The church needs more than good pastors

Teaching Ministry

Feb 3

When someone is trying to lose weight, the advice is simple: don't go it alone. The same principle applies to church leadership. Pastors were never meant to carry the entire load. Whether it’s a trainer, friend, or partner, it’s nice to have someone who will motivate, encourage, and challenge you. The benefits aren’t a one-way street. Each participant receives some sort of perk and, if the connection is healthy, the benefits extend beyond the partnership.

The same holds for churches and leadership. When leaders (paid or volunteer) partner together, we all benefit. When the pastor shepherds as the Lord Shepherds, the church is cared for and protected. When the teacher strives to Teach like Jesus, discipleship happens and transformation takes place. There are other roles but the end conclusion is the same — we all need each other. Without each office being filled, there’s a lack and a church is crippled.

However, within many churches, the pastor is the most important and sometimes the only role. Teachers are often relegated to lesser roles and rarely have a voice at the table. This is not the church’s fault alone. A teacher is supposed to be a master (Strong’s 1320). Sadly, many teachers eke by with a passable knowledge of the Bible, minimal personal discipleship, and very little understanding of how to correctly apply the Word of God. With those qualifications, it’s no wonder that they’re not invited to the table.

Many teaching duties get handed to the pastor because he or she typically has more thorough training. This creates a imbalance. Other church roles soon get placed upon the pastor. Aside from being a pastor and teacher, the pastor also needs to function like the prophet - correcting, encouraging, and strengthening. But why stop there? The pastor can also be the evangelist - whose role is to tell the Good News to those who have never heard to bring about conversions. What a heavy load we expect our pastors to carry when, in fact, the load is supposed to be shared.

Is it any wonder that we’ve seen pastors grow arrogant and power-hungry or discouraged and quit under the weight? Further, couldn’t this be part of the reason that so many believers are having to “deconstruct” their faith or can so easily walk away from their faith? This is not supposed to be what the church looks like.

It’s time for teachers to step up and become the knowledgeable masters they are supposed to be. The season is now for teachers to acknowledge that a disciple is a learner and that a learner needs a teacher. (Strong’s 3101). It’s time for teachers to train, instruct, and be the catalysts they are meant to be.

What is a Catalyst?

According to Merriam-Webster, a catalyst is “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action.”

A Catalyst for Spiritual Growth

After the pastor encourages and cares for the well-being of the church on Sunday morning, who helps the people to understand? Who teaches the people to be Bereans and examine the Scriptures? Who teaches the people to check to be sure that what the pastor spoke lines up with Scripture?

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. -Acts 17: 11

Teachers walk more intimately with the people of the church. While they may also only see the people once a week, the atmosphere is one of active participation rather than listening. An added benefit, the people attending class have already met the “required attendance” of attending once a week and are usually a little more eager to explore more of the Scriptures.

Well-trained and properly equipped teachers take advantage of the eagerness and active participation to make learners of the Bible. Teachers expand on the pastor’s message, help the people understand more fully, encourage the people to explore for themselves, and serve as a catalyst for spiritual growth to happen.

A Catalyst for Vision

While healthy, spiritual growth in the church is the ultimate goal, teachers also serve as a catalyst for the leadership’s vision.

When a spiritually mature, proven teacher is invited to the leadership meetings, a different insight is added. The vision for the individual church is given practicality. A teacher helps to formulate a how-to plan to make the vision happen.

As vision is communicated, teachers become the front-line workers. They help people understand the vision. They encourage the vision in a more casual but no less effective way. They integrate the vision into regular church life. Teachers are the equippers of the vision-achievers. They are the catalyst for the vision.

How Teachers can Harm Church Culture

Although many churches don’t spend much time talking about their culture, every church has one. It can sometimes be hard to evaluate your church’s culture if you’ve been attending for many years but a visitor can immediately sense your church’s culture.

Culture can define a church and, in this digital age, it can become the online reviews. It doesn’t matter how great the preaching or how well-equipped the teachers are. It doesn’t matter how much coffee or how many donuts are provided. The cool t-shirts or the free coffee mugs won’t save an individual church. Culture partnered correctly with the Holy Spirit, will bring growth, commitment, and longevity. However, there’s a flip-side. While we can’t take the opinion of one individual review as a hard fact, when we regard church culture, it’s a good place to start because culture can often be found in how a stranger describes a church to a friend. Was the church friendly, disorganized, or judgmental? Here's a real example of how one teacher's words shaped an entire church's culture:

A young, single mother had been bringing her daughter to the kids’ program for weeks. While her daughter participated in church activities, the young mother waited in her car. After several weeks, someone figured out what was happening and invited her to the young adults/20-something class. She was apprehensive but left the car and sat in class. Her participation increased with each class. She was unchurched but the young adults were friendly, welcoming, and accepting of her lack of knowledge.

After several months of attending class, a teacher who also served as the Sunday School coordinator entered the young adults’ room. There was a practical question, then the conversation took a left turn, and soon the coordinator was ranting about “those homosexuals.” The young mother was increasingly irritated but kept quiet.

We quickly learned that the young mother’s brother was actually born her sister but had transitioned. The young adults’ leader was a champ and handled the questions about the “bigots” at the church with wisdom and grace. And while the young mother continued to attend young adults until she aged out, she never found a seat outside that class.

Teachers are the example for people to follow and therefore they are the foundation of your church’s culture. A teacher needs to constantly remember that Jesus was about people. He died not for rules but for people.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. - John 12: 47

While we can’t ignore other portions of Scripture, there is a time and a place to address Biblical standards. Further, Paul’s teaching is clear that we are not to judge the world. Those who have not made a true profession of faith are not ours to judge.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? -1 Corinthians 5: 12

The Sunday School coordinator established a culture outside of the young adults’ classroom as judgmental, inconsiderate, and opinionated. Life outside the young adults’ classroom became unwelcoming to the young mother because an unchecked teacher/leader spoke without thought or love. This type of attitude infiltrates a church. People with similar thinking are attracted to it and soon a gang is formed rather than a body of believers who accurately reflect their Savior.

A Catalyst for Christ-like Culture

There’s a second teacher in that story, the young adults’ teacher. The wisdom and grace that was given created a safe and welcoming place. The young mother continued to ask hard questions in the months that followed. The young adults’ teacher encouraged other connections with the larger church but the die was cast and, in that small church, the coordinator’s influence was too broad.

If a single teacher can create a safe and Godly environment within one classroom, imagine what a group of teachers rowing in the same direction can do.

Teachers who understand and correctly handle the Bible, apply it to their personal life and set an example for the people of the church to follow.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. - 2 Timothy 2: 15

It returns once again to teachers having a higher understanding of the Bible. When teachers study the Bible to know God more and to be more Christ-like, there’s a difference from when they read simply to present a lesson. The dividing factor is the Spirit of God.

… we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. - 1 Corinthians 8: 1 [partial]

A teacher who knows the Word of God is knowledgeable but a teacher who correctly understands it to be about love becomes something different.

These teachers are friendly, welcoming, unafraid of questions, non-argumentative, not self-seeking, and patient with the unchurched or churched with incorrect understanding. These teachers correct lovingly and help church members to understand how to apply the Scriptures themselves. They seek ways to engage each person and impart a greater hunger for the Spirit of God. The programs won’t do this for us, it requires a teacher who seeks God and ultimately becomes a catalyst for Christ-like culture within the church. It's time for teachers to step into their sacred calling, not as volunteers filling a slot, but as disciple-makers shaping the future of the church.

The question is, what kind of catalyst will you be?