MONDAY MUSINGS

February 11, 2008

Lay Ministry

This past weekend I taught a class on Stewardship and Mission for the South Dakota Conference, United Church of Christ, Lay Ministry Program.  Eight people met with me for two days in Yankton to take this course, one of 12 that are required for “graduation.”  Graduation means that the person has completed the course work necessary to make them “licensable” to serve in some capacity of ministry, usually in a local church setting.

There are many communities in the Great Plains that have experienced a dramatic loss in population over the past 50 years, shrinking communities with the corresponding stress on commercial ventures, school systems, social structures and certainly local congregations.  Many of these congregations had their largest membership in the late 1950’s and have been declining since.  They have been less and less able to adequately support full-time, seminary trained pastoral leadership with the attendant costs of health care and retirement benefits.  A goodly number of these churches in these shrinking communities will never be able to have a resident, ordained pastor as they did in the past.

The South Dakota Conference is seeking to address this reality by offering to these churches the option of gifted and trained lay persons who are willing to prepare themselves for such service.  Such persons are not necessarily inferior to our more traditional method of providing pastoral leadership.  This is not a “cheap” solution, driven only by economics.  In some cases these lay ministers are compensated almost as well as some of our seminary graduates.  They usually bring experience from their previous places of employment plus a significant understanding of the local realities.  As time goes on and they accumulate the practical knowledge of pastoral ministry, they will fully take their place alongside our seminary trained folk.

It was very cold and windy as we gathered, and some had driven five hours to be in attendance.  We talked about the present reality that our members, on average, give less than 2% of their income to the church, leaving much room for our growth as generous and thankful stewards.  I tried to move stewardship from the crisis mentality of meeting the annual budget to the joyful opportunity to grow ourselves more fully as disciples of Jesus Christ.  In doing so, we enable our congregations to reach out in mission with resources adequate to our vision.  They will be preparing papers for me and completing a project that will have applicability to their local congregations.  I look forward to their creativity as they too mature as members of the Body of Christ.  Peace.  John Krueger