How do we lead through this when we’re hurting too?
You worked beside him. You are grieving the same betrayal as everyone else, often more personally, and you cannot process it in front of the congregation you are shepherding. You are expected to be steady in public while carrying decisions you never trained for.
You may be reading this page to understand what your leaders are carrying. The short version: they are grieving the same betrayal you are, usually more personally, while making decisions in rooms where everyone is watching. Grace in both directions goes a long way right now.
You still have a job to do. The services still happen, the volunteers still need scheduling, and you are doing it all while grieving someone who was your pastor, your boss, and on some days your friend. Almost no one is asking how you are. This page is about changing that.
You are making consequential decisions about a man you know personally, in meetings where everyone is watching how you vote. You are supposed to be steady in public, and you have not slept properly in weeks. Being responsible for the outcome does not mean you are not also grieving it.
You lead people in this church, which means they are looking to you for steadiness the same way the congregation looks to the elders. Much of what is written here about leading while grieving applies to you, at the scale of your group.
You may be on this team while also being close to him or his family, which is the hardest seat in the room. You do not have to pretend the relationship away to lead well, and you should not have to carry the conflict alone.
If you were hurt directly and you also carry leadership responsibility, you are holding two things no one should hold at once. Your own care comes first, and it should come from outside this decision-making room. Nothing here assumes you owe this church your leadership right now.
Every word you say in public is being weighed, and silence is being weighed too.
You are making consequential decisions about a man you know personally, in rooms where everyone is watching how you vote.
People are asking whether you knew, and the question stings whether or not you did.
The staff is looking to you for stability you are not sure you have.
You have not had a place to grieve this yourself, because every room you are in needs you to be the steady one.
You are managing your own family’s disillusionment at home, then leading the same conversation at work the next morning.
Some of the people you are shepherding believe you handled this badly, and they may be right about parts of it.
A steady outside voice for the decisions ahead: what to say, when to say it, and in what order. Care for your staff, who are running the church while grieving it. A private track for your own processing, separate from the congregation’s. And experience from churches that have walked this road before yours.
Also somewhere to say the parts you cannot say in a board meeting, to someone who is not going to vote on it afterward. Most leadership teams discover they have been holding a great deal alone that they did not have to.
It does not mean handing your church to outsiders. Every decision stays yours. It does not mean a script that ignores your congregation’s particulars. And it does not mean you have to be finished grieving before you can lead. You are allowed to be both at once.
It does not mean the outcome rests on you getting every call right, either. A good deal of what happens next is not yours to control, and carrying it as though it is will cost you the steadiness you need to lead at all.