Timeless Questions, Timely Answers

Founder Billy Graham’s vision for pastoral leadership finds new life in an age of institutional distrust.

Joy Allmond

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Image: Mike Maloney / Getty

In some ways, the theme for this relaunch of Leadership Journal came together quickly. But it’s actually been decades in the making. Ages, really.

For years, pastors—likely some of you reading this—have told us how much they miss Leadership Journal. At the same time, we’ve heard story after story from the ministry field about the growing complexities of church leadership today. Divisive politics. Pandemic fallout. Prominent leadership failures. Institutional distrust. Ministry has never felt more fragile.

Pastors and church leaders today are asking, What now? How do we lead well after all this—reengaging our communities, rebuilding trust, and renewing our mission to reach our neighbors and the nations for Christ?

As it turns out, a previous generation asked the same question.

After choosing this issue’s theme, we discovered that the inaugural issue of Leadership Journal (Winter 1980) tackled the very same topic: the challenges of power and authority in the church. We briefly mused over whether this was just a coincidence—but quickly realized it wasn’t. It bears witness to something deeper: this leadership challenge is timeless.

Billy Graham had pastors in mind when he originally launched Christianity Today in 1956. In his 1997 autobiography, Just As I Am, he recalled how the idea first took shape:

“My idea that night was [a publication] … aimed primarily at ministers, that would restore intellectual respectability and spiritual impact to evangelical Christianity [and] reaffirm the power of the Word of God to redeem and transform men and women.”

Over the past year, we’ve leaned into that legacy. Our flagship Christianity Today magazine underwent a redesign with historic elements from the original publication and re-engaged the pursuit of evangelical scholarship on the topics of our day.

And now Leadership Journal returns, once again addressing how to lead with clarity and conviction in the face of cultural headwinds and lovingly shepherding people from this shore to the next.

It seems much has changed in our world. But, as Billy Graham once (famously) said:

“The message I preach hasn’t changed. Circumstances have changed. Problems have changed, but deep inside man has not changed, and the gospel hasn’t changed.”

Welcome back to Leadership Journal. Let’s turn the page—together.

Joy Allmond, Executive Director of Resources, Christianity Today

This article appeared in the Power + Authority issue of Leadership Journal as "Reintroducing Leadership Journal".

Posted September 1, 2025

Also in this issue

One of the great crises in the church today isn’t just the fallout of leadership failures—it’s the growing disbelief that pastors can still embody Jesus’ good and cruciform authority. Most pastors aren’t building empires. They’re proclaiming the Word, seeking the kingdom, and quietly laboring for lives to change and the gospel to advance. In this issue, Michael Keller encourages and equips those who pastor and preach to the institutional skeptic. Matthew Z. Capps makes a case for a healthy vision of church membership wherein shepherds can actually shepherd their people. Pastors Hannah Miller King (ACNA), Jonathan Leeman (9Marks), Gabriel Saguero (Assemblies of God) and Hershael W. York (SBC) talk about what makes their church governance models work. Walter R. Strickland II writes on the current state of Black evangelicalism and the institutional tensions of discipleship. Tailored mental and emotional health insights—for the pastor and the congregation—come from Dan Allender, Carey Nieuwhof, James Sells, and Curt Thompson. The theme of this issue is anchored with an essay from Taylor Combs on why we venerate and vilify leaders, written through the lens of Acts 14, along with a conversation between Rich Villodas and Richard Foster on the role of the pastor’s own discipleship in the health of a ministry. A pastor shares his account of how, by God’s grace, something beautiful was replanted out of the ashes of Mars Hill Church. Last, there is a robust books section, complete with a practical excerpt and a roundup of pastors sharing the must-haves in their personal libraries. This issue of Leadership Journal will strengthen weary hands, offer timely wisdom, and cast a vision for ministry that is both grounded and hopeful—one that reaches the disillusioned and points to the ultimate authority worth trusting: the crucified and risen Christ.