taxonomy- people who want you and people who need you...

As a pastor, a fact of life that you come to grips with (or better come to grips with) pretty quickly is that your supply of avaliable time is exceeded by the amount of people and needs that demand that time.

I've been thinking in taxonomies lately... maybe I'll be writing about a few of them.

But this one is in my head this morning- both as something that is currently guiding me and something that needs to guide me more and more- as my kids get older and as my church community grows, who gets my time?

First, my wife. She needs more of my time than she's getting right now. More of my attention, too.
Next, my kids. Jack is definitely getting to the point where dad's attention is becoming more and more important. I think to Jane I'm still the one who doesn't have breasts, but still... both of them need Dad.

Next is my family here in town- my mom, my stepdad. They need more of me than they are currently getting...

My church community needs me. It's my calling, my passion and my job, all wrapped up into one.
So, here's how I break that down...

First- people who are present who both want and need my attention. People who show up consistently and are present to the community. When they need and want pastoral care and attention, they get it. And I'm not talking about just people who "serve"... mainly I'm talking pure presence- are you there? Do you show up to events and gatherings and allow yourself to be known and get to know others?

Second, people who are present who need, but don't want pastoral attention. This may cover people in crisis, people who are acting out, people who need a helpful pastoral kick in the seat... 'Nuff said.

Third, people who are present who want, but don't need my attention. They kind of tie with the next group in my mind, but these are people who show up consistently, who are very present to the community who contribute in really positive ways, and they want some of my attention. I'm happy to give it to them provided I have some.

I try to balance that last group with people who are not present, who don't want, but do need my attention. People who are drifting away, maybe because of crisis, maybe just because they are not giving their relationship with God the care and nurture it needs- we want to pursue these folks and let them know that they are missed, that we are available. If I sense it's more of a "fit" thing with our community, and they are finding community elsewhere, obviously I let that go. But when it's just a matter of someone wandering off from the flock, yeah- make that effort.

Next- people who are not present, but do both need and want my attention, but not because of crisis. Whether it's church planters writing me, pastors who want advice or encourgement (though it constantly surprises me when peole ask for my advice on church stuff... as though I have any idea what I'm doing!). If you've written me lately- sorry if I haven't been timely in my response. Too busy thinking about taxonomies! :)

Last are people who are not present, who don't need, but do want my attention. I do my best to answer emails when I can, and to respond as I can.
But also... occasionally, you get what Chris and I have come to refer to affectionately as "pastoral booty calls." You know- the people who stopped being a part of your community awhile ago, who have no intention of being a part of your community, but haven't found anyone to pay attention to them so they give you a call wanting to have coffee? Booty call. Feel free to say no. The temptation will be to schedule these people for a couple weeks from now when your schedule looks a bit freer. But believe me- by the time you actually get there, the people from higher up on your taxonomy will need your time and you will have guilt and shame for having scheduled that booty call when there are real needs that need attending to.

Now, clearly- I write about this lightly- but all of these people are people. There are times when the Holy Spirit gives you, the pastor, a kick in the pants and you make room for someone for whom you might otherwise not, "just because." Or maybe you want to make a renewed effort with someone.
For whatever reason, this taxonomy might get juggled- but it seems a helpful way to think through prioritizing your people time.

The main thing to realize is this: Not everyone who asks for your time should get it, or get it in equal amounts. As a pastor, you are not "First come, first served." Your role in your community, and the calling on your life is too important not to think through how and with whom you spend your time.

Comments

[Andrew]

Bob, it's so funny that you posted on this because this is exactly what was running through my mind this morning. As I struggle to get back into ministry, I already battle the war of overscheduling and of prioritizing. It's a tough war but these are some great guidelines...

[heffe]

Bob, I've been secretly reading your blog for a while, first comment here though.

I'm considering going into ministry at some point and so this article was a good time to reflect on how and with who I am spending my time.

I'd like to comment on the "people who are not present, who don't want, but do need my attention." section. I feel like you should put more emphasis on this category. I suppose in the community context if someone else has this group high on priority it is OK where you have it. I mean someone who is actively participating in the community can recieve help from the community, those who are falling away may have no one else to go to. Not that this applies all the time, but its like nursing an overweight calf when there are malnurished ones who need it too.

Perhaps the entire role of "pastor" needs to be analysed. It seems that in our def. it is mainly pastor as physchologist, maybe others need to take this role and the pastor needs time to do other things. I don't know what those other things are, but could use the thought.

Thanks Bob, I enjoy your blog.

Jeff

[bob]

Jeffe,

The issue with people who are not present, who may need but don't want your attention is that they don't want your attention. You can (and I have) put people on your list to call, write, make contact with every couple of weeks. They don't respond. They need some Christian going after them, but they don't want it. That's why they are low on the list. You do what you can, but when it comes down to it, the example of Jesus is you work with the willing, call the unwilling to follow, but in the end, you keep moving towards the goal.

I think the parable of the 1 and the 99 gets lost in translation a bit... There is a time to go after the 1, and that's certainly what Jesus did in terms of His overall ministry. But when you read the Gospels and see how he went after the "1", He set His face resolutely in a direction, and headed down the road. All along he stopped, He called, He listened... But you know why we don't know what happened with the rich young ruler? Because he walked off, and even though it broke Jesus' heart, He focused on those who wanted His teaching and attention.

As a pastor, you will find that you could entirely fill your time going after the 10% of the hardest cases. You will rationalize that these are the people who really need you (even if they don't know it). And meanwhile, the people who will benefit most from your time, the willing and ready languish.

I think every Christian, not just pastors, should have time in their schedule to go grab a "1" now and again... perhaps some will even make it their main thing. But most of us? And particularly pastors tasked with the care and nurture and teaching of a whole community?
They better pick the low hanging fruit, if you know what I mean...

[heffe]

I see what you mean. I think by promoting the type of engaging community that Evergreen has, and that I am trying to help create at my current Church, will allow for the community to catch those 10%. I just need to keep that in mind as a goal to promote.

thanks Bob, you rule like always.

[Jeff Thompson]

Great, honest blog posting. It's hard to keep a soft heart when we have to be consistantly evaluating how much time we invest in people. It demands a certain cold, calculating wisdom that is hard to put into words without sounding like a jerk!

[phil]

Why do we have to have this pastor position in the first place? I know this sounds radical but think about it. Why does the pastor need to be in a position of status where he is needed more than other people in the congregation? If a community is functioning in a manner consistent with what the Kindgom of God is like(egalitarian with Christ at the head and serving one another) then the need to have a head pastor is unecessary. I know we have to have some people who teach but why do we need to call one particular person the "shepherd". This puts way too much responsibility on one man's shoulders. Why not spread the responsibility among many instead of one? Then we won't be so torn in so many directions. I have one example to show of a person who really needed to have someone go after him and who couldn't have been found by just one person.
A young man who had recently come to Christ came to me a couple of times asking for discipling and I didn't follow through. He had bipolar I disorder with psychosis and substance abuse. His life was getting turned towards the community of Christ and he was hungry for God's word. He could have been helped but I was too busy to follow up with him. No, really I just didn't want to bother with someone who had a mental illness at church. I rationalized about "professional boundaries" and a need to prioritize my time and other bs that were really just lame excuses for not acting when the Holy Spirit called. He was in a home community that didn't have any idea how to handle someone with bipolar I and substance abuse. He started to fall away and some of them tried to reach out but they didn't know what to do. It was my responsibility as someone who has authority in this issue to give them some skills for dealing with these situations. I didn't call the man when he asked me to(only once) and didn't follow up with his home community to see if he was doing all right. Then I heard he had comitted suicide.We could have done Something, anything but instead of acting we rationalized with statements like "he would have done it anyway", Or "You can't be responsible for everyone",and "we didn't know what to do." Some of these statements are legit claims to inaction, but this time I had no excuse. If I were to spread out the responsibility for this man with the home community, equipping them with knowledge on what to do, who knows what could have happened? Please don't reply with comments about feeling guilty or taking responsibilit y for someone else's actions. This time the Lord spoke to my heart very clearly, with conviction about my apathy.
Don't rely too much on Bob as the expert. Your community is chock full o people who have a heart to serve others and are capable of preaching and teaching. A real church runs itself and won't have a need for one pastor who everyone looks to for guidance.I know that sounds strange to our hierarchy church culture but it makes sense to me.

[bob]

Phil... I hear what you are saying, but take a pass through the NT again.

"Why do we have to have this pastor position in the first place?"

Eph 4:11-"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

"I know we have to have some people who teach but why do we need to call one particular person the "shepherd". This puts way too much responsibility on one man's shoulders. Why not spread the responsibility among many instead of one?"

Exactly- that's why we have elders and people who (at least in our community) function as deacons even though we don't have that title... And why we expect so much of the community as a whole. But having people who serve in specific roles in no way takes away from the resposibility of the rest of the community.

Read through 1 Tim, 2 Tim, Titus and tell me if all that you've written above really works out practically in the life of a church.

"A real church runs itself and won't have a need for one pastor who everyone looks to for guidance"

Emphatically, no. A real church does NOT run itself (trust me- as someone who waves the flag for organic and simple church often and loud, I can tell you this is simply NOT true), and has a need for MANY people to shepherd and lead and counsel and teach.

[phil]

I'm talking about the psychology of the issue. When people have someone they refer to as pastor, they start to act like sheep, not very smart sheep at that. Your telling me "This is simply NOT true" I have to say sounds like it's coming from a position of priviledge and quite defensive. Why don't you ask what I mean before you declare what I said not true?
I was hoping to have a dialogue instead of a debate but since you want it that way here it goes.“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ...Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:12–20)
"For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don't have the same function,so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." (Romans 12:4-5)
Now there is only one head of the body- Christ. Now if that part were cut off, then the whole body would cease to function. However, if say, a part of the body like the armpit(me for instance) were to be chopped off and thrown away, the rest of the body would function without it.
Think about the church operating without you. Are there enough people who know, love and have a passion for God's word to take this church if you were not there? I say there definitely is. If you were gone tomorrow it would succeed and God would be glorified.
"Having people who serve in specific roles in no way takes away from the resposibility of the rest of the community."
Christ calls us to a life of submission to one another, humility and love.
"For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith." I know you have a heart for the lost, a desire for truth and a passion for this church, however this is not about you-or me- it's about Christ. Who is in charge of our lives? Do I need you to guide me through life? I think not. Do I need Rick McKinley at Imago Dei? Absolutley not. When he called some to be pastors and some to be teachers,he was assigning a RESPONSIBILITY not a position of status. The church today has established this hierarchy and envy,greed,and corruption of all kinds from people in positions of power have resulted.
If you think you are immune from such things- think again. You are also not immune from burn out. That's what my main point was - your physical, spiritual and emotional health, along with your family's.
"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing."
If you are not able to have the time to spend with family, church members and lost souls, then all your pastoral gifts are nothing.
Please be open to new ways of seeing the world and see what God can do with it. Try and step outside the Evangelical, white middle class Christian culture for one minute and look through new glasses instead of darkly colored ones.
"Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2)
Now don't hear me say you don't matter. You are definitely needed in this community. You are not however, more needed than say, the guy who plays the tambourine or someone who picks up tables and moves them.
The reason I left the mega church had to do with their perception of who had importance and what values they held. They didn't know what the fruit of the spirit was as it manifests in a person. They only valued a person for what the world told them to(money, looks, and status) My biggest fear is that the emerging churches will become that which they have abhorred- just like the conservative baptist middle class white American Jesus version of church. Please don't think you can't come to that because I have seen it happen to another emergent church already. Know that I have nothing but your best interest in mind when I am telling you this. Grace love and peace to you and yours.

[bob]

Phil- I think you are hearing me say things I'm not saying. And you are not hearing the things I have been saying for two years now...

I'm sorry if you thought I wanted to debate you- I really don't.

I didn't ask you what you meant when you said "A real church will run itself" because I thought that was pretty self evident. My emphasis was on "a real church will run itself", which I don't believe is the case, not the need for a single person.

No, it does not need one single pastor- Which is why we don't have that. It needs everyone involved in many different ways, doing many different things.

We have minimal structure by intent. We have biblical roles by intent. The two do not contradict each other... My beef is when pastors move beyond the biblical role of shepherding and into being the CEO of what is effectively a large corporation, when pastors no longer have time for people because they are too busy with programs, etc...

[phil]

Bob,
You are right. I haven't heard what you said for the last two years because I only started hearing you a couple of weeks ago.
I think the answer to pastor/clergy burn out is worship-collective worship in a liturgical style that presents the gospel and theology in a manner which teaches as well as worships. Some people go so far as to say the printed word has led to the demise of liturgical worship in the evangelical church resulting in what the guy on the blog calls “staff driven” worship.
In his book, “A peculiar people: the church as culture in a post Christian society”, Rodney Clapp discusses the advent of the printing press resulting in the Reformation fixating on the Bible as God’s printed Word and a de-emphasis on liturgy in worship. The Word of God was previously experienced rather than read in the private of our “quiet time”. This has established a need for experts who can “correctly interpret the word of truth” to the huddled masses sitting in the pews. He illustrates this with an excerpt from another author. He describes worship before and after the invention of the printing press:
“As Aidan Kavanagh remarks, in this setting worship was theology- it was the eminent form of “knowing God”. Primary theology was done not in the scholar’s study but in the liturgy, the work of the people. Primary theology was not a reflection about God but an encounter and engagement with God. Theology in such a setting was plebeian in that it was done by the common people and not by academic elites. It was communitarian in that it was done corporately rather than in the solitude of the study. And it was quotidian or everyday in that it was done regularly, in a daily, weekly and yearly round of public liturgical practice. Orthodoxy in the older and original Christian sense was “correct praise ” or “right worship”. The early church’s stress was on faith “not so much as an intellectual assent to doctrinal propositions, but as a way of living in the graced commonality of an actual assembly at worship before the living God.”
He goes on the say this all changed with the advent of the printing press. Essentially if a church’s worship is doing what it was intended to do, then the theology will be evident to all through the collective worship experience. I think if the main emphasis is liturgy and worship, the need to have someone preach a sermon will be obsolete, thereby making the pastor’s job less stressful and less likely to lead to burn out. A quick homily of about ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes is usually all people’s attention span can handle anyway.
“Orthodox” worship (whatever that is with this community) will teach the congregation. I’m not saying to do away with the Bible or preaching. Just make the role of pastor something different from the way our evangelical churches have done in the past and be willing to trust that the church members know how to present the gospel by their actions, words and attitudes. Focus your energy on worship and your theology will be evident to everyone who comes into contact with it. Essentially what you said.
Thanks for responding to my thoughts on this issue. I can’t even get a meeting with the pastor at my church because he is too busy writing books and speaking in front of thousands of pastors at conferences.
I appreciate your attempts to do this differently and integrating the members in your sermon. Of all the places I have seen so far, yours seems to “get it.” I also appreciate your desire to multiply instead of exploding. That’s what they said at my church about fifteen hundred people ago…