These Four Insights Are Transforming My Leadership.
I talk to a lot of pastors. Most conversations give me something to think about. A few deliver insights that could change how I lead.
Here are four crucial ideas that are transforming my personal ministry.
- Pastoring is a team exercise.
- Evangelism training doesn't work.
- Don't climb the wrong mountain.
- Without trust, key relationships fail.
“Pastoring Is A Team Exercise.”
The New Testament describes a group of elders shepherding a congregation together, sharing responsibility and authority. It’s never one person alone. The modern senior pastor model is borrowed from corporate hierarchy. Scripture describes shared eldership, with accountability built in.
Sats Solanki didn't arrive at plural leadership through theory. He arrived at it through wreckage. In 2020, the church he served under collapsed. The senior pastor left the country and never accounted for what happened. That experience forced Sats to ask why one person had ever held that much unchecked power in the first place.
Sats went to scripture, and the more he explored and studied, the clearer the answer became. Sats grounds plural leadership in New Testament eldership, pointing out that the early church consistently describes apostles planting churches, then appointing teams of elders to shepherd a congregation together. Nowhere do we see a single senior figure at the top.
Plurality builds accountability into the structure before a leader needs it, rather than after a crisis forces the issue. Power without built-in checks eventually turns dangerous, no matter how good a leader's intentions are.
How this is impacting my leadership:
At New Life Fellowship, where I pastor, we have a team of four elders that share responsibility and authority. We make decisions in unison. We are very intentional about living open lives with each other, not holding back secrets, and inviting one another into our lives. That trust has created a bond between us. I can’t imagine pastoring any other way.
"Evangelism Training Doesn't Work."
Frank Friedmann, a pastor with 45 years in ministry, believes evangelism training fails because it teaches methodology… and methodology without LIFE is simply an exercise where we collect decisions for Christ instead of loving others. “Once someone actually knows what's true of them in Christ,” Frank says, “evangelism happens on its own.”
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Frank Friedmann, a pastor with 45 years in ministry, believes evangelism training fails because it teaches methodology, and methodology without life is simply an exercise where we collect decisions for Christ instead of loving others.
Once someone actually knows what's true of them in Christ," Frank says, "evangelism happens on its own.
Frank points to five things Jesus promised his followers: joy, peace, rest, freedom, and abundant life. He asks pastors to look at their own congregation and count how many people carry even two of those five as a lived reality. Most pastors go quiet. Then he asks how many carry all five, and most can't think of a single person.
Tools like the Four Spiritual Laws or Evangelism Explosion aren't wrong, Frank says, but they can become a substitute for a life that isn't reflecting what Jesus actually promised.
When believers grasp what's already true of them in Christ, evangelism stops being a program and starts being a byproduct.
How This Is Impacting My Leadership
I've taken evangelism training courses, memorized scripts, and worked to reach ‘witnessing’ quotas. Frank's point makes me ask a harder question about the vibrancy of my faith - and is changing the focus of my teaching. I’m working on helping my church members to come to grips with just how GOOD Jesus is… and slowly but surely, people are sharing it with others.
“Don't Climb The Wrong Mountain.”
Jim Gordon uses the metaphor of climbing the wrong mountain in the fog to urge leaders to periodically pause and ensure their daily busyness remains anchored in their true, God-given mission rather than self-imposed obligations.
Busyness and calling are two different things. Motion isn't the same as direction.
Jim Gordon tells the story of a friend, Mark Kennedy, who set out to climb a mountain in Scotland. Kennedy left before dawn to beat the mist, climbed for hours, then the fog finally broke. He realized he'd climbed the wrong mountain.
For Jim, that's the picture of a pastor filling every hour without checking whether the hours serve what God actually called him to. You can preach faithfully every week, visit every hospital room, balance every budget line, and still be well up the wrong mountain. The work isn't the problem. The absence of calling behind the work is.
Is there anything more tragic then spending a lifetime of ministry effort, only to realize one day that you were working towards the wrong set of goals?
The fix isn't more effort. It's a plain question underneath the schedule: Is this activity what God's asking of me, or what I've taken on without thinking?
How this is impacting my leadership:
I've spent whole seasons up the wrong mountain and didn't know it until I was already there. Jim's question is simple and I’m learning to ask it more often: “Did God actually ask for this, or did I just decide it needed doing?” As well, I’ve begun a twice-yearly personal ministry audit to help me keep the main thing the main thing.
“Without Trust, Key Relationships Fail.”
Too many churches sidestep or avoid difficult or painful conversations with their pastors. As a result, the gap between what’s communicated and what’s real increases until the relationships collapse. The pastor moves on, the church grieves, and the cycle continues.
Ed Underwood cites Thomas Rainer's research that most pastors who leave a church do so after 3 years. Ed doesn't blame burnout or theological drift or low pay. He blames trust, or the lack of it.
He calls the pattern high school dating.
A new pastor arrives and everyone puts their best foot forward. Nobody brings up the hard stuff. Six months in, cracks show, but too much has already been invested to walk away easily. So people manage it. Smooth it over. Keep the peace until the peace keeps itself.
That works for a while, until it doesn't, and the whole thing ends fast and messy, with everyone wondering how they missed the signs.
Ed says the signs are visible the whole time if you know where to look:
- Meetings that feel gamed.
- Topics nobody's allowed to raise.
- Competing ministries jockeying for turf.
All of it points to a church culture running on performance instead of trust. His fix doesn't start with the whole church. It starts with one relationship you already trust, built honestly, in soil that can hold it.
How this is impacting my leadership:
For months, I avoided having a difficult conversation with several key leaders in our church. Then, things boiled over, and suddenly what was a small problem became a big problem. Today, I am MUCH quicker to address issues in a kind, gentle, but honest way.
