A Pastor/Reader Responds

This is the body of an email that I received one day after first putting up this blog. Pastor Phillip Schroeder is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bulverde near San Antonio, TX. He wrote the blog post that is linked elsewhere on this site and here, A "Head's Up" For Mega-Church Pastors From A Small Church Pastor. 


Pastor Phillip's response to "How Megachurches and the Body of Christ Will Benefit Using Personal Pastors": (used with his permission)

I read your proposal with great interest.  You asked for my feedback, so here it is:

1-      At my post, which you link to at your blog, go read all the comments underneath if you haven’t already. There, some readers and I play with the “personal pastor” idea.  We talk about some alternatives and variations.  I think the sorts of objections and questions I got there are similar to the ones that you will run into, so go check it out!
2-      As with all new ideas, I think that you will run into resistance. Be prepared with answers to possible objections. I expect some objections will be: “We already have a minister of pastoral care” OR “Each of our pastors already does pastoral care” OR “That’s what deacons/small group leaders are already doing.”  I think that the answer to each of those objections is the same: “OK, but is it working? Are we providing pastoral care to our members like the Bible requires and expects?” (See especially 2 Peter 5:1-4)
3-      A person like you (a leader in business and at church) already knows this, but I’ll say it anyway: be prepared for your baby to be changed.  People will take this and it may come out looking different than how it started. That’s OK.  I think there’s many ways to accomplish this, but it must be accomplished. I would challenge you to never forget that. Keep pressing. Be flexible on the how, but don’t be flexible on this: “it must be done.  If sheep aren’t shepherded, the church is failing.”
4-      I think your proposal is a very long read….I have to admit that half way through, I gave up reading every word and started skimming. I expect your executive pastor will do the same.
5-      I think your proposal is excellent.  I think it has room for tweaking…for example, current staff members could take some of those responsibilities, as should deacons.
6-      I really, really like your idea. As you saw, my proposal was pretty much the same as yours.  However, there is potential danger with our idea, and it’s a big one.  If “personal pastors” are doing all the shepherding, then I think that will (wrongfully) excuse the pastors in charge of ministries/programs from pastoring. That’s not right. If that’s the way it’s going to be, don’t call them “pastors” any more. J  I think something should be done to make sure that every staff member is doing some kind of shepherding.  To put it another way, it keeps them grounded.  Like with any leader in an ivory tower, if they don’t know what’s going on on the ground, how effective of a leader are they?  Your preacher, your youth minister etc… will be better at what the Lord and what the church has called them to do if they are engaged in real people’s lives on a regular basis.

I would hate for the rest of the pastoral staff to say “I don’t have to call, visit, counsel, marry, bury or be concerned about member welfare any more because we have a “personal pastor” that handles that.” That would be wrong. Assuming that all of your pastoral staff are wonderful people, I doubt that any of them would do that on purpose…but I think the temptation would be strong for anyone, if there wasn’t something built into the “personal pastor” plan to keep the “program pastors” doing some kind of shepherding.

7-      I love your idea and here’s why:  I think there’s something about “a pastor”.  People can and do go to their lay leaders…and that’s good and we should encourage that. However, when your wife is cheating on you, or your kid is smoking pot or you doubt your salvation or you just read “the Shack” and you don’t know if it’s theologically accurate or not….the person that you probably would feel better going to is a trained, ordained, “called to the ministry” pastor.  It has been my observation, that that’s the way people are.  I think that’s OK. And that’s why I think your idea is a good one. I think that megachurch pastors don’t realize how many questions their members have on a regular basis, and they won’t until they roll up their sleeves and dive into their lives. 

If I can help further, please let me! It would be an honor and a privilege! Plus I love the opportunity to make new friends. I suspect that the same mind and heart that generated this idea has lots more lurking, so I’d love to get to know you better. J

It’s amazing how the Lord works. Between this paragraph and the one above, I had someone drop by…members of the church from a long time ago. They currently go to the large megachurch in town that I had in mind when I wrote that blog post. They go because he works there in a full-time non-ministerial capacity. They brought me a check as a donation, and said the Lord was leading them to do that. And even though they go to the megachurch, their heart is still here. And then we talked about this subject, and they agreed with us, and I told them about your idea, and they thought it was fantastic.  And they shared with me a time when they were going through difficulty and they had come to our church for pastoral care because “I just felt like I needed a pastor who knew me.”  And then they also said that calling a small group leader is fine for prayer, but not when you need advice “Sometimes you just need a pastor”. Their words, not mine.