My Thoughts on Don't Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism by Jonathan Leeman

Aaron Sharp | February 22, 2021

If you read this blog regularly you know how my book reactions go. If not, here is the disclaimer.

Aaron’s Book Reaction Disclaimer: The premise is that one of my readers is asking me questions. For the record, this is just a device I am using to have fun. I’m the one asking and answering. It’s more interesting for me to write them this way, and it gives the other voices in my head a chance to talk.

Today the book I’ll be reacting to is Don't Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism by Jonathan Leeman.

 Why this book?

Well, you would think a guy who grew up in church and went to seminary would have already formed opinions of church polity, but you’d be wrong. I grew up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church where the pastor essentially functioned as the Pope, but without a cool hat. In seminary I became familiar with a method of church government, built in a plurality of elders, that is reflected in Bible churches. For some reason I just assume that everyone who had a plurality of elders did it essentially the same way, but then I discovered a lot of different ways of thinking about this issue. This book is part of the research and discovery process of me coming to my own conclusions.

What is Leeman’s argument?

He makes the case that the New Testament envisions some level of congregationalism, and that when churches, for a variety of reasons, do not operate this way they have effectively removed their members from functioning in the way that was envisioned by the writers of the New Testament.

And by congregationalism he means?

Essentially the idea behind congregationalism is that the local church body as a whole has a measure of final responsibility in a handful of areas. It is the belief that God intended some parts of church life to be under the perview of the body as a whole as opposed to the just the church’s leadership.

So what areas would those be?

 Well, Leeman summarizes them by saying the congregation has final authority over the who and what of the Gospel. Leeman’s exegesis shows that, “Congregations should vote in receiving members and dismissing members (see Matt. 18; 1 Cor. 5), as well as in choosing or removing teachers (see Gal. 1). These are concrete ways to exercise authority over the what and the who of the gospel..” (1)

Do you buy his argument?

Yes, I do. I think he is onto something that is missing from a lot of churches. Members are being marginalized and sidelined from what I think Leeman’s exegesis shows God intends for them. He isn’t arguing against elder leadership, but just saying that the New Testament indicates what amounts to a power share. Some areas the congregation should rule, but that doesn’t negate the elder’s role of leading the congregation.

Is there any of Leeman’s point that you disagree with him on?

It isn’t directly part of this conversation, but Leeman, as many Baptists do, believes that the terms “pastor” and “elder” in the New Testament are synonymous terms. Having spent some time researching that issue, I just don’t find that argument convincing. Or, as a friend from from Georgia is fond of saying, I just don’t think that dog will hunt.

What happens when churches fire their church members?

Well, I think it is a sneaky problem. First, I think his exegesis is correct, so it matters how we deal with the verses. Doesn’t mean someone who sees it differently is a heretic, but how we read the verses matters, and being faithful to the text matters. Second, when the congregation’s authority is removed it communicates to the members that certain parts of God’s work aren’t for them. The bar then is effectively lowered for spiritual maturity. If church discipline, or who is in leadership, aren’t something the average member has anything to do with they will also be areas of that members spiritual life that they don’t think about, and that will mean growth is stunted in those areas. There’s no need to meditate on the awesome responsibility of who leads the church if you don’t really have any say in it. What we need are church members who care about these important issues, and being told that those things are just for the elders to decide has the opposite effect.

As he puts it himself, “The descriptive challenge of biblical church government is to combine the stream of texts that give final appeal to the congregation and the stream that calls for submission to the church's leaders and to place both of these streams in the land of mediated, not-absolute authority since absolute authority belongs to Christ alone. It's all too easy to emphasize one stream over the other rather than do the difficult work of asking how the two streams flow together. When we fail to combine both streams, we risk forcing either the mediated authority of the elders or the congregation to stand in for Christ's absolute authority.”

One of the overarching points to Leeman’s thesis is that it is the role of the elders to be training the congregation to do the hard work, and if they aren’t doing that what is really being short-circuited is discipleship. I think he is right on the money.

How worthwhile is this book?

Leeman’s point is one that is begin touted by too few people right now. I think this book really has an important contribution to make to our thinking and discussion on the theology of the church and how that works itself practically. The argument of this book is worth consideration by church leaders and church members alike.

(1) This quote is from Leeman’s other book on this topic Understanding the Congregation’s Authority which I read a few months ago. I actually liked both of these books. Don’t Fire Your Church Members is more in-depth, but I felt like the brevity of the arguments in Understanding the Congregation’s Authority made them easier to grasp.