Richard Heyduck reports on a Q&A session with John Ortberg at a conference Heyduck attended. One of Ortberg’s answers triggered this reflection from Heyduck:
It seems like a luxury of larger church environments to be able to allow job specialization along lines of gifting. As pastor of a small church, I have to do many things – some I’m good (gifted) at, some I’m not. Otherwise essential functions won’t get done. Perhaps as our smaller churches migrate from the engrained clergy/laity dichotomy to a spiritual gifts understanding of ministry, we’ll be able to do more specialization.
I’ve been taught about the differences in church size and what each means for pastoral leadership. Someone told me recently that a 200-300 member church is known as a clergy killer because it is usually too small for two pastors but too big for one.
Heyduck’s comments call to my mind a conversation I heard on the radio last week while driving to annual conference. Tim Legler was talking about playing in the NBA. He said that there are only a handful of players at that level of basketball who can “do it all.” Everyone else, he said, is in the NBA because they are very good at one or two specific things. They are brought to teams because they excel in one or two areas – and that is primarily what they are supposed to do.
In other words, the NBA is full of narrow specialists who get slotted into tasks related to their particular gifts. A few phenoms are given the freedom and the responsibility to “do it all.”
In the church world, we do this just the opposite way. Most of our churches are led by people who are asked to do it all, despite their particular weaknesses and gifts. They are also usually asked to do this without any discernable support or “coaching” to assist them.
Only in the rarified air of big churches are pastors slotted into paritcular roles that – when the system works properly – play to their particular strengths.
This may not be something that can be changed, but the contrast leaped out at me when I heard Legler talking.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
So you’re saying that the LeBron James of UM clergy would be better off in a small congregation so he or she could do it all?
I do think there is a lot of truth in your observations. In a large congregation, there is a greater need for 3-point specialists, or as we’ve called them, “left handed middle relievers.”
Now, here’s where I’d press back against you. I think a better analogy for clergy would be coaches. We’re not called to be making the 3s and driving the lane, otherwise we’ll burn out in congregations of any size. Instead, we’re called to teach, train, and equip the laity. Then we can mobilize the LeBrons and Leglers of our congregation to be the Church!
Whaddaya think?
A good push back, Matt. I’m not meaning to carry the metaphor so far as to suggest sending our LeBron James pastors to semi-pro leagues. I have no prescription in mind. I’m not even sure it is a problem. It just casts an interesting light on the way we do things.
I think Willimon suggests thinking terms of a baseball manager rather than a coach, but his point and yours are similar.
It is a helpful metaphor, too – so long as we don’t push it too far.
Oh, I definitely think you’re right about it being an interesting metaphor, which as you helpfully note, breaks down like even the best metaphor.
I appreciate you lifting up the idea in general. More than anything I was interested to see your thoughts, because we’ve had these very conversations among our staff as we think about our roles as clergy in a large congregation.
Thanks man!
I have seen so many wonderful small congregations die because they had a pastor who couldn’t do it all. I think we need a fundamental shift in how we supply pastoral leadership to small churches. Some of the churches who are hanging on by a thread could be great centers of mission in some rural communities that need a good center of mission. The problem is they can’t afford full time leadership or they can’t get good dynamic leadership because of their size. I think we are missing the boat on a great possibility of church growth because of this problem.
At our Indiana Annual Conference, Adam Hamilton talked at one point about the differences between leaders and managers, going on to say that most congregations were over-managed and under-led. My experience makes me think he is only half-right – our congregations are probably under-managed as well as being under-led, or perhaps ill-managed, which multiplies the difficulty for leadership to have any traction.
As I think about what you wrote here with the challenge for pastors navigating between being a specialist or a jack-of-all trades, it strikes me that this is one reason why leading congregations is tough (out of many reasons, I am sure). From my own experience as a pastor in churches with some part-time staff, I still have to devote a huge amount of time to the things Hamilton considered management and very little time to consider the needs of real leadership.
On the other hand, I happen to enjoy the management parts of what I do, and can relate on some level to the link to the conversation with Ortberg in which he indicated he doesn’t really have the gifting for leadership. I suspect that many pastors are not really cut out for doing the things Hamilton considered leadership – I know I count myself that way. In other words, even if the congregations were well-managed apart from a pastor’s influence, few pastors could offer the leadership necessary to make them something other than a well-managed congregation.
Of course the ideal is that the laity provide the ultimate leadership, but that is overly simplistic – realistically, the pastor is a huge part of the leadership equation in any UM congregation.
Of course the ideal is that the laity provide the ultimate leadership, but that is overly simplistic – realistically, the pastor is a huge part of the leadership equation in any UM congregation.
You are absolutely correct about this, Larry. But I think this is an unfortunate truth. Not that I want poor pastors out there. I just want laity who have the gifts for management and leadership to use them.
The pastor is just passing through, after all.