I remember a few years ago getting a call from a fellow church planter, and he said, “This is the first time in the history of our church that we are behind in budget; what do I do? How do I talk about giving without sounding desperate?”

If you’re a leader, you’ve had times when you felt unprepared for the moment of leadership required.

There are different leadership muscles.

There is a muscle that starts things, manages things, closes things down. There is a muscle to make a change, create a legacy, honor the past, and see the future. There is a muscle that leads through a crisis.

And something I’ve seen over this past year: there is a certain leadership muscle to lead while a church is growing and momentum is everywhere; and a different leadership muscle when it is not growing and there is no momentum.

Often, when they hit a new season or a new challenge, I think leaders can shrink from it. They can try to pull from the playbook that worked before instead of learning how to navigate a new season, a new challenge, or a new world.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you grow your leadership muscles for new challenges:

1. Stay humble and listen. The older we get as leaders, the easier it is to think we know it all. We’ve done things, grown things, accomplished great things, so we’ve got this. And while some of that may be true, we need to stay humble and listen. In humility we can hear others, we can hear God, but we can also hear the rumblings in our own hearts. I often think in transitions and difficulties, leaders know what to do but are afraid to do it. Staying humble and listening can help a leader have the fortitude to move forward. 
2. Learn from anyone. Often as pastors we tend to learn only from other pastors. But as we navigate new seasons we can and should learn from anyone. This is part of humility. If we aren’t humble we can start to think we have done it all before. This might cause us to dismiss a younger staff member and their ideas. Or, we might think that the person who is questioning things “isn’t bought in” when the reality is they may see something we don’t. 
3. Experiment. If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that we can and should experiment. Our teams and people are more ready for it than we give them credit. As we move in and out of challenges and seasons, as leaders we should get really good at saying, “We’re going to try this…” and see how it goes. 

As we develop new muscles as leaders, we also develop new muscles for our churches and teams. This is incredibly important because we need resilient teams and churches that can thrive in many environments and challenges. 

Leaders and pastors live with a tension that everyone experiences in life, but is different on an organizational level.

It is the tension of the in-between. Pastors lead and live in the now of the church, but also with what could be: their vision for the future and where things are going, or where they’d like them to be.

As a leader, you walk into a room and see what is, but also what it could be. This is positive and exciting but it can also be deflating at different times. 

A leader often knows what is coming, the changes that are going to be made, the momentum that can be had because of those steps, but often has to wait. It might be waiting on a new hire, waiting for things to settle down at a church or for the summer season to end so you can get started.

As a leader, right now you are stuck with this tension. And it won’t go away. It will simply shift to something new. Six months from now you will be waiting on something different to happen.

If you aren’t careful as a pastor, this tension can rob you of the joy of leading. It can also make you miss what is happening in your church right now. 

Here are 5 ways to survive this tension & thrive in it:

1. Enjoy where you are. This is hard for leaders because we are wired to keep moving. But, you are in a certain season, embrace it. Your church is a certain size, enjoy it. There are things a small church can do that a larger church can’t and vice versa. This is the battle of contentment for leaders and if we lose it, it will rob us of our joy. 

2. Make sure things are in place for what is next. Many pastors, by nature, are not strong planners. They often fly by their seat, spend a lot of time focused on people and find themselves behind the curve on something. This is why it is so important to make time to work on your church, not just in it. If you are growing, do you have enough groups for people? Are you prepared to add classes for kids? What about parking spaces?

3. Start looking past what is next. At some point, you need to start preparing for what comes after what is next. Meaning, you just grew your church plant to 100 people and are on your way to 200, you need to begin thinking about what your church will be like at 400. Why? There’s a good chance you will do something at 200 to keep you from growing to 400. The same is true as people are coming back to church and you are regathering people after covid. Are you doing anything right now that can slow down momentum? Too often we simply do things and we don’t pull back to ask if they will help us or hinder us from what is next. 

4. Listen to the fears that people have. As you are making plans and getting key leaders on board for what is next, you will run into someone who is not excited about what is next and may even hold you back. This person is not the enemy, although you will think they are. They may be crucial to slowing you down (which might be good), they might be God’s way of helping you grow as a leader, or you might be God’s way of helping them grow through their fears. Each person and situation is different, but don’t disregard someone who is not as excited as you are about what is next. You should always be more excited than everyone else, you’re the leader. For me, I’ve had to learn to pay attention to the hesitancy or questions of others as they have helped me when I overlooked something or was moving too quickly. 

5. Plan for what is next. All growth means change. If your church gets larger, changes are coming. You will need to hand things off to people. Leaders who worked well in a church of 100 won’t be the leaders you need at 400 and beyond. Your schedule will be busier, which will make sermon prep, meeting with people and strategizing harder because you will need to plan better. Everything is different at each stage of your church. Many leaders blindly walk into the next season, get busier and burn out because they haven’t planned for what is next. So make sure that you are regularly pulling back to look at your top priorities as a leader and your schedule to ask, “Is this sustainable? Am I doing the right things? What do I need to pass off to others? Who do I need to develop?”

Lots of things matter in leadership. A leader must do many things: there are tasks they must complete and characteristics or traits they must have.

If you look at effective leaders you will often find similarities between them, regardless of age or experience.

Here are 4 things that really matter in leadership but are often overlooked.

1. Body language. We all know that feeling: the feeling that we are talking to someone, trying to connect with them, and they aren’t listening. Maybe they are scrolling on their phone, thinking about something else, or just waiting for us to stop talking so they can jump in.

How does that feel?

It’s deflating. It makes us feel uncared for. It tells us there are people or things that are more important than us.

Leaders do this all the time in meetings. I know it is a constant battle for me. What makes a leader successful is they often know something before the rest of the group. They know (or think they know) what someone might say, what the group will decide, what the right decision is, or what the way forward is. Thus, it is easy for a leader to tune out or rush things in a meeting because of this intuitiveness.

This can happen by cutting the conversation short, looking bored, picking up your phone, or any number of ways. But your body language and your movements communicate, and they communicate loudly.

This has become an even bigger deal in the last year with more and more meetings moving onto Zoom. Your face is bigger and more obvious now than ever before.

There is nothing worse than sitting in a meeting and thinking, “That person doesn’t want to be here. They are just waiting for this thing to end.”

This means as a leader, wherever you are, be there. If you need to be in fewer meetings so you are more present in the ones you are in, do so. If you need to schedule more breaks in your day to recharge yourself, do so. Turn your phone over and turn off your notifications so that you can give your attention to the people in front of you.

Your body language not only sets the tone of the meeting and communicates to your team how you feel, but it also tells your team what is expected of them and what they can and can’t do.

2. Clarity. Patrick Lencioni says, “A leader is to create clarity, communicate clarity, and then over-communicate clarity.”

Clarity, clarity, clarity.

Is this overkill? No.

Leaders often think, “If it’s clear to me, it’s clear to everyone.” Or, “I always talk about why we do what we do.”

The reality is, though, you don’t. And people forget.

A pastor or leader must continually say, “We are doing ____ because ______.”

If you aren’t a leader it is incredibly deflating if you don’t know why you are doing something. Suppose you don’t see any value or movement on something. You start to wonder, what is the point?

Not only does clarity matter, you must also communicate the correct things. There is no faster way to lose credibility than to say things that aren’t true or are disingenuous. Clarity must be communicated about where a church or organization is, not where you think it is or where you’d like it to be. Data doesn’t tell the whole story but it does tell part of the story. If your church isn’t growing, face it, and be clear about why and how to move forward. If something isn’t working, be honest about it. If it is working, celebrate that and make it better.

Make no mistake; you are already communicating clarity about something. You celebrate something on your team. You track one thing but not another. You celebrate certain people for certain things and overlook other people for other things.

That’s clarity.

Regularly a leader must ask, “Are we tracking, celebrating, and going after the right things?” It is easy to focus on short-term things instead of the long game. That doesn’t make those things wrong, but you have to evaluate if you are clear about the right thing periodically.

3. Lasting. If you’ve been a pastor or ministry leader any length of time, you know someone who is no longer in the leadership game. Maybe they burned out; maybe they slept with someone they weren’t married to; maybe they made poor decisions financially; or they got discouraged and threw in the towel.

Now, there are times we should step out of being a leader. Maybe it is a season where you take a break or do something else. I know many ministry leaders in the last year who got tired and transitioned into other fields. That isn’t what I’m talking about here.

I’m talking about the small ways we sabotage ourselves and the leadership, taking us out of the game, things that end our run before it should end.

Pastor, it is your job to watch your soul; guard your marriage; eat well; sleep well; and get enough exercise. It is your job to make sure you are filling yourself so that you can fill others.

How we do this and what it involves will often depend on our life stage, needs, and personality. I’m a creature of habit so I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch. Part of that is tracking my macros, but also, if I don’t have to think about those things I’m saving mental energy for other things.

One thing leaders need to think more about is the rhythm of their weeks. When are they the freshest or the most tired? When do they run out of steam each day, and when should they finish work? Knowing this will help you figure out which meetings or tasks don’t take as much mental energy as others. Do those in the times when you are the most tired.

Make sure that what matters most gets on your calendar first. Schedule in breaks and make sure you look ahead to see what is coming up to make sure you don’t stack busy weeks and months on top of each other.

4. Passion. If one thing has become clear over this past year, it is that it takes a lot of energy and stamina to be excited. Yes, there hasn’t been a lot to be excited about. The last year with covid, the election and a whole list of other things have made it difficult to be passionate about leading anything. Many of the things we used to do have been taken away and we aren’t certain what the future will hold.

But leader don’t forget: you set the tone for your team and church when it comes to passion and excitement.

Maybe you need to change the goals you had as a team or start something new. Maybe you need to learn from someone else who is blazing a new trail, or watch a leadership talk that will fire you up. But you must remind yourself why you do what you do.

One of my favorite things at our church is to stand out in the courtyard and watch people get baptized. To see the tears, the hugs from families, to watch parents baptize their kids, and to hear people talk about their stories. It inspires me every time and reminds me, “This is why I do what I do, to see lives changed by the gospel.”

Whatever that is for you, please find it and remind yourself, often.

You must keep your passion high. Yes, it’s hard to do. Leading is tiring. Covid has exhausted us all. But we need you to stay in the game. Your church needs your passion and vision.

Never forget: if you are a leader right now, God has wired you to lead at this moment, in this time. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you’ve got this.

All leaders know this feeling.

Someone you have poured into walks out on you or doesn’t keep their word. A staff member, boss, or board member lies to you. You open up to someone about what is happening in you, and they don’t keep that. You share an audacious dream or calling, and someone starts out supporting you but then stops.

Betrayal.

Being personally let down.

Gossip.

Every leader knows this feeling too well.

Even those who aren’t leaders know this feeling. But I want to focus on what to do when you are a leader.

A simple response is to pull back. To never trust again, to not open yourself up to the possibility, and many choose this path. I know I have several times in my life. It feels more comfortable, and in the short term, it is. It keeps us walled off and allows us “just to lead.”

In the long term, though, it stunts our leadership and their leadership.

First, you.

You must wrestle with a few things in this moment and situation.

1. Where do you hurt? Locate what hurts. Where in your body does this hurt? What does that tell you about what is going on in you? Too often as leaders, we simply push through things and not articulate where something hurts. Does your heartache? Stomach? Head?
2. Why do you hurt? Understanding this gets into the narratives of our lives and the family that we grew up in, but you need to engage this. Once when I felt let down by someone I trusted, I had to articulate that it hurt because of never feeling like older leaders believed in me and the mark that had made in my life, the jealousy I had felt towards other leaders who had mentors. While I was letdown and had reason to be upset, it had more to do with me at that moment. Sometimes figuring this out will take a trust counselor or friend.
3. How do you protect against bitterness? As bitterness grows in your heart, joy leaves. Bitterness also makes it incredibly difficult for you to see things as they are because you will simply see everyone and everything around you through that lens.
4. How do you trust and hope again? I think hope is the battleground for every leader and one we must engage with daily, but don’t lose hope. You must put practices into place that keep you hopeful, that keep you in the place of dreaming, that keep you refreshed as a leader so that you can lead well and not from a place of cynicism.

And second, what about their leadership?

This is where the difficult conversation comes in. None of us like hard conversations, but they have to be had, especially in leadership. I think having healthy, hard conversations, is one thing that separates leaders in life.

If someone has betrayed you, someone has stabbed you in the back, not kept their word, lied to you, bailed on your dream, or simply let you down. You need to say something to them.

What happens after this moment for you as a leader will determine a lot. I have watched my leadership stall out because of being weighed down by hurt and bitterness. This doesn’t mean that you pretend it didn’t happen or didn’t hurt, but if you have been wired as a leader and called to lead, fulfill that. Know that hits are part of the road. Difficulties will come. Don’t be surprised by them, and don’t let them take you out of the game.

I want you to pull out a piece of paper. Not your phone. I want to invite you to set some time aside to look at your soul, to see what’s happening in you. 

2020 is not normal. What you are walking through, what you are leading through, no one has led through a pandemic with the access to technology that we have. That adds a layer of complexity, and if we’re honest, exhaustion. 

To see what’s going on in you, I want you to write down how you have felt over the last several months. What is going on in you?

For me, in the last few months, the best words to describe it are deflated and sad. Like there is a huge cloud hanging over my year. The guy who led me to Christ died from covid. We’ve had friends lose their job. If you’re a pastor, you are carrying all kinds of weight about your church and leading them through this season. 

According to Barna, let’s see if other pastors said what you wrote down. According to Barna, when they asked pastors how they are feeling: 

• 51% said tired
• 41% are exhausted
• 39% are panicked 

I talked a pastor this week who leads a church of 400, and he said: 100 people want us to require masks, 100 people don’t want masks, 200 people don’t care. He said I feel like my church is splitting at the seams right now. 

31% of pastors say they are struggling with their well-being. 68% say they feel overwhelmed by the task of leading right now. 

Not only are we facing a pandemic, but a difficult economy, racial tensions that many have ignored for too long, and an election on the horizon.

The reason I say this and have you write it down is that as people, as leaders, we must name what is going on in us. 

Naming things takes away its power, and until we name it, we can’t change it, because we can’t take responsibility for what is false. 

The other reason naming things is essential, is until we do, we don’t know where we are asking God to meet us. Are we asking God to meet us in our exhaustion, hopelessness, sadness, depression, depletion, are we asking God to meet us in our hope, our joy?

But we also can’t lead our people forward without naming them. 

And right now, our people need our leadership. Those stats are true for your people as well. They are tired, exhausted, panicked, they are struggling with their well-being, and feel overwhelmed by life right now.

Maybe for you, you need to name losses you have experienced this year. We aren’t very good at experiencing loss and grieving those losses, but they are a crucial part of our maturity and becoming more like Christ.

To re-evaluate, refocus, and realign, you have to look at where you are. Until you do, you can’t move forward. 

So here are some questions to help you meet Jesus in this place and care for your soul:

• What is God teaching you as a leader right now?
• What is God revealing to you about your church? A crisis has a way of showing our cracks, as well as our strengths. What strengths and weaknesses have been revealed in you or your church during this season?

Many of us are feeling off-kilter, or even excited, because God is revealing some areas of weakness in our churches, he is showing us some new things.

It is difficult to lead when you are tired, exhausted, panicked, but here we are. Many of us are don’t have a full tank or even a half-full tank. 

How would you rate your spiritual practices? On your paper, let’s evaluate ourselves:

• How is your prayer time? Your Bible reading?
• How’s your sleep?
• How are your eating habits?
• How are you doing with exercise?
• If you’re married, how’s your marriage? Your intimacy with your spouse? I’ve had countless pastors tell me their struggle with porn is stronger than before. 

What is one thing you will change to experience renewal in the next week?

Don’t shoot for three things, just one. Look for one way to care for your soul and meet Jesus in a deeper place this coming week.