Leaders or Ministers

An ongoing topic in my conversations with lay leaders and UU ministers is our concept of what being a "minister" is. Our congregations are rapidly shifting to a shared ministry model. However, in my experience few people, ministers included, are upholding lay members of the congregation as ministers. We have lay leaders, people on lay ministry committees, but not lay ministers.

With a small group I recently did an exercise looking at the continuum of ministry in a congregation. What are all of the "ministry tasks" that need to be accomplished? How are these tasks shared between lay people and the staff? What training would be needed to shift more tasks to the lay leaders? And, who gets the minister label and when.

Yes, we each have our own personal ministry and participate in the shared ministry of the congregation, but do you consider yourself a minister? Despite the sharing of ministry, we still have a binary system -- you are either a minister or you're not.

If you are a "lay leader" reading this, I'd love to hear from you. What would you need in terms of training, support, empowerment and/or recognition in order to consider yourself a UU lay minister?

Note: I will soon be posting my "continuum of ministry" exercise/resource. Come back soon or subscribe to the Small Group Leader.

What does it take to be a lay minister?