306. Shepherds Smell Like Sheep

Some elders think the job is the meeting. They show up, they vote, and then they adjourn. Dr. J. Mark Beach disagrees. In this episode of MARSCast, Beach unpacks why the real work of eldership happens in coffee shops, hospital rooms, and living rooms, not the consistory room, and why elders who get the polity right but miss the gospel are practicing something other than Christianity. Drawing on Jesus' parable of the two lost sons, he makes a searching case that many elders are more elder brother than they'd like to admit, and what repentance from that looks like in pastoral practice.