Some churches assume that they pay their pastor to do all of the ministry. He (or she) is the employee and they are the paying customers. Performance is measured according to how the pastor is effectively meeting the expectations, needs, and demands of the membership. In this way, a church becomes pastor-centered and inwardly focused. It gets stuck in codependent caretaking and chronic people-pleasing, losing sight of its real mission: to make new and better disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Once the pastor loses the ability or desire to keep doing the vast majority of the ministry, the church stagnates, declines, and (if there isn’t a significant change in course) eventually dies.

To avoid this trap, both the pastor and the people must stop seeing the church as a place where paid staff offer a variety of free social and civic services, and start seeing it as a base of strategic mission that serves at the pleasure of Jesus Christ. The required shift is from a consumer mentality to a producer mentality. The central question is not, “What can the pastor or church do for me?” but “How can I serve the mission of Jesus Christ through the shared ministries of the church?” One of the most effective ways of creating this cultural shift is by emphasizing the importance of every member getting involved in shared ministry through small groups.

Small groups can be a powerful antidote to the slow drift into pastor-centeredness. Once this important shift happens, the people will start to understand that the vitality, growth, and longevity of a church does not rest squarely on the pastor’s performance, but on the people taking ownership of the mission that Jesus gives us to make disciples for the transformation of the world.

This message will encourage pastors of smaller churches on the brink of burn-out. It will also light a fire in the heart of the laity to take responsibility for their own spiritual growth and to start seeing themselves as ministers of the gospel!

This is message 5 in my most series, Wiser Together: The Gift of Christian Friendship. The other messages, which can be accessed on my YouTube channel, are as follows:

1. Walking with the Wise: The Importance of Friendship
2. Giving and Receiving Good Advice
3. Friends as a Catalyst for Transformation
4. Sharing from the Heart: Creating Safe Spaces