The more I work with churches the more convinced I am that one of the serious problems we need to address is that of pastoral leadership. This problem has two facets to it. One is that many pastors do not see themselves as leaders, don't want to be leaders, and have never been trained to lead. They have been trained to be managers of the status quo, and that is what their churches expect them to do. Even churches that claim they want a pastor to lead their church often mean they want a good manager to oversee the existing programs and provide quality ministry to their current membership. That brings us to the second facet which is that many churches will not permit their pastors to lead.
Most of our existing churches, especially those that have been around for a few decades, operate through a committee and congregational structure. Committees are formed to discuss issues and make a presentation to a church business meeting which then votes whether or not to approve the proposal. As we all know, this can take months before any decision is reached. Such a structure worked well when the church and society were more settled, but this is a structure that cannot work in the 21st century when things are simply changing too quickly. Today, by the time a church gets around to voting to do something the opportunity may well have already passed.
We need a much simpler leadership structure in our churches if we are going to effectively reach this generation for Christ. We need pastors who are willing to lead, and we need churches who will trust them to do so. I am not calling for a pastor dictatorship, and that is the fear of some churches. Churches can provide the pastor with a leadership team who would work with the pastor in the decision making process. This team would then be trusted to make the day to day decisions that would allow the church to develop an effective ministry to its community. Monthly business meetings could be replaced with an annual business meeting for the purpose of approving a budget and make other decisions for the upcoming year. In the case of a major decision that would require a vote by the congregation a special meeting could always be called. This is a structure that would allow the church to have much more flexibility in responding to ministry needs in its community.
I realize this would be a major paradigm shift for many of our churches. I am a life-long Baptist, and we feel we need to vote on EVERYTHING! But, that's no longer working well for most of our churches. Why is it so hard to trust persons in leadership to lead? I would suggest that if we cannot trust our leaders to lead our churches then we have asked the wrong persons to serve in those positions. We should also be honest enough to admit that most of our churches really don't have a congregational vote to decide most issues. In many of our churches it is rare for more than 10-15% of our normal Sunday crowd to show up for a business meeting. A church that averages 200 on a Sunday morning may not have more than 20 people at a business meeting to vote on the issues that are raised.
This will be especially challenging for most of our smaller, bivocational churches. Many of them are used to such rapid pastoral turnover that it is hard for them to develop a trust for their pastor that would allow him or her to provide much leadership. I still think that some of them could form a leadership team to work with the pastor and trust that team to make many of the ministry decisions that need to be made and eliminate most of the committees and congregational votes that slow the church down. Such churches may find that being able to respond quicker to ministry opportunities will allow them to minister much more effectively to their communities.
I believe this is a topic we need to be raising to our congregations, and I would be very interested in hearing the reactions from our readers. If your church has already moved in this direction please share your story with the other readers of this blog. Your story may help them if they decide to try to steer their congregations in this direction.
2 comments:
In light of what you have already said, one concern that I have had in the past is that when a congregation appoints a pastor and leadership team to lead a church, the congregation takes on a belief that they are absolved of responsibilities such as decision-making. It also leads to the "20/80" model of church action, which says that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. How can churches actively circumvent this?
Congregations need to be taught that they are not absolved of responsibilities, but those responsibilities have changed. In the traditional church we ask people to serve on committees and boards to basically address maintenance issues in the church. In the paradigm I'm describing the pastor and leaders fulfill much of this responsibility, and the congregation becomes responsible for doing ministry. Most committee work is not ministry; it is maintenance.
Eph. 4 teaches us that God gives the church pastors to equip the laity to do the work of ministry. In many traditional churches the expectation is that the pastor is to do the ministry, but that is not the biblical mandate. Which would be most effective? To have one person (pastor) doing all the work of ministry or to have 50 people (congregation) do ministry? Now, of course, these people would have to be trained to do that ministry, but according to Eph. that is the responsibility of the pastor.
I believe if we are to recapture the ability to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission we have to make this shift. Every church member needs to take seriously the challenge to become a disciple of Christ. Each one needs to know what spiritual gifts God has given them and understand what they feel passionate about in the areas of ministry. Then they need to be trained in how to use those gifts and given the opportunity to do so. Most will probably find their gifts are not suited for sitting in a committee meeting discussing whether the church should use 75 watt light bulbs or 100 watt bulbs.
If God's people are helped to understand their spiritual gifts and challenged and given the freedom to use those gifts, many will do so. In such a scenario the Kingdom of God will advance far better than it is currently doing.
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