How a Seek-1st body is ordered
Roles
Most people are simply members — and that’s the point. Two different things are described on this page: offices the church recognizes in people, and jobs it hands out. They work differently, and the difference matters more than either list.
Jobs the church hands out
These carry every button in the app. They are assigned, and handed back just as easily — someone tends the meeting for a season, someone else keeps the books. Nothing about them is permanent, and none of them is a rank.
In the church
Across the network
Member
ChurchEvery member a contributor.
The default and most important role. A member brings to the gathering — a song, a teaching, a testimony, a need — invites the people they know, and shares in the body's life: prayer, giving, the open ledger, the roster.
1 Cor 14:26 — “When you come together, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation.”
What each job can do
Offices are deliberately absent from this table. Being recognized as an elder, deacon or deaconess unlocks nothing here.
| Member | Facilitator | Treasurer | Sent One | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gathering | ||||
| Contribute to the agenda | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Withdraw your own item | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Reorder & tend the agenda | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Remove anyone's item | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Start & schedule a gathering | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| People | ||||
| View the roster | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Edit your own profile | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Affirm someone for an office | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Invite new members | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Manage households | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Songbook | ||||
| Use & view songs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Add & edit songs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Manage setlists & remove songs | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Generate AI backing tracks | · | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Giving | ||||
| Give & view the open ledger | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · |
| Manage funds & record disbursements | · | · | ✓ | · |
| Approve large / benevolence outflows | · | · | ✓ | · |
| Network | ||||
| Vet & approve public listings | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Receive & walk with plant requests | · | · | · | ✓ |
| Care for churches as they multiply | · | · | · | ✓ |
Offices the church recognizes
An office is not a job you are given; it is a description of someone the church has come to trust, said out loud. Recognizing it changes nothing about what that person can do in this app. What it changes is that they are now answerable to the church for how they live.
Elder
also called overseer, shepherd, bishop, pastorKnows the flock, and answers for how he lives.
An older man the church has come to trust, recognized rather than appointed — always alongside others, never on his own. He knows people by name and prays for them, teaches and watches what gets taught, and goes when someone is sick or drifting. Recognizing him gives him no new powers in this app; it makes him answerable to the church for his own life.
What they carry
- ·Knows the people by name and prays for them
- ·Teaches, and keeps watch over what is taught
- ·Goes when someone is sick or has drifted away
- ·Helps members at odds with each other make peace
- ·Answers to the body for how he lives
Acts 20:17, 28 — The same men are called elders, overseers, and told to shepherd.
1 Tim 3:1–7 — The character a man must already have.
Titus 1:5–9 — Appointed in every town; elder and overseer used of one man.
1 Pet 5:2–3 — Not domineering, but being examples to the flock.
Jas 5:14 — Call the elders — plural — to pray over the sick.
Deacon
also called servantMakes sure the need is actually met.
The Acts 6 job: the practical care of the body, carried so that prayer and teaching are not crowded out by logistics. Food, money, rides, the follow-through after someone says they will help. Deacons handle money in the open and never alone.
What they carry
- ·Sees that a stated need is actually met, not just noticed
- ·Carries food, money and logistics for the body
- ·Handles money transparently, and never on his own
- ·Follows up after the gathering, when the crowd has gone
Acts 6:1–6 — Seven chosen by the congregation to serve tables.
Phil 1:1 — Addressed alongside the overseers, as a settled office.
1 Tim 3:8–13 — Tested first, then let them serve.
Deaconess
also called servantThe same care, where a woman is the right one to give it.
A parallel serving order for women: the same practical care as the deacons, exercised where a woman is the right person to give it — visiting and caring for women and children, hospitality, preparing women for baptism, coming alongside widows.
What they carry
- ·Visits and cares for the women and children of the body
- ·Opens her home; carries hospitality for the church
- ·Comes alongside widows and women in need
- ·Prepares women for baptism and walks with new believers
Rom 16:1 — Phoebe, a servant (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae.
1 Tim 3:11 — “The women likewise must be dignified…”
1 Tim 5:9–10 — A list of women enrolled for service, with their qualifications.
Pliny, Ep. 10.96 — Two ministrae examined in Bithynia, c. 112 — the office attested early.
Elder, overseer, shepherd and bishop are one office
They are not four ranks. The New Testament applies the words to the same men three separate times: Paul summons the elders of Ephesus and tells those men the Spirit made them overseers, to shepherd the church (Acts 20:17, 28); Titus is told to appoint elders, “for an overseer must be above reproach” (Titus 1:5–7); Peter tells the elders to shepherd the flock, exercising oversight (1 Pet 5:1–2).
“Bishop” is simply the English descendant of the Greek episkopos, by way of Old English bisceop. So a bishop is an elder. That is why you will not find a bishop listed above as something further up.
Where the early writings disagree, and what we do about it
The single bishop presiding over the elders and deacons appears clearly in Ignatius of Antioch, writing around 110 — and his letters are in this app. We have not hidden them. Two other texts we also carry point the other way: the Didache tells a single congregation to appoint “bishops and deacons” — plural — and 1 Clement does the same.
We follow the Didache and Clement: elders together, deacons alongside, no tier above. Read all three and weigh it yourself — that is what the reader is for.
Elders are recognized together, never alone
Every mention of elders in a local church in the New Testament is plural (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Phil 1:1; Titus 1:5; Jas 5:14; 1 Pet 5:1). So this app will not let a church have exactly one. It has none, or it has two. That is not a setting; it is how the software works.
How someone is recognized
Three things, in order. They have been part of the church at least 180 days — “not a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit” (1 Tim 3:6). The list in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is walked through with them, item by item, and a single unresolved concern stops it. Then at least 3 other members say so — “pick out from among you men of good repute” (Acts 6:3). Anyone can step down at any time without asking.
Why the deaconess is a separate order here
This network recognizes elders and deacons among the men, and a parallel order of deaconesses among the women. Christians equally committed to the first-century pattern read Romans 16:1, where Phoebe is called a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae, and 1 Timothy 3:11 as evidence of women deacons proper, rather than a separate order. We have taken one reading; we are not pretending the other is unserious.