Church Leadership and Structure
With the recent thoughts about flawed systems in church, I thought I’d consolidate a couple of posts on authority structures in todays churches. There are, basically, three forms of church government:
- episcopal
- presbyterian
- congregational
That said, some groups have somewhat hybridized these governmental forms, with the Vineyard movement (for example) operating with a mostly presbyterian system with a small streak of episcopal thrown in for good measure.
Episcopal Church Structure
The episcopal form of church government is headed by bishops who preside over dioceses that contain a number of parishes, each of which contain churches that are lead by the parish clergy. This structure sees authority as communicated in a downward direction from arch-bishop, through bishop to priest to congregational member.
The Episcopal, the Roman Catholic, the United Methodist, and the Eastern Orthodox churches follow the episcopal form of church government.
Presbyterian Church Structure
The presbyterian structure is a graded system of church government lead by presbyters or elders. The presbytery consists of ministers and elders from a district, and the synod or assembly of ministers and elders represent a wider area, or the whole country. The congregation is responsible to the presbytery and the presbytery to the synod.
The Presbyterian church of America follows the presbyterian church form of government.
Congregational Church Structure
Congregational churches are generally self-governing. Each congregation has its own pastor and church officers. No church has authority over any other church, each is (theoretically) a pure democracy. Pure congregationalism sees authority as flowing upward from the people, the congregation voting on major decisions with church leadership implementing the democratically decided will of the majority.
Congregationalists and Baptists follow the congregational form of church government.