Radical New Leadership Model Empowered Elders Leadership in the Church should be different from leadership in the world. In the world leadership takes the form of a pyramid. There is a hierarchy of power with one person at the top. In contrast, leadership in the New Testament is always defined in the plural. No one is ever designated as the single leader of a local church. However, for most of history, the church has moved towards the hierarchical model with the episcopal form of government. Even the modern independent churches have senior pastors above their elders and other pastoral staff. They are now moving even further towards hierarchy by creating a new breed of apostles, who will take a place in the pyramid above the senior pastors. I believe that the New Testament calls us to a radically different model of leadership; a model which has never really been tried, except in the early church. This model is joint leadership by a team of leaders who are equal in status, but who bring different gifts to the leadership process. There should be no hierarchy or pyramid. The co-ordinating and directing role is assigned to the Holy Spirit. The power of a team is greater than the sum of the abilities of its individual members. A team of leaders who are empowered and lead by the Spirit has the potential to be more effective than the pyramid model which is used in the world. As the church moves into a time