Today is going to look a little different. We're taking a break from the book of Romans. Every once in a while, we will do topics here. It's not common. We really have to feel that an issue rises to the level that our entire church needs to be part of the conversation. And as you can tell, we don't fit anywhere anymore to do a one-time meeting. And so today I want to talk to you about some stuff that's just tied to church leadership and constitution and structure here at the church. So if you were here last weekend, you heard Jeremy preach. I thought he did an incredible job. I actually came to the 1130 and sat right over there.

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And he did awesome and talked about the church and the foundations of the church. And if you're a note taker, you loved it. You loved every minute of it because it was organized and it was on point. And that's over. It's because I'm back. And so it's going to be a mess this morning, but it's going to be fun. And so today I want to get really practical. I want to talk to you about some changes that we are proposing to our church constitution and to some of the ways we function here as a church. And I think there's a few different groups in the room. There's some that you'd love to talk about church.

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constitutions and there's like four of you and you love it and you're deeply, deeply involved in it. I think the majority of people are just going, man, we like it at Eastmont. It seems happy and healthy and we're cool. And that's great. I'm glad you're here. But I want you to know why we do the things we do, why our leadership is structured the way it's structured. I want you to be able to trust, even if you're not involved intimately, that you know the process and how we think. And it's a really important thing for the church.

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to be clear on its structure, its leadership, and to be walking in a level of accountability and transparency and godliness so that we don't harm our testimony. There's no shortage of stories of churches that have fallen, pastors that have fallen, churches that have hidden things, that have scandals. There is no shortage of that, especially in recent time. In fact, I would argue that this is an incredibly important topic because it's tied directly to our

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ministry in our city. I was looking at a Gallup poll. This is a discouraging one for pastors. It was talking about different occupations and how the American public rate them. How many people, what percentage of people would say that they would give this group of people very high honesty and ethical standards. And so if you see the first slide, this is, it's not great for anyone. But if you go to the next slide, it isolates clergy. And as you can tell,

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We're going the wrong direction. I've always jokingly said with my law enforcement friends that at least someone in this town is less popular than me. And I've come to find out that's actually not true. Clergy were over 10 points lower than law enforcement. And we just barely beat out... Union labor bosses. So it's not going great. And the steep trajectory is, I mean, if you look at the bottom, there's politicians, but they've always been at the bottom. But we're actually working our way to the bottom, which I think speaks for the church, that the church needs to get its house in order.

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It doesn't mean that there aren't maybe some variables in here that aren't fair or aren't just, but for the most part, the church, when it claims to have a certain level of standard for its leadership and then fails to live up to that, it is detrimental to its testimony in the city. And so I think more than ever, this is an important time for the church to be clear and to have not only clarity of their organization, but purity in their practice.

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And so I want to talk a little bit about the church, but I want to start with maybe a broader kind of topic, and then I want to start kind of with big conversations. I want to talk about church history, theology, and then we'll end really practical just talking about our church and our process here. So the first question we have to answer is whether or not the church leadership should be centralized or localized. In the recent, I don't know, the last maybe few decades, there has been, especially in recent years, a real push for young people my age and younger.

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say I'm still young, but younger people to move towards Catholicism. There seems to be a resurgence in that. I think a lot of that is tied to a deep desire for reverence and seriousness. And if I'm honest, I think that some of that is self-inflicted by evangelical churches because we've acted silly. We've done silly stuff for 30 years. We've dressed up. We've done weird things. You know, we've acted not serious. And now when the world gets really broken and really serious, people are looking for something transcendent.

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The problem is they mistakenly believe that the formal structure of Catholicism actually represents the transcendent God. And I would argue that the scriptures are what represent this transcendent God and that we have not done a good job in representing that. Now, when I talk about centralized church or localized church, the biggest difference, kind of the two ends of the spectrum would be the Roman Catholic Church and the church that you're sitting in.

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The Roman Catholic Church believes that there is a hierarchy of leadership. We just had a, I don't know what they call it, a selection of a new pope. And so there's a man from Chicago who is now the head of the church, at least according to the Roman Catholics. And he is now the kind of in the seat of Peter, they would say. And then there's churches like ours that would go, no, church leadership is tied locally to a local church. And then you have...

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variations in between of maybe denominational churches where local churches still kind of fall under the authority and decision-making of a denomination as opposed to being autonomous. Now, maybe if you've taken a Bible class or you've gone to church long enough, you've maybe heard different analogies used for how to explain the church. And so some would say the big C church and the little c church.

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the universal church, and the local church. And what they're trying to demonstrate is that the word church can be used in two different ways. The first way that it's used is in a redeemed people of God sense. Matthew 16, verse 18. We're not going to talk about Peter being the first pope because it's not what's happening here, but I want to point out something else in this text. Jesus tells Peter, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church. And the question is, what does he mean by church?

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And I believe this refers to the whole of the redeemed people of God. The church is reflected by those who are born again, put their faith in the Lord Jesus, regardless of their geographical location. Which if you go and travel around the world and you meet someone who's put their faith in Jesus, they're part of the church, just like you're part of the church. So in one sense, it's a universal term. The church is the entirety of the people of God who have turned from their sin and trusted in the Savior.

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But the second way that it's used is in a localized context. And God's plan and providence, not only would the universal church be true, but that would be played out in local areas, in local communities with local church leaders. Revelation 1 verse 4 says this, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia. He's clearly speaking to individual local church congregations. Chapter 2 verse 1, to the angel of the church.

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in Ephesus, which meant there was a local church in the city of Ephesus that he was talking to. For what it's worth, some who are watching online right now, online church is not church, okay? Oh, look at that. Where's the camera? It's not church, right? If you are injured, you just had a baby, or you can't make it to church for some other reason, we're really glad you can watch online. That's not church. Church is local. It's community. It's to be within your

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region in your area, that you go to church with people that you run into at Safeway and Costco and other kinds of places around town, that this community is a local church expression that fulfills the reality of this broader church picture. Now, Catholics would argue, no, no, no, there's a...

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Local church expressions, yes, these local parishes, but all of them fall under a leadership structure that is tied to the Apostle Peter and the structure that God had given. The problem with that is the New Testament does not teach that. In fact, faithful Catholics would have to concede that nowhere in the New Testament is their current structure of church government and leadership.

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They rely heavily on church history going to the end of the second, into the mid-third century to argue that their current structure of papal authority working its way down through cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and priests is actually founded not in the New Testament text, but in church history. And then they take church history and read assumptions into the New Testament text that simply are not there. Ephesians 2, verse 20. Jeremy mentioned this last week, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

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Which means the church was built on the foundation of the apostles. The apostles were foundational, meaning you lay a foundation one time. They were responsible to start and to plant and to write the New Testament that would give shape to the church. And then the church would be handed off to local expressions. And we see this throughout the New Testament. Titus 1 verse 5. This is why I left you in Crete. This is the Apostle Paul writing. So that you might put what remained...

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What's the point? Local churches need to have local leaders. And so as Paul would plant churches and move on and plant churches and move on, he would then plant a church, establish a church, and they needed to appoint elders within their... inside their geographical context, that that local church would be responsible to preach the gospel, to be faithful to the scriptures, and to have church leaders who weren't accountable to a regional director, but were accountable to the people and to the word of God. In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul writes this, that is why I sent you Timothy. Timothy's a local church pastor.

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my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church. So churches were being planted, leaders were being established inside local contexts. 2 Timothy 2, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

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The picture here is that Paul, the apostle, would plant churches. Then these pastors and shepherds and elders would then disciple and train men within their local church congregation to become the next round of leaders. Local church ministry. You don't see that there will be an archbishop over a regional area and that he will then give clarity and guidance to you as a priest. You don't see that. What you see is local churches being planted and then functioning autonomously under the authority of God's word.

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which would be the teaching of the apostles, and then these faithful men would have to meet the requirements laid out in the scriptures with character, and then they would lead those local churches. Now, to understand a little bit of how we've gotten to where we are today with the Catholic picture of church and the Baptist version of church, I think it's good to look at church history. For what it's worth, I've seen many Protestants get confused by this when someone says, well, look at the Apostles' Creed.

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I believe in one Catholic church. That's not what they're talking about. The word Catholic in the early church meant universal church. They were saying that anyone from any tribe, tongue, or nation could come to faith in Christ and be part of the family of God. Catholic did not refer to the current hierarchy and structure we see inside Roman Catholicism. It referred to the universal believers. Genuine Catholics who studied will know that that's true. But let's get a little bit of history.

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The Reformation happens. The Catholic Church is now basically at war with Martin Luther. And after the Protestant Reformation, you have essentially Catholicism and Lutheranism becoming the kind of two main players. And if you were in Germany following that, if you were born in Germany, you would be baptized into the Lutheran Church because they adopted infant baptism, which we reject here.

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And the Catholics would baptize you if you were born in Italy into the Catholic Church. And they would say that you were a member of either the Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church because you were born and baptized into the church that was tied to the state. And then this peculiar group of people show up. They're called the Anabaptists. And nobody likes them. This has been true for all of church history. They show up and they say, well, actually, no.

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You should get baptized after you have become a Christian, after you have made a profession of faith. It is not baptism into the state religion that saves your soul. It's not baptism as an infant that saves your soul. It's turning from your sin and trusting in Jesus as your Savior that makes you a Christian, and you should be baptized following that. Anabaptists meant re-baptizers. The Lutherans hated them. The Catholics hated them.

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because they were an assault on the state religion of those two different groups. They were persecuted and even martyred for their belief that churches should be formed with believing Christians who got baptized after conversion, who met in local churches with local church authority. As opposed to what we see today in the Catholic Church, which is very different.

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Catholics would have about six levels. We kind of mentioned them already. They would have deacons. We see deacons in the New Testament. They would have a priest. A priest is kind of the level that you would see maybe me at. And then they would have a bishop. A bishop is like a... just a little bit higher, and usually has some kind of, maybe not regional, but more than one parish, more than one church that he would oversee. Then you get to archbishop. They start to become regional directors, if you will, of this organization. Then you get to the cardinals, and they're the really important archbishops because they get to vote on the pope who is in the seat of Peter. And all of that has been created through church history, not found in the New Testament. The New Testament clearly teaches that there was a foundation of the apostles,

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and prophets, and now there is the local church ministry. So let's have some clarity of terms. I found that many Protestants get confused by this because Catholics will talk to them and go, well, you know, there's bishops and there's priests in the New Testament, and your church just doesn't like the words, and so you just call everyone a pastor. So let's talk about the Greek.

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Because all of us are talking about translations, there's three different Greek words that I believe are used for the same office. And the office is the elder overseer pastor. First word is episkopos in Greek. It means guardian, overseer, and can be translated as bishop. We see it in 1 Timothy 3, Acts 20, Philippians 1, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 2. The second word is presbyteros. This is where we get the word presbyter.

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Or maybe you've heard of the Presbyterians. They find their name here. It also can be translated as elder, the office, and old. We find it in Titus 1, 1 Timothy 5, 1 Peter 5, James 5. And then we have one more term given. Paul gives it in Ephesians 4.11. Jeremy preached on this last week. The Greek word is poimen. It means shepherd.

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Those are the three words given for the elders, overseers of the church. Now, some of you are going, well, then why do we call people pastors? Because pastor is a Latin translation of poimen, the Greek word shepherd. So when you call someone a pastor, you are calling them the title that has been kind of worked through different languages that ties to Ephesians 4, but clearly a term referring to an elder, an overseer.

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Now, we need to have clarity in the office because if we understand the words, the question is, do the words reflect individual offices where there are sharp distinctions as maybe Catholics would argue, but even Catholics have added groups that are not found in the scriptures. So bishop, archbishop, cardinal. We're starting to get a little loose with language. Amen? I believe these are one office. Let me give you some reasons for that. First, the qualifications are the same.

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Titus 1 is maybe the most clear example of this because in Titus 1.5, he uses a different word than he uses in verse 7. In verse 5, he talks about appointing elders, the word that we would get from presbyteros. But then he gives the qualifications two verses later, and he uses the term episkopos.

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He's using two different terms to explain the same office. There is no logical, reasonable way to read Titus 1 and come to the conclusion that he meant two offices. One of them he mentioned just briefly, and the second one got all the qualifications. He's clearly using two different words to explain the same kind of office. And this is not uncommon in the Bible. In fact, when Jesus talks to Peter, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, he's using different words to show a comprehensive view of the role that he would have as a shepherd.

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So here in Titus, we see both words worked out. And then the qualifications mirrored in Timothy's account also tell us that this is one office that share the same qualifications. Acts chapter 20, we see that they're doing the same work. We see that there's the work of the deacon and the work of the elder, but even in Acts 20, we see that the elder, the overseer, all of this language is tied to the same office. Acts chapter 20.

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Paul, again, he plants churches. He leaves. He plants, he leaves. He plants, he leaves. This is what he's doing. And then he'll circle back to encourage and to equip. But this is what he's doing. He knows that he is nearing the end of his life. He knows that he probably will never see them again. So in verse 17, it says this. Now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. What church? The Ephesian church. A local church with what? Local leaders. And he calls to them.

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And then he tells them some things they honestly don't want to hear about how he's leaving, and he gives them goodbyes. Verse 28, he says this to them. The Apostle Paul, the foundation, saying this to the church leaders. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Remember that word? To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

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I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish, teach everyone with tears. He is telling them that their job is to be shepherds, teachers, overseers, and they are the elders of the church. 1 Peter 5.

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We see Peter say something similar. Now, Jeremy talked about this last week. I think it's actually really helpful. All apostles were disciples, not all disciples were apostles. Remember that? A really helpful way to think. Great example of this, 1 Peter 5. Peter writes this, so I exhort the elders among you. Well, among who? You being a geographical group called a local church. As a fellow elder.

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Now, he is more than an elder because he's an apostle, but he is identifying himself with the shepherds and the teachers of the local church. As a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

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And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. He's clearly speaking to local church elders, pastors, overseers, shepherds. Now let's make it personal. Let's talk about our church. I believe that Eastmont is a local church expression and that we need to be faithful to the text.

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And that the promise made by Jesus to Peter that the church will never fail is true of the church universally, but not true of a local church. Which means that we can live in such a way that we can actually pull ourselves out of the game. We can bench ourselves and no longer be a church. There have been plenty of churches that have started, flourished, and died. It doesn't mean that God isn't faithful to his church. It just means that that local church expression had a run and it no longer has a run.

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This church is 45 years old. I pray that it gets to much, much older than that. I pray that it outlives every single one of us in this room. But for that to be true, we must be faithful in our season.

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And so the way that churches function is we have our Bibles and we look at it and we read it and we go, okay, how do we structure the church? And then we have very clear imperatives. Remember a couple weeks ago, I talked about how to make decisions, how to process information. You have very clear textual imperatives. And then you get to like contextual imperatives. You're like, okay, it's obviously very clear here. And then you get to wisdom principles. And then you get to Christian liberty. Remember that? I think those were my four points. It's kind of the same thing in church leadership. We look at it and we go, okay, what is the...

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text clearly say? What are the requirements for the office? And then you get to a point of like, okay, well, how do we make decisions? Let me give you a really practical one. Well, let me start with a negative story about constitutions. Constitutions should serve the church. That's the goal, and they need to be under the authority of the scripture. When I was 20 years old, I was at my dad's church. I was in a meeting. I was too young and dumb to know I shouldn't talk.

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It's been a story of most of my life. And we were talking about the Constitution, and I remember saying, that's not what the Bible says. To which one of the deacons, good school, you know, old school Baptists, they don't have elders, they stop at deacons for no known reason to mankind. He says, well, it really doesn't matter what the Bible says, this is what the Constitution says. I remember thinking, like, that doesn't feel right.

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And that church had to transition from unhealthy church government to healthy church government. That was a real painful process. Practical one, maybe a little more lighthearted. When you came in today, you may have noticed there was a gravel section in our parking lot. It's where our beautiful modulars are. We don't like to brag a lot about our buildings, but in our temporary buildings, there's this nice gravel square. And some of you might wonder, why is there a gravel square right in front of the church?

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It's because in 1988, there was a plan to build a building there. And in good Baptist form, we're not going to pay to put asphalt where we're going to build a building because that would be a waste of money. That was in 1988. The year I was born, they were like, we're not doing this. So 37 years later, we're still parking on gravel.

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because we didn't want to pay extra money to pave a part. Now, by God's grace, eventually we will build a building there, and it'll all be good. And so we just went 40 years without having gravel. Who made that decision? Well, the church did. How do they make decisions? Well, the elders of the church are responsible not only for the spiritual care, but for the practical decisions that get made in a local church. Is there a verse that talks about paving your parking lot? No? I mean, I think there's some wisdom there that maybe was missed, but, right? When I got here,

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we didn't have a maintenance budget. So like, this is a lot of square footage for no maintenance budget. And I think in good Baptist form, they thought Jesus will for sure come back before we need a new roof. And he didn't. And I remember being in a meeting, we're like, we don't have any money. And we're like, we need a roof. We're like, well, those are two real bummer situations to be in. We had to come to the church and go, hey, everybody, our bad. We don't have money to put a roof on, so we need you to maybe help us out. And people are like, well, did you not budget for it? Like, nah.

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Those are wisdom principles, right? That's how we make decisions. It's how we think. And so there's the clear teaching of the church, and then there's the way that we flesh this out practically. When the church started with less than 50 people 45 years ago, the Constitution was written for that church in that time. The Constitution had no plan of there ever being more than one pastor. There was a pastor. There was maybe a secretary.

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And then there was deacons. And so the Constitution was written like that. In fact, by the time I came and I candidated in 2012, the Constitution had changed, but it still didn't really have a lane for pastors. As I was prepping for the sermon, I came across this picture in an old email from 13 years ago. So I thought I'd show this to you. This is what was given out to the church the weekend I candidated here.

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It was in the bulletin as a little document. I had no children. My son thought that was offensive. And in there, it talked about, like, Blaine loves the local church. Now, the problem is I got hired as a pastor, but I wasn't an elder. And that was confusing to me because I remember I was just not invited to elder meetings. I don't think they valued my input, rightfully so. And I was quick to speak and slow to listen, so it was probably good that I didn't get to go into all the meetings. But I remember asking, like, what am I?

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You're a pastor. Yeah, but in the Constitution, there's elders and then there's deacons. Like, what am I? You're a deacon-qualified pastor. I go, that's not a thing. That's not an actual thing. Pastor comes from poimen, the Greek word, speaking of elders. That doesn't make sense. So what am I? I'm this kind of nebulous group that wanders around. In fact, the Constitution was written.

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I found it after I had been here a couple years that said that, you know, when you're 24 and you get hired, you're not like, first thing I'm going to do is read the church's constitution. You know, you get there and you're like, what is this? What's going on here? And I read it and it said that the deacons were in charge of running the ministry and the pastor's job was to pray for them and encourage them. And I'm like, this is awesome. I've been working way too hard. Got all the deacons, the youth deacons. And I said, listen, guys, we're going to have a, you know, we're going to get back to the constitution. Because it's not.

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There was no ill will. It's just the church had grown beyond what the Constitution understood in its practical ways. What carried on from there was a distinction between pastors and elders that remains in our Constitution until today. And we're trying to reconcile that. A couple other things. We'll get to that in a second. I want to talk practical stuff in a second. But also, the documents have changed. I told our elders I was right then and I'm right now, even though they were two different things I was saying.

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At one point, we changed membership, and we called it partnership. Who was here long enough to remember that? It was an embarrassing time for us. Because you guys were like, and here's what everyone asked. What is partnership? And here's what we were forced to say. Well, it's membership. But the reason we changed it is because membership carried with it an unhealthy understanding of your involvement in the church. Now, some of you are like, you know, that's why I don't like organized religion, because, you know, the church is a mess. Well, guess what? You're going to fit in great, okay? Because you're a mess.

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I always laugh when people go, well, you know, I have church hurt. Let me tell you a church story about a members meeting. My dad's church at this time, I was on staff and the way it was, it was a small church. We were trying to transition. My dad was leading this church through some really difficult decisions and they were an obstinate people. And I was sitting in a meeting, a church business meeting in the auditorium. And the lady in front of me stands up.

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And she said, because everyone got to see every single detail of every element of the church, including all of our salaries, and I got paid, I think, $1,200 a year. I don't want to brag, but, you know, it was not a lot. I didn't get paid a lot of money. And this lady stood up and she said, with me sitting directly behind her, I don't know why we pay Blaine. The person who did it before him did it for free and did it better.

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And then she sat down and I was like, wow, that was weird. And on the other side of the room, someone went, amen. I remember thinking like, what? And my wife looked at me and I'm like, no, this is cool. This is totally normal. This is actually not a bad meeting. You know, we left and went, that was not as, it could have been worse. We used to have member meetings that would have more people attend than the Sunday service because people would keep their membership going so they could come just to vote no.

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And so we tried to break membership in some ways because it didn't mean, and so we were like, what if we just said we were going to partner with what God is doing here? That was what we tried to do, and then it was super weird, so we call it membership again. Another thing we did was we called deacons ministry team leaders. Like, why would you take a biblical term and replace it? Because for a season, we needed to recalibrate what people understood as deacons meant leaders in the church, and we needed to recalibrate that as a ministry leader. You're a servant of a ministry. You are not an elder.

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And so now we just call them deacons again. The first season, we had to kind of reset. We had to set the bone, if you will. Had to reset some expectations. Now, since 2014, the bones of our constitution fundamentally changed. And there's a... I could tell you some pretty crazy stories over my time here, but I won't bore you. But we had kind of a new constitution with some new bones. And...

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That has kind of carried on to today with revisions and changes. And in the last, I don't know, eight years that I've been in this role, I don't know how long it's been, eight or nine years, we've made some changes, but there's some areas that still haven't changed. And so I want to kind of tell you what those changes are that we're proposing as a church. They're not...

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they're not going to change much of how we function because we've been functioning in ways that we believe are biblical and healthy. We just are trying to get our document to catch up. So the first major change. We are moving towards our document, our constitution, with one office of elder, pastor, overseer, not two. Now, the way our constitution is currently written, there is an elder team, there are pastors, and then there are other leaders, but...

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The problem is we don't see that in the text. Let me give you an example of why I think this is not the best method moving forward. TJ and Jeremy, who have both preached in the last eight weeks, are not elders at the church. They're pastors, but they're not elders. As our current constitution is written, I am the only staff pastor who is an elder.

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Now, some might say, well, that was probably done for wisdom and this and accountability. That's fine. We can talk about all of those things and we'll talk about that in a second, but that's not in the text. It is not in the text to have a preaching, teaching pastor who's a non-elder. In fact, it violates the very teaching of the New Testament because what is the thing that makes an elder different than a deacon? The ability to teach. So now we're getting our most qualified men.

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in front of you to open the word, to preach and teach, and then behind the scenes, they don't vote in an elder meeting because they're not elders. We don't believe that's a biblical model. So that's the first major change. Secondly, as a result of that, that we're going to be removing distinctions that are carved out for lead pastor. And you'll see all this, members, you're going to see this probably in your inbox tonight, tomorrow morning.

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you'll be able to see the old constitution, the revisions, we'll highlight it. It'll be very clear what we're making changes to. Categories of lead pastor aren't as necessary because pastors are elders, elders are pastors. And so, and before you're like, oh, here it is. Church got big and now it got easier. It got easier for me to get fired. Okay, so just hold on to your hats. I'll explain that in a second too. This is not a, Blaine's grease in the skids so he can, you know, live here forever. I promise you that's not what's happening. But because there's not a distinction between elder, because it's one office,

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category of lead pastor is not going to be as part and parceled out. Now, lead pastor and lay elders are still, there's going to be still membership affirmation in, but we see it as one office. So some of those distinctions are going away. And then thirdly, our heart and desire is always to vote in consensus. And we have been honestly really good at that as a church leadership. And I'll tell you what, we've been through some hard days as a church, some really hard days. And we have found consensus.

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We still want to seek that, but we also need to acknowledge as the church gets bigger and as we have more staff pastors and more elders that we may get to an impasse. And there's one person that goes, I can't get behind putting a new roof on because I think Jesus is coming back. Okay, well, we need to vote still and we need to make a decision. And so we're adding in some percentages that allow our elder team to make decisions. And listen, I don't veto that. I could be the one, no. And it would still go forward.

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So there's some practical things that we're building in that you'll see as well. Which brings us, I think, to another question. What about accountability? Is there actual accountability here? Does Blaine just do whatever he wants? No. I can tell you that. I can promise you that. I made it very, very, very clear on my first day that I would not have access to anything that anyone gives. I have no access to that. I have no idea. I have very little access to actually many things.

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Cheryl at times will give me access to things on accident and then she'll text me, sorry, and my access will be removed because I will end up messing it up because I don't understand computers that well. I am not in charge of hiring and firing pastors. I haven't been able to do that since I started. That was not true in 2014 when this constitution was being rewritten. I remember sitting in a meeting where the individual I was talking to, we were talking about the, he was going to be a pastor, I was a pastor.

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And it was written that for him to be fired, it had to be a unanimous vote of the elder team with no one being absent. And for me to be fired, he could just tell me I'm fired. I remember thinking like, this seems like a bad deal for me and a really good deal for you. We don't function like that. We haven't functioned like that in the eight or nine years I've been in this role. So as far as accountability, I don't have the capacity or the ability to fire pastors or to remove elders.

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That has to happen with all of them, which means I don't get to talk about my staff pastors or misrepresent them in the room because they're there. Now, they've been there for the last eight years. They're always invited, but now they get to vote. And you know what? They get to vote on me too. There's a mutual submission. We believe in plurality, not personality.

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And so there's a mutual submission being built in. Secondly, there is an organizational hierarchy that has to be in any organization. We have 24 staff upstairs. We have another 30 down here with the school. So Eastmont's got a lot going on. There's organizational decision-making, but that is not the same as value in office. So there is still some organizational hierarchy in the way that we make decisions with Dan being executive pastor, me being lead, and all these kind of things. But that doesn't mean that we're not both peers as it comes to our spiritual call in this church.

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which means that there isn't a hierarchy that allows me as a lead pastor to terminate other pastors without the elders' involvement and vice versa. So fourthly, another section you'll see removed is that removing the lead pastor is now removed from the Constitution because now it's removal of an elder. I'll tell you a funny story. We were out camping, so I drove in for this meeting because I knew we needed to talk about this. So I'm in my truck with headphones, Zoom calling in, and we get to this section.

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And I don't know who it was. I can't remember now. And they were like, hey, let's talk about the removal of lead pastor. I'm like, this will be interesting because I have a lot invested here. And here's what it used to say, that I could be removed for, and I quote, substantial non-performance of the primary role of lead pastor due to a debilitating health or consequential neglect. And the question was, why does he have to be sick?

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to be fired if he's incompetent. I'm like, so listening, and I'm like, I like that. If I'm healthy and bad at my job, you're stuck. If I get sick and I'm bad at my job, then I'm on the chopping block, right? I'll walk up here, I'm fine. Everyone, I'm fine. And so we removed that, and so now it's not just lead pastor, it's all elders, lay elders and vocational elders says this, substantial non-performance of the role of an elder.

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which means that all elders are mutually accountable to one another and can be removed for not doing their job. That includes me. I don't get two votes. I don't have veto power. I'm one of many. We think that's more biblical. We think it shows a greater degree of transparency, and it protects the church against an arrogant leader who would take over and begin to impose his will. It really makes it really hard for that to happen in this model. Okay, no document is perfect.

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acknowledge that. What we're trying to do is move our document into greater alignment with the New Testament, where it's clear and theologically clear, and we're trying to be really wise and practical in the way that we're doing that. If you have questions, you're a member, you're going to see all this, okay? You're going to be able to read it. If you're not a member, you can probably get it too. It's not like a confidential document, but we're going to be bringing this to you in a few weeks to get your affirmation on. One last note, just as far as semantics, while it is one office, we're still going to use two terms, and it's not because we believe there's two offices, it's just because it's easy.

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And it makes sense. So non-paid, non-vocational elders, we still will call elders. Vocational elders, we'll call pastors for the sake of clarity. Because if you don't do that, it just gets super confusing, right? So it's like, hey, I want to talk to a pastor. What we mean by that is the guys that have vocationally given their lives to being here, which means they're going to have way more time. And that's the gift that you as a church give to us.

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It doesn't mean that we're higher or lower in our office than the other elders. It just means that we have been given the privilege of working here by your generosity and kindness so we have more time and more accessibility.

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And so just for clarity's sake, we're not gonna ask you to call us elders right now. We think it's one office, but you can call us pastors still. And pastor is the word that we'll use. It's clear in the Constitution too that way we're writing it. We have definitions for both, same office, but there is a unique and distinct difference between a vocational and a non-vocational. And so that's how we are gonna part and parcel that up, okay? All right, let me end with this. Some of you are like, well, that was a waste of a weekend.

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Came to church and they talked about the constitution. My goodness. The constitution of a church matters because it's made for your hardest, worst day at church. Right now, Eastmont's healthy. Healthier than I could ever have dreamed it would be. And so most of you are like, this is awesome, cool, whatever. We're just happy to be here. One day in my current office,

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But all the way back in 2014, I remember us flipping to the last page of the Constitution as an elder team to see who gets the building if we go under. Your Constitution is built for your worst day, to create checks and balances on your worst day. So some of you are like, eh, cool, thumbs up. I appreciate your trust, but it does matter.

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And then the very last thing I'll say is this. I know that trust is earned and it takes time and it can be lost in a second. And so for most of you, I think there's a level of credited trust that I appreciate. And my prayer and our team's prayer is that this continues to build trust with you. That in our good days, we still take all of these things very seriously. We take the call to pastoring and...

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to being an elder very seriously. We take the call to protecting the unity of the church very seriously. And so I hope that you know that those men behind the scenes early in the morning care deeply about you.

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And hopefully that's reflected in some of these changes. And so we hope that this continues to increase your trust for our staff. If you have questions, I'll be in the lobby. Dan's in the lobby. We can kind of, if we know it off the top of my head, we'll tell you. If not, members, you're gonna be getting an email. You'll have all the drafts and in a few weeks we'll vote, okay? And then next week we'll get back to just Book of Romans, okay? Let me pray for us and we'll call it a morning. Jesus, we thank you.

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for your love for us. And we thank you for the privilege that we have to be part of your family, this universal church of people because you have saved us by your blood. But Jesus, we also pray for our local church. I'm grateful that we get to come to church together, that this is like a family and a community that we get to be part of. And so God, I pray that in our time, that we would be faithful.

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that everything from how we make decisions to how we structure to the way our constitution is written, God, I pray that it would be as closely aligned with scriptures as can humanly be. And I pray that in practice, that our elders and pastors would live and lead in such a way that is consistent with what we claim to be true. God, we pray for your protection over this church. There's no shortage of stories,

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Pastors and church leaders who have brought disgrace upon the name of Christ. God, we just openly acknowledge that we are as vulnerable to that as they were. So God, would you keep us? Would you protect us? I pray that our documents, while they might be guardrails, that the heart of each leader would be the thing that keeps us on the road. That we would love you. That we would walk humbly with you.

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And that as a result of not only our structure, but our actual leadership in this church, I pray that this church would be a faithful representation of the good news of Christ. God, would you help Eastmont to outlive all of us and to be really an embassy of truth in the middle of Oregon for decades and decades to come. And so God, we pray that we would run this leg of the race that you have called us to well.

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Pray for our elders and our pastors. Pray for wisdom. Pray that you would lead. And we pray that your name would be honored in this city. Amen.