Mastering Pastoral Care

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The best measure of a church is how many people walk out to be the royal priesthood on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. The basic product of the church is people in ministry.
—Bruce Larson

I had a chance to meet Donald Peterson just before he retired as chairman of Ford Motor Company. He'd been chairman when Ford ebbed to its lowest point economically and also when the company had turned around and reached its apex. "How do you account for what happened?" I asked him. "Was it robots, mechanization?"

"No," he said, "it was two less tangible things. First, we redefined our goal. We said our goal was to build a car free of construction errors. Second, we gave our people the power to build it. We gave all our workers the authority to stop the line whenever they found something wrong. When we did that, we went from an average of forty-seven flaws per car to one flaw in every two cars."

The key to renewing Ford Motor Company was getting back to basics—building a flawless car. In much the same way, pastoral care for church members begins when the congregation is brought back to its basic mission.

What is the bottom line for the church, the true measure of its success?

Some churches measure success by buildings, size, staff, budget, or how many missionaries they support. Some churches inspire, inform, and educate. All that is fine. But to me the church is not primarily an institution and not primarily in the inspiration business or the information business or the education business. Great sermons or fine buildings don't matter if the church isn't becoming a kingdom of priests.

In the Old Testament, God chastised his people because they refused to be priests. The best measure of a church is how many people walk out to be the royal priesthood ...

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