Re: the view of Lay Leaders vs. Paid Staff

A familiar quote comes to mind in thinking about the different perspectives laity and paity (for paid staff?? whatcha think, Todd?):  “Are you using a people to build a work, or a work to build a people?”

As part of the paity, I have been guilty of using people to build a work. In order to bring change in an established, plateaued enviornment, we must build the trust of the people. The newbie comes in, senses the plateau/decline, and says, “Let’s save this ship now!” The longtimer hears, “You know nothing about sailing!” It takes time to build the trust, but in many situations we quite frankly don’t have that kind of time.

Certain leadership styles are going to have less patience for building the relationships because they are so task oriented. I’m guilty of this. We see everything as a challenge or a task to accomplish, not a person to build. RW, judging by the size of his ministry and influence, is not ever going to wait around for the people to grow. He would move on and start another work (I say this by virtue of the fact he started Saddleback from “scratch"). 

People don’t change until they see how it benefits them, not just because they are supposed to. This is why vision casting can be so arduous, the followers don’t always catch it the first 5 times you go over it. They won’t follow the vision, but they will follow you. IF you’ve got the time to invest. If not, yes go start something else.

“Now don’t get me wrong.  These people love the Lord.  They really do.  They just don’t want you touching their church.”

I know what you mean Todd, and used to think this myself. However, I’m coming to a point where I’m not sure I agree any longer.

The sin issue is that they love something more than the Lord—“their church”. Which then calls into question whether they really love Yaweh of scripture or a god of their own making. It seems that the LORD equates obedience with love. Part of that obedience is a call to change (discpleship) and to deploy (evangelism).

My compassion for them is now based on the fact that they were discipled into a religious faith that is more culture than Christianity.

Actually, Todd, I’m not much of a fighter anymore.  I did post on the original without going to look to see who made the comment but I looked who made the quote after I posted my opinion.  I was a bit surprised by who made the comment, but on further reflection is seems typical of Rick’s way of communicating.  There was a time I would not have hesitated to make the same kind of remarks but that was when I was in full-time pastoral work myself.  My heart has changed about “lay people” since I’ve taken an aside from professional church work.  These days, I feel sorry for both professional church leaders and for lay persons so caught up in the system that they have forgotten what it’s like to journey outside of that system.  If all persons in the church were concerned more about kingdom building that fiefdom building, I don’t believe that Rick’s perspective or the “change resisters’” perspective would fit particularly well. Congregational in-fighting is really mostly about control no matter what “side” you happen to be on and none of these battles do anything to advance the Kingdom. While I believe that all the evidence supports the case that Rick has a good heart, I still don’t think the comment or the perspective is as much about Kingdom building as it is about congregational control.  And after all, there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one Savior of us all.

I think it comes down to an issue of vision.

Kent had his finger right on the problem when he said: “The lay person has a history and emotional connection that pastors often cannot come close to because we come late in the game, often because they invitre us to “make things better” and then unknowingly or knowingly sabotage the efforts.”

The problem is, laypeople typically have a vision for “better.” Pastors have a vision for “better.”

“Change” is kind of a scapegoat. People don’t mind change - they’re inviting change when they want you gone. It isn’t that people don’t like change… it’s that they don’t like the change you’re proposing. The paity’s view of “better” doesn’t square with what the laity thought they were headed towards.

This is the fault of the leadership within the church - paid and unpaid. When a vacancy comes about, churches are usually in such a panic (because they haven’t been developing leaders all along) that they rush to hire the next guy. If there was conflict with the old guy, churches rush out to hire the “anti-old guy,” and end up simply trading baggage back and forth.

If churches would do a better job of preparing their people for inevitable changes, and pastors would do a better job of developing and reproducing themselves, the conflict would almost disappear.

The other problem is that prospective pastors are typically unclear about the vision and direction they have for their ministry. As a result, when they candidate at a prospective church they’re likely to make big campaign promises instead of gauging how good a fit they’ll be at a church. He spends his time trying to get a job rather than laying the actual groundwork for future ministry. That’s huge, because when it comes time to put legs on his promises the people don’t buy into his vision. They bought into _him_ during the candidating process, but didn’t find out enough about his vision.

That’s what causes conflict - not whether someone is paid or unpaid.

I normally like a lot of the things RW says, but maintain that he was way off base on this one. Change happens when people believe in a vision and make it their own. That can happen immediately if it’s communicated well.

Raymond,

I suspect that that pastor, if he’s half the leader you seem to be, will WELCOME your leadership and involvement! If it were me, and you were in my church, I would be THRILLED to have you on the team helping to lead the church.

So… Congratulations on your years of ministry, I bet you can’t wait to hear those words “well done"… but stay in the game! We need you!

Do you need to cut the dead weight? Hmmm!  My opinion on this may be different than most.  I myself at one time inherited a ministry where even the most seasoned of Pastors left frustrated and beat up.  Whereas, by God grace we managed to grow a church that was full of VERY different people.  In fact I pastored a rural 1st Church where we had “tongue talking Charismatics” and “Hard-shell old school traditionalists.” I inherited a church that had been beaten down and beaten up, but when I left it was a growing vibrant, loving fellowship.

The Lord showed me something as I was reading through II Timothy one time, that servant of the Lord is to be patient and to gently instruct those that oppose the truth in hopes that God will grant them repentance. (II Tim 2:24-26) When the truth of that scripture sunk in it totally relieved me of trying to be the “diplomat”, trying to appease and stroke the “squeaky wheels” and worrying about whether people liked me or not.  .  It was not my responsibility to keep harmony, rather it was my responsibility to be patient and to gently instruct my people concerning what the scriptures taught.  It was God’s responsibility to grant them repentance!  Wow!!  Some will respond to the Lord’s prompting and grow and some won’t, but my job was to love and teach.  I didn’t have to take on the role of the Holy Spirit and try to speed along conviction and repentance by confronting those who didn’t want to follow.  What I had to do was be faithful to love and teach!  To me this was liberating, and those who didn’t want to follow either quieted down or changed.  I didn’t have to go through a church split.  I didn’t have a knock down drag out with the deacons to get the negative dissenters to leave or behave, rather, I turned the people and the ministry over to the Lord and it worked!  The church was in unity and it grew.!

Now lest you think that I am naive, the next church I took I was there only 6 months and was crucified!  But, I have learned that the Church belongs to Jesus, they are His people, good or bad, obedient or rebellious we as Pastors are just what the Bible says we are stewards or shepherds, but Christ is the Chief Shepherd and He is responsible for the growth, He said I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.  The Pastor is merely there to tend the flock of God.  To love it, protect it, feed it, to nurture it, but God brings the increase.

Dan Moore,

You SO nailed it! Everybody read that last post of his one more time!

I’d like us to consider another alterantive to all this.  Obviously Rick Warren isn’t the problem--he’s just leading his church and writing books about what he thinks.  Nothing wrong with that.  Rick Warren shouldn’t be part of this discussion because the churches that this applies to are not led by RW. 

Ok...so here are the two groups:

Old Guard and the Current Leadership:

Old Guard--While on the surface, I would agree that this is a troublesome bunch in some churches, I think we need to be careful to not pin the blame for plateaued life on their shoulders.  In many cases, these are the only people in the church who have EVER experienced growth at that particular church.  When effective leadership and God-given vision and God-sized results are in the mix, I’ve found that these people are amongst the best warriors for the cause of Christ and your church

Current Leadership:  I tend to blame this bunch more (and I’m a young pastor of a twenty-something church).  Here’s why.  While Rick Warren is not the issue (read above), the fact that so many of these guys are trying to BE Rick Warren and BE Saddleback and BE WIllow Creek and BE Granger (you get the point) is the crux of the issue.  To lead older men, you must have a CALLING that is sure, COMPETENCE in the scriptures and CHARACTER to lead others into battle.  Older men can smell a younger leader that is trying to be something else...so they default to what they know--business as usual.

My contention (sorry to be contrarian, Todd) is that many leaders between the ages of 30-50 lack character.  They spend too much time trying to be things they are not and replicate works that are not indegenous to their area.  These leaders need to read Stetzer’s new book “Breaking the Missional Code” and figure out what it’s going to take to love their people and their community....or move on to a community and people they can love and dream with.

Of course there’s a difference between how paid staff and lay leaders view change. That doesn’t mean that one is right and the other is wrong. It just reflects the differences in their roles, tenures, etc.
I’m both a paid staff member and a consultant to churches. My experience is that healthy, lasting change is impossible unless both groups (paid staff and lay leaders) are truly committed to the need for change and to the changes that are being made. What about the dissenters? Rather than saying that they “have to go,” I think in terms of building a strong enough core that the change can proceed without them. When they see this happening, some will choose to get on board and some will choose to leave. Don’t let them hold the process hostage, and don’t beg them to stay if/when they choose to leave.

[Not a church staff member.  Sunday school teacher, Youth advisor, lay reader, usher, worship assistant currently worshipping in a Lutheran congregation.]

I think it’s important to ask “What defines a plateau and who get’s get decide that a particular church has plateaued?” Is the pastor alone in his view that a church has plateaued?  Is he defining the plateau simply in terms of numbers?

I imagine a lot of the feedback on this quote comes from Christians in cities.  I live in a large rural farming area.  There will never be huge numbers at the churches out here, but the people still need to worship God.  Are they worshipping God in Spirit and Truth?  Do they seek His kingdom first?  Are they helping the weak, serving the poor and lifing the fallen?  Are they seeking to put everything in their lives under the Lordship of Christ?  Are they fulfilling the Great Commission? If the answers to these questions is yes then the numbers are irrelevent.

If fact, numbers can mean exactly what the quote implies is true of churches without numerical growth: “There may be people in your church who love God sincerely, but who will never, ever change.” First, I disagree with this quote.  If you truly love God, there will be change, transformation.  One can not come into the presence of God with a humble and broken heart and not be changed.  Second, if the church is growing because of “market” forces rather than the genuinine transformative and reviving work of the Holy Spirit then people may be come just so they don’t have to change.

I am not opposed to large para-chruches.  Afterall, the first church added 3000 members the first day, but that was after a sermon calling them to repent and in the face of sure persecution.  The Founder of that church had just been executed a few months prior and the preacher was a mere fisherman.  How many people who decide to go to churches with a mime ministry, contemporary music and plasma TVs would choose to join that first church?  If all, great---I don’t want to minimize any of those ministries--but if not then one has to question if that “growing” rather than plateaued church is not really, in fact, in a downward spiral.

I’m Reformed through and through, but one of the unfortunate effetcs of the Reformation is that we now have dozens of churches per square mile competing with one another for members using models of competition borrowed from economics and entertainment.  If a church’s numbers come from people who want church without transformation, sacrifice and a willingness to suffer and that has been facilitated by a staff focused on numerical growth then that church is in a state far worse than a plateau.  The only thing some of the people at that church would be willing to change is the church they attend.

My last problem with the quote is it says a plateau can be as short as six months.  There’s no way one can determine that a church has plateaued in that span.  That church may be in a period of preparation, like Jesus in the wilderness or Paul in Antioch or the desciples prior to Pentecost.  If one is quick to judge a six month period of no change as a plateau then his definition of plateau is probably seriously flawed.