The Rise of the Hybrid Playbook: Can a Pastor Resurrect Corporate Culture?

CHESAPEAKE, VA – September 01, 2026 – In an increasingly crowded market of leadership literature, a new entry is making a calculated bid not just for shelf space, but for a permanent place in the operational rhythm of organizations. Pastor Jared Fabac’s debut book, Leading Lazarus: 8 Transformational Frameworks to Resurrect Your Culture, set for a nationwide release on September 6, is more than a title; it’s an integrated system. The underlying signal here is not just another voice offering advice, but a structured attempt to solve the perennial problem of translating leadership theory into lasting cultural change.

Fabac, a Virginia-based pastor with a surprisingly diverse resume, frames his work around a single, pervasive question he encounters in boardrooms and at dinner tables alike: "How do I get my people healthy?" The book, distributed to over 400 retailers, is his answer—a collection of eight frameworks refined over two decades of leadership. But the real tell is the book’s inseparable digital twin: a free, eight-week AI-powered coaching application. This hybrid approach suggests a deep understanding of a core market failure: leadership books are often consumed in a weekend, while cultural transformation is a painstaking, long-term process. Fabac is betting that leaders are tired of inspiration without implementation.

Beyond the Pulpit: A New Blueprint for Secular Leadership

While Fabac is the Lead Pastor of One City Church, his background reveals a deliberate fusion of disciplines that positions Leading Lazarus far beyond a faith-based audience. A veteran of the United States Navy with a background in clinical counseling, Fabac also spent over a decade launching and scaling two marketing companies before entering full-time ministry. This blend of military discipline, psychological insight, and entrepreneurial acumen is certified through his credentials as a John Maxwell Team Coach and a GiANT Worldwide Certified Executive Coach.

This is not a pastor writing about business; this is an executive coach, who happens to be a pastor, codifying a system. The book’s core frameworks are presented as universally applicable tools pressure-tested on real teams. The most prominent of these, the “Grace & Truth Matrix,” is a diagnostic tool designed to help leaders identify if their culture is “Burned Out, Coasting, Dying, or Empowered.” Early reviews highlight its power. "I've read dozens of leadership books," notes Marcus T., a senior pastor from Atlanta. "Leading Lazarus is the first one that made me look honestly at the culture I had actually built." Another reviewer, a VP of Operations, stated, "Our team had been operating in the Burned-Out quadrant for two years. We just didn't have a name for it. Once we could name it, we could change it."

Other frameworks detailed in the book, such as the “S.T.E.P. Framework” for goal setting and the “C.O.R.E. Feedback” model for difficult conversations, are designed for practical, immediate application in any team setting. The intent is clear: to provide a common language and a set of actionable tools that transcend industry or organizational type, addressing the foundational health of the human systems within.

Resurrecting Culture with a Digital Scribe

The most significant strategic maneuver in the Leading Lazarus launch is its deep integration with the digital companion at app.leadinglazarus.com. This isn't a simple add-on; it's the engine for the book's methodology. Fabac himself states, "You can read a leadership book in a weekend. You can't rebuild a culture in one. The app makes sure you don't try." This statement is a direct critique of the traditional publishing model and a confident assertion of a new one.

The 8-week digital journey guides a leader, and optionally their entire team, through the book’s eight frameworks one week at a time. It breaks down the process into daily devotionals, lessons, journal exercises, and practical challenges, moving users from passive information intake to active formation of habits and skills. This structure addresses the primary reason most training initiatives fail: a lack of sustained reinforcement.

Furthermore, the platform incorporates an AI-powered coach. This tool delivers personalized action plans and training modules based on a user’s specific leadership challenges. By leveraging AI, Fabac is scaling the personalized guidance typically reserved for high-cost executive coaching, making it accessible to anyone who buys the book. For teams, the app enables cohort-based learning, progress tracking, and individualized coaching reports, turning the book into a dynamic, interactive curriculum. Upon completion, users gain permanent access to a library of 14 interactive tools, ensuring the principles remain an active part of their leadership toolkit. This hybrid model—a physical text for knowledge and a digital platform for practice—represents a sophisticated play to create lasting behavioral change and, by extension, customer loyalty.

The 'Healthy People' Imperative and the Modern Economy

Fabac’s work arrives at a moment when the concept of “organizational health” has moved from a soft HR metric to a hard-line item affecting retention, productivity, and profitability. The focus on creating “healthy people” places Leading Lazarus squarely within the macro trend of human-centered leadership. For years, the corporate world has grappled with the fallout from cultures that prioritize performance over well-being, leading to widespread burnout and disengagement. Testimonials for the book echo this pain point. "I was leading with all truth and almost no grace," admits Pastor Kevin L. from Dallas. "My staff were performing but deeply disengaged. This curriculum helped me see what I was doing and gave me practical tools to change it."

This balance of “grace and truth”—empathy and accountability—is the central thesis. It argues that high-performing cultures are not built on one or the other, but on the disciplined application of both. In a post-pandemic world where employees demand more psychological safety and purpose from their work, leaders are actively seeking frameworks that deliver on this promise. The book’s frameworks, like “The Peace Index” for measuring invisible cultural metrics, are designed to make the intangible tangible, giving leaders the data they need to intervene before health issues become performance crises.

By packaging these principles into a replicable system, Fabac is providing a playbook for a new generation of leaders who understand that their primary role is not just to direct work, but to cultivate the environment in which work gets done. The ambition is not small; Fabac’s stated mission is to develop one million healthier leaders. With its national distribution and innovative digital ecosystem, Leading Lazarus is positioned not merely as a book to be read, but as a system to be deployed in the ongoing battle for the health of our organizations.