The Pastor as Leader

John Currie

Reviewed by: Jeremy A. Brandenburg

The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership, by John Currie. Crossway, 2024. Paperback, 240 pages, $19.99. Reviewed by OP pastor Jeremy A. Brandenburg.

When your championship team is down at halftime, the need of the hour is a coach’s speech that both inspires and instructs. This is the way to approach John Currie’s book The Pastor as Leader. This book helped me think about my callings as a Christian and a pastor with renewed purpose and zeal. Among other things, it puts thoroughly biblical and Reformed meat on the bones of what our Form of Government means when it says the pastor, with the other elders, is to “lead them in all the service of Christ” (VIII). The “them” being the church: everyone Jesus Christ saves, builds up, and sends into the world.

Most of us are reflexively suspicious of anything resembling “big tent evangelicalism.” We love being Presbyterian and Reformed. We aren’t interested in being trendy and changing everything to grow our churches. If anything, the OPC’s moderate but stable growth over its history shows robust community resistance to modern ministry fads. But we are not without need! Currie’s book addresses that need from a thoroughly Reformed and biblical perspective. We should be thankful for our growth but take Currie’s call to pastoral arms to heart.

Currie writes persuasively about the need for pastors to understand preaching as leadership. In his words, pastoral leadership is “an organic extension of the preaching ministry of a man of God” (31). His argues from Scripture and relies heavily on the theological riches of Calvin, Owen, Vos, Murray, and Gaffin. That is what makes Currie’s case so compelling. It is union-with-Christ theology in pastoral practice. He shows how, as those united to the risen Christ, we should unashamedly lead through preaching: equipping and motivating the saints to use their Spirit-given gifts and graces. Crucially, Currie thoroughly emphasizes the sanctified character and prayer-dependent nature of faithful leadership.

To miss or ignore the leadership dimension of gospel proclamation is to miss a core horizontal purpose of preaching—to influence the saints to do something. Truly redemptive-historical preaching will not only connect the hearer to a passage’s Christ-centered meaning, but also to what Jesus is doing in and through his people now. Jesus Christ is the living Lord of his church. We are called into and part of “the greatest of all causes.” The proclamation of the eternal gospel by a man of God set apart by Christ should resound with the glory and excellence of Christ himself, for he is King of kings.

The Pastor as Leader is not a book on preaching per se. It is the halftime exhortation we need to rally pastors, elders, deacons, and members to remember we are in a cosmic conflict that demands strategy and wisdom. The outcome is decided. Jesus Christ has triumphed through his death and resurrection. But Christ calls men to herald the good news of his victory and urge the church onward in the power of the Spirit to love, serve, and sacrifice until he comes again.