Over the years, I have tried to help more than 150 churches develop this ministry. Through those experiences, I have learned that the success or failure of lay ministry depends greatly on one person: the senior pastor.
At first, that may sound surprising. After all, this is a ministry between the laity and the pastor, and in some sense the entire congregation is involved. Everyone sees it, experiences it, tastes it, and eventually participates in it. But when we look at the structure of a local church, there is one person who carries the greatest responsibility for deciding whether this ministry will truly take root: the senior pastor.
The senior pastor is not simply another pastor in the church. He or she is the person ultimately responsible for major decisions—whether to adopt the ministry, how to adapt it to the particular church, and what kind of leadership culture will surround it.
There are, of course, different levels of responsibility. Dr. Melvin Steinbron called one important group the Ministry Leadership Group (MLG). These are the people who carry responsibility for the success or failure of the ministry. Usually, this group consists of four to eight laypeople selected from among the lay pastors. They understand the ministry more deeply than the rest of the congregation and help guide its development.
In a larger church, an associate pastor may be assigned to oversee the ministry. But there is an important distinction: an associate pastor may manage the ministry, but he or she is not the ministry itself. The ministry belongs to the whole body of Christ, especially to the laypeople who have been called, gifted, equipped, and entrusted to care for others.
Yet above all these levels of responsibility stands the senior pastor.
That is why I came to believe that the senior pastor must understand both PACE and LPM. PACE is simple and practical—Prayer, Availability, Contact, and Example. LPM is broader and more comprehensive. If a pastor wants this ministry to become truly effective in the local church, he cannot simply know the mechanics of PACE. He must understand the larger philosophy and structure of lay pastoral ministry.
Unfortunately, this is where I have seen many churches struggle.
The problem is often not the ministry itself. The problem is the pastor’s old mindset.
Many pastors have been trained to lead through a highly centralized model. The pastor preaches, teaches, decides, organizes, supervises, and often personally carries most of the ministry. This leadership style may work in some situations, but it does not work well with a ministry whose very purpose is to release the laity into ministry.
Lay ministry cannot flourish under excessive control.
If a pastor thinks, “This is my ministry, and I am simply asking the laypeople to help me,” he has already misunderstood the concept.
That is not the biblical picture.
The better way to think about it is this: lay ministry belongs to the laity because laypeople themselves are called, gifted, and equipped by God for ministry. The pastor is not giving away something that belongs to him. In a sense, he is returning ministry to the people to whom Christ has already entrusted it.
That requires something very difficult for some pastors: trust.
The pastor must believe in the concept of lay ministry, but he must also believe in laypeople themselves.
If the pastor does not genuinely believe that laypeople can minister, the laypeople will eventually sense that hesitation. They may receive training, attend meetings, and even accept titles, but they will not develop the confidence and freedom necessary for effective ministry.
The pastor’s role therefore needs to change.
He does not become less important. Rather, his leadership becomes more important and more biblical.
Instead of doing everything himself, he mobilizes others.
Instead of controlling everything, he entrusts ministry to others.
Instead of merely supervising, he equips.
Instead of keeping people dependent on him, he helps them grow and mature.
His goal is not to make laypeople assistants to the pastor. His goal is to help the whole body of Christ grow “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
In other words, the pastor’s question should not be, “How can I get laypeople to help me do my ministry?”
It should be, “How can I help God’s people discover and fulfill the ministry God has already given them?”
That is a completely different leadership philosophy.
The Ministerium: We Are All Partners in Ministry
This brings me to an important concept that I have discussed many times with pastors: ministerium.
Pastors often gather monthly or every other month for fellowship, prayer, and discussion. Such a gathering of pastors is sometimes called a ministerium. But the deeper idea of ministerium can be much broader. It points us back to Ephesians 4:11–12 and the biblical understanding that ministry is not the exclusive possession of ordained clergy.
In the 1970s, Lutheran theologian Oscar Feucht wrote Everybody a Minister. His message was simple but revolutionary: every believer who holds Christ in his or her heart is called to ministry.
At that time, this was a shocking idea to many people.
The common understanding was that the pastor was the minister, while the congregation received the ministry. The pastor was the worker, and the laypeople were largely the consumers.
But Feucht challenged that assumption.
Those who have received the Gospel also have a ministry.
I remember talking with pastors about this concept. Many would say, “I like everything you are saying, but I still feel uncomfortable thinking of laypeople as partners in ministry.”
That hesitation revealed the problem.
For generations, laypeople had often been viewed as one step below the pastor—important, certainly, but ultimately inferior in ministry. The idea that a layperson could stand beside a pastor as a genuine partner was difficult for some pastors to accept.
But the biblical picture is different.
The church is not a place where one person ministers while everyone else watches.
We are a ministry team.
The congregation should be able to look around on Sunday morning and say:
“We are all partners in ministry with our pastor.”
That concept eventually became increasingly important in the development of lay ministry in America.
I remember the influence of Dr. James Galloway, who served as a pastor at Skyline Methodist Church in San Diego. His doctoral work at Drew University eventually became a book entitled Partners in Ministry. Drawing especially from the ministry philosophy of John Wesley, he emphasized that pastors and laypeople are not competitors or two separate classes of Christians. They are co-workers in the ministry of Christ.
That concept gave many churches a fresh understanding of partnership.
I also remember Frazer Methodist Church in Alabama, a church known for its tremendous ministry to children through its Sunday school. I attended conferences there and saw how seriously they took the idea of involving everyone in ministry. Their recurring emphasis was essentially:
“Everyone in the Ministry.”
That phrase captures the heart of what I have been trying to teach through LPM and PACE.
Everyone is not called to do the same thing.
But everyone is called to do something.
The pastor’s responsibility is not to do all of it. His responsibility is to help the body discover, develop, and exercise the gifts God has given to its members.
I have also seen this idea developing in Korea. One well-known church in Gangnam became famous throughout Korea and even across Asia for its emphasis on discipleship. But at some point, I noticed another phrase beginning to appear:
“Partners in Ministry.”
That development is significant.
A person may begin as a church member, become a disciple, and then move toward becoming a partner in ministry. Discipleship should not end with knowledge. It should lead to participation.
More than twenty years ago, a lay ministry conference was held at Hallelujah Church in Bundang. Pastor Ok Han-heum and Pastor Kim Sang-bok were among the major speakers. Pastor Ok Han-heum had written Called to Awaken Laity, while Pastor Kim Sang-bok was leading the Lay Ministry Academy.
Although they approached the subject from somewhat different directions, the conclusion was remarkably similar:
The church must recognize laypeople as partners in ministry.
That was a significant change in the Korean church.
Laypeople had often been treated primarily as consumers—people who came to church, listened to sermons, received pastoral care, and supported the work of the church.
But they could be much more than consumers.
They could become ministers.
They could become caregivers.
They could become shepherds.
They could become partners with their pastors in serving the Lord.
Over the years, I have watched the Korean church change in this respect, and I am grateful for it. I have seen laypeople discover that Christianity is not simply about receiving ministry but about becoming ministers themselves.
This is ultimately what LPM and PACE are trying to accomplish.
The pastor does not lose ministry by sharing ministry.
He multiplies ministry.
The pastor does not become less important by empowering laypeople.
He becomes a better leader.
And the laypeople do not replace the pastor.
They become his partners.
That is the heart of ministerium: not one pastor doing ministry for everyone, but the whole body of Christ ministering together.
And that is why, after visiting and helping so many churches, I have become increasingly convinced that the greatest challenge is not teaching laypeople how to care for others.
It is helping pastors learn how to trust, release, equip, and lead the people of God into ministry.