Elders are leaders of the people of God. They lead, not from above, but from alongside. Fellow-workers, fellow-laborers are they. Brothers together with all other disciples of Christ. They are not clergy as in a separate spiritual cast. They are not more special or more privileged. They are called to lead by serving.
Where’s the glory in that? The glory comes from being counted as a reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Servant par excellence. That kind of leadership always gains a following.
Russian author Alexander Solzhenitzyn understood this in his book “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” the chronicle of existence in a labor camp of the former Soviet Union. In comparing a prison guard with a squad leader who was one of the prisoners himself he writes: "A guard can’t get people to budge even in working hours, but a squad leader can tell his men to get on with the job even during the break, and they’ll do it. Because he’s the one who feeds them. And he’d never make them work for nothing" (Peguin Books, 1998, pg. 71).
In other words, the squad leaders lead because they provided for the prisoners. So, too, elders are able to lead because they are known to be servants who provide for the people of God.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet" (Jn 13:13–14).