Pastor, I think you can identify with this

I know. I know. When it comes to congregational care, many pastors in small to medium churches are already stressed out before they can even focus on it. According to one poll, the median time pastors spend in ministry per week is 50 hours. The last thing any pastor needs is someone reminding them that’s it’s been over a year since they made a house call, or even a phone call, to any widow or single mom in their church, or anyone else with long-term critical needs.

Sometimes congregational care can feel like a never ending burden

As a pastor for twenty years, I can comiserate with you. I often visited Guilt Land because I knew I was underperforming when it came to congregational care. Other, more prominent ministry demands crowded out the hidden needs of our widows and single moms. Preaching the perfect sermon, organizing the next church initiative, hiring the appropriate staff member, working with the church board, and many other demands made serving widows and single moms seem like the front bar of a treadmill that was going so fast I could never possibly reach it.

Delegation is one answer. But how?

Of course, the problem was that I saw myself as primarily responsible for ministry to widows and single moms. I tried assigning deacons to do the ministry: “Call these five widows once every six months and see how they’re doing” was the basic plan for each deacon. It fell flat, of course. There was no relationship in it, no love. So I once again picked up the slack and did the contact work myself, or at least tried to.

Somehow the early church managed this responsibility exceedingly well

All of this contrasted with what I kept seeing in my Bible: ministry to widows (and orphans and single moms) was one of the highest priorities of the early church. Somehow, first century Christians managed to do this ministry very well. And I? Well, I was completely failing at it. It wasn’t until God brought me to my knees by showing me a close-up example of the grief and pain a widow goes through that I finally cried out to Him for help.

Here is the culture-relevant answer God gave me and I'm sharing it with you

And help He did. God lead me directly to a men’s team ministry model that is exceptionally well adapted to our culture. Men’s team ministry created intentional community among teams of men in our church who could then focus that camaraderie on the needs of their maleless households. It enabled us to meet every pressing need in our congregation. And best of all, for me personally it lifted the burden of ministry to our widowed and single parents from off my shoulders.

And men’s team ministry lifted something else from off my shoulders as well: guilt. And that, my dear pastor pastor friend, is what I hope to lift from your shoulders too.