Pastoral Care, Laity Doing it

From Tom Bandy

1. Start mentoring core leaders NOW about how and why you anticipate your leadership roles to shift. Although it might be helpful to let the Bishop know, I would be less concerned to do it now. Some Bishops might interpret this as "asking permission" and prompty refuse.
2. Aggressively search for a leader for a pastoral visitation team, and simultaneous lobby for budget to train that person. Once found, the two of you search for gifted, called people who feel destined for that mission. Once found, use the budget to train them.
3. Now market like crazy. Tell the world who this team is, how gifted they are, and itemize the serious training they have been given.
4. Over the next year, never fail to make a visit of any kind, do a funeral, celebrate a baptism, share communion, or perform a wedding without one of these team members visibly by your side.
5. Bring these people forward in worship to lay hands on them and consecrate them to this mission. In every worship service, pray specifically for them as a team and as individuals.
6. Gradually redirect visitation to the members of this team ... and do aggressive solicitation of feedback. This helps you design training upgrades. With any posiitve stories about the team, market that like crazy as well.
7. Gradually reduce your load, while marketing the wonder stories of lay visitation. When you feel you have "turned the corner", go very public and advertise your intentional shift in leadership role. Mike says he knew he turned the corner when responding to a late night call to the hospital he found his lay visitors already there ... and the patient and the visitor looked at him perplexed and said "What are you doing here?"
8. Now when the controllers start getting unhappy and fire letters to the Bishop, pre-prepare an entire file summarizing all of the above and overwhelm the Bishop with your incredible integrity.
9. Here is the caveat ... there are always a few folks for whom nothing will do but a visit from the ordained clergy. Even after all the marketing and stories and training. Usually these are not ornery people, but just old fashioned folks with little imagination. Visit them. Market those stories like crazy. Limit your visits to communion and prayer ... no chit chat, no long term counseling. Refer the former to your lay visitors, and the latter to professional who do it better and are protected by malpractice insurance.
10. A few controllers will still grumble, but nobody will listen to them.