Character Is the Calling: Lessons from a (Former) Leader in Transition

Introduction: The Collapse You Don’t See Coming

Leadership failure in ministry does not usually begin with scandal. It does not start with a headline, a public confession, or a disciplinary hearing. More often, it begins in quieter, less noticeable spaces—behind pulpits, in private conversations, in isolated thoughts, in the heart. Long before public exposure, something more essential begins to erode: character. Not charisma. Not doctrinal precision, nor theological proficiency. Not even skillful communication. Character.

This erosion is subtle and cumulative. It happens when small compromises are justified in the name of efficiency or effectiveness. When a platform is protected at the expense of truth. When the leader begins to prioritize the preservation of their image over the well-being of the people they serve. Over time, these patterns become normalized—not only by the leader, but by those around them who equate giftedness with godliness. The tragedy is that many ministry leaders fall, not because they were unaware of their weaknesses, but because they failed to attend to them.

I write this not as a critic looking from the outside in, but as someone who has served in ministry. I was entrusted with teaching, shepherding, discipling, and leading. I also made the difficult decision to step away—not because I lost my belief in God, or in the sacredness of the pastoral calling, but because I began to recognize that remaining would mean compromising convictions I could no longer ignore. Part of that recognition came when I was confronted with certain flaws in my own character—patterns and blind spots that, though not disqualifying in themselves, served as an unwelcome mirror. They were not the primary cause of my departure, but they became part of a growing clarity that the way forward required a different kind of honesty—one that could no longer be buried beneath responsibility or role.

What I discovered during that time was unsettling and clarifying: when the titles are gone and the stage is empty, what remains is not your ministerial résumé—it is your character. And if that character has been neglected in the process of “doing ministry,” then something foundational has been lost.

This article could not have been written any sooner than now. It has taken time—time for emotions not to be ignored, but to settle. Time for grief to give way to perspective. Time for conviction to be tempered by grace. What was once confusion has matured into clarity, and what was once pain has become peace. And so, I offer this—not as a final word, but as a reflection in progress. It is written for those who remain in ministry, for those who have stepped away, and for those discerning whether they are truly called. It is not a warning about failure, but an invitation to recalibrate. Because when everything else is stripped away, it is character—not gifting—that reveals whether the call was ever truly embraced.

The Myth of Competency Without Character

In recent decades, much of Western evangelicalism has shown an increasing tendency to equate ministerial competency with spiritual qualification. Preaching ability, doctrinal conformity (even theological sharpness), administrative success, and church growth have all too often been accepted as sufficient indicators of a leader’s readiness and reliability. However, as the growing number of moral failures, spiritual abuse cases, and institutional breakdowns have revealed, these external markers are not enough. Competency, in isolation from character, is a dangerous illusion.

This is not a new problem. Scripture is replete with examples of individuals whose gifting or status did not equate to faithfulness. King Saul is one such example. Chosen, anointed, and initially humble (1 Sam. 10:22), he soon succumbed to fear, pride, and disobedience—traits that ultimately disqualified him from leadership (1 Sam. 15:22–23). The failure was not a matter of strategy or skill but of heart. In contrast, David, though far from flawless, was described as a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; cf. Acts 13:22). The biblical witness points again and again to the primacy of internal integrity over external success.

Modern ministry culture, however, often reverses the emphasis. Churches seek leaders who can preach well, attract people, manage teams, and conform to every jot and tittle of their own doctrinal statements. While none of these are inherently wrong, the danger comes when they overshadow the non-negotiables of humility, honesty, self-control, and servant-heartedness (cf. 1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9). The result is what Michael J. Kruger calls the phenomenon of spiritual abuse: “when a spiritual leader... wields his position of spiritual authority in such a way that he manipulates, domineers, bullies, and intimidates those under him… even if he is convinced he is seeking biblical and kingdom-related goals.”[1]

This is why the Apostle Paul, when outlining qualifications for elders, did not begin with doctrine but with demeanor: “above reproach,” “sober-minded,” “gentle,” “not quarrelsome” (1 Tim. 3:2–3). In Paul’s view, character is not an added bonus—it is the qualification. Sound teaching must be matched with sound living.

Still, there are others who push back against what they perceive to be an overemphasis on “inner life” assessments, cautioning that such evaluation can easily become subjective or therapeutic in nature. Leadership scholar Samuel Rima warns that character assessments can sometimes be shaped more by personality preference than biblical principle—a danger that can create undue suspicion or impose unrealistic standards.[2] Likewise, Joe Rigney critiques what he calls the rise of “emotional fragility” in church culture, noting that this trend, if unchecked, can “kill the mission of the local church.”[3] These critiques remind us that character evaluation must be rooted in Scripture—not in personal expectations or subjective metrics.

Yet Scripture is clear: the Fruit of the Spirit is not an optional layer of leadership—it is the evidence of a life rooted in Christ. In my book, Walking with God, I emphasize that the Spirit's work is to produce enduring traits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23)—not as a checklist, but as signs that the inner life has been reshaped by divine grace.[4] These traits form the backbone of ministerial trustworthiness—not popularity, productivity, or platform.

What We Forget to Ask

When churches seek new leaders—especially pastors, elders, or ministry directors—the primary questions often revolve around doctrinal agreement, strategic vision, sometimes education (except in anti-intellectual traditions), and availability. These are not insignificant concerns. Scripture itself emphasizes that elders must be able to teach sound doctrine and rebuke error (Titus 1:9). Yet far too often, the evaluation of a leader’s character remains shallow or assumed. The focus shifts to what the leader knows and can produce, rather than who the leader is when no one is looking.

The biblical witness challenges this tendency. Moses, though called by God, was still subject to deep anger that affected his leadership (Num. 20:10–12). Peter, even after affirming Christ as Messiah, had to be rebuked for impulsiveness and hypocrisy (Matt. 16:23; Gal. 2:11–14). These were not doctrinal errors, nor theological ignorance—they were character issues. The very fact that the biblical authors (under divine inspiration) include these failings demonstrates that spiritual maturity is not solely intellectual or functional, but deeply relational, emotional, and ethical.

Churches often ask:

• Is this person doctrinally sound?

• Is he/she an effective communicator?

• Can they attract and grow a congregation?

• Are they available and willing?[5]

But rarely do we ask with equal seriousness:

• What is this person like when they’re misunderstood?

• How do they respond to correction or long seasons of hiddenness?

• Do they practice confession and self-awareness?

• Would those closest to them say they are safe and consistent?

• Are they more shaped by Christ than by platform or position they occupy, or the authority they wield?

These are questions of fruit.

In Galatians 5, Paul contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit—relational character traits that reveal the presence of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life. In Walking with God, I argue that these traits are not optional virtues or unique spiritual gifts dispersed unevenly, but expected evidence in the life of every believer. The fruit of the Spirit is not a matter of personality or temperament. While personality may affect how we express ourselves, it is the Spirit who forms consistent character over time. What we often call “giftedness” in kindness or patience may actually reflect someone's natural disposition—not their maturity. But the Spirit works to reshape every Christian, not into fragments of goodness, but into a fully renewed image of Christ.[6]

Far too often, church leadership appointments rely more on the recommendations or instincts of respected voices than on discernment led by the Holy Spirit. Even in traditions with formal presbyters or elder boards, decisions may reflect popular consensus or human urgency rather than patient prayer and spiritual wisdom. When leaders are appointed without waiting on the Lord, we may inherit efficiency—but at the cost of fruitfulness and long-term health.

Ruth Haley Barton captures this tension well when she writes, “We set ourselves up for failure when we place people in leadership roles who are not sufficiently formed in Christ.”[7] Barton argues that without attention to the inner life, a leader’s public gifting will eventually outpace their soul’s ability to sustain it.

As mentioned earlier, character evaluation must be grounded in biblical standards—like the Fruit of the Spirit—not individual temperaments or leadership styles.

For this reason, texts like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 remain vital not just as ordination templates, but as diagnostic tools. They remind us that leadership is not primarily about strategic genius, but about embodying the gospel in life, speech, and conduct (1 Tim. 4:12). A leader must be able to teach—but they must also be “gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money… well thought of by outsiders” (1 Tim. 3:3–7). This is not merely a call to act the part of a shepherd; it is a call to become one.

When we fail to ask these kinds of questions—or fail to prioritize their answers—we set both leaders and communities up for disillusionment. It is not that character matters more than doctrine—it is that it proves doctrine has taken root rather than character. Without it, even the most compelling sermon may ring hollow, or even disconnected.

The Inner Conflict of a Leader in Transition

When I resigned from ministry, I wasn’t walking away from God—I was walking away from a version of leadership that had stopped forming me into Christ’s likeness. The calling had become crowded by pressure, performance, and invisible compromises. I didn’t leave overnight. The decision came slowly, through years of subtle tension, spoken and unspoken questions, and both public and private misalignment between what I preached and what I experienced in the system I was part of.

One of the most difficult realizations in that season was that not all of the misalignment was external. Some of it was within me.

There was a point—unmistakable in hindsight—when God began to gently but unmistakably confront me with patterns in my own heart: frustration masked as discernment, withdrawal masquerading as wisdom, the slow erosion of joy. These were not failures in gifting. They were disruptions in character. My conscience wasn’t just unsettled by what I saw in others, but by what I was becoming in the midst of it. As Proverbs reminds us, “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts” (Prov. 20:27). That inner searching was happening, and it was necessary.

This was not the primary reason I stepped away. But it became, in many ways, the moment the knob turned.

I’ve since come to better understand that spiritual maturity is not measured by outward performance or spiritual disciplines alone, but by the fruit the Spirit is cultivating within us—fruit that reflects the very character of God. These internal indicators—love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest—are not suggestions or personality tendencies; they are traits the Spirit is actively working to produce in every believer’s life. And when those traits begin to wither or stall, it’s a sign worth heeding.

Resigning from ministry created a vacuum I didn’t know I had been avoiding: identity. If I wasn’t teaching, preaching, mentoring, or leading others, who was I? Like many ministers, I had unconsciously wrapped my sense of calling around the role I played rather than the Person I followed. And when the role fell away, I was left to confront whether my formation had truly been about Christ in me—or just about being useful for Christ (cf. Gal. 2:20), or even for an organization.

I want to be clear: I am not fully healed. There are still moments when the hurt resurfaces—particularly when I reflect on the circumstances surrounding my departure and the church/doctrinal tradition that once gave me language and a sense of structure. But I am now in a better spiritual position to examine that hurt—without bitterness, without needing to resolve it all at once. The Spirit has granted a kind of clarity I did not have before—not the clarity of answers to every question, but the clarity of peace.

Theologically, it was as if the Lord led me into a wilderness. And like the wilderness seasons of Moses (Exod. 3:1), Elijah (1 Kgs. 19:4–18), and even Jesus (Matt. 4:1),[8] it was not a punishment—it was preparation. It was there that I was stripped of the scaffolding of public ministry so that the unseen structures of my spiritual life could be tested and rebuilt. The “crucifying of the flesh” that Paul describes in Galatians 5:24 became more than a metaphor—it became a daily reckoning. It was the Spirit who brought this reckoning, not in condemnation, but in kindness, “for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6).

That discipline—sometimes gentle, sometimes disruptive—was how the fruit began to regrow. Where frustration had hardened my speech, God began to rework gentleness. Where cynicism had crept in, the Spirit labored to produce joy. As I have emphasized elsewhere, this fruit is not fragmented. It grows from a unified root: God’s love poured into our hearts by the Spirit (Rom. 5:5). Over time, the fruit becomes evidence that character—not role—is being built up.

This did not happen overnight. But it did happen through ongoing yielding. As Jesus said in John 15, the one who abides in Him bears much fruit—but apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). My heart was being recalibrated, not for reentry into ministry, but for renewed intimacy with God Himself.

For those who have left ministry or are considering it, this conflict may sound familiar. There is often no one moment where the “falling away” begins. Rather, it is a long accumulation of dissonance between calling and conscience. But it is often in that tension where God does His most formative work—where He clears away the noise and draws the soul back to center. As David cried in his own moment of internal unraveling, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

Character isn’t something you earn back after a break. It’s something the Spirit rebuilds when all the building projects of your own making have ceased. For me, that rebuilding began in the absence of titles and the presence of truth.

Why Character Still Matters (Even When Nobody Sees It)

Theologian Henri Nouwen once said that the real task of leadership is to create space for others to discover who they are.[9] But to create space, a leader must first inhabit their own—with honesty and integrity.

Character is not moral perfection. It is the alignment between what we believe, how we live, and how we treat people when we have nothing left to gain from them. It’s presence over platform. Listening over defending. Owning wounds without needing them to be weaponized. In my own journey, I’ve come to see character as the lived theology of the heart—where belief and behavior intersect most authentically.

This matters deeply in the hidden spaces. The ones without affirmation, applause, or acknowledgment. Jesus warned of practicing righteousness “to be seen by others,” insisting instead that what is done “in secret” is what the Father rewards (Matt. 6:1–6). Paul echoed this when he spoke of “integrity of heart” and doing the will of God “from the heart” (Eph. 6:6). True formation happens in those unseen hours when no one is watching but God.

It is vitally important to distinguish between spiritual disciplines and true spiritual maturity. While disciplines are valuable, there must be caution against using them as a measuring stick for growth. Instead, I point leaders toward the Fruit of the Spirit as a biblical measure of whether the life of Christ is being formed in us. These fruits—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22–23)—are not merely personality traits or ideal virtues. They are evidence of a Spirit-led life.

These qualities are relational, not abstract. They aren’t tested in personal study alone but in criticism, conflict, community, and humility. That’s why Paul insists that Christian instruction must aim at “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5). Such love is not sentimental—it is forged in the soul that abides in Christ (cf. John 15:4–5).

Psalm 51:6 reminds us that God desires “truth in the inward being.” And that truth is revealed not when everything is going well, but when our unseen lives are submitted to the Spirit. Leadership without character may succeed publicly for a time, but it cannot sustain the weight of spiritual authority. Eventually, what’s hidden will be revealed.

So when all the roles and stages are stripped away, what remains is not just doctrinal memory—it is spiritual fruit. And that fruit, cultivated in secret, is the clearest evidence that a leader’s life is still rooted in the Vine.

My Teaching Philosophy (and How It Reframed My Calling)

After years in ministry, I wrote a teaching philosophy that now feels more like a personal creed than an academic document. It begins with the idea that “the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” At the time, this reflected my desire to awaken curiosity and cultivate deep understanding in students. But over time, I’ve come to see that this idea reaches beyond the classroom. It describes the essence of spiritual formation as well.

I have reflected at length on the distinction between spiritual maturity and spiritual disciplines. Maturity cannot be equated with spiritual performance or outward charisma but is measured by the presence of Spirit-produced fruit in a believer’s life. The Holy Spirit works not merely to enhance one's behaviors or religious practice, but to shape the entire character of the believer into something that reflects the nature of God Himself.

This shift reframed my understanding of calling. I used to see calling primarily in terms of roles—pastor, mentor, preacher, director. But the deeper I went, the more I realized that those roles were vehicles, not destinations. The destination is always Christlikeness, both in myself and in those I serve. And that kind of growth rarely happens through perfectly planned lessons or strategic discipleship pipelines. It happens in relationship. It happens in tension. It happens when we invite the Spirit not only to lead us, but to rewire how we see and love others.

Paul makes this point when he describes the aim of Christian instruction: “that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). Not merely educated, gifted, or doctrinally informed. Not merely engaged. Mature. And that maturity, according to Galatians 5, is evidenced by fruit, not merely by communal conformity.

When I step into a classroom now—whether with students, leaders, or readers—I don’t just want them to learn what I know. I want them to be drawn toward who God is. Teaching is a form of pastoring that must begin with humility and end with transformation. If no hearts are stirred to love, if no conscience is awakened toward truth, if no internal fire is kindled—then it’s not formation. It’s just information.

And so, I teach now from a different place. Not with less conviction, but with a quieter one. One that’s less eager to prove and more willing to accompany. If that’s not ministry, what is?

Final Words to Leaders (and Former Leaders)

To the one burning out quietly: you are not a failure. You are not discarded. You are not disqualified just because the system didn’t know what to do with your honesty.

To the one wondering what remains after the stage is gone: it’s your soul. And that’s the part God has always been most concerned with.

To the one asking what you’re called to now: maybe not a new role. Maybe a deeper character.

I’ve wrestled with the temptation to define maturity by what we do for God instead of what God is doing in us. I’ve argued that spiritual disciplines are tools, not trophies, and that the presence of fruit in one’s life is a more reliable indicator of maturity than public ministry success. That conviction remains true—not just in principle, but in experience.

Because character is the calling.

And you don’t need a pulpit to live it.

Endnotes

[1] Michael J. Kruger, Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2022), 24.

[2] Samuel D. Rima, Leading from the Inside Out: The Art of Self-Leadership (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 54.

[3] Joe Rigney, “Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: The Killer of Local Church Mission,” EveryEthne, February 2022, accessed May 6, 2025 https://everyethne.org/leadership-and-emotional-sabotage-the-killer-of-local-church-mission/.

[4] Alex R. Jaramillo, Walking with God: Living in the Newness of Life (CA: ICRTS Publishing, 2024), Ch. 6. Many of the concepts throughout this article concerning Christian character formation are taken directly from my book.

[5] I cannot count how many times I have seen individuals elevated to leadership positions—not because of demonstrated readiness or discerned calling, but simply because they made themselves available. In many circumstances, availability was treated as an adequate substitute for discernment. I’ve even heard up-and-coming leaders express how much they desire leadership positions and then watched them assume those positions because they insisted on their readiness. But “being willing” is not the same as being formed, qualified, or ready.

[6] Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 45.

[7] Samuel D. Rima, Leading from the Inside Out: The Art of Self-Leadership (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 54.

[8] I am in no way placing myself on par with Jesus, nor drawing a direct comparison to His divine mission or sinlessness. Rather, I am reflecting on a recurring biblical pattern in which the wilderness functions as a place of divine testing, refinement, and preparation for faithful obedience. The wilderness is often where identity is clarified, weakness is revealed, and trust in God is deepened.

[9] Henri J. M. Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 43.