Are You Serious? Four Lessons for Faithful Christian Leaders

If the first question on a church volunteer form was, “Do you feel adequate for this role?”most of us probably wouldn’t make it to question two. 

I’ve said things like this to the women in the community group I’ve led for the last few years, and it always seems to surprise them. Maybe it would surprise you more to hear a similar confession from your own small group leader, personal mentor, or the women’s ministry director who has been teaching Bible studies for over fifty years.

Experience does make some things easier, but every time registration opens for a new semester, I fall into the same old trap: wondering if some women are born with it . . . that elusive combination of confidence, charisma, and composure that makes leadership look natural. 

I start to wonder if the rest of us just need a little more. More training. More ministry experience. More education. More affirmation. More time for the nerves to wear off and for the rough edges, which still feel so noticeable, to wear off. Maybe then the woman looking back in the mirror will resemble the Serious Christian Leader™ we’ve been waiting to emerge. 

Consider, though, the qualities of this ideal leader we imagine we’ll become. Is she articulate? Unflappable? At ease among others? When you picture the woman you hope to be, are you thinking more about how she carries herself before others—or how she walks before the Lord?

Perhaps our dreams mistake personality for spiritual maturity. We can easily assume that certain traits make someone a better leader when they may simply reflect her temperament. Yet a godly leader can be energetic or reserved, eloquent or awkward, quick-thinking or slow to find her words. What gives weight to her leadership is not whether she appears impressive to others but whether she takes seriously what matters to God. 

The Making of a Faithful Leader

If you’re looking for a model of leadership as you begin a new semester of ministry—whether this is your first or fortieth year—the prophet Ezekiel may seem an unlikely source of inspiration. Although his calling was unconventional (to say the least), the way he responded to the responsibilities God gave him has much to teach us about faithful leadership today.

When God inaugurated Ezekiel’s ministry in the earliest chapters of the book, it was “in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, while [he] was among the exiles” (Ezek. 1:1). It’s likely “the thirtieth year” refers to Ezekiel’s age. He had been taken into captivity and was one of the exiles. His ministry overlapped with other Old Testament prophets. “While Ezekiel was proclaiming the word of the Lord to the captives in Babylon, Daniel was serving the royal court of Nebuchadnezzar, and Jeremiah was ministering in Jerusalem under siege.”¹

Ezekiel’s commission didn’t begin with God convincing Ezekiel that he was capable of the task ahead. Instead, God began by showing Ezekiel who He was. In Ezekiel 1:28, he records seeing what “was the appearance of the likeness of the Lord’s glory,” and when he saw it, he bowed facedown. In the presence of God, the only right posture is utter humility and worship. Before Ezekiel was told to stand up and lead (Ezek. 2:1), he first fell on his face in awe and listened. 

That’s where our leadership is meant to begin too. Before anything else—before we make a plan, send an email, or walk into a room wondering what everyone will think of us—we’re meant to lower ourselves before the Almighty, lingering in His presence and listening for His voice. From this heart of worship, we then rise to serve, remembering that He is worthy of all that comes next.

What has God called you to take seriously as you seek to serve Him faithfully? Ezekiel’s calling gives us four answers. 

1. Take His Word seriously.

Rebellious pagans. Transgressed against God. Obstinate. Hardhearted. Those are the descriptions given of the Israelites and their attitude toward God and His Word (Ezek. 2:3–4). Ezekiel stood in stark contrast to them, not only receptive to God’s Word but internalizing them and living them out in obedience. He lived the truth of Deuteronomy 8:3, “that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

The women you lead need someone who takes God at His Word. You will not know the answer to every question or have something profound to say about every passage—and that’s okay. What they need is a woman who loves Scripture, trembles at the truth, and goes first in allowing the Word of God to search and shape her own heart before she brings it to anyone else. 

Before Ezekiel carried God’s Word to others, the Lord told him, “Listen carefully to all my words that I speak to you and take them to heart” (Ezek. 3:10). Imagine the impact of women being led by someone who has sincerely taken the Bible to heart, who teaches its truths because she treasures them. 

Is the Bible precious to you? If familiarity has dulled your sense of awe that God has spoken, ask Him to awaken your heart to its wonder again. Before you give God’s Word to the women entrusted to you, make sure you’ve placed yourself beneath it.

2. Take His holiness seriously. 

Ezekiel’s call was marked by discomfort and costly obedience to a degree that most of us cannot fully comprehend. He was willing to face humiliation and opposition, but in Ezekiel 4, he finally voiced an objection. He didn’t protest because it was hard but over the possibility of defiling himself before the Lord.

Ezekiel was willing to face the rejection of his message without fear (2:1–7), the mental anguish of muteness without complaint (3:16–17), and suffer the physical pain of lying on his side for a year without lament (vv. 1–8), but he pled for mercy not to violate the God’s law.²

His intentionality in honoring the Lord and remaining clean is a reminder that we cannot take God’s holiness seriously while treating our personal holiness casually. The Lord sees what others do not. He knows our thought patterns, quiet compromises, and places we’ve grown comfortable with breaking His commands. 

Our goal isn’t to be leaders who appear impressively godly but to be women who genuinely love what God loves and grieve what He grieves. The women you lead do not need you to be perfect or to appear perfect; they need a woman whose heart is soft to the Lord’s conviction and who is quick to run to the grace that is hers in Christ Jesus. 

3. Take His warnings seriously. 

In Ezekiel 3, God appointed Ezekiel as a watchman over Israel and made his instructions clear: “When you hear a word from my mouth, give them a warning from me” (v. 17). He was to speak to both the wicked (vv. 18–19) and the righteous (vv. 20–21). Ultimately, it was not Ezekiel’s responsibility if the people listened and heeded the warning. “Ezekiel was not accountable for the response to his message but was only accountable to obey God by delivering His message.”³

That can be difficult to remember when you love the women you lead and want them to feel encouraged. You want every conversation and lesson to feel warm and safe, so there can be a temptation to soften your message. But it’s because you love the women God has entrusted to you that you are to speak the whole truth with gentleness and humility—even when truth requires you to say what they may not want to hear (Acts 20:27; Col. 4:6).

As a leader, it’s tempting to measure your effectiveness by how warmly your words are received, but Ezekiel reminds us that faithfulness is a better measure. You cannot control whether another woman listens and changes or whether she walks away, but you can control whether you fully submit to the Lord in all He has asked of you. The women you lead need someone who loves them enough to obey God more than she desires their approval.

4. Take His strength seriously. 

In Ezekiel 2, after Ezekiel saw the appearance of the Lord’s glory and fell facedown, God gave him a command he was not able to fulfill on his own: “Son of man, stand up on your feet” (Ezek. 2:1). Ezekiel himself explained, “The Spirit entered me and set me on my feet” (v. 2). It was God who supplied the strength for him to do what He’d asked of him. 

This was the pattern of Ezekiel’s ministry. In Ezekiel 3:7, God told him, “The house of Israel will not want to listen to you because they do not want to listen to me. For the whole house of Israel is hardheaded and hardhearted.” But then He went on to say, “Look, I have made your face as hard as their faces” (v. 8). The Moody Bible Commentary explains:

The word for hard (hazaq) is the root of Ezekiel’s name (y’khezqel) and means “God will strengthen” or “God will harden.” This is a play on words because the people were hardened in their obstinacy, but Ezekiel was made hard/strong for his prophetic mission. Ezekiel’s name was a reminder of God’s faithfulness and the source of his strength to meet the hardest opposition.⁴

Ezekiel wasn’t expected to manufacture what he would need to accomplish the task God had given him, and neither are you. When you feel inadequate to lead the women God has entrusted to you, the temptation is to assume you need to be more—but your role was never meant to depend on your sufficiency. God delights to accomplish His purposes through those who know they need Him. 

The question, then, isn’t, Do I have what it takes? The better one is: Am I depending on the One who is more than able? 

Someone Is Watching You 

Someday, a younger leader may look at you the way you once looked at all of the women in your church who seemed to have it all together. She may assume your confidence comes naturally, or that after enough years of ministry, you finally stopped feeling like an imposter. She may see in you that Serious Christian Leader™ she still hopes to become.

Give her a better picture. Let her see that maturity doesn’t mean outgrowing dependence on God but growing deeper into it. Point her beyond all the women she admires to the God they follow. Let her see that the goal isn’t to become a woman worth looking up to but to become one who bows low before Christ and lives for the glory that belongs only to Him.

¹ Charles H. Dyer and Eva Rydelnik, “Ezekiel,” in The Moody Bible Commentary, ed. Michael A. Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 1203.

² Dyer and Rydelnik, “Ezekiel,” 1213.

³ Dyer and Rydelnik, “Ezekiel,” 1212.

⁴ Michael A. Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham, eds., The Moody Bible Commentary, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 1211.