The watershed question which put me down the path of congregationalism:

“Who holds the keys of the kingdom? The elders alone, or the gathered congregation?”

Elder-led (not elder-ruled) congregationalism in a nutshell holds that the gathered members of a local church (autonomous, i.e. not governed by outsiders) express required consensus for:

1. Members in
2. Members out
3. Officers in¹
4. Officers out

Consensus is also typically typically for changes to major church documents or church decisions, such as a general budget or building purchase.

A fully congregational church will vote on the removal of a member even after the member formally expresses resignation of membership.

An elder-ruled (not elder-led) church will shift most of the above to the sole decision of the elders, and reduce voting of the congregation to a mere affirmation of an existing decision (not mere recommendation) by elders.

An excellent book on the topic is Don’t Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism, by Jonathan Leeman.

Baptists are congregationalists in principle, even if somewhat inconsistent in practice.

“Bible churches” (by that name) tend to be elder-ruled, sometimes requiring congregational approval only for the addition of elders.

“The differences between polities tend to emerge when churches are unhealthy and not humble. A healthy and humble elder-rule church may look similar to a healthy and humble elder-led church because those elders are involving the congregation as they should. But you can feel the differences as soon as those churches move toward unhealthy.” (Andy Naselli)

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1. Elders and deacons are officers.

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Twelve Arguments for Congregationalism, by Jonathan Leeman

Don’t Fire Your Church Members: The Case for Congregationalism, p. 122

Here are twelve biblical reasons why I believe the keys of the kingdom belong jointly to the entire congregation, plus one extrabiblical background argument:

1. The final court of appeal in a matter of discipline, which is the highest authority in a church, is the church (Matt 18:17).
2. Jesus says that the church has the authority to make this assessment and judgment because it possesses the keys (Matt 18:18).
3. Jesus promises that his authoritative presence abides with two or three witnesses to his reign and to one another gathered in his name (Matt 18:20). This locates authority in a gathering. But to say that this promise applies to a gathering smaller than a church would divide a local church against itself and make the basic unit of kingdom authority something smaller than a church, or create churches inside of churches.
4. There is no mention of bishops or elders in Matthew 16, 18, or 28, nor does the New Testament give a single example of elders or overseers unilaterally exercising the keys.
5. The apostles treat the gathered congregation as something of an equal partner when selecting and affirming the seven proto-deacons.
6. Paul invokes the language of gathering with the authority of Jesus to act in Jesus’ name from Matthew 18:20 when he charges not only the leaders of the Corinthian church but the whole congregation to “hand this man over to Satan” (1 Cor 5:4–5). The judgment, to be clear, does not occur behind closed session doors.
7. Paul explicitly tells the whole congregation that it is their responsibility to judge (1 Cor 5:12).
8. Paul tells the Galatian churches that they should act as a check even on his apostolic authority when he departs from the gospel (Gal 1:6–9). They don’t need to go outside the system to resolve the problem.
9. Paul affirms that the decision of the “majority” was sufficient for removing a man from membership (2 Cor 2:6).
10. Churches can exist without elders (e.g., Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5).
11. Much of the New Testament is written to whole churches.
12. This explanation has the advantage of corresponding more closely with the Greek conception of an ekklesia, which involved an assembly of citizens who shared rule together and each had one vote, not an assembly of subjects.