I was invited to be an Elder in my church (Northfield) earlier this year.

As far as a know I’m the first 20-something Elder at Northfield. I guess it’s quite significant.

But now that I’m 30, I’m hoping to have an extra wrinkle or first grey hair so that I can be taken just that little bit more seriously.

I digress.

As Elders, we meet once a month to discern God’s-will-in-practice for our Church. At the next meeting (Thursday), I’ve been asked to kick off with a devotion, and I think I’ll tie it in with one of the biggest issues I have with being an elder: connectedness.

I want to ask the question: how connected are we to our community.

As the body responsible for the overall direction of the church, how can we be sure we’re in touch with the “body” when, on average, each one of us attends a monthly meeting, a monthly prayer meeting, a weekly Sunday service and in some cases, a weekly home group/bible study?

With a membership of over 5000, and a weekly attendance of 1500, how connected are we to our congregation?

A friend of mine commented the other night that he has been coming to Northfield for 24 years, and it is only in the last 3 months that he has come to know who the Elder’s are in person.

Is this not an indictment on our connectedness?

I asked a group a people involved in a ministry at Northfield how many Elder’s they know of. The majority of the group could not name more than 4 Elder’s (and there are 13 on the Board).

Now, Jesus ranked “connectedness” as the source of all good fruit:

John 15

The Vine and the Branches

¹“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ²He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^{a]” style=”line-height: 0.5em; font-size: 7px;”>[a]} so that it will be even more fruitful. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

⁹“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹²My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

How do we learn from Jesus here in terms of how we need to stay in touch?