From Platform to Garden: What the Church Needs from Its Pastors
Reclaiming the Slow Work of Ministry in an Age of Visionary Dominance
Our family recently returned from our annual two-and-a-half-week trip to Southern California. In previous years, I carried a lot of anxiety about the state of our garden and my inability to care for it during such a critical time in the growing season. This year, however, I was freed from these worries because I invested extra time in preparing our garden for success. I started our plants early indoors so I would have time to prune them before leaving for the trip. I provided them with plenty of fertilizer. I carefully planned their watering schedule to ensure each garden bed received exactly the right amount of water.
Gardening really teaches you to respect God’s sovereignty over nature. You can do everything right, but 90% of a garden’s success comes down to temperatures and sunlight. After an unusually cool and rainy spring, Indianapolis faced a severe heat wave that hindered the growth of many of our peppers and tomatoes.
Even with all the extra effort I put into the garden, it is still performing far below my expectations. I can do everything right and still have a bad year in the garden.
Ministry, like gardening, is almost entirely outside of a pastor’s control. As Paul told the Corinthians, some can sow seeds, while others water; but it is God who makes things grow (1 Corinthians 3:6-9). Like a good gardener, the best we can do is faithfully care for the life God has given us. After that, the rest is up to him.
This approach to pastoral ministry is almost entirely lost in this generation. Instead of gardeners who patiently nurture their congregations, many Christians have experienced pastoral leadership in the form of domineering executive visionaries. This has caused immeasurable harm to countless Christians and has stained the glory of Christ’s church in the world. Rather than the pastor-as-visionary model, I believe Paul’s model in 1 Corinthians points us to a better way forward as we embrace the pastor-as-gardener instead.
The Pastor as Visionary
The pastor-as-visionary model may not be exclusively an American phenomenon. Still, it is a system uniquely supported by U.S. Evangelicals and is being exported worldwide as the preferred model. A simple search for books on pastoral leadership or descriptions of pastor conferences reveals how efficiency, size, and technique have overshadowed qualities like compassion, gentleness, and patience.
Nor is this model entirely new. In 1911, the Reformed theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) criticized American churches for a “free-reigning spirit” that is characterized by pastors who run churches like an “independent business.” In such churches, congregational life lacks vitality and a spirit of cooperation with other churches. These congregations become little more than “a circle gathering around a talented speaker.”1
In another essay elsewhere, Kuyper explained how this attitude toward pastoral leadership can come to dominate an entire city. When this happens, preachers start competing with each other in a “false competition” as they start “vying for the greatest number of listeners.” The church is no longer a place of discipleship or care; people “have little interest in church as such.” Instead, their only concern is “for the preacher of their choice. They shadow and follow him, and align themselves with him.2
Kuyper observed the pastor-as-visionary model in its infancy; it has now grown up into a monstrous distortion of the pastoral calling. Supported by our consumer culture, the evangelical publishing industry, and the conference circuit, this model encourages us to view size and influence as metrics of faithful pastors.
Pastors can use visionary and executive gifts in service to their congregations, of course. In a fast-paced, technologically advanced age, a pastor with experience as an institutional leader can be a great gift.
However, when this model becomes the dominant expression for the pastoral office, a church will suffer from at least three terrible consequences.
First, the church develops a cult of personality around the pastor, highlighting the pastor’s gifts rather than those of the entire congregation. This system is supported by a church culture that elevates the pastor in multiple ways. The pastor’s face is prominently featured in every church communication; the pastor is the brand. They are given special privileges not available to other members, and they are celebrated in ways that no other individual or vocation is. The pastor’s preaching becomes the main focus, which subtly implies that other gifts are less important or even unnecessary. Emulating the pastor rather than Jesus becomes the standard of faithfulness.
Second, efficiency, technique, and size are valued more than mercy and compassion. The church’s culture becomes cold and artificial as a result. Vulnerability and weakness hinder the vision and, therefore, are not tolerated. Outreach to the poor and marginalized is only allowed on the condition that it grows the church. Confusing alignment with the vision for faith in Christ fosters a separatist and prideful attitude toward other churches and Christians in the city.
Third, the vision begins to take precedence over people, creating a church system that is ripe for abuse and manipulation. Those who do not perfectly align with the vision are manipulated into submission and blamed when goals aren‘t achieved. Visionary pastors are often not held accountable for the harm they cause as they seek to control the church’s members. Abused congregants are blamed for trying to take down “God’s man,” while the pastor is quickly restored to positions of power. Because these churches rely heavily on their visionary leader, they come to believe their pastor is nearly infallible and will go to great lengths to keep them in leadership.
The concept of the pastor-as-visionary, which is completely foreign to Scripture, is reckless and dangerous. It may produce impressive results, but at what cost? Are pastors even meant to be impressive? Didn’t Paul say that neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow (1 Corinthians 3:7)?
The Pastor as Gardener
Though my garden has not yet met my expectations, several plants, including the cucumbers and squash, were very productive while we were away. They’re still giving us daily vegetables for our family to enjoy.
One thing you might not realize about garden plants is that many different fruits and vegetables will stop producing if they are not harvested regularly. When fruits or vegetables are left on the plant to overripen, it sends a signal to the plant that the season is over and it’s time to die.
My planning and preparation at the beginning weren't enough for our garden to be fruitful. We owe much of our garden’s current success to the four church members who visited several times each week to harvest fruits and vegetables. Thanks to them, our garden will keep producing for the rest of the season.
Just as it's hard for a gardener to take a break from their garden, it's often tough for a pastor to step away from their church for any extended period. We carry the anxious worry that so much depends on us. How will the church get by while we’re gone?
My vacation was a valuable lesson in trusting the co-laborers God has blessed me with in our congregation. When one of our neighbors and regular attenders was shot, Rome, Mark, and Jane took the initiative to visit him in the hospital. Our second BLESS THE BLOCK outreach concert was led by Regina, Ali, Eddie, and Rome – and it was an incredible event! Together, the young congregation continued brainstorming core values and a name for our church with very little input from me.
How did the church manage during my absence? They used their gifts to serve each other and their community. In other words, they did exactly what they were meant to do, according to God’s design (Romans 12:6-7, 1 Peter 4:10).
The gardener is not the purpose of a garden, and the pastor is not the purpose of a church. Neither exists solely dependent on one person; both depend on God, who alone provides growth. Both gardens and churches are places to be enjoyed and celebrated by communities of people who are united in love and service to one another.
In his timeless essay “Rooted and Grounded,” which explores the nature of the church as an organism and an institution, Kuyper provided the solution to problems caused by the pastor-as-visionary model. He described this model as a “pressure of the office” of pastor and a “pressing burden” on the churches. Kuyper emphasized that the pastor must root themselves in the “priesthood of the church,” meaning the priesthood of all believers. When the pastor no longer perceives themselves as part of an intimate relationship with fellow priests in the congregation, “the office becomes domineering.”3
When Paul described his ministry to Apollos, another leader in the early church, he said they were “co-workers in God’s service” and that the church was “God’s field” (1 Corinthians 3:9). Paul was describing his ministry with Apollos as a type of gardening in God’s service. As anyone familiar with agriculture would understand, successful gardeners must be intimately connected to their land and the plants they tend. Their life must be lived in and among the fields if they are to have a fruitful harvest.
Far from wielding domineering authority as a visionary executive at the top of an institutional hierarchy, the pastor-as-gardener aims to follow Jesus’ own words: “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). Such a pastor dedicates themselves to life in and with their congregation, showing patience, understanding, vulnerability, compassion, and service through every season of life.
The Master Gardener
This is where the metaphor falls apart. While there is a special bond between pastor and congregation, it’s clear in passages like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4:11-13 that this relationship isn't one-sided. The pastor isn’t the only one demonstrating gifts of care and service; God’s plan is that every member of the congregation serves one another until we all reach maturity in Christ.
The pastor, then, is a kind of gardener of gardeners. Pastors are not different in kind or rank, but are only distinguished by their service. This holds true only when the pastor remembers they are members of Christ’s vine alongside their congregation. The pastor is not the point; Jesus is. He is the vine, his Father is the Master Gardener. Jesus alone gives life, and our Gardener knows what we need (John 15:1-8). We are simply the fruit of his field.
True pastoral leadership resembles patient gardening more than visionary dominance. When pastors adopt the slow, relational work of ministering like gardeners, they nurture communities rooted in Christ’s love instead of their own power or charisma. In doing so, they point not to themselves, but to Jesus—the only one who truly makes anything grow.
Abraham Kuyper, Our Worship, 6.
Abraham Kuyper, “Parish System” in Pro Rege 2:242
Abraham Kuyper, “Rooted and Grounded” in On the Church, 67.
Good words Ben. Did some of my ThM. work at Westminster on Kuyper. Getting ready to start PhD. in Intercultural Studies through Trinity Divinity School (following in the footsteps of our friend Randy Newman) - their ICS progam will be transitioning from Chicago to Vancouver after this year. Keep up the good work friend. Would love to connect sometime if you are ever in the area or at GA.