Liberating the Laity

by R. Paul Stevens, R. Paul Steves, R. Paul Steves

Book Overview

Every church has far more work than any one person can do. Even a team of professionals is not enough. The New Testament solution was for every member to be a minister. Though the priesthood of all... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877846138
• ISBN13: 9780877846130
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: IVP Books
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Rock the Boat

As an involved layperson (at the time of this writing), I was intrigued by the title of this book. The content turned out to be even more radical and exciting than I expected. R. Paul Stevens, a pastor of twenty-five years, was challenged to be self-supporting in his church ministry. Through combining pastoring with a blue-collar job, Stevens helped his own congregation through many changes to the point where they developed laity to be true leadership. Stevens declares that no biblical precedent exists for the present yawning gap between clergy and laity. All believers are ministers and all have been called by God, whether or not they choose to hear. He criticizes present church structures as reflective of secular organizational models, whose sacerdotal systems produce a professional clergy and a passive laity. Professional training in seminaries and a secular mindset have led clergy to expect financial support, to restrict a certain level of knowledge and skills to themselves, and to expect some social status to come with their position. Stevens goes beyond critique to suggest guidelines for following biblical patterns. He uses the example of his church's work on the issue of women's roles to illustrate the principle of equipping all the saints for ministry. A whole chapter is devoted to Steven's contention that clergy are not owed full financial support from their church and that lay leadership should be affirmed on an equal level. No doubt this concept will be more threatening to clergy than anything else in this book. I heartily recommend "Liberating the Laity" to any Christian involved in ministry of their own or that of their church or Christian organization. The use of inclusive language throughout the book provides further affirmation of women's involvement in the ministry of the Gospel. (This review was previously published in "Daughters of Sarah" July/Aug 1986.) I would also recommend the book "Liberating the Church" by Howard Snyder (IVP) which encompasses a more thorough rationale for diminishing the clergy/lay gap.

Biblical Based Leadership Structure

biblical based leadership structureIn practical reality, church structure often takes precedence over theology. In his book, Liberating the Laity, R. Paul Stevens shares how he tried to equip the people in his church for doing the church's ministry but failed because-as he discovered-the governmental struc- ture of the church required him to do "the ministry. " He writes,"Structure, I discovered, is important; there is no point in saying that every member is a minister if the structure of the fellowship says the exact opposite - by making it hard for people to discover their gifts or to exercise loving service." The fact is, no society - religious or secular - can ever afford to be careless about the structure of its government. This is especially true of the Christian community because great and precious principles are at stake. People who are deeply involved in the actual operation of a local church know from personal experience that the government of the church affects every aspect of the inner life of the church and that it is an extremely relevant topic.