For some reason, God has allowed me to meet and spend time with some really phenomenal pastors over the last couple of years. If you know anything about me, you know that I have pretty eclectic tastes. For instance, my current play list includes Steve Fee, Queen, Stone Temple Pilots, Maroon 5, Kirk Franklin, and Beyonce (shut up). I’m the same way with sermons, books, and leadership styles. I learned early in my journey as a leader to eat the fish and leave the bones.
Translation: expose yourself to as many different styles of leadership as possible, and let God graft the best of each approach into your leadership persona as He best sees fit.

So, needless to say, the pastors who I choose to learn from and be friends with are all really really different. Some are black, some are white, and some are white but they preach like they’re black. One drives a Rolls Royce, one drives a mini-van. Some lead very formally and have weighty personalities, others are so laid back that you kind of wonder how they accomplish so much.

But they all have one thing in common. And it’s not what you think it is.
Because you think I’m going to say:
“They really love Jesus” or “They seek God’s heart instead of His hand” or “They put their families first”. Those things may all be true of all these men in varying degrees. I don’t know. But I do know beyond the shadow of a doubt one common denominator that unites all the pastors I respect, most of whom you’ve heard of:

They almost quit.
Every pastor that I know who has a growing, thriving, high impact ministry has had a period in their ministry when they seriously considered giving up and walking away.
They all call it different things: burnout, meltdown, breakdown… take your pick.
But the story is the same: the pressure was insane, their emotions (and sometimes physical bodies) were torn to shreds, and they didn’t think they would make it. But they did.

The fact that all the guys who we would say have arrived in ministry came very close to aborting mission somewhere in the journey-but didn’t-has pretty profound implications.
It makes me think I can make it too.

And it’s even more profound to realize that Jesus prayed this. Yet He accomplished this.

You can make it too.