I think we are living in one of the most anti-authority, anti-order times I have ever seen.

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And before somebody gets sideways with me, I am not talking about blindly following leaders. I am not talking about putting up with abusive leadership. I am certainly not saying every person with a title is right.

I am talking about the almost automatic rejection of the very idea that anybody should be under anybody anymore.

Here is the prevalent attitude I see in many spaces….

Nobody is going to tell me what to do.

Nobody is going to tell me what is right.

Nobody is going to tell me what I should believe.

Nobody is going to correct me.

Nobody has authority over me.

I decide.

ON the surface that sounds so embolding and strong……

But take it far enough and it always ends in chaos.

Here is what 55 years has taught me.

You cannot have a healthy family with no order.

You cannot have a healthy business with no order.

You cannot have a healthy church with no order.

And I know this for sure you cannot  have a healthy society where everybody becomes their own final authority.

Here is what I have learned and observed -

The opposite of order isn’t freedom…… the opposite of order is disorder and chaos.

And eventually disorder becomes lawlessness.

This is one of the reasons a passage in Titus has been hitting me so strongly and timely.

Paul leaves Titus on the island of Crete and tells him:

“This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order…”

—Titus 1:5

Put things in order.

Why would he instruct Titus this way????

Keep reading.

Just five verses later Paul says:

“For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers…”

—Titus 1:10

That word insubordinate is powerful.

The Greek word is anupotaktos.

It literally carries the idea of being:

“Not arranged under.”

Think about that.

Not arranged under.

It was language that could carry the picture of someone refusing to stay in formation.

I won’t be under.

I won’t submit.

I won’t recognize legitimate authority.

I will do what I want to do.

Sound familiar? It sure does to me.   

I don’t think Paul was just dealing with a Crete problem.

He was dealing with a human problem.

Rebellion Is As Old As Lucifer

This didn’t start with our generation and social media and keyboard warriors….

The spirit behind rebellion is ancient.

Isaiah 14 gives us this incredible picture of pride and self-exaltation. In its immediate context Isaiah is speaking of the king of Babylon, but Christians throughout history have also recognized in this language the same pride associated with Satan’s rebellion:

“I will ascend into heaven,

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…”

And then:

“I will be like the Most High.”

I have read this and heard it preached accurately so many times….The I Will’s.

I will.

I will ascend.

I will exalt.

I will determine where I belong.

I will determine what I do.

I will determine who I answer to.

At the root of rebellion is this idea:

I refuse to be under.

And then you get to the Garden.

What does the serpent essentially tell Adam and Eve?

God said one thing…

but you can decide for yourself.

“You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

There it is again.

You become your own authority.

You decide what is good.

You decide what is evil.

You decide what is true.

And we have been dealing with the fallout ever since.

There Is a Spirit of Lawlessness

This is where it gets even stronger.

Paul talks about the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2 and calls him:

“the man of lawlessness.”

Then he makes this incredible statement:

“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.”

—2 Thessalonians 2:7

Already at work!

In other words this spirit was and is already operating.

And I believe we need some discernment here.

Because lawlessness is bigger than somebody breaking a civil law.

It is a rejection of rightful authority, ultimately God’s authority.

It is that ancient voice again:

I won’t be under.

I will decide.

I will do what is right in my own eyes.

Which brings us to one of the saddest descriptions of a culture in the entire Bible.

“Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

—Judges 21:25

Does that sound familiar at all?

My truth.

My rules.

My morality.

My life.

My decision.

My authority.

Me. Me. Me.

And read Judges sometime.

How did that work out?

Not well.

It produced absolute chaos.

Because when everybody becomes their own authority, eventually there is no authority.

When everybody determines their own truth, eventually there is no truth.

When every boundary becomes oppression, eventually there are no boundaries.

When every correction becomes an attack, eventually nobody can be corrected.

And when everybody refuses to be arranged under, everybody eventually starts fighting everybody.

And Before the Church Says “Amen” Too Loudly…

Here is where this gets really close to home.

Because Titus 1:10 wasn’t written about the Roman government.

Paul was talking about people in the church!

“For there are many who are insubordinate…”

Many!

Apparently Titus wasn’t dealing with one difficult guy in the back row.

This had become a problem.

People who professed to know God but refused order.

People who talked a lot.

People who influenced other people.

People who Paul says were actually deceiving minds.

And look what happened:

“They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families…”

—Titus 1:11

They were turning households upside down.

That’s what rebellion eventually does.

It tears down what order built.

I’ve been pastoring long enough now to have watched this happen more times than I care to count.

A person begins rejecting grace-fill correction.

Then accountability.

Then leadership.

Then the church. Which in many cases is described as “church hurt”

And usually somewhere along the way they convince themselves that everybody else is the problem.

I’ve watched it happen.

And I can tell you this:

Isolation and rebellion rarely produce good fruit.

Proverbs says:

“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.”

—Proverbs 18:1

There is a reason God puts us in families.

There is a reason God puts us in churches.

There is a reason God gave us pastors and elders.

There is a reason God gives us spiritual leadership and one another.

Because none of us were designed to do this alone.

We need somebody in our lives who can tell us no.

We need somebody who can challenge us.

We need somebody who can correct us.

We need somebody who can see something we can’t see.

We need godly leaders who watch over us, pray for us, teach us the Word, and at times help bring us back into alignment when we begin getting off course. WE ALL need this.

That isn’t control.

That’s God’s order.

And when it is done biblically and humbly, it is actually one of God’s protections in our lives.

But Leadership Has to Be Under Authority Too

Now don’t miss this.

Biblical leadership is not:

“Everybody submits to me because I’m the leader.”

Absolutely not.

Read the verses immediately before Titus 1:10.

Paul gives Titus the qualifications for elders.

Why?

Because leaders have to be under authority too.

A pastor is under Christ.

An elder is under Christ.

A husband is under Christ.

A parent is under Christ.

A business leader is under Christ.

A government official ultimately answers to God.

Nobody gets to be God.

That’s the whole point!

God’s order isn’t a pyramid with some human being sitting on top.

Jesus is Lord.

All of us are under Him.

That is why bad leadership doesn’t prove we don’t need leadership.

It proves we need better leaders.

Godly leaders.

Humble leaders.

Accountable leaders.

Leaders with character.

Leaders who understand that authority is a stewardship and not something they own.

You Cannot Follow Jesus and Refuse to Be Under

This is where Christianity cuts completely against our culture.

Jesus said:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

—Matthew 16:24

That is surrender.

Christianity isn’t adding Jesus to the life I’ve already decided to live.

Jesus becomes Lord.

That means I don’t always get my way.

There are things my flesh wants that God’s Word says no to.

There are times I am wrong.

There are times I need correction.

There are times I need to humble myself.

There are times I need to submit.

There are times somebody sees something in me that I don’t see in myself.

That’s discipleship.

And we desperately need to recover it.

Order Is Not the Enemy

I think we have made a massive mistake.  It pains my heart the people that have had a bad experience and then throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Here is this dreadful pattern……

We saw authority abused, and instead of dealing with the abuse, we decided authority itself was the problem.

We saw leaders control people, so we started thinking leadership was the problem.

We saw submission twisted and taken too far, so we decided submission must be unhealthy.

We watched institutions fail us, and pretty soon we decided we didn’t need institutions at all.

But abuse doesn’t make authority bad. It means authority was abused.

The answer to bad leadership isn’t no leadership.

The answer to unhealthy authority isn’t no authority.

The answer to something being abused isn’t to throw away what God designed—it’s to get it back into its proper order.

But you don’t fix bad order by embracing disorder.

You establish godly order.

Paul didn’t tell Titus:

“These leaders have really messed things up, so let’s just let everybody do whatever they want.”

No!

He said:

Put things in order.

Appoint qualified leaders.

Teach sound doctrine.

Correct what is wrong.

Protect the church.

Why?

Because God builds through order.

And the enemy loves chaos.

We Better Pay Attention

I don’t think it is an accident that Scripture describes the spirit of the last days with words like lawlessness.

Jesus Himself said:

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

—Matthew 24:12

We should pay attention when rebellion becomes a virtue.

We should pay attention when restraint becomes a dirty word.

We should pay attention when authority itself becomes suspicious.

We should pay attention when correction becomes offensive.

We should pay attention when everybody insists on doing what is right in their own eyes.

And before we point our finger at society, we better make sure that spirit hasn’t gotten into us.

Can anybody correct me?

Can anybody tell me no?

Am I accountable to anybody?

Am I planted anywhere?

Do I honor legitimate authority?

Am I teachable?

Or have I dressed up rebellion and called it freedom?

Those are questions worth asking.

Because rebellion always promises freedom.

But eventually it produces chaos.

God’s order isn’t something we need to escape from.

It is something we desperately need to rediscover.

In our homes.

In our churches.

In our leadership.

And yes…

in our culture.

Maybe Paul’s assignment to Titus is more timely than we realize:

Put what remains into order.

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Do I really need a pastor?

If we believe what the Bible teaches about the Church, I believe the answer is yes.

I realize I’m a pastor saying that.

But after 30 years of ministry—and another 20 years before that watching my dad pastor—I’ve lived around the Church long enough to see some patterns.

I’ve watched people flourish in God’s house.

I’ve watched people get hurt in God’s house.

I’ve watched people leave churches for legitimate reasons.

And I’ve also watched people slowly convince themselves that they don’t need the Church, spiritual leadership, accountability, or anyone with permission to speak into their lives.

That last road concerns me deeply.

Not because I believe pastors should control people.

They shouldn’t.

Not because churches are perfect.

They aren’t.

And certainly not because pastors are always right.

We aren’t.

It concerns me because I simply cannot find a version of biblical Christianity where believers were intended to follow Jesus completely on their own.

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We Were Made to Be Shepherded

Hebrews 13:17 says:

“Obey your [spiritual] leaders and submit to them [recognizing their authority over you], for they are keeping watch over your souls and continually guarding your spiritual welfare as those who will give an account [of their stewardship of you]. Let them do this with joy and not with grief and groans, for this would be of no benefit to you.”

That is a heavy Scripture.

And before we talk about what it asks of the Christian, notice what it asks of the leader:

They will give an account.

Pastoral leadership is not ownership.

It is stewardship.

A pastor doesn’t own God’s people. Jesus does.

A pastor has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of shepherding, teaching, protecting, correcting, encouraging, and caring for people whom Jesus loves enough to die for.

That’s why healthy spiritual authority should never be coercive, manipulative, or controlling.

Biblical authority flows from love and operates under the authority of God’s Word and the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

But the abuse of something does not eliminate its biblical purpose.

If you’ve had a bad pastor, I understand.

If a church hurt you, I understand why trusting another one can be difficult.

But one bad experience doesn’t invalidate God’s design.

If you ate one bad pizza, you wouldn’t swear off pizza forever.

If you bought a lemon of a car, you wouldn’t decide automobiles were a failed idea and go buy a horse.

Yet spiritually, I’ve watched people do essentially that.

They’ve been hurt, disappointed, offended, or disillusioned and eventually concluded:

I don’t need a church.

I don’t need a pastor.

I can follow Jesus on my own.

I understand how someone gets there.

I just don’t believe Scripture allows us to stay there.

Authority Is Difficult for All of Us

There is another issue underneath this conversation that we shouldn’t avoid:

Authority.

None of us naturally loves correction.

None of us enjoys discovering that we might be wrong.

We like encouragement. We like affirmation. We like people who agree with us.

But spiritual maturity requires something more.

It requires people in our lives who love us enough to tell us the truth.

Ephesians 4:11–12 says:

“And [His gifts to the church were varied and] He Himself appointed some as apostles [special messengers, representatives], some as prophets [who speak a new message from God to the people], some as evangelists [who spread the good news of salvation], and some as pastors and teachers [to shepherd and guide and instruct], to fully equip and perfect the saints (God’s people) for works of service, to build up the body of Christ [the church].”

God gives leaders to His Church because all of us need help growing up.

I do.

You do.

Every Christian does.

And Scripture gives us another sobering warning about what can happen when we separate ourselves from that kind of relationship.

Proverbs 18:1 says:

“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.”

That is strong language.

Isolation can feel like freedom because nobody can disappoint you, challenge you, correct you, or tell you something you don’t want to hear.

But Scripture warns us that isolation can become a place where our own desires become our highest counsel.

That’s one of the great dangers of spiritual isolation.

Eventually, I become the highest authority in my own life.

I interpret everything.

I correct myself.

I determine whether I’m right.

I decide which Scriptures apply to me.

And I can call it freedom while never realizing that nobody has permission to challenge me anymore.

Isolation doesn’t always protect us. Sometimes it protects our pride.

That’s dangerous for every one of us.

Choose Your Shepherds Carefully

Now, none of this means you should submit yourself blindly to anyone with “Pastor” in front of their name.

Please don’t.

Look at the fruit.

Look at the leader’s life.

Look at their marriage and family.

Look at their character.

Look at their reputation in the community.

Look at how they handle money.

Look at how they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Look at whether they welcome accountability themselves.

Most importantly, look at whether they stand faithfully upon the Word of God and point people toward Jesus rather than themselves.

Healthy spiritual leaders should never be afraid of those questions.

Because biblical authority isn’t demanded by a title.

It is demonstrated through faithful stewardship.

And when you find a healthy local church with godly leadership, plant yourself.

Don’t just attend.

Belong.

Pray.

Serve.

Give.

Build relationships.

Allow yourself to be known.

Allow yourself to be challenged.

Allow yourself to be led.

Raise your children around people who love Jesus.

Let them see you worship, serve, forgive, reconcile, give, and remain faithful even when church life isn’t perfect.

Because you aren’t only making decisions for this Sunday.

You are building a spiritual inheritance.

Think Generationally

This is perhaps what concerns me most after decades in ministry.

I’ve watched decisions become patterns.

And I’ve watched patterns become legacies.

A generation decides church isn’t important.

The next generation decides it’s optional.

And the generation after that sometimes doesn’t know why it matters at all.

I’ve seen the opposite too.

I’ve watched imperfect families stay planted.

I’ve watched parents keep serving Jesus through difficult seasons.

I’ve watched children grow up surrounded by pastors and people who prayed for them, taught them, corrected them, encouraged them, and celebrated them.

I’ve watched those children become adults who love Jesus and begin building families of their own.

There are no guarantees. Every person must ultimately choose whether they will follow Christ.

But don’t underestimate the power of the spiritual environment you are creating.

Your decisions today can echo through generations.

Pride is an awful master.

And isolation can carry a much higher price than we realize.

We Need Each Other

The Church is full of imperfect people.

That’s because you and I are there.

Pastors need grace.

Congregations need grace.

I need grace.

And yes, pastors need pastors too. Leaders need accountability, correction, friendship, and people who can speak honestly into their lives.

That’s how God’s family works.

Together.

Worshiping together.

Serving together.

Forgiving one another.

Carrying one another.

Correcting one another.

Growing together.

And continuing to follow Jesus when relationships become inconvenient or difficult.

There is something beautiful about it.

An imperfect people, redeemed by a perfect Savior, learning how to become a family.

So, do you need a pastor?

Yes.

Do you need the local church?

Yes.

Biblically, I don’t believe we’re supposed to separate the two.

You need a church, and you need spiritual leaders who know you, love you, pray for you, teach you, and are willing to watch over your soul.

It’s a package deal.

God designed His people to belong to a spiritual family and to live under healthy, biblical spiritual leadership.

Don’t allow disappointment, offense, pride, or someone else’s failure to rob you—or potentially the generations coming behind you—of God’s design.

Find a healthy church.

Find trustworthy, godly pastors and leaders.

Plant yourself.

Belong.

Serve.

Give.

Allow yourself to be known.

Allow yourself to be led.

And grow.

I love you, dear Christian, enough to tell you what I have come to believe after all these years:

We were never meant to follow Jesus alone.

We need the Church.

We need pastors.

God designed us for both.

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One thing I’ve learned after more than twenty-five years of building teams—and after counseling business owners, pastors, church elder boards, and many other leaders—is this:

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Building a great team is both an inside job and an outside job.

It requires becoming the kind of leader people want to follow.

It also requires learning how to recognize the right people when God brings them into your life.

I’ve been blessed to lead incredible staff members, volunteers, and leaders over the years. I’ve also trusted the wrong people too quickly, put people into responsibility before they were ready, failed to verify what I should have verified, and paid the price for it.

Those lessons weren’t fun, but they shaped the way I lead today.

Whether I’m talking with a business owner, a pastor, an elder board, or another leader, I find myself coming back to these same principles over and over again.

Looking back, these five lessons have made all the difference.

Building Yourself

1. You attract who you’re becoming.

This one has humbled me more than once.

If I keep attracting unhealthy people, eventually I have to stop blaming everyone else and ask myself a hard question:

Who am I as a person and leader?

That doesn’t mean every problem is your fault. It doesn’t mean every person who leaves is unhealthy or every person who joins will be healthy.

But I have found this to be true: healthy leaders tend to attract healthy people.

Your team becomes a reflection of your leadership over time.

That’s why the greatest investment you’ll ever make in your team is investing in yourself.

2. Lead the whole. Trust others with the parts.

This is game set match.  You must see yourself as a macro-manager NOT micro-manager.  DO not get lost in the weeds.

Your responsibility is to protect the culture, keep everyone moving toward the vision, and remove obstacles.

Their responsibility is to become great at what you’ve entrusted to them.

If you’re making every decision, answering every question, and inserting yourself into every detail, you haven’t really built a team.

You’ve simply built people who depend on you.

Great leaders develop people.

3. Relationships always come before results.

People know the difference between being valued and being used.

I’ve watched people stay through incredibly difficult seasons because they knew they were loved.

I’ve also watched gifted people drift away because they felt like they were only valued for what they produced.

Leadership isn’t just about accomplishing a mission.

It’s about caring for people while you accomplish it.

Never sacrifice people to get results.

The greatest result is the people themselves.

Building Your Team

4. Give people something worth building.

The best people aren’t just looking for a paycheck.

They’re looking for purpose.

They want to be part of something that matters.

I’ve learned that people don’t simply want to help build your vision.

They want to discover how their gifts and calling fit inside it.

When people can see that, they don’t just show up.

They take ownership.

5. Never compromise on character.

This one has become non-negotiable for me.

Talent gets attention.

Character earns trust.

You can teach skills.

You can improve systems.

You can coach communication.

But character reveals itself over time.

Watch how someone treats people who can’t do anything for them.

Watch how they respond when they don’t get their way.

Watch what happens when nobody is watching.

Eventually, what’s in someone always comes out.

Time has a way of revealing what interviews and first impressions never can.

One Last Thought

Building a great team isn’t about finding perfect people.

And it isn’t just about becoming a better leader.

It’s both.

Become the kind of leader people want to follow.

Learn to recognize the right people when they come into your life.

Then create an environment where they can grow.

Do that long enough, and one day you’ll look around and realize you’re no longer trying to build a great team.

You’re leading one.

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Your future follows your thinking.

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I’ve seen it In myself over and over again.

I’ve watched incredibly gifted people never become what they could have become because they never learned to lead themselves.

I’ve also watched people with average ability accomplish incredible things because they learned to discipline what was happening between their ears.

If you’re going to build a great marriage, lead a business, raise a family, pastor a church, or simply become all God created you to be, one thing I know for certain is:

You have to learn to lead yourself.

And that begins with your mind.

I believe your mind is the most valuable real estate you’ll ever own.

Every day something is trying to occupy it.

Fear.

Faith.

Negativity.

Hope.

Offense.

Gratitude.

Comparison.

Purpose.

Something is always trying to move in.

The question is you and I must answer … daily -

Who’s deciding what gets to stay?

That’s why I come back to Romans 12:2 again and again. (I think I have preached this verse more than any other scripture )

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

God settled this a long time ago.

If He wanted to transform our lives, He knew He had to transform the way we think.

Think about the word renewing.

It’s not something we do once.

It’s something we do over…

…and over…

…and over again.

Because life has a way of filling our minds with things that don’t belong there.

Disappointment.

Bad news.

Someone else’s opinion.

Offense.

Fear.

Before long we’re reacting instead of leading.

I’ve noticed this in my own life.

Left alone, my mind doesn’t naturally drift toward faith.

It doesn’t naturally drift toward hope.

It doesn’t naturally drift toward gratitude.

It has to be trained.

It has to be renewed.

Every single day.

I’ve learned that before God changes a lot of what’s happening around us, He starts by changing what’s happening inside us.

Because when the person changes…

Everything else starts changing too.

Our responses change.

Our words change.

Our decisions change.

Our relationships change.

And many times our circumstances begin changing because we’ve become a different person walking through them.

Over the years, I’ve tried to build a few habits that keep my mind moving in the right direction.

1. Choose your perspective.

Every morning I have a choice.

I can spend the day looking for everything that’s wrong.

Or I can start looking for what God is doing.

I’m not talking about pretending problems don’t exist.

I’m talking about refusing to let problems write the entire story.

Faith has a way of seeing beyond what’s happening right now.

2. Guard what you rehearse.

Everyone meditates.

We just don’t all meditate on the right things.

Some people replay hurt.

Some replay criticism.

Some replay failure.

Some replay negativity.

I’ve learned that’s expensive real estate to waste.

The great Apostle Paul said  -

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Phil 4:8

I’d rather rehearse the future God has promised than relive a past I can’t change.

3. Know where you’re going.

One of my favorite sayings has always been:

“An idle mind is the devil’s playground.”

Don’t wake up hoping your life accidentally ends up somewhere good.

Give your mind a destination.

Know who you’re becoming.

Know what you’re building.

Know why it matters.

Purpose gives your thoughts somewhere healthy to live.

4. Write down your wins.

This has become one of the healthiest habits in my life.

Every day.

Every week.

I write down wins.

Some are big.

Most are small.

A good conversation.

A prayer answered.

A breakthrough.

A lesson learned.

Why?

Because if I’m not careful, my mind will remember everything that went wrong and forget everything God has done right.

Writing down wins trains my mind to recognize God’s faithfulness.

And gratitude has a way of changing the atmosphere of your entire life.

I’ve become convinced that success is rarely one giant decision.

It’s thousands of small decisions nobody sees.

One of the biggest is deciding what gets permission to live in your mind.

Lead that well…

…and you’ll be amazed how much of your life starts moving in the right direction.

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One of the things I strongly believe we must recover in the body of Christ is the biblical understanding that we are truly brothers and sisters.

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Not just metaphorically or symbolically, but genuinely—a family brought together by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I’m reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians when he said he was thankful he hadn’t baptized many of them. I’ve heard people use that verse to diminish or minimize the importance of Christian baptism. Guess what? That completely misses Paul’s point. It is way out of context with the rest of the New Testament.

Paul wasn’t minimizing baptism.

He was confronting division.

The believers in Corinth had become carnal. They were making it about who baptized them instead of what they were being baptized into.

Some were saying, “I follow Paul.” Others, “I follow Apollos.” Others, “I follow Cephas.”

Paul’s response was essentially, You’re missing the whole point.

They weren’t being baptized into Paul.

They were being baptized into Christ and into His body.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost something beautiful.

We’ve forgotten what it means to truly be family.

We’ve become so sectarian.

Sometimes by denomination.

Sometimes by our local church brand.

Sometimes by personalities.

Now listen—I am all for belonging to a distinct local fellowship and have great loyalty and faithfulness to that local body! I believe being planted in a local church is absolutely vital. It is biblical doctrine. It is biblical practice. It is God’s design.

But why do we act as though it has to be one or the other?

We’ve lost the ability in modern culture—and even church culture—to live in the beautiful tension of both-and.

To be deeply committed to a local church…

And at the very same time recognize every genuine follower of Jesus Christ as part of our family.

Jesus unites us.

The Holy Spirit fills us, baptizes us, and empowers us.

The Word of God forms us and directs us.

On all three accounts—we are family.

The blood of Jesus runs thicker than denominational lines.

I believe we need a fresh revelation of this truth.

When we see one another as family again, generosity replaces suspicion. Honor replaces competition. Love replaces comparison. And the world sees something it cannot explain.

How can the same team be in competition with itself?

It shouldn’t.

The New Testament writers constantly addressed believers as brothers and sisters.

That wasn’t merely a greeting.

It was their theology.

They actually believed the new birth had created a new family.

Jesus is not divided.

His Church, at its core, is one.

Catch this.

Distinct…yet one.

Different callings…yet one family.

Different local churches…yet one Kingdom.

Different expressions…yet one Savior.

What the blood of Jesus united, our preferences should never divide.

Brothers and sisters, this isn’t primarily an organizational issue.

It’s a heart issue.

It’s a posture that only the Holy Spirit can produce within us.

Paul asked the Corinthians, “Is Christ divided?”

While he was addressing a local church, the principle reaches far beyond Corinth.

The Church of Jesus Christ at large must once again see Spirit-filled, Bible-believing followers of Christ as brothers and sisters.

One of my favorite verses says it this way—and I preach it often:

“We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters.” — 1 John 3:14

John didn’t say we know we’ve passed from death to life because we won every theological argument.

He said we know because we love our brothers and sisters.

Church, let’s repent where we have allowed pride, preference, and division to take root.

Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do.

Fill us again.

Break our hearts again.

Baptize us afresh in the love of Jesus.

Teach us to see one another the way You see us.

Because when God looks at us, He doesn’t first see denominations.

He doesn’t first see church brands.

He doesn’t first see our secondary differences.

He sees sons and daughters…

Brothers and sisters…

One family, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Imagine what would happen if every believer walked into every Bible-believing church with this conviction:

“These are my brothers.

These are my sisters.”

The atmosphere would change.

Competition would disappear.

Honor would flourish.

Love would become our loudest testimony.

May the love of God so flood our hearts that the world once again sees what Jesus prayed for:

“That they all may be one… so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” — John 17:21

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I’ve led through church splits and building campaigns. Through staff transitions and seasons where I wasn’t sure we were going to make it. Through moments where I was absolutely certain I was right — and moments where the people closest to me lovingly showed me I wasn’t.

I’m still learning. But if someone had handed me these lessons twenty-five years ago, I would have avoided a lot of unnecessary pain. I trust they will help you! (My pain your gain!)

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1. Don’t Die on Every Hill

When CrossRoad was small, I ran it the way a founding pastor runs everything — lean, fast, and mostly out of my head. No regular staff meetings. Minimal structured communication. We didn’t need it. We moved by feel, and it worked.

Then we grew. And what worked at one size started breaking things at the next size.

The hill I almost died on? Updating my leadership philosophy to include regular team meetings and real communication systems. I resisted it longer than I should have. I was the founder. We’d never done it that way. And honestly, I didn’t think we needed it.

As I look back now, I realize this wasn’t a lesson I learned alone. My wife, Pastor Angel, has been helping me grow as a leader for years. We’ve grown through these lessons together. In fact, when it came to communication, creating healthy leadership rhythms, and the value of intentional meetings, she was ahead of me long before I was ready to admit it. More than once she gently challenged my thinking, and more than once she was right.

Then my son-in-law, Grant, joined our staff as our worship pastor. He brought fresh perspective and ideas that stretched me as a leader. Not long after that, my son Mylon came on staff, and together they challenged many of the assumptions I’d carried for years. They weren’t trying to change our mission—they were helping us find better ways to accomplish it.

One of the first ideas was a monthly Dream Team leader meeting—where we’d talk honestly about how things were going, celebrate wins, and plan the future together.  One of the center pieces of this meeting is  something called the MVV Award—Most Valuable Volunteer—a simple trophy we present each month to recognize someone quietly making a difference. We cheer and hoot and holler for the winner. The person presenting the trophy gives a short reason why they are presenting the trophy to the winner.(This is by the person who won it the previous month) I can’t tell you how emotional and touching this time is…..

I’ll be honest with you. My first reaction was: We don’t need that.

The meetings felt like over kill. The trophy felt cheesy. I’d led for twenty-five years without either of them.

Boy, was I wrong.

The camaraderie in that room now is something I didn’t know we were missing. The connections that have grown between our leaders because we sit together every month and actually talk—I can’t put a number on what that’s worth. And the MVV? Watching someone receive that recognition in front of their peers and seeing what it does to them—and to the room—I was wrong about people not needing that kind of affirmation. Dead wrong.

Looking back, I’m grateful God surrounded me with people who loved me enough to challenge my assumptions instead of simply agreeing with me. Angel prepared my heart to grow, and Grant and Mylon helped put fresh language, practical systems, and new ideas around what our church needed in its next season.

Here’s what I learned and am learning  - the hill worth dying on is always the mission. Everything else—how you communicate, how you meet, how you affirm people—that’s just scaffolding. And the founding pastor’s biggest blind spot is often mistaking the scaffolding for the hill.

Growth demands new systems. If your methods never change, your mission eventually stops growing.

Not every hill is worth your life. Learn to tell the difference before it costs you the next level.

2. Guard Your Time

I have a heart for people. Always have. Especially the underdog—the person everyone else has written off, the one who needs someone to believe in them.

That’s not a weakness. But unguarded, it almost broke me. (I know a lot of people can relate to me here)

At one point I had two people in my life—a close friend and a relative—both living near me, both pulling hard on my time and attention. They had no problem doing it. That wasn’t malice. It was dysfunction. They were running on empty, and I kept offering what I had because it felt like love.

What it actually was, was an open calendar that other people’s urgency was filling up. And I looked up one day and thought: What am I doing? These two people are consuming everything I have, and the hundreds of people I’m called to serve are getting whatever’s left including my young family!!

That was the moment I learned that your kindness without a boundary isn’t generosity. It’s just availability.

And availability without a metric will keep you from the people you’re actually called to help.

You have to, in some sense, require people to earn time with you. Not to sound harsh. But if you don’t have some structure around your time as a leader, the loudest and neediest voices will fill every hour—and the mission suffers.

Guard your time. It is the one thing you cannot get back.

3. Don’t Confuse Loud People With Influential People

This connects directly to the last one because the people who will consume your time most aggressively are almost never the ones with the most influence.  They are also many times the ones who take take take and will leave you in a moments notice!!!!

Loud people are loud because something is wrong. There’s a need, a wound, a dysfunction that makes them impossible to ignore. And leaders with a pastoral heart—people like me—are drawn toward the noise because we want to fix it.

But loud is not the same as important. And urgent is not the same as significant.

Healthy people usually don’t compete for your attention—they multiply your influence.

The most influential people in any room are often the quietest ones.They don’t need to perform. They don’t need your constant attention. They’re just faithful, day after day, doing what nobody’s applauding.

Learn to see those people. Invest there. The loud ones will always make themselves known—you don’t need to chase them. The faithful ones? If you don’t go looking, you’ll miss them entirely.

4. One Focused Hour Every Day Can Change Your Life

I’m a creative. When I get in a zone, I have to stay in that zone. Interruptions don’t just break my flow—they can cost me the whole session.

So I learned to build my day around one-hour blocks.

One hour on sermon prep. One hour in the Word. One hour in prayer. One hour to work out. Not all in a row—structured throughout the day. But each one protected. Each one intentional.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about this - most people don’t waste their life all at once. They waste it one unintentional hour at a time. They never decide what the next hour is going to be for, so the hour decides for them—and it usually decides for whatever’s loudest, easiest, or most urgent.

Hours stacked intentionally build a life.

Hours spent unintentionally build regret.

You don’t need a completely different life. You might just need to decide what the next hour is for—and then protect it like it matters.

Because it does.

Twenty-five years in, these four things have saved me more times than I can count.

Don’t die on every hill.

Guard your time.

Don’t confuse loud with influential.

Stack your hours on purpose.

Leading Right - Pastor Matt

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I’ve been carrying around this growing conviction for a while now. I want to share something that is extremely important to all of us and so very close to my heart.

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The longer I lead, the stronger it becomes.

Leadership is sacred.

Not because leaders are sacred. Please don’t confuse this.

Leadership is.

I have come to believe we have become obsessed with the wrong questions.

Are leaders born or made?

Can leadership be learned?

Is it personality? Charisma? Confidence?

Those are interesting conversations and I have had them myself!

But there is a deeper layer of recognition that I see now is absolutely essential we recognize and answer…..

The first question is this:

Where did leadership come from?

My conviction is simple.

Leadership wasn’t invented by people.

It was instituted by God.

Human flourishing has always depended on faithful leadership. God designed people to need direction, vision, courage, and responsibility. Leadership is His idea before it was ever ours.

That changes how we should hold it and how we respond to it.

Over the years I’ve noticed something else.

I’ve spent most of my life in church leadership, so that’s the world I know best.

There are people who reject the very idea of leadership. They don’t trust it. They don’t think anyone should have authority. (Except them….)

And yet, eventually, they become the strongest voice in the room, and by default or maybe not….become the leaders!

Why?

Because leadership is unavoidable.

Someone will always influence the direction.

Someone will always shape the culture.

Someone will always determine the outcome.

The question has never been whether leadership exists.

The question is who carries it—and how.

That’s why I say leadership is sacred.

Not because leadership is power.

Because leadership is stewardship.

God entrusts influence to people for the good of other people.

When we forget that, leadership becomes self-serving.

When we remember it, leadership becomes service.

Jesus didn’t reject authority by the way….He redeemed it!

The One with all authority washed feet.

He carried burdens.

He laid down His life for the people in His care.

That’s sacred leadership.

So let me speak to the young leader here.

The young pastor.

The business owner.

The elder.

The coach.

The parent.

Whoever has been entrusted with influence.

Leadership is a big deal because you determine outcomes and futures.

Your decisions shape other people’s futures.

Hold that responsibility lightly!

Hold it reverently.

I like to say that - Leadership is like fire.

Fire can warm a home or burn one to the ground.

The fire isn’t good or evil.

It’s the hands holding it.

Leadership is the same.

The influence you’ve been given can build people.

Or consume them.

So don’t chase leadership because of what it gives you.

Receive it as something entrusted to you.

Leadership is not about power.

It is about service.

It is about carrying responsibility for people God has placed in your care.

Leadership is sacred.

And once you see it that way, you never hold it the same again.

Lead Right. Go Further. Build Better.

Pastor Matt!

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There have been moments over the last 25 years when I came closer to quitting than most people realize. Really.

And if you’ve been building anything significant, I suspect you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Not because the vision wasn’t clear. Not because the mission wasn’t worth it. Not because God wasn’t faithful.

Because the voices got loud.

The voices of critics. The voices of doubters. The voices that tell us to shrink back, play it safe, and stop building.

And if we’re honest, there are moments when we almost listen.

But here’s what 25 years taught me:

The voices were loud. God was louder.

Critics Are Predictable

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The moment we decide to build something that actually matters, something that costs us, stretches us, and requires faith….someone is going to have something to say about it.

Not someone who’s in the arena with us. Not someone who knows what it took to get here. Not someone who has skin in what we’re building.

Someone on the outside. Someone Safe. Someone Comfortable. Someone Uninvested.

And what they say is going to sting more than it should.

Here’s the truth about critics that nobody talks about:

Critics are not reacting to our failure. They’re reacting to our movement. Let that sink in!

Us building something is a mirror they don’t want to look into. Us moving forward is an indictment of their staying still. Us believing God for more is a reminder of what they stopped believing for.

So they do the only thing that makes them feel better about not building, they try to stop us. They don’t do with facts, not with wisdom, not with genuine concern. But what motivates them is doubt, mockery, and discouragement that sounds reasonable but is designed to make us quit.

The Library

It was 2008. I was in my 30s. We were building a family life center — a gym, ministry space, a place to reach kids and young people and go deeper into our community. For CrossRoad, it wasn’t just a building really, it was a statement about who we believed God was calling us to become.

And here is my story……

There’s always someone who can’t quite believe we’re going to pull it off — and rather than cheer us on, they work quietly to make sure we don’t. Questions get planted. Doubts get whispered. People get influenced.

My chief agitator had a different vision for the space. He thought we should build a library.

A library.

Not a gym full of kids on a Friday night. Not a space where young lives could be shaped and futures redirected. A library — for a congregation that needed to reach the next generation.

It sounds almost funny now. But at the time, it wasn’t funny at all. Because the library wasn’t really about books. It was about control. It was about a man who couldn’t see what God was building, and couldn’t stand that someone else could.

He questioned my leadership. He worked the edges of our congregation. He tried to pull people toward his doubt because he didn’t have the faith to follow the vision.

We built the gym.

The building went up. The kids came. The community showed up. Young lives started getting changed in ways we’re still seeing the fruit of today!

And him? He eventually faded. Left the church with a whimper.

Not with an apology. Not with a moment of acknowledgment that maybe, just maybe, the vision had been right all along.

Just gone.

And the gym is still full.

Here’s what I want every leader reading this to understand:

When a critic shows up, most of us hear it and begin to second guess and let the negativity affect us.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should slow down. Maybe this isn’t the right time.

I want us to start hearing it differently.

In my experience, the intensity of criticism often reveals the significance of the assignment.

Nobody criticizes leaders who aren’t going anywhere. Nobody spends energy tearing down something they believe doesn’t matter. Nobody shows up to oppose movement that isn’t creating momentum.

So when the critics get loud, don’t automatically interpret it as a signal to stop. Sometimes it’s confirmation that we’re building something worth protecting.

The louder the opposition, the more important it becomes to stay anchored to the mission.

They’re Not Remembered for Their Critics

Jesus had critics. Paul had critics. David had critics. Nehemiah had critics — while he was literally building a wall.

Not one of them is remembered for the critics.

They’re remembered for what they built. What they believed. What they refused to quit.

We will not be remembered for our critics either.

We’ll be remembered for what we kept building after they showed up.

Here’s something else worth saying directly - some people have made criticism their full-time contribution. Not because they’ve built something better. Not because they have a clearer vision. But because tearing down is easier than building up.

Criticism requires very little courage. Building requires all of it.

And often, criticism is just a relief valve for abandoned dreams. If it can get us to stop building — to doubt, shrink, or quit — it feels validated.

Don’t give it that.

We are not responsible for managing someone else’s disappointment by making ourselves smaller.

Keep Building

So here’s what I want to say directly to you — the leader who is in the middle of it right now:

Keep building.

Not because it doesn’t hurt. It does. Not because the words don’t land. They will.

But because what God put in us is bigger than what they have to say about it.

The vision is bigger than the critic. The calling is bigger than the naysayer. The assignment is bigger than the doubter.

Here’s what I know after 25 years of watching leaders either push through or pull back when the critics got loud:

The ones who kept building never regretted it. The ones who quit almost always did.

What kept me going wasn’t stubbornness alone. It was faith. It was conviction. It was the quiet confidence that if God had called me to build it, He would sustain me through it. It was the great team that God had put around me that believed!!!

And I believe the same is true for you.

We are not building this for their approval. We are not leading this for their applause. We are not becoming who God made us to be for their acceptance.

So let’s stop auditioning for people who were never going to clap for us anyway.

The Stakes Are Too High

What we build today is someone else’s tomorrow.

The business we build creates jobs, opportunities, and provision for families counting on us not to quit. The ministry we build reaches people waiting for what only we can bring. The team we build becomes a culture that outlasts us.

This is not small. This is not just about us. This matters.

So keep going. Keep building. Keep believing.

The critics may be loud right now. But they don’t get the final word.

God does.

And what He said about us — and what He called us to build — before the critics ever opened their mouths — is still true!!!!

The voices were loud. God was louder.

Lead Right. Go Further.

— Pastor Matt

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We as Christians all know the feeling…

It’s like the floodwaters rise all at once. Everywhere you turn, something is going on and seems to be going wrong—all at the same time. I know you have been here with me as a believer.

One problem you could handle. But this seems like the fire hose has been turned in your direction with bad. Bad news, bad reports, and overall struggle. The wheels aren’t just wobbling—they’re coming off. It seems like a big struggle is going on in all the big hitters of our lives: relationships, finances, health, ministry, family. All of it, at the same time, from every direction.

And the worst part? You can’t make it up. (I have said that to my wife one too many times.) It’s too coordinated to be coincidence.

Here is exactly how it has worked for me, and I bet for you too… fear moves in. Then anxiety. Then worry. And underneath all of it—that heavy, suffocating feeling of being overwhelmed and threatened that you just can’t shake.

If that’s where you are right now, I need you to hear this:

Here is absolutely what I have discovered: You are not falling apart. You are under attack.

And there’s a difference. A big one.

Because if you’re under attack, it means something is worth attacking. The enemy doesn’t waste ammunition on people who aren’t a threat. He doesn’t coordinate an assault against a life that isn’t moving toward something significant. And many times, it is because you are on the verge of a great breakthrough at some level!!

So before we talk about what to do, I need you to know what this moment actually means.

You’re in a spiritual battle. And this article is directly for you.

I’ve Been Exactly Where You Are

For a long time, I believed that what happened next was mostly up to me.

My prayers. My faith level. My ability to get everything right. If the battle was getting worse, it was probably because I wasn’t praying enough, believing hard enough, fighting hard enough.

Now, there can be a layer of truth here—that we should be praying, believing, and “fighting,” so to speak. But we must undergird all of this with this divine truth and battle concept I am sharing here…

So here it is.

One day, a phrase I had read a hundred times finally landed differently—

“Having done all—stand.”

Not having done all, now do more. Not figure out what you’re missing.

Just—stand.

That single phrase rewired how I understood spiritual warfare. Because it meant the battle was never primarily about my performance. It was about my position.

And position is something Jesus already secured.

What Paul Actually Says

When Paul writes his most detailed teaching on spiritual warfare, he doesn’t say charge. He doesn’t say attack harder. He doesn’t say get everything right and then God will move.

He says stand—three times in just a few verses.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” (Ephesians 6:11)

”…that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

“Stand firm then…” (Ephesians 6:14)

Paul isn’t focused on gaining new territory. He’s focused on refusing to surrender the territory you already have.

And here’s what stopped me in my tracks—there is no armor for retreat in this passage. No armor for surrender. Every single piece is designed for one purpose: to help you remain standing.

The belt of truth keeps you anchored in reality when everything feels like it’s spinning. The breastplate of righteousness protects you from the accusation and condemnation that always show up when you’re under pressure. The shoes of the gospel establish your footing when the ground beneath you feels unstable. The shield of faith extinguishes the lies that fear whispers when you’re overwhelmed. The helmet of salvation guards your mind—because that’s always where the enemy starts. The sword of the Spirit answers every attack with the only thing that actually cuts through—God’s Word.

You are not equipped to run.

You are equipped to stand.

The Enemy’s Real Strategy

Paul wrote Ephesians from a prison cell. Roman soldiers stood watch in front of him—and the Greco-Roman world he lived in was deeply shaped by wrestling culture. In wrestling, victory wasn’t always about taking your opponent down. It was about maintaining your position. A wrestler who couldn’t be moved was nearly impossible to defeat.

That’s the picture behind Paul’s repeated command.

The enemy’s goal isn’t always your destruction.

Often it’s just your movement.

Move off the promise. Move off the truth. Move off the calling. Move off your confidence in God.

Because here’s the thing—if he can get you to move, he’s won. He doesn’t have to destroy you. He just has to displace you.

And James gives us the counter move:

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Not attack. Not perform. Not earn your way to breakthrough.

Resist. Hold your ground. Refuse to move.

And he flees.

That is not passivity. That is one of the most powerful acts of faith a believer can take—especially when everything around you is screaming to panic, strive, or give up.

Stand Back and Watch

There’s a moment in Exodus when Israel stands completely trapped. Red Sea in front. Pharaoh’s army closing fast from behind. Nowhere to go. No strategy that works. And Moses says something that cuts straight through every overwhelming moment since:

“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.” (Exodus 14:13)

Stand firm.

And watch.

God doesn’t need you to fight His battle. He needs you to trust that He already has.

This is what I had completely backward for years. I thought the outcome depended on me getting everything right. The truth is the exact opposite—it depends on yielding to His victory and everything He already got right.

We are not fighting for victory.

We are fighting from it.

Jesus conquered sin. Jesus defeated death. Jesus disarmed every power of darkness. Our job is not to achieve what He accomplished at the cross. Our job is to remain established in it—especially when everything is hitting at once and the wheels feel like they’re coming off.

The enemy’s only real move is to push you off the ground Christ already secured.

God’s only command in response is: don’t move.

After You’ve Done Everything

So here’s what I want to say directly to you—the one who is overwhelmed right now. The one who has been praying and fighting and trying to get it right and still feels the walls closing in.

There comes a moment in every spiritual battle when there is nothing left to add.

You’ve prayed. You’ve fasted. You’ve obeyed. You’ve repented. You’ve forgiven. You’ve resisted. You’ve believed.

What do you do then?

You stand.

Not because you’ve run out of options. Because you’ve done everything God asked—and now you trust Him to do what only He can do.

A believer who keeps praying when heaven seems silent—is standing.

A leader who stays faithful through relentless criticism—is standing.

A family that keeps trusting God when everything is falling apart—is standing.

A disciple who refuses to abandon truth when the pressure is overwhelming—is standing.

Heaven calls all of that victory.

So if you’re exhausted—if you’ve been striving and fighting and white-knuckling your way through this season trying to get everything right so God will finally move—

I want to give you permission to stop striving.

Not to quit. Not to disengage. Not to give up.

But to stand.

Because the greatest evidence of spiritual maturity isn’t always how far you’ve advanced.

Sometimes it’s simply that after every assault, every wave of fear, every coordinated attack against your life—

you are still standing exactly where God placed you.

The goal of spiritual warfare isn’t to win what Christ has already won.

The goal is to refuse to surrender the ground He’s already given.

So plant your feet.

Resist.

And watch what God does.

Stand. I am STANDING with YOU. Pastor Matt

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Two different basketball tournaments - Two different throw-together basketball teams - Same exact ending.

One practice. That’s it. One. We ran a few plays, hit some jumpers, talked a little trash to one another, and walked out feeling like we were about to run somebody out of the building.

Well we weren’t. We got our clocks cleaned. Both times.(still a painful memory)

Not close games. Not “we’ll get ‘em next time” games. The kind of games where you’re checking the scoreboard hoping it’s broken. I remember those shellackings as it was yesterday….

Here’s what stuck with me, decades later, more than the score ever did- it wasn’t that we were totally untalented. It’s that we were unprepared—and we didn’t know it, because we were too busy being impressed with ourselves to notice how good the other teams actually were.

That’s not a basketball story. That’s a life story. And once you see this pattern, you can’t unsee it.

I have seen this pattern so many times - we flip the scale.

Here’s the human tendency I’ve watched play out in gyms, in business meetings, in church staff rooms, and in my own soul for twenty-five years:

We have a tendency to underestimate the competition and overestimate ourselves.

Every single time we do this, we get exposed. Not because the other side is unbeatable—but because we showed up with a half-built version of ourselves against someone’s full effort.

I happen to believe this isn’t just a personality quirk. It’s a pattern.

What the research says

Researchers call this overconfidence bias.

We consistently overestimate our own readiness while underestimating the strength of the field around us. What’s surprising is that the problem often gets worse in groups. Confidence becomes contagious long before competence does.

Studies of entrepreneurs, managers, and teams show the same pattern: when success appears to depend on our own skill, we become more optimistic about our chances and less realistic about the competition. We assume we’re more prepared than we are and that others are less capable than they are.

In other words, what happened to me on that basketball court wasn’t unique.

It was predictable.

What this costs you in business and leadership and life…….

If you lead anything—a team, a company, a department, a household—overestimating yourself isn’t a character flaw you can shrug off. It’s actually a tax. You will pay it, with interest, later.

Underprepared salespeople walk into rooms assuming the deal is already theirs. Underprepared executives assume the competitor down the street is slower, dumber, or less hungry than they actually are.

Every time we lose when we fall for this trap and so do our teams and everyone we are responsible for!!!

But watch what happens when you change the equation.

Respect the challenge more than your assumptions.

Respect the competition.

Respect the moment.

Respect what’s at stake.

When you do, preparation follows naturally.

You rehearse the conversation one more time.

You sharpen the presentation one more time.

You spend another hour in prayer.

You do the work because you’ve stopped assuming you’re already ready.

I’ll be honest with you—looking back over my career, this may be my biggest regret.

Not the risks I took.

Not the opportunities I missed.

Not the swings that didn’t work.

The preparation I skipped because I was too confident I didn’t need it

More than once, I walked into moments believing I was ready because I had experience, some talent, or a few recent wins behind me. What I didn’t realize was that confidence can create blind spots. It can convince you that yesterday’s preparation is enough for today’s challenge.

I wish someone have said to me early on - you have some talent but everyone has a little bit of that…..what you do with it, is what the difference is …….preparation,preparation, preparation!!!!

I’m saying it to you now.

The call: become a person of overpreparedness

This is bigger than a strategy. It’s a posture. A way of walking into every room, every season, every assignment.

Overpreparedness says: I will not let my opinion of myself outpace the work required of me. I will not let one good practice convince me I’m ready for the tournament. I will respect the moment enough to prepare for it like my best isn’t automatically good enough—because it usually isn’t, until I’ve put in the work to make it so.

This is how you show up with your A game. Not occasionally. Not when you feel like it. Every time—because the world around you, the people counting on you, the family watching you, the team following you—they need your A game, not your “I think we’ve got this” game.

And then there’s the fight nobody sees

Here’s where this gets serious for me—more serious than basketball, more serious than business.

If we underestimate human competition at our own peril, how much more do we underestimate the enemy of our souls?

Scripture doesn’t whisper this warning, it shouts it: be sober-minded, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). That’s not a metaphor for a slow season. That’s a description of a real, active, intelligent opposition that does not take practice days off and does not show up underprepared.

And it’s not just an external enemy. It’s our own flesh—the part of us that wants to coast, that assumes yesterday’s spiritual disciplines will carry today’s spiritual battle, that thinks one good prayer or one good Sunday means we’re covered for the week.

We are never more vulnerable than the moment we assume we don’t need to stay on guard.

This is why Paul doesn’t tell us to relax in the armor of God—he tells us to put on the whole armor, to stand firm, to be ready, because the battle isn’t occasional, it’s constant (Ephesians 6:10–13). Overpreparedness, spiritually, looks like staying in the Word when you don’t feel like it. Staying in prayer when nothing seems to be happening. Staying surrounded by people who’ll tell you the truth when your own confidence starts lying to you.

Because the moment you think you’ve got this handled on one practice’s worth of spiritual discipline—that’s exactly when you will get caught flat-footed and a great price will be paid!!

I have lived long enough, and buried enough good intentions, to tell you: don’t let your last good season convince you that you’re ready for the next one.

So here’s the challenge—for the boardroom, the business start-up, the platform, the gym, and the prayer closet:

Stop assuming we have already done enough. Boom.

Stop assuming the competition, the culture, the enemy, or the moment is weaker than it actually is.

Respect what’s coming for us.

Be honest about where we currently stand.

Let that gap drive us to ours knees and to the preparation table—and watch what happens when we all finally show up with our full A game, every single time.

The tournament is coming.

Will we be prepared?

— Pastor Matthew

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a lie.

The lie was that there wasn’t enough to go around.

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Not enough recognition.

Not enough opportunity.

Not enough success.

Not enough blessing.

And it made me smaller than I was meant to be.

Maybe it came from how I grew up.

Much of my childhood was hand-to-mouth. Money was tight.

Maybe it came from the dog-eat-dog feel of small-town life, where it seemed like one person’s gain was another person’s loss.

I don’t know exactly where I learned it or how  it got stuck in my head and in my spirit……

I just know I had to be broken of it.

Here’s how I started to see the lie show up.

When someone succeeded, I struggled to celebrate it.

When someone deserved recognition, I hesitated to give it.

When someone did something remarkable, I found myself holding back instead of speaking up.

Not always.

But enough to know something in me is wrong.

Somewhere underneath it all was the belief that if I gave too much away, there would somehow be less left for me.

This sounds so childish and it is and it was me!!

I’m embarrassed when I think about the moments I stood there like a pouting kid while someone else deserved encouragement, appreciation, or praise—and I withheld it.

What I’ve finally learned is this:(sometimes I have a very thick skull)

Withholding doesn’t make me bigger.

It makes me smaller.

I thought I was protecting something.

I was actually shrinking.

Withholding doesn’t make me bigger. It makes me smaller.

⸻

Psychologists call this a scarcity mindset—the belief that there isn’t enough to go around.

Research shows that scarcity narrows our focus and pushes us into survival mode. When we’re afraid of losing what we have, generosity becomes harder. Empathy becomes harder. Celebration becomes harder.

We start viewing life like a fixed pie.

If someone else gets a bigger slice, ours must be getting smaller.

But that’s not how most of life actually works. Here is how it works……

Knowledge grows when it’s shared with those around you.

Relationships deepen when they’re invested in!

Creativity expands when it’s expressed with others.

Encouragement multiplies when it’s given away.

Even in the workplace, the effects are obvious.

Most employees don’t feel adequately recognized, yet encouragement consistently ranks among the strongest drivers of engagement and performance.

People are starving more for recognition than they are compensation! Think of that!

They’re starving for a word of affirmation and encouragement, which we can give freely and…..it has a payback!

The fear, of course, is that praise loses its value if we give it too freely.

But that’s only true when it’s fake.

Specific, genuine encouragement never loses its power.

The real danger isn’t giving too much.

It’s giving too little.

And beneath all of this is a deeper truth.

Jesus said:

“Give, and it will be given to you.”

We tend to treat encouragement the same way we treat forgiveness—as if we have a limited supply.

As if every act of generosity drains the tank.

But what I am learning is  = God’s economy doesn’t work that way.

Scripture says He gives seed to the sower, not the hoarder.

The flow is the point.

⸻

Think about a river and a pond.

Same water.

One is moving.

One is stagnant.

One is full of life.

The other slowly starts to stink.

The difference is simple.

One keeps giving away what it has received.

The other keeps trying to hold on.

The more I live, the more convinced I become that we were designed to live like rivers.

To pour out encouragement.

To celebrate freely.

To recognize generously.

To bless extravagantly.

Not because we’re working an angle.

Because that’s how life was designed to work.

⸻

So here’s the gut-check.

Want to feel small?

Keep score.

Treat someone else’s success like a threat.

Hold tightly to every compliment, every opportunity, and every ounce of recognition.

Or choose abundance.

Give the compliment.

Give the encouragement.

Give the kudos.

Celebrate the win.

Someone else’s gift doesn’t diminish yours.

Someone else’s success doesn’t shrink your lane.

Someone else’s blessing was never your threat to begin with.

For years, I lived as if there wasn’t enough to go around.

I was wrong.

There is enough.

Enough opportunity.

Enough recognition.

Enough blessing.

Enough money.

Enough room for all of us.

The lie made me smaller.

Abundance made me larger.

So give the compliment.

Give the encouragement.

Celebrate the win.

You will be glad you did!!!!

— I am your biggest fan! Pastor Matthew

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This is on my heart deep as we finish out this week. Pull up a chair, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and let’s chat.

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Somewhere along the way, we accepted a story about what we’re capable of.

Maybe somebody handed it to us. A teacher. A parent. A failure that continues to influence current behavior. A lie that keeps showing up like a false prophet to your future and your God-given dreams.

Hear me out here.

This is the truth, and we know it.

We Were Built for More Than We’re Using

We’ve all heard the line that we only use 10% of our brains. Scientists will tell you that’s actually a myth—we use the whole thing.

But here’s why that myth refuses to die: because it’s pointing at something true.

We all know—deep down, in a place we don’t talk about—that we’re living at a fraction of our capacity.

Not a fraction of our brain.

A fraction of our believing.

The untapped 90% isn’t in our brain. It’s in our belief.

And the proof is everywhere—including in how we raise our kids.

A few generations ago, a twelve-year-old helped run the family farm. Up before dawn. Operating equipment. Handling animals bigger than he was. Responsible for things that mattered because the family needed him to be.

Today, we hover over our kids like they can’t blow their own nose without supervision.

Here’s the thing: the kids didn’t change. Twelve-year-olds today have the same capacity twelve-year-olds had then. What changed is what we expect of them.

We lowered the bar, and they grew exactly to the height of it.

And before we shake our heads at the parenting, let’s look in the mirror.

Because we do the same thing to ourselves.

We set the bar at manageable.

We expect realistic.

We organize our lives around what feels safe—and then wonder why we feel restless, capped, and half-alive.

People grow to the level of what’s expected of them.

That includes the expectations we set for ourselves.

History Keeps Proving the Limits Wrong

If we want evidence that limits are mostly stories we agree to believe, history is full of it.

The four-minute mile.

For decades, runners chased it and fell short, and plenty of people insisted the human body simply couldn’t do it.

Then in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4.

Here’s the part that should mess with us: within a few years, runner after runner did it too.

Today, even strong high school athletes have broken four minutes.

The bodies didn’t change in 1954.

The belief did.

Bannister didn’t just break a record. He broke a limit in everyone’s head.

The Wright brothers.

Two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio. No college degrees. No government funding. No business being in the conversation.

Respected voices of the day declared powered human flight impossible or, at best, generations away.

Weeks later, on a windy beach at Kitty Hawk, Orville flew.

The experts had the credentials.

The brothers had the conviction.

George Müller.

A pastor in 1800s England who decided to house and feed orphans with no fundraising plan, no wealthy backers, and a policy of never asking anyone for money—only praying.

Everyone knew it couldn’t sustain itself.

Over his lifetime, Müller cared for more than 10,000 orphans, and millions in provision flowed through his hands.

He believed God for what others wouldn’t even ask for.

Harriet Tubman.

She escaped slavery—which alone defied every limit her world enforced—and then went back.

Again and again.

Into the most dangerous territory imaginable.

Leading others to freedom when one trip should have been impossible.

The limits on her were not self-imposed.

They were violently enforced.

She broke them anyway.

Different centuries.

Different fields.

Same pattern.

Somebody refused to accept the ceiling everyone else had agreed to, and the ceiling turned out to be a story.

So Let’s Get Personal

Which of these have we been repeating?

“I’m too old to start.”

Tell that to Müller, who was still expanding his work in his seventies.

“I don’t have the credentials.”

Tell that to two bike mechanics from Dayton.

“Nobody from my background does this.”

I’ll raise my hand here.

Park Falls, Wisconsin didn’t come with a script for the life I’m living.

God wrote a bigger one.

And I am thankful every day for it.

“It’s never been done.”

That’s not a reason to stop.

Historically speaking, that’s usually a sign you’re onto something.

A few of my favorite Scripture passages support this truth:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13

Paul didn’t write that from a beach chair.

He wrote it from prison while doing things everyone said couldn’t be done.

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” — Ephesians 2:10

The works are already prepared.

The only question is whether we’ll walk into them or talk ourselves out of them.

Your Starting Line: Five Moves to Make This Week

Let’s take some ACTION together - I am with you too!!!!

1. Name the lie.

Write down the one limit you’ve repeated most:

“I’m too old.”

“I’m not qualified.”

“People like me don’t.”

You can’t break a ceiling you won’t admit is there.

2. Find the evidence against it.

Find one person—in history, in Scripture, in your own career path, or in your family—who broke that exact limit.

Put their story where you’ll see it.

Limits lose power when we can prove they’ve already been broken.

3. Raise one expectation.

Pick one area—your business, your ministry, your family, your health—and set the bar where it actually belongs, not where it feels comfortable.

Write the bigger number.

Say the bigger goal out loud.

4. Take one step that’s slightly beyond you.

Not a leap.

A step.

Write the article that has been on your heart and publish it!

Pitch the idea.

Join the group you’ve been wanting to…

Sign up for the thing.

Belief grows by stepping, not by sitting.

5. Tell somebody.

Limits thrive in secrecy.

Tell one person what you’re going after and give them permission to ask you about it in 30 days.

Really.

Please do this.

Or ask me.

I will.

When I look back on my life, I can see the limits that could have defined me.

A kid from Park Falls, Wisconsin wasn’t supposed to have the opportunities I’ve had. There wasn’t a roadmap for the life I’ve lived, the churches we’ve built, the leaders I’ve been privileged to serve, or the places God would allow me to go.

If I had listened to every voice that told me to stay small, stay comfortable, stay realistic, I would have missed so much of what God had prepared for me.

And if I’m honest, some of the biggest limits weren’t spoken by other people.

They were the ones I repeated to myself.

That’s why this matters so much to me.

I’ve watched God do too many impossible things to believe the limits anymore.

I’ve seen Him open doors nobody could open.

I’ve seen provision show up when there wasn’t enough.

I’ve seen ordinary people step into extraordinary callings simply because they were willing to say yes.

Maybe that’s where you are today.

Maybe God is asking you to take a step that feels bigger than your experience, bigger than your resources, or bigger than your confidence.

Don’t confuse a lack of confidence with a lack of calling.

The same God who prepared the assignment will provide what you need to walk it out.

So identify the limit.

Name the lie.

Take the step.

Because the ceiling may not be real after all.

And years from now, you may discover that the thing standing between you and God’s best wasn’t ability.

It was agreement.

The limits are lying.

It’s time to stop believing them and take your next right step.

— Your faithful encourager  - Pastor Matt!

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Please read this if you sense there is more for you.

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Fear almost kept me locked out of my destiny.

Not the dramatic kind. Not fear of failure or fear of loss. The quiet kind. The kind that looks responsible. The kind that wears the mask of wisdom and calls itself patience.

The fear of what people would think.

I was thirty years old when I knew. I knew I had to leave the denomination I had been raised in. The people I loved. The identity I had built. The world I understood. Everything familiar was on one side of that decision — and everything God had actually called me to was on the other.

Maybe you know that feeling. Not from a denomination — but from a church you’ve outgrown as a leader. A ministry model that worked for a season but is quietly suffocating what God is trying to do now. A board that keeps voting for yesterday. A vision you’ve been carrying alone for years because the room you’re in isn’t ready for it.

Or maybe you’re a business leader who knows — really knows — that the company, the role, the industry you’re in has become a ceiling. The idea that won’t leave you alone. The startup you keep talking yourself out of. The pivot that makes complete sense on paper but terrifies you in practice because everything you’ve built is on the other side of that decision.

The details are different. The fear is identical.

Jesus said it this way: you don’t put new wine into old wineskins. If you do, the wine will burst the skins — and you lose both the wine and the wineskin. New wine needs new wineskins.

I was the new wine. And I could feel it.

The denomination wasn’t bad. Old wineskins aren’t bad — they held good wine in their season. They were formed by faithful people who loved God and gave their lives to serve Him. But a wineskin that was right for one season isn’t automatically right for the next. And God was doing something new in me that the old structure simply could not contain.

The same is true for the church model you inherited but never chose. The corporate ladder you climbed but never felt called to. The safe career path your family celebrated that quietly drains the life out of you every Monday morning. The startup you keep filing away because the timing never feels right.

I could feel the pressure of it. The calling was expanding and the walls weren’t moving.

So I left.

And the internal war that followed was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was in territory I had never been in. No map. No safety net. No crowd cheering me on. Some of the most significant relationships of my life quietly faded — people who had known me my whole life, now watching from a distance they chose.

Some days I thought — what have I done?

Every church planter who has stepped away from the security of a staff position knows that feeling. Every entrepreneur who has left a salary to bet on themselves knows that feeling. Every leader who has chosen the harder right over the easier wrong knows that feeling.

New wine in a new wineskin doesn’t look impressive at first. It looks empty. It looks unproven. It looks like an enormous risk compared to the full, established, respected old wineskin you just walked away from.

But here’s what I learned in that wilderness: the version of you that’s been trapped inside the comfortable, acceptable, crowd-approved version of your life — that person is still in there. Waiting. And the moment you step out, they start to emerge.

I started meeting people I knew God had called me to reach. People who would never have walked through the doors of where I had been. And something in me came alive that I didn’t even know had been asleep.

The church leader discovers their real voice when they stop performing for the institution and start leading from conviction. The business leader finds their real edge when they stop managing other people’s vision and start building their own. The startup founder realizes the idea was never the problem — the fear was.

The new wine was beginning to breathe.

There were moments I was completely overwhelmed. Moments the ground felt unsteady and the doubts were loud. And it was in those exact moments — not before them, not after them — that God would show up. Small things. Quiet miracles. Little confirmations that seemed to whisper the same message every time:

Keep rolling. You are becoming who I created you to be.

That’s the thing about comfort nobody warns you about. It’s not neutral. It’s not a resting place. It’s a slow drift away from your destiny. Every day you stay comfortable in the wrong life, you move further from the one God actually built you for.

Old wineskins are comfortable. They’re familiar. They’re proven. And they will cost you everything God is trying to do if you refuse to let go of them.

We fear change. We should fear staying the same.

The crowd will always vote for comfortable. They’ll validate your hesitation and celebrate your stillness — because it makes them feel better about their own. The congregation that resists every new idea. The colleagues who call your vision unrealistic. The investors who say the market isn’t ready. The well-meaning people in your life who love you and are slowly talking you out of your future.

But you were not made for the crowd. You were made for a calling.

At some point you have to stop performing for people who aren’t even building their own lives, get up, and get after the one God gave you.

That’s not arrogance. That’s obedience.

Ephesians 2:10 says you are God’s masterpiece — created in Christ Jesus for good works He prepared in advance for you to walk in. That person doesn’t live in comfortable. That person doesn’t wait for the crowd’s approval.

That person moves.

But let’s get honest about what actually keeps us in the old wineskin. Because it’s rarely one thing. It’s usually a quiet pile of fears we’ve never named out loud.

We fear losing our identity.

When you’ve built who you are inside a system — a denomination, a church staff, a company, a role — leaving feels like disappearing. You don’t know who you are outside of it. The pastor who has only ever been on staff. The executive whose entire identity is the title on the business card. So you stay. Not because it’s right. Because at least there you have a name.

We fear what the people who love us will think.

This one is the cruelest. Not strangers — people who matter. Parents. Mentors. Lifelong friends. The elder board. The investors. The people who believed in you inside the old wineskin. The thought of disappointing them can paralyze you longer than any other fear. We would rather shrink our destiny than risk their disapproval.

We fear being wrong.

What if I leave and it wasn’t God? What if I misread it? What if I blow up everything I built on a feeling? The church leader asks — what if this new vision fractures my congregation? The business leader asks — what if I leave and the startup fails? So we wait for certainty that never comes — because faith, by definition, never comes with a guarantee.

We fear the wilderness.

And we should — it’s real. There is a season between the old wineskin and the new one where you have nothing. No crowd. No confirmation. No track record. No salary. No congregation. Just you, God, and a calling you can’t yet prove. Most people turn back here. The wilderness looks like failure from the outside. From the inside it’s formation.

We fear becoming someone unrecognizable.

Growth changes you. The Matthew Anderson who walked out of that denomination at thirty was not the same person who walked in. The leader who builds something new will not be the same person who started. Becoming who God made you to be means letting go of who everyone else decided you were. That loss is real — and it’s worth it.

We fear the size of what God is asking.

Sometimes the vision is so big it feels irresponsible. The church that reaches the city. The company that changes the industry. The idea that solves the problem nobody else has solved. Who am I to think God would use me for something that large? So we play small. We call it humility. God calls it unbelief.

Here’s what I want you to hear: every single one of those fears is normal. Every one of them is a lie. And every one of them has a body count — a graveyard of destinies that never happened because someone chose the old wineskin one more day.

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Here’s what history tells us about fear and destiny: most people accept the limits of their world and never test them.

Harriet Tubman was born into a system that was designed to make her a statistic. Slavery didn’t just chain the body — it was engineered to chain the mind. To make you believe the walls were permanent. That the risk was too great. That the life you had, however small, was safer than the unknown on the other side.

She didn’t believe it.

She escaped. And then — when she could have disappeared into safety and no one would have blamed her — she went back. Nineteen times. Into the most dangerous territory imaginable. For people still paralyzed by the same fear she had already defeated.

She is reported to have said — I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.

That line should stop you cold.

Because the cruelest chains are the ones we can’t see. Comfort. Approval. Identity. Fear wearing the mask of wisdom. The church leader who keeps shrinking the vision so the board stays happy. The business leader who stays in the safe job because the mortgage is real and the dream feels fragile. The startup founder who keeps the idea in a notebook because launching it means it could actually fail.

Most people never leave because they don’t even know they’re in a wineskin that was never meant to hold them forever.

Harriet Tubman refused to be a statistic. She refused to let fear write her story. And because she moved, generations were changed.

You and I — we’re different.

Be the one.

A thousand people will read these words and stay exactly where they are. Don’t let that be you. Don’t let fear be your eulogy. Don’t let the old wineskin be the whole story.

CrossRoad Community Church is twenty-five years old. Hundreds of people have met Jesus inside these walls. None of it exists if I stay in the old wineskin at thirty.

The new wine needed a new wineskin.

So do you.

Your destiny is on the other side of the fear you keep choosing not to face.

Get up. Get after it. Prove fear wrong.

Fear almost kept me locked out of my destiny.

Almost.

What old wineskin is fear keeping you from your God-designed Destiny??!!!!

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Do you know your message?

Not your topic.

Not your expertise.

Not the thing you’re currently interested in.

I mean the thing you keep saying whether anyone asked you to or not.

I didn’t know mine for years.

I was pastoring. Preaching every week. Leading teams. Meeting with people. Solving problems. Like most pastors, I had a lot to say.

But after a while I started noticing something.

The same idea kept showing up everywhere.

In sermons.

In leadership meetings.

In counseling conversations.

Different words. Same message.

I wasn’t trying to make it happen. It just kept coming out.

And eventually I realized something important.

The things that matter most to us usually find their way into everything we do.

That’s how you begin to discover your message.

Not by inventing it.

By paying attention to it.

A few years into ministry I walked through one of the most frustrating seasons of my life.

There was a leader I believed in.

Smart.

Experienced.

Educated.

The kind of person who could sit in any room and sound like they belonged there.

But over time I started seeing things I couldn’t reconcile.

What they said and who they were weren’t lining up.

And it forced me to face something I didn’t want to admit.

Information isn’t transformation.

Age isn’t maturity.

Talking about growth isn’t the same thing as growing.

When that relationship eventually ended, it hurt.

There was real disappointment.

Real loss.

Real fallout.

But looking back now, I can see God was doing something deeper.

He was clarifying my message.

Because during that season one question kept rising to the surface.

Why do some people keep growing while others settle?

Why do some people become more humble, more teachable, more like Jesus over time while others seem to stop moving altogether?

I couldn’t get away from that question.

And eventually it became a sentence.

Belong and Become.

The more I sat with it, the more everything came into focus.

First, belong.

Belong to Christ.

Belong to His family.

Belong to a community of people who are moving in the same direction.

Because nobody becomes who God created them to be alone.

Life moves at the speed of relationships.

The people around you matter.

Then become.

Become who God created you to be.

Not who your past says you are.

Not who your failures tell you you are.

Not who your fears have convinced you you are.

Become the person God designed before you took your first breath.

That was it.

That was the message.

And once I found it, everything changed.

I stopped trying to say everything.

I started saying this plain bold clear message!!

One of the ways I think you discover your message is by paying attention to what breaks your heart.

For me, it’s watching people settle.

I see it all the time.

People with gifts.

People with potential.

People with a genuine call from God on their life.

And somewhere along the way they stop growing.

They become comfortable.

They become convinced they’ve already learned enough.

They stop listening.

They stop changing.

They stop becoming.

That bothers me.

Not because I want people to work harder.

Because I believe God has more for them.

I believe discipleship is a lifelong journey.

I believe growth should never stop.

I believe the best version of who God created you to be is still ahead of you.

That’s why I keep talking about it.

That’s why Belong and Become isn’t just a church slogan to me.

It’s personal.

I paid for that lesson.

And the lessons that cost us something usually become the messages we carry.

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Maybe you’re trying to discover your own message.

If you are, here’s my advice.

Pay attention.

What do you keep coming back to?

What burden won’t leave you alone?

What conversation do you find yourself having over and over again?

What problem do you wish somebody would solve?

What breaks your heart?

What makes you say, “Somebody needs to do something about that”?

Your message is probably hiding somewhere nearby.

And when you find it, don’t run from it.

Don’t worry about being repetitive.

Don’t worry about whether you’ve said it before.

Say it again.

And again.

And again.

Because clarity isn’t built through variety.

It’s built through consistency.

The people who need your message aren’t looking for your newest idea.

They’re looking for your truest one.

Nearly thirty years into ministry, my message hasn’t changed.

Belong and Become.

Christ brings us into His family.

And then He spends the rest of our lives transforming us into who He created us to be.

Every sermon I preach eventually finds its way back there.

Every leadership conversation eventually finds its way back there.

Every article I write eventually finds its way back there.

Not because I’m trying to stay on brand.

Because that’s what I believe.

The temptation for every communicator is to be broad.

To talk about everything.

To reach everyone.

But that’s not how influence works.

You don’t catch fish with a tarp.

You catch them with a hook.

Something specific.

Something sharp.

Something real.

Your message won’t be for everyone.

But for the people it’s for, it might change everything.

So………

Do you know your message? Someone needs it.

— Matthew Anderson

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Standing in the Gap

Intercessory Prayer & Biblical Types of Prayer

"I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land…"  — Ezekiel 22:30

Session Overview

Prayer isn't one thing — it's a whole language. The New Testament alone uses at least four distinct Greek words for prayer, each describing a different posture, purpose, and power. This class gives you the full vocabulary.

What We're Covering:

• 7 Types of Prayer in Scripture

• 4 Greek words for prayer in Ephesians 6:18

• 3 Biblical models of intercession

• The standing intercessor — Hebrews 7:25

Core Texts:

Ephesians 6:18 · 1 Timothy 2:1 · Hebrews 7:25 · Romans 8:26–27 · Ezekiel 22:30 · Luke 18:1–8 · Philippians 4:6

Seven Types of Prayer in the Bible

Paul's instruction in Ephesians 6:18 — 'praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication' — hints that prayer is multidimensional. Here are the seven distinct types Scripture teaches.

1. Praise & Worship

GREEK: AINESIS / LATREIA

Glorifying God for who He is — not what He's done.

This is prayer oriented entirely toward God's person and character. It's not asking — it's adoring. The Hebrew psalms are its greatest expression. Paul says in Philippians 4:6 to bring everything to God 'with thanksgiving' — praise is the atmosphere of all other prayer.

KEY DISTINCTION  Worship praises God for who He is. Thanksgiving praises God for what He has done. Both are commanded — and both are forms of prayer.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• Psalm 100:1–5

• Philippians 4:6

• Hebrews 13:15

2. Thanksgiving

GREEK: EUCHARISTIA

Expressing gratitude to God for specific acts, gifts, and answered prayers.

The Greek eucharistia is where we get the word 'Eucharist.' It means grateful acknowledgment of benefits received. Paul commands it constantly — 'in everything give thanks' (1 Thess. 5:18). Thanksgiving recalibrates perspective and positions the heart for more faith.

PASTORAL NOTE  Thanksgiving is one of the fastest ways out of anxiety. Paul pairs it directly with petition in Phil. 4:6–7 — the peace of God follows thanksgiving into petition.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• 1 Thessalonians 5:18

• Philippians 4:6

• Colossians 4:2

3. Petition / Supplication

GREEK: DEĒSIS

Bringing personal needs and requests before God.

Deēsis carries a sense of need, lack, or want — bringing what you don't have to the One who does. It's intimate and personal. Jesus taught it in the Lord's Prayer: 'Give us this day our daily bread.' This is the prayer of dependence.

It differs from intercession in that petition is primarily for oneself, while intercession is primarily for others — though the two often overlap.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• Matthew 6:11

• Philippians 4:6

• Ephesians 6:18

4. Intercession

GREEK: ENTEUXIS

Standing before God on behalf of someone else.

Enteuxis means meeting with, reaching, touching — it carries the weight of formal petition on another's behalf. Paul uses it specifically in 1 Timothy 2:1, making intercession for 'all people' a primary category of prayer.

Intercession is not simply 'praying for people.' It's taking a position — a priestly stance — between God's holiness and human need. It requires investment, persistence, and often personal cost.

THE STANDING INTERCESSOR  Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus 'always lives to make intercession.' Our intercession participates in His. We don't intercede alone.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• 1 Timothy 2:1

• Hebrews 7:25

• Ezekiel 22:30

5. Agreement / Corporate Prayer

GREEK: SUMPHONEO

Two or more praying together in unity, multiplying spiritual authority.

Jesus taught in Matthew 18:19: 'If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them.' The word 'agree' is sumphoneo — literally, to sound together, to be in harmony. It's the word we get 'symphony' from.

Corporate prayer is not just convenience — it carries a different weight. The early church prayed together (Acts 1:14, Acts 4:24–31) and saw extraordinary results. Unity in prayer unlocks something individual prayer does not.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• Matthew 18:19–20

• Acts 4:24–31

• Acts 1:14

6. Confession & Repentance

GREEK: HOMOLOGEŌ

Agreeing with God about sin — bringing the interior into alignment with truth.

Homologeō literally means 'to say the same thing' — confession is coming into agreement with what God already knows and says. 1 John 1:9 promises: 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.'

James 5:16 connects confession to healing: 'Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.' Unconfessed sin doesn't block God's love, but it can hinder the flow of prayer.

KEY INSIGHT  Confession isn't about informing God — He already knows. It's about positioning yourself in honesty and humility so that grace can do its work.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• 1 John 1:9

• James 5:16

• Psalm 32:5

7. Praying in the Spirit

GREEK: PROSEUCHOMAI EN PNEUMATI

Prayer carried and directed by the Holy Spirit, beyond natural ability or understanding.

Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20 both command this. Romans 8:26–27 describes its deepest form: the Spirit interceding through us with 'groanings too deep for words.' Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 distinguishes praying with the spirit from praying with the understanding — both are valid, both are needed.

JUDE 20  Praying in the Holy Spirit builds you up — it's a means of spiritual self-edification as much as it is a means of intercession for others.

KEY SCRIPTURES

• Ephesians 6:18

• Jude 20

• Romans 8:26–27

• 1 Corinthians 14:14–15

Intercessory Prayer: Standing in the Gap

Intercession isn't simply asking God for things. It's taking a position — standing between a holy God and a broken world on behalf of others.

What Intercession Actually Is

The Hebrew word pāga (פָּגַע) — translated 'intercede' — literally means to strike, touch, or reach. It's the same word used for a boundary marker. An intercessor reaches the boundary between God and people and won't move.

The Greek enteuxis (ἔντευξις) carries the idea of a formal petition to a king — not casual conversation, but confident, purposeful audience with royalty.

"I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land."  — Ezekiel 22:30

God was looking for an intercessor. That's still true today.

The Three Intercessors of the New Testament

1. Jesus Christ — Hebrews 7:25 · Romans 8:34

He 'always lives to make intercession' for us. His intercession is perpetual, perfect, and priestly. He is not merely praying for us — He is our High Priest presenting His own blood before the Father.

KEY PHRASE  'Always lives to make intercession' — present active participle. It is ongoing, unceasing, and personal.

2. The Holy Spirit — Romans 8:26–27

When we don't know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes with 'groanings too deep for words.' He prays according to the will of God for the saints. This is the ground beneath all effective intercession.

KEY TRUTH  You never pray alone. The Spirit is the co-intercessor in every prayer you bring to the Father.

3. Believers Like You — 1 Timothy 2:1 · James 5:16

Paul commands intercession for 'all people' — kings, leaders, everyone. James says the prayer of a righteous person is 'powerful and effective.' You have a seat at the table of intercession.

KEY TRUTH  'Righteous' doesn't mean perfect. It means positioned — in right standing with God through Christ.

The Prevailing Prayer Principle

Luke 18:1–8 — the parable of the persistent widow — is Jesus' own teaching on not giving up in prayer. The Greek ekkakeo means to lose heart, grow faint, go slack. Jesus says: don't do that.

Prevailing prayer is not about overcoming God's reluctance. It's about persisting until what God has already willed breaks through into the natural realm. You're not changing God's mind — you're partnering with it.

"Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?"  — Luke 18:7

Praying in the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 6:18, Jude 20, and Romans 8:26–27 each point to a dimension of prayer that goes beyond natural capacity — prayer carried and formed by the Spirit Himself.

EPHESIANS 6:18  'Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.' The phrase 'in the Spirit' modifies every type of prayer listed. All prayer should be Spirit-breathed.

JUDE 20  'But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit.' Praying in the Spirit is a means of spiritual self-edification — it builds your own interior strength.

ROMANS 8:26–27  'The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.' This is the deepest level — where the Spirit prays through us according to the perfect will of God.

1 CORINTHIANS 14:14–15  Paul distinguishes between praying with the spirit and praying with the mind, and urges both. Spirit-empowered prayer operates in a dimension the intellect cannot fully access or articulate.

The Spirit-empowered intercessor doesn't just bring their own agenda to God. They yield themselves as instruments through which the Spirit can pray what needs to be prayed — often beyond what the intercessor would know to ask on their own.

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Discussion Questions

Use these to process the material together. There are no wrong starting points — just honest ones.

1. Before today, how would you have defined intercession? How has your definition shifted or expanded?

2. Which of the seven types of prayer do you practice most naturally? Which feels most foreign or undeveloped?

3. What does it mean to you personally that Jesus is 'always living to make intercession' for you right now — not past tense, but present?

4. Have you ever experienced the Holy Spirit guiding your prayer in a direction you didn't expect? What happened?

5. Ezekiel 22:30 says God 'found no one' to stand in the gap. What are the areas in your life, family, or community that need someone to stand in the gap today?

6. Luke 18 teaches persistence in prayer. Where have you been tempted to give up? What would it look like to press through?

7. Paul commands intercession for 'all people' — including leaders and authorities. How does this challenge or stretch your current prayer life?

Your Next Right Step

Knowledge about prayer doesn't make you a person of prayer. What moves you forward is a decision followed by a practice.

1. Identify Your Gap

Write down one person, situation, or area where you will commit to standing in the gap this week. Be specific. Name it. God responds to specificity.

2. Use the Full Vocabulary

In your next prayer time, consciously use at least three different types of prayer — praise, petition, intercession. Notice how each shifts your posture and focus.

3. Yield to the Spirit

Spend five minutes in quiet after your words run out. Let the Spirit pray what you don't know how to pray. Don't rush to fill the silence with more words.

4. Pray for Someone You Wouldn't Naturally Pray For

Following 1 Timothy 2:1, intercede this week for a leader or authority you find difficult. This is one of the most stretching prayer practices in Scripture.

5. Don't Give Up

Luke 18:1 — pray and not faint. Whatever you've been tempted to abandon in prayer, bring it back. Persistence is not begging — it's faith that refuses to accept the gap as permanent.

The Standing Invitation

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father right now, making intercession. The Holy Spirit is in you right now, interceding through groanings too deep for words. You were never meant to pray alone. The question isn't whether God is available — it's whether you will show up.

"Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace."  — Hebrews 4:16

I hope this prayer study has blessed and helped you. It is the ultimate answer. Pastor Matt

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When I was a young man at the church summer camp I attended every single year, a featured preacher delivered a message I’ve never forgotten.

He preached this truth with great conviction that hit me well….. ‘The two biggest decisions you will ever make”…

First — will you follow Jesus and be a Christian. Second — who you marry.*

That message rooted itself deep in me. I have referenced this truth many times in my own preaching since. I’ve prayed it over young people. I’ve shared it with couples, with career changers, with friends in every season of life. And I still believe it with everything in me — those two decisions shape *everything.*

But over the years, as I’ve watched lives unfold — I’ve come to believe there’s a **third biggest decision** that belongs right alongside those two.

The environment you choose.

Where you settle down. Where you raise your family. The community you plant yourselves inside. The group of people you choose as adult friends. The church you belong to. The pond you choose to swim in. These are all monumental crucial decisions.

And here’s what bothers me — almost nobody is talking about this. We preach salvation. We preach marriage. Books, sermons, podcasts, conferences — all over the first two. But the environment we choose to live in? The pond we drop our family into? The church we settle into and become members of. It barely gets a mention.

It is overlooked. It is minimized. It should not be.

Because I am telling you — your environment may be shaping you and your family more than almost anything else in your life. Consistently and constantly. Whether you noticed it or not.

I recently shared this on my Substack notes:

Your environment isn’t just where you live. It’s what you’re becoming.*

I want to dive in here for the next few minutes on why I think we’ve been undervaluing this. I think maybe massively.

Environment Is Shaping Us — Whether We Notice or Not

Our environment determines our priorities. It shapes our attitudes. It quietly writes our future.

And here’s the part most of us miss: *it is incredibly hard to outgrow your environment. Most of us never do. We rise — or we settle — to the level of what surrounds us.

Think about a fish in a pond. We’ve all heard the saying that a fish only grows to the size of its pond. The truth is actually stronger than the saying. Put a koi in a tank that’s too small and it doesn’t just stay small — it becomes stunted. Sick. It lives a shorter life than it was designed to live.

The wrong environment doesn’t gently limit the fish.

It damages it.

And here’s what I want us to hold onto: God designed each of us with a certain stature. A purpose. A reach. He already put it inside us. The design is not the question. The question is whether the water we’re swimming in is letting that design grow.

The Elephant and the Rope

There’s a story you may have heard.

A man walks through an elephant camp and notices something strange. These enormous, powerful elephants — animals that could uproot trees — are tied up with thin little ropes attached to small stakes in the ground.

He asks the trainer, “Why don’t they just break free? They could snap that rope without thinking.”

The trainer answers, “We tied them when they were babies. Back then, the rope really did hold them. They tried to break free, and they failed. They tried again, and they failed. They tried for months — until one day they stopped trying. Now they’re fully grown, and they could walk away in a heartbeat. But they don’t. Because they believe they can’t.”

Psychologists actually have a name for this. They call it learned helplessness — first identified by Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s not just an animal story. It’s documented in humans, over and over. When we grow up in an environment of “you can’t,” “we don’t,” “people like us never” — we eventually stop testing the rope.

The rope isn’t holding us anymore. The memory of the rope is.

What kind and size of environment are you tied to?

The Research Will Surprise You

I used to think the environment stuff was intuition. Common sense. A nice metaphor for a sermon.

Then I found out how serious the science actually is.

Researchers at Harvard followed twelve thousand people across thirty-two years — what’s called the Framingham Heart Study. They wanted to know how much our networks really shape us. What they found is staggering:

- If a friend of yours becomes obese, your chance of becoming obese goes up 57%.

- If your friend’s friend becomes obese — somebody you might not even know — your chance still goes up 20%.

- The ripple stretches out three degrees of separation before it finally fades.

And it isn’t just weight. The same was true for happiness. For smoking. For drinking. Even for loneliness. The science only studied what it could measure — but friends, if environment shapes us *that* powerfully in every other area, do we really think our spiritual lives are immune? The 3 people you spend the most time with will determine your Christian growth. Count on it.

Translation? The people you’ve never met are shaping you. The friends of your friends are shaping you. The entire web you’re embedded in is shaping you.

The late Jim Rohn used to say it like this: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Turns out he wasn’t being poetic. He was being accurate.

And Then There’s This Verse

Here’s where this whole thing stopped being theoretical for me. Read this slowly.

In Mark chapter 6, Jesus goes back to His hometown of Nazareth. The place where He grew up. The streets He had played on as a child. The people who watched Him learn to walk.

And the Bible says this:

And He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.” — Mark 6:5–6

Stop. Read it again.

“He could not do mighty work there.”

The Greek phrase is ouk edunato — literally, “He was not able.”

Environment limited Jesus.

Let this settle into your heart and consciousness for a minute here. The Son of God — the One who calmed storms, raised the dead, fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes — walked into a room of skepticism and familiarity and unbelief, and the atmosphere of that place limited what He could do.

If environment can limit Jesus, what do we think it’s doing to us?

And notice what Jesus does next. The very next verse: “And He went around the villages teaching.”

He moved on.

He didn’t stay where He wasn’t seen. He didn’t grind it out in a place that couldn’t receive what He had been sent to give. He went where He was celebrated — not tolerated.

If that was true for Jesus, friends, it’s true for us.

God’s Pattern Is Often a Move

Look at how God shapes His people throughout Scripture. It’s striking how many times the first step is a move.

Abraham. Before God could make him a great nation, God said to him: *“Leave your country, your people, your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.” The promise required relocation.

The Israelites. God didn’t grow them where they were. He brought them out of Egypt.

David. Left the field of sheep and walked into a new arena.

Even Jesus left Nazareth.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is honestly admit: we are not standing in soil that lets what God put inside us grow. Really pray through this and please consider this!!!

Plant Yourself Where the Design Can Grow

So here it is all …. hear me on this.

Two of the biggest decisions of your life are likely already settled. Will I follow Jesus? — anchored. Who will I marry? — anchored. Praise God for that.

But this third biggest decision? This one is still happening. Every day. With every choice about where you live, who you let close, what church you plant your family in, what voices you let fill your home, who sits at your dinner table — you are still making the third biggest decision of your life.

And here is the good news: it is never too late to make a better one.

Look around at the people, the places, the patterns of your week. The voices in your ear. The community at the table. Is your family planted somewhere that’s helping them become who God designed them to be? Is the church you’re a part of a place of growth and discipleship that is helping you and your family in this most important faith journey? Are you in a room where you’re celebrated, or one where you’re merely tolerated?

If the honest answer is no — friends, it is okay to move. It is okay to plant somewhere new. It might be the most spiritual thing you do all year.

We don’t have to live like the elephant — held in place by a rope that isn’t even real anymore.

We don’t have to live like the stunted fish — designed for so much more than the pond we settled into.

God already designed you. He’s already woven your purpose, your gifting, your calling, your future into the fabric of who you are. The design is not the question. The only question is whether we’ll be brave enough — and intentional enough — to plant ourselves where that design can finally breathe.

So don’t just pick a place. Pick an environment where you KNOW you will thrive - do not leave this to guess work.

Don’t just join a church. Plant your family in soil that grows souls.

Don’t just settle into the people you happened to land near. Choose the people who pull you toward who God made you to be and you do the same for.

Choose your environment like it is life or death!

Choose well.

Plant deep.

And watch what God grows.

If this resonated, share it with someone walking through a season of asking where they belong. And subscribe for more on purpose, calling, and finding the soil where God’s design in you can grow.

I have been siting on this for a while…..here goes……

There's a difference between Sunday community and daily community.

One you attend. The other you live in.

One asks for your presence. The other shapes your life.

I've watched both models up close, and I've come to believe they produce two very different kinds of Christians — because they're built on two very different foundations.

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The Two Models

I've seen two church models — one I'd call cultural Christianity, the other biblical Christianity.

One is shaped by the modern American consumer model.

The other is shaped by what Scripture actually describes and teaches.

Cultural Christian churches — you attend a Sunday meeting where everything is provided for you. You drop a few dollars in the offering, you get inspired, you get encouraged to live a better life, and you go home. The transaction is clean. The commitment is light. There's nothing evil about it — it's just incomplete.

Biblical Christian churches — you are an intricate part of a community that functions as family. These churches can still have large numbers, but they carry a distinctive family sense to them. Accountability matters. Personal growth matters. Being known matters.

Sunday churches are a touchpoint for people. Biblical churches are a lifestyle of community.

Both can have great preaching. Both can have full parking lots. The difference isn't size or style — it's whether the people in the room actually know each other, walk with each other, and grow together.

The Man Who Just Wanted to Get In and Get Out

When we launched our Hudson location, a man walked in before the service even started and pulled me aside.

He told me, plainly: "I don't want to get to know anyone. I just want to come in and get out."

I nodded. Looking back, I should have told him right then that this probably wasn't going to be the church for him. I didn't.

He didn't make it through the message.

I've thought about that moment a lot. He wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't trying to be rude. He was just being honest about what he wanted — the product without the people. The inspiration without the involvement. The teaching without the table.

And here's the hard truth: a lot of us want exactly what he wanted. We just don't say it out loud.

What Scripture Actually Describes

The biblical model is a community of being known and knowing. It's the environment where we actually grow — by learning to walk together, and in the process, reaching others outside the family to become part of Christ's family.

Look at how the early church lived:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer... All the believers were together and had everything in common... Every day they continued to meet together..." — Acts 2:42-46

That phrase — every day — that's the difference. They weren't attending. They were belonging.

The writer of Hebrews reinforces it:

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together... but encouraging one another." — Hebrews 10:24-25

You can't spur someone you don't know. You can't encourage someone you've never had a real conversation with.

The Math the New Testament Quietly Makes

Here's something worth sitting with: the New Testament gives us roughly 50 "one another" commands — and zero "show up on Sunday and leave" commands.

Love one another (John 13:34)

Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)

Accept one another (Romans 15:7)

Carry each other's burdens (Galatians 6:2)

Bear with one another (Colossians 3:13)

Confess your sins to each other (James 5:16)

Encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

You cannot obey a single one of these from three rows back. The biblical model isn't a higher-tier Christianity — it's the only model where the commands of Jesus are actually possible to live out.

Family, Not Audience

Jesus didn't redefine the church as an event. He redefined it as a family.

"Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." — Mark 3:35

Paul echoes it constantly. Treat older men as fathers, younger as brothers, older women as mothers, younger as sisters (1 Timothy 5:1-2). We are "members of God's household" (Ephesians 2:19). We are "one body... and each member belongs to all the others" (Romans 12:5).

The early church wasn't just built around a stage. It was built around a table as well.

Why the Sunday-Only Model Feels Enough (Even When It Isn't)

The consumer model isn't the enemy. It's just the easier path. It asks less. It costs less. You can engage on your terms, on your schedule, and leave when you want.

For a lot of people, a Sunday seat is the first step back to God — and that's a beautiful thing. I'll never throw rocks at the door someone walks through to find Jesus.

But what gets us in isn't always what grows us up. A seat can introduce you to Jesus. A family is what forms you into Him.

Paul saw the drift coming:

"The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." — 2 Timothy 4:3

It's a warning, not a verdict. The question isn't whether your church has a stage and a sound system. The question is whether the people in the room are doing life together — or just sharing a row for 70 minutes.

The Cost — and the Kingdom Impact

The biblical model takes more discipline. More patience. More vulnerability. You have to let yourself be known. You have to know others. You have to stay when it gets hard.

But the payoff is real: the biblical model produces deeper disciples and greater Kingdom impact. Because disciples aren't formed in auditoriums — they're formed in community. Iron doesn't sharpen iron from a distance (Proverbs 27:17).

The early church turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6) not because they had better Sunday services, but because they were a family the world had never seen before — and people wanted in.

Here's what I want you to hear: this isn't about better or worse churches. It's about what kind of follower of Jesus we want to become.

You can grow in a Sunday community. But you'll grow deeper, further, and stronger in a family.

You can hear truth from a seat. But you become it when you're walking it out with people who know your name, know your story, and refuse to let you settle for less than who God designed you to be.

That's not a higher version of Christianity. That's just Christianity.

And here's the beautiful part — you don't have to figure this out alone. You weren't supposed to. The whole design is together. God already placed you in a family the moment you said yes to Him. The only question left is whether you'll actually take your seat at the table.

So if you've been doing this from a distance, hear this gently: there's more for you. There's a family waiting. There's a version of you that only comes alive in the company of people who know you and love you anyway.

We were made to walk this out together.  This is the Biblical model of Church and Christian wellness.

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The people most critical of where God is taking you are usually the clearest sign you’re headed in the right direction.

I know because I lived it.

For 20 years, I cared too much about what people thought. When I finally stopped, the friendships evaporated overnight.

And then God did something we never saw coming.

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My Story

I spent the first 30 years of my life inside a denomination. It was all I knew.

The people in it were my people — or so I thought.

But somewhere along the way, I started feeling it. A stirring. A sense that God was calling me somewhere the denomination couldn’t go.

The traditions that defined that world — the dress codes, the unwritten rules, the cultural walls that kept new people from ever truly feeling welcome — weren’t just inconvenient.

They were limiting our ability to reach the very people I knew we were called to reach.

The denomination wasn’t bad. The people weren’t evil.

But they were more committed to human tradition than to Kingdom impact.

And I knew we couldn’t stay.

So we left.

The Night the Friendships Evaporated

I want to be honest about what it actually cost us.

The criticism didn’t come loud and direct. It rarely does.

It came in the form of silence.

Whispers I knew were happening. Friends I had done life with for years who overnight simply weren’t there anymore. No conversation. No goodbye.

Just gone.

And I’d be lying if I told you I never second-guessed myself.

There were moments where I wondered if it was worth it. If I had misread God. If the pain of losing those relationships meant I had made a mistake.

But I held onto something deep in my spirit — a settled conviction that God was leading.

And that if we stayed faithful and kept moving, He would show up at exactly the right moment.

He did.

The Miracle That Changed Everything

Right in the middle of that painful season — when people were leaving and the future was uncertain — God showed up with a miracle offering.

A financial breakthrough so timely and specific it could only have been Him.

That offering became the foundation for our second building.

Let that sink in.

The season that looked like destruction was actually the setup for expansion.

But here’s what I know now:

None of that could have happened if we had stayed to protect relationships that were never meant to go where God was taking us.

It took 3 to 5 years before the full confirmation came. Before the picture became clear.

Those years required faith that didn’t always feel good.

But every single step was worth it.

The Science Backs This Up

This isn’t just a spiritual problem. It’s a deeply human one.

Research confirms it.

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that we consistently overestimate how much others notice and judge our actions. Psychologists call this the Spotlight Effect.

We think everyone is watching and critiquing us.

The truth is, most people are too consumed with their own lives to notice.

Psychologist Dr. Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, says that when we make our self-worth contingent on other people’s approval, we hand over the remote control of our lives to someone else entirely.

And perhaps most strikingly, a Cornell University study found that we regret the things we didn’t do far more than the things we did.

The chances we didn’t take.
The calling we didn’t pursue.
The person we were too afraid to become.

The opinion trap doesn’t just steal our present.

It steals our future.

The Hard Truth About Our Critics

Here’s something it took me a long time to learn:

The people who want us to stay small aren’t our people.

The ones who go silent when we step up.
The ones who question our motives when we level up.
The ones who get uncomfortable when we start walking in our purpose.

They were never meant to go where God is taking us.

That’s not bitterness.

That’s clarity.

Jesus Himself experienced this.

His own hometown couldn’t receive Him. The people who watched Him grow up were the most skeptical of His calling.

And Scripture says their unbelief actually limited what He could do there (Matthew 13:57–58).

Our critics aren’t just unhelpful.

They can become spiritually limiting if we give them too much access to our minds.

What Happens When We Stop Caring

Something powerful happens when we stop performing for the crowd and start becoming who God actually designed us to be.

We start attracting our people.

Our tribe.
Our crowd.
The ones who needed exactly what we carry.
The ones who will be changed by our story, our voice, our obedience.

But here’s the catch:

They can’t find us while we’re hiding.

When I finally stopped shrinking myself to make others comfortable, new people started showing up.

People who could actually run with the vision.

People who weren’t interested in dress codes and religious tradition — they were hungry for God and genuine life change.

Those are my people.

And I almost missed them.

The Real Cost of Playing It Safe

Let’s be honest about what the opinion trap actually costs us:

• Our creativity — we can’t create freely when we’re editing ourselves for an imaginary audience.

• Our calling — we can’t fully step into purpose while managing everyone’s comfort.

• Our energy — constantly monitoring how others perceive us is exhausting.

• Our time — years can pass while we wait for permission that was never coming.

• Our impact — the people we were meant to help never get reached because we stayed quiet.

Thinking too much about what others think of us isn’t just emotionally draining.

It wastes our lives.

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How We Break Free (This is what helped me!!!)

1. Identify whose voices we’re carrying.

Often, the opinions we fear most belong to a handful of specific people.

Name them.

Then ask yourself: Has their opinion actually served my growth?

2. Separate feedback from noise.

Wise counsel from people who love us and want God’s best for us is valuable.

Skepticism from people threatened by our growth is noise.

We have to learn the difference.

3. Get a bigger fear.

The fear of missing our God-given purpose has to become bigger than the fear of what people think.

Which is scarier:

Someone raising an eyebrow at our dreams?

Or standing before God having never become who He made us to be?

4. Take one bold step without asking permission.

Post the thing.
Make the call.
Launch the idea.

Do one thing this week that the old version of you would have talked yourself out of.

5. Resolve that God is leading.

This is what carried me.

Not certainty about outcomes.

Just a settled conviction that God was in it.

When we know He’s leading, we can survive the silence of people who don’t understand.

What I Would Tell My 30-Year-Old Self

If I could sit across from the younger version of me — the one sitting in that denomination, feeling the stirring but terrified to move — here’s what I would say:

The risk and the calling are absolutely worth it.

Your future deserves your courage.

The people who go silent aren’t your crowd.

The traditions that cage you aren’t from God.

The miracle you need is on the other side of the move you’re afraid to make.

Don’t let someone else’s small thinking determine the size of your life.

Your future self is waiting on your courage today.

Take the next right step!

—

Is there an area of your life where fear of opinions has kept you stuck?

Drop it in the comments — your story might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.

— Matthew Anderson

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If you are like me there are moments in this journey of faith where the weight of it all just settles on you. Moments where the vision feels far away, the progress feels invisible, and if I am being completely transparent — the discouragement runs deep. I have been in one of those seasons. Maybe you have too. Maybe you are in one right now.

It was in one of those moments recently  that this verse I knew for a long time became fresh to me - Philippians 1:6 — “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

This verse has been rattling around in my heart ever since.

Here is THE BIG TRUTH WE CANNOT MISS!

HE STARTED THIS — NOT US

Here is the thing we miss when we are tired and discouraged. We didn’t initiate this. God did. Whatever He called us to — the ministry, the marriage, the business, the healing, the restoration, the dream He placed in our hearts — He started it. We didn’t talk Him into it. We didn’t manufacture it. He authored it.

And if He started it, He is more than capable of finishing it.

The problem is we pick up the weight of the outcome like it belongs to us. We start doing the math, running the timeline, measuring the gap between where we are and where we thought we’d be by now — and slowly the burden shifts from His shoulders to ours. We were never meant to carry that. I know because I have felt that weight myself and it is too heavy for any of us to carry alone.

God didn’t call us to carry the outcome. He called us to stay faithful in the process.

SLOWER DOESN’T MEAN STOPPED

Can we just be honest for a moment? Most of us aren’t struggling with unbelief — we are struggling with the pace. We believe God can do it. We just thought He would have done it by now. I have been there. If we are honest most of us have.

But slower than we expected doesn’t mean stopped.

We cannot confuse the pace of God with the absence of God. He is not behind. He is not scrambling to catch up. He is not wringing His hands wondering how this is going to work out. He is working — right now — in what we cannot yet see. The seed underground looks like nothing is happening. But something is always happening.

The grind will try to convince us nothing is moving. We cannot believe that lie.

THE GRIND CAN GRIND YOU DOWN

There is a reason Paul writes in Galatians 6:9 — “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” He wouldn’t have written it if weariness wasn’t a real threat to all of us.

The grind is relentless. Doing the right thing day after day with no visible result. Showing up when no one is watching. Staying faithful when staying faithful costs us something. It wears on us. And I want to be real with you — there have been seasons where I felt it deeply too. Seasons where I wondered if anything was actually happening. Seasons where I had to preach to myself before I could say a word to anyone else.

But here is the encouragement we all need to hear. The weariness we feel is proof we have been working. We cannot let it become the reason we stop.

The grind can only grind us down if we forget who called us into it. We are not grinding alone. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. That is not motivational language — that is theology. We have access to a strength that is not our own and we need to remind each other of that truth.

KEEP YOUR HAND TO THE PLOW

Jesus said it plainly in Luke 9:62 — “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Keep moving forward. Keep your eyes ahead. Keep working.

Quitting is the only way this doesn’t work out for us.

Not the opposition. Not the slow season. Not the disappointing results. Not the people who didn’t show up for us. None of that can stop what God initiated — only us walking away from it can.

So we cannot second guess what God already signed His name to. We cannot abort in the third trimester what was conceived in the throne room. We have to keep believing and we have to keep working — together.

WE ARE NOT THE AUTHORS OF THIS STORY

We are not the authors of this story — we need to stop trying to edit the ending.

God saw the finished version before He wrote the first line. He knew the delays. He knew the detours. He knew the moments we would want to quit. And He still started it. He still called us. He still chose us as the instruments through which He would do this work on the earth.

What He initiated in heaven He is more than capable of completing on earth.

The fact that it is still happening — that we are still here, still believing, still showing up — is proof He hasn’t abandoned it. Proof He hasn’t abandoned any of us.

A WORD FOR ALL OF US TODAY

Wherever we are in the process — early days full of excitement, middle days full of questions, or late days full of exhaustion — I want us to hear this together:

He who started the work in us didn’t ask for our help finishing it. He just asked us to stay faithful.

Through Christ it is happening. It might be slower than we thought. It might look different than we imagined. But don’t you stop. Don’t we dare stop.

He will finish what He started. In me. In you. In all of us.

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 1:6​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

THIS past weekend I watched my son Mason get married. Somewhere between the vows and the reception — surrounded by people who had shown up across decades, through hard seasons and good ones — I was reminded all over again of something I've believed and been taught for 25 years of pastoring: few things matter more than the quality and longevity of our relationships. This isn't theory for me. It's one of my deepest, most hard-won truths.

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We spend enormous energy optimizing the wrong things. The right neighborhood. The right diet. The right morning routine. And yet the research — decades of it, from Harvard, from longitudinal studies across cultures — keeps arriving at the same uncomfortable conclusion: none of it matters as much as who we spend our time with.

"Our quality of life will be determined by the quality and quantity of our relationships."

That's not a soft, feel-good idea. It's almost brutally practical. Loneliness is deadlier than smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Social connection predicts longevity better than exercise. The people around us shape our ambitions, our moods, our immune system, our salary, our likelihood of surviving a cancer diagnosis.

And yet… we treat relationships as the residue of a busy life rather than the point of it. We'll block out an hour for the gym but cancel dinner with an old friend. We optimize our facebook and tik tok profiles but let close friendships quietly atrophy. We're ruthless about our calendars and careless about our people….

The quality question asks: are the people around us making us more like God designed us to be, or less? Do they challenge us with love, or keep us comfortable out of indifference? Pruning is hard and often painful — but a relationship that consistently costs us our peace is a price we cannot afford to keep paying.

The quantity question is less fashionable to admit. We need more people than we think. Not followers. Not connections. People who would notice if we went quiet for two weeks. Research suggests we need around five close relationships to thrive — and most adults are running a deficit.

So here's the uncomfortable audit - look at the last thirty days of our lives. Who did we spend meaningful time with? Who do we wish we'd called? Whose number is in our phone but whose voice we haven't heard in years?

The life we want is mostly on the other side of those calls.

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