One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about pastoral leadership is that being right about the direction doesn’t mean you’re right about the timing. I learned that the hard way.
When I arrived in the Houston area to pastor my second church, the congregation had just come through a devastating season involving its previous pastor. People were hurting, trust needed to be rebuilt, and the church needed time to heal. I knew that going in. I even told myself I was going to take things slowly. I thought I was.
I removed some artificial flowers from the platform. They probably had an inch of dust on them. Okay, maybe not quite an inch, but they certainly weren’t fresh. On a side note, I had no idea people could become so attached to artificial flowers. I replaced the large pulpit with a smaller table, encouraged the worship team to make a few adjustments, and updated the church logo, which happened to be pink. Nothing revolutionary, or so I thought. Any one of those changes would probably have been fine, but together, and all within the first few months, they added up to more change than that congregation was ready for.
What I failed to understand was that I was the change. The people were already adjusting to a new pastor. They were learning to trust me and wondering what the future might hold. I wasn’t necessarily making the wrong decisions. I was making them too quickly.
That experience taught me that leadership carries weight. Every decision a pastor makes, or avoids making, touches real people. In this series, The Six Jobs of a Pastor, we’ve considered the pastor as shepherd and as preacher. Both are essential. But a pastor must also lead. For some, that comes easy. For others, it does not.
Someone Has to Lead
In Romans 12, Paul describes the gifts God gives to the body of Christ. In verse 8, he includes leadership and adds a simple instruction: “he who leads, with diligence.” Paul doesn’t treat leadership as an optional extra. It is work that needs to be done, and it needs to be done diligently.
It’s often said that a leadership vacuum never lasts long. If the pastor doesn’t lead, someone else will. Every congregation has people who shape its direction. Some hold official positions. Others have earned influence through years of faithful service and deep relationships, and that influence can be a tremendous blessing. But when a pastor consistently steps back from leadership, the church doesn’t stop moving. Other voices begin setting the course, sometimes without anyone ever deciding where the church should go.
It is entirely possible to be busy in ministry while neglecting leadership. We can preach every Sunday, visit throughout the week, sit through every committee meeting, and keep the church calendar full. But when did we last ask whether our church is becoming healthier? When did we last challenge something that had stopped being effective? When did we last help our people see a biblical opportunity that required stepping out of their comfort zone?
Leadership Is Part of Shepherding
In the previous two articles, we saw that a shepherd knows his sheep and feeds them. A shepherd also leads them. Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds, He “was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Sheep without direction wander, and wandering sheep get hurt.
Congregations are no different. A church can be full of sincere, hardworking, loving people and still drift toward maintaining its programs, protecting its preferences, and slowly forgetting why it exists. People who love their church deserve a pastor who is willing to help them see where God is leading. In that sense, leadership isn’t separate from shepherding. It is one of the ways a pastor cares for people.
Scripture treats this as a serious responsibility. Paul speaks of “the elders who rule well” (1 Timothy 5:17), and the writer of Hebrews says church leaders “watch out for your souls, as those who must give account” (Hebrews 13:17). Those words should sober every pastor. We will answer to God not only for whether we were kind and busy, but for how we led the people He entrusted to us.
Leadership Keeps the Mission in View
The church has been given a mission. Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations, and He has promised to build His church. Mission doesn’t happen by accident. Someone has to keep it in front of the congregation, evaluate whether our ministries are helping fulfill it, and have the courage to ask hard questions when they are not.
John Maxwell describes this in his Law of Navigation: anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Churches need more than someone to keep existing ministries running. They need a pastor who helps them understand where they are going and why it matters.
That doesn’t mean constantly introducing new programs or changing things simply because we can. The goal isn’t change for the sake of change. The goal is biblical health. The pastor’s task is not to keep the church busy, but to help it move forward in the mission Christ has given it.
Leadership That Serves
If there is a danger in saying a pastor must lead, it is that leadership can slowly become more about the leader than the people being led. We get so focused on our goals, our ideas, and our measurable results that we forget why we were leading in the first place.
Jesus addressed this directly. In Mark 10, James and John had been angling for positions of prominence, and the other disciples were indignant. Jesus used the moment to teach a different view of greatness: “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant” (Mark 10:43). Then He pointed to His own example. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Notice that Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to stop leading. He taught them that leadership exists to serve others. Peter says the same thing when he urges pastors not to serve “as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). The people in our churches don’t belong to us. They belong to Christ, and He has placed them in our care. People are not tools for accomplishing our vision. They are individuals God has entrusted to our care.
Leadership Takes Courage and Patience
Houston taught me that leading takes patience. By the time a pastor presents an idea, he may have prayed and thought about it for months, while the people hearing it are encountering it for the first time. I was thinking about the destination. They were still trying to understand the journey. There’s an old saying that if you think you’re leading but no one is following, you’re only taking a walk.
An earlier chapter of my ministry taught me the other half of the lesson: patience is not the same as avoiding hard decisions. I had taken on leadership of a church that was only three months old, meeting in the cafeteria of a Christian school. Less than a mile away was another church, about thirty years old, that was without a pastor. After many conversations, meetings, and seasons of prayer and fasting, both congregations agreed to join together. But rather than simply merging, we decided to dissolve both churches and start a brand-new one. My close friends still tease me that my first experience leading a church ended with me killing two churches. Technically, they’re not entirely wrong.
There was a good reason for it, though. We weren’t combining two organizations. We were helping two groups of people, each with their own history and traditions, embrace a common mission. I didn’t want a congregation divided between those who had always done things one way and those who had always done them another. And if someone occasionally said, “We used to do it this way,” I could graciously remind them that the church they were thinking of no longer existed. Thankfully, that didn’t happen often. God blessed that small group of people, and the new church went on to make a meaningful difference in the Flint metro area.
A pastor who avoids every difficult decision may keep the peace for a while while deeper problems grow. A pastor who insists on making every decision alone may get quick results while damaging the trust healthy ministry depends on. Neither reflects biblical leadership. Hard decisions should never be made carelessly. They call for prayer, wise counsel, and a willingness to listen to the people affected. But eventually, someone has to lead. The courage to lead has to be matched by the patience to bring people along.
Leading People, Not Just a Church
Looking back over my years in ministry, I can name decisions I would make differently today. Some involved moving too quickly. Others involved waiting too long. There were times I needed more courage and times I needed more patience. I suspect most pastors could say the same. Through it all, one conviction has only grown stronger: pastoral leadership is ultimately about people. We aren’t leading an organization. We’re leading people who love their church, people who sometimes struggle with change, and people who need someone to help them see where God is leading and take the next step.
Leadership will look different from one pastor to the next. Some of us enjoy leading through change, while others find it far harder. But whatever our personality, every pastor is called to provide direction for the church.
I still believe removing those artificial flowers was the right decision. I’m just not as sure about the timing. Leadership isn’t only about knowing what needs to change. It’s about loving people enough to help them through the change.
Romans 12:8 tells us to lead with diligence. Jesus tells us the greatest leaders are those who serve. Those two truths belong together. May we have the courage to lead, the patience to bring people along, and the humility to remember that the church belongs to Jesus. That is the responsibility of the pastor as leader, and it is worthy of our very best.Yet leading well doesn’t mean doing everything ourselves. A pastor who tries to carry the whole church on his back will eventually wear out, and the church will never become what God intends. In the next article, we’ll examine the fourth job of a pastor: Equipper.
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 1: One Calling. Many Responsibilities.
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 2: Shepherd
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 3: Preacher
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 4: Leader
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 5:
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 6:
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 7:
Click here to read The Six Jobs of a Pastor, Part 8:
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