You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.

“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.

This episode has been edited for clarity and space.

Nicole Martin
Hi, I’m Nicole Martin, and I’m the President and CEO of Christianity Today.

David Capes
Nicole Martin, Nicole, great to see you. Welcome to “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”

Nicole Martin
Thank you, David. It’s great to be on with you.

David Capes
I’m delighted that we can do this. You’re going to be coming here to the Lanier Theological Library and giving a lecture in a few weeks. We want people to know a little bit about you and a little bit about what you’re going to be talking about. And some will be able to get here in person, but for those who can’t, they can find your lecture on the library’s YouTube channel. All right, let’s start in this way. We know now that you are the president of Christianity Today. Congratulations, by the way.

Nicole Martin
Thank you.

David Capes
We’re so pleased for you and for the publication, it’s brand and all that it means. But for those who don’t know you, who is Nicole Martin?

Nicole Martin
Oh, that’s such a big question. I am first and foremost, a child of God. I’m a child of Pastor Leonard Massey. My dad was a pastor for many years, and Dr. Alfreda Massey, who worked in school systems and as superintendent for many years. I’m the mom of Addison and Josephine Martin. Addie is 13. Josie will be 11 by the time we come together. My husband Mark and I have been married for 15 years. I live in Maryland, and currently serve at Christianity Today, located in Wheaton. It has been an honor and a joy to be able to assume this position at this time.

David Capes
It’s a great publication with a great history that started back in the 1950s. It’s almost as old as I am, I think. Billy Graham was a big part of that, and such a great influence. It has been led well over the years. Christianity in general, and Christianity in the United States, has been through a lot since the 1950s. Christianity Today has been there as a guide and as a friend for so many. The only thing wrong with Christianity Today is, I don’t think you’ve ever published anything that I’ve written. We’ve got to correct that!

Nicole Martin
We must correct that, yes!

David Capes
All right, you’re coming to the Lanier Theological Library, and you’re going to be here February 27 and 28, 2026. You’re going to be lecturing in our stone chapel with a lecture entitled “Surrendered Leadership”, which is a fascinating title. I’ve got your books here. You have several books out, and this one is called “Nailing It: Why Successful Leadership Demands Suffering and Surrender.” I think you’re probably going to be talking about some things that you wrote here. Another great book of yours which is fairly recent is, “Made to Lead: Empowering Women for Ministry.”

So you’ve been writing about leadership for a while. Let’s talk a little bit about what are you going to be doing when you come here to the Lanier Theological Library?

Nicole Martin
One of the things that we will do together is to really redefine what leadership looks like from a biblical lens. It’s so easy for us to get caught up in more secular principles of what people think it means to lead. The world would suggest that in order to lead, you need power. In order to lead, you need deep influence. In order to lead, you need to be willing to stand up against the people that you lead at times. And while that may be true in some respects and contexts, it is not always the only narrative or definition for leadership according to Scripture. What we have seen over the years is we’ve assumed that we can have the resurrection victory of our lives and of our leadership without understanding the
cost of the cross.

And I would suggest that we lead best when we recognize that crucifixion always comes with reward and that resurrection always comes at a cost. There are some things that we will have to crucify in ourselves, in our lives, in our behaviors, in our patterns, in order for Christ to be resurrected. To be alive and well within us. In order for us to walk in that victory, whether we like it or not, and I wish there were another way, but biblically speaking, you cannot walk in victory without recognizing what needs to be surrendered. So that’s why this title is so challenging to each of us, because you cannot live a life with Christ without being willing to sacrifice and surrender things so that Christ might be redeemed, resurrected and glorified through us.

David Capes
You’re finding this in the words of Scripture. And in the example of Christ as well.

Nicole Martin
Yes, absolutely. And Jesus is the example. And he speaks the example as well. He is the embodiment of what it looks like to lead. He gets down on his hands and knees and washes the feet of the disciples and he says, this is what real leadership looks like, my paraphrase. In John 12, he tells them, after doing great miracles, unless a seed falls to the ground, it remains but one seed. But if it falls, if it dies, then it counts for the fruit of many.

And then he embodies that upon the cross. Not death as martyrdom or as defeat, but a willing sacrifice so that we might live. And then John goes on further and says, the same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead lives in you. If I sacrifice my ego, for example, if I say in the words of Jesus, this is my will, God, but not my will, your will be done. If I’m willing to lay these things down at the cross, what I’ll find is a resurrected sense of ego that is rooted deeply in the person of Jesus Christ. And then I can lead from a place of love and not from a place of competition or defeat or deficiencies of some kind. It’s a powerful thing to really reconsider what the cross and resurrection looks like as it relates to our sense of
leadership.

David Capes
Leadership Studies. I’m trying to remember when I saw the first PhD in leadership, and all these books about leadership. I think they started the 70s or 80s. I may be misremembering.

Nicole Martin
Yes, I think you’re right.

David Capes
It’s been around for a while, and there are some places where you can get a PhD in leadership, but they all seem to be saying pretty much the same thing. And what you’re saying now, is not exactly it.

Nicole Martin
You know, I was wrestling with that when I first started writing this book. I did do my Doctor of Ministry in leadership, redemptive leadership. And I kept thinking, why is it that what I’m reading about leadership doesn’t always line up with what the Word says? And I think part of this is we take a silver bullet approach to leadership. If it works well for that person in that context, then it’s got to work for everybody in every context. And that’s just not true.

Secondly, I think we discount the servant leadership of Christ because it’s not fun. Who wants to lay down their lives? Who wants to sacrifice? We would all prefer to have followers that would obey us and stay with us till the end. Jesus didn’t have that. He called a bunch of followers who all betrayed him at some point or another. If that’s what the picture of leadership looks like, nobody wants to sign up for that. So we create other narratives. You can get millions of followers and let that be the marker of your success. You can build a million-dollar business and let that be your marker of success. But Jesus comes along and says, that’s not all there is to it. It’s not invalid. It’s not that that isn’t real. It’s just that that is not all.

When we really tap into the cross, not just for leadership, but for life, when we really examine the cross and what cruciform living looks like, we will find that there is life in death. That when I die to the principles of this world, that often cause me to hurt other people to get ahead, when I die to those things, I find life in Christ. Again, going back to the Gospel of John, not just life, but life and that more abundantly. What we crave, requires a sacrifice, and if we are willing to lay it down before the cross, we will live more abundant lives and lead in more abundant ways than we ever have before.

David Capes
Is this leadership for a business? Is it for a parachurch organization? Is it for the church? Will it work in every situation?

Nicole Martin
I wrestled with that. I remembered when I first started writing, the core question is, who are you writing to. I think this is leadership for anyone who is weary of old ways of leading, who wants to see new results in leadership, and for those who are trying to adapt to new leadership styles. Either because they’re just getting started, or they’ve been at it for a while. And for me, I intentionally do not define the context of leadership, because I don’t think Jesus does that.

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Jesus speaks to the disciples as leaders, and they were fishermen. Some might say in that context, a fisherman is not a leader. Fisherman only works with fish, but he speaks to them as leaders. He speaks to the woman at the well, and people would say she’s not a leader, but then she goes and tells the whole town about a man who told her everything that she had ever done. I don’t want to discount those whom God would call to influence the lives of others, and that’s why I think leadership is what we make it and what we decide.

David Capes
It sounds like almost anybody can become a leader. You can talk about fishermen, and the woman at the well. You’re not talking about people who are already leaders at some level. These are people who are everyday people. As the leader of Christianity Today, have you had a chance to try out some of this already?

Nicole Martin
Yes, and I think most people who have ever written something would say, there it’s a different reality to conceptualize something in words and then to try it out with your actions. But by the grace of God, we are living in a time that requires a different way of showing up. Not showing up with prowess and elitism and an assumption of knowing all of the details but showing up with humility. Showing up with a desire to know and to learn.

Leading CT has been a privilege, even for the few weeks that I’ve been in this role, not just because of the organization itself, but because of the people. We have some of the most thoughtful, prolific writers that I can think of on our team. We have organizational leaders in our operations that are faithful to God. So it’s been an honor for me to come alongside and not say, here’s where we’re going, but to ask, what do you need. How can I serve you? How can I show up best?

And that does require a dying. It requires a dying to my own sense of how things need to be, and it requires a desire to say, God, what do you want this to be? I described to someone recently when they asked, how’s it going? I said, this is one of the greatest faith walks I have ever taken in my life. But what an opportunity for a leader in a position of influence to surrender it before Jesus and say, God, not my organization, but yours. Not my will asserted on these people, but your will for your people. And that’s what I get to do every day. I get to say, in the words of Henry Blackaby, God show us where you’re working and help us to join you there. And that’s truly a privilege.

David Capes
I love the way you said that in resurrection, there is a cost. I’ve never thought about that before, but I think you’re exactly right. Would you parse that out a little bit for us? What does that mean? Because we think of resurrection as the reward. Resurrection is life, and now all the good stuff comes. But in fact, as you said, in leadership and maybe in other parts of life, resurrection does come at a cost.

Nicole Martin
Yes, yes, it does in simple ways. It shows up in our vision. We step into positional leadership, leading an organization or an elder board or a small group, and you have this vision. We are going to be a people who have this type of culture and achieve these goals. Well, if we were to assume that we could just reach those goals without any hardship, conflict or trials, then we would be deceived, and we would be ready to forsake those things when the troubles come.

Resurrection comes with a cost, and what I mean is we get to those goals through sacrifice. We achieve those milestones, and we create that structure and that culture by giving up some things along the way. And we’ve got to be intentional and have our eyes wide open on what that takes. But I also think the joy comes once you recognize the cost of resurrection, then you really celebrate it.

It reminds me of the story of Jesus healing the woman of many demons, and he says in my
paraphrase, that she will rejoice. She knows the cost of her deliverance. And I know I’m butchering the story, but Jesus is recognizing, acknowledging the fact that those who have been delivered from much will also own and recognize their deliverance in a different way. It’s the widow who gives of her little, and Jesus recognizes her. The cost of what she has given up results in great reward. And when we think back on our own lives, we would have to admit the times when we had to work hard to get something are the times when we appreciate it the most.

And God forbid the day that we assume our resurrection victory is free. God forbid the day that we assume our salvation is free. No, our salvation came with the cross, and that was a cost. Our resurrection victory comes with the cost of the cross, and as long as I can keep that in mind, I’ll never take it for granted.

David Capes
So how has your book done out in the market? Nailing it: Why Successful Leadership Demands Suffering and Surrender.

Nicole Martin
That’s a hard question, because, you know, according to the standards of the world, I did get my one little screenshot a week after it released that said, “top new release”. It was only for just a few minutes. I got a screenshot before it went away. Is that something to celebrate? Sure!

I think we’re still tracking to see. Books are interesting seeds to plant in the soil of the kingdom. Sometimes you see the fruit right away and you recognize, oh my goodness, people are buying this. What a wonderful thing. But sometimes the seed takes a while to germinate. I am grateful for those who have purchased it. I am grateful for opportunities like these when I get to talk about it, but I’m still trusting that God will use this book to produce harvest in people’s lives that maybe I can’t see or calculate right now.

David Capes
Well, the success will come along with your continued persistence in describing this to people on podcasts and speaking opportunities about the nature of leadership. What it really looks like, what it really costs, and those kinds of things. Rather than thinking now I’m on top of the world because I’m CEO, and my brain must be somehow anointed. That everything I think is going to be a good idea. Usually, we have one very good idea among about 5,000 that are not so good. Just figuring that out, and as you said, surrendering that, and really, truly listening to the people that you’re working with. Who are, in your case, brilliant writers, brilliant people, in terms of looking at culture and what’s happening.

I’m just so excited that you’re going to be here and you’re going to be speaking to us, and we’re going to be blessed and encouraged and instructed and corrected as needed by you in this particular time. Dr. Nicole Martin, thanks for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”

Nicole Martin
Thank you so much, David.