Leadership Lessons From This Last Year
- Ryan Swedberg
- Oct 10, 2025
- 7 min read
Late September 2024 to Late September 2025 has been 12 months marked by momentous change. While American society might most acutely feel the change of Presidential administrations, the global church of Jesus Christ has also been affected by a series of scandals and deaths. In my relatively brief time in pastoral ministry (going on 8 years), I cannot a recall a twelve-month period in which so many prominent leaders have been lost either due to the universal consequence for sin in death or the temporal consequence of egregious sin in ministry disqualification. As I was reflecting on these men and their movements, some lessons that we all can learn from them came to my mind. Hopefully my thoughts below can help you to reflect on what is good, repent from what is evil, and resolve to follow Christ more faithfully in the next twelve months and beyond.
SEPTEMBER 2024 – Steve Lawson
On September 19th, I was sitting in a hospital parking lot awaiting my wife to return from a routine pregnancy check-up when I received a quite unexpected text from my lead pastor: “Devastating news just broke that Steve Lawson has been having an affair.” It was a gut-punch. Steve had been one of my seminary professors (and in the age of distance education – he was one of the few seminary professors I actually had in person!), he had multiple connections with some of our elders from years gone by, and he was globally respected as a bold-hearted, fearless defender of the truth and the gospel. How could this happen?! The reality is, Satan would love for all of us to place men on pedestals and presume they could never fall. More importantly, Satan would love for you and me to place ourselves on a pedestal and believe we could never fall (cf. 1 Cor 10:12). By choosing the fleeting pleasures of sin (cf. Heb 11:25), Steve made the choice to throw away his massive influence and ministry and call into question the legitimacy of decades of prior service.
In an apology letter written months later, Steve wrote his “sin carries enormous consequences, and I will be living with those for the rest of my life.”1 While my purpose in these paragraphs is not to parse out the particulars of Steve’s sin or engage in slanderous speculation, I must mention his moral failure as a warning to myself and all of us. The battle against the flesh is real and gospel ministers stand as particularly vulnerable targets. We must pursue Christ, put on the armor of God, and put the deeds of the flesh to death on a daily basis (cf. Eph 6:10-18; Heb 12:4). Sin never stays stagnant and every Christian (whether a pastor or not) is either moving closer towards Christlikeness every day or away from Christlikeness every day.
MAY 2025 – Josh Buice
As if the Steve Lawson news was not jarring enough, we all received the strange news of Josh Buice’s fall just a few months later. And while sexual immorality thankfully was not involved in this scandal, it was still disconcerting to learn of Josh Buice’s hidden online behavior. Josh had used multiple burner accounts to slander brothers in Christ and as a result, lost his pastorate and his leadership at the helm of G3 Ministries. This fall profoundly affected G3 ministries and resulted in the cancellation of their national conference and also saw the departure of high-profile individuals from working with G3 in a direct capacity.
Josh’s sin highlighted at least a couple of lessons for me. First, we ought to be those who walk in transparency at all times. We can be tempted to think that online behavior is “private” (after all, isn’t that what “private” browsing is for?). However, this is nothing but a well-dressed Satanic lie (cf. Num 32:23, Luke 8:17). Likewise and secondarily, the power of fame and social media can be seductive and destructive. While I’m grateful that the online, digital age we live in allows the truth and the gospel to go forth in ways previously unimaginable to prior generations, the flipside of the equation is that never have pitfalls been so easily accessible. As Christians, we must discern and evaluate whether God would have for us to be on social media or not (1 Cor 10:23).
JULY 2025 – John MacArthur
On July 14th, the Spurgeon of our era went to be with the Lord in glory. John MacArthur, during his several decades as the Pastor-Teacher at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, was known a bold, fearless proclaimer of the truth. Sunday after Sunday John would faithfully open and exposit the Word of God in a sequential, careful fashion. More than that, John also was known for his extensive study notes, commentaries, books, and his leadership as President and later Chancellor at The Master’s University & Seminary. Furthermore, John’s entire ministry was defined by faithfulness and he avoided disqualifying scandal like those I just highlighted.
From John’s life, we should be galvanized towards faithfulness to Christ. We have an example of someone who served the Lord, ran his race well, finished his race well, and has now entered into eternal rest and glory. Scripture tells us that we can’t comprehend all this is going to be in our future (1 Cor 2:9), but we ought to look forward to that future with great expectation (Titus 2:13). John’s influence was profound and thousands of pastors and preachers today owe a great deal of gratitude to what John preached, believed, taught and modeled. I for one would not be in pastoral ministry had the Lord not used John’s sermons in a mighty way in my life in high school. I was also blessed to be a member at Grace Community in my college years and had a few different times I was able to interact with John in smaller, more intimate settings. Though John’s voice is now gone, his ministry has undoubtedly served to inspire those who are still engaged in gospel ministry. His example of faithful expository preaching is one to look to and emulate as he emulated Christ (1 Cor 11:1)
AUGUST 2025 – James Dobson
Around a month after John’s passing, another highly respected Christian leader passed away. James Dobson, most well-known for his leadership of Focus on the Family, was a champion of biblical, family values for decades. His bold opposition to the various ills that plague modern American society such as abortion and homosexuality stand as a testament to his unwavering desire and resolve to strengthen the American family. He was a prolific writer as well and theologian Owen Strachan noted that “As an author, Dobson not only contributed to national conversations—he defined them. This was true of seminal works like Bringing Up Boys, Bringing Up Girls, The Strong-Willed Child, and Dare to Discipline, to name a few.2 Countless Christians have had their theology of family shaped by James Dobon’s works and words.
His life ought to spur us on to consider how well we are focusing on our families. Men, do we live and lead our families in a way consistent with biblical values? Are we parenting according to God’s design and not the prevailing consensus of our culture? Are we deeply concerned about the social evils in our country and how they destroy people? Are withstanding Satan’s lies about the family or are we subtly believing in them?
SEPTEMBER 2025 – Charlie Kirk & Voddie Baucham
Finally, this last month gave us two shocking and sudden deaths that reverberated not only through the church but, in the case of Charlie Kirk, through the world at large. Charlie Kirk’s vile assassination on September 10th left many Americans and others throughout the world gutted. He was well-known for his leadership of the conservative political advocacy group Turning Point USA. However, more than that, Charlie was a family man and devoted follower of Christ who sought to bring the gospel into the public square in any way that he could. When asked what was most important to him, Charlie would always highlight his faith, the Lord, the gospel message and biblical Christianity as being the most important realities. While the church has historically been confused on and intermingled politics and faith unnecessarily (For a famous example, John Calvin’s Geneva famously executed a heretic named Servetus for no “crime” other than his erroneous non-Trinitarian theology), Charlie Kirk wisely recognized that so much of politics in our current era actually has spiritual, biblical and moral ramifications. For his biblical convictions carried out in the public square, Charlie was martyred.
A couple of weeks later, Voddie Baucham suffered a medical emergency and also died. Like Charlie, Voddie Baucham also was a type of prophetic voice in our culture who decried movements such as CRT that provided unbiblical anthropologies. But unlike Charlie, Voddie was also a prolific preacher whose sermons have impacted many greatly for Christ. To this day, one of the clearest and most profound gospel explanations I ever heard was Voddie Baucham’s presentation of the gospel at Shepherd’s Conference in Los Angeles.3 The loss of his voice will certainly be felt by the church.
So what do we learn from these two men? In short, Charlie Kirk and Voddie Baucham serve to highlight the uncompromising convictions and boldness with which we must live as Christians. Neither man was interested in mere niceties or toning down his message to make it more palatable to the secular age in which we live. Instead, both were consumed with the truth of the gospel and sought to proclaim Christ boldly (albeit in different settings for the most part). From this, we too must be as a bold as a lion. After all, do we fear God or man (cf. Matt 10:28)? Second, we also learn about the brevity of life. Neither man woke up expecting the day they died to be their last day. Yet, it was. We too must never take our days for granted.
CONCLUSION
Seasons come and seasons go, and as the preacher of Ecclesiastes warns us, nothing is new under the sun (Eccl 1:9). In one sense, this last year is no different than the one before it. Undoubtedly September 2023 to September 2024 also saw its fair share of seasoned saints, gospel preachers, and biblical culture warriors enter into heaven too. Though their reach and impact might not have been as profound as the men mentioned in this article, assuredly they also heard the precious words “Well done” from their Savior as well (cf. Matt 25:23). Nonetheless, the testimonies and legacies of these faithful warriors (as well as the warnings we must receive from the two fallen troops) stand large in this past year. Might your reflection upon all of these lessons help you in your daily walk with Christ!
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