Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes. If there was ever a time for us to take these words to heart, it is now. For those who have left the CRC and are now setting their house in order there is no better time to set the right course in the present for the future by considering past mistakes.

One specific area of church life that is in need of correction is in the eldership of the church.

Those who believe that we have learned a lesson from history about the place of elders may point to the efforts that have been made to increase the representation of elders at the broader assemblies.

I am not opposed to greater representation of elders at broader assemblies. But if this is the heart of the effort to reclaim the office of elder among the United Reformed Churches, then it is misguided and will not accomplish what its proponents think it will. And it means that we have not learned the lesson that our history teaches.

There are all kinds of assumptions buried in the proposal for increasing the number of elder delegates to the broader assemblies.

One of them is that the ministers and professors got us into the mess we were in in the CRC. That they had their hand in creating the problems I don't dispute. But that does not mean that they were the cause of the problems.

Whatever the proportion of elder delegates to minister delegates at the broader assemblies of the CRC, there was one place where elders always outnumbered the minister(s). That was in the local church consistory room.

In the consistory room the preaching, teaching and life of the minister are supervised. Here the decisions about pastoral care and spiritual supervision of the lives of God's people are made, including discipline.

In the consistory room profession of faith candidates are interviewed, the content and style of worship services are determined, ministers are nominated to be called, and overtures are approved.

So when elders blame ministers and professors for subverting the CRC, does that mean that what was done occurred in secret? Or does it mean that when ministers made proposals for catechism materials and for the worship services the elders did not examine the proposals thoroughly? Or was the responsibility for liturgical matters handed over to worship committees and praise teams, the responsibility for approving the candidates for profession of faith was given to the minister, and the responsibility for investigating and nominating ministers was given to calling committees?

The notion that we can keep the church faithful and reclaim the primacy of the office of elder by increasing their presence at broader assemblies is un-Reformed. Reformed people believe what God has told them in His Word. We seek to take the principles of church government revealed in God's Word and apply them to our life together as churches. God has revealed that the authority of Christ has been entrusted to the elders. That is to say, to the elders in the local church. That's where the action is.

The great question, then, when it comes to whether elders are exercising their authority is not, how many elders do we send to classis? Nor is it, who does the most talking at the broader assemblies? It is, are the elders fulfilling their task in the local church? Are they fulfilling their responsibilities in the living rooms, hospital rooms, funeral homes and prison cells of their sheep, in the consistory and in the catechism classes? Are they tending to the wounded and the wandering?

It is not, can they outvote the ministers at the broader assemblies. It is, are they faithfully supervising the doctrine and life of their ministers? Are they keeping up with the questions that confront the church? Are they studying the Word, the confessions, church history, ethical questions of the day, so that they are equipped for their task?

It is important for the elders to be faithful and diligent when delegated to broader assemblies. But their first responsibility is their work in the local church, among the people.

I raise these matters because I think we are in danger of underestimating the value of the work of elders.

The lesson from history is that the churches allowed the office of elder to dwin­dle in authority by the yielding of authority to the ministers. The reasons for this loss of authority are many: ministers took things into their own hands, ministers were educated, elders were simple farmers, carpenters, businessmen, etc.

While ministers bear a good deal of guilt for the way things went in the CRC, there is no excuse for the fact that elders did not train and equip themselves to deal with the ideas and the progress that their ministers and denominational agencies were promoting.

All too often it was a lack of Biblical and confessional insight, together with a lack of understanding of the principles and provisions of Reformed church polity combined with a diminished zeal for the well-being of the church among the eldership of the churches that paved the way for the misguided ministers and the overbearing agencies to foist their ideas and their programs on the denomination and the local churches.

We are being well served by Mid-America Reformed Seminary and its training of future ministers. But it would be a serious mistake to put our trust in the seminary, or in the graduates, and yield to them the responsibilities of the elders. God has given the final responsibility for the well-being of the churches to the elders.

May the elders of our churches be men of the Word, men of the confessions, men who seek to be equipped for the task that God has given them. May they understand the principles of Reformed church government, and recognize the significance of their role, not only at classis and synod, but in the local church.