"Lay" Leaders

One of the things I love most about McKinney is that our "lay" leaders are the most connected people in ministry. They don't have to check in with headquarters for everything they do, and don't feel like they have to maneuver through red tape and beauracracy to have personal ministry. If someone has a vision for personal ministry, we encourage them to do it. If it doesn't fit with what our church is doing, we still encourage them to do it - just as an extension of their own personal ministry.

Yeah, it's messy. Yeah, it's like nailing jello to the wall sometimes. Yeah, we have to troubleshoot when people run after the wrong things from time to time. But those times are the exception, not the rule. Most of the time, it's just plain exciting to see people living into what God has called them to do.

I feel like a lot of churches and pastors cannabalize the personal ministry of people in the congregation. They create such rigid systems for what "church-sponsored" church ministry can look like that very few people are actually able to use their gifts and talents to serve. Then, we wonder why nobody is doing anything. We preach about the Parable of the Talents and make people feel guilty for not using the gifts and talents the church won't let them use.

Sometimes it's because we're so hotly pursuing excellence that we are afraid the gifts God gave some people aren't strong enough to carry the type of ministry we're doing. More often, it's just because we want control. We want to make sure nobody messes up the ministry we've worked so hard to build. I'm fairly convinced that neither of those reasons is sufficient.

Obviously we want to protect the doctrinal purity of the ministry our church supports. But rarely is that the real reason we hold people back from engaging in personal ministry. Most of us (including me from time to time) just don't like the feeling of not being "in the know" about everything our people are doing. So church becomes about everyone who shows up helping us as pastors have great ministry - the individual empowering the institution rather than the institution empowering the individual.