Two Sundays ago, I attended my old city Church. A major theme of the sermon was leadership in the Church. I think that some have expected me to comment. It would be comparing apples with oranges, though, as far as Congregational tenets go. The sermon described an "authority structure". Yet in the Congregational Church, authority rests with the members, from the greatest to the smallest. If one picks out, say, one person to bear authority, or three, or ten, one has ruined the Congregational dynamic, which rests on the belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through all. OBSERVATION: Any authority could therefore overrule the Holy Spirit. This is to put it very simply, since there is also "the one who takes the lead" through spiritual gifting (Romans 12:8). In my time, the Constitution stated that "members exercise their authority under Christ through the Church Meeting," and that they have "the final authority in all matters".
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