Ten years ago, I wrote a post titled “10 Lessons from 1 Year in Pastoral Ministry.” When I look back at that article, I actually don’t cringe as much as I thought I would! Much of what I said still resonates (though there was certainly a little more spunky idealism in my 31 year-old self). Now, a decade later, I want to share ONE lesson from 11 years. Hopefully I’ve learned more than one thing. But this is the most important thing that following Jesus while serving as a pastor has taught me…

The primary task of a leader is to not change the world, the church, your family, or even yourself. It’s to be changed by Jesus.

Pete Scazzero has done an exceptional job of exploring the “iceberg” of leadership and argues in his book, “The Emotionally Healthy Leader,” that the inner life of a leader is more important than his or her outer behaviors, production, and results (If you have never read this book, I HIGHLY recommend it).

One of the reasons that resources like this are so vitally important for leaders is that the gravity of emphasis in our lives and leadership consistently tends to migrate towards our outer “ministry” and not our inner health and communion with Jesus. But the other pattern I’ve observed among leaders, and part of why this one thing has become so significant in my life and leadership, is that we vastly over-estimate our ability to affect change in other people.

Pastors and leaders are inundated with resources and ads for conferences with headlines like “how to grow your church!” Call it cynicism, call it wisdom (perhaps it’s a combination of the two), but I mostly just roll my eyes when I see language like that. It sounds good. It sells tickets and gets eyeballs (which in an attention economy is everything). But it feels simplistic and honestly a little arrogant.

For one, we tend to always equate “growth” with numbers (the Bible never, not one time, refers to fruitfulness in terms of numbers, which ought to tell us something), but two, spiritual growth is mysterious and collaborative – it involves human participation but “God causes the growth” (1 Cor. 3).

An unknown monk in the 12^th century is attributed with saying: “When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

That is absolute gold. And the only slight amendment I would make is that we can’t even change ourselves! At least not by ourselves. We have a role to play, to be sure, but true spiritual formation never comes as the result of only our efforts.

My point here, though, is to say the primary task as a leader is to put yourself in the presence of God and say, “start with me…. Jesus, I pray you would change my family, my church, my town… and sure, the world! But START with ME.” And hey, maybe that could be the subject of the next church leader conference 🙂