What Lay People Want Most In Their Pastor
The most immediate answer to this query, an answer that transcends generations, is two-fold: great preaching and compassionate pastoral care. But I would like for us to be a little more thoughtful on a subject that can perplex and divide. I would also like to use this subject to challenge Pastors because I believe they have a responsibility to the laity to shape the laity's expectations of the role of the Pastor.
I will first attempt a broader traditional answer to what lay people want in their pastors, with the disclaimer that this question probably has as many different answers as there are church members, particularly if one were to attempt to prioritize the most prized characteristics.
Following are what I consider to be the most common expectations lay people have for their Pastors:
Leadership
Although I view clergy and laity as partners in ministry, every partnership must have a leader, and that's you. It's acceptable for you to be true to your own leadership style, but only so long as that style is successful. If it is not, learn to change the way you lead.
Vision
Lay people expect that you will know where you and your congregation should be going, and they expect that your vision will be God's vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish, as does the local congregation. Learn also to share your vision and to encourage vision in your laity, particularly your key leaders.
Spirituality, God-Centeredness and Biblical Knowledge
We want you to live a life centered in God, grounded on solid knowledge of the Bible and sound theology. It helps if you are a great preacher, but that quality diminishes in importance when you are solid in the other qualities I've mentioned. If you will truly live this kind of life, the laity will recognize it, and your ministry will fl ourish. Lay people will respond to your leadership.
Love and Compassion
You must have unconditional love for those in your care, and there is no escaping the expectation that you will minister to the individual needs of your church members. Do so with joy and compassion; but do your best to spread that task around by training and equipping lay persons to share this ministry with you. If you train 10 people to make visits, many more visits will be made than you can ever hope to do yourself, and you will learn much more about your church family from the feedback you receive from those visitors than is otherwise possible.
Commitment and Dedication
To God, to ministry, to congregation and to family. An absence or weakness in this quality is easily recognized, and serves to foster the same attitude in your congregation. Lay people understand that our clergy brothers and sisters are called to a special ministry among and in the context of numerous other valid ministries. If you do not demonstrate commitment and dedication, lay people will conclude that you do not truly have a sense that you have been called to that special ministry of the ordained clergy, and you will not be successful in your efforts to lead.
Integrity
This quality includes honesty, truthfulness and consistency. We want you as our Pastor to have this quality at the very core of your being. Having integrity also means being true to yourself while you are true to God.
As you demonstrate these qualities to your congregation, I encourage you also to work hard to shape the expectations that lay people have for their Pastor. A key passage of scripture that I encourage you to use in that effort is 1 Peter 4:10, which says: ÒEach one should use whatever gift he (or she) has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.Ó This passage affi rms that we all have gifts for ministry, lay and clergy alike, and that we are all called to put those gifts to use, to be faithful as we administer the grace of God in all the many and varied ways it reaches us. Lay people need to be taught that we do not hire our Pastors to do our ministry for us.
Bob Lockaby, Chattanooga District, is Lay Leader of Holston Conference.
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The Clergy Connection is a communication produced and written by the Clergy of Holston Conference for the purposes of deepening relationships, encouraging spiritual growth, increasing awareness of challenging opportunities, imparting useful information, stimulating theological exploration, providing a forum for honest expression and sharing the joys of creative ministries.
The Clergy Connection exists to call clergy into deeper covenant with God through Christ and to call clergy to live in covenant with each other.
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