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Are you a one man or woman show or do you encourage strong lay leadership in your church? I'm currently have knowledge of a number of AG churches in our area that are struggling without a pastor. It seems that there is no leadership in the absence of a pastor. Lots of pastors want to be everything to the congregation with little or no support from lay leaders. In my area the strongest churches are the ones with strong lay leaders.

I train all our lay leaders and ministers to be very strong in their positions. I want them to be able to run the show in my absence. My secular job is in a very large hospital and one thing they teach us to do is, train our replacements. I tell our church team that if something were to happen to me, the MISSION COG should continue to operate as normal.

Our Stewards are awesome.If / when I croak, the Congregation will will continue without a hitch.I have never understood the fear some pastors have regarding leaders among the members of their church.The Church is a body, every member is important Charles A. HutchinsSenior Pastor SPWCCongregational Church of Godwww.spwc.church

I believe in the Ephesians 4:11 model

Strong Lay Leaders

My view of a strong lay leader is someone that is a servant leader. They care for the people as the Pastor cares. They support their Pastor in all good things. They love God.A person like this will keep a church stable during periods of instability, regardless of what is occurring.

Not from a pastor's position, but from that of a member, the days seem to have past that pastors 'continually' diss the 'Church Bosses'. That in many cases is how the 'old time' pastors saw 'STRONG' lay-leaders. They were right in many places, but some have mis-read their members and discouraged and lost good people.I think everyone has seen it, I think that is changing. There was a time the pastor wanted a 'strong rein' out of fearing 'less control'. AS we visit across the country we do see very good laymen, even in small churches.A pastor is blessed (IMO) to have lay-persons who can and do fill in the gaps. Leadership that recognizes these folk, shows insight! Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/