By Marv Knox
Across the span of her life, Telika McCoy has followed the path she believed God laid out for her. So, when her church suggested that path included joining its ministry staff, she “just couldn’t say no.”
Ten years ago, McCoy transitioned from lay member to multi-vocational youth pastor at Mount Peace Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C. She also teaches practical ministry and directs a Lilly Endowment-funded initiative at Shaw University Divinity School. And she heads a global ministry of encouragement to fellow Christians.
McCoy’s move to local-church ministry is the kind of transition Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders are asking more congregations and their members to consider through a church-staffing initiative, Called in Context. The idea is for congregations to consider looking internally—at gifted, committed members—when filling ministry positions.
McCoy followed a long path that eventually guided her to become youth pastor at her home church.
After she earned an undergraduate degree from Shaw University in Raleigh, she landed a job in banking.
“I applied for that job because a lot of older people told me it was good to go to school, get a good job and stay in that job,” McCoy explained. “For a young woman, that was exciting. I could work there 30 years, have a good career and retire.”
Besides, although she loved the Lord and her church, “I didn’t know there were so many ministry options,” other than serving local congregations. And she did not expect to serve on a local-church staff. “I thought my pastoral job would be chaplain,” she explained.
To prepare for chaplaincy, McCoy enrolled in Shaw’s divinity school, where she earned a Master of Divinity degree. She also earned a Ph.D. degree from Capella University.
Along the way, she worked as an exceptional child specialist in the Winston-Salem/Forsythe County School System and eventually returned to banking.
McCoy juggled school, work and volunteering in her church as she pursued her long-term goal. Then she took a turn. “Although I was headed toward becoming a military chaplain, I ended up being invited to be the youth pastor at our church,” she shared. “And I just couldn’t say no.”
“Youth work is just who I am,” she said. “There’s not been a church where I’ve been a member that I did not work with youth. Plus, I had worked with kids in the school system. It’s like I was born to it.”
And even though she had not considered local-church ministry, she easily imagined herself on the Mount Peace staff.
“I had volunteered in church since I was a little girl,” she recalled. “I was the first to arrive and the last to leave. It didn’t take a lot of discernment. I love the church and was already helping with the youth. So, it was natural.”
McCoy also credits Black church culture with helping her accept her church’s call.
“You’ve heard the African proverb: ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’” she said. “That type of wisdom is imbedded in the Black church. It’s all our responsibility—a collective responsibility, a collective call—to help raise up our youth.”
Looking back, McCoy realizes her corporate career taught her a vital lesson for church ministry.
“In banking, I talked to people around the globe. I learned about them and about their cultures,” she said. “That taught me to have patience for all types of personalities. In our church community, our people have different personalities. So, the skills of personality management and self-control I learned in banking apply well in the church.”
Perhaps counter-intuitively, McCoy said, her experience in the secular world reinforced the importance of embodying what the Apostle Paul called the “fruit of the Spirit”—love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And those qualities serve her well as a minister.
As she has served youth and their families, another key skill she developed earlier—the “ability to be transparent without doing harm”—has grown in importance, she noted.
“In the past 10 years, we have worked to cultivate a culture of trust, because young people nowadays hardly know whom to trust,” she said. “Sometimes, young people need to be listened to and heard. The response is love, demonstrated by open arms and a closed mouth.”
As she transitioned from being a lay member of her church to one of two ministers on staff, McCoy took care to “respect the office of pastor,” she said.
“There’s a professionalism that needs to be attached to your [pastoral] office,” she added. “Other people get to choose how to respond, but the question is: ‘How do you carry yourself?’ I had to be sure to do this, because this is important work, and I don’t take it for granted. You are the person God has entrusted to this role. How do you move through this great call with respect and honor?”
Calling a staff member from within the church is “a blessing to both the congregation and the individual,” Mount Peace Baptist Church’s pastor, Vincent Terry, said, noting the church had done so prior to calling McCoy.
“Before she joined our staff, we were able to see her faithfulness in the areas of ministry,” he said.
The church received even more than it anticipated, Terry added. “We have gotten the best of more than one world. Because of her faithfulness, she has not only benefited us in the youth ministry—which is her assignment—but in other areas of the church. Whatever we needed, we could find in her.
“She has a great heart for ministry and for people. She has proven to be the best choice we could have made.”
McCoy knows she occupies a unique position, which inevitably makes her a role model.
“I am okay with being a female minister. I am a female,” she said. “A little girl may look at me and say, ‘Oh, Dr. McCoy is a pastor, a preacher.’ I want young girls to have a respectful example of what a woman minister is like.”
Similarly, McCoy and Mount Peace Baptist Church are role models for other congregations and other potential staff members, noted Brian Foreman, CBF’s coordinator of congregational ministries, and Colin Kroll, its young adults ministry manager.
They have developed Called in Context as part of a larger endeavor to strengthen churches in the area of Christian education, particularly focused on ministries with youth and children. Called in Context is designed to help churches identify ministry resources within their membership and to help laity see their opportunities for ministry.
Churches need Called in Context for a couple of reasons, Foreman said.
First, CBF churches have been doubling down on a traditional “model for ministerial calling”—when a vacancy occurs, hire a trained staff member already serving another church—that no longer works, he explained. And second, the traditional model doesn’t work because “the pipeline of students going to divinity school is shrinking, and many who do enroll are not interested in congregational ministry.”
While no “magic solution” is available, Foreman conceded, CBF is coming alongside divinity schools that are experimenting with new models for theological education. For its part, CBF is helping churches look inward to solve staffing challenges.
“We are proposing a commitment to nurturing calling from within your congregation,” he added. “We want to facilitate a culture of calling, beginning with folks who are already in your congregation.”
“Telika is a prime example of what Called in Context is all about,” Kroll stressed. “Her gifts and her love for the people in Mount Peace Baptist Church and the larger community already had been recognized. It was only natural for her to be invited into leadership in a new way.
“This represents an example of moving away from the old model that focused on recruiting staff from outside the congregation,” he noted. “It affirms people who already are there, who are loving and leading and doing well.”
McCoy and Mount Peace also illustrate another aspect of recruitment that Called in Context is emphasizing, Kroll said.
“By calling multi-vocational ministers, churches can fill positions they might not be able to afford if they only considered full-time staff,” he explained. “Telika’s other endeavors teaching at Shaw and her ministry of encouragement—make her more available for Mount Peace.”
To help congregations implement Called in Context’s ideas, CBF is developing resources necessary for equipping lay members to serve effectively as church staff.
For her part, McCoy said the Called in Context model that worked at her church can apply to other congregations, and she offered advice for pastors and ministry candidates alike.
“To pastors, I say, ‘Pay attention to your people’s skills, and don’t discount them,’” she said. “Remember how Jesus did it when he called his disciples. James and John were already fishing, so they had skills to be ‘fishers of men.’ And when Jesus chose the Zealot, some would have said, ‘Oh, no,’ but Jesus saw a place for that type of person. He saw a place for all of them in that great work.”
And she counseled members who might consider joining their churches’ staffs not to be daunted by the challenge. “To the one who accepts the role, I say, ‘Do what you can, and don’t worry about the rest.’”
This story was originally featured in CBF’s Fellowship! magazine. To read the most current issue, or order a print copy, visit cbf.net/fellowship-magazine