Elders and Leaders: God's Plan for Leading the Church: A Biblical, Historical and Cultural Perspective

You would be hard pressed to find someone more experienced than Gene Getz in working with various forms of church leadership and learning from the past. He's a first rate teacher, leader and Pastor. I've read both Strauch's and Getz' book and find the differences primarily on their conclusions about whether a strong pastor should have a primary influence over an elder board. Dr. Getz favors a strong and primary leader role for the pastor. This is a debatable point and I think most church elders would benefit from reading the scriptures, as well as both books and reaching their own conclusions. Very helpful book.

Getz' teaching on Biblical Eldership includes all the scriptures and materials that other authors use and he does an excellent job just as others have done. What separates this book from others is an adequate explanation of leadership within the plurality of eldership. He explores and explains the teaching pastor as a servant leader within the plurality of elders (pastors) in a church. I have read almost everything available on church government and Getz's book most clearly lays out government like the New Testament Church. Others I have read fall short, in some respect, of covering the whole story. Also, after doing a little research on the qualifications of Mr. Getz, he has a vast history of helping the church toward good fruit. Do a google on Gene A. Getz, you'll be surprised at the life's work and fruit. I heartily recommend the book. It was just what I needed at just the right time.

I've noticed several previous reviewers compare 'Elders and Leaders' by Gene Getz to another book on church eldership called 'Biblical Eldership' by Alexander Strauch. After growing up in a small Plymouth Brethren church (Alexander Strauch's background as well) I've understood for years why Biblical Eldership was written and used as the key book for elders to study their biblical role. However, Strauch doesn't just present the biblical texts, but presents many personal conclusions as if they were the logical biblical conclusions. The problem is that Strauch doesn't identify or separate out his own cultural biases in reading the biblical texts on elders. His conclusions work perfectly in small PB churches, but create much confusion in larger churches and those with different elder structures. As a result, I've asked many elder boards over the years to read Strauch to study the biblical texts, but work hard to draw the line where he jumped in to his own cultural conclusions. It has been a hard task and often elder boards finish the book frustrated by the obvious bias placed on biblical texts. The key area of problem is that Strauch has made the Bible say things about leadership structures, the role of staff, and involvement of elders in various micro-tasks that are just not present in the biblical texts.As with Strauch, Getz also presents the biblical texts very well. He also includes writings of the early church fathers up to the 3rd century. What Getz does differently than Strauss is that he keeps the 'pure text' work to the front of the book so elders of all size and type churches can read this as 'pure' biblical exegesis. In the later section of the book, Getz draws his own conclusions which come from pastoring large, elder-led churches for over 3 decades. They are very different conclusions than Strauch but they are very consistent with larger and non-PB elders experiences. This book can be read by an elder board both as a biblical study alone (skip the last chapters) or as a biblical study plus application if your church is similar to Getz's. People with small Plymouth Brethren style church biases should continue to read Strauch. These churches often have strong opinions about elder leadership and this book is not meant for them. Larger and non PB elder-led churches will be very well served by Getz's work. Churches with presbytry, council or bishop systems will find this as a helpful 'first' book to read, but will need to read additional books that provide the background to their specific denominational system since Getz's book does not cover aspects of later church history where these systems were created.

I have not read Getz' book yet (I only filled in the star rating because I had to in order to post). No doubt it will be a nice addition to Strauch's work on biblical eldership--emphasis on biblical. In regard to the first review posted: A reviewer with a little backbone might include his name in the review.