As an elder at our local church, this short blog post recently struck me. Tim Challies writes about not letting seeds which can split rocs fester. About not letting tension and dissension sit in the shadows.
For a day or two it lays there, exposed to sun and rain, until a sudden gust of wind pushes it into a tiny fissure. And there the seed germinates, there it finds just enough soil to put down its first tentative roots, there it becomes a sapling, there it begins to grow into a tree. As the years pass, as the maple grows, its roots drive deeper into that crack, they push with steady and unrelenting force, until finally they break the mighty rock in two.
[Challies]
It is a compelling argument that part of what an elder does is to go around and pick out the seeds so that the rock stays put and the trees grow elsewhere.