Most books on leadership focus on what a leader is and what a leader can do to improvehimself or herself as a leader. After 50 years of pastoral leadership in various capacities as aLead Pastor, Executive Pastor, District Superintendent, Adjunct College and Seminary professor, Conference Speaker and Consultant I have come to the conclusion that the most importantaspect of leadership is how the leader engages and serves his/her ministry colleagues and thelarger church constituency. Transformative leaders have the uncanny ability to relate well to alllevels of leadership in the church, the staff, governing board, ministry leaders and congregationalmembers. Most pastors are good theologians; many, however, suffer from a lack of knowinghow to engage with others in a relational capacity that reflects the clear teaching of God's word.They know and preach with their heads, but their hearts are unresponsive to the biblical andsignificantly practical truths that are essential for building a strong team of motivated colleagues.
In working with governing boards, pastoral staffs, and churches in trouble, I've discovered thatmany church leaders and pastors do not know how to put the interests and passions of theirministry colleagues before their own interests and passions. A lack of valuing the passions andgifts of other staff/lay leaders keeps pastors and churches from reaching their full potential.Improving the way we interact with one another as a ministry team may address the current crisisin many evangelical movements where more than 20 churches close every day, 15 pastors leave theministry every day and 80-90 % of many long-established churches are plateaued or declining. Unfortunately, Covid 19 has exacerbated this downward trend. Other-centered Leadership is myattempt to call church leaders back to the biblical basics of leadership that many well-intentionedleaders tend to forget or worse yet, refuse to practice in their relationships with fellow teammembers. Our relationship with God and the way we treat our ministry colleagues is a mirror intoour heart's motivations and desires. My prayer is that these simple principles gleaned from God'sword and interaction with hundreds of leaders will stimulate a new generation of pastoral leaderswho will "treat others better than themselves" for the glory of God.