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Table of Contents
Leith Anderson
Laity Involvment in the Church
If the true measure of a church’s success is the number of people it has in ministry, then the central focus of pastoral care should be placing and supporting people in ministry.
Dr. Wayne H. Lee of North Central Bible College recently interviewed Dr. Leith Anderson, senior pastor of Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Dr. Anderson, author of a number of books on lay ministry, discussed the subject of mobilizing laity in the church.
In the priesthood of believers, how do spiritual gifts differ among clergy and laity?
You know, I’m not sure they differ. The distinction is something we’ve inherited from the Catholic Church.
Spiritual gifts are merely a division of labor and are functional in nature. Normally, clergy are able to use their gifts full-time, but this does not mean their gifts are better than a layperson’s. All the spiritual gifts belong to all the people.
How did your lay ministry get started at Wooddale Church?
Our church was started by laypeople as a Bible study during World War II. It was a nondenominational church and struggled as many churches do. It became more organized in a traditional fashion with trustees and committees—a lot of committees. As the church grew, the choice was between more structure with more committees or less structure and more ministry. We chose to go with less structure and more ministry.
I compare the church structure to a human skeleton. If you don’t have it, you’ve got a serious problem; but if your skeleton shows, you’re sick. Most people in our church do not know or care about our church structure because our primary emphasis is ministry.
We have staff pastors linked to most ministries. They don’t head up the ministry or do it but make sure people fit into the rest of the organization. Here’s just a couple of examples of current ministries: (1) We have a team of people that help relocate refugee families. A family recently arrived from Bosnia. Ministry volunteers helped to secure housing, furniture, and jobs for family members. (2) Another example is our food ministry. We just sponsored a food drive that brought in 6 tons of food. These ministries take place multiple times each year, all run by laypeople.
How is laity involvement organized in your church?
We have a somewhat presbyterian form of church government with ruling elders and teaching elders. The teaching elders are staff people, and the ruling elders are laypeople. I am the link, serving as a ruling elder and a teaching elder.
Since 9 of the 10 ruling elders are laypeople, they are clearly responsible for the overall direction—the strategic ministries—of our church. Ultimately, the church is governed by the congregation. But ours is just one form of church structure.
Beyond that we don’t have other boards or committees. We have ministry teams organized around their tasks. The task may be music, children’s ministry, missions, etc. The teams are responsible to get their ministry done. We don’t really supervise them.
Teams write a one-page charter listing what their job is, how they will do their job, and criteria for membership. The charter has to be approved by the elders and renewed every 15 months.Technically, if it’s not renewed, the ministry doesn’t continue.
In most cases, church membership is not a requirement to be part of a ministry team. However, those in leadership of the ministry teams have to belong to the church. We also have guidelines on what the teams can and cannot do. We are especially careful with finances. Each ministry team must function within our general financial guidelines. Basically, we have organized our church in a way that sets people free for ministry. For instance, we have over 600 people involved in children’s ministries.
How would you recommend pastors release more of the ministry to laity?
Our assumption is that no one has all the gifts. But all Christians have spiritual gifts, should know what they are, and should use them. I teach a 6-week spiritual gifts seminar once a year, and we have others teach spiritual gift courses throughout the year.
What we try to do is match people’s gifts with our various ministries. Vicki was a layperson in our church involved in volunteer ministry. Then she came on as part-time staff; we paid her way through seminary; and now she’s one of our pastors directly in charge of volunteer ministries. When people join the church, she helps them identify their spiritual gifts.
For example, if you come to our church and we need a sixth grade teacher, we may decide your gift is teaching because that’s what we need. It may not be your gift at all. Vicki’s job is to help you discover what your gift is. She’s your advocate, not the sixth grade Sunday school’s advocate. She tries to place people in their ministry gift instead of trying to fill up ministry openings with people not qualified for that ministry.
How does modern laity involvement compare with 10 to 15 years ago?
I talked to a man a while back whose father had never missed a church event in 50 years. He went to Sunday school and attended every service, wedding, funeral, and activity. That’s how churches used to measure the success of laity involvement. I don’t think that’s true anymore.
Laypeople highly involved in ministry don’t have time to go to all the church activities. Between their jobs and home responsibilities, a working couple can be busy working 100 hours a week. They aren’t less committed but must be selective in what they can participate. This is a significant change in the last 10 to 15 years.
What are the challenges pastors face in mobilizing laity for ministry?
People’s expectations have skyrocketed. Consider child care. Parents want every toy sterilized after every use. They want the nursery to be the best looking room in the building. They want police background checks of those who work with anyone under age 18. They want excellent materials and wonderful experiences for their child. But they are too busy to be involved in ministry themselves. So what has happened across America is the standards of excellence have gone up and up, and busyness has gone up and up. It’s extremely difficult to mobilize enough people for ministry to meet their expectations.
Although the main challenge is for people to find time for ministry involvement, another challenge is financial. One time we ran an ad for 2 years for a third shift of custodians; we never got one application. Even churches that have the resources to hire people to do church tasks can’t find anybody willing to do the jobs.
Many churches have had to make some tough decisions on what ministries they offer. For example, some churches—large and small—do not have enough people to have a viable singles ministry. So they have chosen not to have one, and I think that is the right decision for them.
What ministries do churches have to offer?
The number one expectation is a really great worship experience. People want to experience God. Not too long ago, I went to Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. I got in line at 3 p.m. with a thousand people from all over the country. It was pouring rain and 42 degrees. I asked many of the people why they were there. The reason they gave? For an experience with God.
An interesting thing has happened in the last 15 years. For the first time in history, the second largest number of Christians in the world are Pentecostals. What I see from a non-Pentecostal perspective is that the main issue is not signs and wonders. The main ingredient is a worship experience that is God-centered.
Second, people want positive experiences for their children. And a third expectation is pastoral care. Younger and middle-aged people don’t need as much pastoral care but need a lot of assimilation. Older people need less assimilation and more pastoral care. Younger people will take care of themselves if they are connected to each other.
Four Principles of Lay Ministry
I’ve discovered four principles that have helped me get laypeople involved in ministry.
1. Stepping Off the Pedestal
If laypeople are going to minister, they have to see their leaders in ministry situations—both on the giving and the receiving end.
My natural inclination is to “do unto others” but discourage people from “doing unto me.” 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 laypeople are going to minister effectively, I must resist being conformed to that image.
Jesus is our example. He found ways to use His own needs to bless people. To Zacchaeus He said, “Can you feed 13 guys at your house? We’re hungry.” To an outcast woman at a well He said, “Can you get Me a drink? I don’t have a cup.” And the night before His trial and crucifixion, He asked three friends to keep Him company: “I’m scared. Come pray with Me.”
Another way to encourage lay ministry is by having laypeople and church leaders tell publicly what God has done in their lives. People need role models who show their vulnerability—pastors and church leaders who risk sharing their pain and their dreams. Such modeling shows people that ministry begins in weakness, not strength. Then people are encouraged to speak about their own pain, and it releases them to minister to one another with less fear of inadequacy.
2. Limiting the Essential Qualifications
It’s normal to fear putting ministry into the hands of laypeople 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 must answer three crucial questions affirmatively before they are qualified to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Do you have a relationship with Jesus? The church is full of people who believe in Jesus but have never met Him. The question Jesus asked His disciples was, “Do you love Me?”
- Will you love one another as I have loved you?
- Will you go into the world in My name? If we’re willing to go as God’s representatives to anyplace and anyone, God will place us in ministry.
3. Encouraging Risk Taking
Although laypeople often start their ministries with what they would like to do, we want to encourage them to stretch. People accomplish more when they risk more.
Jesus’ disciples may have felt He sent them out prematurely, but He sent them out two by two. Alone, they would have been too scared; they wouldn’t have taken the risk.
An essential step in preparing people to minister is to encourage them to take risks, to go places where they may fail unless God intervenes.
4. Giving Up Control
As a pastor I have to trust laypeople with ministry if I’m going to see results. I have to put my reputation, and the church’s reputation, on the line.
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, especially that which comes through laypeople sharing the ministry of pastoral care.
Helping laypeople minister is our call as church leaders. It’s an adventuresome undertaking.
—Adapted from Mastering Pastoral Care by Bruce Larson, Paul Anderson, and Doug Self (Portland, Oreg.: Multnomah Press, 1990), 110–117. Copyright (c) 1990 by Christianity Today.
Used with permission.
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One of the mistakes many churches make is to try to connect newcomers with old-timers. Old-timers have all of their relationships established, so when pastors try to introduce newcomers to old-timers, it doesn’t work; friendships don’t automatically develop.
We introduce newcomers to other newcomers and keep starting new groups and new ministries. But we’ve also noticed that if you get old-timers and newcomers working together in a ministry, then they will often become friends.
Every year we build a Habitat for Humanity house. If you ask people why they take a week’s vacation, get no money, and work hard all day to build a house, the reason is that they want to meet people and make friends. So our church is constantly creating opportunities for people to do ministry together and build relationships.
How does mobilizing laity for ministry alleviate some of the ministry burden on the pastor?
I recently went to visit somebody in the hospital, and there were already people from church standing around the bed. They hardly let me in the conversation, and when I suggested we read something from the Bible, someone said, “Oh, we already did that.”
I said, “Well, why don’t we pray together?”
Someone else said, “You’re welcome to, but we already did.”
So I just faded away because they were already doing the pastoral care. They didn’t need me to do it.
In a church that has a really strong laity ministry, in many ways the pastor is less important, not more important. I once pastored a small church that was centered around me, so the people would call me in the middle of the night to tell me, “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl.” They don’t do that anymore. Now they call other laypeople in the church because we have lay ministry, not just clergy ministry.
Do you think the laity model you have described works for all churches?
It works in different ways in smaller churches. We have thousands of churches in the United States that have less than 50 people. They are lay churches because they are usually family churches—people are related to each other. These kinds of churches do lay ministry because they are not dependent on the pastor.
Churches that average around 200 in attendance tend to be more dependent on the pastor because everybody is not related to each other. The pastor is often the central pillar of the church. Churches this size have difficulty growing beyond 200 unless they use laity for expanded ministry. The pastor cannot do all the ministry in a growing church.
How do you know that modern laity ministry involvement is working in your church?
It is the constant flow of stories from people who say their lives were changed through the ministry of our church. When they are asked who was responsible, they most often name a layperson. You see, ministry is not just about me. It’s about laypeople and the work of the Spirit through them. One thing I take great pride in is that people don’t refer to our church as Leith Anderson’s church. It’s the church of Jesus Christ. It’s not about me. I know I’m important and I have a role here, but it’s about what God’s Spirit is doing through people.
Wayne H. Lee, Ph.D., is vice president of development and church relations at North Central Bible College, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Leith Anderson, D.Min., author of Dying for a Change, A Church for the 21st Century, and Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, is senior pastor of Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
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