Every pastor I know affirms the priesthood of all believers and that every Christian is called to ministry, including the one of providing pastoral care for one another. But most also admit there’s a big gap between the actual and desired level of lay ministry.
One reason for this, I believe, is that releasing people to minister involves risks, both for pastor and people. For the pastor, it means giving up control, shedding the “I can handle it” image. For lay people, it means taking on responsibilities bigger than they’ve ever imagined, tackling situations in which they might not have all the answers, providing pastoral care when they seem to have few resources. And that’s scary.
I once had the chance to ask the Swiss physician Paul Tournier, “How do you help your patients get rid of their fears?”
“I don’t,” he said. “Everything that’s worthwhile in life is scary. Choosing a school, choosing a career, getting married, having kids—all those things are scary. If it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.”
As I mentioned earlier, it’s vital to get lay people involved in ministry because, among other reasons, it’s the most effective way to give pastoral care to the congregation and community. But to get more lay people into ministry, we’ll have to take some risks—and help our people to do the same. In fact, during my years of ministry, I’ve discovered four principles that help me do that wisely and effectively.
Stepping Off the Pedestal
If lay people are going to minister, they have to see their leaders in ministry situations—both on the giving end and the receiving end.
My natural inclination is to “do unto others” but discourage people from “doing unto me,” because I’d rather not feel indebted. I have to resist the desire to look competent and secure at all times. Sometimes the desire to seem self-sufficient is my own, but sometimes other people want me to live up to that image. Either way, if lay people are going to minister effectively, I must resist being conformed to that image.
Sometimes after a Sunday sermon, someone will say, “That was a challenging message.”
I’ll say, “But how do we apply that? What I said is true, and I believe it, but I’m not sure how to live it out. You’ve got to help me.” The final application of a sermon rests on me as well as on the congregation.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus seems to find ways to use his own needs to bless people. To Zacchaeus he said, “Can you feed thirteen guys at your house? We’re hungry.” Zacchaeus was eager to oblige, and his life was changed by that lunch.
To an outcast woman at a well Jesus said, “Can you get me a drink? I don’t have a cup.” The night before his trial and crucifixion, he asked three friends to keep him company. He said, “I’m scared. Come pray with me.”
That’s our example.
One Sunday afternoon at my last church, I was reading the paper, when suddenly my brain felt as if it was being stabbed by a dozen ice picks. With the help of some toothache medicine, I managed to make it through the night. The next day the doctor gave me the diagnosis—shingles—and $125 worth of prescriptions.
By Wednesday, the night we were beginning a class on lay ministry, it wasn’t any better, so I said, “This is our first session on ‘becoming a minister,’ and I’m in need of pastoral care right now. At the end of class, some elders are going to come and pray for me and anoint me with oil. You can all see how that healing ministry is done.”
At 9 o’clock when I finished teaching, the elders still hadn’t shown up. One of the class members said, “Well, why can’t we pray for you?”
“Why not?” I said.
One woman found some suntan oil in her purse, and the whole class gathered around me, anointed me with the oil, and prayed. Just as they finished, the elders arrived, and we prayed all over again. Two days later, I was well.
In the next Sunday’s sermon, I mentioned having shingles, how two groups of people had prayed, and how God had taken the pain away. The next week a man wrote me, “I want to thank you for being in the pulpit last Sunday just a week after you got shingles. I know that nobody gets rid of shingles in a week. I know God healed you. I’ve never seen a miracle before. Now, with my own eyes, I believe I’ve seen one.”
I would never choose to have shingles, but God used it to demonstrate his healing power and to bless people. Part of the blessing, in this case, was that people in the class saw they could minister with confidence.
Yet another way to encourage lay ministry is by having lay people tell publicly what God was doing in their lives. For instance, once I led a retreat at which three elders launched the first night by telling their remarkable stories. One man told about having two of his daughters killed in separate car accidents, one involving a drunken driver. He and his wife have survived, and the miracle is, they’re not bitter. By the end of his story, many were tearful.
A second man had been through a divorce. He is now happily remarried with wonderful kids and a powerful ministry, but he talked about the pain of divorce. “You never get over the pain. The pain is always there.”
Next a schoolteacher, a woman in her thirties, told her story: “I never thought I’d be this old and still be unmarried.” She shared her disappointment and her reliance on God. It was a holy moment.
All the next morning and into the afternoon, the storytelling continued, this time in groups of seven. Everyone got to share his or her story—”This is where I’m coming from … where God found me … where I am now … where my pain is … where God is leading me.”
People need role models for that kind of vulnerability—pastors and church leaders who will risk sharing their pain and their dreams. Such modeling shows people that ministry begins in weakness, not strength. That, in turn, encourages them to speak about their own pain and releases them to minister to one another with less fear of inadequacy.
Limiting the Essential Qualifications
It’s normal to fear putting ministry into the hands of lay people, because they haven’t proven themselves. But we can put so many requirements in the way that people never reach out to others in Jesus’ name.
I believe people need a relationship with the living Christ before they can minister, but that’s about the only qualification.
I don’t like to have an elaborate screening process, but people must answer three crucial questions affirmatively before I believe they are qualified to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Do you have a relationship with Jesus? The church is full of people who believe in Jesus but have never met him. The relevant question isn’t, “Do you believe Jesus died on the cross?” The Devil believes that much. The question Jesus asks his disciples is, “Do you love me?”
- Will you love one another as I have loved you? is also a question Jesus asked his disciples. I’m sure that wasn’t easy. We can imagine the disciples muttering, “Love those eleven guys? But they’re crude, rude, bossy, and pushy.” Nevertheless, Jesus asks, “Are you willing to love this family of believers I have put you with?” Willingness to love and work with other Christians indicates our commitment to discipleship. To me this means being willing to be part of a small group of believers who know me as well as I know myself. In new members’ classes at my last church, for instance, we tried to reproduce the experience of community Jesus had with the Twelve. For part of each session, people met in small groups. Some didn’t like that and after the first night never come back. That’s okay. I said, “We believe in koinonia here, in community, the body of Christ. If you’re not ready to be a part of that, then this isn’t where you belong.” Those who said yes to community found in their small groups support and accountability for their lives and ministries.
- Will you go into the world in my name? If we’re willing to go as God’s representative to any place and anyone, God will place us in ministry. I think one of the big myths about ministry is that Jesus sends us only to hard places. A poet once was asked how he wrote poetry. “It’s either easy or impossible,” he confided. “You can’t do it by hard work.” That’s true of Christian ministry: if it’s hard work and nothing else, it’s probably not God’s place for you. Some of those places where Jesus sends people look hard only because I couldn’t do what people there are doing. For instance, I couldn’t do what Mother Teresa did in Calcutta. But God hasn’t asked me to do that. What he has asked me to do, I can do—even if it seems intimidating at first. And what’s more, as I do it, I find joy in it. Each Friday, a group of Christian men in Seattle visits prisoners in a maximum-security facility. They have to leave at 4 A.M. and sometimes don’t get back until midnight. They don’t feel like martyrs; they’re not complaining. They love meeting with the prisoners. They go because that’s where they want to be. I know a nurse who decided to spend her weekends working with AIDS patients. Not everyone would choose that, but she found satisfaction in it. So I tell people, “Don’t assume God will send you to the hardest place. Start with those places where you would like to make a difference for Christ.” That changes the whole concept of missions in the church.
Encouraging Risk Taking
Although parishioners often start their ministries with what they would like to do, we want to encourage them to stretch. People accomplish more when they risk more.
Jesus sent out his disciples—not just the Twelve, but also the seventy—prematurely, they may have felt. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves,” he said. He told them to heal the sick, to cast out evil spirits, to preach the kingdom of God.
He sent them out two by two. Alone, they would have been too scared; they wouldn’t have taken the risk.
Jesus shows us that an essential step in preparing people to minister is to encourage them to take risks, to go places where they may fail unless God intervenes.
A few years ago, Carolyn, a deacon in the church I served, came to me with a concern. “I’m a closet alcoholic. I’m dry now, thanks to A.A., but I think there are a lot of other people in our church who are addicted to alcohol or drugs—people who are ashamed to own the problem, ashamed within their own church to admit being addicted. Isn’t our church a family where we can be honest about these things, where we don’t have to pretend?”
“Sure, it is, Carolyn,” I told her. “Would you be willing to tell your story to your church family?” Carolyn was terrified.
But one Sunday morning she took what we called at that church the “Witness Stand” a time in worship in which an individual talked briefly about his or her walk with God. Carolyn was wobbly, weak, uncertain, but she told her story. People were deeply moved. They loved and applauded her.
In response to her message, a group of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts came together under Carolyn’s leadership to start a ministry called Faith, Hope, and Recovery. At the start, she felt scared and inadequate, but as she began to minister, she found power.
It’s scary to step out in ministry when we feel inadequate. Most of us would rather wait around for the Holy Spirit to fill us with power before we risk anything. But Jesus indicates we need to go in obedience and believe that when we get to that needy place, his Spirit will be there. We won’t get the power before we go.
I tell those men and women praying about a decision, “If God hasn’t made his will clear, choose the scarier option. See if God hasn’t already gone before you to prepare the way.
Giving Up Control
A final principle points back to me as pastor.
When I speak to church leaders at workshops and mention how I encourage the formation of dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of small groups in a church, they often ask, “Who controls these groups?”
“I hope the Holy Spirit does,” I say, “because pastors and church leaders sure can’t control all those people.”
“But if you turn loose the control of those groups,” some ask, “won’t unfortunate things happen? Won’t it lead to immorality or unsound theology?”
“Well, that’s a possibility,” I say. “And I think I’m prepared to deal with that. But, in years of doing this type of ministry, as far as I know, no one has been seduced; no heresies have cropped up. Instead, a lot of life-changing ministry has occurred.”
As a pastor, I have to trust lay people with ministry if I’m going to see results. I have to put my reputation, and the church’s reputation, on the line. As much as I might like to, I can’t stand on the bank of the Jordan River and say, “Stop the water.” No, like the Israelites crossing to claim the Promised Land, I’ve got to step in before the water recedes.
As I planned one Easter service, I asked a housewife and mother in the congregation to tell her story. “In the morning service, we’re going to hear the anthem ‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives’,” I said. “Would you tell your church family how you know your Redeemer lives?”
On Easter Sunday morning, Jan told her story: “Six years ago I discovered I had cancer. And through my cancer I discovered something else—that I’m a manipulative, controlling woman. I didn’t know that before. I discovered that I’m a wife who loves to control my husband, a mom who loves to control my kids. I was made weak. I had to give up control. Today I’m a different person.”
Jan could have told how she was healed from cancer, because her cancer was cured. But her witness only incidentally touched on her physical cure. Instead she focused on the more significant change: “In my illness I learned things about myself that I needed to know. My character was sinfully manipulative, and God has changed that, and I thank him.”
Jan came to realize that the essence of sin is control, manipulation. The first temptation was, “You shall be like God. You’ll be in charge.” We all want to run things: our spouses, our children, our businesses. And, yes, we pastors want to run our churches. To put Jesus at the center and let him be in control—that’s a radical departure.
And yet, if we don’t release lay ministry from the control of the pastor and the staff, we end up with programs so small that a few people can run the whole thing. We miss the life-giving power of God, especially that which comes through lay people sharing in the ministry of pastoral care.
Helping lay people to minister is our call as church leaders. It’s an adventuresome undertaking. It means we’ve got to model vulnerability and limit our requirements for ministry to the bare essentials. Most of all, we’ve got to give up control and turn them loose.
It’s risky. But the alternative is stunted spirituality and diminished pastoral care. Let’s take the risk.
Larson, Bruce, Paul Anderson, and Doug Self. Mastering Pastoral Care. Portland: Multnomah Press, 1990.
