My church needed to expand. We’d outgrown our building, and adding another Sunday service wasn’t sustainable. So we decided to build.
I didn’t start by leading the project. The church leadership asked me to lead the design and marketing team for the initial initiative.
We weren’t raising funds yet—our job was to shape the message and communicate the vision. I led a small team of four, responsible for developing the brand, producing promotional materials, and aligning the congregation with the brand’s possibilities.
That was phase one.
By phase two, I lead the entire initiative. This time it involved fundraising, event planning, building the case for support, managing timelines and budgets, and guiding church leadership through each step. I coordinated four teams, each with 3–6 people, and helped hold the vision while navigating the moving parts.
And then came phase three—unplanned, but not unexpected. We needed to raise more money. I, yet again, lead that phase, too. Similar structure. Same pressure. Same stakes.
This article isn’t about building codes or carpet samples. It’s about what happens when strategy meets ministry pressure—and what I learned about leadership, clarity, and alignment when everything was on the line.
Everyone Thinks They’re on the Same Page. They’re Not.
In the early stages of the project, I created what became the most important artifact: the spreadsheet. It was organized, detailed, and exactly what I needed to map out every step of the process.
- Timeline changes? Covered.
- Budget checks? Covered.
- Task completion? Covered.
Everything resided in that spreadsheet, and to be honest, I loved it. If there was an opportunity to create a spreadsheet, I eagerly took it.
However, it wasn’t just for my use. It quickly transformed into our shared source of truth.
Church leadership has many strengths, but clarity around administration and project flow often isn’t one of them—this isn’t a criticism, just a reality. Their focus tends to be on people rather than task dependencies, so I made sure to bring structure to our efforts.
I also implemented a project management tool to assign deadlines and keep deliverables on track. During our weekly meetings, I shared both the spreadsheet and project management tool with the team in real-time. This way, everyone was informed about our progress, what we were waiting on, and what needed to be addressed next.
That’s when I realized something:
Alignment doesn’t happen just because people agree. It happens when everyone shares the same frame of reference.
The Project Plan Was Never the Whole Plan
Church projects rarely progress in straight lines. There’s often one more request, one more adjustment, or a “could we also…” that arises. Scope creep is a part of the process, and most of the time, it’s manageable. Yet sometimes, it feels like a curveball.
For us, that pivotal moment came during the third phase. We had already launched the campaign, and people were invested; momentum was strong. Then we had to come back and say, “Actually… we need a little more.” It made my stomach drop.
I didn’t doubt the validity of the request, but I understood that trust was at stake. We had invited people into the vision, and now we were asking for more. If not handled carefully, this moment could easily lead to resentment.
I approached phase three with more sensitivity than I had for the previous phases. We didn’t simply announce the need; we shared the story of our progress, purpose, and the real costs involved. We took people to the construction site, allowing them to see what their investment had already made possible.
We asked them to sign a Bible that would be placed under our pastor’s podium, ensuring he would always be standing on the Word. We organized more intimate events, creating spaces where people felt seen, heard, and valued. Our marketing materials were direct and respectful. Most importantly, we led with humility.
We openly acknowledged the gap and recognized our initial underestimate. We remained honest throughout the process.
While our plan got us started, the people needed something more: relationships, transparency, and flexibility. Ministry work doesn’t follow perfect timelines; it requires margin for emotions, listening, and course correction.
Burnout Doesn’t Always Look Like Exhaustion
I loved leading the church project. However, I wasn’t just in charge of that—I found myself managing almost everything. I became the go-to project manager for events, outreach, initiatives, and any other projects that required a plan. I did all of this as a volunteer while still working full-time.
Eventually, my involvement stopped feeling like service and began to feel like an obligation. Every Sunday, I felt less like a member of the church and more like an asset. I was tired—quietly depleted. My body began to show signs of stress before I even realized it. One day, I cracked a molar from grinding my teeth at night. That’s when it finally hit me: I couldn’t keep doing this.
I decided to step down, and it turned out to be the best decision I could have made—for my health, my family, and my faith. The church responded with care and transformed the role into a paid position. However, the healing process took longer. I had to confront the slow burnout that I hadn’t acknowledged.
I had to learn the difference between being valued and being used. That season taught me something I hadn’t built into my spreadsheets or project timelines:
The sustainability of the system has to include the people running it.
Ministry can’t run on invisible labor.
And a strategy that depends on burnout isn’t a strategy—it’s survival.
God’s Vision Was Bigger Than Mine
For a while, I thought project management was my calling. God provided me with this opportunity, this role, and this team, so it seemed to make sense. I assumed He was guiding me on the path forward.
However, during a quiet moment in prayer, I asked, “If I’m not supposed to do this, then what should I do?” For the first time, I received an answer: “I called you to that one. That’s not where you are meant to lead.”
That moment didn’t erase the work; it reframed it. God had used the project to shape something deeper within me. The planning, the systems, the pressure—they weren’t the destination. They were preparing.
Around that same time, things began to shift—in my church, at Lifeway, and within myself. I started to see how research could serve ministry and how systems thinking could support spiritual formation. The same tools I used to manage teams and track progress became the lens through which I studied friction, behavior, and alignment.
The vision wasn’t wrong. It was just temporary. God used one project to prepare me for another. Leadership doesn’t always mean staying. Sometimes it means learning to see what the work was building in you.
I thought I was building a building. What I was building was capacity—for strategy, for systems, and for listening when things get hard.
You don’t have to lead everything to grow through it. Sometimes, the project shapes the path. And sometimes, stepping away is the most aligned decision you can make.