Lies leaders believe about building a team

You weren’t meant to lead change alone.

No one is.

Just like God has designed us to live in community, God has designed us to lead in community—teams that sharpen us, elevate our strengths, and compensate for our growth areas.

What holds ministry leaders back from leaning on their team?

Many leaders don’t take the time to build a team (or don’t fully utilize their existing teams) as they navigate toward the future because they’ve bought into some common leadership lies. Do any of the following sound familiar to you?

Lie leaders believe about building a team:

1. A team will slow me down.
2. People will think I’m lazy or incompetent if I need help.
3. People only need to think they’re shaping the process, but I’m really the one who pulls the strings.
4. I was hired to do the work myself.
5. Others won’t do as good of a job as I will.
6. I should only invite those who agree with my idea or think like me to be part of my team.
7. People don’t have time for or interest in the ministry I lead.

If you’ve fallen prey to any of these common inner mantras, congratulations—you’re human like the rest of us! But the problem with these misconceptions is that they’re each guaranteed to make you stuck and limit your ministry’s growth. Here are some helpful truths to remember instead:

Truths for leaders to remember that correlate to the 7 lies above:

1. Teamwork might take more time in the short-term, but you’ll move faster and go farther in the medium- to long-term.
2. You’ll accomplish more together. A team multiplies impact.
3. To lead an effective ministry, you need people’s full voice and contribution, not just their assent or the perception that they’re contributing.
4. You weren’t hired only to do the ministry. You were hired to equip and empower others to carry out the work of God.
5. The church is meant to be a body, and each part has a role to play. Just because other members of the body do something differently doesn’t mean their contributions are inferior.
6. It takes a significant amount of effort to include diverse, and even dissenting, voices, but it’s worth it. More often than not, those multiple perspectives and positions address blind spots and curate greater creativity.
7. People don’t want to waste their time with busy or unimportant work, but they value finding deep purpose and making a difference.

Putting these powerful truths into practice

To turn these truths from words on a screen to principles that further your leadership and ministry, spend a few minutes reflecting on these questions:

1. Which of the 7 lies are you most likely to believe?
2. How does the corresponding truth strike you? What additional truths about yourself, teams, and how God works might help counter the power of the lie(s) you are prone to accept?
3. What can you do in the next 3 days and 3 weeks to apply that truth to your own setting?

Adapted with permission from Future-Focused Church: Leading through Change, Engaging the Next Generation, and Building a More Diverse Tomorrow by Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Raymond Chang, published by Baker Books. Releasing in March 2025.

Your church’s best days are ahead.

Let church leadership and change experts Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Raymond Chang be your companions as you construct a map unique to your ministry context that will help your congregation pursue vibrancy and vitality. Through research-based insights and stories from churches like yours, you’ll learn to:

⮕ Activate a transformation team
⮕ Discern God’s leading when the future is unclear
⮕ Lead change like Jesus

With Future-Focused Church, you’ll gain tangible steps to transform your congregation into a group of Jesus followers who seek God’s direction together.

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