Part Eight named the most widespread of the failure modes — eldership not installed at all, or installed in name but functioning primarily as a board. This part addresses that situation directly. It is written for bodies that have read Parts One through Eight and recognised, honestly, that the spiritual eldership the New Testament describes has not been alive in their body — perhaps for years, perhaps for the entire history of the body. The pathway that follows is for the body that has come to that recognition and wants to walk forward.
9.1 The Honest Diagnosis
The pattern is widespread enough to name plainly. In many Western churches today, the elders that exist function primarily as board members: they meet to approve budgets, oversee compliance, sign legal documents, vote on staffing decisions. The shepherding work that the New Testament gives to elders — knowing the Saints, watching over their souls, teaching sound doctrine, praying for the sick, exercising discipline, walking with people through joy and suffering, giving an account before God for those under their care — is either non-existent or scattered across volunteer small-group leaders whose oversight is brief, informal, often short-lived, and frequently lacks the spiritual and pastoral weight scripture envisages. The result is a structure that looks like a church but functions like an organisation: programmes operate, the board governs, services are attended, but the spiritual eldership the New Testament describes is functionally absent. This is the elephant in the room of much of the contemporary Western Church.
Naming this honestly is not condemnation; it is diagnosis. A body that recognises the gap has done the harder work — the work of seeing clearly. The temptation that follows is to feel either discouraged ("we are not what we thought we were") or defensive ("but our programmes are working"). Both responses miss the moment. The honest recognition that the spiritual eldership function has been missing is not the end of the story; it is the beginning of one of the most fruitful seasons a body can enter.
9.2 The Revival Lens
A word on what revival actually means, because the framing changes everything that follows.
Revival is the reviving of something that is alive but dying — the breath of God re-entering a body whose life has grown faint. Ezekiel 37 is the foundational image. The dry bones in the valley are not pieces of stone; they are bones. The form is there; the breath has departed. The Lord asks Ezekiel, "Son of man, can these bones live?" The answer is, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know." Then the word goes forth, the bones come together, sinews and flesh appear, and finally the breath — ruach, the same word translated Spirit — enters them, and they stand on their feet, a vast army.
Ezekiel 37:9-10
“Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.”
That is the picture of a church recovering its eldership function. The form is there. The body exists. What has been missing is the breath. The remedy is not to dismantle the body and start again; it is to call upon the Lord for the breath of His Spirit to enter what He has already raised up, that the form may become a living, breathing army.
Revival, biblically defined, is for the church — for what is alive but dying, that it may live fully. Resurrection power then flows from a revived church to a dying world. Ephesians 2:4-5 names what the revived church carries to the lost:
Ephesians 2:4-5
“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.”
That is resurrection — the dead being made alive. But the carrier of resurrection power must first be alive itself. A church whose eldership function is dormant carries little resurrection power into the world; a church whose eldership function is alive carries the breath of God into every place its Saints go. Revival of the body first; resurrection of the lost following. The two are not the same; they are sequence.
For a body that has just recognised the eldership function has been missing, this is the framing: you are not in trouble. You are in the moment before revival. The Lord is showing you something He wants to restore. He is the One who put the diagnosis in your heart, and He is the One who will breathe on what He shows you. What follows is not a programme to fix the church; it is a pathway to walk with the Lord as He restores what He alone can restore.
Psalm 85:6
“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
Habakkuk 3:2
“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
9.3 A Note Before the Steps
The six steps below are offered as a structure for prayerful planning. They are not prescriptive. Every body's situation is different, every body's timing is different, every body's Spirit-led journey will look different. Some bodies will walk the pathway in twelve months; others will take three years; others will take longer. The right pace is the Spirit's pace, not the leadership's planning instinct. What matters is that the journey is begun, walked faithfully, and brought to the place where the eldership the New Testament describes is alive in the body.
9.4 Step One — Prayer and Holy Spirit Direction
Before any conversation, before any planning, before any announcement — prayer.
A small group of the most spiritually mature Saints in the body (typically the existing leadership team, the lead pastor, and a few trusted intercessors) gives themselves to seek the Lord on this matter for an extended season — typically one to three months, sometimes longer. The questions before them in prayer are not strategic; they are confessional and listening:
- Lord, have we honestly seen what You have shown us? Is this Your Spirit speaking, or is this the enemy discouraging us? (Discernment between conviction and condemnation matters here — the Spirit convicts toward life; the enemy condemns toward despair.)
- Lord, what specifically have You shown us about the current state of our eldership? Where has the function been missing? What has been substituted in its place?
- Lord, what do You desire to restore? What is the vision of the eldership You are calling forth in this body?
- Lord, whom in this body have You already been preparing? Are there Saints already carrying the gifting and the calling, even if we have not seen them clearly yet?
- Lord, when do You desire this work to begin? What pace are You setting? What season is the body in?
- Lord, where are You calling us to fast as part of this season? What other disciplines is the Spirit drawing us into?
This is not a brainstorming exercise. It is intercession. The group fasts where led. The group walks together; no single leader reaches the conclusion alone. The Spirit's witness comes through unity within the group — Acts 13:2-3, "the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off." The pattern is consistent across the New Testament: the Spirit speaks; the praying community confirms; action follows.
What ends this stage. A settled corporate sense within the praying group that the Lord is leading them forward — not certainty about every detail, but unity, peace, and direction. If unity does not come, the group continues to wait. The Lord's timing is part of the work; the praying group does not move ahead of Him.
9.5 Step Two — The Honest Conversation Within Current Leadership
When the small praying group has clarity, the conversation widens to the current formal leadership: the existing eldership (however constituted), the board, and any other recognised leaders in the body. The conversation is honest but not condemning. The framing is the framing of the praying group itself:
- "We have been seeking the Lord. We believe He has shown us something we want to bring to you, prayerfully."
- "We do not believe we have been functioning as the Eldership the New Testament describes. We have been faithful in the work given to us, but we recognise this gap honestly."
- "We sense the Lord wants to restore this function in our body, and we want to ask you to seek Him with us on what He has shown."
The conversation may take several meetings. Some leaders will receive this immediately; others will need time. Some will be defensive; some will recognise what is being said and grieve. All responses are honoured. The aim is not to win the room; the aim is to invite the room to seek the Lord. Where leaders push back, the praying group does not argue — it returns to prayer. Where leaders weep with recognition, the praying group weeps with them. The Lord is doing the work; the praying group is carrying it.
What ends this stage. Unity within the formal leadership about the diagnosis and the direction. Not unanimity on every detail, but a settled corporate sense — confirmed in prayer together — that the Lord is calling the body forward. Where a particular leader cannot come to that unity after honest seeking, the praying group walks pastorally with that person; the work is not pushed past unaddressed objection.
9.6 Step Three — Creating Space for the Body Conversation
The body cannot be told what is happening; they must be brought into it. The leadership prayerfully designs the way the broader congregation will be invited into this season. The leadership is not announcing a programme — the leadership is opening the door for the body to hear what the Lord has been saying and to seek Him together. Options that work in various bodies:
- A series of teaching sermons on eldership in the New Testament — drawing on this Document 6 and Document 1 (Vision, Purpose, Commission & Mission) — over four to six weeks, opening up scripture together so the body sees what the leadership has been seeing.
- An invitation for the whole body to a special season of corporate prayer and fasting, framed not around the eldership question directly but around the larger question: "Lord, what do You desire to restore in us?"
- Honest testimony from the existing leadership about what they have come to see, given with humility, without theatre, and without manipulation. The body senses the difference between confession and performance.
- Facilitated small-group conversations where members can ask questions, share what they have themselves sensed (often the Spirit has been speaking to many in the body in parallel, unrecognised), and respond honestly.
- Open Q&A meetings where the leadership speaks to what they have heard and where they are inviting the body to walk forward.
The aim is not to manage the body into agreement; it is to invite the body into the discernment with the leadership. The body is not the audience of this work; the body is the field in which the work is being done. The leadership's posture is "we have heard the Lord saying this; will you seek Him with us?" — not "we have decided this; we are letting you know."
What ends this stage. A settled corporate sense across the body that the Lord is moving the church into a new season — not unanimity, not every member nodding, but a clear and faithful majority sensing the Spirit's leading, with the dissenting voices honoured and walked with rather than overridden.
9.7 Step Four — Identification of the First Elders
When the body has been brought into the season and is walking in unity with the leadership about the direction, the formal identification of the first elders begins, using the framework set out in Parts Two through Four of this document. The eldership being identified is the eldership the body has been praying for and the Lord has been preparing. The process is not new; what has changed is that the body has now been brought into the same posture of expectancy.
Several principles apply with particular weight to this first cycle:
Identification is not rushed. The Stage A observation, Stage B initial conversation, Stage C testing in service, and the rest of the stages are walked at the pace the Spirit sets, not at the pace of organisational urgency. The body has waited years or decades for this; a few more months of careful identification will not be the problem.
The first elders are often Saints the body has already been quietly recognising. The Lord does not typically wait until the formal announcement to begin preparing. He has been working long before the leadership saw it. The praying group asks: who in this body have we been pointing to, even without naming it? Whom does the body already turn to? Where is the Lord's preparation already visible?
The body's input (Stage F) is particularly weighted. The body has been shepherded, partially or unevenly, by the current pattern; the body knows what is missing and whom the Lord has been preparing. The body's witness on whom the Lord has appointed is essential evidence in this first cycle.
The first eldership may not be large. Two or three faithfully identified, installed, and walking together as a team is more than enough to begin. Additional elders are identified as the Lord provides them. A body that installs only the few it has clearly identified will be stronger than a body that installs more, less carefully.
9.8 Step Five — Installation and Sustained Foundations
Installation follows the pattern of Stage J in Part Four. The body witnesses, the elders take their vows, the laying on of hands and prayer is the moment the Lord seals what He has been building.
What follows installation is more important than installation itself. The first elders must be supported in giving themselves to the actual work of shepherding — visiting Saints, teaching the body, exercising care, praying with families, walking with the broken, holding doctrine. This means re-organising the eldership's time so that operational and board matters no longer consume the eldership's life. The board carries the operational; the eldership shepherds. If this re-organisation does not happen, the elders will be installed in name only and the old pattern will quietly return within a year.
Part Six (Training and Development) and Part Seven (How an Eldership Functions Together) describe the ongoing life of this new eldership. The body's annual planning (Document 5) integrates the eldership's actual work and resources it: the eldership now genuinely leads the annual planning cycle; the Annual Prospectus reflects the eldership's discernment of where the Lord is taking the body; the board carries the operational and financial implementation. The shape of the body's life over the following twelve months — what the prayer life looks like, what the teaching feels like, how pastoral care is experienced — demonstrates whether the change has actually taken hold.
9.9 Step Six — Restructuring the Constitutional Documents
In parallel with the early period of the new eldership's life, the body's constitutional documents are reviewed and revised to reflect the new pattern. Template I in the Appendix provides the language; the body's legal advisors adapt it to the jurisdiction. Practical considerations:
- The constitutional change is normally a formal amendment requiring a process specified in the existing constitution — often a special members' meeting with a defined quorum and majority. The body's existing process is followed; corners are not cut.
- The change should not precede the actual functioning of the new pattern. Constitutionally reorganising a structure that the body is not yet living into produces paper change without substance. The constitutional change should affirm what the body has already begun to live out, typically six to twelve months after the new eldership has begun functioning.
- The Five-Fold language (Template I, Clause 7) may be new to the body. If so, the teaching that introduced the eldership change should also introduce the Five-Fold understanding, so the constitutional language is not arriving in the body unexpectedly.
- The new constitution distinguishes the Board from the Eldership, gives the Eldership primary spiritual voice (as Acts 6 establishes), and aligns operational delegation as the New Testament pattern describes. Where the existing constitution gives the board authority above the eldership, this is corrected — gently, with explanation, in the spirit of restoring rather than rebuking.
- Where the body is part of a denominational structure with its own governance requirements, the changes are made in consultation with the denominational authorities; the denominational structure is honoured rather than bypassed.
9.10 Closing Words on the Pathway
The pathway above is not a project. It is a season of walking with the Lord. The timing belongs to Him; the work belongs to Him; the fruit belongs to Him. The leadership's role is to walk faithfully — to keep praying when the season is long, to keep listening when the answers are slow, to keep moving when the Lord moves, and to keep waiting when He does not.
For a body that has lived for years or decades with the eldership function dormant, the awakening of that function is not a small thing. It is the Lord breathing on what He raised up. It changes the shape of the body's life — its prayer, its teaching, its pastoral care, its discipleship, its mission. And the Saints who walk through this with their leadership often look back on the season as one of the most formative in the body's history. They learn what the Spirit sounds like when He speaks across the whole body at once. They learn what unity actually feels like when it is earned in prayer rather than manufactured in meetings. They learn what it is to see the Lord do what only the Lord can do.
This is the moment of revival. The dead are not yet raised; that comes after. The breath enters first. The body stands. And then the army goes.
A final word. For the elder, the pastor, the leader reading this and recognising the description of their own body — take heart. The fact that you see it is the work of the Spirit already begun. The diagnosis itself is His mercy. Bring it to Him in prayer; bring it to those who pray with you; walk the pathway; and trust the Chief Shepherd to do, in His time and by His Spirit, what no programme could ever produce.