who were the elders. We put out a list to the congregation for their prayerful evaluation. Essentially, the congregation rated us on a 1-5 scale, 1 -- fully functioning as an elders and 5 -- not an elder at this time. I believe that an average of 3 would "qualify" one as an elder. As a side note, in 1981 I went through Ken's desk and found the original evaluations. I was the bottom one selected. I barely scraped in!

I will continue this posting tomorrow. It may take a couple of posts to deal with the rationale. Tomorrow, I will discuss how the leadership of the church was structured.

Expansion of the House of Abba

By the time of this issue of OLT, the coffee house (The House of Abba) had been in operation for over three years. It was still going strong and actually filling the Sanctuary of the church. The church capacity was around 400 people. Of course, this was "official" seating. Attendees at the House of Abba didn't necessarily sit in accordance with "official" seating. Pictured were some of the real leaders of the coffee house: Nick Robertson, Brian Gire, Robbie Corley, Jerry Jamison, Tim Pagaard? and Danny Stolebarger.

If you haven't checked out the Fans of the House of Abba page on facebook. It is a treasure trove of info and photos.

Our Staff in 1974

The church staff was one of the major changes from a traditional church structure that was made possible by the Ministering Community. As discussed in the little article by Ken Pagaard, clergy/lay distinctions were abolished. Salaries were minimal stipends based upon need -- in a community setting. People living in the ministering community shared in common everything financially. Someone working at a secular job placed their salary into the collective purse. One on the staff gave their stipend. If one had no job, they put in nothing. From the collective purse, all bills were paid and each person received an allowance of $5/week to spend anyway that we wanted. Clothing and other needs were paid by the household.

We continued to pay in this manner until 1981. At that time, I was pastoring the church and making $625 per month according to the schedule per the article. At that time, my family and I moved out of the community. The cheapest rent we could find was $650 per month. Obviously, this kind of schedule only works when living in common within community. This necessitated the first major pay change since 1974 and the start of my wife's banking career.

The Struggle with Television

This article is from the same issue (number 10 of 1973) of my previous post. I decided to write about it because it highlights two other items of interest in the community; our relationship to television and belief in the demonic. Bob Granigan, the author of the article was a young quadriplegic who was a vital member of the young people in the church. He suffered many well meaning attempts at healing from itinerant ministers of healing throughout his time in the church. The article is a little shocking to those who may not be acquainted with the church and/or Bob. Whatever your beliefs, this represents a real struggle that he was going through in relation to television.

Let me deal with the issue of television first. Early in the days of the community, each household got rid of their television sets. The primary reason was that people would spend time in front of the tube rather than spending time in conversation with one another. The purpose of community was to live a shared life with one another so that we could grow in our relationship with Christ. Television robbed us of time. Television also proclaimed a secular life that was mostly devoid of Christian values. We felt that our people didn't need to expose themselves to this. Attitudes toward TV began to change when our community became an item in the city (more about this in a later post). We began to bring back the televisions so that we could watch the news. The sets stayed and began to be watched. For a time frame, the problems with the city really started in late 1975.

Belief in the demonic is varied within Christianity. Most biblical scholars, however, do believe that the primary ministries of Jesus in the Gospels were proclamation of the Kingdom of God, healing and casting out of demons. Of course there is a wide variety of views of what Jesus was doing in the casting out of demons. Description of these many ideas is two big a subject for this little post. At FBC we believed literally in the presence of the demonic. We were also involved in the casting out or exorcisms of these demons. This wasn't an aberration of our church. It is a widely held belief within the Charismatic Movement down to the present day.

The Righteous or Sinners

The two articles that I have uploaded from this issue (Vol. 1, Nr 10, Dec. 18, 1973) illustrate another of the church's values; reaching out to those that the conventional church doesn't. Ken Pagaard's article emphasizes Christ's statement, "I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners." Everyone in church leadership knows that the purpose of the church is to reach outside and reach new people. We are to love the unlovely. Down through church history, this has been a theme. Yet, in actuality, much of the church is more involved in "sheep stealing", winning people from one church and bringing them into one's own. Much of church growth doesn't equate to growth of the Kingdom of God. We felt that we were growing as a church through growth of the kingdom.

The second article, by Eleanor Burger tells of an outreach by the Oaklawn Household. Eleanor and her husband George were the heads of the household. George is (they live in Oregon now) a retired navy man. They were a household that nurtured a number of the "tough" cases. They were composed mostly of young men. A lot of great Christian Men with leadership qualities came through this household. George was also one of our elders and was in charge of maintenance of the church building and property. Eleanor was one of the leaders among our women.

Pioneer/Settler Theology

This is the first manifestation of this piece, at least in OLT. This became important in the life of the church because we saw ourselves as Pioneers. We also considered it a bad thing to be a settler. We saw ourselves in this way for the following reasons:

• Our church was cutting edge -- we were involved in the charismatic movement. We were alive in a time when people were giving up on the church. We were an item throughout a wide range of the church world.
• Our church was full of young people -- at a time when youth seemed to be giving up on the church, with the exception of the Jesus People movement, we were full of youth.
• The Ministering Community -- we gave our all. We lived in common. We weren't just a group of people who gathered together on Sunday.

Of course, part of our "success" was because we really fit in with what was happening in the world at that time. The Charismatic Renewal was taking much of the church by storm. We "just happened" to be at the center of that storm. The young people of the 70's seemed to be searching for answers. One of the answers was that of the Jesus People Movement. Because of our House of Abba, many young people were attracted to Jesus and our church. As to the community, there was a movement both outside and inside the church toward this kind of living. We certainly weren't a Hippie commune, but there were superficial similarities.

Does the fact that what was happening in the world, was happening in the church mean that this wasn't a move of God. By no means! I think that this was happening in the world because God was moving in his people. I realize that I was blessed by God to be a part of this movement at that time.

This all came together through the leadership of Ken Pagaard. He was a visionary and an extraordinary leader. He certainly was a pioneer and he encouraged us to be pioneers. Could Ken have done it himself? Probably not, but it would not have happened if he were not there. It was a case of the right man being in the right place at the right time.

What happened to the church. On one level nothing. The church is alive and well and many of the values of the 70's Pioneer Theology are still there. But, the time was part of it. By the start of the 80's the numbers were down, both in the community and in the church. Then there was the change in leadership. As I was in the process of becoming pastor (this was a process from being de-facto pastor, interim pastor, and co-pastor with Dan Stolebarger, before becoming the pastor), Ken told me that under my leadership the church would become just another traditional church. Of course, I was quite miffed over this. However, there was some truth in this. I was a pioneer in belief, and under the leadership of Ken I lived and worked as a pioneer. On my own, I have leadership gifts, but I am not a visionary as Ken was. The church did lose the sense of being "cutting edge". But, as mentioned before, the church never lost the values of love and acceptance of one another. It never lost a sense of authentic worship.

El Minuto De Dios

One of the more unusual ministries that First Baptist was involved in was the ministry at El Minuto De Dios in Bogota Columbia. This was a community in Bogota ministered to by Father Garcia-Herreros. Sam Ballesteros and his wife Elizabeth along with their sons Sam and Matthew were sent as missionaries to this community and recognized as such by the American Baptist Churches. Financial and spiritual support came mostly from FBCCV. Sam and Elizabeth had been members of the church for some time. I believe that Elizabeth actually grew up in the church -- and she has been a part of the church well after the 70's. In fact she was my secretary through much of the 80's. I first met Sam at a youth directors conference at 1000 Pines (an ABC camp in the San Bernardino Mountains) in 1959. I was working with youth of Bellflower First Baptist and Sam was youth pastor of FBCCV. Sam's father had been the long time pastor of the First Baptist Church of Tijuana. Sam's son, Samuel, was a member of FBCCV until the early 2000's when he and his wife moved to Texas.

As the ministry progressed, the church also sent Sally Trejo and John Gudino. Dale and Beverly Hunter were also a part of this ministry. Of course what made it so unusual was that these were American Baptists ministering in a Catholic parish in South America. Father Garcia-Herreros was a leading figure in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in South America. So, Sam and his team were also active in helping to facilitate the leadership within this renewal movement. This was another aspect of the world-wide reach of FBCCV during these exciting days of renewal.

This issue of OLT wasn't earth shaking. There are several items that really got me to thinking. But, to start with first things, the cover page is another wonderful example of Abba Graphics art work. The article by Larry Clark is interesting because he describes a worship service that really became the norm for FBC Chula Vista during the 70's. I recently read "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Barna. In this book, they deplored the fact that worship like the early church (somewhat like Larry Clark describes) never take place in the "organized church" of the 20th or 21st centuries. Of course, Frank Viola says that it does take place in the House Church. I am not quibbling with Mr. Viola, but I can attest that the kind of worship that he (Viola) describes and that Larry Clark describe were the norm in the 70's.


Larry described the service because Ken and others were again on pilgrimage to Church of the Redeemer in Houston. I am one of the few elders of the church that never got to go to Houston. It wasn't that I didn't want to go. I was busy in the Navy -- and, in the early days, I was really considered a second rate leader. By the way this is probably an accurate assessment. I was loved and respected as a leader and a Choir Director, but I wasn't really one of the spiritual leaders. They were right. Anyhow, I never got to Houston. I really wanted to go.

Larry Clark was an ordained American Baptist Pastor who came and joined our community in the early 70's. He was a great friend, a good leader and good preacher. He was head of one of our households. He also really acted as the assistant Pastor. He didn't have that title -- we weren't big on titles -- but that is how he functioned.

In this issue, there is a note on First Baptist Church of Arcata CA. There is also an article by Clay Ford who would become pastor of the Arcata church in a decade or so. There is also an article by Joyce Scott, an American Baptist Missionary in India. Joyce was really touched by Ken Pagaard's ministry. Joyce was a real leader in the American Baptist Charismatic Fellowship and Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries until her death in the early 2000's. She was a great lady. She is missed by many and by me personally.