Why We Keep Losing Ministry Leaders We Believed Were Invincible
I was scrolling through Apple News before bed when I saw the headline. My body registered it before my mind did: disbelief, then denial. I read the first paragraph and couldn’t read another word. I put my phone down.
But I couldn’t let it go. I opened the article again and read every word. Then came the numbingly familiar cycle: betrayal, anger and that weary thought (not another one). One of my favorite Christian authors, whose books shaped my faith as a young believer and guided me for decades, a man I thought was above reproach, had confessed to a years-long affair after 55 years of marriage.
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Several days later, during morning devotions, my heart shifted. Anger gave way to something softer: compassion, grief. For all of them (him, his wife, his family, the other woman and hers).
That heart shift is why I’m writing this. Why do we keep losing ministry leaders we believed were invincible?
We count everything about ministry leaders except what matters most. Attendance, engagement, book sales: the metrics pile up, but no dashboard tracks the state of a soul. Faithfulness gets confused with productivity. Yet Jesus insisted that lasting fruit flows only from abiding, not performing.
The greatest threats to ministry are not external. Political hostility and declining trust are real, but the most serious dangers take root quietly within: misplaced identity, unexamined pride and isolation masked as sacrifice. These vulnerabilities deepen inside systems that reward visibility and constant output. The threat is rarely a dramatic collapse; it is slow erosion, the kind no one notices until it is too late.
Recent headlines remind us where erosion leads. Trusted voices (authors whose books shaped millions, pastors who built flourishing congregations) have confessed to prolonged moral failure after decades of seemingly faithful ministry. These collapses follow a pattern: identity fused with platform, isolation deepening behind a public persona, activity substituting for intimacy with God.
Ministry culture now leaves leaders without meaningful pastoral care. They are expected to be emotionally present, spiritually resilient, doctrinally precise and endlessly productive, often without structures for accountability, confession, or rest. They are measured constantly yet rarely known.
The Reformers spoke of living coram Deo, before the face of God. When leaders drift from abiding, they forget this gaze. Sin gains a foothold when we imagine ourselves unobserved.
Richard Foster warned in “Celebration of Discipline” that spiritual vitality does not survive on intention alone. Prayer, silence, confession and simplicity are not optional additions to ministry leadership. They are ordinary means by which God preserves dependence.
Jesus addresses this directly in John 15. “Apart from me you can do nothing,” he says, not as a rebuke, but as a reordering. Fruit is not manufactured; it is borne through union with Christ. Ministry leaders are not exempt from the human condition. They wrestle with doubt, fear, temptation and fatigue, but with higher expectations and fewer safe places to admit it.
Foster rightly argued that spiritual disciplines are pathways into dependence. Silence interrupts performance. Solitude confronts identity. Confession dismantles isolation. Sabbath resists the lie that faithfulness is proven by exhaustion. These practices do not make leaders more efficient; they keep them anchored in Christ.
The remedy is not abandonment of structure, but recovery of proper order. Leaders must be shaped before they are measured, known before they are evaluated, shepherded before they shepherd.
Yet for every leader whose failure makes headlines, countless others serve faithfully in obscurity. The difference is rarely talent or theological precision. Leaders who fall often share common traits: they stopped confessing sin to anyone, allowed their identity to merge with their platform, and gradually replaced solitude with God for the solitude of celebrity. They had audiences but no friends, admirers but no one who could say hard things.
Leaders who finish well look different. John Stott lived in modest circumstances and submitted to a circle of peers who held authority to correct him. J.I. Packer remained a churchman first, attending the same small Anglican congregation for decades. Billy Graham established rigid accountability structures early: never alone with a woman who was not his wife, finances audited and transparent, and a team empowered to challenge him.
These leaders did not finish well because they were stronger or less tempted. They finished well because they built structures of dependence on Christ first, and on communities that could see them truly. They refused to let the platform replace parish, or audience replace accountability.
Healthy ministry flows from a healthy inner life, rooted in abiding, not performing. Without rhythms of prayer, rest, confession and spiritual companionship, even gifted leaders remain vulnerable. These practices do not earn God’s favor or guarantee success. They simply keep us connected to Christ, the true vine, from whom all lasting fruit comes, and by whose grace alone any of us finish well.
Van Mylar, MA, CFRM, is a seasoned media and fundraising strategist with decades of experience advancing the missions of faith-based nonprofits, ministries and universities. He holds a master’s in media business management from Regent University and a Certificate in Fundraising Management from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. As Vice President of Client Strategy and Growth at Apex Media Partners, Van helps organizations navigate change with clarity and confidence. During his career, he has partnered with CBN, World Vision, St. Jude, Operation Smile, Feed the Children, Save the Children and In Touch Ministries, transforming bold visions into strategies that drive measurable, mission-driven impact.
