I recently read a post at Learnings at Leadership Network, by Warren Bird, Ph.D., Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation. This was posted on May 16, 2008 in Church Visits.

Warren wrote, “Unfortunately, too many churches exist where the senior pastor is a tremendous leader but an even bigger bottleneck. In such churches nothing of importance can happen unless the senior pastor is at the hub of it. Neither long-term volunteers, nor senior staff, feel empowered to take initiative on anything major. They feel underutilized – and they are.

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Roy Phillip’s Letting Go (Herndon, Virginia: The Alban Institute, 1999) starts with the assertion that ministers need to “let go” of their need to control every aspect of their congregation, and to let the members take charge. Phillips talks about how bringing people into congregations can be seen as a five-step process: inviting people, welcoming them, orienting them, helping them join, and then assimilating them into the congregation. He says that this last step is where most congregations fail. In order for congregations to become transformed for ministry, Phillips proposes four major changes, each to which he dedicates a chapter.

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I will start by saying that I found R. Paul Steven’s book The Equipper’s Guide to Every-Member Ministry (Regent College Publishing, 1992) to be every practical. I also found myself wondering how different churches would look if the things in this book were applied in the widespread congregations across the country. Dividing the book into eight chapters Stevens takes on the challenge of moving our current church culture forward by examining different areas in which the whole congregation can get involved in living out their biblical call to be ministers.

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Every once and again I am reminded that I live in a different world than that of my father—and am amazed at the accelerated pace of change that has taken place from one generation to the next. During my formative years when my father went to work he toiled, returning home with grease and grime under his fingernails and embedded in the deep crevices of his rough workman’s hands. During my own children’s formative years “going to work” for their dad meant, more often than not, going downstairs to the study in the den, risking (at best a long shot at that) a blister on the finger from furious tying on a keyboard or a paper cut.

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One of the courses I teach at the seminary goes by the clumsy title of “Developing Lay Leadership in the Congregation.” I think it’s one of the most important courses I teach, though I’m frustrated that I’ve not found the best way to teach this one. I think it’s important because the future of the viability of the congregation as church lies with reclaiming a “theology of the laity,” to use Findley Edge’s term from the Church Renewal movement.

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It is my privilege to serve on the Development Team of Cross Over Ministry, a non-denominational, Christian-based organization that serves the needs of the uninsured in the Richmond, Virginia metropolitan area. The mission of Cross Over Ministry is “To provide health care, promote wellness and connect the talents and resources of the community with those in need in the name of Jesus Christ.”

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First, I think I need to start this entry by saying that I’m a personal believer in prayer (although I must confess that I didn’t really know how to pray until I was forty, even though I grew up in a Christian home—but that’s another story), and a practitioner. In fact, I believe in prayer such that I don’t make it a practice to open class lectures with prayer for fear that it become reduced to merely a utilitarian function of quieting a roomful of students, getting their attention, and signaling the “start” of class. Prayer has its place and its function, and it isn’t utilitarian. I believe in prayer, but I don’t believe in “magical thinking.”

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A person wrote to me the other day about disabilities ministries. She wrote, �I have a question in regards to disability’s ministry. In most of my readings over the past 2-3 years on disability’s ministry, most of the material published has been by the Assembly of God churches. I’m not sure that I’ve read anything Baptist. Some stuff comes from Methodist and very minimal Catholic. Therefore, it seems that the Assembly of God is more open to people with disabilities. So the question is: are they more inclusive because of their evangelical nature? While I’m on this topic, is it practical and/or possible for all churches to offer ministry to those with disabilities?�

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