Matt Chandler - Madness

Well, how are you doing? Excellent! If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. Philippians chapter 4 is where we’re going to start, and from there, I’ll have you turn to one other place. I don’t know that we’ll be long tonight. In fact, even as I started preparing this series, I kind of had tonight as a bit of a stopgap between ideas. But I never know until we dive in, so let’s just get going and see how it goes—maybe 35 minutes, maybe 45, or even 52. We’ll just give it a go.

Before we get started, I need to have a conversation with you. I need to announce some things, and from there, I need to inform you of some other matters. So, if you are a guest with us today, welcome! We’re glad that you are here. The Village Church is elder-governed, and what I mean by that is that at the top of our organizational chart, underneath Jesus Christ, there is a plurality of leadership. This means there are no kings here; there isn’t one man who can make any decision unilaterally. Therefore, in our decision-making about the church, we always require a plurality of elders to make decisions, which are then rolled down and rolled back up. That’s how we operate. We function this way because we believe that the Word of God indicates that this is the best way to operate; it is what’s safest for the people of God and for those in power.

Furthermore, we govern ourselves via an elder board, which must always include a majority of non-paid elders. Your campus pastors and lead pastors are always elders at The Village Church, and we also need to have at least one more elder on the board, represented at any given time. We implement this for financial accountability and to ensure it becomes nearly impossible for it to turn into a «good old boy» club that rules and reigns as it pleases. We’ve organized it this way again because we believe the Word of God compels us in this direction, if not outright states that this is how it should be done.

Several months ago, we voted, in addition to our historically central elder board, to begin building out campus-specific elders who are responsible at the campus level for caring for our members. When we experienced a numbers spike at The Village, we looked at the ratio of how many elders we had versus how many members we had, and we realized it would be impossible for the current elders to care for all the people God had brought to the church. Thus, you affirmed the addition of more elders who would not just be central elders but also campus-specific elders.

According to our bylaws, I need to present to you a series of names of men I am laying before you as elder candidates. We have thoroughly vetted them, as our vetting process is stringent. Elders are easy to bring on but difficult to remove. We’ve vetted these candidates, but perhaps you know things about these brothers that we have not uncovered. Maybe something in their background is inconsistent with how the Bible instructs an elder in the church to live. I’m going to give you their names today, and you will have 21 days to let us know if you believe they are biblically disqualified.

Notice how I phrased that: I said they are biblically not qualified—not just that you don’t like them, or you get a weird vibe. None of that will suffice. Picking up on vibes won’t work in this case. Even if you have the gift of discernment, I praise God for that gift, but we’re going to need more than that. Let me present these names to you, and then I have another announcement and a conversation we need to have—one that I wish we didn’t, but we need to.

The elders for the Flower Mound campus I am laying before you are Daryl Parish and Daryl Aaan. Additionally, because we now have space and a plus two majority on the elder board, we’re going to promote Trevor Joy, who runs the staff here at the Flower Mound campus and assists me, Patterson, and Miller with regard to the campus. We will roll him up onto the elder board.