Despite the chaotic TV version, succession is something leaders should start from the very beginning. It's not something just for retirement-age pastors and organizational heads. It's for leaders, at every career stage, who want to finish their work well. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, pastor Tom Nelson talks about the art — and it is an art — of passing the baton from one leader to another. Part of the conversation is a deep dive into the challenges leaders face in the latter parts of their careers, including why so many pastoral ministries seem to end in failure or scandal. As the conversation unfolded, Tom explains three metaphors that guide his approach to pastoral leadership: a battleground, a marathon, and a sacred trust.

All leaders have a scorecard, a measure of what success looks like. These can vary, and generally, they're neither right nor wrong: Numeric growth, influence reach, facility upgrades. But for pastors — especially those prone to a "visionary" leadership style — it can be all too easy to develop a faulty or distorted scorecard, to measure success with cultural markers rather than with biblical faithfulness. Fruitfulness. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Tom Nelson describes how tracking success in pastoral work can be both essential and fraught. He outlines a healthier way to measure success and looks toward the ultimate goal of pastoral leadership.

For most of us, the word "work" mainly equates to compensation. But fundamentally, according to pastor Tom Nelson, work is far more: It's a vital part of being an image bearer of God, and it's not primarily about whether or not it earns monetary compensation. It's about contribution to God's world, contributions that can take paid and unpaid forms. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Nelson explains how this integral view of work transformed the way he pastors, including a significant pivot in what it looks like to equip people for the work of ministry. It all started with a pastoral confession. As the conversation unfolds, Nelson talks about the nature and shape of the faith and work movement. He also describes five consequences of perpetuating a Sunday to Monday gap.

The management guru Peter Drucker said famously that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” His point? Building a culture within an organization or company is really important. Despite the ubiquity of Drucker’s maxim, healthy organizational and institutional cultures — even among churches and church staffs — are often at a minimum. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Tom Nelson delves into the work of building healthy culture within churches and organizations. As the conversation unfolds, Tom discusses the place of mission statements and core values, and how leaders can reinforce them by embodying them.

Do the math and you'll find that most of your time, if you subtract sleep, is spent working, whether paid or unpaid work. If this is true of pastors and leaders, how much more so is it for the people you lead? In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Nelson explains and explores the concept of faithful presence as developed by scholar James Davison Hunter. He shows how the faithful presence approach to culture reflects a biblical model — with real-life implications for pastors and leaders. As the conversation unfolds, Nelson also addresses the importance of what he calls vocational discipleship, that is, preparing Christians for how and where they spend the majority of their lives.

You've heard that pastors and leaders should walk their talk. What is at the heart of that advice? Not perfection, but a consistency that reveals a life of wholeness. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Nelson describes how a bifurcated — or fake — life can be ruinous for pastors and leaders, and how the path to wholeness is comprehensively personal and communal. The conversation unfolds into a deeper look at the Christian virtue tradition and its role in the pursuit of wholeness.

Absolutely, teaching and acquiring knowledge about the Bible and theology is vital for healthy churches. Yet it *is* possible to possess a lot of Bible information and still be spiritually and theologically immature — both for the the people in the pews and the person in the pulpit. Pastor Tom Nelson knows this reality, because he lived this reality. But if maturity is more than acquired information, what is it? In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Nelson discusses the idea of apprenticeship with Jesus and how the great invitation of Matthew 11:28 has changed both his personal life and how he pastors, leads, and teaches.

King David shepherded his people according to the integrity of his heart. Leadership flows from who the leader is — or is not — on the inside. What does this mean for how you understand integrity, and what does it mean for how you approach leadership? In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor podcast, Nelson continues unfolding Psalm 72:78 as a framework for leaders and leadership. As the conversation develops, Nelson explains that times of crisis or concentrated tension within church, organizations, or companies requires even more from the leader's interior life.

We often have a lot of different paradigms for leadership, many of which are good and helpful. But first and foremost — according to pastor Tom Nelson — leadership is followership. It may seem paradoxical, but it's a consistent thread in Scripture: Those who lead well, follow well. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor podcast, Nelson unpacks this dynamic and explains what it looks like for him — and what it can look like for you. As the conversation unfolds, Nelson explains why he sees Psalm 23 as a paradigmatic leadership text. Further topics include the importance of self care and friendship for long-term, healthy, and effective leadership.

It's no secret that not all pastors are flourishing, and certainly not all churches are flourishing. Is there a way to move into a flourishing reality? That's what pastor Tom Nelson discusses on the first, extended episode of "The Flourishing Pastor" podcast.