On Friday night I left Jonathan in Peitermaritsburg and flew to Johannesburg and had the privilege of spending the weekend with Pastor Tim Cantrell and his family. Tim is the pastor of Honey Ridge Baptist Church, a large church in JoBurg. I was asked by Tim to meet with his church's elders and deacons to talk about polity.

I trust I helped them over the 2-3 hours we met, but what struck me was how similar the session was to every other place I've been. I typically give a brief personal testimony, a history of the reform God saw fit to bring to Capitol Hill Baptist and then I put up all their questions on a whiteboard and then we priortize them.

Here are some of the questions I got:
1. Who chooses elders?
2. What's the relationship between elders and deacons?
3. Do deacons need to meet corporately?
4. How do you make the transition from a deacon-led to elder-led form of government?
5. What's the role of the staff?
6. Who has authority to hire and fire?

The questions are the EXACT same questions that I fielded in Reynoldsburg, Ohio and Aberdeen, Scotland. Keying off Jonathan's earlier post, culture doesn't seem to matter. It appears churches that are reading their bibles, who intend to live out the instruction faithfully, universally run into the same questions.

It is a privilege to be able to help!