Cara: In 2026, the GC Podcast is shifting to a new format with two miniseries released throughout the year rather than monthly episodes. This change is going to allow us to go deeper into meaningful conversations that support our shared journey of Kingdom Living.
Hello, friends, and welcome to this episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.
I’m your host, Cara Garrity, and today I am so happy to have Reverend Dr. Eun Strawser as our guest once again. Eun is the co-vocational lead pastor at Ma Ke Ala O in Hawaii — and that name means presence in Hawaiian — and that’s a non-denominational missional community that’s multiplying in Honolulu, Hawaii.
She is also a community physician at Ke Ola Pono, founder of IWA Collaborative, and an executive board member of the Christian Community Development Association. Dr. Strawser has nearly two decades of experience in centering discipleship and making mature missional disciples. She has developed curriculums, discipleship pathways for children’s ministries, and discipleship pathways that are utilized in established churches and church planting context.
And while her bread and butter is locally rooted kingdom work, she does things like this: consults and coaches pastors, planters, and community leaders worldwide in developing discipleship pathways and structuring their context-centered discipleship. So, Eun, thank you so much for joining us again today for this miniseries on GC Podcast.
[00:01:43] Eun: Thank you, Cara, for having me. Cara Garrity is probably the best, my favorite podcast voice you all, so listen up.
[00:01:53] Cara: Oh, my goodness. Every time, I’m like, “Oh, that’s so flattering.” And you’re one of my, like, we have so much fun podcast hosting so I’m really excited to have you today.
And the start of this miniseries is essentially our theme this year, 2026, in GCI is Kingdom Living. And we’re exploring Kingdom Living as participatory, relational, missional, and transformational. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And so, as citizens of the kingdom and co-laborers with Christ, we’re sent into the world to reflect his light. And so, in this miniseries, we’re going to dive into your new book, You Were Never Meant to Lead Alone: The Power of Sharing Leadership. And we’re going to explore the role of shared leadership in developing local congregations that are participatory, relational, missional, and transformational. So, let’s dive right in.
[00:02:49] Eun: Let’s do it.
[00:02:51] Cara: Your book, and it follows perfectly for our three-part miniseries. We’re going to go one mini episode for each part of the book. And so, for the first part, one of the things that I took away was the capacity for sharing leadership is influenced by the maturity of leadership.
And so mature leaders are disciples first. How does mature leadership lay a foundation for shared leadership?
[00:03:18] Eun: Yeah. I really want to, and for folks who are maybe thinking about why shared leadership as a topic for our landscape in church scope in this time in this place in the world today, I think that it’s not something new.
I think this has been the thing that the church has been struggling with from the first century church, let alone the 21st century church. It’s something that we’ve been thinking about for a long time. I think the second thing is that if we don’t stop to think about why maturity in leadership is essential to get to a place for shared leadership, then we would miss the point that we would assume incorrectly that leadership has everything and only to do with maybe a skill set or things that people are innately born with.
And it takes out completely how Jesus loves to work and transform something new in all of us. So, I think that if we don’t consider why mature leadership is needed and especially that it’s a good and hard intentional work of defining what maturity and Christian leadership ought to look like, we would actually miss the point of why Jesus is at the center of our churches.
So, mature leaders, I will say till I’m blue in the face, they must first be disciples. If your church does not have marks of what a clear disciple, a follower of Jesus looks like in your local context, then I don’t know how you can imagine to begin identifying mature leaders.
So, they are first and foremost disciples. You have a clarity about how you can say that this leader is a disciple of Jesus first, because leadership has so much to do with our motivations. If a mature leader is not a Jesus follower, then something else will be motivating that person to be making decisions, making invitations, setting a vision for the scope of the church.
So, maturity is important not just for how the church will live more into its vision that that God is calling them to, but also, I think a pivotal part about Christian leadership is can leadership be shared.
[00:05:36] Cara: Yes. And going back to what you said kind of first, like, why shared leadership and going to even that question of the first century’s church, even in your prologue or whatever that first part of the book is called … I really love that you say that this is something that’s exemplified in the first century church. And one direct quote that I want to highlight for us is, “Missiologists not only herald a sending God in the Missio Dei, they also include the communal Trinitarian God who shares leadership.”
And so, I think coming back to that this is something that is reflective of who God is, so it’s not just, you know, a good business model, right? But reflective of who God is, how He works in the world and in our lives, and then also that piece of maturity is what are our motivations and how are we being transformed in Christ, I think, is so key in that idea that mature leaders are disciples first.
[00:06:46] Eun: Yeah, I think that it’s when I talk about a centering discipleship, I always say that if a disciple doesn’t have both formation and mission tethered together, right? That their sense of spiritual formation is tethered to their social competence; if those two things aren’t going hand in hand, then we know that discipleship is not happening. I think there is a two-tethering point for mature Christian leadership, that if there is also a maturity in Christian leadership as followers of Jesus then it must be tethered to how they’re also going to be sharing leadership because mature leaders who are following Jesus understand the art and pivotal point of sharing power with others.
[00:07:31] Cara: Yes, and there’s somewhere I think later in your book where you really talk about that journey of sharing that power really is part of even that, an expression of discipleship itself, right? That giving up that of power, that self-emptying, that pick up your cross, deny yourself kind of aspect.
And so yeah, I think that really coming back to that discipleship as that centerpiece is, I don’t know, just one of those key takeaways from the book that I think for our listeners is really important, that mature leaders are disciples first and need to be disciples first.
[00:08:13] Eun: Yes.
[00:08:14] Cara: Yeah. And then the one thing that I did want to highlight as well that you mentioned is that idea of mature leadership and mature Christian leadership does look at the transformation and the shaping of our motivations. I thought that that part of the conversation was really helpful because it, I think, pushing beyond this idea of thinking of leadership as just a skill set is maybe new for some of us, and so digging a little bit deeper to what are our motivations, I think, are questions that start to bring us a little bit closer to, like, where’s the maturity at …
[00:08:53] Eun: Yeah …
[00:08:54] Cara: … in this.
[00:08:54] Eun: Yeah. And, there’s so much research in both psychology and sociology and definitely in our business counterparts in the world that study a lot around just general leadership, right?
And this is where in people think that, again, some people think that leadership is just an innate quality. Other people think that it can be trainable. But I do think that when Jesus talks about leadership, and when the Bible talks about leadership, it really is trying to think about a person’s relationship with power, or their underlying motivations, or a better word, I think, is what are, like, the subconscious layers of our underlying desires? What motivates us to want to be a leader?
And I think that if we are not Jesus followers first or really working through that deep way that Jesus tends to transform all of us, then I think that every leader can admit that we are tempted so easily by three underlying desires of either power, popularity, or productivity.
We can see these in three different caricatures of leaders in the church: People who are leaders because they’re well-liked, right? People who are leaders because they have strong personalities, let’s say or can make quick decisions decisively. Or other people are put into positions of power because they produce things well, and they have a wealth of experience or lots of initials behind their name, right?
But I think maybe a Jesus-following way to ask that question is, I think if you look at what kind … If you want to know what kind of leadership is at play in the life of your church, you should actually look at the behavior of the community or the church. If a leader has an underlying desire for power, then most likely their church community is disempowered.
If a leader has an underlying desire for popularity, let’s say, then most likely their church community is dependent on that person. And if there is an underlying desire for productivity, then I bet that the church community is so deprived and probably at the brink of being burnt out. So, I think the leader and the leader’s impact on the church community, it goes hand in hand.
[00:11:16] Cara: And I think as you talk about that there’s something that in terms of our processes of reflection as leaders and as church communities comes to mind that’s helpful is it’s not only the self-reflection of the leader but also that communal reflection, right? That, I guess as you’re saying it, those underlying desires will be reflected in the community.
And so, it’s almost like a mirror maybe that can hold us when we take that time and intentionality, maybe hold us accountable, right? Because none of us want to say that we’re motivated by power or popularity or productivity, right?
As especially as Christian leaders, we want to say, “Of course, we’re so motivated by these holy desires.” But I think that is one way that I see that we can hold ourselves accountable and our colleagues, our supervisors, our congregation, our community can hold us accountable to what is being manifested as our inner desires and how is that being reflected and mirrored back to us in the church community?
[00:12:31] Eun: Yeah, and this is probably more unique to more Western-influenced churches, but only in Western church culture is there something like church shopping, right? Where we have the privilege and the daunting task of if we go to a new place or if we were grumpy with an old place, and then we go and hop around.
And again, all the, the research done just specifically on what motivates people to choose the faith communities that they end up being a part of, it probably comes down to does the leader either make me feel safe or does the leader either make me feel special? And all of a sudden, if that is the congregation’s reason to pick a faith community, then guess where all the leadership focus goes to? We want and desire leaders who make us feel special, unique in some way, or feel really safe.
And I think ultimately, again, why discipleship matters is, who should ultimately make us feel we are safe? Even the times when our faith calls us to put ourselves at risk for the sake of others, right? And ultimately, who should be the one who tells us without a shadow of a doubt that we are so special? It really should be God. None of the leaders of our churches should ever take the place of who Jesus is in the life and context and transformation our of ourselves.
And sadly, I think in the Western church, because congregation members are so motivated by who’s the person who’s going to make me feel the most safe or the most special, we desire as congregations, and we choose them in our committees and nominating committees, and search committees. We choose people who have to be tied to their underlying desires of wanting power, wanting to be popular, or wanting to be productive. It’s like this vicious cycle in the Western church.
[00:14:23] Cara: Yes. Yeah. As you just said, vicious cycle ― that was the visual in my mind that was forming. And so, I think what we’re wrestling with in your book is, what does it look like to break that cycle, right? And what are some signs we see along the way?
And four of the markers of mature leadership that you identify are humility, honor, hospitality, and hope. And so, I’m wondering if you can share with us a little bit more of like, why these, these four? There are so many things that I think if you asked a room full of like 100 church leaders what the markers of mature leadership would be that they would pick, you’d get 1,000 different answers, right? So why these four are the ones that you identify as being the markers of mature leadership?
[00:15:15] Eun: Yeah. I thank you for asking that question. The four H’s are super near and dear to my heart, and I would be pleading my case to the day I die. Because I think that Jesus, whenever there are conversations around how people are going to be treating one another and Jesus has many conversations, both with crowds, with community members, and with his disciples as well, around power dynamics.
And if you don’t have, and I do think that it happens in progression of identifying people who state humility as a primary essential to following Christ, who also exhibit honoring and honoring others, who show hospitality, and who have hope. So, humility, honor, hospitality, and hope.
If you don’t have these four H’s, I don’t think you have a person who is in the makings of a good mature Jesus following leader who will also be primed already to be willing to share power. Because again, whenever we talk about leadership, we have to already envision this has to do with power dynamics.
And the biggest thing is, again, if we’re taking that metric of not what’s happening in the leader, but what’s happening to the congregation, it takes humility, honor, hospitality, and hope, where it produces a church community that is already empowered and not disempowered, right?
Humility, honor, hospitality, and hope is something that helps a community celebrate one another and pushes them into relationship with one another, and not just a dependency on that one leader. And then it’s humility, honor, hospitality, and hope that tells and informs a community to respect and model after whom? They’re imitating Jesus.
Jesus’ contribution. Jesus-like contributions, and not just this one leader’s way of doing things or their expertise in doing something, right? I think it’s these four markers. Our church plant ― this is my second church plant in Hawaii. We’re nearing our 10th year. And when we were looking for leaders from the get-go, I knew that there were some social aspects around it, so I wanted every leader at every level of our church to reflect the community or the neighborhood, right? And so, for us, we need to have at least 90% local people who are in that leadership position.
But then I’m also looking for these qualities. Who are the people who are the most humble in the room always? They’re the ones who really exhibit this. Not just people who are fake humble or fake meek ― we all know these people, right? But they’re, like, aching for some sort of, you know, visibility. But really, they’re the people who love to give up a seat for another person constantly, right? Welcome another person, right? That’s humility, right? They already have a bent for self-giving love.
And then that kind of practice already leads into honor. Who are the people who are great at celebrating other people? Not the people who are just like, “Why am I not in the spotlight? Why does that person get to be highlighted again,” right?
[00:18:37] Cara: Yeah.
[00:18:37] Eun: And then that kind of heart transforms a leader so that they are the most hospitable person in the room. They aren’t the people who know how to just take up space. They use themselves to make space for other people. That’s a big point to make across it and emphasize. Not just people who are good at making coffee or have the largest living room to accommodate large numbers of people.
Hospitality, biblical hospitality means do you make space for other people and not just take up space? And then lastly, you could have all these qualities in being a leader and still be a person of so much despair. Jesus-following leaders should be the most hopeful person in the room, in any room, at any time. They know this longsuffering work of perseverance because they’re the people who are expectant that God is a promise keeper, that God will keep to the things that he said he will do.
[00:19:35] Cara: Yes. No, that’s just so rich. And I, aside from being easily rememberable as the four H’s, I just … I resonate with them. And I really think that they can be really helpful markers, and I think that they, as I was reading, for me what they do, is highlighted almost maybe more posture, again, than like skill set, right? Or knowledge. So, I really appreciate what you have suggested to us here with these markers of leadership, mature leadership.
[00:20:16] Eun: Yeah, if you kind of take that same theme that we’ve been talking about today around what happens to the church community, the congregation because of the impact of the leadership, can you imagine congregations when they know that their leader’s relationship with them is that humility out of their trust in God makes them know that this leader is with them.
They’re not doing things for them. They’re not telling them what to do. They’re people who are with them in whatever the work is, right? Honor makes it so that this congregation is so celebrated. There’s no competition. There’s no comparison. There’s no envy. There’s no jealousy, because everyone gets celebrated, and the leader is the first to do it.
Imagine a congregation where the leader is constantly making space for them, not just taking up space, and then a hopeful leader who’s so expectant of God that the leader gives the congregation a vision. Imagine if that’s the rhetoric for what Christian leaders should be. Man, it’s so much more relational. It’s so much more missional. It’s so much more transformational. It’s everything that ― Cara, you talked about what kingdom living is, and how would a leader facilitate that kind of kingdom living? It’s through these four H’s.
[00:21:34] Cara: Yes, and even as you were asking those questions, that’s exactly where my mind went ― of that sounds like a congregation that would feel like a tiny piece of the kingdom, to me. And so, I think that really is just a beautiful hope for us to be thinking about what would it look like for our churches to be like this?
And I think one of the things that we’re celebrating and we’re wanting to continue to grow in GCI is what we’re calling team-based, pastor-led ministry, which is kind of our own language for shared ministry that ― I like how that you mentioned what you’re talking about with shared leadership isn’t flat, but it’s not hierarchical, right?
And so, I think team-based, pastor-led is our own way to describe that. And for us it’s been a journey of moving into that and being transformed into this new way of being and this new way of leading and this new way of developing new leaders.
And one of the things that you mentioned even early in your book is that sometimes this hierarchical leadership that we’ve become so accustomed to, especially in a Western context it can be sneaky, right? And can still like function within our practices or constructs of shared leadership. And like, how can we, like, notice when those whole old habits are sneaking in? Or maybe like what are some signs that we can look out for when we’re on this journey of transforming into a practice of shared leadership?
[00:23:20] Eun: Yeah. I think that in the first century church, again, I think that this was practiced really well. But since then, I think that because of different historical context and whatnot, this is hard to see because most of the time, most churches in the Western world are mimicking a business-type model, let’s say of how leadership is done or a political model of how leadership is done.
So, I think old habits are probably unique to those archetypes of leadership. I think it’s first identifying which of those three underlying desires. We just need to be really honest, right, about what is motivating our leadership.
Are we a leader that struggles with popularity? That really is the thing that we desire the most. We want people to like us, right? Or is it that we really want to be productive? It kills me if I’m not productive, or we can’t get some fruit bearing in the life of our church. Or for another leader, it could be that it’s that power. I really love that control because I know that I’m doing the right thing and making good decisions on behalf of my congregation, right?
They’re not all coming from very perceived intentional negative things. But I do think that if we are ruled by these underlying desires, you can see what kinds of things, what kinds of old habits will come in.
If popularity is a thing or being well-liked is a thing that is my underlying motivation, then I would probably be a really … I wouldn’t like to invite other people into leadership positions. I probably don’t like new people coming in to leadership positions to speak their thoughts, right? I probably don’t want new faces or hear from the community, right?
If it’s power and control, I’ve known one church context that I worked with where every week in their weekly meetings everyone was so afraid of the senior pastor that the senior pastor could ask for feedback and no one would ever give this person feedback. And he just lived this entire senior leadership career thinking that he was doing a great job when he was wrestling with control. So, it’s things like, if for instance, if that is the struggle for a leader, then I encourage them.
You can’t just ask for open feedback. I would go up to them after every single, let’s say, gathering or a special event or something that happened, take a few people who are really different from you and ask them for honest feedback. “What are some things that you feel like I could grow in a little bit, more, that I could work on a little bit more,” right?
I think that, again, it’s because of power dynamics that prohibit us from, I think becoming more mature leaders. So, old habits, I think, are sneaky and it’s pretty unique to which underlying desire you struggle with as a leader.
[00:26:19] Cara: Yeah, so what really strikes me with what you just mentioned is being willing to be honest and with ourselves and others, I think, and knowing that’s okay. And it’s okay because we are loved and held by God, right?
Eun: Yes.
Cara: And that’s not going to disqualify us from being a beloved child of God, and that he does meet us in those places where maybe we are being motivated by something that is misguided or XYZ or whatever. And so just being able to be honest and be met in those places.
[00:27:07] Eun: Yes. Yeah. And it probably warrants in that we do know that there are limitations. People, leaders and senior pastors could be listening to this and thinking that “I have my own limitations because of people who are above me, and there’s expectations of my role and things.”
But for me, I’m just like, imagine if this could be changed systemically in larger denominations. What if folks who are in more of those higher positions also really hope for and long for their senior pastors to be people who are humble, honoring of others, hospitable, and hopeful?
If those were the metrics of what we want to instill in the leaders of these local churches, I do think, yes, it’s a long game investment, but I think it’s going to produce a better, higher Jesus-imitating congregations.
[00:28:07] Cara: Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for just the richness of the further insights that you’ve shared on this first part of this book.
And as we do at the end of each episode, I’d love to invite you to pray for our listeners and our pastors, leaders, members, ministry participants, community members to close out our episode.
[00:28:32] Eun: I’d love to.
Jesus, thank you so much that you are a God that is not domineering. You’re not a God who craves fame. You’re not a God who is overbearing with productivity, but you’re a God who is first humble and self-emptying. You love to honor your image-bearers and celebrate us. You’ve shown hospitality in the highest kind to us. It’s in your good name we pray, amen.
Thank you for listening to this episode of GC Podcast. We hope you found this time valuable. We would love to hear from you. Email us at info@gci.org with your suggestions or feedback. And remember, healthy churches start with healthy leaders, so invest in yourself and in your leaders.
By Joel Alemán, Assistant Pastor
The host of Gospel Reverb, Anthony Mullins, welcomes Dr. Matthew Hester to discuss the October 2026 RCL pericopes. Matthew has served in ordained ministry since 2000. He pastors Dominion Church International and serves on the faculty of Global Grace Seminary as a Professor of Theology. He is also the host of The Kingdom is for Everyone, a television show on the Grace Awakening Network. Matthew resides with his wife, Megan, and their four children in the Greenville–Spartanburg metro area of South Carolina, U.S.
“Humility, honor, hospitality, and hope — if you don’t have these four H’s, I don’t think you have a person who is in the makings of a good, mature Jesus-following leader who will also be primed already to be willing to share power. Because again, whenever we talk about leadership, we have to already envision [that] this has to do with power dynamics. … If we’re taking that metric — of not what’s happening in the leader, but what’s happening to the congregation — it takes humility, honor, hospitality, and hope, where it produces a church community that is already empowered and not disempowered. Humility, honor, hospitality, and hope is something that helps a community celebrate one another and pushes them into relationship with one another, and not just a dependency on that one leader.” — Rev. Dr. Eun K. Strawser
