Although people are vastly more complex than the inner workings of a rocket, giving care for them as Christian leaders is not complicated. In fact, it is annoyingly simple and invasive ‒ in a good way. Truly effective leader care touches people in the core areas of their lives and encourages realignment to the way God has made us.

And yet how strange it is that making adjustments that would impact our wellbeing so positively would be so under-valued by those who need it most ‒ especially when it would bring such revolutionary changes to so many people.

The biggest battle in leader care is getting leaders to care about it!

The current unhealthy leader culture within the Christian ministry world needs to be turned upside down. We see glimmers of hope that it will be. What was once just a trickle of dissatisfaction seeping from the dam of unhealthiness in the ministry world has now become a conspicuous stream.

People are hearing, seeing, and unfortunately experiencing the wake of damage that unhealthy lifestyles and choices are causing in Christian ministries ‒ affecting the lives of leaders, their families and friends at an unprecedented rate. And people are tired of it. But a movement towards holistic health as Christian leaders has not yet broken through the walls in full force.

So we issue a call to leaders who serve in Jesus’ name ‒ in His life and character ‒ enough is enough! Join the revolution and help turn this ship around.

To those leaders who want to be healthier and lead others on that path we say, “Welcome to the possibility of making healthy changes.” People truly care about you but you have to make the decision to care for yourself. Step by step the changes you make will bring a huge impact on your life. And the ministry you serve in will be qualitatively different. Trust Jesus; He knows.

To those who are in moral and spiritual failure right now ‒ but are hiding it ‒ you are urged to come clean. Stop faking while speaking on stage at church ‒ all the while carrying out a double life where no one can see except God.
Resign now and get help for your life. Stop damaging other people and yourself. There is hope and you can find restoration and a new life by turning away from it all. You can experience forgiveness and begin walking on the road to recovery. But you have to take that step. Delaying the inevitable will only make things worse for all.

LeaderSource ‒ Building and Caring for Leaders

In our global leader care ministry at LeaderSource we know that the most influential things we can do as mission leaders are the following:

• • Help shape a new leader care culture for the ministry worlds in which we move.
  • Help indigenous leaders grow to give effective leader care in their own teams.

We need the vital truths and the deep experiences that will touch leaders holistically and we need to give them simple models for both.

In our approach we are hoping to merge the building of leaders and the caring for leaders into a closer unity of thought and approach across our global team’s ministry cultures. To “build leaders” is to care, and to “care for leaders” is to build them ‒ because leaders who care for themselves or who receive care can keep living in the robust definition of a 5C healthy leader (5Cs defined).

This is the key to our calling statement: Healthy Leaders. Be one. Build many.Even our “Building Healthy Leaders” seminar training events need to be viewed as a form of care ‒ because they are just that. Each form of caring ministry, such as “leader care phone calls” or retreats, should be viewed as building leaders.

We can see this in our organization’s “Eight Things We Do” ‒ pray, envision, nurture, train, coach, resource, launch, network. Each is a part of an ongoing path of “Lifetime Leader Development.”

Of course we hope to lay a foundation for a lifetime. Our relationships with frontline workers may fade over time or due to their own maturity but this robust mindset and approach of being a healthy leader and going to build many will have been deeply embedded in the mind of leaders. If it is not, then we have failed to produce long-lasting healthy leaders.
To accomplish our mission we first define the core areas of care and then design transformative activities to lead people into greater health and care.

Our Goal: Build and Care for the Whole Person

Over the years of working with leaders, older and younger, and thinking about the large Christian leadership crisis culture, I began to approach leader care in a way that directly contradicts the unhealthy culture around us. The areas that most fallen leaders or burned-out Christian leaders (including pastors, missionaries, church deacons or elders or volunteers and organizational leaders) have struggled with are as follows.

These areas consist of a subjective experience followed by an objective reality. Within each area is the key diagnostic question to ask someone who serves in ministry in order to help them see their need for whole-person care and health.

Spiritual

• • Their experience: feeling dry, far from God, low passion.
  • Their reality: not pursuing God in spiritual practices, not living in intimacy. The once strong sense of calling is no longer enough to keep them going.
  • How is your love for God and your experience of Him?

Physical

• • Their experience: Feeling tired, headaches, not sleeping well, aches and pains, etc. Poor condition of heart, organs, muscles, bones, and brain.
  • Their reality: They are headed towards long-term ill-health.
  • How is your sleep recently? Your nutrition and movement?

Relational

• • Their experience: The quality of relationships with those closest is often poor.
  • Their reality: Distant, not focused on the relational health, strained or brokenness. They may have unreconciled relationships and wounds.
  • Do you have a close friend you open up to authentically each month?

Emotional

• • Their experience: The emotions in these three areas above are low or negative. Low feelings of joy, peace, love. High levels of worry, stress, bitterness. Little emotional awareness or openness and connection with others.
  • Their reality: Damaged emotions in need of healing. Hiding behind a mask.
  • How would you describe your emotional health?

Effective leader care is Christ-centered caring for the whole person. In the process we can trust the Holy Spirit will begin to nurture and heal. The results will be a cascading effect of health ‒ one area influencing the others.Of course more areas than these four can affect people deeply, but a big key in helping people move forward has been getting them to focus on these core areas.

Soul

• • Resting in the Father's love
  • Trusting in the Son's completeness
  • Living in the Holy Spirit

Relationships

• • Connection
  • Forgiveness
  • Encouragement
  • Life-Giving
  • Knowing God's Love

Emotions

• • Full Awareness
  • Openness
  • Joy
  • Self-control
  • Healing by the Spirit

Body

• • Nutrition
  • Movement
  • Renewal
  • Mindset of the temple of the Holy Spirit

And here is a great truth about our lives that all of us giving care to people should realize ‒ we are a unity of being and one area is intimately connected to the other areas. True improvement in one area means you are impacting the others in a cascading effect.

Giving care or receiving care in these four areas makes a big impact because it honors how God made us. This is who we are, and what we are: body and soul, relationships and emotions.

We also have seen that people appreciate the simplicity of making changes in just a few key areas. When they see improvement they want to continue. Wellness experts globally all know this truth: Getting people to start is not the issue; it is getting them to continue.

Our Culture of Care

Perhaps one of the most powerful approaches we have found is that – regardless of whether you are building leaders one-to-one, in a small group, or in an entire ministry organization – if the following culture can be emphasized then people will truly respond, feel cared for, and grow. Our goal is not merely empathy and understanding. Our goal is to build people ‒ to build life. So in addition to care and empathy, we want to do more.

The E.A.C.H. Culture

• • Embraces: Bonding in relationships with physical hugs expresses the embrace of God our Father.
  • Authenticity: Sharing our true selves openly to create an atmosphere where love can grow without fear.
  • Challenges: Challenging one another to respond to opportunities and trials that God gives us on our journeys.
  • Healing: Pursuing emotional and relational wholeness and looking to God who is our ultimate healer.

Caring involves coming close to another person, mutually trusting and opening up to them, giving and receiving challenges of various kinds, and helping people pursue wholeness guided by the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes we think that caring is doing certain activities, but more than that, it is a culture where people are loved.

Phone calls, retreats, sharing materials, counseling, conferences, and fitness plans can all be good ideas, but at the core people need to be loved. This is shocking to our system because we think it should be more than that. And what if we don’t “love” the person?

If someone does not feel loved it is hard for them to understand that they will be cared for, and that hurts the mutual trust you are seeking to build with them.

We simply have to return to Jesus and see that all that He was doing for His disciples was ultimately summed up in this ‒ He was loving them and they were being loved.

So all of this comes down to the caregiver’s love for God and other people. You are the channel through which He works. But let it go beyond you. Design the culture for the teams themselves to care for one another. Let each one be challenged to care for themselves holistically in these four areas and to develop a plan.

Your embrace (your close relationship), your authentic life in front of them, your loving them enough to challenge them, and your active trust in the Holy Spirit for healing and empowerment will be the real key to caring for leaders.

As leader care ministers we first bring to people the vision of becoming healthier leaders, then provide basic training in how to do leader care and become a healthier person. Then we build capacity with those we serve and help them design for their personal and ministry team’s continued health. Finally, we come alongside in informal relationships to give encouragement as they continue on the path of health.

The end-goal for a well-designed leader care ministry is something that provides participants with a culture that motivates them to remain healthy and grow in resilience.