Pride Will Kill Your Ministry Before You Even Know It's There

"The seed of every sin is pride." I can't remember where I first heard that, but it's stuck with me for years because I've seen it play out - in my own life and in the lives of worship leaders I've worked with.

When I was younger, I had to lead every song. I was terrified to take a Sunday off because I thought the whole thing would fall apart without me. I wanted people to know that I built this ministry. It was about me, even though I would have denied it if you'd asked.

I've watched other worship leaders fall into the same trap. The guy who can't delegate because no one else can do it as well as he can. The leader who subtly drops comments about "my ministry" and "what I've built here." The worship pastor who takes every compliment as confirmation that he's arrived, instead of redirecting it back to God.

Pride is subtle. Sometimes it's outright - the showman who's clearly performing for applause. But more often, it's the quiet belief that this ministry exists because of your talent, your vision, your hard work. And Scripture is blunt about where that leads: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).

Pride doesn't just damage your ministry. It destroys it. And it'll take you down with it.

Here's what pride actually looks like in worship ministry. It's when the bigger your church or ministry gets, the more subtly you take credit for it. You barely acknowledge the grace of God that gave you these gifts. You don't credit your team enough for the work they put in. You start believing your own press.

Pride says, "Look at me and my gift." It builds a ministry that's really just your own pathetic kingdom, and you don't even realize you're doing it.

I watched a reel recently that nailed this dynamic. When you enter a room thinking you're automatically the smartest and most gifted person there, you take feedback and pushback as offensive and unhelpful. Your team learns to stay silent because their ideas don't matter anyway. But if you enter a room saying, "I can learn something here, and the best idea comes when we all pull together," you create something powerful.

Pride kills that. Pride creates silent rooms, yes-men, and great work being sacrificed on the altar of good. Your team stops growing because you've convinced yourself - and maybe them - that you're the only one who can really lead well.

Think about the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. One guy buried his in a field out of fear. Two others invested what they were given - one multiplied it five times, another ten times. You want to serve in a way that maximizes your kingdom talent. But pride creeps in when you start taking credit for what God is doing through you. When the multiplication happens, and you forget who gave you the seed in the first place.

Here's the tension every worship leader faces: we need confident humility. That's rare. Confident humility says, "I know the gifts God has given me, and I want to use them for His glory alone. It's never about me." But it also means you won't be walked all over by leaders with even bigger egos. You know the value you bring to ministry—not because you're awesome, but because God has gifted you and you don't want to squander that gift.

The gospel is what makes this possible. "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). You cannot earn Christ's love any more than you already have it. Your worth isn't found in how well you led on Sunday. It's not found in whether people engaged during worship or your senior pastor's approval or your Instagram following. Your worth is found in whose you are.

When you anchor your identity in Christ - not in your gift, not in your ministry, not in your platform - pride starts to lose its grip. But this isn't a one-time realization. It's a daily battle. I have to repent of pride every single day. I want to kill it before it kills me.

What Changed

These days, I get more joy out of seeing someone I've been investing in really take off - whether that's leading a room well, learning to have hard conversations with volunteers, becoming more organized, or just loving their family better. When the worship leaders I've coached lead well now, I don't think, "I wish that were me." I think, "Thank God for what He's done in this person's life."

That shift didn't happen overnight. It happened through repentance, accountability, and getting wrecked by the gospel over and over again.

According to Jim Collins in Good to Great, Level 5 leaders aren't the loudest in the room. They're quiet, confident, knowing what needs to happen and trying to make it happen. They're deferential. They build others up. The guys I look up to don't even know how awesome they are. Your greatest satisfaction as a Level 5 leader comes from others' success, not your own platform.

Great leaders give credit away easily and take blame more often. But pride wants to do the opposite.

And here's what most people miss: pride doesn't just show up when you're leading. It shows up when you're being led too. If you work for a senior pastor who struggles with pride, you need confident humility to be led well while still offering ideas. At the end of the day, someone has to make a decision - and if it's not you, you submit with grace while still bringing your best thinking to the table.

But if you work for a pastor who has the opposite problem—no confidence, no decisions, paralysis by analysis - you need the same confident humility to step up and lead without taking over. Either way, pride wants to sabotage the relationship.

You need people in your life who aren't afraid to call you out but who love you and believe in you. If you're really gifted, these people are even harder to find - but you need them desperately. Given that worship leaders are on stages, singing, receiving praise from people every Sunday, we're uniquely vulnerable to pride.

Fight it. Be confidently humble. Lean into what God has for you, not what you can build for yourself.

Here's what I'm fearful of: some of us will get to heaven and realize we built our own pathetic kingdom in the name of Jesus while we were getting all the glory. God won't say, "Well done, good and famous servant." He'll say, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21).

Faithfulness, not fame. Humility, not platform. His glory, not yours.

That's the battle. And it's worth fighting every single day.

If you need help building a ministry that's about Jesus and not about you, let's talk. I've been there. I know the fight. And I'd love to help you win it.