It seems hard to believe, but 2023 is nearly in the rearview mirror. In many churches, January will bring a reset of the fiscal year, a deep breath after intense months spent creating and approving budgets and encouraging people to pledge, a brief return to “regular” worship after the heightened experiences of the holiday seasons and shifts in lay leadership.  

That last bit sometimes gets lost in the rest of it. Lay leaders rotate off committees and boards as new people replace them in key roles. When these leaders are properly equipped for the ministries at hand, the congregation is better poised to live into God’s invitations to it. Too often though, there is little acknowledgement that the faces around the table have changed, much less the provision of intentional training and encouragement for the worshipful work ahead.

Here, then, are ways to invite laypeople to embrace the fullness of their leadership opportunities:

Commission them. During worship, offer a prayer of gratitude for the leaders who have served and are now getting some much-needed rest. Then call up those stepping into the vacated roles and offer a charge to them and a promise of support for them. This act of commissioning marks the step into leadership as significant for those serving and for those who might be considering future leadership opportunities.

Communicate about them. Share often and by various means who the lay leaders are. This helps the congregation know whom to reach out to for what, gives the leaders chances to live into their positions and breeds transparency about people and process.

Give them clear expectations. Let lay leaders know what they are and are not expected to do. This allows them to give a heartier “yes!” to their responsibilities, reduces confusion about what their lanes are and eliminates the resentment that comes when the job is bigger or smaller than what they thought they agreed to accept. 

Covenant with them. Build an agreement from the outset about how everyone in leadership (including staff) will interact with one another. What behaviors will we exhibit and which ones will we not tolerate? How will we uplift each other? What shape will accountability take?

Invite them to ground their work spiritually. Some lay leaders are businesspeople. Some church responsibilities have business aspects. The church, though, is not a business. It is a community that gathers to listen and praise and departs to serve. All the work of the congregation should reflect that reality. Create a worshipful “container” for all meetings and tasks so that leaders remember that they are carrying out ministry. 

Play alongside them. This might seem like a strange one, but fun activities open our neural pathways and give us better access to creativity. (Keep in mind that different groups click with different kinds of play. Some might love improvisation exercises, while others might like quieter or lower-risk ways to play.) Also, people are more likely to look forward to meetings if they know that there will be ways to blow off steam before getting down to business.

Encourage them to ask questions. Powerful questions are open-ended and solicit answers that allow everyone present to gain new awareness about themselves, the situation or both. Such inquiries are the heart of discernment! Make it clear through word and action that such wonderings are not only welcome but essential.

Provide them with a sense of the vision – or better yet, a role in identifying the vision. Ministries can become isolated and stunted if there isn’t a well-articulated, cohesive trajectory toward which each area of the church is working. Help lay leaders understand how their roles fit into this bigger picture. Give them space to sharpen some of the fuzzier details and to share how God is speaking to them along the way.

Help them determine how their gifts serve the vision. Every lay leader has an array of strengths. Some leaders will be aware of their gifts while others might need more reflections from others on what they bring to the table. Assist all leaders with aligning ability and role and point them toward their unique places in nudging the church toward its vision.

Equip them for the work. Ensure lay leaders have needed information. There is context to every situation they will encounter. They will need those details to make faithful choices. They might need other tools as well that might come from trainings or readings, such as how to engage in healthy conflict, how to communicate well or how to change processes or structures that are no longer working for the congregation. 

Celebrate their work. Name specific markers along the route to fulfilling the congregation’s vision and take time to notice when they have been met. This builds delight, confidence and momentum in leaders.

Empower them to engage, recruit and mentor. Ideally, lay leaders will only be in their positions for a defined amount of time. Turnover provides tired leaders with a break and offers fresh energy and viewpoints to ministry. But to have that change in leadership, there must be potential leaders in the pipeline. Encourage lay leaders to look for essential qualities in other congregation members and to prepare them to step into roles in the future.

Some of the above ways to support leaders can be established at the start of a new church year. Many congregations hold leadership retreats in January or February for this purpose. Much of it, though, can be incorporated into a regular gathering schedule. After all, some of these approaches are ways of being as much as ways of doing things. However you use these leader training tips, take notice of the differences they are making, and thank God that we are all parts of the body of Christ, leaning on one another to best share holy love with all the world.

Laura Stephens-Reed is a clergy and congregational coach based in Alabama. She has been credentialed as a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation and as a Certified Mentor Coach, and she sits on the faculty of two coach training schools. She has also been trained as a Congregational Consultant and an Intentional Interim Minister by the Center for Congregational Health.