Not yet satisfied with our pastorate — but things are going much better (Part 3)

Over the past four years, God has healed and strengthened this church through the convictions and decisions that Bob writes about in these articles. Read and be edified—but perhaps more importantly, read and learn!

Recently, I stopped by a local Wendy's for a quick bite to eat and happened to run into a sister from our church. She is part of a group of members for whom I am personally responsible for spiritual care (an explanation of this approach can be found in the previous article, Part 2). That morning, I sent her and her husband an email reminding them that I would pray for them every Tuesday and asking them to share any news or prayer needs.

Her son worked at Wendy's, and while he couldn't stop working, we at least exchanged greetings. Right in line, I was able to ask some specific questions based on our previous conversations, encourage her, and show concern for her and her family.

We have moved forward.

A few years ago, this would not have happened. But, by God's grace, we have made significant progress in the pastoral care of the members of our community.

I serve with a wonderful group of pastors. These brothers have demonstrated consistent and reliable leadership for many years. Yet a few years ago, I began to worry about certain things. Although we tried to keep our church membership list up-to-date, every time we reviewed it, we noticed people who had «disappeared from the radar.» And, to be honest, we didn’t always know if anyone had contacted them at all—or why they had stopped attending church.

Yes, we had small groups and Sunday Bible studies, which helped to bring people together to some extent. But according to the Bible, pastors are called to watch over the spiritual health of the members of the congregation and to care for the integrity of the membership. And we simply were not doing it properly. Feeling guilty, I decided that something had to be done about it. And we began to change our approach to pastoral care. That happened four years ago.

How it works

Back in 2014, I wrote an article about how our church’s pastors sought to develop a plan for ongoing and personal spiritual care for each church member. Two years later, I shared an update on how things are going. To better understand the current results, it would be helpful to reread those previous articles, because the fruits of our current efforts are the result of many years of work and constant improvement of the approach.

Here we are now. Each pastor has a group of people he or she serves—a Spiritual Care Team—with whom he or she interacts regularly to learn how things are going and how we can best serve them. At the monthly pastors’ meetings, each pastor reports on at least five members of his or her group so that we can all stay informed and pray for them together. This time of updates and prayer has become the longest part of our meetings.

Each pastor has approximately 60 members in their group. In early 2018, we looked at each member of the church and determined which Pastoral Care Group would be best for them. Whenever possible, we tried to include people who were already familiar with the pastor. For example, all of my small group members are also in my Pastoral Care Group. I see them all the time and am therefore aware of what is going on in their lives.

How did we do this? One of the pastors created an initial distribution, assigning each member to the pastor with whom it seemed most appropriate. Then we all got together and swapped some people. For example, some of us were already mentoring or counseling certain members that the others didn’t know about—and we wanted to have these people in «our» group. In total, most of our 60+ mentees were people with whom we already had at least some contact in our daily lives.

After that, I informed all the members who belonged to which group. I explained that the appropriate pastor would contact them. I also explain this approach to each candidate for church membership during the membership interviews. In fact, when a person applies for membership in the church, we assign the first interview to the pastor who will be their guardian for the first year. This helps us build relationships quickly. During the year, one of the pastors is responsible for organizing these interviews and the process of assigning them to the appropriate groups.

Of course, it’s much easier to reach out to those I already serve with. But there are also those I have to reach out to. For example, I created a prayer list that mentions each member of my group on a specific day of the week. Then I write them regular letters asking them to share their prayer needs. When pastors share updates about their groups, we get a holistic picture of the spiritual state of our entire flock.

If you serve in church leadership, you probably attend meetings a lot. Now imagine coming home from a meeting with the profound realization that today you have truly fulfilled the commission that God Himself gave you. Shepherds who truly shepherd the flock are a wonderful gift to the church. When shepherds have the «smell of the sheep,» or smell like the sheep, the sheep will follow them.