From Pastors to Managers

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How the Church Lost Its Way in the Name of Scale

Most pastors don’t enter ministry to build systems. They don’t do it to run organizations, oversee teams, or delegate responsibilities. They do it for people—to love, connect, and walk alongside them in the messy, beautiful, complicated reality of life.

But as soon as things start growing, the conversation shifts. We’re told we need to scale. We need to delegate. We need to create structures that ensure no one slips through the cracks. And delegation, we’re told, is leadership.

At first, it makes sense. We can’t do everything ourselves. We need small group leaders, volunteer coordinators, service teams, admin support, communications managers, worship directors—the list goes on. Each layer of delegation allows the system to function more efficiently. We’re told it allows us to focus on what really matters.

But what does that actually mean?

Because what starts as a way to serve more people often ends up creating distance from the very people we set out to serve.

With each system we implement, with each new tier of leadership we establish, we become further removed from the heart of the people. The ones we once pastored, we now oversee. The ones we once knew by name, we now refer to our team leaders. Instead of sitting with people in their grief, we schedule pastoral care meetings through an admin. Instead of knowing the struggles of the congregation firsthand, we hear about them secondhand through staff reports.

And slowly—subtly—we are no longer pastors. We are managers.

We don’t walk with the sheep; we manage the systems that manage the sheep.

And because the system needs to keep growing, we invest in leadership development, management strategies, efficiency models—anything to ensure the machine keeps running. We justify it, believing we are empowering people. But are we? Or are we just spreading the weight of administration across more shoulders, making everyone work harder while still remaining just as disconnected?

And maybe that’s the real question: Have we lost the heart of why we started?

But Isn’t This the Model of Jesus?

Here’s the counterargument: This is exactly how Jesus did it. Jesus had 12 disciples, and he sent them out two by two. Then there were 72 others. Then he fed 5,000. There was scale in Jesus’ ministry. There was delegation.

Yes. That’s true.

But look at what Jesus actually did.

How often did he preach?

In our modern evangelical system, we are attempting to preach fresh content every single week. New ideas, new sermon series, new branding, new themes. We’ve built an entire system around this weekly event.

But Jesus?

How many sermons do we actually know he preached?

Maybe one? The Sermon on the Mount?

And even then, we don’t see Jesus setting up a system to make sure people attended a sermon every single Sunday. We don’t see him building an organizational structure that ensured more people heard more content every week.

What do we see?

Jesus walking with people.
Jesus eating with people.
Jesus talking with people.
Jesus showing up in homes.
Jesus listening to people’s stories.
Jesus healing people—one by one, face to face.

His model wasn’t content delivery. It was relationship.

And even when we see the early church in Acts, it’s not built around a weekly service. It’s built around people meeting in homes, breaking bread together, sharing everything in common (Acts 2:42-47).

That’s the model. That’s the heartbeat.

So yes, Jesus scaled. But not in the way we think of scaling. He never created a system to manage people. He created disciples who did what he did—walked with people, ate with people, lived among people. The early church followed this model, not by building preaching platforms and leadership pipelines, but by embedding their lives into the daily realities of others.