I said I agree with you. There is no accountability when the pastor is OVER everyone.
I said in MY church the pastor CAN NOT do that. He is an elder
amongst many. The deacons are only "servers" per se and don't even have
a voting right.

Should a pastor be controlled by the people ? Most baptist churches get a new pastor every three years because the congregation gets tired of the teaching. Does that seem right ?

No pastor should have sole authority. There should be elders. all
with the same authority. I would say at least two. then more added
depending on congregation number.



My church has 5 or 6 elders.. and they answer to each other.



No the people should not rule the elder. If there are enough elders,, this can not happen.



If there is only one, he is in deep trouble.





then again. If I was teaching the word. and the people wanted me to water it down. I would be looking for a different church.

I agree, there must be a structure to keep the pastor from going buck wild. However in the same case the pastor should be able to be led by God and not the people.

So, what Church provides that system ? Are all baptist churches structure the same ?

Our church has 52 elders.

The teaching pastor leads the church in "teaching" there is NO N.T. example of the teacher having control of the church or leading the church in any other manner. This is done by the elders (of which the teacher is ONE).

The elders represent the body of the church.
The elders represent the ideas of the church to the board. The elders make the decisions for everything. Missions, finances ... etc.

"What if the people get tired of the "teacher", should they be able to just "vote" him out? That doesn't seem right, the preacher should be lead by the Lord". (paraphrase)

This presupposes that it is ONLY the teacher that is lead by the Lord. The "preacher" is just the teaching (maybe just ONE of the teachers) elder among many. ALL the elders are recognized as being lead by the Lord, not just one elder. Also, they can not just "get rid of the teaching pastor" like if it is some whimsical thing. Anything the board proposes has to be voted on by the members of the church to pass by quorum to allow the proposal to be even brought up to the board. And then the board has to vote on the issue.

This brings up another issue. If the teaching pastor IS bad, he should be taken out. But not because he is boring, but rather unbiblical.  The churches recognition of this IS God's leading in order to protect the body as a whole.
But this also is somewhat prevented in the FIRST place (the giftedness of the teacher 'character of the preacher') by voting Him after he has interned. the spirit and the guiding of the Church is by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's movement and leadership is in the BODY of the Church as it allows itself to be lead by it's leaders.

This protects the church from popery.

I helped start Calvary Chapel here in Minnesota. I know the process. Yes, the pastor is "sent" from a sending church and starts a "bible study". Yes there are elders. BUT, who sends and qualifies the elders? The pastor himself? ... Let tyranny begin.

Bethlehem Baptist just sent out another Pastor (elder) to start another church. He needs help. Jesus didn't send the disciples out by themselves and neither does the church. We send qualified elders that are willing to go and have been approved of being qualified to be an elder by THE elder board.

This is EXACTLY what E.G. and I are talking about D.S.  The Calvary Chapel mode leaves the Pastor by himself and then HE picks the Elders. Therefore they are his "yes" men, as the church grows, since the "culture" has already grown, the board approves those who the pastor submits. Therefore only voting on more yes men.

The outcome? Tyranny. A flock that is afraid of standing up to it's leaders if they see something wrong. Or if they do say something is wrong, they are labeled as being divisive. And the popery begins and nothing happens.

The pastor here held a "Israel trip" bank account for people in the church to save up money in order to go to Israel in two years. He used that money to help buy a coffee shop and didn't get the money back in time to refund the people and two couples didn't get to go... and as far as I know they even haven't gotten there money back YET !  They complained to the elders they told them that "there was a misallocation of funds". Nothing happened to the pastor, the elders just listen to what the pastor says..... it's a farce.

I can go on and on about how Calvary Pastors get away with murder... or at least "Adultery" or making porn movies.... it's a glaring example of a church structure that is completely upside down.

If the people went to the board it would surely be taken care of.

Oh the joys of not being in leadership.



That's the whole point of this discussion. Like EG said, if the
board is hand picked BY the pastor, the board isn't going to do
anything unless there is a MAJOR uproar from the congregation. So, NO,
many things that go to the board get passed over and the ones who
complain are told to be "loyal" and "submissive" to their leadership
and if they don't they will be regarded as rebellious or devisive.

Well, in consideration and seeing the fruit of many church governments, the Moses model is definitely not a good one let alone not being Biblical.