For some readers, the question posed by the title of this article is an absurdity or impossibility. Their congregation either never votes or only votes against the elders if it intends to remove them, per Paul’s guidelines in 1 Timothy 5:19–21.
However, if you are in an elder-led, congregationally-governed church, then the question posed by the title really matters. And answering it requires us to think about what a congregational vote really means.
Below is the substance of a memo I wrote on behalf of our church’s elders to answer this question. The memo was intended to help us reach agreement so we could lead the congregation. I hope and pray it is of use to you as well.
Mining Scripture
Let me begin with three assumptions:
First, the job of the church is to protect the integrity of the good news. From the beginning of Jesus’s teaching on the church in Matthew 16, this job of protecting has always involved both the “what” and “who” of the gospel—defining the gospel we profess and identifying who credibly makes a gospel profession.[1]
Second, it is the job of the church to preserve the integrity of the good news so it can be passed
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