This
past Sunday (2/8/2026), at our church’s annual meeting, I was recognized for my
retirement from the position of elder. While that took only a few minutes with
a formal speech by the current chairman, my mind was racing through all the
things I have been involved in for the past 40+ years. It’s going to take a lot
longer to read this blog than that even took, and certainly it’s taking me a
lot longer to capture in written words that event. But it’s important to me
that I do so.
History
The
organization of what is now the Bible Fellowship Church did not originally
include a board of elders. Only the pastors were elders and they were overseen
by a pair of District Superintendents. At the annual meeting, the Stationing
Committee assigned pastors/elders to the various churches – effective
immediately. So a church would say goodbye to their pastor when they were sent
off to the annual meeting, not knowing if the same individual would return. In
order that a church/pastor did not gain too much familiarity and the pastor
have too much control of that church, the terms of service were limited to six
years. The church had an “official board” comprised of individuals in
leadership positions (Sunday school superintendent, teacher of each SS class,
head of Women’s Missionary Society, worship leader, etc.)
In
1971 that arrangement changed to one where each church was controlled by a
local Board of Elders. Thus in 1972, the “official board” was disbanded and the
Board of Elders replaced it. The pastor of the Emmaus congregation, Harvey
Fritz, who under the old structure would have been reassigned (he started at
Emmaus in 1966) remained on. For the most part, except that women on the
official board could not be elders, the new elders were simply the former
members of the official board with new titles.
One
of my God-given skills is the area of procedure and organization. My wife and I
began attending Bethel in August 1976 and we became members the following year.
One of the things that I noticed early on was that although the organization
structure had changed, that was not reflected in any official documents. It had
simply been easier to keep doing what they had before with Pastor Fritz leading
the church and the Board of Elders following his lead. As a result the church
had no bylaws or policy manual. I began writing down what those documents
should have in them. I was not even invited to the elders meetings, so I was
assigned to work with one of the other elders who would present my material and
get it passed.
In
the church elections in 1982, now having two children in our family, my name
was placed on the ballot. (A side note – when we brought our children home from
the hospital where they had been born, we stopped at the church on the way.
Going up to the empty sanctuary, we brought our newborn to the altar and
dedicated him/her to God in a private service of just the three of us. It has
always been important that church play an important role in the lives of all
our family members.) Probably because of my involvement in writing the new
church bylaws and policy manual, I was elected to serve on the board. This
began my 4+ decades of service. Although the Bible Fellowship Church also gave
certain authority to a board of deacons, Bethel did not have one. Thus, in my
first year as an elder I was given responsibility for baptisms and preparing
the elements for communion. We finally created a board of Deacons in 1983, so I
passed that responsibility over to them.
Service
on the Board of Elders
Over the 43 years from 1982 to 2025,
I served in a number of positions. I was the chair, the secretary, and the
treasurer. Besides my oversight based on the BFC and church policies, I also
served on a number of different committees from time to time. I had my largest
impact while serving in a finance position. I’d like to mention some of the
incidents I was involved in.
In 1988, as we were completing the
church addition that includes the gallery and the offices below them, both the
church treasurer and the financial secretary chose to resign. As the person on
the board with the most interest in that area, I took over those positions. I
was also one of the few people in the church who owned a computer and knew how
to put together spreadsheets to help with my calculations. As I began pulling
in all the information from the 8.5x14 papers which they had been using, I
quickly discovered that the annual reports to the congregation, the annual
summary to the denomination, and the amount of money in the bank were three
different figures. So, while I trusted the individuals who had been making all
the entries, I needed to find the cause of the discrepancies. To help me, I had
all the giving envelopes for several years (enough to fill several large boxes),
as well as all the financial statements.
Working back through the years, I
was able to identify several simple mistakes. Just one example: One of the
annual expenses was $100 to the church’s delegate to annual conference. That
happened to be Gerald Schlonecker. But instead of cashing the check, he gave it
back to the church, saying “I don’t need it.” But the financial secretary did
not have a way of taking as income a check that the church had written but
never cashed. Instead he entered it incorrectly and there was thus a $100
discrepancy. There were a number of such easy mistakes over the years. At the
end of this reconciliation process, the annual reports were within a few
dollars of each other. However, that amount was considerably different than
what we had in the bank. Since we had just completed the construction of the
addition, I separately recorded all the withdrawals from the construction loan.
Emmaus has a policy that when a
project such as this is undertaken, that they require a hold of the cost of
replacing the torn-up sidewalk in the event that the organization does not do
it, then the borough will have the funds to do so themselves. That holdback was
done, but the church did the work to install the new sidewalk. However, the
bank still had a hold on the loan for the amount of the work. Thus, they closed
out the construction loan and rolled the entire amount over into the mortgage
even they had never given the church the full amount of the loan. Using my
figures, I scheduled a meeting with the bank officials. They agreed with my
analysis and transferred the amount of the holdback into our account. This
final correction put all three figures into agreement within about $100. Thus,
the annual report to the congregation merely showed a reconciliation to
properly “balance the books.” Problem solved. And I could then have an envelope
burning celebration in our fireplace of the several years worth of giving
envelopes. No stealing of funds had taken place, but evidently the effort of
managing a construction loan as well as the regular giving was what encouraged
the treasurer and financial secretary to throw up their hands and resign their
position. And my having access to a computer made it all fairly easy.
Non-church
Activities
With
my God-given skills and interests, I was also able to use them in
denominational projects. There were four such projects over the years.
One:
the church in Newark, DE, was started with Bill Schlonecker as pastor. Since
our annual conference delegate was Gerald, Bill’s father, he had a conflict of
interest in serving as a temporary elder there and I was chosen instead. Myself
and one other individual made a day-long trip to Newark where we interviewed all
the leadership, including those who had been nominated to be elder, deacon,
etc. They met our criteria and we recommended to the BFC that Newark be
admitted as a “particular church” instead of being a church extension work
Two:
the denomination became aware that the pastor of one church extension work was
acting inappropriately, specifically that he was having a sexual relationship
with a lady from another church. Again, as surrogate elders, we met with that
pastor, confirmed the improper relationship and recommended that his pastorate
be terminated.
Three:
the denomination became aware that a conflict at a small church had caused both
of their elders and their deacon to resign because they could not support the
position of the pastor who wanted to close their building and move to a
facility elsewhere in the county. According to the laws in that state, that
made the pastor the sole decision maker so he could have done so. Again, myself
and another individual, were appointed as surrogate elders by the board of
church health. Moving quickly, we interviewed all the parties involved. The
pastor, who had come into the BFC from another denomination, was determined to
have his own way – a way that would have ended up destroying the church by
ignoring the wishes of the elders there. We ended the day by voting to
terminate his pastorate, gave him one day to clean his personal items out of
the church office (with someone to oversee him and prevent any improper action)
and then to turn in his key to the building. We then began the process of
calling for a meeting of the church (with appropriate notice). On the
designated day, the executive director of the BFC gave the message and then we
held a vote to appoint the recently resigned men back to their former role.
Having gotten a unanimous vote, I and the other surrogate elder resigned, as
our services were no longer needed.
Four:
When the recent issue of transgender individuals was gaining momentum, the BFC
felt a need to act relatively quickly to examine our Faith and Order to see
what changes might be needed. Having recently written a 5-part blog based on my
research into this topic (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2016/05/gender-and-sex-part-1-conception-to.html), I volunteered to serve on this
committee. We met monthly and had a resolution to present to the BFC by the
following year.
People
are Important
Being an elder is not just meetings
and committees. A key component is getting to know the people in the
congregation, praying for them, bringing them to Christ, and being open to
answering their questions. Being retired and being the oldest on the board
gives me a number of opportunities to focus on this area. Here are a few
examples:
I became aware of a new attendee who
had lived in the south for most of her adult life. When she was quite young,
her mother had passed away and her father had given her away to be raised by a
couple in the next county. She had now returned to the area and had been able
to locate her father’s grave, but wished to know more. Using my genealogy
skills, I was able to find her father’s obituary in the newspaper and show her
that her name appeared there, i.e. that she had not been forgotten. But even
better, I was able to find that she was a distant cousin of myself. So now,
when we meet in church (which she continues to attend), I greet her with a
“hello cousin” and she feels that she belongs here. Amazing what a little bit
of research and those few words of greeting have changed her outlook.
My wife and I had been part of one
of the small groups of the church. We were led by another of the church elders.
But when he began having some significant health issues and stepped aside as an
elder, I took on the role of leading that group. In the past this would have
been out of my comfort zone, but as an elder it is something that I needed to
do. (Note, I received a phone call from this individual when he saw my being
recognized in the church’s livestream. He asked about how the group was going,
so he still has a heart for this group.)
People
whom you work with includes your own family as well as others. The highlight of
my career was when I had the opportunity to lead two of my grandsons to the Lord and then to baptize all four of them (the only non-pastor that I am aware
of at our church who performed such a service. See https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2020/09/baptizing-grandsons.html).
Witnessing
to others is not just an elder responsibility, it is something that all
Christians should do. I make a habit of using the time before/after church
services to talk to and encourage others. Even though I now use a cane for
mobility, I go up/down the stairs to the gallery as needed. Last week someone
told me that he and his wife really appreciated my ministry when she was
suffering from “long COVID” for several years. Even my time in rehab following
my foot amputation did not stop me from sending my prayers to others. You never
know how your words or your actions might be observed by someone else and
encourage them in their walk with Christ.
Conclusion
There have been other men in our
church who have had long terms of service as an elder. The longest for many
years was Gerald Schlonecker at 39 years. But with my years of service finally
ending at 43, I have set a new high watermark. And since the highest on our
current board is just shy of 25 years, my record may stand for a long time. I
never thought when I was first affirmed as an elder back in 1982, that that was
just the beginning of such a term of service. And I don’t know how many years I
have left on this earth because of the various physical infirmities I am
dealing with. But for as many years as God chooses to give me, I will continue
to share my faith and use my skills to honor Him.
