Understand the Timeline

Working in a church is often a waiting game. This is never as true as time spent without a pastor. It seems as though there is never enough time to make up for his absence, or enough to do to get the steam built back up in your church without him around. Time seems to be your adversary, but I assure you, it is not.

Time is valuable for the church going through the fazes of loss, grief, refocus, and mobilization. There is a great deal of time that passes and a lot of water under the bridge during the months that seem to create a great and cavernous gap between ministries. However, ministry just as we said before does not have to stop simply because there is no pastor. But how does time become an asset for a church, rather than a hindrance.

Time is a necessary element in the production of quality products. Simply because the pastor is gone does not mean that things will change, or should change. We as staff members and lay workers must understand that there is a pastor’s office and position for a reason. We have not yet been called to that position, and we must understand what it means to stand humbly before an empty office just as we did an occupied one. Understanding the timeline also means that we understand time:

¹For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:²a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; ³a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; ⁴a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ⁵a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ⁶a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; ⁷a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; ⁸a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:2-8

If It's a Job, Who's My Boss?

Before we begin, you need to know that the following philosophy might get you fired.

Ministers without a pastor are an enigma to most lay leadership in the church. They act strangely, and make funny noises during worship. They dress oddly and seem to misunderstand the concept of “Office Hours.” This is to say, lay leadership and church staff seem to not get along when the pastor leaves his office. For whatever reason, the staff appears to the lay leadership as being loose cannons and in need of restraint by the church body in order to not tear down the sacred cow that the church has worshiped for so long. The general consensus among most church members is that these staff members are not of the caliber necessary to administrate and lead a church, which is short-hand for, “We think they might make us do something we are uncomfortable doing.”

Maybe this is only true in the limited number of churches in my research pool, but I don’t think so.

As a staff member of the church or as a lay leader of the church, we are among the leaders of the church, not the premiere executive of all decision making. The pastor did not hold such a title either, yet there is a great deal of respect given to the office, and so it should be. But the work of staff and church leadership should not be hindered by the lack of the pastor; especially not hindered by each other. Anyone who finds themselves in a leadership position during the interim time between pastors must be the executive of their own program. All leaders must understand that they will be held responsible for the job that is done during these months or years without a pastor. Part of that executive responsibility is the necessity to coordinate your actions with other programs to ensure that the church is moving forward, and that forward means the same thing to everyone involved. Cooperation of the Saints is a fundamental truth found in the scriptures. There are several of these fundamental truths that can be the foundation of ministry to the Lost as well as the saints while a pastor is not with you.

When in doubt, consult the Word. When the word is not specific about the way a program should be run, don’t worry yourself about what you do, simply bring Him glory in all that you do. However, when the word is specific about an agenda of the new church, or when the scriptures are clear about a philosophy for the believer there must be no more doubt. With all your heart you must champion these elements of Christian life. This will get messy and some people will not like it, but when all is said and done, you must be able to come before your Heavenly Father and receive blessing for the job you have done.

¹¹Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. ¹² We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. ¹³For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; ¹⁵and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 2 Corinthians 5:11-15 (ESV)

Its Only a Job if You Make It One!

I leave the house in the morning, and kiss my wife goodbye. I instinctively say, “I’ll see you after work.” And I exit the house on my way to the office.

I get a call from a friend or family member wanting to know how my day is going and they typically ask, “How’s work?”

I can even remember a moment where another minister friend and I had lunch together soon after I moved to my current position, when he asked me, “How do you like your new job?”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a problem with philosophy on their part; instinctively we as humans will associate commonalities shared with other people to those in our own condition. That is to say, we assume that other people are going through situations like ours. This is a common and innocent assumption on their part, but it can be devastating if pastors and ministers assume such a philosophy.

When there is no pastor at a church, the role of the pastor must be dispersed over a group of other people. Some of the duties will fall on you, and you must begin to incorporate those tasks in the rest of the ministry to which you have been called. When these tasks come, there may be a desire to simply put them on the list of stuff that has to get don’t before Sunday, and attack them the same way a plumber fixes a leaky pipe.

But this cannot be the case for ministers.

I think it would be ridiculous for me to say, “Ministers don’t have jobs, they have ministries…” Because of the labor intensive nature to what we do, I believe a statement like this would cheapen our efforts. However, I do believe that we must differentiate between a job like taking out the garbage, and a ministry like developing a sermon, Sunday School lesson, or church event.

We must remember that our leadership and attitude toward laboring for the Kingdom in the absence of a pastor will prove to be a critical example for the church to follow.