A ministering laity doesn’t happen naturally. Many people still expect the pastor to do the ministry while they watch – and criticize. Changing that image requires shaking up time priorities. Pastors who develop strong lay leaders have learned to honor those who minister, not those who demand it.
Church members notice whom the pastor chooses to spend time with. They appreciate pastors ministering to the chronic dependents, but they lose respect if the emotionally needy or the “squeaky wheels” are able to dominate. Worse, they begin to assume the pastor is the designated minister, and valuable opportunities for building an active lay ministry are lost. A breeding ground for dragons begins to develop. Even if the solid, ministering lay people are not taken for granted, often they aren’t given the time they deserve.
“One of the things that surprised me when I entered the pastorate was that people felt they had to have a problem to talk to me,” says a Denver pastor. “All I heard was ‘Pastor, I don’t know what to do,’ and the healthy, productive people never made appointments because they felt I was too busy.”
This pastor has since let the church know he no longer does extended counseling. “I’m available to see anyone for counseling once,” he says. “After that, I refer them to a professional or one of our trained lay counselors. This still keeps me available to everyone and keeps me in touch with individual hurts, but it’s freed me to spend those hours with ministry-minded people strategizing how to start a new ministry or do an old one better.”
He’s also discovered it helps in dragon prevention. The respected people in the congregation are not the self-appointed critics but the doers. Initiative is encouraged. Because of the pastor’s time priorities, newcomers to the church soon learn that the church’s attitude toward new lay ministries is: Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.
– Marshall Shelley, from “Well-Intentioned Dragons: Dealing with Problem People in the Church” (Bethany House, and also available at the Christianity Today Library)
