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Stephen Ministry is a system of
caring ministry. In it,
Stephen Ministers, specially trained congregation members, provide
one-to-one Christian care to people who are experiencing a life
challenge or crisis.
As a Stephen Ministry congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Royal
Oak is part of a ministry that involves over 7,000 congregations from
over 90 denominations worldwide. Over a quarter-million lay people have been trained as
Stephen Ministers. Presently,
we have nine active Stephen Ministers provided Christian care to members
of our church.
Stephen Ministry was developed in 1975 by Dr. Kenneth Haugk, a pastor
and clinical psychologist, who saw that he alone as pastor could not
provide for all the caring ministry needs in his congregation.
So he began training lay persons, called Stephen Ministers, to
help provide high quality Christian care.
The ministry was so successful that other churches became
interested and Dr. Haugk founded the not-for-profit Stephen Ministries
organization. Today, Dr.
Haugk is still the executive director of the Stephen Ministries
organization, based in St. Louis. The
50 person staff produces and delivers resources and training to support
Stephen Ministry in thousands of congregations.
How
Does Stephen Ministry Work?
Once the congregation is enrolled
in the Stephen Series, the team of people who direct the ministry in the
congregation, the Stephen Leaders, are trained at a seven-day Leader’s
Training Course taught by the faculty of the Stephen Ministries
organization.
Our Stephen Leaders recruit, select, and train members of our
congregation to be Stephen Ministers.
Stephen Ministers receive 50 hours of training in Christian
caregiving skills. This
training involves general topics like listening skills, feelings,
assertiveness, and boundaries, and specialized topics like using prayer
and other Christian resources or how to minister to someone experiencing
grief, divorce, a terminal illness, and more.
Stephen
Ministers are Publicly Commissioned.
Upon completion of their training, we commission our Stephen
Ministers in our worship service. This
is a way for the whole congregation to recognize that we are sending out
these trained caregivers to provide one-to-one Christian care on our
behalf to people in need. By
commissioning them in worship, we are all recognizing that Stephen
Ministry belongs to all of us—everyone at First Presbyterian Church of
Royal Oak. It is our
ministry and a way we as a congregation care for the needs of people in
our church and community.
Care Receivers Are Identified and Linked to a
Stephen Minister
Our pastors and Stephen Leaders pair up each Stephen Minister
with a member of the congregation or community who needs care.
Stephen Ministers provide care for people experiencing divorce,
the death of a loved one, hospitalization, loss of a job, a terminal
illness, a relocation, the birth of a child, an empty nest, the
transition into retirement, loneliness, a spiritual crisis—the list
goes on and on. Many of
these needs might otherwise go unnoticed or slip through the cracks
because we would have lacked the staff to meet them.
With Stephen Ministry, we have a team of well-trained Christian
caregivers who can provide care in these situations.
Stephen
Ministers Meet Regularly with Care Receivers.
Stephen Ministers have one care receiver at a time.
They meet with that person in a private, one-to-one, confidential
setting for about an hour a week and may touch base on the phone once or
twice a week. This is a
completely confidential relationship.
The only people who know the identity of a care receiver are the
care receiver him or herself, his or her Stephen Minister, and the
pastor or Stephen Leaders who linked them together.
Nobody else knows—not even the other Stephen Ministers. This way care receivers can feel assured that anything they
tell their Stephen Minister will remain confidential.
Supervision and
Continuing Education.
Stephen Ministers and Stephen Leaders get together regularly for
continuing education and supervision.
Continuing education is a way for Stephen Ministers to be always
learning, growing, and enhancing their caregiving ability.
Supervision, meanwhile, allows Stephen Ministers to guide and
support one another in their ministry—and provide the best care
possible to their care receivers. Confidentiality,
again, is a major emphasis of supervision.
Names are never mentioned and details about the care receiver are
never discussed. The focus
of supervision is not on what is going on in the care receiver’s
life—it is on the relationship between the Stephen Minister and the
care receiver. This way
care receivers can feel assured that no one will know they are receiving
care from a Stephen Minister and that anything they say will remain
strictly confidential.
Ongoing
Cycle.
These are the basic components of Stephen Ministry.
It is important to note that Stephen Ministry is an ongoing
ministry. We enroll only
once, but we cycle through the other steps over and over as needed.
More people may attend Leader’s Training Course to be trained
Stephen Leaders to replace existing ones or to expand the Leader team.
More Stephen Ministers are trained as needed.
As one caring relationship ends, another one begins, so
caregiving goes on and on and Stephen Ministry becomes a permanent
fixture in our congregation.
Why Stephen Ministry?
Why do we need Stephen Ministers—don’t we have pastors to
provide caring ministry? The
simple answer is that our pastors cannot possibly provide all the caring
ministry needed. Our
pastors are like firefighters—when a crisis happens, they rush to the
scene to put out the fire. But
shortly thereafter, another fire breaks out in the congregation, and
they rush to that scene. They
still provide care to the victims of the first fire, but their time
quickly becomes consumed by the second, third, and fourth fires.
This is on top of their other duties as pastors.
This is where Stephen Ministers come in.
The pastors will always be our firefighters, but our Stephen
Ministers are people who come in after the fire is put out (and
sometimes before) and help the victims sort through and clear the debris
and begin to rebuild. Stephen
Ministers continue to give care as long as needed during the rebuilding
process—one months, two months, six months, possibly a year or more.
They provide the steady, consistent one-to-one follow-up care
that our pastors want to, but simply cannot provide.
We Are All
Called to Care.
We have Stephen Ministry because God calls every one of us to
love and care for one another. Remember
the story Jesus told in Matthew 25, when the people asked, “Lord, when
did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and
clothe you? When did we see
you sick or in prison and visit you?”
Jesus wasn’t telling that story only to the pastors; he was
speaking to all of us.
Putting
Spiritual Gifts to Use.
The Holy Spirit has blessed us all with gifts form ministry.
Stephen Ministry provides a place where those who have the gifts
for caring ministry can put them to use in a meaningful way.
The Needs Are
There.
Why did Sir Edmund Hillary climb Mount Everest?
Because it was there. Why
do we have a caring ministry to meet people’s needs?
Because the needs are there.
Sometimes the needs are quiet and can go unnoticed.
Sometimes people think, “My need isn’t important
enough—I’ll go it alone.” Or
we want to look the other way just as the three men did who preceded the
Samaritan on the road to Jericho. The
needs are there—people’s hearts are wounded, their lives broken.
They are in need of Christ’s love and healing.
Stephen Ministry helps our church meet the many needs that are
out there.
Reaching
Out With Christ’s Love.
Stephen Ministry can be a wonderful outreach of Christ’s love
both to our own members and to the community. In the second chapter of his epistle, James tells us,
“Faith by itself, if it if not accompanied by action, is dead.” He says we need to be “doers of the Word, not just
hearers.” Just talking
about loving and caring for one another doesn’t automatically make us
a loving and caring congregation. We
need to be doers! Stephen
Ministry is a wonderful way to be doers of the Gospel.
Jesus’ Great
Commandment and Great Commission.
Jesus gave us his Great Commandment: “Love your neighbor as
yourself” (Matthew 22:39) and his Great Commission: “Therefore go
and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).
Stephen Ministry is one tangible way we can fulfill Jesus’
Commandment and Commission.
Who Benefits From Stephen Ministry?
Persons who receive
care benefit.
He or she no longer has to walk along through life’s struggles.
A Stephen Minister walks alongside this person for as long as he
or she needs care, bringing Jesus’ unconditional love and acceptance
to the person.
Pastors benefit.
Stephen Ministry was begun by a pastor who realized that he could
not meet all needs for care by himself and needed a way to provide care
for all who needed it. Pastors fulfill their calling to “equip the saints for the
work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12) by training lay people for caring
ministry. Pastors are no
longer alone in bearing the burden of meeting caring ministry needs.
Stephen Ministers and Stephen
Leaders benefit.
Although they participate in this ministry out of a desire to
serve and care for others, they encounter tremendous growth themselves.
They grow personally and spiritually.
The Congregation benefits
from Stephen Ministry. People
feel cared for in their time of need.
There is a ripple effect to Stephen Ministry. Many Stephen Ministers are also active in Church School, on
church boards and committees, in Bible studies and small groups, in
fellowship groups, social events, vacation Bible school, and more.
They find themselves using their caring ministry skills in a
variety of ways.
Everyone in the Congregation
benefits.
Everyone of us knows someone who has faced a difficult
crisis—perhaps a neighbor, a coworker, a friend, a relative, or
ourselves. Stephen Ministry
gives us a place where we can connect those people to receive Jesus’
love and care when they need it most.
The Church
as a whole benefits because more people experience Christ’s
love in a significant way, are called to Christ, and grow in faith.
They become better disciples and thus are better able to reach
out with Jesus’ love to still others who may be outside the church.
If you would like to know
more about Stephen Ministry at First Presbyterian Church of Royal Oak,
please call Associate Pastor Carl Eschenbrenner at the church,
248-541-0108, or write to him at revcfe@fpcro.org. |
