Church Government

Last Sunday, Phil publicly announced the elders’ final decision to appoint Daniel Baker to the role of Senior Pastor. Here is the explanation of that decision. As we have emphasized over the last few months, we are grateful to have a plurality of elders, and it bears repeating that Phil isn’t going anywhere. He will still be one of your pastors. He will still have his office at SGC. He will continue to preach, though perhaps not quite as often. We invite you to pray for Daniel and all of the elders during this transition, and we invite you to continue working with us for the building up of the church to the glory of God.

At our September business meeting we announced that Phil will transition to working half time starting January 1st. We see this as a tremendous blessing because it allows Phil to slow down some and yet have the church still benefit from his teaching and pastoral gifts.

Last Sunday during announcements I shared some things regarding the upcoming senior pastor transition at SGC. Here I want to revisit a few of those, including what the role of lead or senior pastor is within the eldership, for the sake of those who weren't able to be there. Remember, your feedback is both welcome and desired.

This Sunday Mike Noel and John McLeod will be ordained as elders at Sovereign Grace Church. But what does it even mean to be “ordained”? Aren’t they basically elders now? What will change after Sunday? We want to take a minute here and think about these questions and a few others. 

Shakespeare was right about roses, but does his logic apply to pastors? When Juliet was troubled because of her family name, Capulet, a family bitterly divided against Romeo's Montague family, she asks,

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;       

We recently added a page on our website to answer seven key questions you and others might have about bi-vocational elders at SGC.

On Friday the Sovereign Grace churches ratified a whole new way of functioning as a family of churches. We introduced a level of organization that far surpasses anything in our history together. That is, we have many more committees and structures than at any point in our past. The question could rightly be asked in the face of this new labyrinth, "Won't this kill mission?"

Yesterday in what was truly an historical moment for Sovereign Grace, our 67 U.S. churches voted on whether or not they wanted to adopt the new polity proposal.