Pastoring God's People
For all those who have been commissioned to
pastoral roles of all kinds.
Beyond filling the church slots
by Karen Schellenberg
Landing a position on the church nominating committee is not usually seen as hitting the jackpot. In most churches, working on the nominating committee is one of those unpleasant jobs that just has to be done. Everyone will have to take a turn making the endless phone calls and feeling like the dreaded telephone marketer at suppertime, so it’s wise to just get it over with.
When an unsuspecting congregant answers the phone and is greeted by the cheery voice of a nominating committee member, what’s the congregant to do? Lie and say a family member dying? Tell the caller that Mr. So-and- So is not home? Neither will work because the nominating committee member knows that everyone in the family is alive and well and recognizes the congregant’s voice.
The church and its mission is much greater than the programming that we organize.
We laugh about the problem, but most churches deal with it from time to time, and often the task is reduced to just filling slots. So what’s a church to do? After all, churches need programs, programs need organization, and good organization requires good people.
We often think that every one of our church’s programs is worth having as part of the church’s ministry. But when it becomes difficult to find someone to lead a program, perhaps we need to be honest about the viability of it. A wise member of our congregation of fifty people in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, has often said, “You know it’s time to shut a program down when no one steps forward to lead it. Maybe that’s the sign that it’s time for something new to happen. If people miss the old program, they will step forward to lead it.”
Churches and congregations are living, breathing entities. All living things grow and evolve and change. The church and its mission is much greater than the programming that we organize.
I believe that churches over the years have at times become slaves to the programs they offer. What happens when all the women who attended the Ladies Group are now either in a nursing home or have gone back to work? Suddenly a church finds there are very few women who want to attend, much less give leadership to a women’s group? Should the church continue having a women’s group?
I say, “No.” Too often I have seen people railroaded into positions in the church, only to find themselves and everyone else around them frustrated. Not only does every job in the church take time, it also takes energy and passion. If someone lacks these things, the church job becomes a church chore.
It becomes the task of the church, then, to understand its mission. Just as each person within a congregation has been gifted with a particular set of abilities, so too each congregation has been gifted with a particular mission. Not every church in the community needs to do the same thing.
For years our congregation has wondered what our place is in the body of Christ in our small city of 13,000 people. Sometimes we have been discouraged because we are small and can’t run all the programs the big churches in town can run. But we can sing. In four-part harmony. At first it didn’t seem like much to offer to the community because it’s so ordinary for us, but we are learning that our gift is appreciated and welcome and that it has blessed the community in small and big ways.
I believe that the vision of the church is found in the hearts and heads of the people in the church who regularly seek God’s leading. Discovering the gifts, passions, and longings in ourselves and in each other will help us to discover God’s vision for our churches. That discovery process takes time—a great deal of time.
Often we are in too big of a hurry. We push new people into positions they do not understand and are not ready for. We require too much from those who can’t say no, and we assume that people can learn skills once they are in a job. To discern an individual’s gifts and passions takes time. A friend of mine, a Uruguayan pastor, says it takes their church about two years to get to know a person well enough, to pray together often enough until they learn where the newcomer fits into the local body of Christ.
Jesus chose twelve disciples and then walked with them for three long years before they would be ready for the task God had lined up for them. May we too have the grace to slow down, to relate carefully, to discern wisely, to listen completely to the voice of God and the voices of those precious brothers and sisters God has placed in our family. May we let these be the voices that guide the programs and activities of the church.
Karen Schellenberg is pastor of Portage Mennonite Church in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.