General Practice Pastors

General Practice Pastors

We live in an age of specialization. Many have observed (and lamented) the demise of the General Practitioner. More commonly, the physician is an endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, maxillofacial surgeon, or an OB-GYN! Given the complex systems that our bodies are, I'm grateful for the specialist.

Today's cars call for a similar degree of particular skills. Transmission repairmen don't have the same skill set as brake specialists. And brake guys may have little expertise when it comes to body repair.

“News Flash!” Specialization has bled over into the world of church.

Many of the more influential churches in the United States today serve thousands of people and are staffed by many dozens or more trained pastors and support personnel. With a church of many thousands, specialization is a requirement. Meeting the dizzying array of needs of a multitude of people representing all of the various stations in life will necessarily require staff who are especially gifted in counseling or preaching or administration or leadership.

But, a church comprised of dozens or perhaps two or three hundred people will have neither the need nor the resources for a highly specialized staff. The smaller church needs a General Practice Pastor. And while there are wonderful advantages to the expertise of the specialist, the General Practice model has a few things going for it, too.

For one, the church is protected from the spectator syndrome. In the smaller church, there are few places to hide. The Worship Center is not cavernous. Everybody is visible. And the task:worker ratio approximates 1:1.

In the smaller church, when the Sunday morning announcer announces that there is a need for somebody to help paint the outside shed, people don't automotically think, "Let the staff do it. Rather, Jim is naturally drawn to the idea, “I’ll bet I could do that.” A couple of weeks ago, our program announced the need for some landscaping help. A soft-spoken couple who shy away from the limelight showed up the next Saturday to plant lantanas in the offensively naked bed. They owned a task. They realized, “We can do this” - and they did it.

A congregation of dozens or hundreds fosters personal ownership of ministry. “Ruth is in the hospital. I’ll visit.” Or “Galen lost his job. Let’s see if he could use groceries.” And, “The White’s kid is acting up again. Let’s pray and go visit them.”

So, the smaller church disallows spectatorism. It also prompts a trust in the Lord rather than in the experts. As I just pointed out, the expert is a wonderful gift from the Lord. The larger church trusts the Lord as they bring a professionally trained counselor or an MBA-degreed manager on staff.

But in the absence of such expertise, a church bends the knee, asks the Lord for wisdom, and then trusts Him as it takes strong action. Counseling (read “friendship”) happens organically as people in small groups interact honestly. Leadership decisions get wrestled through at Elder meetings, are introduced to the congregation and bugs are worked through on the fly. It’s not always pretty, but relationships are respected in the process.

But if the smaller church setting benefits the congregation by discouraging the spectator syndrome and encouraging a robust trust in the Lord, it benefits the pastor even more.

There is tremendous advantage to being a GP Pastor. Having never been the pastor of a large church, I can’t say what the Senior Pastor does or does not do there. I’ve had good friendships with a mega-church pastor or two, so I’m not totally ignorant. But my guesses would probably be somewhat off. And I’m not writing about what does or does not happen in that setting. I’m writing to express what I know happens in the smaller church.

I know that there is great variety in this setting. During any given week I’ll counsel, prepare a message or two, lead a meeting or two, write an article, meet with a couple who are planning a wedding, pray with a struggler, interact with staff, and check out the leak in Room 108.

This is standard pastoral stuff, and much of it is done regardless of the size of the congregation. The smaller setting is what I know, and I know that it provides ample opportunity to minister across the broad spectrum of human need. The GP Pastor actively shepherds individual sheep as he leads the flock to green pastures.

Eugene Peterson (one of those who has pastored me over the years through his writings) wrote somewhere that the pastoral vocation is one where creativity is valued and required. I agree. In the church I serve, my soul has stretch marks from the repeated pulls and tugs and shoves of the lives (and deaths) of the people who populate my world. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.