High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! An elder in Christianity is a person valued for his wisdom who accordingly holds a particular position of responsibility in a Christian group. In some Christian traditions (e.g., Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Methodism) an elder is a clergy person who usually serves a local church or churches and who has been ordained to a ministry of Word, Sacrament and Order, filling the preaching and pastoral offices. In other Christian traditions (e.g., Presbyterianism, Redeemer, Baptists), an elder may be a lay person charged with serving as an administrator in a local church, or be ordained to such an office. Particularly in reference to age and experience, elders exist throughout world cultures, and the Christian sense of elder is partially related to this.