You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone - by E K Strawser (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Build a Collaborative and Sustainable Ministry Structure

The work of the church is more than any one person can handle, and God never intended for one pastor to do all a church's ministry alone.

Discover a communal and biblical model of missional leadership in You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone. In this book, E. K. Strawser seeks to recover the shared leadership model of the early church, offering a practical and inclusive alternative to hierarchical and patriarchal church leadership structures. This book invites pastors, church planters, and ministry leaders to rethink how leadership can empower the entire body of Christ. By identifying the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers, this book provides a vision for leadership that fosters collaboration, inclusivity, and spiritual flourishing.

In this book, Strawser

• Explores how shared leadership can be integrated into the structure of a church;
• Expands on the fivefold diversity of leadership: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers;
• Highlights how different gifts and leadership styles suit various aspects of ministry;
• Expands ministry beyond paid staff, promoting inclusivity regardless of gender, race, or culture;
• Addresses real-life power dynamics and temptations leaders face; and
• Offers practical, sustainable structures to multiply leaders for the benefit of the entire community.

This book argues that for the church to truly reflect the fullness of Christ, it must embrace the sharing of power. If you're ready to reimagine ministry and build mature leadership in your church, start with You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone.

Review Quotes

"You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone is a timely call to reclaim the power of shared leadership. E. K. Strawser challenges the Western church's default to hierarchical, male-dominated, pastor-centric models, offering a vision rooted in Ephesians 4's Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers (APEST) framework--leadership that is dynamic, interdependent, and missionally engaged. This book is both prophetic and practical, equipping leaders to move beyond isolation and exhaustion into a dynamic, communal way of living and leading."

--Deb and Alan Hirsch, authors and founders of Forge Missional Training Network, Movement Leaders Collective, and other innovative organizations

"You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone delivers a timely truth for this cultural moment, and simultaneously, an ancient biblical truth that is rooted in Jesus and the early church. The wisdom, insight, and challenges shared on leadership in this book are grounded in real-life, hard-fought, fire-refined years of embodied leadership and renew my hope for the church, for the people of God, and for the body of Christ to be good news to a hurting world."

--Rich Robinson, cofounder of Movement Leaders Collective and Creo and author of All Change: Unlocking Kingdom Potential in a World We Weren't Prepared For

"You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone offers us the imagination we need for this crucial moment. E. K. Strawser gives us places to start this journey. . . . She and her church are an example we can learn from in getting through what we must get through to go where we need to go. I pray we receive this book as a gift for our times. And may the Lord bless all who pick up the cross of this kind of leadership for the challenging times we face leading Christ's church into mission."

--David Fitch, Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary, from the afterword

"As a local church pastor, I want to finish well. I don't want to end up being a curmudgeonly old man who holds a grudge against the church and everyone who 'wronged' me. Neither do I want my wife and children to feel that way toward me or the church. So pick up this book and allow E. K. Strawser to be your guide away from that future. She will expose your assumptions and pastorally point you toward a beautiful kingdom vision of what sharing leadership in the church can look like."

--Daniel Im, lead pastor at Beulah Alliance Church, podcaster, and author of The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World

"E. K. Strawser presents an honest assessment of broken hierarchical approaches to leadership and offers transformative principles to move today's ministry leader to a place of health and productivity. Strawser carefully guides the reader through a well-defined model of shared leadership that allows an honest look at how one leads and provides profound insight from professional and personal experiences that encourages accurate application of the Biblical texts on leadership. This book serves both as a necessary introduction to church leadership and a lifelong guide for leading well."

--Kenneth R. Pruitt, president of Leland Seminary

"E. K. Strawser's book is very timely for Christian leaders of today as well as future leaders. I personally grew up and was trained under the paradigm of pastoral leadership in singularity rather than a shared reality. Strawser's insights bring to the forefront the need and benefits of shared leadership within the body of Christ. The idea of leaders operating within their multiplicity of spiritual giftedness certainly finds its origins within the biblical text. Ephesians 4 certainly confirms and affirms this reframing presented by Strawser in such a way that will prove to be very beneficial for all leaders."

--Wayne D. Faison, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia

"In an age and culture where poor leadership in the church has left liminal space in its wake, E. K. Strawser, seeking the best path forward, provides a clear and viable understanding of shared leadership culture and how to implement it. This is a must-read for church and organizational leaders."

--Rowland Smith, national director of Forge America Missional Training Network and author of Life Out Loud

"In my work over the last few years, we have recognized that the church is moving from clergy led/lay supported to lay led/clergy supported. Eun Strawser helps us utilize the Ephesians 4 framework to delineate and embrace shared leadership based on maturity and not popularity or charisma, until we have unity in the faith and knowledge of Jesus and all come to maturity (Eph. 4:13). Thanks, Eun, for the reminder and the challenge!"

--Dee Stokes, speaker, coach, and author of Cultural Competence Workbook

"W. Edwards Deming said, 'Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.' The Western church's hierarchical leadership has achieved the results it was designed to--declining attendance, closing seminaries, and a stream of moral failures. Thank God that E. K. Strawser wrote this book to disciple pastors and ministry leaders to reassess the system. You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone offers an inspiring and practical blueprint for sustainable, disciple-making churches where all of God's people flourish. This is not a path forward--it's a return to how the church was always meant to operate."

--Eric Hoke, founder of I Help Pastors Get Jobs and author of Market Street Pastor

"When I read You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone, I wanted to stand up and cheer! E. K. Strawser is fearless, unflinching, and amazingly articulate in her case for a collective model of leadership that is both more faithful to the gospel and more effective for the twenty-first century context. . . . This is a necessary book for this kairos moment. May it midwife the change that the church needs for the sake of the world."

--Alexia Salvatierra, academic dean of Centro Latino of Fuller Theological Seminary, from the foreword

About the Author

E. K. Strawser (DO, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine) is the co-vocational lead pastor of Ma Ke Alo o (which means "presence" in Hawaiian)--non-denominational missional communities multiplying in Honolulu--and a community physician at Ke Ola Pono. She is the founder of `Iwa Collaborative, a consulting and content-developing firm to empower kingdom-grounded leaders to navigate change, grow adaptive capacity, and foster local flourishing. Prior to transitioning to Hawaii, she served as adjunct professor of medicine at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and of African Studies at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania (where she and her husband served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), after finishing her Fulbright scholarship at the University of Dar es Salaam. She is the author of Centering Discipleship, and she and Steve have three seriously amazing children.