Most churches are well-supplied with certain kinds of leaders. They have pastors who care for people, teachers who explain the Scriptures, and shepherds who tend the existing flock. These gifts are essential, and a church without them suffers. But many congregations are missing a kind of leader the New Testament treats as equally vital, and the absence shows up as a slow turning inward. The missing piece is the apostolic thinker, the leader wired to pioneer new mission and push the church relentlessly outward.
The word apostolic can sound lofty or strange, so it helps to be clear about what it means here. An apostle, in the root sense, is a sent one, and apostolic leaders are those gifted to pioneer, to start new things, to extend the church into new territory and reach people it is not currently reaching. They are the entrepreneurs of the Kingdom, restless with the status quo, always asking what is next and who is not yet being reached. Where a shepherd instinctively gathers and protects, an apostolic thinker instinctively sends and expands. The church needs both, but it has often elevated one and quietly suppressed the other.
Ephesians describes a fuller range of leadership gifts given to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, all meant to work together to equip God’s people and build up the body. Many churches have functionally reduced that list to pastors and teachers. We are comfortable with leaders who care for and instruct the existing congregation and far less comfortable with leaders who disrupt, pioneer, and push us toward people we are not reaching. The result is a leadership culture optimized for maintenance and care but starved of the pioneering drive that keeps a church on mission.
The consequences of this imbalance are predictable. A church led only by shepherds and teachers will tend, over time, to turn inward. It will become very good at caring for the people already there and very poor at reaching the people who are not. Its energy will flow toward internal needs, its attention toward keeping the existing community healthy and content. This is not a moral failure. It is simply the natural drift of a church missing the gift that pulls it outward. Without apostolic thinkers, even a healthy, caring church slowly becomes a closed circle.
Apostolic leaders break that drift. They keep asking the uncomfortable questions. Who are we not reaching? What new thing is God calling us to start? Where could the church go that it has never gone? They are willing to take risks, plant new ministries, and venture into unfamiliar territory for the sake of the mission. Their restlessness, which can frustrate leaders focused on stability, is exactly what a church needs to keep from curving in on itself. They are a gift precisely because they refuse to let the church grow comfortable.
This is why churches must learn to identify and develop apostolic thinkers alongside their pastors and teachers, rather than treating them as troublemakers to be managed. These leaders often sit underused or frustrated in congregations that do not know what to do with their pioneering energy. They float ideas that get shelved, push for outreach that never materializes, and eventually grow discouraged or leave. A church that learns to recognize this gift, form it spiritually, and release it into real pioneering work gains an engine for mission it did not know it had. Suppress the gift and the church loses its outward edge. Cultivate it and the church stays on the move.
Developing apostolic thinkers does not mean abandoning the other gifts or letting pioneers run unchecked. The gifts are meant to function together. Apostolic leaders need the grounding of teachers, the care of shepherds, and the discernment of the whole body, or their drive can become reckless. But shepherds and teachers equally need the apostolic push, or their care can become insular. Health comes from the full range of gifts working in concert, each supplying what the others lack. A church that honors only some of the gifts will always be lopsided.
So look around your congregation for the apostolic thinkers God has placed there, the restless pioneers who keep asking what is next and who is not yet reached. Resist the temptation to manage their energy into stillness. Instead, form them, trust them, and release them to pioneer. Churches do not only need leaders who tend what already exists. They also need leaders who will push them toward what does not yet exist, into new mission and new territory for the sake of the Kingdom. In a moment that demands fresh outreach and bold initiative, churches need apostolic thinkers more than ever.
Recognizing and releasing apostolic, pioneering leaders is core to what the Momentum Network does. We help churches recognize, resource, and release new leaders and recover their outward, sending edge through coaching, training, and tools.
Dr. Tracee J. Swank guides Kingdom-minded leaders, churches, and entrepreneurs to clarify their purpose, reimagine mission, and multiply hope—so they can lead entrepreneurial movements that transform communities and advance the Great Commission.