Yesterday afternoon, I met with a younger pastor and mission leader here in Austin. We grabbed a cold frosty beverage and settled into one of those conversations that quickly move past small talk and into the deeper questions of calling, leadership, and life. He came with a notebook full of questions. I came with a drink and a couple of decades of ministry experience.
At one point in the conversation, I had a slightly strange realization. Apparently, I have become the kind of person younger leaders come to for wisdom.
That is still a little hard for me to believe!
I genuinely enjoy those conversations. I have stories now. Some are encouraging. Some are painful. Most were learned slowly through trial and error, mistakes, and the quiet faithfulness of many people who invested in me along the way.
But if I am being honest, internally, I still feel about twenty-four years old. I still feel like the young guy asking questions, trying to figure out what God is doing, wondering if I am thinking about things the right way. I suspect that feeling never really goes away. You simply accumulate more experience while still feeling like you are learning the basics.
As we talked, the conversation moved across leadership, family, suffering, mission, and the future of the church. Today, I found myself reflecting on what we discussed. A handful of lessons kept resurfacing in my mind. None of them is revolutionary. Most are simply the kind of wisdom that becomes clearer after you live long enough to see patterns repeat themselves. What follows is mostly the wandering of my mind, not a prioritized list or cohesive argument.
Build the Right Disciplines Early
One of the first things that came to mind is how much the disciplines you build early in life tend to stay with you. In your twenties and thirties, you are quietly establishing patterns that will follow you for decades. Your habits of prayer, Scripture, physical health, friendship, and work rhythm begin to form grooves in the soul.
This is why investing in your physical body matters more than many ministry leaders realize, especially in the years when you have younger kids. Ministry is not a sprint. It is a long obedience in the same direction. If your body fails, your capacity to serve others diminishes as well. Stewardship of the body is not vanity. It is preparation for endurance.
Spiritual disciplines matter just as much, if not more. Scripture, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, solitude, the Lord’s Supper, and worship are means of grace God has given his people. They are the ordinary places where God reveals himself and strengthens us for the work he has called us to. We act so that we can be acted upon.
The disciplines you build now will likely be the disciplines you carry for the rest of your life.
Prepare Yourself for Suffering
Leadership in the kingdom of God inevitably involves suffering. It comes through criticism, misunderstanding, disappointment, failure, and sometimes deep grief.
Scripture is remarkably honest about this. Paul tells Timothy to share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 2:3). Peter reminds believers not to be surprised by fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12).
Over time, I have come to believe that one of the most remarkable evidences of the Holy Spirit in a leader’s life is the ability to suffer with joy. The raw material for long-term leadership is resilience. Leaders who cannot endure suffering will struggle to lead in God’s kingdom for the long haul. And even more so, suffering with joy is RARE. Training and preparation for these moments will help the power of God be on display, not only your raw responses to circumstances. And it’s genuinely encouraging when people experience that kind of heart.
Resilience develops slowly as God forms character through difficulty.
Be Yourself and Steward Your Gifts
Early in leadership, it is easy to compare yourself with others. You see people who preach better, lead larger organizations, or seem more gifted in certain areas.
Comparison can rob you of faithfulness.
Every leader has a different calling, a different personality, and a different set of gifts. Your responsibility is not to become someone else. Your responsibility is to steward what God has given you. And the Lord will entrust faithful servants with more (and less!) in His time.
There is something deeply freeing about realizing you do not have to be the best at everything. God distributes gifts across his people. Other leaders will step into areas where they are stronger than you. That is not a threat to leadership. It is part of how the body of Christ works (1 Corinthians 12:4–7).
Faithfulness matters far more than comparison.
Keep Your Callings in the Right Order
One framework that has helped me over the years is a simple ordering of callings. I could write a lot on this, but the simple question I asked myself and God’s Word was, “What am I responsible for?” When difficult decisions arise, I often think about life in this sequence.
- Disciple
- Husband
- Father
- Pastor or Elder
- Employee
The call to follow Jesus comes first. Your relationship with Christ is the foundation of everything else. Next comes your covenant with your spouse, then your responsibility to your children, and then your ministry and work responsibilities.
Scripture gives particular weight to leadership in the home. Paul tells Timothy that an elder must manage his household well (1 Timothy 3:4–5). None of us can save our children. Only God can do that. But we can teach them wisdom and model what it looks like to fear the Lord. Proverbs reminds us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).
Your home becomes one of the first places where that wisdom is lived out. But your kingdom assignment and vocational calling are also responsibilities and remain priorities!
Treasure Old Friendships
Someone once told me something that has proven to be very true. You cannot make old friends.
Time does something to friendship that cannot be replicated quickly. Shared history builds trust and depth that newer relationships simply have not yet developed.
Leadership can be lonely at times, especially in seasons where responsibilities grow heavier. Old friendships become anchors in those moments. They remind you who you were before the titles and responsibilities accumulated.
Those friendships are worth protecting and maintaining. Finding the folks who are easy to slide back into honest and vulnerable relationships is more valuable over time.
Stay Curious
Young leaders often feel pressure to appear confident. The best leaders I know ask a lot of questions.
Learning often moves through stages. First, you realize you do not know something and begin asking questions. Then you begin to apply what you have learned. Over time, principles and frameworks begin to emerge that guide future decisions.
Curiosity carries you through those stages.
Ask questions. Seek feedback. Pay attention to where you learn best. Many of the seasons when I have grown the most were moments when I quietly thought to myself, “I am not sure I know what I am doing.”
Those moments often become the places where God does his deepest work, and you’ll be surprised by who you might learn those lessons from.
Discern Your Role in the Mission
Our conversation eventually turned to mission and the different kinds of leadership the church requires. Some leaders are called to pioneer new works. Others are called to shepherd and deepen existing communities.
Both are necessary.
Missiologist Ralph Winter described two redemptive structures in the church. The local church nurtures and deepens believers’ faith. Apostolic bands push the gospel into new places and new peoples.
One deepens the kingdom, and the other expands it.
Healthy tension between the two strengthens the church. But trying to do both at once can be extremely difficult. Pioneering requires resilience and flexibility. Shepherding requires stability and long-term presence.
Part of leadership maturity is discerning which role God is asking you to play in a given season, and also showing grace and charity towards other callings.
Remember That Humility Matters Most
One of the more humbling lessons of leadership is realizing that your influence is probably smaller than you think. This one has been recent for me.
When you sit in decision-making rooms or carry visible responsibility, it can feel like your voice carries enormous weight. Sometimes it does. But the kingdom of God often advances through quiet faithfulness rather than through visible ministry or organizational influence.
Jesus reminded his disciples that the greatest in the kingdom are those who serve (Mark 10:43–45).
The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I realize the wrestling never really goes away. Questions remain. Challenges continue. Each new season introduces uncertainties we did not anticipate. But something deeper begins to form over time.
You begin to trust that God is at work in the slow process of formation. You learn that resilience grows through suffering. You begin to see that faithfulness over decades matters far more than quick success. And perhaps most encouraging of all, you begin to believe that the next generation of leaders will carry the work even further.
I’m not passing a baton just yet, but I do deeply want to be the kind of leader for others I often didn’t have – accessible, humble, honest, encouraging, chastening, and most of all, wise.
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