Last Sunday, our church family commissioned Jonny Miller as a new elder. Jonny joins Jonty Allcock, Phil Tinker, Stephen Fletcher and Trev Archer in prayerfully leading our church, setting the vision, and ensuring that we hold fast to the Bible. We asked Jonny a few questions about himself and the role of eldership within Globe.

Jonny, who are you?!

I’m married to Lili and we live in Archway, North London. We’ve actually just moved there, so together we’ve had a set of busy weekend lugging furniture across London!

I work in Westminster as a technical consultant. The company I work for builds technology solutions to help make decision making more efficient. It’s interesting stuff!

Outside of work, I spend a lot of time playing sport. I play squash with colleagues from work, I’m in a five-a-side team and I watch sports often.

Where did your faith come from?

Growing up in a Christian family meant I was always around church. Sunday school and Christian summer camps were always a part of my life. The thing that kept me in church were the friends, I was just living life to please them.
That changed when I was about 15; at summer camp one of the talks clearly explained the result of sin. It took sin from a hypothetical thing to a reality. I needed help, and Jesus came to do that. That was the moment the penny dropped – when I became a Christian.

When I became a Christian, the people pleasing and all that didn’t stop straight away, I still struggle with that. But now, it all depends on God. Other people’s opinions aren’t all that matters; living right before God is what counts.

You’ve been at The Globe Church for three years now, what drew you to Globe?

I particularly love the sense family. If you miss a week, you will be missed. People will notice and care, and I think that is a very precious thing. When people have gone through really hard times, the church has gathered to pray for and support them. When people have had moments to celebrate – we’ve done that with them as a church! We don’t always get this right and as the church grows it becomes harder and harder to maintain that family sense. But pursuing that depth of relationship is one of the core values of our church family.

Another thing that drew me is that as a church, we’re committed to looking to the Bible to see how Jesus did things – we’re a church that is centred around him. We’re going to do things based upon what the Bible says, rather than previous structures, or past experiences.

On Sunday we commissioned you as an elder of the church. What is the role of the eldership in the church?

The eldership is the pastoral group of the church. We are there to pray and care for the church family.
We also help set the direction for the church. For example, we announced the theme for our church day away, ‘Moving Forward: in maturity and discipleship with Christ’. That has been something that we as an eldership team have been praying and thinking about, as we look to at the direction for the church in the year ahead.
The elders also hold each other accountable. Jonty and Phil have a huge responsibility in teaching the church, and we look after them in that.

In the coming few months what will we see the eldership doing?

We’ll be part of the church family! Some of the elders have a very public role like teaching and preaching from the front, and then rest of us will be there every Sunday. We will be praying with and for the church family, and doing our best to get know and love people.

How can the church family be praying for the elders?

As the church grows and changes, we need God’s help to lead wisely lovingly. A massive prayer request is that we can get to know, love and care for all the people who are arriving in this autumn term.

We also we believe that we have a responsibility to look after people as they leave. Over summer many people have graduated or moved jobs. Please pray for us as we support and help them to find a new church.

Pray for the Spirit to lead us in the decisions that need to be made, both financial and administrative, which will set the direction of the church in the year a head.