Every pastor I know affirms the priesthood of all believers and preaches that every Christian is called to minister. But most also admit there’s a big gap between the actual level of lay ministry and the desirable level.
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 where they might not have all the answers. 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.”
If we are ever to close the lay-ministry gap, the gap between what is and what should be, we’ll have to take some risks-and help our people to do the same. But we don’t need to be foolhardy about that. There are some steps we’ve taken at University Presbyterian Church to get lay people ministering effectively. The specifics will vary in other churches, but four general principles emerge.
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 to discourage people from “doing unto me” because I’d rather not feel indebted. I have to resist the desire to look wholly 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 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 I was reading the paper when suddenly my brain felt like 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 ministry 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 for the people in the class who saw they could minister.
Yet another way we encourage lay ministry is by having lay people tell publicly what God is doing in their lives. Almost every Sunday, for example, our worship services include someone on the “Witness Stand.”
At our Session retreat this year, 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. (Incidentally, these “Session Family” groups meet each month throughout the year.) 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. If we want to release lay people to minister, we’ve got to give them permission to share their pain and minister to one another. Ministry comes out of community, and community comes out of people sharing themselves.
The Essential Qualifications for Ministry
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.
We don’t have an elaborate screening process, but there are three crucial questions people need to answer before we consider them qualified to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. 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? Answering “True” to that doesn’t make you a Christian. The Devil could also answer that way. The question Jesus asked his disciples then and now is, Do you love me? That question does not permit a true/false answer. You have to answer yes or no.
2. 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 chosen to put you with?” The willingness to love and work with other Christians is an indication of our discipleship.
In our church, this means being willing to be part of a small group of believers who know you as well as you know yourself.
In our new members’ class, we’re trying to reproduce the experience of community Jesus had with the Twelve. For part of each session people meet in small groups. Some people don’t like that and after the first night never come back. That’s okay. I say, “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 have said yes to community find in their small groups support and accountability for their lives and ministries.
3. Will you go into the world in my name? If we’re willing to go to any place and anyone as God’s person, 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 was once asked how he wrote poetry. He said, “It’s either easy or impossible. You can’t do it by hard work.” I think that’s true of Christian ministry.
Some of those places where Jesus sends people look hard to me because I couldn’t do what they’re doing. I couldn’t be Mother Teresa in India. 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.
Some men from our church go on Fridays to visit in a maximum-security prison. 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 those prisoners. They go because that’s where they want to be.
A nurse in our church decided to spend her weekends working with AIDS patients. Not everyone would choose that, but she finds satisfaction in it.
So we tell our 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’s changing the whole concept of missions in our church.
Encourage Risk Taking
Our people may start their ministries with what they would like to do, but we also encourage them to stretch. We accomplish more when we risk more.
Jesus sent out his disciples-not just the Twelve, but also the seventy-before they felt ready. “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. All alone, they would have been too scared. They wouldn’t have taken the risk.
Jesus shows us that an essential step in preparing people for ministry is to encourage them to take risks, to go places where they may fail unless God intervenes.
A few years ago Carolyn Penix, the chairman of our board of deacons, 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 the Witness Stand-wobbly, weak, uncertain-and told her story. People were deeply moved. They loved her 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 that 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 that we have more than four hundred small groups that meet in and around Seattle, I’m often asked, “Who controls these groups?”
“I hope the Holy Spirit does,” I say, “because our pastors and elders sure can’t control all those people.” I’m convinced the strength of our church is in these groups. That’s where people are healed and blessed and commissioned, where gifts are called forth.
“But if you really 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. “I think we’re prepared to deal with that. But in the nine years I’ve been senior pastor, as far as I know, no one has been seduced; no heresies have cropped up. But I do know of a lot of life-changing ministry that’s gone on.”
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 our 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 we were planning our Easter service this year, I approached a housewife and mother in the congregation about witnessing. “We’re going to hear the anthem ‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives’ in the morning service,” I told her. “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 is cured. But her witness was only incidentally about 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 spouse, our children, our business. And, yes, we pastors want to run the church. 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.
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 spiritual death. Let’s take the risk.
– Bruce Larson is pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington.
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