Giving ministry to the people

 Someone wrote that the first reformation gave the Bible to the people. The second reformation will give ministry to the people. I totally agree. Too many churches expect their pastors and staff to provide all the ministry for the church while they sit back and evaluate how well these leaders are doing. The Bible teaches that the role of the pastor is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. In other words, the work of the pastor is to teach the congregation how to minister to the people they encounter every day.

In my seminars to small church leaders I give this illustration. No matter how good the pastor may be, he or she can only be in one place at one time doing one thing. Let's say this pastor is serving a church of 70 people, the median size church in America, who have been trained to do ministry wherever they go. Now you have 70 ministers in 70 places doing 70 things. Would you rather grow your church by addition, 1+1, or by multiplication, 70X1? Which do you think will be most effective for the kingdom of God?

If this is the biblical method of ministry why do we not see this happening in more of our churches? There are several reasons.

• Some pastors do not want to share the ministry with members of the congregation. They enjoy the appreciation and accolades too much when they minister to people. Although they may complain about being stretched too thin, they want to be a one-man show.
• Many churches will not change their expectations of the pastor as the ministry-provider. "This is what we pay him for," will be their response to what I'm writing about.
• For too long we have bought into the pastoral care concept when we should be moving towards a congregational-care style of ministry.
• Pastors do not know how to train people to do ministry. Some may believe that it is only in seminary one can receive this kind of training, and it's not really the role of lay people anyway.
• The church is so busy with committee and board work that there is no time for lay people to actually be involved in ministry. While some committee and board work may be needed, this is mostly maintenance work. Much of this can be done without requiring a group of people to give up an evening to discuss things that really do not need discussing and trusting the leadership to make these decisions. Now people have time to minister.

You can probably find other reasons that exist in your church. Regardless of the reason, the church must move towards equipping its members to do ministry. There is simply way too much work that needs to be done to expect that one minister can do it all.