What I Learned the Day the Title Changed

"You are not going to be the only Lead Pastor."

Those words started one of the hardest conversations of my life.

I served as Lead Pastor of Grace Family Church from February 2025 to September 2025. Not a long run. As we moved from a founder model into shared leadership, I was given the title of Lead Pastor as part of my role on the new team. It let us work together, collaborate, and make decisions as a group — and if we ever hit a stalemate, I would break the tie. I was a strong candidate for that role. I love the strength that comes from teams that draw on the full wisdom, experience, and gifting of everyone in the room, working in unity. I never actually had to break a tie, and I didn't expect I ever would. I'm comfortable letting a team figure things out together.

In the end, the decision was made to make all three of us equal. I was joined by two other men to lead together, side by side. It's a great model, and we're growing every day in our ability to lead as one.

I wish I could tell you I took the title change in stride. I didn't. It wasn't about the other two men — I helped choose them for this team. It wasn't about no longer being "the only one." I believed in the model. What got me was that it wasn't what I expected. After all my years as Executive Pastor, this felt like the natural next step. And once again, my expectations weren't met.

For years, I would have told you my identity wasn't wrapped up in my title or my role. That part is true. But I realized something in that season: I didn't actually know what my true identity was.

So let's unpack both of those — expectations, and identity.

Expectations have always been a battle for me. I've worked hard over the years to overcome a tendency to be critical of others. A lot of that came from my own insecurity and people-pleasing patterns.  I found freedom from these through a season of inner healing work. Since then, I've become someone who believes the best in people and in what they're capable of accomplishing.   

But the one I struggle with most on expectations isn't a person. It's God.

What do you do when the God you've known since you were eleven years old — the God you surrendered your life to, the God with no limits on His ability — doesn't do what you expected Him to do? I can point to a lifetime of God-sized victories. I also have real, painful disappointments where He didn't move the way I knew He could. Some of those hit close to home, touching people I love. Some are deeply personal.

It's easy to say "I want God's will" when His will lines up with mine. It's a different thing entirely when it doesn't. In that moment, you have a choice: step toward God, surrender your will to His, and say "let's go" — or take your own plan and go it alone. Years ago, I decided I would surrender to His will over mine, every time. The title change rattled that decision loose for a minute. But in the end, I did what I've always chosen to do. I stepped toward God, surrendered, and kept moving forward.

I believe the revelation of my true identity came precisely because I obeyed God in that surrender. Not long after the decision, I read Living Fearless by Jamie Winship, which unpacks what it means to live from your God-given, true identity. Up to that point, I knew myself as a believer, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a pastor, a leader. All of that is still true. But reading Winship's words, I recognized I was created with a gifting and a wiring that goes deeper than any title I've ever held.

I am an Empowering Shepherd.

I come alive watching people take a step toward God, or even just a step of personal growth. I love helping people take that step, or clearing whatever's in their way. I love shepherding people — being the voice that leads, directs, protects, feeds, releases, and equips others toward everything God created them to be. That's what energizes me. It's why I love ministry, and why being a pastor lets me live this out so naturally. Since that revelation, I find myself living it out almost daily — in one-on-one conversations, in small groups, in moments I never saw coming. I'll ask someone to share their story, and God opens a door I never planned for, and I get to pour out wisdom, experience, and His love and character into that person's life. It still amazes me every time.

Today, I'm genuinely grateful for the title change. I believe in shared leadership. With so many pastors approaching retirement across the country, I think we're going to see more and more churches wrestle with exactly this kind of transition. And personally? I love watching Grace Family Church move forward. I love our staff and our vision to reach the lost. Every day, I get to be the Empowering Shepherd God called me to be. It turns out that was the step God wanted me to take all along.

Here's my challenge to you.

Take away your title. Take away your role, your position, the name on your office door, the line on your business card. What's left?

Most of us have spent years building an identity out of what we do, what we've achieved, or what people call us. It works fine — until the day it changes. A promotion that doesn't come. A retirement that arrives sooner than planned. A title that gets handed to someone else. A season that ends before you were ready for it to end.

When that day comes for you — and it will — will you know who you are? Not what you do. Not what you've built. Who you are.

Don't wait for the title to change to find out. Ask God today: strip away the noise, the roles, the name plates — who did You create me to be? Sit with that question until you get an answer. Because the people around you don't need your title nearly as much as they need the person underneath it.

Who are you, when the title is gone?