At the FIEC Leaders’ Conference last year I interviewed Andy Weatherley about the ways he was training up men to become elders in his church as part of a wider training program. In essence it’s about getting together to read through some cherry-picked resources and then to work through a questionnaire in a 1-to-1 setting. Simple, but effective.
I asked him to jot down the details:
We’ve taken about 4 guys through the process so far and another 3 on the
way at the moment. It works well as an intense reading group - we meet in the
pub for 2 hours once a month to discuss each of the below. It really helps us
to see what their heart is all about. The material we cover is:
“Ministry
and character” - Tim Keller
“A
display of God’s glory” - Mark Dever
“The
Pastor as Counsellor” - David
Powlinson
and Tripp
Supremacy of God in preaching – John Piper
Attached is our questionnaire
for prospective elders too. Questions nicked from all over the place. The questionnaire is a
one-on-one thing at the end of the process - I’ve only done this with 3 guys so
far but it’s so helpful to expose heart sins before we get them on leadership.
I also get new elders to do Strengthsfinder
and the Keirsey personality test so we
understand what their strengths are and how we might interact as a team.
Alongside that they sit in on elders meetings for a year before being voted on
by the church.