Reimagining the Pastoral Vocation
Carey Nieuwhof recently noted in his church trends for 2026 that we are in a pastoral crisis. We don’t currently have enough next-generation pastors to fill the vacancies left by current pastors retiring.
There are many reasons for this: a shifting cultural moment, lower pay, the increasing difficulty of the job in divided times, lack of trust in institutions and leaders in general, and much more.
This post is by no means aiming to solve the pastoral crisis, but I do want to add one piece of the puzzle by reimagining the pastoral role.
As I was considering a call to ministry, there were two models of pastoral ministry that seemed the most prevalent.
The first, which is a more traditional model, was that of the shepherd/teacher. This vision of the pastoral vocation usually consisted of teaching the Bible on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, as well as hospital visits, house calls, and other one-on-one pastoral care.
This is a beautiful model of ministry, and I am by no means saying it is wrong or harmful. It just isn’t the only way to be faithful as the leader of a congregation.
The other model is what has often been referred to as the CEO model of pastoring. This came primarily out of the seeker-sensitive megachurch movement and merged business practices with the leadership of the church. This role consists more of preaching, leading staff, org charts, vision, values, metrics, and so on.
Again, this is not a bad model. I think there is great value in this model of lead pastor. But one of the issues I’m sensing is that many Gen Z and Millennial leaders have an aversion to this type of church, and many haven’t found a pastoral vision to fill its place.
As I was being trained for ministry, neither one of these models was a fit for my wiring, gifting, or the vision of church I would eventually seek to build. This led me to start a nonprofit adjacent to the church and become a traveling evangelist.
I’ve recently stepped into the role of what many call a lead pastor in a church plant, and I’ve discovered there is a way to operate in this role in a nontraditional way that may not only be more inspiring for pastors, but maybe even more biblical and ancient than the two previous models.
I believe we need more creativity here.
Rather than offering these two options as the only models, I want to give you freedom to dream a bit.
If you’re a campus pastor but have a heart to lead a church one day, I hope this gives you permission to dream.
If you’re a student pastor but don’t like what you see as the model of pastoral ministry in front of you, I hope this sparks fresh vision and hope.
If you’re a Gen Z leader who is wrestling with a call to ministry, but you don’t feel like you fit into the current models, I hope this leads you toward a lifetime of faithful and fruitful ministry.
There are so many unique stories, but let’s jump in.
I am indebted to people like Malcolm Guite, who is a priest and a poet; Jon Tyson, the scholarly revivalist; the Wesleys, as apostolic hymn writers and movement leaders; John Mark Comer, as a formational teacher and author; Mark Sayers, as a pastoral cultural commentator; and many more who have broken the mold and given people like me the freedom to reimagine the pastoral vocation.
I want to give four aspects we should consider as we reimagine the pastoral vocation, sharing along the way how this has played out in my life, as well as offering some questions and handles to help you dream again in this space.
APEST and Spiritual Gifts
The first, and maybe most important, aspect of fresh pastoral vision is expanding the lanes of gifting for the key leader in a church.
Paul says:
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
Ephesians 4:11-12
The role of church leaders is the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry so the church can be built up. This happens best when all of these lanes are operating fully.
What would happen if we broadened what it meant to lead a church in ways that recovered the apostolic (little “a,” of course), evangelistic, and prophetic lanes of ministry?
What if, rather than boxing young leaders into pastor/teacher or CEO, we allowed them to dream a bit about what their unique gift mix could look like?
There are obviously countless other spiritual gifts not listed in this explanation of early church offices that we should consider. Rather than assuming every leader is primarily gifted in shepherding and teaching, as in the traditional model, or primarily gifted in organizational leadership, as in the CEO model, we should expand our categories of gift mix.
I have come to understand my unique wiring as a combination of the apostolic, evangelistic, and teaching gifts. Rather than putting me in a box, my board, mentors, and church have encouraged me to operate in these unique lanes. I think our church and my own soul are both better for it.
Take a few minutes to write down your unique gift mix.
What would it look like for you to design a fresh pastoral vocation in light of your gifts?
Personality Profile
The next aspect to include as we refresh our pastoral imagination is each person’s unique personality.
I really enjoy and have benefited from personality tests. I’ve never seen one I didn’t want to take.
A few of the most helpful ones for me have included the DISC profile, Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, Predictive Index, Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, Culture Index, and Working Genius.
How an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert operates in pastoral ministry is going to be wildly different. A 1, 4, 5, and 7 on the Enneagram are going to need incredibly different roles if they are going to be healthy and effective over the long haul.
While none of these personality tests are inerrant or comprehensive, they can be helpful in gaining a greater understanding of how God wired us so we can more effectively advance the Kingdom and serve others.
Which of these personality assessments have you taken?
Take a few hours to look up or retake as many of these as possible, and put your spiritual gift mix beside your personality profile for a better understanding of how God has uniquely formed you.
I’ve also used AI to put all of my personality assessment scores into one comprehensive personality profile, using the best insights from each assessment.
Vision of Church
How we view the pastoral vocation naturally flows out of our vision of the church.
The pastor/teacher model flows from a certain view of the church, and so does the CEO model.
We are currently in the middle of a season of reimagining what church could look like. One friend said it is like the Cambrian Explosion of the church, where models are evolving into thousands of different expressions.
This is not some sketchy pragmatism drifting from orthodoxy. Churches like mine are actually seeking to be even more rooted in Christian orthodoxy than previous generations, while also being creative and artisan in fresh expressions of church.
Old models are evolving, merging, and morphing into expressions that are unique. Some are depressingly ineffective. Others are wildly effective and multiplying in profound ways. This is all part of the innovation process.
One of my professors at TEDS took us through an exercise to reimagine our model of ministry. He had us list our understanding of the markers of a mature Christian and the means by which we believe mature Christians are most effectively formed, and then build out a ministry philosophy from that, rather than simply using the “training wheels” of other models.
I’ve always described myself as a spiritual mutt, bringing aspects of recovery, megachurch, Reformed theology, charismatic spirituality, and intellectual formation into my faith and practice.
The church I recently planted, Artisan City, is a unique combination of many of these aspects, along with a prayer room, engagement with the artists in our city, formal membership emphasizing doctrinal alignment, an emphasis on organizational health, our Kingdom incubator called Canvas, and much more.
This vision of church helps inform my imagination for the pastoral vocation.
What is your vision of church?
What models have you evolved, merged, or morphed?
How does this inform your vision of the pastoral role?
Uniques
The last piece of reimagining the pastoral vocation for our cultural moment that I want to mention is the uniqueness of each person’s experience. What are the unique aspects of your life, limits, loves, and story that you could leverage for Kingdom advancement?
In the examples mentioned at the beginning of this post, we find some beautiful pictures of this.
Malcolm Guite has had a love of poetry from his early years, and he has leaned into this passion to inform his pastoral imagination. Mark Sayers has a love for reading widely and a unique ability to understand meta-trends in Western culture. Jon Tyson’s experience and love for revival and awakening has become a massive blessing to the church.
My recovery background and speech impediment are two of mine. In other models of ministry, and especially in the two most prevalent versions of pastoral ministry, these would often be viewed as bugs rather than features. Rather than trying to hide my uniques, I have tried to leverage them and build around them for the increased blessing of others and the advancement of the Kingdom.
Some others that are much more niche and possibly controversial are my love for tattoos, good coffee, CrossFit, and even cigars. In my context in Downtown St. Pete, these have informed the type of outreach events we do and who we are attracting, which are not your average churchgoers.
I also love reading books, learning, writing, and speaking at outside events. We’ve been able to work all of these things into this fresh vision of the pastoral vocation in this age and in this context.
What are your uniques?
How can these inform your pastoral imagination?
I’ve wrestled with whether this tailored approach is selfish or self-centered, but I’ve learned that this kind of awareness and custom approach to pastoral leadership can actually advance the Kingdom and serve others more effectively.
Much like spiritual formation at its best is not mere selfish devotion, but is for the eternal good of others, designing a pastoral role around the gifting, wiring, and passions of the lead pastor has the potential to bring immense blessing to the church in unique ways.
So, here’s my encouragement.
Dream again.
Ask God to bring fresh vision for what pastoral ministry could look like.
Seek to align your work with how God designed you, not for your own ease or comfort, but for the advancement of the Kingdom and the upbuilding of the church.
ACTION:
Write down your spiritual gift mix.
Take a bunch of personality assessments and use AI to synthesize them into one profile.
Write down your ministry philosophy and what the church you will lead will look like.
Write down the unique things that make you, you.
Use these handles as prompts to reimagine what it could look like to be a church leader in 2026 and beyond.