**This series began as an assignment for my studies at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary**
INTRODUCTION
Church government should be a topic of interest to every Christian yet in the experience of the author a rather small percentage of congregations actually understand different models of governance much less the model their own church utilizes. At first glance, there would seem to be only a few models of governance from which to choose. Morris offers a description of only three models, episcopacy, Presbyterianism, and congregationalism, which seems to be all encompassing.[1] Welch expands on this by adding the monarchial system of governance in which he sees the Roman Catholic Church.[2] For Welch’s purpose in discussing church administration, this is likely sufficient. However, ecclesiology is not so simple. Fortunately, the rubric for the current assignment only calls for a discussion of five models of church government. The following is a brief description of each as identified in Perspectives on Church Government; 5 Views.