Particularization Congregational Letter #2: Leadership Makeup

Dear HPF,

My first job out of school was working for a gruff yet skilled Bostonian carpenter named Joe Buckley. Joe did really fine work, and he did it carefully. My main jobs were to ensure that he could do his work with minimal distraction or inefficiency. That meant I basically worked to ‘keep the equipment out of the thoroughfare, Corby,’ ‘sand that ’til it’s smooth,’ and often ‘Go look in my cube van, near the sawzall case and the driver bits and get me the right tool.’ Joe would stop his skilled work and wait for me to find the best tool for the job, often ending up searching the messy van himself.

Our Boss, Jesus, is the same way when He works to shape His church and renew this world: He uses all the best tools at His disposal. As we follow Him into this new phase of particularization, we should follow that example and employ the best people in the best places. Too often the church has gone beyond the Scriptures in limiting the service of our non-ordained members. Too often we employ a handful of ordained elders to do too much of the work of the church. That’s a problem we want to solve.

In 2017, our denomination sought to address this issue by offering guidance to all our churches in a document entitled Report on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church. This report essentially recommended the actions we’re taking here: to ensure the gifts of our women are fully included in the internal and external shepherding ministries of our church. In addition to ensuring that our elders receive the input of wise women into broader issues, we also need these trained and recognized women shepherds to walk with our female members through the struggles and joys of life. While the Scriptures are clear that God has structured families and the church family with certain roles belonging to each gender, that doesn’t mean we can’t offer help to each other in our various services to our King.

To make sure that we are not working without the best resources, we will be receiving nominations for the office of elder as well as recommendations for women shepherds from the congregation beginning January 5 and ending January 19. Once those have been received, a Nominating Committee made up of our 3 elders (Greg, John, Corby), 2 female members, and 1 male member will work through that list and discern (along with the candidates themselves) who is ready to enter the training. After 6 weeks of training and discernment, the session will then present to the congregation a ballot consisting of a slate of elders and female shepherds to work together to guide our church, care for our people, and extend our impact. The congregation will vote on the entire slate of candidates (not individual candidates). If we have all done our jobs well, we will celebrate our first leadership team with their ordinations (elders) and commissioning (female shepherds) in early May.

We recognize that this leaves some questions unanswered concerning how elders and female shepherds will collaborate in providing care. Our session continues to pray and to research the practices of other churches in order to refine our structure for our leadership team. In keeping with our polity, our commissioned female shepherds will not have a formal vote on the session, but their wisdom will be sought and employed in our church’s life. As we approach our nominating and recommending process, you will receive a document that describes the purpose and work of this role along with guidance on the characteristics and giftings that men and women in these respective roles ought to possess. In the meantime, we encourage you to look at these Scriptural passages to receive guidance on the characteristics of an elder and of wise women in our church: 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, Titus 2:3–5.

We welcome your questions and thoughts as we move forward together into God’s vision for Highland Park Fellowship. And please, please join us at our prayer gatherings (Wednesdays, 7–10 AM at the church office), so we can become more unified in our pursuit of our Father’s plan for our church!

On Behalf of the Session of HPF,

Pastor Corby Shields | corby@hpfellowship.org

Elders:

Dr. John Forman | johnwformanmd@gmail.com

Greg Duble | cruiserking95@gmail.com

Timeline

• January 5–19: Nominations Open

• Week of January 20: Nominating Committee Meets

• Week of January 27: First Training Meeting (1 of 6)

• February: Weekly Training Meetings

• February 8: Petition Presbytery for Particularization

• February 28–March 2: Whole Church Retreat

• Week of March 2: Final Training Meeting

• March 15: Session Tests Candidates Who Have Completed Training

• March 23: Congregation Presented with Slate of Elders and Female Shepherds

• April 20 (Easter Sunday): Congregational Meeting to Vote on Slate

• May 4: Particularization Service (Evening)