Denominations, Associations, & Local Church Leadership

[Ernie]

Based on biblical teaching about the authority of the church and its leaders, what should the interaction between the authority of a larger organization and the authority of local leadership be? In what ways should local church leaders actually lead, and in what ways should larger authorities lead, in terms of the direction we have from scripture?

I think that the best that can be said for organizations and authority structures beyond the local congregation is that they can be a voluntary association that is in many ways beneficial to the affiliated churches. Pooling of resources, unity and stability across a number of congregations, wider group for fellowship, for a few examples. But I have a hard time finding any biblical teaching that is relevant to the relationship between organizations like this and local churches.

With possible biblical examples, it is hard to draw connections to the church today. The apostles' broad authority over all the followers of Jesus did not continue after their death, and even during their lifetime was tenuous (see 2 Timothy). They didn't set up structures or offices that would continue these sorts of roles. I can't think of any other possible relevant writings.

Unfortunately, there are few writings from the actual elders of the congregations in the first century so it is hard to get a sense of what level of submission the elders had to each other.

It seems to me that leaders were appointed for geographical areas, who then had supervision of multiple small fellowships. I'm not convinced that every small fellowship had its own independent leadership.

It seems to me that the apostles deferred to each other and did not operate outside of the goodwill/approval of each other. I'm not sure why that should be any different today.

Based on this, I operate under the assumption that leaders can be appointed over a number of small fellowships in the same city or town.

FWIW, Clement of Rome, in the first century, thought the church at Rome held authority over some other churches.