Sierra View Presbyterian Church

At Sierra View, we hold to the form of government called Presbyterianism, which is representative in nature. In Presbyterianism, a local church has two groups of officers, Elders and Deacons.

The board of Elders is called the Session. This group of men have the responsibility to govern the church and to devote themselves to the ministries of “Word and Prayer.” There are two classes of Elders, Ruling and Teaching. Like all officers, Ruling Elders are nominated and elected by the congregation, and then appointed or ordained to the office. Likewise, Teaching Elders, or Pastors, are members of the Session, having been selected by the local congregation. Teaching Elders are not members of the congregation but are members of the next highest church court, the Presbytery. Normally, the Senior Pastor is the “Moderator,”or the presiding officer of the Session. Though Teaching Elders have a vote on the Session, their vote carries no more authority than those of the Ruling Elders.

The other group of officers is the Deacons. They too are nominated and elected by the congregation. The Deacons primary responsibility is to be ministers of mercy and help to the congregation. The Deacons may be in charge of caring for the congregational needs, the church’s facilities, etc. As such, the Deacon’s ministry is principally one of service.

Presbyterianism contains three church “courts.” The lowest court is the Session. The next highest court is the Presbytery, which consists of all Elders (Teaching and Ruling) in a specific geographic region. Finally, the General Assembly consists of all Elders in the entire denomination.

A distinctive of Presbyterianism is its connectionalism. Each local congregation, though governed by its own members, is not autonomous and isolated from the other local congregations. They are connected to each other for the purpose of accountability, encouragement and oversight. Likewise, Presbyterianism is a “grass-roots” form of government in the sense that there is no hierarchal structure as in Catholicism or Anglicanism. Each local session has the right to elect its own officers and to possess its own property.

This is a skeletal discussion of some particulars of Presbyterianism. For a thorough discussion , see Charles Hodge’s exposition at the link below. It is perhaps the finest exposition of Presbyterianism in modern scholarship (though some may not consider Charles Hodge “modern!”).

http://www.pcanet.org/history/documents/wip.html - Charles Hodge’s “What is Presbyterianism.”