Can you do that alone? make team first.
The ministry leadership group is indispensable to a successful lay pastoral care ministry if you plan to provide grass-roots, one-on-one, continuing care of god’s people this group will consist of 4 to 12 people who share the vision for the lay pastors ministry and are committed to creating, implementing and managing the ministry they have ‘ownership’ of the lay pastors ministry. if is called “group” because it is to operate as a “small group” organized around a ministry; bonding with one another, caring for each other, growing together in the lord, sharing life and praying for each other, as leaders of the lay pastoral care ministry of their church, they pastor one another.
as a ministering group within the church, it is accountable to the appropriate person(s) and is responsible for the organizational structure, spirit, quality, effectiveness and ongoing success of the lay pastors ministry. its overall charge is-to greate, implement, oversee, and manage the ministry. it does this by;
1 designing the organization structure;
2 setting policy and procedures,
3 planning and implementing the start-up,
4 monitoring and guiding the ministry; and
5 managing all phases of the ministry through the years.●
COMMENTS
in relation to Ministry Leadership Group
John Ogillah, Kenya, says:
In recent years since this ministry {LPM} came in to light within the East and Central African region, this attitude has changed in many churches and has been further developed so that the layman is now filling the place in the church through the decentralized leadership by the clergymen. He is expected to give, or raise money in stewardship campaigns. They contribute time as church treasures, compound keepers, to give the pastor more time for Sunday sermons; they even serve as substitutes to t5he clergy as local preachers, layleaders, Sunday school teachers, even sick visitors as street corner preachers and evangelists .But again it is it is just filling the gap for shortage of the clergy by doing some minor duties which the pastor can, with careful supervision, delegate.
In the Old Testament, the children of Israel –preists, prophets, and people were described all together as the people of God. This idea is the same and unfolded in the in the New Testament – the idea of the church which meant not a building, not adenomination, not the clergy, but people .The church in the New Testament refers to people of God-a community, a fellowship of Christians meeting anywhere and, in essence, the assembly of called out one .This was the Greek word “Loas”from which we get laity.-the people of God.
These include carpenters, house wives, bussinesmen, governors, kings, etc-the ordinary people all together classified as the people of God, The body of Christ, the church of God.{Romans 12,Ephesians 4,1corrinthians 12}
In the biblical definition, there is no clear distinction or grading between clergy and laity, between skilled and unskilled, white and black, well educated and half educated ,male and female, Jews and gentiles ,top and bottom people, All are the people of God.
What evidence determines ones calling is whether he is a devoted and committed Christian. It is not whether he is archbishop or a chauffer. We are all saints in the sense we are human beings sanctified and strengthened an enlivened by the same holy spirit indwelling in our hearts and there is nothing sanctimonious about true Christian living, for it is possible for a lay lady to show more love for God than the tycoon, a laborer than the works manage, a school girl than the headmistress.
This is where the church has made her greatest in staging what has been properly described as a “one man show” where “too often the clergy undertakes to fulfills by themselves the whole ministry of the church and too often the laity delegates their ministry to one man –the clergyman.
Certainly the clergy has been chosen by God to do important functions. He has been ordained in one way or the other, but clergy and laity have particular responsibility to nourish, equip, help and sustain the laity for the ministry. 99% of the church consists of the ordinary people, the non-professional laymen who must become experts as Christians in their own fields. The great question is therefore,” where do the ordinary millions of Christians come in the scheme of things in the church? Must the laymen continue to be those who only attend the meetings, pay their money into the coffers of the church to support the programs of the clergy, and just do nothing to try to change things? Do the laymen not want to that count?
Christ does not grant special gifts only to men and women, who are full- time, life time employers of the church .All the people of God share Christ’s ministry in and to the world on the frontlines. But the work of frontline soldiers belongs especially to the laymen who spend most of their working and waking hours in social, political, economic, and cultural areas where decisive battles of faith are being fought.■
Byeong, Melvin University, says:
Have you ever been to think or to do team ministry? If you don’t think of it and then read it from some articles or books.
Two things come to my mind about team ministry. One is “whether it is helpful?” or rather “damaging when gathered as a team?”
Once we talk about a team, it’s common to talk about things like, “It’s better if we work each other,” “we can’t do it alone,” “we have to form a team to go in the long run,” and so on.
Marlene Wilson, an American Volunteering Expert, wrote in her book, “How to Mobilize Church Volunteers,” there she talked three things about that happen when we get together as a team: one is Synergistic, the other two are Symbiotic and Parasitic. In other words, Synergy is 1+1=4; Symbiotic is 1+1=2; Parasitic is 1+1=-4. Isn’t is meaningful? and the team leader has to think of this phenomenon.
Another one is Dr. Patrick Lencioni, an expert on the team’s “dysfunctions.” He emphasized that we have to be careful of the team’s dysfunction and overcome it. He made this progress: [Trust > Conflict > Commitment > Responsibility > Results]
If we have weak trust, there is conflict. If the conflict is unresolved, the commitment is insignificant, and the responsibility is weakened, and the consequences are fatal, so we have to keep these five things in mind at all times.
There must be a proper reason why our team is here. In my case, our team was formed early on to serve. I didn’t think of anything systematic of it, but I always emphasized two things: First, take care of ourselves each other. It means that each person is responsible for each one’s growth. That is, care and growth together. The second was achieving the goal. The focus should not be missed on the results. In the case of gathering at the level of fellowship or friendship, there may not be such a goal, but a group gathered for ministry or special purpose is an inevitable task to achieve its goal. So I’ve always tried to achieve both here “care and growth;” and there “achieve goals.”
By doing this, the concept of family (“We are family”) and the pursuit of meaningful and worthwhile ministry were in place. When these two things coexist well, the team members feel satisfied and happy in the present. It is to continue to feel meaningful and rewarding with expectations for the future.
When the first one is insignificant, the warm atmosphere is weak, and the level of commitment decreases. On the other hand, when the pursuit of results is weak, there is no personal burden, so they cannot grow, so they are prepared to leave as complaints arise. It’s uncomfortable to feel the burden of being not removed, but otherwise, personal spiritual growth is not possible, and we don’t feel a sense of accomplishment in the ministry, so we’ll be ready to leave soon.
There was some mistake that didn’t work in the church. I have trained laypeople at one church which actually I belong to. While I was there as an associate pastor, and because I have just translated Dr. Melvin’s the first book, Can The Pastor Do It Alone? Into Korean. Our senior pastor told me to train the laypeople, so it was announced in public, then around 19 people were gathered at training session. It was very first experience for my ministry journey aftermath. I trained them, and developed the system of Lay Pastors Ministry in the church, and they, lay pastor, mobilized to care for their peers as the textbook has taught, then what happened was that they mobilized but mobilized too much, too high, I mean the church never mobilized before, so it was really new experience for them and the pastor himself. He, the pastor, was a little uncomfortable and afraid of their mobilization.
Another thing we made mistake was that when we finished training, it should be Commissioning Service there, and have to give them Certificate of being a lay pastor in public on Sunday or any occasion, it should be in public event, by the way, our senior pastor has decided no Commissioning Service in public, so it was given them privately, call them individually at his office and gave them. What an interesting scene, isn’t it!
I understand why he did just like that. Probably he worries those who are not trained and not being lay pastors, maybe they feel some disappointment because they are not selected. It means the pastor was thinking, understanding this is not the ministry gifted to the people, and also probably this is one of those ready-made-programs, so he didn’t think of it seriously. So those lay pastors couldn’t continue their ministry properly because they are not appointed in public, in the end they couldn’t do the ministry in public, so it didn’t work and close down very soon.
The people there are still regretting that it closed down too early, and they believed God gave the moment to them to change, to promote the church, but they missed the opportunity, so no more opportunity came to them since then. God gives us sometimes, not every time, so when it comes to us, we shouldn’t miss it but grab the opportunity.
Another mistake happened at other church. I have trained so, they are motivated and ready to take action, jump into ministry, but pastor is not ready to commission them, he said, “after going to prayer mountain and pray for commission, he will do that, he promised just like that. One month later I called him to know if he has commissioned them, he said still praying for that, another one month passed by, I called, he is still praying, in the end they never commissioned them. They are ready, but no door was opened. So, they missed its opportunity.■
ADDITIONAL COMMENT
by BYEONG
Characteristics of short-term projects: I have done long-term “ministry”(15 years) and short-term “projects”(15 months). What is different from the two characteristics. As a keyword, the short-term project was “Sense of Urgency”. The long-term ministry was “Long-term Leadership”. I will talk here about the completion of the “Short-term Project” through my experience.
Short-term projects should literally be completed in a short time. Therefore, you should be quick to judge and not think for too long. Motivation to mobilize people should also be strongly communicated in the short term. A short-term project needs external compelling force.
It is the role of a leader to create an internal automatic and spontaneous motivation(impelling: willingness, I wish to do). That is why all energy must be mobilized. There’s no room for sidetracks. Even a small amount of energy cannot be wasted on unnecessary conflicts, competition, and unproductive things.
It is sometimes too much to do so, we can’t care about anything else, so we have no choice but to neglect our family sometimes. We can never accomplish a given task with everything.
We must be crazy about the ministry we are given. According to the book “Built to Last,” written by Professor James Collins of Stanford University, successful organizations, companies, and individuals are completely crazy about a given task. It used the expression cults-like. If we look at those cults groups, we’re going to think that they’re crazy.
As it seems, to succeed in anything, we have to be completely all-in and crazy.
The success of short-term projects requires great concentration, high leadership, and simple management, and it must be clear when it ends if added.
When we invest energy from concentration, people think, and they want to know the time of when to finish. Our leadership, our energy is exhausted, but also the energy of the people we work with is also poured out in a short period of time.
Longer and unlimited time investment is actually too much. So from my experience, short-term projects shouldn’t be to last more than two years. The best thing is between a year or/and a year and a half. It doesn’t seem wise to cross the year twice. If you say short-term projects after Christmas twice, you can’t give trust to the people and there is a high probability that it will end in failure.