In 2014, I stepped into the senior pastor role at Providence City. I was blindsided. I looked at my new church and thought, I’m responsible for about the same number of people as before (as an associate pastor), how hard can it be? I figured it would take three to six months to get used to the senior role. It didn’t. At the three-month mark I realised it was harder than I expected. By six months it was, wow, I’m really not getting on top of this. By twelve months I was saying to friends, I don’t feel like I have what this role actually requires.
Something Wasn’t Working
Church life at Providence settled into a rhythm, but as I look back on those years, it was clear something wasn’t working. I wasn’t seeing the outward fruit that I was praying for and working for. Growth was modest, evangelistic impact was hard to discern.
The role of a senior pastor isn’t just work more than being an associate. It’s a completely different role. It’s spiritually and psychologically different. You’re where the buck stops, but you’re also at the bottom of the sewer system, where all the difficult things land. That new role hit me like a fire hydrant. I got credit for things that weren’t really to my credit, and I got blamed for things that weren’t my fault. Criticisms and ideas came at me thick and fast. I didn’t have the personal or spiritual resources to triage it all.
Even my strengths began to work against me! As an associate, I brought preaching, vision, ideas. But in the lead role, if you’re turning corners like a speedboat while you’re actually driving an ocean liner, everyone gets sick. I didn’t have sequencing, long-term planning, or staff leadership tools in my toolbox.
Somewhere along the way I remember thinking, this hasn’t been worth it. After six years, the effort-to-reward ratio felt very thin.
Open Heart Surgery on My Ministry
I knew I had blind spots. I couldn’t really name some, even though I had a sense of them. As it turned out, there was other stuff I hadn’t noticed at all. We sought an outside perspective on the ministry from the Reach Australia network. It felt like open heart surgery: very exposing.
The consultation process revealed that our church was marked by trust, biblical conviction, and spiritual maturity. But it also surfaced gaps. There was no clear way for people to get connected, confusion about where leadership responsibility sat, and no reliable pathways for developing leaders. I had a ministry philosophy. I had theological training. But what I didn’t have was a leadership framework for the senior pastor role. That was the big gap. During this season, I had to grapple with those areas I’d never been trained for: understanding the carrying responsibility for the whole church and shaping leadership across a growing and complex ministry.
One exercise we did during Reach Australia’s Leadership Development Program has stayed with me. We circled our strengths. For me, these were creativity, dynamism, flexibility, humour. Then we turned the page and saw the shadow side of our strengths. Flexible can mean unreliable; humorous can mean flippant. The fun parts of Rory can actually be difficult for people. I have been forced to confront the gap between how I experienced my leadership and how others might experience it.
Clear Leadership
I understand the role of lead pastor much better now. Not because it’s easier, but because I know what it actually requires. I have clarified what only I can (and should) carry, and what I need to give away. I naturally gravitate toward dreaming big, but what I needed was to learn how to develop frameworks for working towards those dreams, how to sequence things sustainably, how to say yes to some things and no to others. This slowed me down in the short term so I could lead with wisdom and endurance in the long term.
That growing clarity has begun to reshape our church life at Providence. We developed clearer ways for people to belong and serve. Our evangelism has also become regular rather than ad hoc. We now run our evangelistic course every term. We use the strategy of “2x2x5 prayer” with our members: pray for two minutes a day, five days a week, for two non-Christians. I used to have a gag reflex to tracking people. But I’m a shepherd, and shepherds count sheep. We weren’t really paying attention to who was coming, going, or becoming Christian. We have gotten better at paying attention to these things.
Over time, God has, I believe, worked through this clearer leadership to bring fruit. People have been coming to faith in greater numbers than before, and our leaders are now able to take responsibility with structured support around them. I don’t feel so much like I’m carrying this on my own anymore. I trust that God has given me what I need for this role. And when I don’t have it, I know where to go to regain clarity.
An earlier version of this article was published on the Reach Australia website.
