Review: The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership By John Currie

by on May 29, 2025 | 1 Comment

Leadership comes with the territory of pastoral ministry. The trouble is that we do not always embrace it as a reality. It can be hard to see how the obviously distinct aspects of the pastoral call fit alongside normal assumptions about leadership and pragmatics. Hence, we do not always reckon with how to pair pastoring and leading together.

John Currie has stepped into the breach to address this very problem. He raises the issue that too often preaching and leading are set against one another as competing activities in the pastor’s life. The pragmatist streak in modern evangelical churches pushes a notion that leadership involves lots of other activities besides preaching. In this model, leading often squeezes out the role of robust, expositional preaching.

Currie, by contrast, argues that preaching is a form of leading. In fact, it is the primary form of leading that God has designed for leading his church. Preaching and leadership are then not distinct pastoral activities but occur together even in the same act. Certainly, other leadership contributions are necessary in the pastoral task. Nevertheless, preaching encompasses leadership and is even the primary method of leading the church as a whole.

The first section of this work develops principles about the pastor as leader. These principles all in some way or another focus on the pastor’s person. Much of these features of pastoral leadership focus on the grounding for leadership in things that are necessarily true of a pastor to be a pastor. Pastors are united to Christ, equipped with the Spirit, and called to a purpose. Some of these principles explain the resources we have as pastors to help us in leadership. Others show aspects of the leadership task.

When we think about aspects of that leadership task, Currie emphasizes that the pastoral task of leadership is not separate from the specific calling of being a pastor. In other words, preaching is key in the calling of pastoral leadership. God has sent pastors to be preachers. He has then sent them to lead as preachers. We should not make a disjunction between these two aspects of the pastorate. Further, a major component of pastoral leadership is to display exemplary character. In this area too, the leadership calling is not to something other than simply what we do as pastors. Rather, this function of leadership is just to live out the Christian life in a way that others can follow. In this sense again, leadership focuses on doing the basic callings that all Christians have concerning our character so that it helps others develop and imitate the same character.

The second major section addresses practices of leadership. The first two chapters focus on the specific tasks of prayer and preaching in application to leadership. These chapters further the point that the execution of the specific pastoral duties is not a separate endeavor from leadership. Prayer is a way that the pastor leads his people. Preaching is also a way that the pastor leads the church.

Currie makes the useful clarification that his point is not that we sneak leadership lectures and direction into our preaching—although we can devote attention to that as is needed. Rather, he exhorts us to trust that the faithful exposition of holy Scripture is a way to lead in itself. When we explain God’s Word and apply it to the lives of God’s people, God uses it to guide his church. Preaching is itself an act of leadership.

The final three chapters consider the outward transmission of leadership in vision, strategy, and training. The pastor is supposed to show the church the way forward by communicating how God’s Word should shape the direction that the congregation should take. The pulpit is not a place for mere information but for showing how God’s Word affects how the church should proceed.

Strategy is about developing a process for achieving your goals. As the Word sets the trajectory, we need to set priorities and steps for how to get there.

Training addresses the fact that a pastor’s leadership role does not mean he is supposed to do everything in the church. In this respect, the pastor needs to look for people’s talents and empower them to use those gifts for the benefit of the church.

Perhaps this book’s spiciest section is about Ephesians 4:11–12 and the question of whether God gave pastors to do the work of the ministry themselves or to teach the people to do “the work of the ministry.” Going up against some formidable interpreters (although citing his own), Currie argues for the latter. He contends that many may need to adjust their exegesis and convictions about the pastor’s role in order to align with what this passage calls us to do as members of a congregation.

For my part, I wonder if Currie rested too much of his case on this one point to refer to the acts of service that he wants to see in churches as “the work of the ministry.” Clearly defining the remit of “the work of the ministry” is a crucial component of interpreting this passage itself. Nevertheless, Scripture certainly contains exhortations about church members coming together as Christ’s body to serve one another and to work together. Whether this responsibility fits within the definition of “the work of the ministry” in the technical Ephesians 4:11–12 sense is somewhat beside the point.

Here, I am trying to sidestep debate over this specific exegetical point in order to confirm the substance of Currie’s argument. Apart from any one specific exegetical conclusion, pastors do need to empower their people to use their talents to fulfill obvious biblical mandates about our responsibility to the church and to one another. These concrete responsibilities mean at least in part sharing the load in caring for one another. Church officers have distinct obligations within that. But all church members are bound to one another for mutual support at some level. Pastors need to lead in how everyone comes together in the church for these purposes.

Currie’s book helpfully reminds us about the foundations of pastoral leadership. It brings us back to basics to focus on how God has commissioned his under-shepherds to lead in the church.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

John Currie, The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024).

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One comment

  1. So when the pastor’s character is lacking… Such as avoiding conflict and confrontation, because of past personal baggage from their cultural upbringing in the family, they came from… How come they just preach about facing obstacles, but then run from them instead of doing the work, they need to do to overcome them… Not leading by example at all but pretending . somewhere, the rubber needs to meet the road. I think pastors need to have some kind of serious assessment of their own emotional limitations, and get the help. They need to be able to lead without undermining their efforts because of their own inability to look at their baggage, and take responsibility for it.… How come seminaries don’t address that… It’s a big deep hole that needs to be addressed… pastors insecurities!

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