Note from Tim: This article originally appeared at Focus on the Family’s The Focused Pastor. You will regularly see articles I have written for The Focused Pastor here. However, I will continue to write articles for both pastors and all Christians. If you are not a pastor but you find this helpful, please pass it on to your pastor!
I have noticed over the years that somebody attending my church and pastoring them are often two different things. Formally, membership is how our church recognizes that somebody has publicly said that our church is their home church. But I have often found that before membership, there is a moment when a new attendee calls you “pastor,” and you know that you have a new sacred relationship that God has allowed you to have.
Sometimes, we build trust quickly, and God places a new sheep right where they need to be. I think of the family who moved to our town from over 1,500 miles away, visited our church the following Sunday, and never left until they moved out of state again five years later. I think of another family who visited our church for about a month before the husband asked if he could go to coffee with me. I couldn’t read them and wondered if he had a lot of questions before they would settle into our church life. He looked at me after the first sip of joe and said with a big smile, “Our family is ready to join your church. We have found our church home.”
I also think of the lady who had to leave a church that no longer believed the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. It took her about a year of attending off and on before we had that same conversation at the same coffee shop.
But I also think of the primarily Spanish-speaking attendee who first called me pastor when I knocked on her door during a snowstorm. She had been attending for about six months, but I still did not have her phone number or e-mail address. I did know where she lived, and I wanted to make sure that she understood that the kid’s Christmas pageant practices were starting in a few days in case her kids wanted to be a part of it. Driving to her house and knocking on the door while the snow fell to make sure we included her in our church family was what she needed to call me “pastor.” As I saw the trust built, I realized I had acted as a shepherd representing the care of Christ in her life. I baptized her about six months later.
There are three main ways I have learned to shepherd new attendees into being part of our local flock.
1. Building trust
Attendees of a new church need to know that they can trust you as their pastor. Yes, we are only imperfect men who serve a perfect Savior. But they must know if you go to God’s Word to get answers for life and eternity. This will primarily start with your preaching ministry. Recently, new attendees often know how we hold to God’s Word because they have researched us on our website and often watched our live stream or listened to sermons before they visited the first time.
Once they walk through your church doors, trust is built as you or other members or leaders connect with them, and they know that somebody cares they attended your church. We all need to know that God’s Word is taught and that God’s Word is lived out, and that includes welcoming strangers no matter their beliefs or backgrounds. Each new attendee, each new family or individual, needs to move at their own pace as God leads them.
2. Assessing trust
You continue to build trust Trust as you and your church’s credibility grows in a new attendee’s eyes. Do they know you and the church members will pray for them? Can they talk with somebody about their questions about the church, the gospel, or God’s Word? Sometimes, that trust is built as they continue to attend Sunday after Sunday, and other times, that trust is built more slowly or as they are contacted to check in on them because they have not attended in a while. Even if they have moved on to another church, I have never had somebody tell me that I should not have checked in on them. This includes learning their name or getting them in touch with another elder or leader who will know them and their family and who can start to get them more involved in the life of the church so that they can grow in Christ, be ministered to, and eventually minister through your local body.
3. Cultivating trust
We cultivate trust as we grow together in Christ. The church is a dynamic organism, constantly changing as people move, are born, die, leave, or unite themselves to your local body. Yet a dynamic church is not necessarily seen in how large it is or whether or not it is growing in numbers in any given season. A church that is alive cares for its members, new attendees, and the community, seeking to apply the gospel of Christ to their lives.
Sometimes, that trust is built through serving together. Only members can serve in our children’s ministry, for example, but we let a relatively new attendee participate in helping with our Block Party outreach. Serving together showed her this was a church community with which she wanted to live her Christian life. When somebody is fighting cancer or going through some other hardship, alerting the church membership to how they can serve them is another way we have cultivated trust. We are called to show the love of Christ to all.
There is joy in representing Jesus and in pointing people to the Great Shepherd of our souls. Harold Senkbeil, in his book The Care of Souls, says that a sheepdog always has his tail wagging when he is working, and one eye is always on his master. If your eyes are on the Master, it will hit you as it sometimes hits me: I get the privilege to serve Jesus as his errand boy today—wherever and in whatever way he chooses to take me for that day or that season.
Yet, at the same time, pastoral ministry is challenging. There have been many times I have considered pursuing a different career. Yet there are many more things that keep drawing me back: the glory of Christ and the gospel, the sense I can’t shake that this is what God wants me to do, my wife & pastor friends who share love and encouragement with me, seeing people saved and growing in their walk with Jesus, and a co-worker and fellow church members who love serving God through serving his people.
Near the top of that list, I add the joy of that moment when you realize that under Jesus, you have a new sheep to lead. Keep shepherding each one towards Christ. There is no greater privilege.
He Must Become Greater 