A Plurality of Shepherds Various Texts of Scripture

Singing that song reminded me of, Brianna and Alethea and I were in Milltown at that big playground, some of you have probably been there, and we were playing there and all of a sudden you can hear these bells from one of the old churches in town, and this is the song it was playing, holy, holy, holy.

And I was thinking, this is what heaven's going to be like. Can you imagine that? Everybody's no sin, everybody's living their lives in an eternal state with the presence of the Lord, and then music playing in the background that's honoring to him.

I can't think of a song that's more honoring than that, than what we just sang. So as I mentioned in the call to worship, in January 2017, when you voted and called me to be your pastor, I had one primary goal for this church as we build toward the future, and that goal was to make this church, by God's grace, a healthy church.

In our country, if random Christians were asked, what is a healthy church, you'd probably get many answers, but I'm afraid the answer you would probably most commonly get is what my old pastor called the ABCs of churches, attendance, buildings, and cash.

People commonly think of the health of a church in the same terms as a business in the world would view their organization. That is, if people are coming, if we have nice facilities, and our budget is booming, then we must be healthy.

But that's not what a healthy church is. Now, if you are a healthy church, according to what the Bible says you should be, you probably will be growing numerically, at least a little bit. You should probably have people to take care of your current facilities and even add to them if the resources are available.

You should have a healthy budget if the people who are coming are giving faithfully. But to measure a church's health by this standard is a grave error. And it's a mistake that our country has made. I see it on the internet all the time, and I'm thinking, that's wrong.

They're saying, how to grow a church in six months. It's kind of like a get-rich-quick scheme, only in a church context. To measure a church's health by this standard is a great mistake, and churches can be doing well with attendance, buildings, and cash as they build the wrong way.

And we cannot call that church healthy. This is so because the proper definition of a healthy church comes from the New Testament. Mark Dever, a pastor from Washington, D .C., has listed nine marks of a healthy church, and you can find each of these rooted in the New Testament.

These are the marks. Expository preaching, and what that means is verse-by-verse preaching through the Bible. Biblical theology, and what that means is that you don't take things out of context. Everything you teach is rooted in the immediate context and the larger body of Scripture.

A correct understanding of the Gospel is the third. A biblical understanding of conversion is the fourth. A biblical understanding of evangelism. A biblical understanding of membership, church discipline, discipleship, and a correct understanding of biblical leadership.

You may not understand what all of these are, and that's okay, but the point I want to make is the Bible informs us about how to build a healthy church. I have been trying to lead us to do many of the things I just listed since I got here about 20 months ago.

To build a healthy church takes time, but I have already seen the Lord working in this place as we've been building this way, and it's been exciting to see. The one mark of a healthy church we are going to focus on today is biblical leadership.

On September 9th, our leadership team, the deacons, decided that it was a good time to tweak our leadership model a bit to better fit what the New Testament tells us the leadership of the church should look like.

This is not to say that the leadership model has been way off for the last 137 years at Eureka Baptist. It has not been way off, and through those years the Lord has used the leadership model for his good purposes here.

However, if we can move from good to best, we should do so. If we want to be entirely faithful to Scripture, we should do so. So our goal, as I mentioned, is to be faithful to the Word of God. This sermon today is showing you why it is important to move toward making a change in the Constitution by adding the office of elder, right next to the office of deacon, which we already have.

I will show you from the pages of Scripture why we think this is a wise move to take at this time. Specifically, what we have in mind is a plurality of elders. So I'm not going to have you turn your Bible with me anywhere today.

Actually, I'm going to be camping out in primarily two places. So Acts chapter 6, the beginning of Acts chapter 6, and 1 Timothy 3. So if you want to turn somewhere, that's where you can turn to. But our big idea, our proposition, is a plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively.

A plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively. To see the wisdom in this, we need to inform ourselves about this vital office with three questions. The first question is, who are elders?

When we hear the word elder, the first thing that probably comes to mind is one who is older. We are told to respect our elders, and we should definitely do so. But when Scripture uses the word elder, it means something different than the age of a man or woman.

What the Bible means by elder is an office that a person in the church fills. You may not know this, but I am an elder. A pastor is an elder. There are many terms that we can use that mean the same thing.

The terms elder, pastor, bishop, overseer, and shepherd all mean the same thing. In some denominations, you see a hierarchy, and that's dangerous because that's getting away from Scripture. It's so easy to kind of build your own traditions.

But all these titles, elder, pastor, bishop, overseer, shepherd, all mean the same thing. For example, in Titus 1 .5 -9, the terms elder and overseer are used together. In Acts 20, when Paul talks to the Ephesian elders, the terms elder, pastor, and overseer are used interchangeably.

So we see the evidence right there. When you call someone to be an elder, you are calling a mature Christian to look after the sheep in the congregation. Now you may be asking, we have deacons? Is there a need for a plurality of elders when we already have deacons?

The New Testament describes these two offices and describes that these are different. When the early church was starting out, the Lord gave the apostles wisdom to establish the office of deacon, to distinguish it from a proclaimer of the Word of God and other ministries related to the Word.

The Lord gave the apostles wisdom when a problem arose that required that certain people be taken care of in the church. And so in Acts chapter 6, this is where we see the beginning of the office of deacons, and it talks about elders here as well.

So I'm going to read the first two verses here and then explain something. Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. So the Hellenists here, these would have been Greek-speaking Jews, complained to the Hebrews that their widows were not being fed properly.

So the twelve got together, this would be the twelve disciples, they came from Christ, and they gathered the other Christians, also called disciples, and what they said was, it is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables.

In other words, the preaching of the Word was so important that they did not want any distractions. Even if they were good distractions, that would prevent them from proclaiming the Word. Now in verses three through six, this is where the office of deacon is established.

Therefore, brothers, pick up from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, and the proselytite of Antioch.

These they said before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. So the twelve disciples told their fellow churchmen to select good men, in this case it was seven, to take care of the widows.

In verse four, the twelve disciples say what their responsibility is as elders, namely to pray and to perform the ministry of the Word. So we see the responsibilities of both elders and deacons laid out here in this passage.

Elders are responsible for Word ministry, to preach and teach the Bible, and to pray, while deacons are responsible to take care of the other needs of the church. In our church, and in many churches, deacons do quite a bit.

Our deacon board has been responsible to maintain facilities, do administration, do marketing, and finances. The pastor, that would be me, has done the Word ministry. This involves preaching and teaching, praying for you, meeting with you, and generally looking after you spiritually.

The illustration that I used with you in the past is that of a physician. It used to be in the old days that people had their own individual doctor. Today, some people still do, but it's less common. A physician looks after you physically.

Some people have a physical every year, and the doctor tells them how their body is functioning. The same thing goes for a pastor. But the pastor looks after you spiritually. He looks after the heart.

And the focus is on your relationship with God. I visited some of your homes recently, and I'll be visiting others of you soon. The goal of this visit is to see how you are doing in your relationship with the Lord.

I'm looking after your soul. So a simple way to distinguish these two offices is that the deacons take care of the physical needs of the church, while the elders, elder or elders, take care of the spiritual needs.

Both are needed for a church to be healthy. According to Acts 6, elders are responsible for the ministry of the Word. Everyone who has committed him or herself to this church has made clear that they desire for me, the pastor, to look after you spiritually.

To be a pastor is a weighty responsibility. It's a serious calling. Hebrews 13 .17 says, to obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

So I am going to have to answer one day to the Lord for how I looked after each of you. So there is accountability, and it's with the one who sees everything. And so I need your prayers to do this. The end of verse 17 of Hebrews 13 calls pastoral ministry a joyful calling.

As it says, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. If I said, you know what, I don't really want to be here today, but what's my job? Just like some of you go to work on Monday, maybe I don't really want to do this, but I have to do it.

You'd be like, why do I even go to church? He doesn't want to do this. There has to be a joyful. I don't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. And I mean that. It's a joyful calling, as Hebrews 13, 17 says.

And you'll notice in this verse that shepherds are referred to as leaders. So we not only teach and preach and pray, but we lead. We lead the sheep of the church. Jesus, our chief shepherd, said in John 10, 27, that his sheep follow him.

Leaders show the sheep where to go. The sheep trust the shepherd, that he knows where he's taking them. He's not going to take them off a cliff, but take them to greener pastures. He leads them through teaching and spending time with the sheep.

The shepherd also leads by setting an example for the flock. The apostle Peter told the elders to be examples to the flock in 1 Peter 1, 3. The elder desires for the sheep to follow him as he follows the example of Christ, which is 1 Corinthians 11, 1.

People in the church desire to follow a shepherd who is exemplary in character, where you can look at that person and say, I want to be like that. As he follows Christ, I want to reflect that. Timothy Whitmer, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, puts the shepherd life in three categories of leadership.

The leader's personal walk with Christ is number one, shepherding his family, number two, and shepherding God's flock, the church. So my first flock is Brianna and Aletheia and the baby in the womb, which I can't really do much with that right now, but in the future here.

That's my first flock. And as sheep seek guidance in the faith, they are going to pursue a shepherd who leads by godly living in all of these areas. The guidance that the shepherd gives should be good since he knows his sheep as well.

As Jesus said in John 10, 27, the shepherd knows his sheep. Living out the faith and knowing the sheep equips him to give the counsel that his sheep need, which is one advantage of a smaller church, right?

Because I can actually know who you are. If we had 600 people, I'd be like, I kind of know that guy, but I don't really know him. I kind of know her, but I don't. I should know you at a fairly good level.

Because a shepherd needs to know his sheep. And a plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively. And the first question we need to ask to see the wisdom in this is who are elders?

They are spiritual leaders. They lead in the ministry of the word. And by asking this question, we can see the importance of the office of elder and why it would be wise to have more than one if more than one is qualified.

So this leads us to the second question. What are the qualifications to be an elder? I mentioned at the first point that the church chooses who their elders are. We saw this in Acts 6 passage. They chose who their deacons were.

It follows that the congregation also chooses their elders. The leaders of the church recommend a man, and then the church decides whether or not he meets the qualifications. So what are the qualifications?

We have already seen that generally he needs to lead by example in all the areas of his life. But now we are going to dive into the specific qualifications for an elder in the pastoral epistles. And this is in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.

So if you ever wonder what are the qualifications, these are the two places to go. We're going to look at these two. I'm going to spend more time in 1 Timothy 3, but I'm going to add a few things from Titus 1.

Titus 1 adds some things that 1 Timothy 3 does not have. So verses 1 through 7 of 1 Timothy 3, and I'm going to read through this verse by verse, and we're going to talk about these qualifications. I'll start with verse 1.

It says, Let's stop right there. The first qualification for eldership is that you desire to be an elder. I've already mentioned that in Hebrews 13 the Lord calls for elders to be joyful. If you're being an elder out of duty alone, then you should not be an elder.

It should be something that will bring you much joy. And you feel like, you know, this is what the Lord has made me to do, and I want to live a life pleasing to the Lord, and I would get a lot of joy in serving the Lord in this manner.

So an elder should have that kind of an attitude. Now in verses 2 through 3, we will see the character qualifications listed. So to desire to have it is not necessarily a character qualification, but it's important to have it.

Now, in 2 and 3, these are character qualities. Respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. You'll notice that every character quality listed is also required of all believers.

Some have said that the qualifications are surprisingly unspectacular. But I will add that an elder needs to be exemplary in these. This does not mean perfection, but it does mean that he is a model of these.

The person is someone whose example you can follow. So you shouldn't say, you know what, I think he might be hospitable, but I'm not really sure. Or you might say, he might be self-controlled, but when you look at this person, you say, yes, he's that.

And he models this well. Titus 1 adds a few things. The same author, Paul, wrote Titus. The character qualities he adds, that he must not be arrogant, he must be hospitable, a lover of good, righteous, and disciplined.

So the two lists are very similar with a few differences, but you get the idea. This must be a quality Christian. But something we must highlight from verse 2 is different from the other character qualities of all Christians.

And that is able to teach. This is one important quality that separates elders from other Christians. In the first point, I mentioned that elders are responsible for word ministry. Namely, to preach, teach, pray, and look after the people in the church.

So we can see that teaching is an important aspect of eldership. Now this does not mean that every elder will preach or even teach in a public setting. Teaching can be as simple as being capable of handling the word of God accurately.

Where your knowledge is above the other people in the congregation. Where people can come to you with a question and you might know an answer, or at least know where to find an answer. 2 Timothy 2 .5 says, an elder must do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

So the person should have some level of skill in handling the Bible. This person is competent in the scriptures. It does not mean that they know everything. But as I mentioned, their knowledge is above the others in the congregation.

The Apostle Paul adds about what he means by able to teach in Titus 1 .9. He writes, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

So Paul makes it clear that elders must have sound doctrine. They must also be able to defend against false teachers. How important is that in our world today? To be able to not only teach soundly what the Bible says, but then all the false teachings that are out there, we can say, stay away from that.

They're not doing you any good. Those are wolves. Stay away from them. People who are young in the faith may be easily deceived into believing something false about Christ and the Bible. Ephesians 4 .14 describes those who are immature in the faith as they're tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

But a man who is mature and is solid in his doctrine can refute false teaching when he sees it. You can smell it from a mile away and you protect people from that. Now let's look at verses 4 and 5 from 1 Timothy 3 to see other qualifications.

Paul writes, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? Verses 4 and 5 tell us that he must have rule of his house.

If he does not have a handle on his responsibility as a father or husband, if he is married, then how can he look after God's household, the church? So he must be a good husband and father. I think about this as I pastor, how important it is to spend time with Brianna and Aletheia, and like I said, to shepherd them.

I think naturally, pastors tend to be drawn more to church duties. When they're home, they kind of check out. That's an area I'm still working on, so you can pray for me in that. But we need to be people who are looking after both flocks, and doing a good job at both, and looking after your children, and doing everything you can.

Obviously, you can't decide whether your children are going to be saved, right? That's up to God. But what you can do is do everything you can, use the means that you have, to raise your child in the Lord.

In Titus 1 .6, it says that the children must be faithful and not rebelling against their parents. So this would only apply for children who are still living in the house. So you get the idea, that you can't have a rebellious child in the household to be qualified as an elder.

Now, the qualification in verse 6 is very important. We've already noted this, but verse 6 emphasizes it. An elder must be mature in the faith. It says he must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Paul tells Timothy here that he must not be new to the faith, because one who is new in their walk with the Lord has much growing to do. You need time walking with the Lord for maturity to come about.

And if one has only been walking with the Lord for a year, or a few years, or less, then he is not ready to look after the souls of other people in the church. Time also has to pass for other Christians to verify that this person is qualified to be an elder.

So there needs to be time of testing for someone to be in this position. For a young Christian, the temptation of pride may be extra strong. And the devil can use this against the recent convert to hurt his walk with the Lord and hurt the church as well.

There are so many examples in churches where someone gets into the position who shouldn't be there, you rush someone into it, and it really causes damage. So this is something you have to be very careful of.

Paul also tells Timothy in another place, he says, Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands. And the laying on of hands symbolizes calling someone to be a pastor. And verse 7 wraps up the qualification here.

It says, He must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into a disgrace, into a snare of the devil. So the community must think well of this person. What would others in the community say if they found out that this man was an elder?

Would they say, that sounds right, he's a good man? Or would they say, what was that church thinking? He does not belong in a role of leadership in the church. And when it says, be well thought of by outsiders, there shouldn't be a sin, a sin that stands out in that person's life, that's obvious to everybody, that would disqualify him for the position.

Obviously, outsiders might not think well of you in the sense that they think you're a Bible-believing Christian, and they call you a, they persecute you because you're a Bible-thumper, they use that language.

That's not what this is talking about. This is talking about is there a sin that's obvious to the outside community that would disqualify you, that would bring shame upon the church and upon Christ. And the church is supposed to be a light to the world.

And how can a church be a light when their leaders have a poor reputation in the community? So that's so important. So these are the qualifications for eldership. One must meet these to be considered for this important position in God's church.

A plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively. The second question that expresses the wisdom in this is what are the qualifications? And if people have those qualifications, then the plurality must take place.

And this leads us to the third question and the big point of what this all is leading to today. What steps are we taking at Eureka Baptist Church? As I mentioned in the introduction, the reason I'm presenting all of this to you today is because our leaders have decided to propose to the church that we add the office of eldership to our constitution.

Specifically that the office would have a plurality of elders. We are proposing this not because it's an idea that we want to try, that we think would be good, but because the scripture details this important office and we want to line up with the Bible.

As our constitution stands right now, our offices are pastor and deacons. And as I already said, a pastor is an elder. So what we are proposing is a plurality of elders or a plurality of pastors. And I just want to say up front here, it shouldn't scare you to think, well, we can't afford more than one pastor.

We're not talking about payment here. We're talking about lay elders, people who have jobs in other places who would assist in shepherding. And as I mentioned, we have pastor and deacons, but there is a biblical warrant for a plurality of elders.

To give a few examples of this in the New Testament, Acts 16 .4 describes the elders in Jerusalem, so plural. In Acts 14 .23, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every city as they were traveling through.

The appointment of a plurality of elders shows up when Paul went to Ephesus in Acts 20 .17. And he addresses elders, plural, in that context. In James 5 .14, the elders of the church, plural again, were to come together to the sick and pray for healing.

Okay, so you get the idea here that it was common for there to be not just one elder over a church, but multiple elders. What this means at Eureka Baptist is that we would have a couple of men who share the load of shepherding the congregation.

To have multiple people looking after the flock is for the health of the church. Over the last year or so, the Lord has blessed our church by bringing more people into our fold. So the need for more than one shepherd is needed.

I can say this as the only current shepherd of the church. It would be ideal to have a couple of men who could share the burden alongside me of looking after the souls of this church. It's become clear over the last year that we have two men among us who meet the qualifications for this office, who have started coming to this church in that time.

The change to our Constitution needs to be made because it's biblical. And the two men that I'm talking about here are Rob Mickelson and Mark Brooks, who both started coming here in the last year. And I've been praying.

I said, Lord, bring elder-type men to our church. And I had other people praying for that, too. And the Lord answered that prayer. He brought two men who, I have no question, meet the qualifications to step into this office.

And these are two men who both aspire to the position, which is one of the qualifications, 1 Timothy 3 .1. And as I mentioned, they would not join the peril. They would be lay elders, but as fellow shepherds, they would have equal authority to me.

I will be the regular voice who proclaims the word of God from the pulpit. And they would teach in whatever capacity that fits their ability, whether it be Sunday school, men's breakfast Wednesday night, or in the living room of a home.

It would include filling in for me to preach when I'm gone during the week, and Rob's already done that. He's actually doing that next Sunday as well. And here's a helpful quote from Mark Dever, the pastor from Washington, D .C., about what their relationship would be to me.

He says, As the regular voice that proclaims God's word, that would be me, a faithful preacher will probably find that a congregation and the other elders treat him as the first among equals, and especially worthy of double honor, 1 Timothy 5 .17.

Still, the preacher or pastor is fundamentally just one more elder, formally equal with every other man called by the congregation to act in this capacity. So we would be equal as fellow shepherds of this congregation, but my role would be to lead the elder board and the church as an under-shepherd under the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ.

So if anyone ever asks you, who is the senior pastor of this church? My old pastor used to emphasize this. The answer is Jesus Christ. He's the senior pastor of this church. I'm an under-shepherd. It's okay to call me a lead pastor.

And then the other elders would have equal authority to me, but they would not be the lead pastor. They would be what's called lay elders assisting in shepherding the congregation. So we don't see, there's no hierarchy here.

But of course, in any organization, to run effectively, and this includes the church, someone has to lead. Someone has to be the point man in leading it, and that's what I would be. And as a congregational church, elders function as advisors.

What we say does not go. We need to run it by the congregation when making big decisions, and that would include to start this new office of a plurality of elders by adding this to our constitution. I'm preaching this sermon today because in two weeks, the members will vote on whether or not to move forward with this.

Two weeks will give us the appropriate time to pray over this, and if you have any questions about this change, you can ask me or any of the deacons about what we're doing here and about this office. Frankly, not much is going to change.

I'll still be preaching up here the same amount I'm doing right now. My job is the exact same. I'll have the same amount of work. It's just that I will have more help in looking after your soul. That's really what it comes down to.

And what's interesting is that this has already been working out this way in our fellowship. People are already looking to Rob and Mark for guidance, even though they do not have the title as elder. So they're already functioning this way.

It's just, are we going to designate this title and tell the church, these two men are elders alongside Pastor Seth? And you may be asking, what would this do to the deacon board? It would do nothing to it.

The deacons will still be considered leaders in the church in their area of responsibility. And I mentioned facilities, administration, marketing, organizing different things. They would still do all of those things.

And when we have our leadership meetings, elders and deacons will meet quarterly together. The three of us elders would have separate meetings every two weeks where we will read the word together, pray, and look after your souls.

So that would be the purpose of those meetings every two weeks. And it will be our responsibility not only to do the word ministry of preaching, teaching, praying, and shepherding, but we will also cast the vision for the church in future years about the direction we are heading.

I've already been casting the vision of biblical centrality in everything we do with the goal of growing in Christ together since I started here. And that vision will remain strong with the addition of a plurality of elders.

There are times when we may make a big decision. And whatever big decisions and even small decisions come up that we make, we would recommend it to the deacons. And if it's a big decision, we would bring it before the church, because we are a congregational church, right?

The church gets the final say in how they do things. And that's biblical as well, I believe. So this would be the structure of the way that things would work here. So this was the answer to the third question.

What steps are we taking at Eureka Baptist? And I explained to you what these steps are to start this new office. And we are taking these steps because according to the Bible, a plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively.

So to summarize here, I know this is a lot of information, a plurality of elders is needed for a church to run most effectively. To see the wisdom in this, we need to inform ourselves about this vital office with three questions.

These three questions are who are elders, what are the qualifications to be an elder, and what steps are we taking at Eureka Baptist? This is something that I and our deacons recommend to the church. And again, we're doing this not because it's something we just want to try and it's a good idea.

We're doing this because it has foundation in the Bible. We want this church to be as close to a New Testament church as we can possibly get it because we want to be a healthy church. We want to build the right way.

At the end of the day, we want to stand before Christ mature. Colossians 1 .28 -29 says, Him we proclaim that we may present everyone mature in Christ. In a healthy church, that's the means God is going to use that we all are presented before Him godly and people who have grown in holiness throughout their lives.

And so we need a plurality of elders to accomplish this. And so as I said, over the next two weeks, let's pray together over this. Let's ask questions. If any questions come up, again, you can ask me, you can ask the deacons.

And what we'll do following the service in two weeks is we'll have a vote among the members of this church to either move forward with this or not. And so please pray about that. And next week, Brianna, Aletheia, and I will be gone.

But Rob Mickelson, whom you've heard from before, and he's a prospective elder, he'll be preaching from John 5. And so I look forward to having you hear from him on that, and I look forward to listening to it myself.

And so let's close in prayer at this time. Father in heaven, we know, Lord, that you are sovereign over everything. You've been sovereign, Lord, over the last 137 years of this church. And you're sovereign, Lord, over this time, too, as we propose to make a change, Lord, that the leaders believe, Lord, is faithful to what the Bible says.

And, Lord, this will be for the good of each person in this church. Because we want, Lord, to function the way that you designed a church to function. And so, Lord, I pray that over the next two weeks, if anyone has any questions that they would not be afraid to ask them, that we would pray together about this.

This isn't something, Lord, we want to rush into without thinking about it. We want to give careful thinking to this and ask careful questions. And so I pray that people would not be afraid to ask those.