18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

A theological approach to
pastoral leadership today
Many myths exist in Christianity today focusing on what qualities
pastors with good leadership skills possess. Find out what true pastoral
leadership consists of from a theological perspective.

Jon Coutts, at the time of this writing, was pursuing an MA in Theology,

Briercrest Seminary, Caronport, Saskatchewan, Canada.

HOME ARCHIVES 2008 NOVEMBER

A THEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PASTORAL LEADERSHIP TODAY

LISTEN

ecent decades have brought a flood of church leadership books to

pastors’ shelves that have carried an important dialogue with the
corporate world and brought more focused intentionality and

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 1/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

organization to Christian ministry.

R
Great strides have been made in this
regard and in making church
accessible to seekers. However, in the
midst of all of this dialogue, some
underlying assumptions have leaked
from commerce into the church,
which threaten to guide the church
astray and blur the priorities of
pastoral leadership. In this culture, built upon the gospel of self-
fulfillment and the latent ideals of consumerism, the tendency is to
define churches and pastors by the standards of the business world.
Among other things, servant leadership has been confused with
customer service, “shepherding the flock” has melded with corporate
strategizing, stewardship of spiritual gifts has been turned into a
pursuit of self-fulfillment, and preaching has become motivational
speech.

As biblical as the mission statements of churches may be, the

unspoken purpose that often drives their formation is the
achievement of numerical growth and corporate
impressiveness.1Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon describe
where this leads:

The problem is compounded because our church lives in a buyer’s

market. The customer is king. . . . Pastors with half a notion of the
gospel who get caught up in this web of buying and selling in a self-
fulfillment economy one day wake up and hate themselves for it.
We will lose some of our (potentially) best pastors to an early grave
of cynicism and self-hate.

What a pastor needs is a means of keeping at it, a perspective that

enables the pastor to understand his or her ministry as nothing less
than participation in the story of God.2

Recent leadership trends have brought good to the church, but they
need to be reevaluated under a holistic biblical model so that the
driving purposes are Christ’s.

LEADERSHIP STYLES IN BIBLICAL

LITERATURE

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 2/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

Much has been made of the leadership styles and principles of such
biblical heroes as Moses, David, Paul, and Jesus. Moses was wise to
listen to Jethro’s counsel to delegate tasks to the reliable and empower
his assistants (Exod. 18:24). David was courageous in the face of
overwhelming obstacles (1 Sam. 17) and inspired others to follow him
(2 Sam. 23). Paul directed all his ambition and ability to the mission
(Acts 20:34, 35) and was conversant in every culture (Acts 17; 18).
Jesus carefully trained a team of successors (Matt. 10; Luke 10), was
apparently quite amiable at parties (Matt. 11:19), and was apt to
attract a crowd (Luke 9:10–12). For all that can be learned from these
insights, the trouble remains that even if the principles gleaned are
sound and biblical, “all too often . . . one or another aspect of a more
complex parameter is singled out as if it comprises all that is
important.”3 In Western society, this generally means narrowing in on
whatever best fits our bent towards consumerism, individualism, and
capitalism. Churches comfortably rutted in worldly standards of
success gravitate to those biblical principles that promote measurable
effectiveness.

In popular literature about biblical leaders, not much is said about

Peter, who seemed to want to stunt the growth of the church by
coming down harshly on Ananias and Sapphira for a little white lie
(Acts 5:1–11), and refused to sell out to Simon Magus despite the flare
he might have brought to the cause (Acts 8:18–23); or Ezra, who
refused to take advantage of “state protection” and led God’s people
on the robber’s route with nothing but “traveling mercies” and
pockets full of gold (Ezra 7; 8); or Joshua, whose leadership against
Jericho by today’s terms seems at best eccentric and at worst insane
(Josh. 6); or Daniel, a wise and diplomatic manager, who adapted to
the foreign culture but suicidally refused to pray with the windows
closed (Dan. 6).

Or consider Moses. Despite the great managerial lessons gleaned from

Moses and Jethro, how often do leadership books talk about the sin
that kept Moses out of the Promised Land? He assumed that God
would have him bring water from a rock the same way as before and
took it upon himself to repeat the previous practice. He took the
miracle into his own hands, misled the people of God, and for all his
previous obedience, permanently tainted his résumé (Num. 20:1–13).
And how many leadership manuals caution against the sin of David?
Plenty may speak of his moral failure with Bathsheba, but what about
the census? It seems petty to our number-crunching minds, but when
David took a head count for his own self-assurance, God sent a plague

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 3/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

upon the people and showed him who controlled the numbers (1
Chron. 21). The list could go on. For all the leadership principles that
can be gleaned from these biblical models (don’t forget Gideon and
Samson), the point does not center around the reproducible strategies
but the vital lesson that the best leader follows God every step of the
way, taking nothing for granted, and relentlessly resisting self-
reliance.

Before anointing David king, Samuel told Saul: “ ‘The Lord has sought
out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people,
because you have not kept the Lord’s command’ ” (1 Sam. 13:14, NIV).
While this may speak to some degree of the quality of David’s heart,
more likely it refers to his heart’s direction. How a leader serves is
important, but more important is whom they serve. In Paul’s pastoral
guide to Timothy, when he tells him to do his best as a worker, God’s
approval must be sought and the living, active Word that guides (2
Tim. 2:15; cf. Heb. 4:12). A great difference exists between falling back
on proven principles and relentlessly seeking the guidance of God.
Built into every biblical mandate is the call to submit to God, to listen
for His prompting through Word and Spirit, and to obey accordingly.
There are no shortcuts. The most purpose-driven job description
cannot replace the necessity for pastors to let God lead and be the first
in line to follow.

FOLLOWERSHIP: A FORGOTTEN
PARADIGM FOR LEADERSHIP
Andrew LePau lists followership among the most important biblical
motifs for Christian leaders. He says that “we had better be about the
business of learning how to follow as much as of learning how to
lead.”4Leadership is not something separate from spirituality, as if one
can get the spiritual batteries charged, go about pastoring, and then
come back to the recharger every once in a while for a pick me up.
Pastoral leadership is “participation in God’s work of transforming the
community of faith until it is ‘blameless’ at the coming of Christ” and
a perpetually “unfinished business.”5

 Andrew Purves observes, “Shepherding has been developed as an

imitative rather than as a participatory approach to ministry. . . . The
effect is to cast the pastor back upon his or her own resources. . . .

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 4/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

“[Leading to Jesus’] replacement by an ethical Christ-principle

separated from him.”6 For all the good that there is in casting vision
and planning intentionally, the pastoral leader does well to think of
the church as taking part in an ongoing story of redemption and
Christian communion rather than just a plan to be effected. Having
said this, there are goals to be set and projects to be completed within
the church. But there are motivations here other than the bottom line.

Perhaps, if Christian leaders are going to look to the world for

leadership insights, they might consider taking a few leads from the
storytellers rather than the moneymakers. Consider the insights of a
longtime film director:

We’re not out for consensus here. We’re out for communication.
And sometimes we get consensus. And that’s thrilling. . . . I’m in
charge of a community that I need desperately and that needs me
just as badly. That’s where the joy lies, in the shared experience.
Anyone in that community can help me or hurt me. or this reason,
it’s vital to have . . .people who can challenge you to work at your
best, not in hostility but in a search for the truth. Sure, I can pull
rank if a disagreement becomes unresolvable, but that’s only a last
resort. It’s also a great relief. But the joy is in the give-and-take.7

Better yet, the letters of Paul (2 Cor.) describe ministry as a

plainspoken and persuasive attempt to include others in the new
creation: “And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making
his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be
reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:19, 20, NIV). Hauerwas and Willimon
paint a stark image of the issue: “Atheism slips into the church where
God really does not matter, as we go about building bigger and better
congregations (church administration), confirming people’s self-
esteem (worship), enabling people to adjust to their anxieties brought
on by their materialism (pastoral care), and making Christ a worthy
subject for poetic reflection (preaching). At every turn the church
must ask itself, Does it really make any difference, in our life together,
in what we do, that in Jesus Christ God is reconciling the world to
himself?”8

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

Consider the direction offered by two of the best books, in my opinion,
on pastoral ministry that have emerged from the wave of leadership
books. Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 5/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

Leadershipcan be described as one of the briefest but most poignant

treatments of pastoral leadership that can be found. In it Nouwen
pierces to the heart of ministry by looking at Jesus’ reinstatement of
Peter and observing that God wants leaders who know, confess, and
sacrificially follow Christ.9Then by reflecting on Satan’s attack on Jesus
in the desert, Nouwen notes that Jesus resisted the temptations first to
be relevant (turn stones into bread), then to grasp power (I will give
you all the kingdoms), and finally to show off (jump from the
temple).10

Based on these insightful texts, Nouwen challenges leaders to

consider when their calling might be to irrelevance rather than
meeting felt needs. He warns pastors to beware of shortcuts and
apparent successes to undermine the very purpose of the church, and
to remember that “the way of the Christian leader is not the way of
upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the
way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”11 Expressing the
“impression that priests and ministers are the least-confessing people
in the Christian community,”12Nouwen concludes that confession and
forgiveness in a reconciling Christian ethos may be the best way “by
which spiritualization and carnality can be avoided and true
incarnation lived.”13

Where Nouwen offers a wake-up call to get pastoral priorities straight,

Eugene Peterson gives a practical description of the essential motions
of pastoral leadership. In his excellent book, Working the Angles: The
Shape of Pastoral Integrity, he says,“Three pastoral acts are so basic, so
critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are
praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. . . . Since
almost never does anyone notice whether we do these things or not, . .
. these three acts of ministry suffer widespread neglect.”14 The point is
not that these are the ways to get fueled up to go and employ
whatever ministry strategies might seem most fitting, but that these
are the ministry strategies. Preaching is where the community
together hears and learns to read Scripture and is in turn read by it.
Liturgy is the community’s address to God in prayer. Activities from
small groups to outreach are the church’s enactment of and
engagement in spiritual direction with those willing to dialogue.
Through “attentiveness to God in prayer,”15 theological reflection on
Scripture (through Word and sacrament, at the pulpit and in the living
room), and authentic spiritual direction (including confession and
forgiveness), the pastor helps the priesthood of believers engage with
the Holy Spirit and grow in Christ together.

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 6/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

For all the marketing insights, growth strategies, vision statements,

and other bells and whistles a pastor can use to increase a church’s
corporate effectiveness, the actual purpose of ministry is screaming to
be remembered again. The pastor is there to lead the church to the
throne of grace, pointing the community to participate with Christ in
communion with the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. Today’s
“successful” churches and pastors will only truly be so if this is their
focal point.

1 Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry (San Francisco,

CA: Harper & Row, 1983), 163. While it is right to long for a return to the
vitality of the church of the book of Acts and to
see God add to our number daily (Acts 2:47), it is unlikely that Luke intended
numerical growth to be the standard of measuring faithfulness and
determining proper pastoral practice (note tensions between Acts 5:13, 14).

2 Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville,

TN: Abingdon Press, 1989), 142.

3 David W. Bennett, Metaphors of Ministry: Biblical Images for Leaders and

Followers (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Book House, 1993), 192.

4 Andrew LePau quoted in Dwayne Uglem, “Biblical Motifs: Building a Model

for Contemporary Leadership” (MA thesis, Briercrest Bible College, 1988), 80.

5 James W. Thompson, Pastoral Ministry According to Paul: A Biblical Vision

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006) 150. “One major difference
between the church and other . . . organizations
hinges on Christianity’s eschatological perspective. . . . Business
organizations . . . wish to accomplish objectives that are visible within this
temporal sphere, often those that fit within a five-year plan, a fiscal year, or
a three-week sales blitz. . . . Christian congregations also try to get things
done, organize themselves decently, and achieve objectives, but the Christian
community has a larger historical perspective on all of these activities—
larger in fact than this fiscal year, this political regime, or even this
civilization. Universal history, amazingly, is the horizon of Christianity’s
perspective.” Oden, Pastoral Theology, 162.

6 Andrew Purves, Reconstructing Pastoral Theology: A Christological

Foundation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), xxx.

7 Sidney Lumet, Making Movies (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 16, 17.

8 Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens, 94, 95.

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 7/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

9 Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian

Leadership (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 24, 45, 61.

10 Ibid., 17–35.

11 Ibid., 62.

12 Ibid., 46.

13 Ibid., 49.

14 Eugene H. Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1987), 3.

15 Ibid., 16.

Ministry reserves the right to approve, disapprove, and delete

comments at our discretion and will not be able to respond to
inquiries about these comments. Please ensure that your
words are respectful, courteous, and relevant.

NOVEMBER 2008 Download PDF

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 8/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

MORE ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE

Bonhoeffer: A Christology for

today

The words of this young theologian are as

relevant today as they were when he first
wrote and spoke them in the twentieth
century.

Recognizing abuse for what it is:

A personal story

Domestic violence is a crime that occurs far

more often than most people realize. As hard
as it may be to believe, it's probably
happening in your church.

A conversation with Jamaican

pastors

Multichurch district pastors in Jamaica

explain how they handle different ministry
challenges.

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 9/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

Reaching the secular world

The church, which no longer has the kind of

cultural support it once enjoyed, must now
take its gospel message to this radically new
world. How is this best accomplished?

The Joseph factor

Every age has had its own approach to the

study and practice of leadership. For us as
Christian leaders, our approach should begin
with the Bible. The Word of God has more to
offer on the subject of leadership than one
would imagine. One way to focus on the
biblical concept of leadership consists of
studying the lives of its great men and
women. This article features a study on the
leadership lessons we may glean from the
life of Joseph. Together they form what we
may call the Joseph factor. The Joseph factor
will cluster seven essential leadership skills
and engage them with today's research on
leadership. First, however, we should lay out
our assumptions regarding how Scripture
will be handled in our study.

Letters to the Editor

VIEW ALL ISSUE CONTENTS

DIGITAL DELIVERY

If you're a print subscriber, we'll complement your print copy of

Ministry with an electronic version.

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 10/11
18/07/2023, 14:56 Ministry Magazine | A theological approach to pastoral leadership today

SIGN UP

RECENT ISSUES See All

LATEST VIDEOS See All

MinistryMagazine.org is an official website of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church

© 2023 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

12501 Old Columbia Pike Silver Spring , MD 20904 USA 301-680-6000

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2008/11/a-theological-approach-to-pastoral-leadership-today.html 11/11