Sunday, January 14, 2007

Congregationalsm....

Bart Barber has an excellent post on the "Biblical Basis for Congregationalism" that I want to refer you to. Read it here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave,
How do you guys weave your "Purpose Driven" philosophy together with an overall practice of congregationalism? I'm curious if we may be taking the same kind of approach.

You guys snowed under or wyat? :)
Geoff

Dave Samples said...

Great question, Geoff. All of our leadership is either elected or "called" by the congregation. That election grants each leader the ability to do their job in the way that seems best to them without having to come back to the congregation for approval. Individual leaders submit a budget that is coordinated through our Trustees and then submitted for approval to the church annually. We have business meetings about once a quarter when reports are given by ministry leaders, finanacial statements are distributed, and any "big" items are presented for church approval. Our Trustees have the ability to spend up to $5000 on an item without coming back to the church for permission and so it has to be a pretty big item to merit church approval. Otherwise, it is either covered by the budget or the Trustees can take action on their own. By the way, we have no standing committees or teams in our church--only key leaders with areas of reponsibility. These key leaders are, of course, encouraged to recruit their own teams to assist them in their particular areas of ministry. Ministry leaders are permitted to serve for multiple years seemlessly, while both Deacons and Trustees are required to take a year off after having served for three continuous years.

I have walls of snow everywhere I go...it's like living in a castle.