FCLP 14 | How Female Church Leaders Can Step Into Spiritual Authority Wisely

In this clarifying episode of the Female Church Leaders Podcast, Kadi Cole explores a quiet tension many female church leaders carry: the difference between caretaking and spiritual leadership. While many women are deeply committed to serving and caring for others, uncertainty about spiritual authority can sometimes hold leaders back from stepping fully into the ministry moments God places in front of them.

This episode explains the difference between organizational authority and spiritual authority, why every believer carries authority given by Christ, and how leaders can begin practicing spiritual leadership with wisdom and confidence. You’ll also hear a powerful ministry story that reframes how leaders can equip others to step into moments of prayer, encouragement, and discipleship.

TIMESTAMPS

02:15 - The difference between caretaking and spiritual leadership 

04:30 - Organizational authority vs. spiritual authority 

08:20 - Priesthood of all believers 

10:40 - Unintentionally giving away our spiritual authority

13:25 - Two common concerns women leaders face 

15:10 - A challenge for Easter weekend

Resources mentioned:

Theological Cheat Sheet -  kadicole.com/theological

Next Steps and Resources:

• Take the Quiz: Identify your growth gap with our Sticky Floor Quiz at femalechurchleaders.com.
• Join a Cohort: Be part of our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort for guided coaching and monthly Q&A with Kadi. Visit closingtheleadershipgap.com to learn more.
• Stay Connected: Follow us on Instagram @femalechurchleaders for daily encouragement and leadership tools.
• Spread the Word: If you found this episode helpful, please follow, rate, and share the podcast to help us reach more female church leaders.

Tune in and get ready to lead with clarity, strength, and joy. Your calling matters, and we're here to support you every step of the way!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Female Church Leaders Podcast, a weekly resource for women who love God, love the church, and are called to lead. I'm your host, Katie Cole, Church Leader, Autor, and Executive Coach. After more than 30 years in full-time ministry, often as the only woman at the table, I understand how meaningful yet challenging your calling can be. That's why I created this podcast to remind you that you're not leading alone. Each week, I'll share practical tools, biblical insights, and honest encouragement for the real challenges female leaders face in ministry. So you can grow your skills, strengthen your faith, and lead with more confidence and joy without burning out or striving to prove yourself. We drop a new episode every Monday because Sunday is coming and you are gonna be ready for it. One of the quiet tensions many female church leaders carry is this: We know we are called to serve, we know we are called to love people, we know we are called to care well for others. But somewhere along the way, many women were taught, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, that their spiritual influence has limits. Limits around who they can pray for, limits around who they can disciple, limits around how they step into spiritual leadership moments. And over time, that can create confusion. Not confusion about whether God can use women, because we see that all throughout scripture, but confusion about how to exercise the authority we've actually been given in Christ. So today I want to talk about something that has the potential to unlock a deeper level of leadership for many of you. The difference between caretaking and spiritual leadership. Caretaking is beautiful, it's compassionate, it's necessary, but caretaking without clarity about your authority can slowly become exhausting. Spiritual leadership, on the other hand, flows from something deeper. It flows from your identity in Christ. It flows from the authority every believer receives when they follow Jesus. And it flows from abiding in him. Jesus says in John 15, 4, remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Spiritual leadership doesn't come from trying harder, it comes from remaining connected to Christ and allowing his authority to flow through you. And when that happens, ministry moves beyond caretaking. It becomes participation in what God is already doing in someone's life. One of the most important distinctions that help me understand this more clearly is the difference between organizational authority and spiritual authority. Organizational authority is the authority connected to roles, titles, and structure within the church. Who supervises whom, who approves budgets, who leads departments. Those structures are important and different churches structure them differently. But spiritual authority is something different. Spiritual authority is rooted in your relationship with Christ. It comes from being a disciple. It comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit. It comes from being part of the body of Christ. Jesus said something remarkable in Luke 10, 19. He said, I have given you authority to overcome all the power of the enemy. That promise wasn't limited to pastors. It wasn't limited to men. It was given to all disciples, which means every follower of Jesus carries spiritual authority simply because they belong to him. Now, that doesn't erase church structures and it doesn't erase leadership roles, but it does mean that spiritual ministry is not reserved for a small category of people with titles. Every believer can and should pray for others. Every believer can share the gospel. Every believer can help someone take a step toward Christ. And that includes you. One of the theological frameworks that helps clarify this is known as the priesthood of believers. Throughout the New Testament, we see that every follower of Jesus is invited into direct relationship with God and participation in his work. 1 Peter 2.9 says, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. In the Old Testament, priests were a small group of people who stood between God and the rest of the community. But in Christ, that access changed. Every believer now has direct access to God and the calling to represent him to others. That means prayer, encouragement, sharing the gospel, and helping people take steps toward Jesus aren't reserved for pastors and staff members. They're part of the calling of every disciple. And yet, many of us still slip back into an old testament way of thinking. We assume someone else must be better suited for the moment, someone with more training, a higher title, or someone who seems more spiritual. So we hand off the very opportunities Jesus invited all of us into. I had a moment several years ago that completely reframed this for me as a church leader. At the time, I was serving as executive director of multi-site at our church. I oversaw several campuses and worked closely with the campus pastors and ministry leaders. After Easter one year, we gathered all the staff together for a celebration meeting. We were sharing stories from across the campuses about what God had done that weekend. And one of our campus pastors from the largest campus stood up and shared a story. He talked about the honor he had of praying with someone who gave their life to Christ. And that is always an incredible moment. But as he told the story, something inside me sank a little. He explained that an usher had come to him and said there was a man in the restroom who was clearly emotional and wrestling with something spiritual. The usher had talked with the man for a minute, realized God was working in his life, and then said, hang on a moment, and ran to find a pastor to pray with him. So the usher came and found the campus pastor. The pastor went into the restroom, he prayed with the man, the man gave his life to Christ, and our room erupted in celebration. And of course, we should celebrate that. But I remember sitting there thinking something else. That usher could have done that. He didn't need to run to find a pastor. He could have prayed with that man. He could have led him to Christ. He could have helped him get connected to in the church. And honestly, that probably would have been even more powerful because that usher probably had time to follow up with the man, to introduce him to his friends, to invite him to his small group, to disciple him as he began his faith journey. Now, the campus pastor, I know, would have loved to have done that with this man also. But realistically, he had hundreds of other responsibilities. I believe God had that opportunity for the usher, but he missed it. That moment was a turning point for me because it made me realize how often believers unintentionally hand off the spiritual authority God had already given them. Now, as we talk about stepping into spiritual leadership moments, there are usually two concerns that surface pretty quickly for women in ministry. The first is practical. If I stopped and prayed with every person, I would never actually get my work done. And the second is more cultural and theological. Are you suggesting I should pray like with a man? Isn't that crossing a line? Both of those are honest questions. So let's talk about them. First, let's address the leadership piece. Because as we grow in leadership, our role actually does shift. Scripture tells us in Ephesians 4 that spiritual leaders are called to equip the saints for work of the ministry. So eventually, yes, our primary role becomes empowering others to minister. That's actually what that campus pastor should have been doing in the story that I shared earlier. His role was to actually shepherd the church and help other people grow in their spiritual leadership. But here's something I've noticed over the years. Sometimes leaders, and I see this with women quite often, actually skip a step in that process. We go from kind of avoiding spiritual leadership moments straight to delegating them. We assign someone else to pray. We assign someone else to disciple. We assign someone else to lead the spiritual conversation, but we have never actually practiced those things ourselves. We haven't developed confidence in them. We haven't been trained in them. We haven't learned how to guide someone spiritually in the moment. And we haven't built the experience that eventually allows us to teach others how to do it. So instead of equipping from strength, we quietly step into the background. And when that happens, something else begins to grow in the shadows: a quiet sense of insecurity, a feeling of being an imposter, sometimes even a hidden fear or shame that if the moment ever came, we wouldn't actually know what to do. And if you're serving in a more conservative environment where you don't see many women modeling this kind of spiritual leadership, that tension can feel even heavier. So if that resonates with you, let me just say this with a lot of encouragement. This is actually a wonderful opportunity to start practicing the very things God has called every believer to do. Begin to pray with people, encourage them spiritually using God's word, walk with someone towards Christ over a period of time. Because once you've practiced those things and grown confident in them, then you can move into that Ephesians 4 role of equipping others to do the same. But please don't skip over the development stage. Those moments are part of how God forms you into the spiritual leader he's calling you to be. Now, let's talk about the second concern. Many women tell me they feel called to minister primarily to other women. And if that's genuinely how God has wired you, that is wonderful. But I do want to gently challenge something I see quite often. I have searched the scriptures and I cannot find a gender-based calling anywhere in the Bible for a man or for a woman. Now, God may lead us towards certain people groups or ministry focuses, but the Great Commission is not gender-specific. Jesus said, go and make disciples, not go and make disciples of women only. So sometimes, unintentionally, we shrink down the calling God has placed on our lives because of cultural expectations rather than biblical ones. If God brings a spiritual seeker across your path, man or woman, young or old, from a different background or life story than yours, you can and should still minister to them from the spiritual authority you have in Christ. If someone does not yet know Jesus, and you do, you carry the spiritual authority in that moment. You can pray for them. You can encourage them. You can point them toward Jesus. Now, of course, we use wisdom and healthy boundaries. There are certain personal situations where it may be more appropriate to bring in another leader of the same gender, especially when someone is sharing deeply personal struggles. That's just good pastoral wisdom. But most spiritual conversations aren't about those kinds of issues. They're about hope. They're about questions about God. They're about someone wondering if Jesus might actually be able to change their life for the better. And in environments like Easter services, which are coming up, you are not isolated. You're surrounded by your entire church body. You're part of a community of believers that represent the body of Christ, which means you can step forward with confidence when spiritual opportunities arise, even if it is someone outside who you assumed was your calling. Now, here's the most important piece to remember of all of this. Spiritual leadership isn't about trying to manufacture spiritual moments. It's about abiding in Christ and responding when he opens the door. Think back to John 15. Jesus says that when we remain connected to him, we bear spiritual fruit. Not because we forced it, but because life flows through the vine, which means your role isn't to create spiritual impact. Your role is to remain close enough to Jesus that when someone crosses your path who needs prayer, encouragement, or guidance, you are ready. So here's the invitation I want to give you this week. As you approach Easter services, ask God for one simple thing. Lord, if you place someone in my path who needs prayer or help, please give me the spiritual eyes to recognize it and give me the courage to step forward into that moment. That's it. Maybe someone shares something heavy. Maybe someone asks a spiritual question. Maybe someone expresses curiosity about faith. But instead of assuming you're not the right person, assume maybe God has placed you specifically there for a reason. You can begin the conversation. You can pray with them. And if you need to bring someone else in afterwards, you can always do that. But please don't automatically step back from a moment God may have intended just for you. In Luke 10, 19, Jesus tells his disciples, I have given you authority to overcome all the power of the enemy. That authority isn't about titles, it's about belonging to Christ. You are part of the body of Christ. You are a disciple of Jesus, and you are a leader in your church. Walk forward in that authority. If this episode raised some questions about authority and calling as a woman in church leadership, I encourage you to download our theological cheat sheet. It walks through the seven major theological viewpoints on female church leadership and can help you understand where your church fits and how to lead wisely within that environment. You'll find the link in the show notes. And if this podcast is encouraging you in your leadership, would you please take a moment and give it a five-star rating? Your feedback helps more female church leaders find these conversations. Remember, you are called. You are equipped, and you are called to lead with the spiritual authority Christ Himself has given you. And we are here to cheer you on. I'm so glad we got to spend this time together on the Female Church Leaders Podcast. I hope you're walking away encouraged, equipped, and reminded that your calling truly matters. To keep growing, join us for our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort at ClosingTheLeadershipGap.com. It's a guided coaching experience, including live QA with me, designed to accelerate your leadership journey. If this podcast has been helpful to you, would you please take a moment to follow, rate, and share it? Your engagement helps the algorithms suggest our resources to female church leaders we haven't had a chance to meet yet. And don't forget to follow at female church leaders on Instagram for encouragement and leadership tools designed just for you. You can also follow my personal feed at Katie Cole, spelled K A D I C O L E. Keep leading faithfully, keep growing your leadership gifts, and I'll see you next Monday because Sunday is coming and you are going to be ready for it.