The setting was a question-and-answer session with one of America’s best-known television pastors. I raised my hand and said, “Can you tell us what kind of relationship you have with your deacon board?”
The man repeated my question, while a hundred ministers waited. Then he said, “My relationship to my board is that I allow them to meet once a year to rubber-stamp my plans for the coming year.”
At least he captured one outlook on the question.
On the other extreme stands a grimly resolute board chairman who has gathered almost total power. In his zeal to keep the pastor from “getting out of hand,” he has presided over more pastoral changes than Italy’s had prime ministers.
Why are we still agonizing about this question? In my visits to churches across the nation during the past years, I have seen problems again and again where pastors and lay leaders are in conflict about their relationship to one another. It is a major, if not the major, cause of unrest in churches today.
This is true even in churches where flow charts and job descriptions have been hammered out, agreed upon, and made official. A nearby fellow pastor, Leith Anderson, asks students in his Bethel Seminary church management courses to make a flow chart of their particular churches. They draw neat diagrams of boxes and lines, an exercise that comes close to creating art with its order and symmetry.
But Leith takes it further. He then asks students to make a second flow chart of the real power situation in their churches. In other words, he wants them to show who really has to back something to get it operational. Who in the congregation must be convinced before a project will fly?
This second assignment doesn’t produce the elegance of the first charts. There are skewed diagonals, stars at the hub of many lines, and lonely boxes on the edge of the papers, sadly ignored by the flow. They all tell similar tales. An official document of the church is not the whole story of who does what. Not everybody stays on the posted trail.
Five Ways to Sort the Issues
Deacon board functions, I have noticed, are arrived at in an interesting variety of ways. Sometimes the “reality” flow chart is the product of a demolition derby. Collisions of varying intensities, not always planned, eliminate contenders for power. Eventually all are disabled but one-the only person still running is declared the winner.
The process, unfortunately, is hard on the health of the church. Some of the disabled are never able to get up enough RPMs to participate again. Although the derby is exciting, relieves boredom, and settles the issue, it can also exhaust spectators to the point where winning is meaningless. Not very many able-bodied Christians remain to be led.
Sometimes the function of lay leadership is prescribed by denominational polity or tradition. An episcopal form of church government gives the pastor more power in a showdown with lay leadership than a congregational church, where the minister is often considered just one of several constitutionally appointed elders. But in both cases, official pronouncements often fall short of covering all the twists and turns of real life.
Management techniques, often patterned after American industry, are the source of lay leader functions in many churches. After purposes are “owned,” goals set, and strategies agreed upon, the actual jobs are pretty clear. A mini-corporate business structure installed in the church tells where the decision makers will be.
Then there is the rising interest in New Testament church polity. This has given birth to a new examination of church officers. “Elders” and “deacons” are now common terms in many churches that had only councilors, trustees, and vestrymen in the past.
(Two things are pertinent here. One is the brevity of the New Testament job descriptions. That is why modern churches that have these officers show a wide variety in their actual work. Agreement that these are legitimate offices does not correspond with agreement on what they do. Secondly, although some are enthusiastic about installing a New Testament pattern, many others question whether such structures are normative for the modern church.)
The Topsy system is also common in some churches. This is where a responsibility is added to fill a special need that comes up today, and another is added tomorrow. Eventually, it all becomes part of the whole. In the history of the church, people convince others of additions and refinements until their present administrative system “jes’ growed up.” Don’t sell short, however, the tenacity with which this helter-skelter system will be defended from change. It often ranks in sacredness right behind the doctrine of the Trinity!
How Shall We Then Function?
No one method is so successful that we can prove its validity with charts and numbers. Experts who guarantee us the “right” way of deciding duties have been slow in coming forward, perhaps because of their own uncertainties.
As mentioned earlier, the Scriptures do not give us fine-tuned job descriptions that are clearly applicable today. Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 3 help; however, they are not high-yield sources of information on the specific responsibilities of lay leaders here and now. It seems that neither practice nor precept gives us a universal answer. So who does decide what deacons do?
The answer we seek, I suggest, lies sleeping in the very words that describe our two positions. Minister, though highly exalted now in both ecclesiastical and government parlance, is nothing more than one who attends to the needs of others. Likewise deacon primarily means a servant. Alfred Greenaway, in his commentary on Philippians, claims that the Greek diakonoi comes from dia and konis, which means “raising the dust by hastening.” We get the picture of a person eagerly placing the needs of others ahead of his own. Ministers and deacons are simply those who place themselves and their skills at the disposal of others for their good. They restrain natural self-assertiveness and put it into a harness for the sake of the church.
Take a number of people who have responsibilities in an organization, see that they have this servant spirit, and then watch them operate under almost any system. You will see productive, harmonious, effective leadership.
But how can a pastor instill a servant spirit in lay leaders? And what about boards that aren’t even interested in the whole idea? How do you break through crusts of tradition that have ruled as long as anyone can remember?
Both enormous potential and maddening frustration are bound up in discovering how to teach servanthood. It is not learned mail-order from a handy ten-lesson booklet with the answers on the last page. Although the basic principles can be listed and memorized, they are learned in real-life situations.
Some things in the kingdom, the really important ones, are not taught in a classroom. Rather, they are absorbed from demonstration in a variety of circumstances over a period of time, often at great personal cost to the demonstrating teacher. Seeing the lessons of servanthood in action awakens interest and deepens appreciation.
The potential is enormous, because a life lived in servanthood can’t be denied or ignored by observers, whether they want to learn the subject or not. It has a magnetic charm. Deep in the best part of us, there is an answering echo when we see this beautiful virtue being practiced. When Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about one of the great servants of our day, he called Mother Teresa’s life Something Beautiful for God. This outstanding woman’s appeal to those who would help is almost irresistible and is grounded not in her lectures on servanthood but in her demonstration of it.
But teaching servanthood is also frustrating. It can’t be neatly scheduled. It eludes capture into the normal rhythm of learning: teach, learn, teach, learn. Sometimes the class leaps ahead in dazzling insight; then it lags interminably, just when we need to fit our plans together.
Instilling a spirit of servanthood is not a short-term project. It is not a quick fix for pressing problems, a Band-Aid solution. It is getting at the very heart of the need, an effort that deals with the slippery complexities of human personality. It takes time.
Knowing this, what can we do?
We can model servanthood. Late one evening, a pastoral staff member stopped by the church and noticed volunteer painters from the congregation still working. Down in a remote corner of the educational wing, he saw a light and heard whistling. Curious to see who had the lonely, isolated painting assignment, he walked down and peered in the room. To his amazement it was the senior pastor, splashing away with uncertain ability but definite joy. It was the older man’s way of telling his workers he was not beneath serving too. That sermon-in-life penetrated as deeply as any the pastor had preached from the pulpit.
It isn’t very hard to find excuses why a pastor need not do things of this sort. Most common is the effectiveness excuse. “I must use my time effectively.” Certainly the pastor who is forever buying pencils for the Sunday school and changing light bulbs is not necessarily demonstrating servanthood. He may have psychological needs or just be a poor administrator. But cannot we all go the second mile occasionally and quietly take up menial work?
Preach servanthood. After all, it is a leading New Testament subject. It is woven into the whole fabric of the gospel. A once-a-year special on the subject is not enough. Soon listeners will nudge each other and wink knowingly, “Here it comes again. He’s on his annual preaching schedule.” If it is just another topic, the impact will be lost.
Servanthood must be part of the whole message every pastor shares with the people.
Honor servanthood. It is, of course, quite a paradox to exalt lowliness, show the greatness of humility, and admire qualities the world scorns. But our Suffering Servant, the One who came not to be served but to serve, gives us insight into the beauty of this kind of life. In his kingdom, servanthood is the requisite attitude for leadership and growth. We can heighten appreciation of servanthood by privately and publicly admiring acts of serving by people in the congregation.
Apply servanthood. At church election time, one pastor reminds the voters that they are not to elect the most popular, dynamic, or outwardly successful individuals. Rather, they are to look first for those who have exemplified a servant spirit in the church. He instructs the congregation to make leadership and skills a secondary consideration. He believes those who are not qualified for certain aspects of church business can always call in the experts for help. This church is experiencing a dynamic growth in the framework of unusual harmony and love.
Keep track of “servers.” In this same church, it is a practice for all leaders to submit a monthly recognition report to the pastor. This report includes the names of those who have demonstrated outstanding traits. Highest on the list are those that pertain to serving. When a leadership opening occurs, this pastor looks in the file and finds certain names listed again and again. He has a master list of people with leadership potential.
Share mutual experiences in servanthood. Although learning servanthood is not an academic exercise, there are many excellent books, tapes, and films on it. When church leaders are jointly exposed to these resources, they can build a strong consensus on the subject.
Finally, pray about it. God is on the side of those who want servanthood to develop in their churches. Quietly, and with sublime subtlety, he goes about encouraging this virtue in response to a shepherd’s earnest petition.
Over the past eleven years, I have seen the remarkable effects of what servanthood can do in a congregation. I still remember-and still cringe over-the early board meetings, where loyalty to constitutional jots and tittles was king. In the congregational business sessions, rules of order seemed to be weapons for pushing through personal ideas, regardless of who needed help or encouragement. I knew things had to change.
I began pointing out the priority of a proven servant spirit when looking for leadership qualities. I was amazed at the readiness of the response. As new leaders were chosen and began to exercise their responsibilities, a beautiful courtesy developed. What a joy our business gatherings have become. The atmosphere is relaxed. People still honor the bylaws but are even more concerned to honor one another. The unity we enjoy today is a product of laying down our rights and turning instead to serve the congregation.
The question pastors and lay leaders should be asking is not what should we do but what should we be. When this insight is followed, it brings harmony to church boards, no matter what the system.
At the beginning of his reign, King Rehoboam asked advice from the elders. Their reply is timeless: “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants” (1 Kings 12:7). If we, like the king, ignore such counsel, we will forever regret it as he did.
God is calling pastors and deacons to ministries characterized by serving.
Lloyd Jacobsen is pastor of Bethel Temple, St. Paul, Minnesota.
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