I’ll tell you what’s helping me a lot in my leadership and preaching right now:
I’m giving myself permission to explore my rhythms more than ever before.

In some ways, it’s a new luxury that wasn’t possible when Elevation was smaller.  Back then, my rhythms revolved around the schedules of the volunteers who were serving as staff members, and whatever urgent need demanded my time.  But the development of a capable full time staff has made it possible for me to freely experiment with the cadence of my life.  And it’s breathing new life into my creativity. 

Here are two ways I’m changing up the flow these days:

• One of my mentors recently encouraged me to regularly change the meetings that I’m in, who’s in those meetings with me, when they happen, and even where they happen.  The phrase he used was: experiment until you find what energizes you.  And if what energizes you changes, change it up again. 
• I’m not feeling as much pressure to force it when I’m tired.  For instance, I preached 4 services live, back to back, at Elevation yesterday, and a student event last night for over 500 of our middle and high school kids.  I’m depleted.  My voice is shot.  I’m recovering from a cold, to boot.
  So I slept in this morning.  I’m going to go easy today.  A few hours or a whole day of recovery seem to be more effective than muscling through my exhaustion.

I’m a little apprehensive posting this because I realize that unless you’re the senior pastor or senior leader of an organization, your rhythms are largely dictated to you.  But there’s probably still an area (perhaps in your personal life) where you could discover new energy and fresh vitality by exploring a new rhythm.  Could you change the rhythm of your devotional life?  Your workout?  Your drive home?  Your evening activities?  Your family dinner?
A small change in your rhythm might enable a major shift in your outlook.

Someone paid me a meaningful compliment recently:
“I’ve noticed that you give your very best every time you’re preaching…whether there are 5 people in the audience or 5000.”

It meant a lot that he noticed that, because it’s a practice I’m very intentional about.  It’s a part of my theology:
God deserves my very best every single time. 
Since He’s my only true audience in ministry, I’m always playing to a packed house.  Every show is sold out.

I can’t think of a more sure fire way to attract the power of God in your life and ministry than to bring your best to every single encounter.  Every single experience.  Every sermon you preach, every song you sing, every diaper you change, every lawn you mow…God is always worthy of your most worthy offering.
And Jesus gives assurance that your heavenly Father, who sees what is done in secret, also knows how to reward you openly-when you bring Him your very best…every single time. (Matthew 6:2-6). 

God expects all of His children to walk in authority.  This expectation is even more pronounced for me as a pastor.  I am commissioned to conduct my life with great confidence in my calling. 

It’s a sin when I fail to walk in authority.  When I don’t respond to challenges with a holy boldness, it reveals a skewed interpretation of my identity.  I can’t allow a circumstance or experience to interpret my identity.  Only God gets to give me my self-image.
It’s an even greater sin when I dare to walk in my own authority.   It’s God’s authority alone that provides me with power.  And His authority is on loan.  Any authority outside of His authority is counterfeit, and will be exposed as such in due time. 

Matthew 8:5-10 is a great example of how to walk in authority in a way that honors God.  This centurion is a man who is in authority, and also under authority.  Jesus richly rewarded this man’s confident humility.

In summary:
Walking in no authority=my view of God needs to be elevated.
Walking in the wrong authority=my view of me must decrease immediately.

Isn’t this a difficult continuum to navigate?

It happened again the other day! The conversation was going so well. I was actually kind of surprised when the person I was talking to (who I was meeting for the first time) just had to go there. Now, there was no way this guy could have known that the pastor he was about to slander was a pretty good friend of mine. So I think it threw him for a loop when I stopped him mid-sentence and served notice:
“I really don’t want to continue this conversation. The pastor you’re speaking against is a great man of God. You don’t even know him, I know him and care for him a whole lot. So I think it would be beneficial to both of us for you to stop maligning his character right now. I don’t want to hear it.”

Maybe part of the reason I’m so protective of other pastors and prominent men of God is that I’ve experienced the frustration of hearing things about yourself that aren’t true. It’s freaky when everybody’s a self proclaimed expert on you. And the less they actually know you, the louder they talk about you.

There have been several times in my ministry that I heard something negative about a well known minister of the Gospel, and took it at face value. Then, months or years later, I’d have the opportunity to actually meet and get to know that person a little bit. And a funny thing happened. When I was able to know them as people and not just personalities, I realized that most of the gossip that is perpetrated as truth is absolutely baseless and unfounded.

So, if I ever have the privilege of getting to meet you and have a conversation with you, let’s just establish one ground rule:
If you have something critical and detrimental to share about a fellow minister of the Gospel, I simply don’t want to hear it. We’ve got better things to talk about! Like how God is using your life, the opportunities He’s providing for you to make a bigger impact, or the things He’s teaching you in your personal life.
Thanks for understanding.

Pastor Steven pulled some of our staff members together to discuss how to be an encourager. It applies to everyone so block off about 15 minutes to listen to this insightful audio blog. Enjoy! Meredith Brock, Communications Director

Recently I recorded a discussion about protecting your pastor with 12 men in our church who mean a great deal to me. 
If you are a senior pastor and you’d like to have this resource on CD, we’ll send it to you for free.  No strings attached.  We’re not trying to get you on a mailing list.  I just thought this would be a blessing to you.
Email us your mailing address, and we’ll send it out as soon as possible.
Send it by Tuesday, April 15.  That date should make it easy to remember.  After that, I’ll have to close the offer to make sure it’s not a looming headache administratively for our staff.

(I know several of you may prefer a link for download, but for this one, we’ll only be mailing out CDs.  Thanks for understanding.  Oh, and senior pastors only this time around, please.)

Click here to email us.

Thanks for reading the blog.  We value you.

When God is birthing a great idea in your heart as a leader, eventually you’ll have to roll it out and start the process of making it a reality.  And I’ll guarantee you that right after this process begins, you’ll be bombarded by your second guessing mechanism. 
That’s completely normal.  You should move forward anyway, most of the time.
Of course, if the Holy Spirit raises legitimate red flags through Scriptures, others, or in your spirit, abort mission.
A lot of the time, however, it’s not God who’s slowing you down.
It’s years of normality, mediocrity, and comfort screaming:
“What if it fails?  What if you look stupid?  No one’s ever tried this before.  There’s so much to lose.  They’re all gonna laugh at you…”

Interrupt these thoughts mid sentence.  Cut through the internal rhetoric and act decisively.
The space between the concept and the execution is a dangerous neighborhood where dreams are often found dead the next morning.  You don’t want to circle that block for very long.
Get a word from God, and go with it.