Rick Warren frames pastoral leadership with a surfing metaphor: God builds the waves; the leader’s job is to learn to recognize them and ride them. This reframes everything about human agency in ministry.
The mistake is believing that leadership means manufacturing growth — generating revival through better technique, better programs, better marketing. But you can’t create a wave. You can only learn to read the ocean. The surfer who wipes out trying to force a wave is less skilled, not more faithful.
What leaders actually control is positioning: prayer that builds spiritual sensitivity, systems that reduce barriers, culture that creates readiness. But the animating power is God’s, not theirs. Warren’s prayer shift captures this exactly: stop praying “Lord, bless what I’m doing” and start praying “Lord, help me to do what you are blessing.”
This reframing is deeply consequential for how a pastor evaluates success and failure. If growth is something you manufacture, stagnation is your fault and your problem to solve with technique. If growth is something you ride, stagnation becomes a question: what is God doing right now, and are we positioned to participate? The diagnostic is spiritual, not managerial.
For MNFC, this means the first question about any initiative isn’t “will this work?” but “is God already moving here?” Discernment before execution.