Article
Leading Without Losing Heart
Pastoring and church planting carries deep joy and heavy strain—but losing heart doesn’t have to be the cost. Here are five ways you can remain faithful, healthy, and spiritually alive for the long haul.
In Season and Out of Season
Leadership—especially pastoral leadership and church planting—is both a sacred privilege and a profound weight. It invites you into moments of breathtaking joy and gut-wrenching sorrow, often in the same week, sometimes in the same conversation. It gives you a front row seat to the grace of God at work in broken lives, while simultaneously exposing you to criticism, misunderstanding, loneliness, and decisions that keep you awake long after the house has gone quiet.
There are seasons when leading feels exhilarating. And there are seasons when it feels exhausting—when discouragement settles in, weariness clings to your soul, and you quietly wonder how long you can keep going.
Not If, But When
So, the question is not whether leaders will face pressure and hardship. The question is this: How do we lead without losing heart?
Below are five convictions that have become anchors for me—practical, hard-won lessons that I believe can help pastors and church planters stay faithful, healthy, and spiritually alive for the long haul.
1. Lead from Intimacy, Not Productivity
Everything about who we are is directly connected to whose we are. Yet ministry has a subtle way of shifting our center of gravity—from intimacy with God to productivity for God. We begin measuring our faithfulness by output, numbers, results, and visible impact.
I often ask myself: If God said to me, “Okay, that’s it. I don’t need you to do another thing for Me,” would I be okay? Would I still feel secure? Loved? Known?
That question exposes what I’m really living for.
Our value is not found in what we produce, but in who we belong to. We are sons before we are servants. Friends of God before we are workers in His vineyard. When intimacy is replaced with activity, ministry becomes a treadmill that never stops, and eventually, it crushes the soul.
Leading without losing heart means returning again and again to a place of quiet, honest communion with God—not to prepare sermons, solve problems, or plan strategies, but simply to be with Him. When intimacy leads, productivity becomes fruit, not a substitute for relationship.
2. Know and Accept Your Limits
Most of us are far busier than we realize—and far more limited than we want to admit.
Growing up, I spent many summers in Jamaica as my family traveled back home. Life there moved at a different pace. People walked slower. Conversations lasted longer. Anxiety seemed lower. Each visit provided a stark contrast to the rushed, overscheduled, hyper-productive culture I returned to in America.
In ministry, we often hide our busyness under spiritual language. We confuse restlessness with faithfulness and wear exhaustion like a badge of honor. But Scripture never celebrates ignoring our limits. Our bodies are weak, fragile, and finite.
I’ve noticed a painful pattern in my own life: nearly every time I ended up in sin, burnout, or a deep emotional ditch, it was connected to pushing myself beyond my limits—and then reaching for something unhealthy to provide the rest I had refused to receive.
If you don’t want to lose yourself in the ministry, you must know your limits within the ministry. That means listening to your body, prioritizing sleep, practicing Sabbath, and caring for your physical and emotional health.
I’ve learned this the hard way: an unrested, spiritually disconnected, overworked, and highly irritable version of me is not a gift to my wife, my children, my church, or anyone else.
3. Embrace Grief Instead of Avoiding It
Scripture describes Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3ESV). If that was true of the sinless Son of God, how much more will it be true of those who follow Him?
Ministry brings real grief—disappointments, betrayals, losses, unmet expectations, and seasons where prayers seem unanswered. Learning to clothe yourself in sackcloth and ashes does not mean your faith is weak or that you are less spiritual. It means you are human.
The leader who does not learn to process grief will eventually lose himself in the waves of ministry. When grief is ignored or suppressed, it doesn’t disappear—it leaks out sideways. We begin to self-protect, surround ourselves with yes-men, numb ourselves with distractions, or reach for false comforts.
Unprocessed grief creates empty spaces within our hearts—and the enemy is always eager to fill those voids we refuse to address.
Leading without losing heart requires the courage to slow down, name our pain, and bring it honestly before God and the people we trust. Grief, when embraced and processed, becomes a doorway to deeper dependence, tenderness, and spiritual maturity.
4. Live Within the Gift of Community
Community within the local church is not optional—it is a given. God has placed us and our families among His people, and that is a sacred gift. But pastors and church planters also need another layer of community.
There is a unique grace found in being connected to other pastors and church planting couples—people who get it without explanation. My wife and I have experienced this deeply through Send Network. When we are with other church planters, we don’t have to translate our lives or soften our struggles. It’s similar to parents being around other parents; there’s an unspoken understanding. Shared pressures. Shared language. Shared burdens.
Isolation is one of the most dangerous conditions for leaders. God never designed us to carry the weight of ministry alone. There is healing, strength, and perspective that only comes when we are known, supported, and prayed for by others who are walking the same road.
5. Remember the Glory That Awaits Us
Paul told the early church, “It is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Suffering is not an interruption to the calling—it is woven into it.
In another place, Paul writes that we commend ourselves as God’s ministers through endurance, afflictions, sleepless nights, hunger, and hardship—yet always by the power of the Holy Spirit and through sincere love. There is a holy suffering that accompanies leadership on the frontlines. We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
This calling is a stewardship entrusted to us by Christ. And one day, at the appointed time, we will return home. We will lay down the weight. We will see clearly. And we will receive a crown that does not perish.
To the Faithful Servant
If you are weary today, exhale. Release your tears. God sees you. He is not indifferent to your labor or blind to your pain. Lead on without losing heart. Your well done is coming.
