But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—  I Pet. 2: 9 [Msg]
Charles B. Fleming [Vol. 7, 2006]

It’s been eight years since the team at denominational headquarters challenged us to become a church which practices the ministry or priesthood of all believers.  The challenge came with a request that all of us in leadership study Greg Ogden’s book, The New Reformation.  (Re-published as “Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God”) 

Obviously this is a goal that takes years to fully implement since it means completely changing the culture of our church. That change in culture includes:

• Changing from being a church in which pastors were expected to be omni-competent and members expected to passively wait for instructions from the pastor. 
• Changing expectations: what members can expect of their pastors; what pastors can expect of members. 
• It means equipping and empowering members to take initiative and make decisions that were previously reserved for ministers.  This can be intimidating to both members and pastors. 
• It means becoming a church with new ways of holding all of us accountable.
• So this means we must all break through some psychological barriers:  for example, in what gives us (as pastors and members) a sense of accomplishment and the emotional feedback we get from the jobs we do. 

But even though a multi-year project, we will only become the kind of church we want to be if we take the time to review our progress. So I encourage us all to review that book and ask ourselves how well have we progressed in that goal.  If you are new to ministry leadership, be sure to get a copy and read it.  It would not hurt to put some copies in the church library since “knowledge is power” and you will get crucial help if some of your members are familiar with its contents.

In fact, each of us in leadership needs to be mentoring others.  Mentoring means coming alongside others to give moral support, teaching and helping to instill confidence for others to become all God wants them to become.  The picture at the right captures what mentoring means.  Lisa Carr, a member of the Orlando church, visited the Jamaica church with us and trained teachers on how to use a new program for the children’s church.  During the session she stood with one the students as that child read a paper she had written to the entire class.  Lisa stands shoulder to shoulder with her in support, and allows her to take on this new challenge.  The only weakness in this picture is that you might think we should only mentor those who are kids.  Lisa’s physical posture should represent “the posture of our soul” as we mentor adults as well – psychologically standing with and for them.