By Byeong
Church members desire to grow spiritually. Yet many pastors have experienced a painful reality. One pastor once confessed, “Even though I have been preaching for more than 20 years, my church members still have not grown up like children.”
This has been a serious practical concern for me. Why does this happen?
From the congregation’s perspective, the complaint is often, “The pastor did not raise us.” From the pastor’s perspective, however, the complaint is, “The people are not growing.”
Where, then, is the problem?
I believe one important reason is that many laypeople do not grow because they have not been given meaningful responsibility. When people have no specific ministry responsibility, they can easily remain in a superficial religious life. Faith becomes a habit: attending worship, listening to sermons, and maintaining a comfortable Christian life without taking spiritual risks or making meaningful sacrifices.
When hard work and commitment are avoided, spiritual immaturity can become deeply rooted. Yet when people are asked why they have not matured, they may shift the responsibility by saying, “Our pastor made us this way.”
However, we must also ask another question: Why have pastors not entrusted ministry responsibilities to laypeople? Why have they not given them opportunities to serve and grow?
I believe the answer is often related to mutual trust.
Pastors may hesitate because laypeople do not always produce results as quickly as expected. But growth requires patience. A pastor cannot expect a person to become mature immediately after being given responsibility. Pastors must be willing to invest time, provide guidance, correct mistakes, encourage progress, and patiently wait for maturity to develop.
- Create an Atmosphere of Growth
First, the atmosphere of the church is very important.
The church must create an environment where laypeople can say, “I can grow. I can serve. God can use me.”
If people are continually treated as spectators, they will remain spectators. But when they are trusted as participants in God’s work, they begin to see themselves differently.
Pastors must continually recognize that the growth of individual laypeople is not separate from the growth of the church. A growing church is not simply a church with more members. It is a church where each member is growing as a disciple and servant.
The pastor has a key role in connecting people with opportunities for growth.
- Establish a System of Equipping
Second, a system is necessary to make this growth possible.
Laypeople cannot always grow through personal effort alone. They need encouragement, training, guidance, support, and a structure that makes their growth visible
.Without a supporting system, even sincere efforts can produce limited results. But when there is a clear process of equipping, mentoring, follow-up, and accountability, people can develop much more effectively.
The church should not simply say, “You should grow.”It should ask, “How can we help you grow?”
Growth becomes much more intentional when the church provides a pathway for people to learn, practice, receive feedback, and serve again.
- Give Laypeople Ownership
Third, whatever ministry they participate in, laypeople need ownership.
Ownership does not mean possessing the church. It means taking responsibility for a specific ministry that has been entrusted to them.
When people have ownership, their attitude changes. They no longer simply wait for someone else to solve problems. They begin to identify needs, seek solutions, take initiative, and make personal sacrifices.
Through these experiences, they naturally grow.
Responsibility creates opportunities for maturity.
Growth Comes Through Responsibility
Growth is not simply the result of receiving more information. A person can listen to thousands of sermons and still remain spiritually immature.
Growth comes through responsibility, service, challenges, sacrifice, and the experience of being trusted.
This is why giving ministry to laypeople is not merely a way of getting more work done. It is a way of helping people mature.
The pastor’s role, therefore, is not only to preach sermons. The pastor must also discover, equip, entrust, and releaselaypeople into ministry.
When pastors trust laypeople, and laypeople accept responsibility, something powerful happens. The church is no longer a place where a few people do ministry while everyone else watches.
It becomes a community where everyone participates, everyone serves, and everyone grows.
Perhaps the question is not simply, “Why are our laypeople not growing?”
A better question may be:
“Have we given our laypeople enough opportunities to grow?”
When we trust people with responsibility, equip them for ministry, and patiently walk alongside them, we create an environment in which spiritual maturity can flourish.
People grow when they are trusted.
People mature when they take responsibility.
And the church grows when its people grow.