by Roger E. Hedlund
In Europe and North America it is customary for churches to support a full-time professional pastor. It is natural for missionaries coming out of this background to duplicate it. But is the traditional system best for church growth?
In Europe and North America it is customary for churches to support a full-time professional pastor. It is natural for missionaries coming out of this background to duplicate it. But is the traditional system best for church growth?
I do not believe it is. We must find another pattern.
Unless the latent energy and motivations of a congregation are aroused, the powers of a majority of the members may never be discovered nor harnessed to the progress of a church. Ironically enough, an active deterrent to lay activity in a younger church may be the energy of a missionary or national pastor. The missionary or pastor finds awaiting him in a church many challenging tasks which need immediate attention. It is difficult to see how he can relate his laymen to them. He himself has been trained to do these things…1
Psychologically, this may be difficult for missionaries who have known a different pattern. It involves a different view of the ministry. Rather than the ministry being carried on by "professionals" (a select few who are ordained), it becomes the responsibility of the entire church. At first the new responsibilities may seem bewildering or overwhelming to laymen who have been mostly recipients. However, they will discover a new means of grace in meaningful service.
The church belongs to laymen as much as to clergymen. A person working cross-culturally should acknowledge this fact. The church is "of the people." It is their church, not the foreigner’s, not the mission’s. Therefore they – the laymen should be expected to minister in their church.
However, such participation is all too often absent in the worship and life of Protestant churches in Italy. Two exceptions are found in the Brethren and the Pentecostals. The former is by nature a "lay" movement in that it has no clergy, although it might be argued that the recognized elders constitute a clergy. Pentecostals, by stressing the absolute necessity of witnessing, gain the active participation of believers. Little groups of Pentecostals, meeting in homes, crop up spontaneously. The dynamic of both movements seems to lie largely in their active use of the laity.
Arno Enns reports that the "effective use of the laymen in all aspects of the ministry" is the outstanding feature of the Plymouth Brethren in Argentina, where they have become the largest Protestant Church.
The fact that there was no mission organization greatly aided the development of this movement. The missionaries did not form or participate in some power structure that stood over against the churches and their emerging leaders. They became members of these churches and participated as equals with their Argentine brethren.2
An example of using lay leaders comes from the Batak Lutherans of Indonesia. John S. Kerr writes of this movement: "The congregations are clustered into ressorts, similar to presbyteries, with a pastor and perhaps an assistant pastor in charge. The pastor meets each week with his elders for a ‘study session in which they exegete and discuss the gospel lesson for the following Sunday. The elders appointed to preach then prepare their own sermons, based on this preparation."3
An average of ten elders per congregation participates under this plan. Responsibility falls upon them. The result is a strong church. "Even if circumstances permitted them the luxury of a completely professional ministry, such a change would bleed life from the church."4 Under indigenous lay leadership program of church extension is underway. "The Bataks come close to the ideal vision of the church in which the theologically trained professional becomes a resource person and educator, preparing lay people to do the day-by-day job of making Christ known to the community."5 The Batak lay leaders remained laymen. They were not ordained, could not administer the sacraments.
Obviously, one of the benefits of using laymen is growth. One of the fastest growing churches in the world – the Evangelical Church in Brazil – is known as a layman’s church. Specifically, it is a "man’s church" in a male oriented society. Both for evangelism and for finances the leadership, time, and talents of the laymen were relied upon.6
Writing from the totally different context of Liberia, a Lutheran missionary does not discount the role of ordained ministers ("professionals"). They have been "an important factor in the rapid growth of the church" when placed in an expanding area to shepherd new converts. But the growth of the church in isolated areas where there is no pastor shows that "an even more important factor . . . is that the pattern of church planting be understood and carried out by village evangelists."7 The Lutheran Church of Liberia had some 200 of these lay evangelists.
Another advantage of a lay system for the ministry is that it is an indefinitely reproducible pattern because (1) It does not rest upon outside power (which may decline or change); it is not imposed from without, but rises from within. (2) It creates no financial burden. Since lay ministers are self-supporting, the church need never lack for leaders because it cannot pay them. Poverty is a major problem in Italy as in many other fields. Most churches will never rise to the place of being able to support a pastor. The imposition of leaders upon these churches becomes a kind of paternalism, linked directly or indirectly with the foreign missionary, his country, or his board.
The third value of a system of lay pastors in Italy has to do with communism. Communist influence in Italy is not conducive to a paid ministry. Strong hostility can be expected toward a church that is foreign dominated. A ministry that is partially supported by foreign funds (especially American funds) will come under suspicion. A lay ministry does reduce these objections.
Several specific plans recommend themselves for the development of the ministry of the laity in the churches and groups of Italy.
1. Develop a work in small groups. Instead of attempting to build up attendance at a large central meeting hall, break down into several house churches. If there is a church of 50, let it become five churches of ten, or ten churches of five. This is multiplication by division. This plan recognizes the basic family units which seem an important factor for Italian evangelism. It should be easier for ten churches of five, or five churches of ten to double, than for the more settled congregation of fifty to grow.
2. Place responsibility for these little churches in the hands of the laity. Obviously a pastor or missionary cannot personally assume the care of all these groups. He should not. This calls for utilizing the elders. In some cases these elders must be found. No doubt many elders will be the natural heads of households where new groups meet.
3. Certain leaders must be placed in key, central areas to instruct the laymen who teach and preach and lead the little church groups. Missionaries should be chosen with care for this teaching responsibility. These overseers must go to the provinces as well as to the cities. The placement of a key leader in the center of each cluster of churches is essential if the plan is to succeed.
4. Lay leaders who display the proper gifts and who rise as natural leaders in the church should be ordained. 5. The area surrounding local communities of believers should be divided up and assigned as specific areas of responsibility for church extension. The homes of outlying believers, or of relatives of believers, or of sympathizers should become the base for extending the church.
Endnotes
1. J. Merle Davis, New Buildings on Old Foundations (New York: International Missionary Council, 1947), p. 134.
2. Arno W. Enns, "Profiles of Argentine Church Growth" (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, unpublished master’s thesis, 1967), pp. 189-190.
3. John S. Kerr, "Laymen: The Secret of Strength," World Encounter, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 30-35.
4. lbid.
5. Ibid.
6. Merle J. Davis, How the Church Grows in Brazil (New York: International Missionary Council, 1943), pp.79-80.
7. Joseph C. Wold, God’s Impatience in Liberia (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968), p. 105.
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