#24
Skills will not earn a crown or guarantee success.
Habit 2: Be Eager The Great Charter shifts our focus: “Be shepherds of God’s flock…not greedy for money, but eager to serve.” Just as willingness is a divine-human blend, so is eagerness. Like most God-you blends, eager is understood best by observation, not definition. For example, to know what it is to be eager, watch a first-time mother stretching her arms out to take her baby from the nurse. Eager gets fresh meaning from its antonym, greedy. (Lay pastors are not paid, so substitute awards for money.) My thesaurus has eager as a synonym for greedy, so read “not eager for money, but eager to serve.” Let’s admit it: we “feel” what eager for money is, therefore we can “feel” what eager to serve is. Noting your eagerness, God identifies you as a notably successful lay pastor!
Habit 3: Be an example The focus moves on: “Be shepherds of God’s flock … not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” A distressed lay person, asked by her pastor to lead the group starting their Lay Pas-tors Ministry, phoned me about a serious problem. Her voice was shaky, “What can I do about one of my group who is adamantly against including Example? He is convinced only Jesus is worthy of being an example, and warned me that he will speak out against it tonight, and he will!” Following the plan in Can the PastorDo It Alone? they came to the ministry description—PACE: Pray, Available, Contact, Example. He was fully in favor of PAC, his only beef was with E.
I referred her to I Peter 5:1-4, especially being examples to the flock. I cited other biblical support: Phil 3:17; II Thes 3:9; I Tim 4:12, and I Thes 1:7 which makes it clear we do not choose to make ourselves examples, we are unintentional exam-ples whether we want to be or not. This habit calls us to give attention to the fact we are already examples and should intentionally grow into being better and better examples. This habit precludes our “lording it over others.” Since God put exam-ple in the Great Charter, noting it tells he includes you in the notably successful lay pastors crowd. You will therefore receive the crown of glory.●
(Audio/Byeong) Dr. Melvin talks about eagerness, of course he got this from I Peter, 5:2, “not greedy for money, but eager to serve.” Sometimes we mix working for money, working for ministry, or ministry for money. Of course, we are not doing ministry for money, but sometimes we struggle with how to do ministry even though we don’t have income from the ministry. I believe if we work for God’s ministry, God will supply our daily bread. I haven’t changed this ministry mindset, but sometimes wrestled how to survive, but we need to keep our first commitment to God. And I read one article that said the sign of true leaders is to do it diligently. Eagerness and diligence is the synonym, anyway we have to do good work with eagerness and diligence, that’s the imperative.
COMMENTS
in relation to SEVEN HABITS OF NOTABLY SUCCESSFUL LAY PASTORS[2]
Daniel Kigula M. (Uganda), says:
Lay Pastors Ministry Uganda didn’t start until 2009, when the young boy, who later became a pastor, got in touch with Rev. Byeong from Korea.
I’m Daniel Kigula M, the lead pastor at Divine Care Community Ministries based in Uganda. My spiritual life grows stronger, and I get to know that all people are called by God. I and my spiritual father at Victory Church when we read the book called “CAN PASTOR DO IT ALONE?” It was a starting point and empowering of the ministry.
After some months , my pastor chose seven lay pastors in our church to care for small groups, and I was among those leaders. In this, all members were reached on, prayed for, and every week we reported to senior pastor.
As I was serving God under my pastor for some years, we realized that I had a call upon me, which eventually manifested, and I was ordained as lead pastor to fulfill God’s purpose upon me.
Naturally, I was shy and it was difficult to identify mu Spiritual gifts, abilities and potential for ministry since this system of ministry creates a chance to the lay people to preach the word of God, caring and praying for flock.
I thank God for the founder of Lay Pastors Ministry, which has been an impactful ministry to the church of Christ and will always result into building strong church leaders.■
Hoo-Rak Lee, Korea, says:
In defining the role of the pastor in an era that calls for a new paradigm of ministry, we can compare a pastor-dependent model with an interdependent model that equips the laity as ministers.
In a pastor-dependent church, the pastor is seen as the one who does the ‘real’ ministry, while the congregation is a passive audience for the pastor’s efforts. This model may be the natural state of churches with an institutional view of the church.
However, if the church is viewed as an organism and ministry is seen as the work of the whole body, then the pastor is not the one who does the ‘actual’ ministry, but rather equips the body for full service.
The equipping of the laity involves ‘identifying untapped capacities, drawing them out, and helping them to fulfill their potential in the lives of the congregation.’ Pastoral ministry is not the sole preserve of the pastor, but is shared by the entire church community, the body of Christ.
Therefore, as a representative of the church, the pastor does not have a monopoly on ministry, but rather supports and equips the people of God from behind so that they can do their own ministry from the front lines.■
Byeong, Melvin University, says:
We have to change our habit and attitude adapting to be given ministry. How do you see it?
Church in terms of Lay Pastors Ministry: I found that there are some fears of lay ministry in the local churches. First, the main fear is that, the church itself is afraid of their congregation’s energy that might be used for outside of the church. Most church wants to use their people’s energy for inside. Usually small churches think that is possible for big church to use for outside, but they-small church-need more energy to survive church itself. So they don’t connect lay people with ministry out there. They only think of service, because many lay people in the Bible have done that.
Before that, traditionally churches were not thinking about laypeople seriously because of some reasons. They are not familiar to work with them in terms of lay ministry. I think it was not big issue for the church to think of laypeople last one century, and as someone said there are 3P of lay people: Presence, Pray and Pay, then go home….this is not every church but many of them.
Because of that, there is no specialized in the lay ministry, and also no specialist in this area. As we already know, every seminary focused on the only making, producing senior pastor, I mean full time minister. Later on they were thinking of lay pastoring, lay bible study leaders, for instance Cell leader, Bend ministry, lay preacher, and lay caregiver, so on. And also there should be paradigm shift if we want to do it more effectively, so both laypeople and clergy are afraid of it.
Another issue here that lay ministry or lay pastor’s ministry has to prepare the system which means we have to know and executes from 1 to 10. If we think of LPM here, for instance it has two elements in there: lay ministry and lay pastoring. So it was lay pastoral care ministry in the beginning stage of LPMI USA, but later on the restructured more acutely lay pastor’s ministry.■
ADDITIONAL COMMENT
by BYEONG
Emotional and intellectual: Joining the ministry has found two styles: Emotional & Intellectual. Emotional people get off to a quick start with a burning passion given work. A planned ministry or project must be a ‘start’, so these people are absolutely necessary.
In other words, a style like Peter is essential at the beginning. Perhaps irrational, reckless, impulsive style, but still much better than someone who sits back and calculates about success or failure.
You will remember the Wright brothers, who invented the airplane. The brothers had extraordinary passion to invent it at a factory underground and work there. It started. After a few failures and trials and errors, it was eventually known as the Wright brothers when it comes to airplanes.
However, according to one resource, another team was planning to invent the airplane a little away from at the same time. The team consists of faculty from top universities, professional scientists, mechanical engineers, and government financial support. However, it ended up with a desk discussion. The team would have looked at the possibilities as a group of intelligent people. However, the given mission has not been accomplished, and perhaps this is a characteristic of intellectual people. In other words, which it is compared to emotional people.
In Korea, emotional people came first as staff when starting the Lay Pastor Ministry institute with Melvin’s resources. When I talked about my vision of “helping the Korean church with this ministry,” some first answered “yes” and served as a starting member and a cornerstone for the ministry. Today’s Melvin University could be exist because they joined right at the beginning.
However, in the ministry, it is difficult to achieve the goal with these emotional people alone. It takes a starting team and another team to mature and finish.
In other words, more intellectual people should join in. But those people don’t join in the early stages. They might consider various things, look at the progress, and decide whether to join. If it’s from 1 to 10 stages, Emotional people join first or second stages, and then intellectual people join almost sixth or seventh stages.
Anyway, a leader needs both of these kinds of people and should be prepared to accept either. First people will need encouragement, and second people will need confirmation of what they have done. This is because intellectual people want to make sure that their leaders recognize their attempts and what they have done.
두가지 동기부여
한국에서부터 사역하면서 줄곧 고민했던 것이 동기부여에 대한 것이었는데, 두 가지 동기부여가 있음이 분명해졌다: 하나는 어떤 사역이고 간에 “시작할 때” 강력한 동기부여가 필요하다. 또 다른 하나는 그 사역을 “계속하게끔” 해주는 동기부여이다.
물론 동기부여에 관한 책들도 많고 그것에 대한 이론들도 많다. 멜빈목사님도 동기부여라는 제목으로 소 논문을 쓰시기도 하셨다. 물론 그 소 논문은 내적 동기부여와 외적 동기부여에 대한 것이었다. 결국, 시작할 때의 동기부여에 가까운 내용이다. 또 다른 것은 다니엘 핑크박사 (Dr. Pink) 가 쓴 것인데 동기부여의 세 가지 단계를 얘기했는데 원시시대, 포스터모던 이전, 그리고 그 이후에 대한 것인데; 첫 번째는 당근과 채찍, 다음 시대에는 주인의식, 현재는 자치권이라고 표현했다.
이런 모든 책과 자료들이 동기부여에 대한 나 자신의 이해에 도움은 되었다. 하지만 이런 이론과 책들로는 나의 궁금증이 안 풀렸는데 바로 시작의 동기부여, 그리고 그 이후의 동기부여는 전연 다르기에 이런 기초적인 이론과 자료로는 안 된다는 것이었다.
대부분의 자료가 시작단계에 필요한 동기부여 자체에만 집중하고 있기에, 뭔가 시작하는 사람들에, 그리고 이제 막 학교에서 리더십을 배우는 학생들에게는 반드시 필요한 과정이니 그들에게는 이런 책들이 인기 만점이고, 또 잘 팔리고 있는 것이 사실이다. 대부분이 교과서로서는 자신들의 책이 필독서라고 소개한다. 그렇다 보니 대부분의 지도자가 이 단계에서 멈추고, 또 만족하고 “내 할 일은 다했다”로 결론짓고 만다.
그러나 여기서 내가 관심을 두는 분야는 바로 그 이후, 시작할 때의 동기부여 된 사람들이 그 이후는 어떻게 되는가에 대한 질문이다. 그래서 대부분 목회자들께서 이 단계에 당황해 하면서, 계속 갈 것인지 아니면 멈출까를 고민하게 된다. 성도들은 오래 못 기다리므로 두 세 주 내에 답이 안 나오면 “이제 또 그만두시는구나!” 하면서 리더십에 대한 신뢰성이 서서히 약해지기 시작한다. 대개 사역을 시작한 지 4~5개월 되면 이런 현상이 나타난다. 여기서부터는 전연 다른 리더십이 발휘되어야 하는데 지금까지 해오던 식으로는 안 되니 고민이 시작된다.
목회자가 고민하는 동안 성도들은 그 사역을 곧 그만두게 된다는 생각을 할 수밖에 없다. 다음이 뭐냐? 그리고 이 사역에 계속 머물러 있으면 자신이 성장할 수 없다는 것을 깨닫게 된다. 웬고하니 더는 그 사역에 머물러있을 필요를 못 느끼기 때문이다. 그래서 많은 사역이 이 단계에서 멈추고 문을 닫게 되는데 이런 문제들을 해결하지 못하기 때문이다.
그러니까, 특히 장기적인 사역에서 이렇게 계속 가게 하는 동기부여는 피할 수 없는 과제이다. 지도자들은 많은 방법을 생각하게 된다. 다행히도 나는 이런 문제를 해결하여 극복하게 되었다. 우선 나는 어떻게 해야 이럴 때를 견디고 해결해야 하는지에 대해 많은 책을 보기 시작했다.
사역에서 스탭들이 성장하고 있음을 볼 때에, 나 역시 도전을 느끼게 되었고, 나 역시 성장해야 함을 인지하게 되었으며, 동시에 출구를 찾을 수 밖에 없었다. 그래서 많은 책으로부터 아이디어를, 그리고 나의 멘토이신 멜빈목사님께 자문하면서 서서히 극복을 해 나갔다.
이 시점에서 우리 지도자들에게는 상당히 기술적인 리더십(artful leadership)이 필요하다는 것이다. 교과서적이고 이론적인 기본리더십으로는 이 단계를 극복할 수가 없다. 그런 리더십은 벌써 오래전에 마스트된 것이고 낡은 것이 돼버렸다. 이 단계에서는 다른 자료, 다른 접근, 다른 리더십이 필요하다.
우리를 보면서 따라오는 사람들은 우리의 생각, 방향, 우리의 마인드를 수시로 확인하고 싶어 한다. 특히 우리가 “어디로 가고자” 하는지는 그들에게 확신을 가늠하게 하는 절대적인 요소인 것이다.●