All Leaders

Does your congregation have Elders?  If you do, how are they selected, are they appointed, elected, do they have term limits or serve for life?

We have 2 Elders. Per church by-laws:

Each Elder is elected to serve a 2 year term. The terms are staggered. We have an election and the congregation yote to see who will serve as Elder(s). The Elder must be a male. He must be a member of St. Thomas Lutheran Church for a year before he can hold on office. 

We were having problems getting members to run for an office. We combine the President and Vice President positions with the Elder positions. One Elder has the Congregation President duties and the other Elder has the Vice President duties. The Elder that in his second year of his term has the Congregation President duties also. 

John,
Great to meet you and Dale via this message board. Thankful to have a forum to ask questions and learn from each other. I currently serve as the Chairman of the Board of Elders at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Des Peres, MO. We are blessed to have 17 Elders serving our church which includes two who are specifically new member Elders. We used to be arranged in geographic zones, however, a number of years ago we changed it to alphabetical family listings. Our Elders are selected with consultation of our pastors and appointed to their position for a two-year term and you can serve two consecutive terms (4 years total). Elder names are later brought to our voter's meeting when other officers are elected (our terms are staggered and we always have new Elders appointed when new officers are appointed). I try to get a mix of new Elders and Elders who have served before and I like to have different generations/life stages represented. We have a yearly Elders Retreat, monthly business meetings, and monthly Elders Bible Study. 

It's funny...when I first became an Elder, I thought of myself as a "younger" Elder...now, I guess I'm one of the "elder" Elders!