Glossary of Terms
Appendix to Planting an Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Borrowed elder: a ruling elder or minister appointed by a presbytery or a session to provide spiritual oversight for the people of a mission work.
Church planter: the organizing pastor of a mission work.
Core group: an informal collection of believers who are exploring the possibility that God may be calling them together to plant an Orthodox Presbyterian church.
Evangelist: an ordained minister who is called to serve as the organizing pastor of a mission work.
Mission work: a group of believers meeting regularly for worship on the Lord's Day under the jurisdiction of a session or presbytery, and not yet organized as a separate congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Office-bearer: a man who has been trained, elected, ordained, and installed in one of the Biblical offices of minister, ruling elder, or deacon.
Organizing a mission work: the meetings and activities during which the presbytery gains sufficient confidence that the hand of God has produced both a mature group of believers and a unified congregation which is able to walk together as a church of Jesus Christ in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Organizing a mission work as a new congregation: the process of taking a mission work, from the time of its recognition by the presbytery, through the steps necessary to receive members and form a congregation, train church officers, prepare the necessary documents which relate the mission work to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and satisfy the presbytery that it has reached the ecclesiastical maturity necessary to conduct its own ministry, choose its own officers, call its own pastor, and affiliate with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Organizing pastor: the evangelist who is called by his presbytery or by an organized congregation to develop a mission work into a new and separate congregation of the presbytery. (It should be noted that the term organizing pastor is a construct derived from the implications of the Form of Government in the same way that the title associate pastor is derived.)
Overseeing session: the session of a local congregation or the elders and ministers comprising a committee of the presbytery to which is assigned the spiritual oversight of the members of a mission work.
Particular church: an organized congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
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