Baptist churches unless I am mistaken have Pastors, Elders and Deacons. What is the hiearchy of rank? Does the Pastor out rank both Elders and Deacons? Or is a Pastor equal in rank with Elders? or equal in rank with both Elders and Deacons? Or is the Pastor lower in rank that both Deacons and Elders?
Hello. I’m an elder in a Baptist church Georgetown Baptist, Georgetown, Md.) and I guess you could say that I’m kind of the de facto assistant pastor, too.
It’s not as much a hierarchy of rank as it is three different positions.
The Bible isn’t clear on who is “higher”, elder or pastor. It would seem to indicate that the elders more or less run the church so that the pastor can devote himself to prayer and to the study of the scriptures, but this isn’t specifically spelled out.
It’s more along the lines of what we would call
adiopheron, which is just a Greek word meaning “a matter of conscience” that we use when we want to sound smart.
Typically, what you have is:
- The pastor, who preaches and teaches, represents the church, and devotes himself to prayer and the study of God’s word
- Elders, who oversee the doctrines and practices of the church. They usually also teach and, on occasion, preach (I preach about twice a month in our church and teach two weekly classes, and preach a couple of times a month in other churches around our area)
- Deacons, who pretty much take care of the day to day running of the church. In other words, all of the dirty jobs that nobody else wants to do. They’re also responsible for looking in on the widows and orphans and those who need help or support from the church.
Now, some churches don’t have enough men to have an elder board and a deacon board, so they combine the two.
In my case, I’m one of those. I’m an elder, but I also do deacon duties.
Hope that helped a little bit.
