After eleven years in Christian education, I became a senior pastor. Previously I had been a specialist-holding C.E. positions in three churches, completing three graduate degrees in education, and serving several Christian and public-school organizations as a consultant. Suddenly I was a general practitioner in a congregation of 250.
As a minister of Christian education, I had always wondered why senior pastors showed so little interest in C.E. Oh, they definitely wanted a strong Sunday school, but when it came to direct involvement, they seemed conspicuously absent.
Now after five years on the other side of the fence, I’ve gained a new perspective. The pastor is interested in Christian education … and missions and counseling and shepherding and stewardship and preaching and . . .
I am still convinced education is a top priority. After all, with Americans now watching an average of six hours of television a day (and in the crucial value-forming years between six and eighteen, the average young person sees 35,000 commercials), I ask myself, How much exposure to the Word do my people receive? Looking at many of their lives, I think of the Lord’s words to Hosea: “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” My sixty minutes of weekly preaching hardly begin to offset the molding capabilities of the world. Any pastor who thinks he can adequately teach and train disciples alone is likely suffering from a malfunctioning diode.
I can’t put Christian education on autopilot and expect it to have significant impact. Even though as senior pastor I have many more responsibilities, I cannot neglect the vital ministry of education.
Resident Chief of Staff
I have changed the way I see my role in the church. I am not a specialist, working with intricate systems and programs. I am not even a general practitioner treating all the patients myself. I am more like a hospital chief of staff. We pastors are the ones primarily responsible for the welfare of those who come to our institution. We are involved in both preventive and curative medicine. We proclaim what people should and should not do if they want to remain healthy. We also meet regularly with the hurting, sometimes even taking them through a spiritual chemotherapy in an attempt to arrest growing cancers.
Important as my function might be, however, I am not the only doctor in the house. The size of the task is beyond any one doctor, or minister. A well-run hospital has a medical staff with expertise in specialized areas. God has not called me, a pastor, to be the only healer; the Great Physician has called me to be a chief of staff.
Our ministry is multiplied as we recognize and develop the team of gifted people the Lord has given to every church who can teach God’s Word.
We are all aware that 2 Timothy 2:2 instructs us to pass our knowledge on to others who are faithful and will join us in the teaching process. We have preached from Ephesians 4:11-12 that our task is to prepare God’s people for the work of ministry. In 1 Corinthians 12 we have observed even that messed-up church had all the spiritual gifts, implying that each local church has everything it needs for building itself spiritually.
Yet because of deadlines, pressures, and expectations, I was finding over 90 percent of my weekly hours given to “things I do” rather than encouraging and helping others who share the ministry of our church.
My sermons, no matter how well developed and delivered, are just not enough. Little Johnny needs the memorization of the AWANA program; Mary needs the encouragement of the senior high youth leader; Mr. Clark needs the spiritual discoveries he makes at the home Bible study. If we want to maximize learning, we must concentrate on what our lay people are doing.
Here are a few lessons I’ve learned since trying to become the resident chief of staff.
Look for the Right People
What type of person makes a good teacher? I once heard someone say the best worker is always FAT- Faithful, Available, and Teachable. I now agree.
Working with people, I have become less impressed with background and credentials, and more impressed with attitudes and performance.
He may be a pipefitter or an executive, she may be a lawyer or a homemaker, but the faithful, available, teachable person is able to minister in a deep way to students.
Sometimes we are overly concerned that teachers have a good Bible knowledge before teaching. A friend of mine became a Christian when he was twenty-six years old. Immediately he was encouraged by a pastor to get involved teaching Sunday school. The man began to teach a class of children, and each week he diligently studied the printed teacher’s guide to be adequately prepared for his kids. It was not unusual for him to call the pastor’s elementary-age daughter to figure out how to pronounce the names of certain Bible personalities or book titles. If you were now to ask Dr. Donald Orvis, seminary vice-president and professor, what helped him grow spiritually, he would include at the top of the list his early teaching experience where he was just “one step ahead of the pack” each Sunday.
A knowledge of Scripture is important. Maturity is desirable. But the right attitude and demonstrated faithfulness in small ways are the most important characteristics. Obviously, some Christians need more encouragement and closer supervision. Nevertheless, FAT people grow in Bible knowledge faster than others, and working with them in ministry is a joy.
Recruit with Class
If there is an unpardonable sin in teacher recruiting, it’s the old trip-them-in-the-hallway trick, where you thrust a Sunday school quarterly into their hands as you pick them up and point them toward the junior department.
We have all learned the hard way that “you get what you pay for.” The same principle applies to recruiting. Paint an inadequate picture, tell a prospective worker that the task will not be too hard, and you receive an inadequate, half-committed teacher.
I’ve used the following plan in recruiting program leaders, and many of them, in turn, are finding it effective in recruiting teachers.
1. Telephone the prospective worker. “Hello, Mary. I’ve been looking at our church membership list trying to think of someone who could work well in Sunday school with our sixth-grade girls. As I prayed over a number of possibilities, I thought you might be one who could really help our gals. Would it be possible for us to meet this weekend to discuss the responsibilities of the sixth-grade worker? If you are like I was a few years ago, perhaps you have some doubts. But I would really like to have an opportunity to chat with you about it, and then allow you enough time to think about it on your own. I have Saturday morning at 10 o’clock and Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock open on my schedule. Would either of these times be convenient for you?”
2. Share the importance of the program. I walk through the details of the job description and explain the materials. It’s also important to stress my availability as a resource to the teacher.
Then, as I prepare to leave, a prayer is appropriate. I encourage the prospect to pray about this opportunity during the week-is this invitation God’s call?
3. A follow-up phone call is made five to seven days later to see what questions the person might have and to see if he or she is interested in observing a few class sessions.
4. If the worker is willing to teach, we set up a time to sign an Annual Appointment to Service-a one-year teaching contract. Materials are further explained, and the new worker is told the time and place of the next department staff meeting.
5. If certain individuals are not able to make the commitment, I try to determine if they would be more comfortable as a substitute teacher or if they have an interest in another area of ministry.
We recruit teachers to serve one year. Shorter terms do not allow workers to assume ownership of the position. The time is insufficient for training, and it is unfair to the students. On the other hand, placing someone in a position indefinitely is unfair to the worker. At the end of each yearly appointment, the teachers have three options: (1) turn in their materials and be finished with their responsibility, (2) sign on for another term of service in the same area of responsibility, or (3) request a change in ministry.
Our experience has been that teachers who have been regularly encouraged have been more happy to renew their commitments year after year.
Communicate Regularly
A year ago when our church began two morning worship services and two hours of Sunday school, we did a poor job of communicating. Some of the teachers didn’t find out which hour they were teaching until the assignments were printed in the church newsletter in July. They hadn’t been consulted, and some of them felt taken for granted.
We should have called a faculty meeting to present our options and let the teachers point out any problems or oversights.
This fall we did much better, even though the assignments weren’t made until August. We informed the teachers two weeks before making the information public. The teachers were much happier-and so was I.
Program leaders, I’ve discovered, need a minimum of monthly communication, and perhaps as much as weekly visual contact with their teachers. As a pastor who is not directly involved with supervising the educational staff, my amount of needed communication is somewhat less. Most teachers do not expect the senior pastor to be intimately involved with their classroom, but any contact I make greatly builds my relationship with them.
No matter what size the congregation, pastors can do a number of things to build bridges to teachers. About three times a year, I ask one of the elders to take charge of the midweek service so I can sit in on the AWANA program. I’m not there to speak or critique. I may take part in a balloon relay with the kids, but my primary purpose is to chat with the leaders afterward, to sympathize with them about cramped facilities, and to affirm them in their important ministry.
I know other pastors who write a note of encouragement annually to each teacher, or who call each teacher once or twice each year, asking them for one classroom prayer request and one personal prayer request. All these involvements show that we’re not only concerned with a good sermon. We also highly value the teaching ministry of each worker.
Train the Staff
When it comes to auto repair work, I have changed the oil, rotated tires, and given tune-ups. Usually anything more would necessitate a trip to the garage.
This year, however, I performed my first successful brake pad and shoe transplant. The manuals described how to perform this type of operation, but it wasn’t until a friend of mine walked me through the procedure with one of my cars that I was brave enough to tackle the other one on my own.
More often than not people will do only what they are comfortable doing. If we want teachers to be good communicators of biblical truth, we need to walk them through the procedure necessary.
Each year we plan some type of teacher training experience. We have taken advantage of programs offered by nearby Christian colleges. One year we spent four consecutive Wednesday nights demonstrating teaching techniques. This year we had a one-night seminar with teachers spending the first two hours in age-level groups-early childhood, childhood, youth, and adult-watching a couple of thirty-minute video recordings of sample lessons and then evaluating the teacher’s performance. Afterward the four groups came together, and I briefly affirmed the importance of teaching and the fact that they were actually the shepherds of their individual classes.
We’ve discovered our teacher training not only improves skills but builds motivation and camaraderie among the staff.
Helping the Failures
I have only known one person who felt he had the gift of confrontation. Needless to say, he left a trail of scars among the congregation when he was asked to resign. If you’re like me, you do not like confronting, and therefore you tend to allow a person to stay in a job longer than he should.
In many cases, people who are failing know they are not doing a good job, and they are open to suggestions. There are other people, however, who are ignorant of their failure or stubbornly cling to a position for whatever personal reasons.
Where there is openness to change, training is the answer. If, after several sessions, the individual continues to resist change or is consistently unable to fulfill job requirements, removal is the only answer. Failure to remove an inadequate worker, especially a failing program leader, will cause others to remove themselves. This is where our one-year contractual period has helped. It provides a natural transition point.
But instead of outright removal, our first effort should be to retool and reclaim the failing worker. Instead of letting things fester until I simply want to remove people, I’ve learned rather, as I see the early stages of failure, to meet with those people, encourage them, and discuss the problems.
A few years ago, I had to intervene in a disagreement between a program leader and a couple who were youth sponsors. After realizing their differences were not going to be resolved, I asked the couple, “Is your concern more in serving the Lord wherever he needs you or in specifically teaching junior high?” They assured me they wanted to serve God in whatever way they could. We eventually moved them into the singles ministry, where they have served effectively.
Sometimes struggling ministries don’t mean the people are failures; sometimes it means people simply need to be reassigned.
Esteem Teachers Publicly
When my wife was working on her master’s degree, there was always a time when I could help with house cleaning, laundry, or dishes. I learned something about myself and the nature of people from those occasions. When she recognized and voiced appreciation of my work, I was open and even sometimes eager to do more work for her. However, when I put some of my own work aside to help her and my effort was not recognized, or I felt it was taken for granted, I found myself withdrawing and helping even less.
People continually wonder, Does anybody care? People need recognition. “I am willing to work with these junior highers, but does anybody notice?” Our availability and regular communication can go far to build that sense of appreciation. But in addition, we can take other steps to show we notice and care.
We sometimes highlight a department in the church newsletter or recognize the ministry of a specific teacher in the bulletin.
I mention in sermons interesting anecdotes from the classrooms that teachers tell me.
I also like to publicly pass along any compliments I hear. “I want to thank the Bible school workers, especially Pat, for their work this past week. I got three phone calls from parents who told me their children came home singing the songs they learned last week.”
Or, in a sermon about how Bible study is not just intake but an opportunity for us to share the blessings we receive, I said, “I don’t mean to embarrass Bev, but I learned this week she did exactly that. She was struck by two verses in the devotional she was reading, and when she went that day to visit Bill in the hospital, she wrote them on a small card. Bill told me later that they were just the verses he needed to hear.”
How important is appreciation and recognition of staff. Its value is beyond measure.
In a hurting world, people need the healing words of the Great Physician. God has strategically assigned us to work in the church as resident chiefs of staff. Our involvement in the teaching ministry of the church extends beyond our own preaching. As we develop others who can teach and minister, we see what God intended the church to be.
Last winter our elderly custodian slipped on some ice behind our sanctuary. The paramedics were called, an ambulance transported him to the hospital, and an x ray revealed some broken ribs and a collapsed lung.
In the emergency room I was impressed with the medical team of doctors, nurses, paramedics, x ray technicians, and other support staff. One man was wheeled in with his hand all bandaged. A young woman came in carrying a crying baby. Another woman had a leg injury. A boy was holding a gauze pad to his eye. Each was taken to one of the many treatment rooms.
For my friend Earl’s sake, and for the sake of the others, I was glad more than one doctor was present. I was glad the chief of staff had done his job well.
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