Becoming AND Doing
Why Spirit-Centered Leadership Feels Like a Detour... Until It Doesn't
“Are we actually going to do anything tonight?”
One of my leaders said this recently, without a trace of irritation. There was even a half-smile behind it. They weren’t being sarcastic, and they weren’t being critical. They were just being honest. We had spent twenty minutes reflecting together on where we had seen God at work over the past month. The conversation was rich. People were genuinely thoughtful and present.
And then someone gave voice to what at least a few others were probably thinking.
“I love this. I really do. But... are we going to get anything done?”
I’ve sat with that question long enough now to recognize what’s underneath it. What I thought at first was a resistance to the Spirit is actually the gravitational pull of how most of us were trained to lead.
We were trained to manage programs. We were not trained to cultivate culture. Most church leaders know how to organize, how to approve, some even know how to execute. But many have never been asked, really asked, to cultivate. They haven’t been invited to begin with formation. So when meetings open with reflection instead of reports, when discernment precedes decisions, when we pause long enough to ask whether something aligns with who we believe God is calling us to become... it can feel less like leadership and more like a detour from it.
For leaders wired for clarity with guiding questions like, What’s my job? What’s the next step? What are we deciding? It’s no wonder we think we’ve taken a wrong turn. But that feeling isn’t a character flaw. It’s disorientation. And disorientation deserves a name, not a defense.
A little later in that same meeting, someone said something even more honest:
“This is hard.”
Yes. It is.
It’s hard to sit in reflection when you’re wired for action. It’s hard to talk about Jesus and not immediately convert that conversation into a to-do list. It’s hard to hold space for discernment when everything in you wants to call for a motion and a second.
Jesus Re-Orders Our Rhythm
And here is where Scripture quietly reorders our instincts.
In Mark 3:13-14 (NLT), we read:
“Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. Then he appointed twelve of them and called them his apostles. They were to accompany him, and he would send them out to preach.”
They were to be with him. And then he would send them.
The order actually matters.
Jesus did not begin with assignments; he began with presence. He formed people before he deployed them. He didn’t invest in them instead of mission; he invested in them before it. And I believe that rhythm still shapes faithful leadership today. Being with Jesus isn’t the warm-up act before the real meeting begins. It is the meeting. The disciples probably didn’t fully understand why they were spending so much time with Jesus before being sent. That must have felt like a detour from the mission. It was the mission.
This is also precisely where Spirit-centered leadership feels most messy and uncomfortable. When you slow a gathering down long enough to ask, “Where is the Spirit moving among us?” you can feel productivity slipping through your fingers. When you pause to examine whether a decision reflects your shared vision, you can hear the clock ticking. When you talk about covenant (about how you treat one another, how you disagree faithfully, how you stay human together) it can feel like you’re avoiding the “real work.”
But what if that is forming the real work? What if the detour is the road?
Peter Senge writes that sustainable organizational effectiveness grows from shared learning and deep alignment, not simply task completion. Edwin Friedman observed that anxious systems confuse motion with progress. Churches, especially in seasons of change, are not immune to that confusion.
Busyness feels measurable. Formation feels like a detour. An agenda gives closure. Discernment asks for patience. One feels efficient. The other feels... risky.
Becoming AND Doing
After that “This is hard” confession, something started to shift in the room. I’m not saying it had fully taken hold; I’m just naming what I saw beginning to move.
Instead of defending the process, we named it together. “Yes, this is different. Yes, it feels like a detour sometimes. Yes, we still have things to accomplish.” And then someone said something that I’ve thought about since: “I want the Holy Spirit in the middle of this. I’m just not sure how to do that and still feel like I’m getting something done.”
That’s the tension in its purest form.
We don’t want to choose between becoming and doing. We want both. And here is the encouragement I want to offer: if it feels hard, it likely means you are stretching beyond habit into growth. The friction is a sign, not a failure.
Two Levels, One Meeting
Healthy leadership gatherings hold two levels at once.
The first is Formation. This is where teams intentionally tend to who they are becoming by consistently asking: Who are we becoming together? How are we traveling with one another? Where is the Spirit moving among us?
The second is Implementation. This is where teams move to: What decisions need to be made? What needs to be organized? What are the next steps? But this move must always be made with the formation questions still in mind, shaping the how and why of execution.
Most church meetings live almost entirely at the second level. The Futuring Church insists that the first level is not a luxury. It must be the foundation that keeps everything else grounded and focused. And in the church’s case, being continually formed by the influence and presence of Jesus is the one thing that distinguishes us from any other organization trying to do good work in the world.
When formation is neglected, execution becomes anxious, fragmented, or personality-driven. When formation is tended, execution becomes clearer, calmer, and more aligned.
If we only focus on getting things done, we may accomplish a great deal... but not necessarily become the kind of community capable of sustaining it. And if we only focus on becoming without ever moving toward action, we risk drifting into beautiful abstraction. Faithful leadership holds both. As we lead, we are becoming AND doing.
A Practical Rhythm
For teams wrestling with limited time and high expectations, try this simple structure for a 60-minute meeting:
15 minutes — Formation
Where have we seen God at work this past season?
How are we living our covenant with one another?
What is the Spirit inviting us toward?
15 minutes — Vision Alignment
How does tonight’s agenda reflect who we are becoming?
Are we solving the right problem?
30 minutes — Execution
Make decisions.
Clarify assignments.
Name next steps.
Nothing is lost. Everything is grounded. The “get it done” leaders gain clarity. The “big picture” leaders gain assurance. And over time, the team develops a new instinct: We do things because we know who we are becoming.
What Shifts Over Time
Spirit-centered leadership feels like a detour at first because it asks us to cultivate identity before activity. But something beautiful begins to happen.
Decisions carry less anxiety. Disagreements carry more grace. Assignments carry deeper meaning. The actions your team chooses carry clearer purpose, and paradoxically, more meaningful work gets done, not less. Your team will stop gathering merely to complete tasks. They will show up to become the kind of leaders who can carry those tasks faithfully.
This happens because the team is no longer choosing between becoming and doing. They are learning how to hold both.
They are learning the order: Be with him. Then be sent.
That order still matters. And that is where faithful futures begin.
Breath Prayer
Inhale: Form us as we lead... Exhale: Send us as we serve.
Amen. Make it so.