In January 1974
“I obeyed my inner drive (which I attribute to the Holy Spirit)
to activate my theology.”
I began to lay plans for opening significant ministry to the members of the church I was then pastoring – the 400 people of Randolph Heights Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ten months later I was called to the 2,200-member College Hill Presbyterian Church (CHPC) in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Minister of Pastoral Care. This took me from a long overdue start and instantly catapulted me in a place where I was expected to equip lay people for ministry. The call read, “to do pastoral work and to equip lay people for pastoral work.” It was the second part, “equip lay people for pastoral work,” which caught my spirit and led me to accept the call.
My personal commitment to the biblical teaching regarding equipping the saints for ministry, and CHPC’s expectation for my doing this, has led me into the best years of my pastoring career. “Mel, if this program works you’ll be out of a job!” A fellow clergyman made this prediction as his way of saying, “This Lay Pastors Ministry you are developing will never work. Lay people can do a lot of things, but they cannot pastor. That job is for the clergy!” However, for eight years an increasing number of lay people have been pastoring the member os of College Hill Presbyterian Church (CHPC) in cincinnati, Ohio. In September 1978, we conducted a pilot project in which five lay people each began pastoring five to ten families. Since then, the number of lay pastors has grown to 85 pastoring unit (131 individuals) pastoring 500 of our families. Our goal from the beginning was to provide adequate pastoral care for every member of CHPC by calling forth and equipping lay people gifted by the Holy Spirit for pastoring.
-Melvin J. Steinbron