Home    Location    Salvation    The church     Study Materials    Contact Us    Search
The church
Return Home

Who Are We?
Select another article in this series [Who What When &  Where Why How Salvation]

Elders - Cleatius Copeland, Max Judge
Deacons - Troy French, Bruce Kromer, Gordon Smith
Evangelist -

  When speaking about the plurality of Christ's church, Paul refers to them as the churches of Christ in Romans 16:16. We soon learn, in the book of Acts, that these independent, locally autonomous congregations were self governing and not attached to any superficial hierarchy such as Roman Catholicism or Protestant Denominationalism has established. The churches of Christ do not meet with a council, convention, or diocese for governmental or legislative reasons. Such is contrary to the principle of local autonomy. In the New Testament these churches, established by the gospel, were self governing and independently ruled from Heaven, with Christ as the Head of the churches, ruling from Heaven now through His Word (John 12:48-50 et al.). Each congregation, that was fulfilled, had an eldership or bishopric to run the congregation’s business and work (Acts 14:23), again independently. These elders met certain qualification according to I Timothy chapter three and Titus chapter one. The words translated in the English, elder, pastor, and bishop all refer to the same office/work. This work was always enjoined by a plurality of men and never a one pastor system because Christ is the “Chief Shepherd or Pastor” (I Peter 5:1ff).