We need to talk about how we are leading our churches.
Spoiler alert—it often isn’t good.
When we look at the various models of leadership across the Church, there is clear evidence of ill health and dysfunction. Yet we rarely address it until something breaks or the pain of staying the same becomes too great to ignore.
Part of the reason for this is that we often don’t see it. And if you can’t see it, you can’t address it. We are often blinded by familiarity. We are so shaped by the leadership culture we belong to that it simply feels normal. We may feel the frustrations of the system, but we assume, “This is just how ministry is,” or “Nothing will change.”
So, how do we see what we can’t see? We begin by looking at the fruit our systems produce. Every leadership model produces results. Every culture shapes behaviour. Every system has consequences.
When we step back and look across the Church, two recurring patterns become impossible to ignore.
The first is the church that has stalled. Leaders feel stuck, stifled, or despondent. They work hard but struggle to gain momentum. Over time, frustration leads to fatigue and resignation, and sometimes even to questioning their calling. This can occur in churches of any size, but it is often felt more acutely in smaller churches because they do not have the numerical buffer that larger churches do. Leaders are left wondering, “How do we get ahead? How do we get some ministry traction?”
The second is almost the opposite: a church that is growing, where influence is increasing, and from the outside everything appears healthy. The church or leader may even be held up as a model for others to follow. The problem is that beneath the surface the cost is mounting. It may be the cost to the leader, their family, the staff, volunteers, or the culture of the church itself. It may take years but eventually something ruptures. People are left asking, “How did this happen?” or “Why did nobody see it?” or “If there was such a problem, why did no one say anything?”
At first glance, these appear to be very different stories. One church is struggling. The other appears to be thriving. Yet both often share the same underlying problem. They both struggle to produce healthy fruit. One struggles to produce fruit. The other produces fruit that cannot be sustained.
A version of each plays out across the wider Church spectrum. The names and details may change but the underlying patterns are remarkably similar. They point to something deeper than individual leaders or isolated decisions. They point to something unhealthy in the leadership system itself.
Nobody wants this and nobody intends it, but it keeps happening. What both occurrences point to is the same issue: a leadership system that had never been honestly examined.
The good news is that systems can be changed. The difficulty is that to change it, it first has to be seen. This isn’t easy, especially because sometimes we are highly invested in maintaining the system. When we are born into a system, trained by it, and surrounded by others who lead in the same way, it simply feels normal. Every leadership tradition carries assumptions about how authority should be exercised, how decisions should be made, and what good leadership looks like. Over time, those assumptions become so familiar that we stop noticing them. We adapt to our leadership tradition and learn to work with it. We even begin to defend it. Instead of asking whether the system is healthy, we assume this is simply how church leadership works.
Sometimes we don’t question the system because it appears to be working. In fact, we often try to accelerate it. We assume that growth means health. When a church is growing, it can feel like the favour of God, and who wants to question that? Growth, influence, and momentum can convince us that everything must be healthy. As history painfully reminds us, success can hide dysfunction far more effectively than failure can.
If we are serious about leading well, we need to be willing to step back and examine not only ourselves, but the health of the system shaping us. Until we do that, we will continue producing the same results, however unintended they may be.
That is why every leadership model, no matter how fruitful or familiar it appears, needs to remain open to genuine review. This brings us to what I believe is one of the most overlooked aspects of church leadership.
We often focus on the wellbeing of the leader, and rightly so. I have spent much of my ministry helping pastors become mentally, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually healthy. I also believe that the wellbeing of the leader tends to unlock the flourishing of the church. By wellbeing, I am not just referring to whether a pastor is well rested. Wellbeing here, refers to the self-awareness, emotional maturity and intelligence, of the leader as well as whether they are operating from their area of giftedness and calling. The leader needs to be healthy if the church is to be healthy. You have probably heard the saying, “As goes the leader, so goes the church”.
There is, however, another reality that I have seen that is just as important: the health of the system controls them both. When a healthy, resilient leader is placed in an unhealthy system, the system will win every time. The leader becomes worn down and discouraged or indoctrinated and self-referential. Equally, an unhealthy leader can create a system that limits the wellbeing and effectiveness of everyone around them. The two continually influence each other.
If we want healthy churches, we need more than healthy leaders. We also need healthy leadership systems.
In this paper, I want us to step back and look at the leadership system through the lens of a relational system. A church, after all, is made up of people. It is an interdependent relational system. Each part needs the others, and each part influences the others. When each is playing their part in a relationally healthy way, the church flourishes, and healthy fruit is produced.
It is the quality of those relationships – how power is used, how authority is exercised, how accountability is held, how people are supported, and how concerns are heard – that will either strengthen or weaken the life of the church.
Put simply, every church or Christian organisation has three key parts within its leadership system: the leader, the people, and governance. Each has an essential part to play, but it is the quality of the relationships between them that determines the health of the system.
The leader establishes direction, shapes culture, and creates the environment in which others minister.
The people – this is usually the staff and volunteer team – carry out much of the day-to-day ministry and mission of the church.
Thos responsible for governance – whether called elders, trustees, a board, or a church council – are responsible for supporting the leader, monitoring the health of the whole system, and providing appropriate accountability.
None of these exist in isolation.
The health of the church is not determined simply by how well each part functions individually, but by the quality of the relationships between them. Healthy churches are built on healthy relational dynamics. Unhealthy dynamics eventually produce unhealthy outcomes, no matter how gifted the people within the system may be.
When one relationship becomes unhealthy, the others are inevitably affected. Trust diminishes, anxiety grows and spreads, communication deteriorates, and the whole system feels the strain.
Conversely, when these relationships are healthy, they reinforce one another. Trust grows. Honest conversations become normal. People know where they stand. Leadership becomes clearer. The church becomes a healthier place in which to worship, serve, and lead.
Over the coming weeks, we will look at each part of this church system and, more importantly, the relationships between them. We will examine what is needed for each to function well, some of the common signs that the system is becoming unhealthy, and how to strengthen the system to support health and fruitfulness.
