by Michael Pumphrey

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A pastor shared a story with me some time ago.

He had recently been asked to step away from his role. The details were complicated, like they often are, but what stayed with me was not the situation itself. It was a simple phrase he used as he reflected on it all.

He paused and said, in a matter-of-fact way,“This is the kind of thing you hear about in podcasts and read about in headlines.”

There was no bitterness in his voice. Just a quiet recognition.

We have all seen those headlines: Stories of leadership breakdown. Stories of fractured relationships. Stories that leave many wondering what is happening inside the church.

It is easy to treat these as isolated incidents. It is tempting to reduce them to individual failures.

And to be clear, leaders are responsible for their actions. These moments matter. They carry real consequences for real people. But what if there is something deeper at work?

A mentor once told me, “We shape institutions, but eventually those same institutions shape us.” That sentence has stayed with me.

Because over time, what we build begins to build us back. The systems we create, the rhythms we normalize, the metrics we prioritize, the cultures we reinforce—they do not stay external. They begin to form the people inside of them.

Dallas Willard once wrote, “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting.” That is a difficult truth. It means that the outcomes we are experiencing are not accidental. They are connected to the way we have organized our life together.

Most of the time, this is not obvious. Systems work like gravity. You do not see gravity. You do not feel it in any dramatic way from moment to moment. But over time, it shapes everything. It determines direction and quietly pulls things into orbit.

Churches are no different.

Every church is being shaped by an operating system, whether it is named or not. What we organize around will eventually organize us. If our systems are built primarily around activity, we will become busy but not necessarily formed. If they are built around control, we may achieve order but lose trust and run over good people. If our systems are built around preservation, we may protect what has been but struggle to embrace what is ahead.

Over time, these patterns compound. And eventually, they surface in ways that are hard to ignore. This is why the current moment cannot be reduced to a series of leadership failures alone. What we are experiencing is also a systems conversation.

There is a kind of gravity at work within the church right now. A pull created by the structures, expectations, and assumptions we have built over time. And in some cases, that gravity is not forming the kind of life we long to see.

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “The church is a place where good things are meant to run wild.” But good things do not run wild by accident. Our systems either make that possible, or they quietly constrain it.

At the heart of the gospel is not just belief, but transformation—a life formed in the way of Jesus. A people shaped by love, humility, courage, and sacrificial presence in the world.

When our systems are disconnected from that deeper purpose, they may still produce activity, but they do not always produce formation. And over time, that gap begins to show. Not all at once. But slowly. Like gravity.

Every church already has a formation strategy. The question is whether it is intentional.

So, it is worth asking:

What is the gravity shaping your church?

What are your systems pulling people toward over time?

And are those systems helping the good things of the gospel run wild?

The ground may be shifting, as we explored in the article I wrote last month. But formation is always happening. The question is not whether your church is being shaped.

The question is: What is doing the shaping?

Rev. Michael Pumphrey is BGAV’s director of coaching.

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This article is the second in a series of six on leadership by Michael Pumphrey.

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