On November 12, we hosted our fifth annual Elders Q&A. We host these evenings becauase we love one another. Asking and answering questions is natural to any relationship of love and trust. We have plenty of both and we mean to keep it. Thank you for your thoughtful questions and your interest in our church’s good.  

Read our invitation post for some more specifics on our aims and process heading into the event.

On this memorable evneing we engaged questions about the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day, about our philsophy of biblical counsling, how we go about praying for God’s global purpose among the nations, and everything in between.

Here’s a list of the questions we asked with the timestamps for the audio. We encourage you to listen to the entire Q&A for context and the spirit of the evening.

Introductory (0:00)

Introductions (2:12)

Overview of elder administrative team and responsibilities (7:05)

The Lord’s Day with the Lord’s People (9:14)

• What is the Elders’ interpretation of the Sabbath? Do we keep the Sabbath now? How does that relate to Sunday worship? And if God commands Sabbath rest, then what do we do about so many moms rolling into Monday frazzled and dads fatigued after a day of church activities? I’m confused about how to balance God’s command for Sabbath rest and the need to be physically rested for the week ahead. (9:41)

• What advice would you offer to introverts in the church? (17:50)

• What night do the Elders meet and have you thought about putting it on the church calendar so that we as a church can be praying for you? (23:46)

Counseling One Another (24:47)

• What is our philosophy of Biblical counseling? (25:11)

• Talk about Biblical Counseling now and down the road—the state of Biblical counseling from a programmatic and staff member perspective. (28:54)

• Are mental health issues sinful? (33:17)

• Elder trivia (35:09)

Shepherding Together (38:12)

• What is an elder-led congregational church? (38:22)

• What is the difference between elders and pastors? (41:12)

• What is the difference between a director role and an elder role? (44:44)

• What changes are upcoming for how elders work together and lead our church? (47:30)

• Elder trivia (54:01)

Our Times and Our Task (55:07)

• What have the elders been studying lately as a group? (55:15)

• Carl Trueman, in his book Strange New World, claims that the LGBGTQ+ movement is the most successful political movement of our age. What does Trueman mean by that? (57:07)

• Define expressive individualism and why does it have a problem with religion today? (58:13)

• How do we expose our kids to global missions? (59:56)

Open Mic (1:04:29)

• On the Order of Worship today it had a passage above it that said adapted from Ecclesiastes. Why don’t we just read the real Bible passage instead of putting it into our words? (1:04:29)

• What are the requirements regarding the timeframe for elder sabbaticals? (1:05:38)

• Why aren’t our missionaries listed on our website and is there a way that we can make all of our missionaries a little more visible? (1:07:24)

• Do I understand that when I hear the elders voted, it is all 14 of you rather than just the 11? (1:13:03)

• In a world where truth can be anything that you set it to be, how do we evangelize people with God’s authority being the ultimate truth? (1:14:54)

• What are the elders thanking God for? (1:17:17)

• What are the elders asking God to do? (1:20:06)

• Dinner instructions and closing prayer (1:21:59)

As promised, if you submitted a question and we didn’t answer it at the Q&A, we’ll be in touch in the coming weeks to initiate a reply either over email or in person. Of course, as questions come to mind across the year, you can always just email us at elders@heritagebiblechurch.org. This event is not the only venue for engaging our elders with a question. Rather, it is an especially public forum that we hope to set the tone and invite your engagement in more personal ways across the year.

For more Q&A engagement of this sort, review our recaps from previous years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

On November 13, we hosted our fourth annual Elders Q&A. Why do we host an event like this? It’s not because we have problems (we have those!). It’s because we are working out God’s plan for our maturity and our mission through biblical eldership.

Elders are one reason Paul left Titus in Crete: 

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. —Titus 1:5

A well ordered church—a church ordered toward her maturity under the shepherding care of elders—is a chruch well loved by Christ. Our Elders Q&A is one way we seek to carry out our biblical responsibility to our Lord and to you as elders.  

Read our invitation post for some more specifics on our aims and process heading into the event.

Thank you for all of your questions. Your questions give us insight into our church as well as an opportunity to serve you with answers that we pray please our Lord. Here’s a list of the questions we asked with the timestamps for the audio. We encourage you to listen to the entire Q&A for context and the spirit of the evening.

Introductory (0:00)

Together in Membership (7:10)

• What are HBC’s values? What particularly is the HBC leadership actually asking the HBC congregation to commit to beyond the broad mission statement? (7:28)
• How should we lovingly lead/speak with a fellow HBC attender that is hesitant to join as a member? (17:12)
• We haven’t baptized anyone in a while. Why is that? Also, how are baptism and the Lord’s supper related? (22:19)
• Abe, what are we doing by way of update to our membership interview and introduction process at Family Meetings and why? (29:55)
• Elder trivia (31:45)

Together in Truth (33:33)

• Is the Holy Spirit a force or a personal being? (33:50)
• Which comes first, the Spirit’s work or our faith? (36:20)
• If we can do nothing to earn our salvation, what does living a life of faith even mean? (40:45)
• How can we be faithful in parenting our children as we meet people/see people who identify as LGBTQIA+. (44:48)
• Have we considered regular systematic theology electives? (52:46)
• More elder trivia (53:05)

Making Plans Together (54:06)

• What types of things are we doing as a church to prevent burnout of our church staff and engage more leaders? (54:25)
• Heritage has done short-term mission trips in the past. Will we ever do them again? (56:50)
• In the budget process, Jason mentioned that we were putting some money into a building fund. Can you expand on that? (1:00:30)
• What is the wheel of time? Give us an update on some church calendar adjustments coming in 2023 (1:03:20)
• Introduction and details for a new annual Spring theology conference: Unsearchable (1:05:03)
• Still more elder trivia (1:05:58)

Open Mic (1:06:58)

• What does a typical elder meeting look like on a Wednesday night? (1:06:58)
• How are the elders seeing God at work in our church body? (1:10:34)
• What are we doing collectively as a church body to serve our community? (1:14:13)
• When you talk about baptism, practically speaking, if you have an 8-year-old who professes Christ, how long until they can be baptized? (1:19:09)
• For the LGBTQIA+ plus if someone’s name is Justin and they want to be called Justina, what does a Christian do? (1:23:09)
• An update from Abe on the Stratton family (1:27:09)
• Closing prayer (1:31:31)

As promised, if you submitted a question and we didn’t answer it at the Q&A, we’ll be in touch in the coming weeks to initiate a reply either over email or in person. Of course, as questions come to mind across the year, you can always just email us at elders@heritagebiblechurch.org. This event is not the only venue for engaging our elders with a question. Rather, it is an especially public forum that we hope to set the tone and invite your engagement in more personal ways across the year.

For more Q&A engagement of this sort, review our recaps from previous years: 2019, 2020, 2021.

On November 14, we hosted our third annual Elders Q&A. Why do we host an event like this? There are lots of answers to that question. One reason is that you are precious to God and to us as your elders. 

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. —Acts 20:28

This annual evening together is one way of paying careful attention to “all the flock” here at Heritage. As elders we meet twice monthly to pray and study and work for your oversight. We’re also members and elders among you, speaking the Word and praying with you. But this event is the one opportunity where we’re all together with all of you. We love these nights. 

Read our invitation post for some more specifics on our aims and process heading into the event.

We collected a number of questions across a number of topics. Thank you for all of them. This year’s night was broken into four parts, gathering questions we received under four headers. Here’s a list of the questions we asked with the timestamps for the audio. Of course, we would encourage you to listen to the entire Q&A for context and the spirit of the evening.

Introductory (0:00)

Introductions (4:14)

Shepherding at Heritage: Questions About How Our Church Is Led (8:31)

• What does it mean that an elder must be “the husband of one wife”? (9:02)
• What does it mean that an elder’s children must be believers? (14:24)
• What is the difference between staff and non-staff elders? (20:06)
• Why do we hire men to do elder-like jobs but then have a process into eldership later? (22:46)

The Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Questions About the Truth We Believe (25:26)

• How are we as new covenant believers to understand God’s relationship with the current nation of Israel? (26:01)
• What is faith? (34:46)
• How does our Confession of Faith’s article on the doctrine of humanity help us on issues of race, gender, and other difficult cultural topics? (37:59)

Broader in The World: Questions About Our Shared Mission (43:40)

• What is the update on Gospel advance efforts to the Riau Melayu? (44:06)
• What is Marxism and why would we call it a Christian heresy? (46:13)
• Along these lines, what did the elders study at their recent elders retreat? (52:26)

Deeper in The Church: Questions About Church Life and Growth (55:03)

• What’s the update on our worship director search? Student and Family Ministry director? (55:15)
• Do we plan on having a periodic choir? (59:14)
• How can members grow in their marriages and lives apart from the Lord’s Day service? (1:02:52)
• Are Shepherding Groups only for members, and should we be inviting new folks to our group or be pushing them to contact the office for placement? (1:05:46)
• Under what circumstances can a Christian support/advise another Christian in pursuing divorce? (1:09:05)
• What are we working on and why do some of these things take so long for us? (1:09:47)

Open Mic and Concluding Thoughts

• What’s the most biblical way of dealing with anxiety and panic? (1:13:25)
• When the elders make a vote, is it unanimous or majority? How do you decide? (1:15:46)
• What differences do exist in the elders’ team (theological triage) that do not prevent you from working together? (1:20:54)
• What are the elders most thankful for? (1:24:41)
• What are the elders praying for? (1:27:15)
• Closing prayer of thanksgiving (1:28:12)

As promised, if you submitted a question and we didn’t answer it at the Q&A, we’ll be in touch in the coming weeks to initiate a reply either over email or in person. Of course, as questions come to mind across the year, you can always just email us at elders@heritagebiblechurch.org. For more material of this sort, review our recaps from previous years: 2019, 2020.