If you are like me, you benefit from mental, if not actual, pictures of concepts and relationships. As a pastor, how would you envision or even diagram your relationship to your church? Where would you be, and where would they be? What ministry dynamics and theological understandings would guide your picture? Would there need to be more than one image depending on the particular aspect of your work you were trying to depict? Let’s think about a shepherd as leading, feeding, and protecting the flock, and out of that framework, I want to give you three of my mental images of our relationship to the people entrusted to our care
Out in Front – If I were to draw the relationship between a pastor and his church, one image I would use would be a depiction of the pastor out in front of the church. I don’t mean in front of them, facing them from the pulpit way. Rather, I mean in a point-of-the arrow way. The pastor is supposed to head where he believes the people need to go – leading the charge and setting the example. In fact, in a voluntary organization and particularly a congregationally governed church, example and teaching are the main means of leadership. There is no command authority, and under-handed and manipulative tactics are outside the pale of legitimate ministry practice. My pastor grandfather was fond of pointing out the difference in the early American drovers and Western cowboys who drove animals from behind vs. the shepherd who leads from out in front while the sheep follow.
Right in the Middle – A second way I would depict the pastor-church relationship is to draw a circle and place the pastor within that circle. The two functions for which I would use this illustration are the functions of administration and fellowshipping / connecting with the people. As I think about the pastoral work, part of that work is administrative – coordinating the various aspects of church life and ministry and holding unity in the organization. Obviously, the administrative structure is different within different churches, but there is a central place and coordinating function. Among and in the midst of the people is also how relationships are developed. Returning to our shepherd and sheep concept, we know sheep follow a shepherd they know and trust. Knowing and trusting a pastor is built, in part, through relational contact
Underneath – In The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make, Hanz Finzel suggests the best depiction of the leader-organization relationship is an inverted triangle, where the bottom point represents the leader in the function of supporting the organization. I would suggest this is an excellent picture for a portion of the pastor’s work with and relationship to the church, particularly the staff, deacons, and other lay leaders. We come up under to train, encourage, lift up, edify, coach, mentor, and disciple. We are servants in the likeness of Jesus and in His Spirit. This is not a position in which the pastor is a hireling or at the behest of the church or its members in a belittled way. Rather, it is a placing of oneself at the disposal of the Lord and His purpose for His people in self-sacrificing and loving service.
You don’t lead from underneath or in the middle. You don’t connect or coordinate from out in front. You serve from a coming up under to support kind of way. These are not the only ways to depict the pastor-church relationship, and they do not depict all of the facets of that work. However, they are three ways I have thought about the relationship and conceptualized multi-faceted nature of the work. Other illustrations would require more space than we have here. How would you modify or supplement what we have said here? Have you ever struggled to recall and maintain all the aspects of your pastoral responsibility or allowed one to overshadow the others in ways that are not constructive? How would you work in the concept of and illustrate the function of pastoral authority according to Scripture, your denominational setting, and your particular church?