For years, the church operated on a fairly straightforward model: clergy led, laity supported. Pastors were the primary leaders, the ones with the training and authority. Everyone else filled in the gaps, staffed the committees, and kept the programs running.
That model is eroding. As there are fewer candidates looking to serve in full-time, professional ministry, we have an opportunity to reimagine leadership in ways that faithfully mobilize all the gifts of the body of Christ to participate in God’s mission.
Faith+Lead’s Pivot 4 describes a shift in leadership: from clergy-led/lay-supported to lay-led/clergy-supported ministry. This isn’t just about redistributing tasks or filling volunteer slots. It’s about equipping the whole people of God for ministry.
Church leaders can’t make this pivot without creating space for genuine experimentation. And experimentation means giving people the freedom to fail.
The “You Should” Trap
Many of us have adopted a “you should” approach to ministry without even realizing it. It sounds like this:
“You should start a new program to reach young families.” “You should be doing more outreach in your neighborhood.” “You should have a digital strategy by now.”
The problem isn’t that these ideas are necessarily bad. The problem is that “you should” comes from a fixing mindset. It assumes we know what needs to happen, and if we just work harder or try the right program, we can make it work.
But what if the Holy Spirit is already at work, doing something we haven’t imagined yet? What if our job isn’t to manufacture solutions, but to discern what God is already doing and join in?
That’s the shift from “you should” to holy risk-taking.
Instead of pressure and obligation, it’s about being drawn into something new. Instead of one person having all the answers, it’s about equipping the whole community to listen, experiment, and sometimes fail.
What Risk-Taking Actually Looks Like
Sean Steele, an Episcopal priest and 2022 Faith+Lead Seeds Fellow, knows a lot about pivoting. When he started St. Isidore in Spring, Texas, the vision was a church without walls, meeting in bars, laundromats, and boxing gyms, gathering around a food truck.
But the food truck model wasn’t sustainable. So they pivoted to a warehouse that could be an event center, gym, and commercial kitchen. Two days after getting their certificate of occupancy, lockdown hit. So they pivoted again—the warehouse became a food pantry serving over 1.3 million pounds of food per year.
St. Isidore eventually included 11 different micro-communities, each developing their own liturgies and ways of gathering. “We’ve constantly been trying to ask the hard questions about what is our context,” Sean says. “The bigger you get, the more difficult that is, because I’m finding myself getting tied to ideas and structures and not core values.”
Sean learned about boundaries the hard way. Early on, he had a thriving conversation community of 30-plus people. Committed to “all are welcome,” he let a group of people attend without setting clear ground rules about the purpose and culture of the gathering. Within weeks, the community had fallen apart.
“That’s when I realized that was my job as a leader. That was my job to hold the no. You’re welcome here, but only if you abide by certain ground rules.”
Sean wasn’t doing all the ministry—lay leaders were running micro-communities, developing liturgies, gathering in homes and gyms. But Sean held the container. He protected the theological integrity, ensured communities had a relationship to the sacraments, and upheld the core values.
Within that container, people had freedom to experiment and lead.
Shorter Timelines, Quicker Iterations
Tyler Sit, pastor of New City Church in Minneapolis and 2022 Seeds Fellow, has learned to shorten timelines when working with younger generations. The old models that relied on years of community integration don’t work as well anymore because Millennials and Gen Z are transient. “In several years the whole neighborhood will have moved. So there has to be a sustained commitment to listening and responsiveness, but also a willingness to go and run with something based on that listening in shorter iterations.”
New City embraced what Tyler calls a “co-creation” discipleship ethic. One example: their Community Healing Projects. After people experience healing through the Incarnation Fund (a mental health reparation fund supporting people of color in accessing therapy), New City invites them to create their own healing project.
The results? A historic bike tour through Black south Minneapolis sites. Buying textbooks for a Montessori school with a large diverse student population. A pop-up fashion shop.
Tyler’s rubric is simple: “A historic bike tour, a Montessori school, and a pop-up fashion shop have nothing to do with each other, but internally, the rubric is very simple. If you have experienced healing through this ministry, we’re supporting you in healing your community.”
The clergy isn’t designing all these programs. The clergy is creating the framework and supporting lay leaders as they discern what their neighborhoods need. Some experiments will thrive. Others might fizzle out. The community keeps learning, keeps listening, keeps following where the Spirit leads.
The Theological Foundation
This kind of risk-taking requires deep theological grounding. God is the primary leader of the local church.
When we believe that, we’re not responsible for having all the answers or making everything succeed. We’re responsible for discerning where God is already at work and joining in.
“I absolutely believe that the local church is the hope of the world where people come to find refuge, rest, and reconciliation,” Sean reflects. “Yet if I’m really honest, it’s also a place of hurt for a lot of people and deep trauma. How do we straddle that tension?”
The answer isn’t to protect people from all risk or guarantee that every experiment will succeed. The answer is to create containers where people can try new things, learn from what doesn’t work, and trust that the Holy Spirit is leading even through the failures.
Questions for Reflection
If you’re a pastor or ministry leader, what would it look like to shift from directing all the ministry to holding the container? To set clear theological boundaries while giving people freedom within those boundaries?
If you’re a church volunteer or lay leader, what experiments might God be inviting you into?
Where are you stuck in “you should” thinking? What obligations or expectations are you carrying that might not actually be from God?
What are the non-negotiable core values in your community? If you held those tightly, what could you hold loosely?
Who in your community has gifts that aren’t being mobilized? What would it take to give them real leadership, not just volunteer slots?
What short-term experiment could you try? Not a five-year strategic plan. Just a three-month experiment to see what you learn.
Where might you need to grieve? Sometimes making space for the new means letting go of the old.
The shift from clergy-led to lay-led, clergy-supported ministry isn’t about lowering standards or abandoning theological depth. It’s about trusting that the Holy Spirit really does distribute gifts throughout the whole body of Christ.
It’s about giving ourselves and each other permission to try things that might not work. To learn by doing. To experiment our way into the future God is creating.
“You’re not going to break Jesus,” Sean says. “There’s a difference between fragile and sacred.” The church is sacred, not fragile. The Holy Spirit is already at work ahead of you.
