Church leaders can be viewed either as workers to fill slots or as fellow ministers who need special care commensurate with their added responsibilities.
—Bruce Larson
My first church out of Princeton Seminary was in Binghamton, New York, where I was associate pastor. My wife, Hazel, and I had been married during my last year of seminary, and ten months later our first baby arrived. Four months after that, a second baby was on the way. All the changes in our lives took a toll. Mad and frantic, and with our marriage in serious trouble, we reached out in desperation to two laycouples in the church who were also new parents. “We’re going through a terrible time,” we confessed.
They surprised us by saying, “So are we!”
So we decided to meet with them to pray and read the Bible. Those meetings turned us around and saved three marriages. Beyond that, genuine new life broke out in the church, and within a year, a number of groups were meeting. By the next year, there must have been a hundred such groups gathering out of that little church in downtown Binghamton. People were drawn to the kind of intimacy and caring we distressed couples had stumbled upon.
We went from Binghamton to Boston, where I studied psychology at Boston University. After earning a master’s degree, I was called to pastor a church in Pana, a small town in the lush corn and soybean fields of central Illinois. I tried to impose on those dear folks what I had learned. Not knowing that the conspiracy against intimacy can be enormous in a small town, I experienced little success, and I began to feel lonely and disheartened.
I’ll never forget lying in bed in our tiny, unair-conditioned bedroom late one sweltering summer night. A Rock Island train was crossing the sultry prairie, and we could hear its distant whistle. Hazel turned to me and sighed, “I wish I were on that train going anyplace.”
“Me, too,” I replied in frustration. “Me, too.”
By the time we left a few years later, we did have a couple of groups functioning, and many lives were changed by Jesus Christ. I am grateful for our years in Pana, for they taught me that intimate support groups—and especially getting church leaders into such groups—won’t always be a popular thing.
Later, after twenty-one years in parachurch ministry, I was offered the pastorate of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. At least one friend, who knew the size and scope of the ministry at UPC, advised, “Don’t go. It will kill you.” But I went anyway.
Once I was there, however, I discovered that my four predecessors had left under unhappy circumstances. I panicked and called out for help at an elders’ retreat.
“They tell me this church can be pretty hard on senior pastors,” I said, “but I hope to leave here someday in my right mind and still praising the Lord. To do that, I need your help. Who would like to volunteer to meet with me once a week for ninety minutes on Friday mornings?”
Six men came up to me during the retreat and offered to join me. For ten years we “Seven Dwarfs” met quietly out of the flow of church traffic to talk about our lives, our families, our Lord, our finances—anything but church shoptalk. To put it another way, they were my pastors during those years.
Through my years in ministry, I’ve recognized my need for continuing care as a pastor. And if I need it, so do the other leaders—the staff and elders. Ministry is too tough to go it alone. Lay leaders and staff need pastoral care as much, if not more, than men and women in the pews.
A Model for Models
In churches as large as University Presbyterian or the Crystal Cathedral, obviously I cannot be available to every person who walks in off the street. But I’ve had a policy that members can always see me. If it’s not urgent, it may take a couple of weeks to get an appointment, but I am available. I need to be, if for nothing else than to be a relevant preacher, one who is aware of the hurts and needs of the congregation.
But for me, pastoral care centers on the staff and church officers. They’re the ones I pastor first; they get the major part of my time and attention. For example, at UPC we had thirty-six elders on Session and twelve program staff members. Those forty-eight people were my primary responsibility.
Modeling, we’re told, is the most effective teaching method. Early on, I learned that if I want a tithing church, I have to tithe. If I want a praying church, I must pray. And if I want a small-group church, I need to be in a small group.
So in my ministry, I strive to model how an authentic leader relates to other people. As the elders and staff observe my ministry style, my priorities, my way of approaching life, I hope they will see certain qualities: openness, vulnerability, the ability to put people ahead of assignments, a steadfast commitment to the Lord, and a genuine relationship with him.
If the staff and elders take up this style of ministry, they in turn become models for the church. People are watching them and observing their lifestyle to discern what this Christian life is all about. That’s why I tell our elders, “Your primary job is not to draw up budgets, spend the money, and run committees. Rather, it is to demonstrate how the family of God behaves. We need to be up-front if we’re angry (instead of carrying resentment), preferring one another in love, quick to support and help one another. The people of the church are watching us closely. They see the quality of our relationships with the Lord and with one another.”
One phrase seems to sum up that philosophy for our Session: Elders are not simply big-E elders, who serve Communion, spend money, and decide programs; we are also small-e elders, who are ministers who care for people, beginning with the other elders. This kind of mutual caregiving between the church staff and elders is bound to permeate the entire congregation.
Caring for Staff
What are my pastor-care concerns for staff members? I want to encourage them to be real people, not super saints. My first concern isn’t that they produce tremendous amounts of work (which, of course, I wouldn’t discourage), but that I help leaders realize they can cry, they can say no when there is too much on their plate, they can take a day off without guilt. Mainly I want them to remain genuine and spiritually healthy.
For instance, one associate pastor leading worship began the prayer of confession: “Lord, I’m sorry I put my fist through the wall this week.” We could all picture that much better than vague generalities about falling short of God’s best and not doing some things we ought to have done.
There is no power in confessing that we are generic sinners. But when we say something like, “Lord, I was preoccupied with selling my house this week and neglected you,” that’s specific confession. That helps people grow in their understanding of godliness. And that’s the kind of staff attitude I want my pastoral care to enable and encourage.
Staff members have a great deal of responsibility in any congregation, so the weekly staff meeting is an important time that ought to include more than job-related problems. Staff members need personal support as well.
One former associate just came through a divorce. His wife left him and their four children after twenty years of marriage. He continued on staff through this trauma, and the church wept with him and grew with him. It was tough for him to be a homemaker and father and pastor. But at his time of heartbreak, he had a pastor and a church to share his hurt and share his ministry.
This kind of pastoral relationship within a staff doesn’t come automatically because offices line the same hall; it has to be developed—usually by the head of staff. When Hazel and I arrived at UPC in 1980, we invited the four other pastors and their wives to our home for dinner. I made my two-alarm chili, and we talked and dreamed the evening away. When they left, Hazel said, “Didn’t that feel good! Let’s do it again.”
“We can’t make a practice of this,” I protested. “I may have to fire someone, and I can’t do it if we’re the best of friends.”
“Oh, let’s just try it,” Hazel urged, not willing to let me off the hook.
So twice a month we met at our home for dessert and sometimes dinner. We met as a family. We laughed and cried and weathered tough times in some of our lives. What we did was blur the image between the professional and the personal.
I know that may fly in the face of some management advice, but it worked for us. I sometimes had to lay down the law as head of staff, but when I did, I had the advantage of knowing the staff members, and they, in turn, knew and understood me. We became intimate friends; even family. Sure, we were competitive and insecure sometimes, but we were family, so when one scored a goal, everyone cheered.
I sometimes consider how different this is from some church staffs. One senior pastor I know hasn’t spoken to one of his staff members for five years. I can’t believe this kind of strain doesn’t show up on Sunday mornings, when both stand before the congregation to lead worship.
A church is not a clinic in which a faceless and interchangeable staff services the clientele by showing up and handing out pills. I believe the staff of a church is a living, breathing family. We may wrestle at times. We may injure one another sometimes and rescue each other other times. But we’re in it together and we need one another. Ministry is not my profession; it’s my life. My colleagues are not mere co-workers; they’re my brothers and sisters.
Caring for Layleaders
My plan for pastoral care of the leaders begins with an emphasis on the three essentials of the Christian faith.
1. An encounter with the living Lord. Basic to Christian life is an experience of God’s power and presence. Many churches are full of unconverted believers who assent to right theology, down to the last “I believe” in the Apostles’ Creed, but who nevertheless wonder deep down, What good does it do me? They’ve given their money and their time to the church, but they’ve never met Christ Jesus.
As a pastor, I need to begin by ensuring that each elder has actually had an encounter with the living Lord. Some elders with forty years of service in the church have just begun to learn to talk with Christ and listen to him and know his presence.
One elder tells a memorable story of how he became a Christian. He heard an evangelistic team speak about the new life, and, as the meeting ended, Pete said to a team member, “I can’t give my life to Jesus with integrity. I have commitments for the next three years.”
So the evangelist asked, “Well, how about next week? Is that free?”
“No, it’s not,” he replied. “I’m already committed.”
“Then how about the next twenty-four hours? Would you turn your life over to Christ for the next twenty-four hours?”
“Well, I guess I can do that,” Pete replied, and he did. He never took it back.
2. The experience of koinonia. I’m convinced people want and need to know others on a deep and personal level and be known by them, but they’re terrified of rejection. They’ve been rejected so many times, they’re afraid of reaching out again. They are determined to avoid anything personal. They’ll do Bible studies, take on projects, bring in speakers, and discuss Christian books—anything but talk about their lives, their failings, their needs.
Yet, however much some tend to avoid it, church leaders need to be a part of the body; they need to experience koinonia. Jesus’ commandment was, after all, to “love one another as I have loved you.” Intimacy is scary, but Jesus first modeled it for church leaders when he gathered the Twelve.
My need for koinonia led to those weekly meetings with the Seven Dwarfs. And to meet that same need for all the leaders, we divided the Session at UPC into “families” of six or seven who gathered at the beginning of Session meetings to catch up on one another and share joys and burdens. The members of these families soon began to take on the pastoral care of one another.
I remember a typical Session meeting with an enormous docket, which ordinarily would have kept the Session until after midnight. With the Session families meeting first, however, we were finished with the entire meeting by 9:40. Why?
There’s an obvious reason. People come to such meetings with baggage—a rocky marriage, a job in jeopardy, health problems. They may arrive angry or guilty or anxious. But meeting first with six other caring friends, they can work on those issues; then elders don’t veto somebody’s initiative in the business meeting because they’re mad at the world.
Session retreats are another way to build koinonia. Several years ago we used the book of Galatians as the basis for our retreat. In that letter, Paul tells his story in the first two chapters, declares his beliefs in the second two, and shares his ministry in the last two. I suggested we divide our retreat into thirds and cover those same three topics.
On the first night three elders told their stories, and the next day, all the elders told their life stories in their Session families. By telling and hearing such touching, intimate histories, that Session experienced koinonia.
Koinonia promotes accountability. Pastors and elders can sometimes get out of line, but when structures like our Session families are in place, there’s someone to say, “Hey! Just what do you think you’re doing?” In this setting, people care about us—enough to keep us from error. Even better, the pastor doesn’t have to do all the “straightening out.” Each staff member and elder has a Session family to hold him or her accountable.
For instance, when one man from my small group suddenly walked out on his wife of twenty-seven years, I talked with him. But mine was only one of nearly a dozen contacts from fellow group members. All lovingly listened to him, prayed with him, and asked him pointedly, “Can this really be what God wants?” He had a whole lot of “pastors” caring for him.
3. The exercise of ministry. Most church leaders have some ministry within the church. They may head up the Sunday school or coordinate the ushers or lead Bible studies. These activities are almost a given. But an additional ministry I encourage these people to do takes place outside the church walls.
I make a point of visiting all my elders in their workplaces. When I first began doing this, they suspected I came to solicit their help for the church. After touring the workplace and greeting colleagues, we’d go out to eat, and my lunch partner was invariably wondering, Okay, when’s he going to ask me to do something?
They were surprised to find I was not there to recruit them. “I just want to know how your ministry is going at work. How do you see your ministry here at Boeing? (or Nordstrom? or Swedish Hospital?)” When conversation turned to Session assignments, I’d underscore that I was there to talk about the ministry at work and at home with the family.
Ministry takes many forms, but there is nothing more rewarding than being the one through whom lonely, desperate, drowning people find new life and purpose in the person of Jesus Christ.
A chemist friend tells this unique story. A man at the laboratory approached him one day with a confession. “Earl, I envy you. My life is a mess, but obviously something is different about you. I figure it has something to do with Jesus, because I’ve heard you talking about him. But I have a problem with Jesus.” These two Ph.D.s discussed the Christian faith at length without a breakthrough. Finally, Earl turned to his friend and asked, “Can you make a turnip?”
“Of course not,” the fellow replied, a little surprised. “No chemist can make a turnip.”
“Then would you be willing to turn your life over to the Great Turnip Maker?” Earl pressed.
The fellow chemist thought a minute and replied, “Yeah, I could do that,” and they prayed together. It wasn’t long before Earl’s friend discovered that the Great Turnip Maker was none other than Jesus Christ himself. He read in John’s gospel, chapter 1, “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” And Earl had the joy of seeing his friend find what proved to be genuine faith.
Ministry takes place all week long in all we do at the workplace, yes, but also in our homes and in our neighborhoods. A developer and his wife, both in their late thirties, moved into a new home in an area he was developing. It was a neighborhood with enormous homes surrounded by big lots, so it wasn’t easy to get to know neighbors.
Unhappy with that situation, these two opened their home during Advent for a beautiful, candlelight dinner for about a hundred neighbors. The fellowship was so warm and genuine that they decided to keep the meetings going. Now they have regular gatherings there, and in addition to dinner, they invite a guest speaker to share his or her witness. Thus this young couple ministers to the whole development.
Church leaders can be viewed in two ways: as workers to fill leadership slots or as fellow ministers who need special pastoral care commensurate with their added responsibilities. I, of course, choose the latter.
But this pastoral care is not the job of the senior pastor alone. Church leaders, lay and clergy, can learn to pastor each other. After all, we need one another, not just to perform ministry, but to be the body of Christ: mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers to each other.
Copyright © 1997
