“God gave us plurality because he’s a big fan of humility.” I was struck by how often Dave Harvey mentions humility in his new book The Plurality Principle on building and maintaining church leadership teams.

It’s not a new thought that a plurality — a team of pastor-elders, as opposed to just one — both requires and encourages humility. But what I did not expect is how often Harvey would sound the refrain for the pride-crucifying, humility-cultivating power of team leadership.

Harvey, like many of us, has seen and heard a lifetime’s worth of pastoral shipwrecks in recent years. Some of these leaders were formally peerless in their churches and ministries, but many others had fellow pastor-elders in name, and functionally little accountability, operating with special privileges and a long leash. In the end, too often one man was at the helm, when it could have been a team, and in time, the church, its witness, and the pastor himself came to suffer because it.

“When difficulties arise, do the elders suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves?”

“All Christian community tests our humility,” Harvey writes, “but being part of a leadership team is like sitting for the bar exam” (127). Then he observes, “Humility must be learned over time as individuals both suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves.” Suspect self first. Serve others first. That’s insightful, and a watershed of good leadership in the church: When difficulties arise, do the elders suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves? And what will determine which way the pastors will go?

“Humility is the oil that lubricates the engine of plurality,” writes Harvey. “If you want to know the foundational secret that lies beneath great teams, meetings marked by unity, personal elder care, and lovingly accountable relationships, it’s this: humility” (98).

How Plurality Humbles

Unlike the world’s vision of leadership as self-actualization and the accrual of privilege, a Christian vision of leadership has God, not self, at the center. Pastor-elders are not in it to build their own sense of confidence and self-worth. Rather, their calling is to make additional sacrifices, to bear extra burdens and costs, to point our fellow church members Godward in Christ.

Our need for humility grows the more we are surrounded by other people, especially when yoked in a calling to lead together. While humility is first and foremost a creaturely virtue in relation to our Creator, many of the great texts on humility come in the context of community (Philippians 1:27–2:5; Ephesians 4:1–3; 1 Peter 5:5–7).

Consider four ways, among many others, that team leadership humbles us.

1. Teams expose selfish desires and unholy ambitions.

The apostles warn us of the dangers of “selfish ambition” (Greek eritheia). James writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16; also James 3:14). Paul lists selfish ambition as one of “the works of the flesh” alongside “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, . . . dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19–21; also 2 Corinthians 12:20; Philippians 1:17; 2:3).

“Selfish ambition,” or “self-seeking” (Romans 2:8), is tragic in any human, and any Christian, and all the more in Christian leaders. And it is a special threat for lone rangers. Who will smell it out, and can challenge it, even in its subtle forms? Teammates. Men who are peers, of the same standing and similar perspective, and can tell when directions and decisions are self-seeking, rather than church-seeking.

There is often a fine line between putting self forward and the willingness to serve in visible, celebrated positions of leadership. Good pluralities (teams not just in name but in function) tend to expose such selfish desires and unholy ambitions and challenge them before they become deep-seated. As Harvey writes,

If you’re new to working with a team, you’ll soon see how often plurality uncovers and forces you to deal with the heroic dreams and fleshly desires you have for ministry. . . . To serve as part of a healthy elder plurality, a pastor must know his role, be willing to come under authority, learn humility, traffic in nuances that are neither black nor white, and be willing to think about his gifts and position through the lens of what serves the church rather than his personal agenda. Leading in community puts us under the spotlight. (29–30)

2. Teams encourage the right kind of disagreement.

Disagreements are inevitable in the church, and in every sphere of life. The question is not if they will come, but when and how. Healthy teams encourage the right kind of disagreements to happen early and often, in the context of trusting, regular relationships. Better to first hear the opposing perspective in private, from a brother and peer who manifestly loves you, than publicly, or from a tense call or letter, after a rash decision has been implemented.

It is humbling to hear a brother you admire and respect disagree with you. Then, it’s additionally humbling to realize you were short-sighted, or wrong, and to admit it. Leadership pluralities encourage healthy disagreement, in the right time and context.

3. Teams show us the joy of not doing it all.

It’s one thing to admit, as a leader, that you’re human and can’t do it all (in theory); it is another to go about your daily and weekly work as if you can indeed do it all. Teams play out that humbling truth before our eyes, moving it from theory to reality in our own heads and hearts.

For team leadership to thrive over time, writes Harvey, “Each man must believe that he needs the other men.” And seeing our need for each other, lived out before our own eyes, serves to dispel pretenses in us that we deserve the credit for ministry successes.

4. Teams try our patience, and produce better results.

Team leadership is typically not efficient, but it is effective — which is how God wants his church to be led.

“Team leadership is typically not efficient, but it is effective — which is how God wants his church to be led.”

When the “senior pastor” is essentially the church’s CEO, decisions and next actions can happen very fast. Teamwork, on the other hand, takes time. We need to synch schedules, have conversations, provide rationale, answer objections, write drafts, add appropriate nuances. Team leadership is typically not efficient.

But apparently, God isn’t all that interested in efficiency in local-church leadership. Which is worth pondering carefully in our day, when other organizations in society emphasize efficiency, not without good reasons. Yet not so with the church. The clear, unified testimony in the New Testament to plurality of leadership in the local church signals that Christ is more interested in effectiveness than efficiency in his body. Again, Harvey writes,

God loves unity, so he calls us to a team — a place where we must humbly persevere with one another to function effectively. God loves making us holy, so he unites us to men who will make us grow. God loves patience, so he imposes a way of governing that requires humble listening and a trust that he is working in the lives of others. God loves humility, so he gave us plurality. (99)

Harder, and Better

Teamwork in ministry is a precious gift. Surely, thousands of solo pastors around the world long for fellow elders and do not yet have them. May God be pleased to answer their prayers and steady their hands. There is grace too for a lonely calling.

Those of us who do enjoy the priceless gift of teammates, it can be all too easy to take them for granted. Team leadership is not always easy. Often it doesn’t feel efficient. Fellow leaders can feel inconvenient. At times, it may seem like leading alone would be better.

But leading together challenges and chastens our pride. It costs us personal comforts and convenience, but the gains for the church, and for our own long-term joy, far surpass the discomforts.

Remember how it felt as a kid at the end of the school year, when the long summer holidays stretched out before you? You knew it wouldn’t last forever, but fall seemed a world away.

That’s kind of what it felt like for me and my wife, Pam, during our early childrearing years (though it wasn’t a holiday). We knew this golden “summer” season of life would someday end. But for quite a wonderful while, it seemed like the “fall” of our kids’ departures into adulthood was a world away.

However, just as we learned as kids, summers aren’t as long as they first appear. Our parenting “fall” has arrived, and with it all the necessary changes. This is God’s design: “For everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). And as God pronounced, this design is good (Genesis 1:14, 18). I don’t begrudge it.

But I do grieve it, which I also believe is good. Because when God made “a time for every matter under heaven,” he included “a time to mourn” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4). The time to mourn is when someone or something precious to us passes away. And the precious season Pam and I were given to live together with all our children is passing away. It’s not easy to say goodbye.

“When God made ‘a time for every matter under heaven,’ he included ‘a time to mourn.’”

But something happened this year that provided our whole family a chance to say goodbye to that season together: we sold the family home.

Leaving More Than a Home

In June 2001, Pam and I bought a modest house on a small inner-city plot in South Minneapolis and moved in with our two young children (ages 5 and 2). Three more children came along over the next few years. So, for the better part of two decades, this house was the busy hub of our family of seven. It was a gracious provision from God and served us well.

As our kids began to reach adulthood, however, and as some began to leave the nest, Pam and I discerned the Lord readying us for another move. We weren’t sure when this would happen, so we kept it in prayer, kept it on our kids’ radars, and kept our eyes open.

Then, last January, the moment surprisingly (and suddenly) arrived. The right home for the next season of life at the right price became available. Both of us discerned the Lord was in it, so we pulled the trigger. This immediately threw us into high gear in order to get our house ready to sell and ourselves ready to move.

But getting our house ready to sell proved more difficult than I anticipated. I don’t mean the repairs, upgrades, and cleaning. I mean getting ready to leave the place. Because leaving this place really brought home the realization that we were leaving more than a home; we were leaving a wonderful era.

The Rooms Where It Happened

In the hustle and bustle of those busy years, I didn’t fully realize just how much that house was being woven into the fabric of our shared lives, but for 21 years it was where most of our most profound family moments occurred.

It’s where children were conceived and where they first came awake to the world. It’s where some first crawled, then walked, then ran; where some first spoke, then read, then wrote. It was where we spoke most about God and spoke most to God together. It’s where we spent the most time reading God’s word and singing to and about God together. It’s where we expressed our deepest longings for God — and our doubts about him — together. It’s where we shared our greatest joys and sorrows together, where we had the most fun and most fights together. It’s where we shared thousands of meals and washed hundreds of thousands of dishes together. It’s where our children grew up together, and where Pam and I grew noticeably older together.

This house framed our family life for most of our family’s life. These were the rooms where it all happened. So, I guess it’s fitting that as we packed up these rooms, the reality of all we were leaving behind really hit home.

Goodbye to Golden Days

For me, the emptier each room became, the more it seemed to fill with memories. I’d enter our bedroom and think how everyone used to crowd on our bed for evening book time. Walking through the living room might recall a bunch of Blooms enjoying Sunday sundaes. A glance at a basement wall could prompt, “You wrote her lullaby here, remember?” Sometimes I could almost hear my kids bounding down the stairs, giggling over something silly, arguing with their mother, tattling on a sibling, happily singing, letting the storm door slam while running out of the house, or calling for me from their bedrooms to come give them their nighttime blessing.

The last few days at the house, when it was mostly empty, it was as if ghosts of the past were released from some grey-matter basement in my memory to finally run free. Ghosts of past Christmases, Easters, birthdays, evening dinners, family devotions, chore times, movie nights, and Saturday special breakfasts would show up unbidden (and suddenly I’d be searching for Kleenex).

Well, perhaps not entirely unbidden. Consciously or not, I was looking and listening for them. And so was everyone else. Every family member was recalling them. We reminisced a lot together and did a lot of laughing and crying — often simultaneously. It was a sweet way (with the right amount of bitter) to say goodbye to our beloved house. But we all knew it was more than that. It was a cathartic way to say goodbye to a golden time of shared life, a wonderful “summer” season that was ending.

On the last night, we all gathered at the house, joined by our dear next-door friends, who had been so much a part of our lives for more than a decade, and together we went room by room, sharing recollections. Then, when only our family remained, standing in the entry, we thanked God for that house, for those beloved rooms where it had all happened, and for all the happenings that had made that season of life so precious to us.

Three Parting Thank-Yous

I loved being a father. I’m not done being one, of course. I just mean that I loved raising my children. I loved providing for them, protecting them, playing with them, comforting them, and teaching them. Those formative years were wonderful. I will miss them.

“Some things are so profound, we can only say them simply.”

But the next season is upon us. Three of our children have departed the home, and the two who remain (our twins) are high school seniors. Pam and I are already experiencing some of the new season’s wonderful gifts (like grandchildren — we now have three!). So, as a kind of benediction to mark the passing of a season I’ve loved, I want to offer a few simple words of thanks. For some things are so profound, we can only say them simply.

Thank you, heavenly Father, for the priceless gifts of our children’s lives, and for the inexpressible gift of allowing Pam and me to share with them their growing-up years. This remarkable quarter-century season came from you, and it was indeed good.

Thank you, Pam, for being, in my estimation, the primary human reason this season was so wonderful. From the moment you became aware of each child’s existence, you haven’t ceased to lovingly, faithfully, and sacrificially care for them. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in parenting. Your steady faith in God, your patience and grace toward the rest of us, and your gentle, quiet spirit daily seasoned our home and made it a place of peace.

And to Levi, Eliana, Peter, Moriah, and Micah: thank you for the privilege of being your father. I realize you weren’t given a choice, but somehow it still feels to me like a gift from you because of how profoundly your lives have enriched mine. The years I was able to spend with you and your wonderful mother have been the best of my life. It was a golden time. I would do it all over again. But “for everything there is a season,” and God has faithfully brought us to the dusk of this one and the dawn of the next. And so, it only seems right to speak over you once more the blessing you each received from me nearly every night of your childhood:

The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24–26)

Audio Transcript

By far the hardest part of my work on this podcast is reading the sorrow-filled emails we get, and especially those from parents who have lost young children. Some of you who are listening are enduring tremendous pain, which is so evident in the stories you share with us. And the sorrow of losing a child is only made heavier when that loss may be connected to a parent’s own decision, as is the case in this email from an anonymous woman. “Pastor John, I have been passing through a very dark and hard time since the recent loss of my unborn baby girl. My expected delivery date passed, and I was told to go to the hospital for an induced labor. I delayed that decision, trusting that I would eventually deliver my baby girl without any forced labor needed. A week later, I was told my baby died in the womb.

“I was shattered by the news. I feel directly responsible for my child’s death. I feel God should have given me a sign or something. Why did he allow my baby to die? It’s been seven weeks, and it still feels like yesterday. The pain is fresh every day. My heart is broken. I cry whenever I remember the whole scenario. I find it hard to pray. When I do, I now doubt if God still hears me. I am weighed down to the point that I feel my faith failing.”

When I was in Africa in 1996 visiting missionaries, I met a young Quaker missionary couple who had been there for fifteen years. The year before I got there, their eighteen-month-old daughter was backed over in a car and killed by a visiting missionary in their front yard. And as I was visiting them those months later, their computer was broken, they had car trouble, their housing was being taken from them because the landlord had defaulted on a loan. And in all of that, this couple, to my utter astonishment, was radiant with hope and with the love of Jesus Christ. They had not even gone home to bury the baby. They buried the baby in Kenya and pressed on with the work.

Now, I’m very aware that this young woman who has written to us can respond to that story in two very different ways. She can be angry with me or upset, as though I were trying to shame her that she hasn’t yet felt that kind of hopeful. But she doesn’t have to respond that way to my story. She can respond by saying, “Thank you, God, that you gave to that Quaker couple such grace to survive that unspeakable tragedy and survive it in hope. I don’t feel that way, God, but I want to, and I ask for that miracle to happen in my life.” She could respond that way. I hope she does.

So, here are a few thoughts that I pray God would use to give this kind of sustaining grace to our brokenhearted mom.

1. We just don’t know.

First, we don’t know if your baby would have died anyway, and so we don’t know if you were part of the reason the baby died. We just don’t know. There are too many variables. You don’t know. As much as you feel responsible, you don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.

2. Waiting need not be negligence.

Second, you referred to your negligence. Maybe it was — I don’t know enough to pass judgment — but frankly I doubt it. I doubt that you were negligent. Millions of women have passed their due dates and waited for birth without inducement. All the Piper babies were late, some as much as three weeks. To wait for a natural readiness need not be negligence.

3. Your child’s life goes on.

Third, your baby’s life did not end. If you persevere in faith, you will be with your child in due time. I tried to spell out the reason for believing that in APJ 514. You can go listen to why I believe that. There are just many significant reasons, even biblical ones, that I think are compelling. Don’t assume your baby is dead — not ultimately and not eternally — and that you’ll never know what that baby would turn out to be as God mysteriously gives it mature life.

4. God reigns with goodness and wisdom.

Fourth, I don’t know what you have been taught about the sovereignty of God over life and death, but the biblical truth is that God is sovereign over who lives and who dies and when and how they die. James 4:15 says, “If the Lord wills, we will live.” This is why, when Job’s ten children died all at once in a collapsing house, Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground, and worshiped and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

“God is doing a thousand things you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.”

It is no true comfort to believe that death is controlled by the evil of Satan or the meaninglessness of chance. That is not a comfortable theology. What comforts us in death — ours and those we love — is that the all-wise, all-governing God has good reasons for whom he takes and whom he leaves and when he does it. Your baby did not die in vain. God is doing a thousand things — yes, ten thousand things — you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.

5. God is not against you.

Fifth, even though we don’t know 99 percent of what God is doing in the calamities of our lives, we do know a few of his purposes, because he tells us in the Bible why he appoints suffering for his precious children. For example, James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” Every loss is a test from God of our love for God. Our faith and love are being tested to prove that they are real and to make them stronger.

Paul said of his own experience of suffering, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). God has dealt you, just like Paul, a very painful blow, just like he did Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. But he is not against you. He wants you to trust him even more deeply than you do now or ever have.

6. Regret need not paralyze.

Sixth, it is possible to live with a lifetime of regret and not be paralyzed or miserable. The apostle Paul regretted all his life that he had been a murdering persecutor of Christians. To the end of his life, he called himself the chief of sinners because of this horrible history in his life. But instead of paralyzing him, it made him even more effective, a more effective minister of mercy because of the mercy shown to him after his sin. He wished it had not happened, because it was sin. To kill Christians is sin. But he knew God could make even a history of sin serve his saving purposes. You can read that in 1 Timothy 1:12–17.

7. God cleanses and forgives.

Seventh, whatever measure of sin or guilt attaches to you because of your child’s death, God is ready to forgive it. We don’t know. I just don’t know — and I don’t think you know — what measure of involvement was there. But you do know this: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The slate wiped clean.

8. God promises his help.

And finally, what we can know for sure in this situation is that God’s will for you is that you fight the good fight of faith and that you win — you win (2 Timothy 4:7). He promises to help you. He speaks these words over you right now from Psalm 91:14: “Because you hold fast to me in love, I will deliver you.” Or again in Psalm 32:10: “Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.” Or once more, Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves” — he saves — “the crushed in spirit.” Or circling back to Job, who lost all ten of his children, James says this: “We consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).

So, be steadfast. Trust him. He’s going to bring you through this humble, strong, wise, kind, confident.