Of all the amazing feats of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic age, surely one of them is the fact that the team who led the early church was comprised of once-confused, “uneducated, common men” (Mark 8:14–21; Acts 4:13). What might we learn from them as we seek to build healthy leadership teams in our churches?

Paying careful attention to their example and instruction gives us a few vital paths toward healthy pastoral teams.

Clarify Expectations and Roles

First, the apostles were clear on their expectations as a team. Jesus instructed them that they were to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). They understood that they were not to prioritize serving tables, but instead should devote themselves to preaching and praying and shepherding (Acts 6:2–4; 1 Peter 5:1–4).

As to the different roles on the team, we don’t find much help, which is itself instructive. But we do see in numerous places that God equips leaders to be more effective in specific areas (1 Corinthians 12:4–11; Ephesians 4:11). Therefore, clearly defining the expectations of each leader and the part he plays is helpful (and can be crucial). We might add to this the need to clarify timelines. In an age of high mobility, people may desire to transition from one role to the next more quickly than we expect. I know a pastor who surprised his co-laborer a year into a church plant, sharing that he expected to plant yet another church the following year.

In terms of goals, some pastors orient toward numbers. Others aim at public teaching without private shepherding. I know of another who wanted to preach more and didn’t expect to be involved in administration. Still another thought he and his colleague would be co-planter-pastors when the other thought he would serve as senior pastor.

Get prayerfully honest and clear about what is expected of each other and for how long. Overcommunication is better than under-communication.

Ensure Doctrinal Agreement

The apostles preached a specific gospel (Acts 2:14–41). Paul warns the Ephesian elders of the need to “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” because of false teachers coming in (Acts 20:28–30). The well-known statement of anathema is thrown upon any who teach a different gospel (Galatians 1:9). “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12), Paul says, and so must each member of the pastoral team.

You can maintain unity on doctrine and practice by asking good questions up front and implementing clarifying documents. What statement of faith will you use as a church? Will you use an elder affirmation of faith? If so, what will be included and what will not? If not, you’ll still need to have ongoing ethical and doctrinal conversations for the purposes of clarity and unity.

As to philosophy of ministry, how will you handle church membership? How will you sing? Will you preach consecutive expositional sermons, topical sermons, or something else? Will you be elder-led or elder-ruled? How will you practice baptism? How will you approach restorative church discipline, children’s ministry, youth ministry, and community groups? How will each of you be paid?

You won’t agree on every fine point of philosophy, but you should enjoy enough philosophical agreement that you can continue moving forward. Share books, podcasts, and articles like this one, and talk about them together. Don’t assume each elder is in the same place he was three years ago.

“A culture of competition dies amid a culture of encouragement.”

At our church, we use an elder affirmation of faith that is tighter than our membership statement of faith since the work of eldership has serious implications (James 3:1). We also ask questions for incoming elders related to the philosophical ministry of the church. Lastly, each elder on our team regularly fills out a yes-no questionnaire to affirm that his doctrinal commitments haven’t changed. Rather than assuming agreement, keep humbly pursuing clarity while enjoying the unity you have.

Pursue Humility

The apostles received a hard and profound lesson when they were caught discussing who was the greatest: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). One of the best ways to embrace that principle is to remember more counsel from the chief Shepherd: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3).

The apostles also pursued humility by remembering they were men under authority. We can see this conviction in their being of one accord through prayer (Acts 1:14). Also, remember Peter quickly telling Cornelius to get up when the latter bowed before him: “Stand up; I too am a man” (Acts 10:25–26).

Even when it may have been tempting not to share their authority, they seem eager to replace the apostate Judas with Justus or Matthias, given particular requirements of unity (Acts 1:21–23). Likewise, they are glad to give Paul and Barnabas “the right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2.9).

Paul’s counsel in Philippians 2:1–4, where he calls the church to have the same love and be of one mind, sums up the spirit of the apostles. If we ask, “How can we have that unity in our teams?” Paul answers, “Humility — counting others more significant than yourselves.”

It’s easy to see another elder’s problem and complain about it. But it’s far more difficult to see the plank that is in your own eye. Also, the temptation to appear the greatest is strong and stubborn. Therefore, if you are going to experience leadership unity and effective ministry, labor (individually and collectively) to pursue humility and learn to appreciate each other’s gifts and idiosyncrasies.

Daily ask the Lord to reveal your sin. Daily die to it. Daily ask the Lord to help you see the goodness and grace of your fellow leaders. Confess areas of pride and covetousness to one another, and forgive as you have been forgiven. Pursue humility, and enjoy a team that has the same mind, the same love, and the same eternal joy.

Develop a Culture of Encouragement

Another way to strengthen your leadership team is to honor and encourage each other. Scripture commands this encouragement in numerous places (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Hebrews 10:25). Paul says we should make a kind of holy competition to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10).

We see this practice exemplified in how the apostles talk about Paul and Barnabas in the letter to the Gentiles in Acts 15:25–26. They openly call them “our beloved Barnabas and Paul.” They then honor them by telling the churches how they risked their lives for Christ. Imagine how it must have encouraged those men to have the apostles and elders speak so affectionately and openly. May we do the same in our teams.

I planted a church with another brother, and we agreed that he would preach less and serve more in other areas. I was aware that this would make me appear more important than him. But I knew better. Without this brother, not only would our church sink, but my family and I would sink. Therefore, I went out of my way to encourage him in the presence of the congregation. I would speak of his powerful sermons. I would call attention to the hidden work he was doing. He does the same for me. Almost fifteen years later, this culture has only increased. We begin elders’ meetings by regularly sharing ways we have been helped and encouraged by one another. Every members’ meeting begins this way as well.

A culture of competition dies amid a culture of encouragement. Make it normal to call attention to each other’s graces.

Keep Christ Central

The apostles cared about evangelism (Acts 4:20), they cared about the health of the church (Acts 2:42–47), they cared about the physical needs of those around them (Acts 6:1–6), and they cared about doctrine (Acts 15:8–11), but they never lost sight of their central purpose: treasuring Christ together.

Peter’s final words in his second letter call us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:18). Paul calls the message that unites us “the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). John understands that Jesus saves us “so that we may know him” (1 John 5:20).

Our tribalistic times have not left the church untouched. Some groups center on missions and evangelism. Others center on the health of the church or social concerns. All very good! However, if Christ is not central in your leadership team, you will fall apart. You know that already, but it is easy to forget.

The glory of Christ is the sun, and our leadership teams orbit around him. As long as we not only believe that truth, but regularly champion it as well, our teams will experience a joy that is full (John 15:11).

Wait a minute. That can’t be right, can it?

If you’ve taught the Bible a few times, you’ve had one of these moments. The construction of a biblical sentence just doesn’t look right. More often than not, you find that your concern was unwarranted or could be explained. But for me, one of these moments changed everything.

I had only been pastoring for about five years. We were preaching through the book of Colossians, and it was the second week in the series when I read this in my study:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love of that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. (Colossians 1:3–5)

I thought to myself, “No, no, this translation must be off. Paul wouldn’t ground his thanks in the hope laid up for the church in heaven, would he? He must mean to say that he thanks God for their love for all the saints, and their hope in heaven, because of their faith in Christ Jesus.” Nope. Paul wrote it just as both he and the Spirit of God intended. It changed my life. Paul was grounding their love and his thanksgiving in the Colossian church’s hope in heaven. Heaven was (and is) that foundational. That important.

I met with a young college student later that afternoon and asked if he ever really hoped in heaven. Later, I asked some other guys I was discipling, and a couple days after, some pastors I was meeting. For the next four days, I asked more than twelve Christians if they hoped in heaven. One of them said that he did hope in heaven from time to time; the rest said they hardly ever thought about it. They immediately recognized the problem without me even bringing it to their attention.

I began to see the massive blind spot in my preaching, discipling, evangelizing, counseling, and praying. I’m still learning not to miss it.

Our Common Hope

Fast forward four years, when my church graciously gave me and my family a sabbatical. I took the two and a half months to study the hope of heaven. Not heaven itself, but the Bible’s use of the hope of heaven.

Monday to Friday, I would pray and study from about nine in the morning until noon. The most important work I did was to read a handful of chapters from the New Testament every day. I’d circle every verse where I saw the author counseling the hope of heaven. No conclusions were made; I’d just circle the verse, and at the end, handwrite that verse in a journal.

When I finished, I found an astonishing 387 verses that used the hope of heaven the same way Paul did in Colossians. Out of 7,957 verses in the New Testament, almost 5 percent counsel the hope of heaven. For perspective, there are some 150–160 verses on hell, and some 30–40 verses about marriage. So, even if I’m half right, the hope of heaven is far more common than we might have thought.

Heaven for All of Life

Think of the Beatitudes. Most of them motivate present behavior in view of some future reward. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

Or think about Paul’s conclusion to the Corinthians. After all his teaching, exhorting, and correcting, he lands the plane on the final resurrection, and only then does he say, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The future resurrection provided confidence for their work.

The models of faith in Hebrews 11 instruct us because they were “looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26). Peter counsels suffering Christians that they could rejoice because God was guarding their inheritance in heaven (1 Peter 1:4–5). James commended patience without grumbling by reminding his readers that the coming of their Lord was at hand (James 5:7–9). Then we have Revelation, which ends the entire canon of Scripture with those beautifully haunting words: “‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

Saved in this Hope

None of these examples struck me more than when I came to Romans 8. I was basking in the sun of Naples, Florida, in February. It was in the upper 70s, and I was going to the beach later that afternoon. Heaven already seemed to be breaking in when I read,

We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (Romans 8:22–24)

It was a similar moment to my time in Colossians 1. I circled the verses, but I couldn’t help lingering over the implications of those words. I had read that passage many times, but this was the first time I saw that the hope of our salvation looks not only back to the cross, but also forward to the day we will worship a resurrected Savior in resurrected bodies on a resurrected earth.

“The hope of our salvation looks not only back to the cross, but also forward.”

According to these verses, we evangelize by pointing people’s gaze to the restoration of all things as well to the cross. Yet few of us regularly preach, sing, pray, or evangelize about heaven.

Losing the North Star

Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, documents that John Calvin, Reinhold Niebuhr, William Shedd, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Louis Berkhof said little about heaven even in some of their most monumental theological writings (8).

Alcorn shares a quote from A.J. Conyers that I’ve never gotten over:

Even to one without religious commitment and theological convictions, it should be an unsettling thought that this world is attempting to chart its way through some of the most perilous waters in history, having now decided to ignore what was for nearly two millennia its fixed point of reference — its North Star. The certainty of judgement [and] the longing for heaven. (9)

Lord, have mercy. If you are still in doubt, go and ask your fellow church members how much the hope of heaven informs their daily lives as Christians.

Matthew Westerholm studied the difference between songs used in American churches from 2000–2015 and those used from 1737–1960. His conclusion? “Among many similarities, one difference was striking: the topic of heaven, which once was frequently and richly sung about, has now all but disappeared.”

“We’ve been working so hard to make this world home, just as it is. But we are sojourners.”

Something so central to the New Testament’s counsel and the renewed imagination lives faintly in the consciences of many Christians. Perhaps this might explain why so many are so anxious: we’ve placed in the periphery something meant to be central. We’ve been working so hard to make this world home, just as it is. But we are sojourners. This isn’t home — at least not as it is right now. Not yet.

We’ll Be Home Soon

As we wait for our true home, beloved, call to mind the great treasure of heaven. Jesus says that the pure in heart shall see God (Matthew 5:8). We are told by John that “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2) — not as he was but as he is. It will be the same Jesus that suffered and bled, but we will see him in the effulgence of his infinite glory.

Gone will be the veil that led him to hunger, thirst, suffer, and moan, while rejected by men. Present will be the Jesus who, through those sufferings, has triumphed and taken on a new body dripping with kingly power, beauty, and love. This is the Jesus awaiting us in the splendor of his kingdom. This is the Jesus to whom we say with all the saints of old, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:21). His presence will be our home — heaven on earth.

Brothers and sisters, regularly draw your attention to this heaven. Pray heaven. Preach heaven. Sing heaven. Counsel heaven. Make heaven so much a part of your local church’s culture that on the brightest day or the darkest night you can say together with confidence, “Jesus is coming, and he will make this right. Once and for all.” Drink it in: He’s coming, as sure as that sky that you look upon now. And when he comes, justice and everlasting joy will come with him.

Join me in prayerfully redirecting our lives and ministries to that great North Star. We’ll be home soon enough. Oh, the joy.