Over the past few years here at Valley we have had a few young men come through our doors who are transitioning from being laymen to full time ministry workers. It is a transition that has been both challenging and encouraging as we see that there are still those who desire to serve the Lord out there but also that there are things seemingly being missed. One thing that I have noticed that I am concerned about and want to address it in this posting and that concern is an often unseen and seemingly unaddressed difference between being a faithful layman in a church and being a true leader in a church.
Let me start by saying that there are certain things EVERY Christian should be involved in no matter what level of Christian service a person is called into. For instance, reading your Bible everyday (Acts 17:11), being in church every service (Hebrews 10:25), and sharing the Gospel wherever possible (Mark 16:15) are examples of what every believer is commissioned to do. But clearly not every Christian is called into every type of service as even the ministry positions within the church vary, such as teacher, evangelist, and preacher/pastor. Also there are a diversity of spiritual gifts in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, thus there are different “positions” of ministry within the local assembly.
But there is a certain disconnect among those going into ministry nowadays that I feel needs to be addressed as it seems to be very common and truly crucial for men in ministry to see and understand. That disconnect has to do with the differences between a layman’s responsibility and a leader’s responsibility according to the Scriptures.
First let me use the practical example for a laymen to grasp. What ministry opportunities does a layman miss that a pastor cannot? If a few church members miss Saturday morning soul winning because of some family issue such as a baseball game, fishing, or gardening, few really think much of it. Every person needs a day off (Mark 6:31) and that is just fine for a layman. Yet if the pastor were to miss soul winning because of a baseball game, fishing, or gardening, the church rightfully complain because they would have expected more from their leader. This is an example of the principle difference I am speaking of. The layman serves while the leader leads. Other examples could include that it is understood that a pastor should be the first to give for a special offering. A pastor and his family MUST be at every church service. A pastor’s children should never work during a church service, and so on. Yet a layman often has the things get in the way, right or wrong, and these decision are often written off as normal parts of life.
Now remember the context in the discussion - young people transitioning from laymen to leaders. Quite often a layman misses some events within a church that a leader could/should never miss. But this is the nature of leadership. It is rightfully understood that a leader should lead, yet, we often fail to teach this to those who are transitioning from being a laymen into a leader.
As an example of this principle, Jesus was the only one to stay awake through an all night prayer service when his disciples kept falling asleep (Matthew 26:36-46). Now mind you Jesus did not strongly preach at these men as he knew they were not in the leadership position yet, and, he knew that they were struggling to battle their flesh (vs. 41). We assume a pastor who calls for an all night prayer meeting will stay awake for it, while the laymen may not because they have been working all day.
Another example we find is in Acts where Paul was being LONG winded and had preached all night and so a young man named Eutychus fell asleep and had to be brought back from the dead after falling out of the window (Acts 20:7-12). Bring that into modern day - imagine a pastor falling asleep in the middle of a revival meeting while the visiting evangelist is preaching his message! It would not be overlooked very long by the church, would it? But now think how often church members fall asleep in church during that same pastor’s messages. They fall asleep because they are weary from a week of labor…and no one thinks anything about it. It is the nature of being a layman and being a leader…SIMPLY PUT, WE EXPECT MORE FROM OUR LEADERS!
Now, please let me be clear, I am not complaint about the people at Valley but simply showing that we MUST teach that there is a level of responsibility that needs to be learned by those moving from layman to leader. How can we expect leaders to know what it means to lead if we do not teach them? Paul taught Timothy that he was to be an example because he was a leader (1 Timothy 4:12).
On a side note let me interject here that too often preachers tell their people that they should be at every church activity and they often schedule these activities on Saturday or Sunday or another day in the evening so that the layman can participated on their day off. Yet too often a pastor takes an entire day off, usually a Monday, by telling his church that this is his family day and to call only if there is an emergency. This can easily be seen as hypocritical and so, pastors, be careful when you take a day off from ministry and then expect EVERY church member to take one of their days off to serve in ministry.
But back to the lesson at hand.
Secondly, let me explain something leaders need to remember too when comes to our different responsibilities. As leaders must not allow our ministry obligations to supersede our Christian duties. In the New Testament all believers are exhorted to edify one another. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 states to all Christians, “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” Yet how often do we as leaders see the ministry we are in as our only method of edification? We assume that layman do the daily edification while we, the pastors, do the Sunday edification from the pulpit.
As an example, a youth leader labors with teaching and edifying his youth group and having edifying youth activities. His world becomes that of the teenagers of the church…while the other “groups” within the church are not his concern. His edification focus solely becomes his ministry of edification only for the teens to the exclusion of all others. But is that ALL that a youth leader should be doing? Should not the youth leader be looking to edify EVERYONE he can, regardless of their participation in his group or not? Of course!
How about preacher who says, “Come to church for every service and you will get all the counseling you will ever need.” Is this biblical? No! Read John 3 and you will find that Jesus took time for the one on one as well as the public ministry of edification. The pulpit ministry is crucial (1 Corinthians 1:18-21), but preaching CANNOT be our method of edification! We must have one on one time daily to fulfill the commission given to both layman and leader.
So in other words, a leader can fall prey to this failure as they see their “ministry” as their Christian service alone. These same leaders can expect the laymen to edification daily while the leader struggles to get past their “ministry” edification.
My challenge today is this - look up the verses written to EVERY Christian and ask yourself how to apply them to your life right now. Let us not think that layman and leaders MUST do everything the same as that is clearly not biblical. But neither should we ever excuse our lack of service in some commanded area because we are not leaders or because we are not laymen and that the area of service has been assumed to be just for the group we are not a part of at the moment.
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