For Catherine and Samuel Moore, leadership has never simply been about positions, platforms or programs. The search for spiritually healthy leadership has shaped the rhythm of their family, their faith, and now, remarkably, their shared journey through Arrow across two generations.
Long before Samuel Moore considered enrolling in Arrow, he spent years observing leadership through his parents’ ministries. This provided him with a unique perspective on the weight of responsibility that leaders often carry, coupled with a desire to be equipped for the different seasons leadership brings.
Having witnessed the profound impact Arrow had on his mentors and colleagues at Scripture Union, Samuel was convinced it was his necessary next step. He prepared for the twelve-month commitment and three residentials, eager for his own experience. However, an unexpected discovery awaited him.
When Samuel casually mentioned his application to his parents, his mother’s revelation stopped him in his tracks.
“Mum was like, ‘I did Arrow.’ And I was like, ‘Oh… really?’”
What began as a humorous coincidence carried along with it a connection unknown between the duo. Catherine had completed the program over 20 years earlier, during a season remarkably similar to Samuel’s—balancing the demands of ministry leadership while raising young children.
While their Arrow experiences are separated by decades, Samuel was able to observe the impact of the program firsthand through his mother’s leadership during his childhood. Their common path highlights a significant story: a tradition of leadership development being handed down through the generations.
A family legacy of service
Samuel grew up watching his parents lead in deeply relational ways. His mother, Catherine, who herself had grown up as the daughter of missionaries in Papua New Guinea, had always understood ministry as something personal and sacrificial. “I think probably the biggest inspiration from Mum and Dad is just how relational they are,” Samuel says. “Their leadership’s marked by relationships. It’s not big and flashy… they’re the type of people that sit with a pastor who’s gone through something and work through that with them.”
Even after Catherine and her family returned to Australia and moved into church ministry, her view on leadership was centred around people rather than status and position. Years later, Catherine and her husband would become family and youth pastors in the Uniting Church at Coromandel Valley Adelaide, with their own four children watching their parents work in ministry. Samuel was the second of these children, and would follow in his mother’s footsteps into Christian leadership, and into the Arrow leadership program.
Godly Leaders are Healthy Leaders
Travelling back to the mid-nineties, in the middle of a season of juggling ministry work in Adelaide and parenting Samuel and his three siblings under the age of five, Catherine was also thinking through what it meant to be a healthy Christian leader.
One day, she and her husband were having coffee with Craig Bailey. Craig had heard about the challenges facing their ministry and Catherine’s desire to develop and grow as a leader. He had been involved in setting up Arrow in Australia at the time and was convicted that Arrow was the program Catherine needed. “He said the space would fit me really well and give me some insight and networking ideas, as well as develop new skill sets. So that’s how I started,” Catherine shares.
One of the biggest highlights for Catherine in doing Arrow in a busy season was how it made her stop and prioritise her own learning and reading for development. “I found it a real blessing because it got me thinking about more effective ways of leading.”
Catherine also found the program helped her start thinking outside the box, which was crucial for their next ministry challenge. She and her husband were faced with completely rebuilding a failing ministry. “They asked us to take over from four burnt out teachers. Across nine years, we turned it into a program that had over 70 volunteers and went from babies right up to youth.”
The challenge felt enormous and the thought of tackling such a task felt impossible. The kids and youth program had struggled under the previous teachers, who had a very old school approach to teaching children about God. Catherine and her husband knew that to fully revive the program they weren’t just going to be filling volunteer slots, but reinventing what the ministry looked like by building a community where leaders could be mentored as they taught and led.
While Catherine initially believed that an ideal leader focused on efficient and effective program execution, her experience with Arrow transformed this perspective, highlighting the vital importance of equipping, mentoring, and intentionally investing in others. Reflecting on that time, Catherine believes now the reason the program revival was so successful was that they did the relational work to find the right people for the right roles and invested in them.
Arrow also challenged Catherine to think deeply about the kind of leader she was becoming spiritually. “It really stood out to me that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you build or what you do. It matters who you are as a person and as a leader,” she says. “If your own internal house isn’t stable, then you’re going to build on shaky ground.”
As the ministry grew, so did the volunteer base. When Catherine and her husband left for Queensland in 2004, they left a thriving community of more than 70 volunteers leading and teaching right across the age groups. From babies and toddlers, right through primary school aged children to high school, youth and young adult ministries, young people and their leaders were flourishing.
“The reason it was successful was because we made it a community,” Catherine says. “We mentored people, equipped them, invested in them, and helped them find the right fit for who they were.”
Decades later, Samuel would find himself in a similar position, wrestling with what it meant to be a spiritually healthy Christian leader while balancing work for a Christian organisation with family life with two young children. Little did he know, he was about to walk along a path his mother had already walked before him to find those answers for himself.
Walking In His Mother’s Footsteps
Before doing Arrow, Samuel had already spent years leading teams through his work with Scripture Union. Inevitably, Samuel found himself wrestling with a challenge many leaders carry: how do you keep leading others when you’re not prioritising your own leadership and spiritual formation.
“I knew I could see the gaps,” Samuel says. “Areas that I wanted to work on. But I was finding it hard to carve out time in the busyness of life to actually grow.”
Samuel had watched other leaders in his organisation face similar struggles, and had seen them transformed through doing the Arrow program. “I’d seen it change their practice,” he says. “I saw how it changed how they coached people, led people, and developed people.”
Witnessing his manager bear the fruits of Arrow was a real source of encouragement and drove Samuel into pursuing Arrow. “When my line manager went through Arrow, he was already an incredible leader,” Samuel explains. “But I saw this sharpening happen. Things he was doing casually became more intentional.”
Then, he got the delight of telling his parents about this next step he was taking, and the surprising discovery that he was not breaking new ground but continuing in solid family habits of seeking spiritual health and sustainable leadership.
Transformation Across Generations
In Catherine’s experience, the training with Arrow was directly relevant to her ministry. Arrow helped her shape decades of ministry leadership, mentoring, and supporting churches and leaders through difficult seasons.
Over the years, she has become increasingly passionate about helping leaders remain spiritually and emotionally healthy, particularly after witnessing the damage unhealthy leadership can cause.
“We’ve walked with leaders who’ve fallen off the cliff and taken people with them,” Catherine says. “If something’s off inside yourself and you become aware of it, it’s wise to address it now.”
Samuel is still in the midst of his Arrow journey, but already sees God reshaping the way he leads. One insight from Arrow has especially challenged him.
“You have to genuinely love the people you lead or you’re going to use them,” he says. “I think that’s how Jesus led with his disciples.” For Samuel, these words have been deeply eye opening. “There have definitely been people I’ve led where I haven’t prepared my heart to love them,” he admits.
Jesus as the Ultimate Leader
For both Catherine and Samuel, these lessons continue pointing them back to the same central truth: leadership begins not with influence, but with following Jesus well.
“If we don’t learn to be followers of Jesus, then our leadership can really be compromised,” Catherine says. “We need to keep coming back to Him as the example.”
That shared conviction now forms the heart of their intergenerational story.
What began with Catherine’s own leadership formation decades ago is now continuing through her son as he leads a new generation within Christian ministry.
Already, Sam is bringing what he is learning through Arrow into the culture of his own team by implementing coaching practices, creating healthier rhythms, and intentionally investing in the people he leads.
“We have a team retreat coming up,” he says, “and so much of what Arrow did for me I’m now reimplementing into my own team.”
For the Moore family, the ripple effects of leadership formation are no longer theoretical. They have lived them across generations. And that is why both Catherine and Samuel believe investing in leaders matters so deeply.
Because healthy leadership does not simply strengthen organisations. It shapes churches, ministries, families, and future leaders for years to come.
“Leaders are often the ones doing the investing,” Samuel says. “But they also need someone investing in them.”
Developing leaders who lead like Jesus, who hear the call of God and respond with following in trust and integrity, is something Arrow knows is worth investing in. If you would like to partner with Arrow in shaping the ongoing generations of Christian leaders, visit our website and invest in Christian leadership.
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