We must teach our boards that this is NOT what godly, New Testament servant leadership looks like. God has called pastors and teachers to do what? “Equip God’s people for works of service” (Eph. 4:12). That means we can’t “hoard” the works of service meant for God’s people by doing it ourselves.
The entire body was designed to do pastoral care. The entire body was meant to be there for people in a crisis. The entire church body was meant to do 99.999 percent of the things small-church senior pastors do themselves.
As Tim Keller so masterfully notes,
“The larger the church, the more decision making is pushed up toward the staff and away from the congregation and lay leaders. Needless to say, many laypeople feel extremely uncomfortable with this. On the other hand, the larger the church, the more the basic pastoral ministry such as hospital visits, discipling, oversight of Christian growth, and counseling is done by lay leaders rather than by the professional ministers.”
In other words, as new converts emerge, our role shifts from a doer of ministry to a trainer of ministry.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of pastors in churches today grew up in churches under 200 and were trained by professors who grew up in (and led) churches under 200. It makes perfect sense why we’ve inherited a pastoral theology that reinforces a “ministry hoarding” approach.
As a mentor of mine told me years ago, “Throw away all your pastoral theology books. They were all written by people who have never been senior pastors, and if they were, their churches were never larger than 200 in size.”
Am I saying that all churches must grow beyond 200? Of course not. I have a friend who leads a church of 100 in a rural area that has 50 people in a 10-mile radius. That’s more impressive to me than megachurches of 20,000-plus.
What I am saying is that churches disobey Ephesians 4:12 when their point leaders refuse to lead their congregation for fear of being criticized.
In his book Reinventing Leadership, Warren Bennis puts it this way,
“You cannot personalize the things you’re going to hear, because you can’t do a job as a leader if you’re not going to overthrow the system, if you’re not going to open things up, if you’re not going to rock the boat—and then you have to handle the criticism that such measures invite. I mean, if there’s one thing that’s true of leaders today, it’s that they have to change the system.”
How to Address “Close to the Pastor Syndrome” in Your Church
Why do we keep up appearances that we’re “friends” with people when we’re not? The answer is simple: We don’t want them to leave. We don’t want them to stop giving. We don’t want them to think we’re trying to become celebrities. We don’t want them to create problems with other people.
I’m here to tell you that very little of this will happen if you are willing to address the “close to the pastor syndrome” in a truthful, but gracious way. Here’s how.
1. Make a list of your 120, but recognize that your list will constantly change.
These will be your staff, elders, key advisors and the high-capacity leaders you are mentoring. Keep in mind that WHO comprises this group constantly changes.
Who you spent time with at 200 is different than who you’re spending time with at 400 and 600. Who you spent time with at 2,000 is different than who you spend time with at 1,000, and so on.
Recognize that the larger you get, the more focused you must become on being intentional with your 120, but that group will morph over time.
In fact, as your church grows, you will not only spend less time with certain church members, you will spend less time with certain staff members.
I have a friend who is a senior pastor of a large church in Los Angeles. His executive pastor tells every new hire, “Please understand it may be a very long time before you even meet [senior pastor].”
As bizarre/sinful/weird/unhealthy as that might seem to some people, it’s just a reality. The larger you become, the less access people will have to you.
2. Increase your pastoral presence for everyone else.
I tell senior pastors that I coach that while they will only be a hands-on pastor to 120 people, they will also forever be a “pastoral presence” to all of their people.
Each senior pastor must determine how best to accomplish this for themselves.
[7 things all pastors owe their congregations.]
For me, that means trying to hug as many people as I can on Sunday morning, and standing at the front of the room after each service and praying for people as long as they need to talk. I stay until the last person is gone.
Do I do pastoral care? Of course, just like every other staff member. I visit hospitals. I do funerals. I perform weddings. Just like everyone else. The difference is, I only do these things for people in that group of 120 (and again, that group is constantly changing).
For everyone else, I pastor them on Sundays.
3. Take practical steps to divert requests for your time to other leaders in your church.
Our goal is not to isolate ourselves, but to get our people the help they need.
That inevitably means that as needs arise, we must divert requests to other leaders in our church. This is nothing more than Acts 6 in action.
Here are some practical ways to make this happen:
- Change your cell phone number and don’t give it out to anyone who is not on that list.
- Keep your current email address, but route that to either a paid assistant or to a volunteer, who will handle your communication. Consider this your “public” email address.
- Create a private email address that you only share with your staff, leadership and the leaders in which you are investing (your 120).
- Stop setting up meetings with people who are not in that group, except for Thursday afternoons (see my article “How Senior Pastors Can Schedule Their Week For Maximum Impact”).
- Push requests to meet with you to other staff and leaders.
- Don’t let people guilt you to death for making these changes.
4. Have the DTR (“define the relationship”) talk when you receive pushback.
What happens when someone who fought alongside you in “the war years” is now someone that you’re thankful for, but is not someone you feel God is leading you to invest in going forward?
What happens when, let’s say, a man named Jim approaches you after service one day and tells you “The weirdest thing happened this week! I tried calling you, and it said that you have a new, unlisted phone number. What’s your new number? I want to text you the information for a golf outing.”
What do you say?
The old you—the one focused on keeping everyone happy—would have given that number to him on the spot. But not the new you—the one who realizes that future kingdom expansion necessitates that you’re honest with him.
The new you says, “Jim, to be the senior pastor this church needs moving forward, I have decided to get a new number and give it to only our staff, elders, a few leaders and my family. If you need to reach me just send me an email. My assistant is now managing that email for me and will get me the message.”
Awkward silence. Temptation to buckle. You want to blurt out, “Just kidding.” But for the sake of reaching lost people, for the sake of obedience to Ephesians 4:12,
for the sake of healthy boundaries … the new you resists the temptation to give in.
You smile, tell him you love him, give him a hug and then leave him to deal with the fact that your relationship has changed.
Jim now has two choices. First, he can leave the church because “things have changed” between the two of you. Or second, he can stay and adjust to the new reality.
My experience has been the majority of people will stay, a few will complain and a handful will leave. The result? You will have addressed one of the single greatest threats to kingdom expansion at your church.
Your relationship with this valued child of God has just changed, and the more you do this with others, the more your church will be able to grow as a result. The bad news is you will never have a relationship with more than 120 people, no matter how hard you try.
The good news is you can corporately pastor as many people who will buy into your vision.
There is no limit to that number.
Brian Jones is a church planter, author and the founding and senior pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Philadelphia. This article was originally published on SeniorPastorCentral.com.