By Oyewole Sarumi
Beloved leaders, fellow stewards of the mysteries of God, I write to you from the far side of four decades in pastoral ministry. I have ordained elders in cathedrals and in mud‑floor chapels. I have sat with missionaries who buried their own children and with megachurch pastors who buried their own souls under the weight of metrics.
I have watched movements rise on charisma and crumble on convenience. And after all these years, one conviction has only grown sharper: the moment the good news becomes optional in your leadership, you have already lost the plot of your calling.
I do not say this as a theoretician. I say it as a man who has wept over his own drift. There was a season when I treated the announcement of Christ’s death and resurrection as the “gospel segment” of my sermon, the theological appetizer before the main course of practical living.
That season nearly ruined all, but not our attendance, because my attendance grew. But my joy dried up, my prayer life became a duty, and the young people I trained and under my tutelage began to sound more like motivational speakers than heralds. I had not denied the faith, but had simply marginalized it. And that is far more dangerous.
What I am about to lay before you is not a new strategy. It is an ancient compulsion. It is the fire that Jeremiah described as shut up in his bones (Jeremiah 20:9). It is the debt Paul spoke of when he said he was obligated to Greeks and barbarians alike (Romans 1:14). And it is the one thing that separates Christian leadership from every other form of human organization. We are not CEOs with a religious brand. We are heralds with a royal announcement.
The Great Dislocation – How the Centre Became a Segment
Somewhere in the last generation, a quiet dislocation occurred. We began to speak of “the gospel” as one ministry track among many. Evangelism became a department. Preaching the cross became a specialty for the outreach pastor. Meanwhile, the senior leader focused on vision casting, culture shaping, and organizational health. Friends, note that none of those are evil. But when they are disconnected from the announcement of Christ’s substitutionary death and bodily resurrection, they become hollow exercises in moral management.
Current research from the Barna Group indicates that only a minority of practicing Christians can articulate what is unique about the gospel of Jesus Christ when compared to other religious or ethical systems. Most default to “God loves you” or “be kind to others.” Neither is false, but neither is the power of God unto salvation.
The apostle Paul was not arrested by a general truth. He was captured by a specific historical event: the Messiah died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). That is not a principle. That is a report. And a report is either true or false. If it is true, it cannot be optional.
Consider the early church. They did not have buildings, budgets, or branding. What they had was an announcement. In the book of Acts, whenever the apostles are dragged before councils or mobs, they do not offer five steps to a better marriage. They say, “This Jesus, whom you crucified, God raised from the dead” (Acts 2:23–24). That announcement turned the world upside down. Not because it was clever, but because it was charged with the very power of the Creator.
We have forgotten this. We have replaced the announcement with attractional strategies. We have substituted the herald’s urgency with the consultant’s pragmatism. And the result is a generation of leaders who can manage decline but cannot generate awe.
The Anatomy of an Optional Gospel – How We Quietly Replace It
Let me name the subtle ways the gospel becomes optional in a leader’s heart and schedule. First, we relegate it to the “salvation moment.” We assume that once someone prays a prayer, they no longer need the raw announcement of Christ’s death and resurrection. They need “discipleship content.” But the New Testament epistles are written to believers, and they are saturated with the cross. Paul reminds the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, people already saved, of the gospel again and again. The gospel is not the front door of the house; it is every room.
Second, we replace it with moral formation. We preach hard on honesty, sexual purity, generosity, and forgiveness. And we should anyway. But if those commands are not rooted in the indicative of what Christ has already done, they become law without grace. The Puritan John Owen warned that moral preaching without the cross produces either proud Pharisees or despairing hypocrites. Only the gospel produces joyful obedience.
Third, we substitute success for faithfulness. I have sat in leadership roundtables where the conversation revolved around “what is working.” No one asked, “What is true?” The apostolic fathers knew nothing of this.
Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to the beasts in Rome, wrote letters not about church growth metrics but about the reality of Christ’s flesh and blood. He said, “My love has been crucified. I have no desire for corruptible food.” That is a man for whom the announcement was not optional. It was his identity.
The text I am not quoting today warns that when the central message is reduced, Christ stops being central, human leaders become the focus, and visible results replace eternal truth. I have seen this happen in real time. A pastor builds a large church on his personality. He preaches the cross occasionally, but the energy comes from his stories, his tears, his ambition. When he falls or retires, the church collapses. He built on sand. The rock is not leadership principles. The rock is the announcement that Christ died for the ungodly.
Spiritual Formation Through Compulsion – How to Retrain Your Soul
How do we move from seeing the gospel as optional to feeling it as a compulsion? This is not merely a cognitive adjustment. It is spiritual formation. It requires the reordering of affections, schedules, and accountability.
Begin with the practice of daily rehearsal. Every morning, before you check email or review your calendar, say aloud the four verbs of the announcement: Christ died for my sins. He was buried. He was raised. He appeared.
Do this for thirty days. You will find that your prayers change. You will stop asking God for your vision to succeed and start asking Him for your heart to tremble. The great Reformer Martin Luther said, “The gospel is not a thing to be learned once and then remembered. It is the daily bread that must be eaten fresh every morning.”
Second, restructure your leadership meetings. For the first fifteen minutes of every elder board or staff gathering, have someone read a passage from the Gospels or the Epistles that announces the death and resurrection of Christ. Then ask one question: “How does this truth change the decisions we are about to make?” I have watched this simple practice transform toxic church politics into doxology. When leaders are forced to look at the cross before they look at the budget, the budget becomes a tool for the announcement, not an idol.
Third, audit your public ministry. Record your last ten sermons or teachings. Remove every reference to the historical event of Christ’s death and resurrection. What remains? Is it still Christian? Or is it therapy, morality, or self‑help with Bible verses attached?
Athanasius of Alexandria, who stood alone against an empire, wrote, “The Son of God became man so that we might become God.” That is the exchange. Our sin for His righteousness. Our death for His life. If that exchange is not the engine of your teaching, you are not pastoring; you are lecturing.
I have done this audit on myself. It was humiliating. I discovered sermons that were biblically illiterate but emotionally stirring. I repented. And I made a covenant: I would rather have thirty people who understand the announcement than three thousand who admire my oratory.
The Fruit of a Non‑Optional Gospel – What Begins to Happen
When the gospel returns to its central place in your leadership, several things begin to happen. First, your confidence shifts from your methods to the message. You stop obsessing over the right worship band or the right social media strategy. Not because those are unimportant, but because you know that the power is not in the packaging. The power is in the proclamation.
Paul wrote that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). He did not say it contains power. He said it is power. Preach it, and the power goes to work. Fail to preach it, and you are left with your own resources.
Second, you develop a supernatural resilience. When the gospel is optional, criticism destroys you. When the gospel is central, you can endure anything because you are not protecting your reputation; you are protecting the announcement.
The apostolic fathers went to lions, flames, and exile not because they were brave but because they believed that the resurrection was a fact of history. Facts do not crumble under persecution. Only opinions do.
Third, you begin to see conversions that are not manufactured. I have watched leaders manipulate decisions through emotional pressure, altar calls that feel like sales pitches. But when the announcement is simply and clearly made, the Holy Spirit does His own work.
People are born again not by the cleverness of the preacher but by the power of the word. Clement of Rome, writing from his own suffering, said, “Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, knowing that it is precious to His Father because it was poured out for our salvation.” That is the fuel of authentic mission.
A recent study from Lifeway Research found that churches that prioritize expository preaching of the cross and resurrection in every service show higher rates of discipleship retention than those that focus on topical, felt‑needs messages. Correlation is not causation, but I believe the reason is simple: the Holy Spirit honours His own message. He does not honour our creativity nearly as much as we think.
The Litmus Test for Every Leader – What If It Were Removed
Let me give you a test that I give every man and woman I mentor. Imagine that the resurrection of Jesus Christ were proven false tonight. Imagine that archaeologists found His body, or that a document conclusively demonstrated the disciples stole the corpse. If that happened, would anything in your leadership change? Would you still gather your people? Would you still preach next Sunday? Would your vision statement still make sense?
Paul was honest about this. He said that if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and our faith is worthless (1 Corinthians 15:14). He did not say it would be slightly less encouraging. He said it would be a fraud.
Most modern leaders would not have the courage to say that. They would pivot to “the values of Jesus” or “the beauty of the Christian community.” But Paul had no backup plan. The resurrection was not a metaphor; it was the hinge of history.
If you can remove the death and resurrection of Christ from your leadership and still have a compelling vision, then you are not leading a church. You are leading a social club with religious accents. T
he Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote, “That preaching is not worth a rush that does not lead the sinner to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” I submit that the same is true of leadership. Any strategy, any meeting, any budget that does not flow from and return to the announcement of Christ crucified and risen is a distraction from the one thing necessary.
I recall a young church planter who showed me his strategic plan. It was brilliant: demographic research, funding stages, leadership pipelines. But nowhere did it answer the question, “How will this community hear the announcement of the resurrection?” I asked him, and he looked confused. “We assume that,” he said. I told him, “Assumption is the mother of apostasy. Write it into every line of your plan, or your plan will bury you.”
The Fire That Cannot Be Optional
So, fellow leader, I return to where I began. The announcement of Christ’s death for sins and His resurrection from the dead cannot be optional. Not for you. Not for your staff. Not for your board. If it has become one compartment among many, you have already missed the thing that makes your work supernatural. You may have success. You may have influence. But you will not have the power of God, and you will not have the joy that comes from knowing you are a herald, not a performer.
But there is hope. The same Spirit who compelled the apostles can rekindle your heart. You do not need a new vision statement. You need a fresh encounter with the old, old story. Go back to the Gospels. Sit at the empty tomb. Listen to the women’s testimony. Touch the wounds with Thomas. And let that reality become a fire in your bones.
Preach it to yourself before you preach it to anyone else. Say it until it ceases to be familiar and becomes terrifying again: He died for me. He rose for me. He is coming for me. That is not a segment. That is the whole.
The apostolic fathers did not die for strategies. They died for the announcement. The Reformers did not burn for programs. They burned for justification by faith alone. And you, leader, are not called to create a message. You are called to carry one. Carry it with the weight of glory. Carry it as a dying woman to dying men. Carry it as one who will give an account. And may God raise up a generation for whom the good news is not optional, but the very air they breathe. Amen.
Prof. Sarumi is a Bible Scholar and leadership strategist with over 40 years of cross-sector experience across the continents.