When Weakness Meets the Call
There are moments in church life when a man feels both the weight of the task before him and the weight of his own inadequacy.
I know those moments well because I experience them often.
I know what it’s like to stand off to the side before a service begins, Bible in hand, heart pounding, hands shaking, while asking God for help because I don’t feel capable enough to give what the task before me requires. I know what it’s like to want Christ to be honored and yet to feel deeply aware of my inadequacies. There are even times when I want to run away, pretend I’m sick, and let someone else lead.
But lately I’ve begun to embrace this apparent tension.
In his book, The Clay Pot Conspiracy, Dave Harvey says, “Pastoring is where an imperfect person leads imperfect people in an imperfect church to reach an imperfect world.”[1]
Though Harvey is writing about pastors, I think his point applies to anyone who serves in the church. Earlier he writes that when our weakness meets God’s power, the result is resilient ministry.
Leading in the church isn’t about looking capable. It’s about leaning on God because I know I’m not.
The Church Doesn’t Need an Impressive Leader
I remember as a kid—and even through my teenage years—I couldn’t speak to a group of any size without my hands shaking and it ending in tears. Because of this, I concluded that I wasn’t a leader and that if God wanted me to lead anyone, He would need to provide a miracle.
But He gave me more opportunities—starting with my own family.
I found myself assuming that, over time, the work of standing before God’s people would eventually feel natural or effortless. But that has not been my experience. Instead, it has often felt like being a boat tossed by the storms of the sea.
One temptation in leadership is believing that what the church—or even our families—need most is a great appearance, clarity of speech, or confidence and humor that attracts people. But the gathered church doesn’t need a man who appears put together. Indeed, neither do my wife and children.
The church needs to be helped to see God. Not me. That’s the real mission.
When the church gathers, the great need is not that leaders be impressive, but that Christ be visible, the Word of God be clear, distractions removed, hearts lifted, and the people of God drawn again to reverence, faith, repentance, and hope.
We want people to see Christ and cling to Him as their only treasure.
That happens through the Spirit’s work. Often, it comes through ordinary acts of service, preparation, removing distractions, and helping God’s people fix their attention on Christ rather than the man standing in front of them.
The Prayers Weak Leaders Pray
I don’t think of leadership mainly as bringing strength before the body. I think of it as bringing my weakness honestly before God and the body and asking Him not to let me get in the way.
Now, weakness can be damaging if it causes a man to turn inward like it did with me for so many years—and still does at times. It can make you timid, self-absorbed, and fearful. But I’ve learned that there is another kind of weakness. The kind that strips a man of self-trust and drives him to prayer, makes him cling to Christ, and teaches him that he cannot live on gifting or personality alone. It teaches him that he must ask for help.
More often than not, my prayers sound something like this:
Lord, help me.
Lord, keep me from being a distraction.
Lord, let Christ be seen.
Lord, please use me.
These are the prayers of a man who knows he is not the point. And perhaps, at times, they are also a defense against wanting to be the point. They are the prayers of one who remembers that God has always delighted to place His treasure in jars of clay, so that the surpassing power might plainly be His and not ours. The Lord has never been embarrassed to use weak men. He has only ever been glorified through them. This is something that took years for me to learn, and I still struggle to believe it.
Weakness as a Gift
This is good news for a man like me who feels ordinary and for the man who feels too aware of himself. It’s good news for the man who steps forward to lead while inwardly pleading for grace. It’s good news for the man who loves Christ, loves the church, and still feels, at times, too strange and small for the work set before him.
Such feelings do not necessarily disqualify a man from leading. They may, in fact, reveal that he understands the task better than the man who thinks he has mastered it.
Christian leadership is not a great presence, strong communication, or the art of appearing untroubled. It is the humble work of trusting God, speaking His truth, and serving His people while knowing full well that, apart from grace, you are inadequate for all of it.
I know what it’s like to feel too weak to lead. It rarely feels comfortable. But I am beginning to think that this discomfort has been one of God’s greater kindnesses to me. It has exposed the vanity and pride of my heart. It has reminded me that the church does not need my put-togetherness. It has driven me back to a life of clinging to Christ.
And perhaps that is where a man becomes most useful. It’s not when he finally feels strong enough to lead, but when he has been taught, again and again, to seek help from the One who leads him.
Perhaps feeling unfit to lead is not always what keeps a man from serving. Sometimes it is what teaches him how. Keep clinging to Christ.
[1] Dave Harvey, The Clay Pot Conspiracy: God’s Plan to Use Weakness in Leaders (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2025).