Practically. Having a Church where people are growing in the Lord, connecting with one another, and serving the world requires good old-fashioned manual labor.

Tables and chairs will need to be repeatedly stacked and moved. Floors will need to be mopped and vacuumed over and over. Food will need to be prepared, served, and cleaned up after. Trash will have to be emptied repeatedly. Toilets cleaned, items wiped down, and repairs made. And that is just inside.

Outside, the parking lot will need to be maintained. Grass will need mowing, areas will need weed-whacking, and limbs and leaves will need to be removed. Building maintenance is a must. There always seems to be trash accumulating that needs to be cleaned up.

Physical work seems so distant from doing the work of the Lord, but it is this physical work that enables the work of God to take place through the Church.

People love to be a part of a vibrant faith community, but know that if you have not gotten your hands dirty lately or done any manual labor to make it happen, someone has. It is through people using their strength and energy for the Lord that the Church moves forward. And everything you experience is the direct result of someone laboring for the good of the community.

Today, I want to say thank you to everyone who physically does anything at Church. Thanks for your hard work in the name of Jesus.

Agreement. Harmony.

Congruence is not perfection. It is integrity. It is the honest pursuit of allowing our inner life with Christ to shape our outward actions in the world. When your beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors are aligned, then you have achieved congruence.

This is the place where we experience peace, joy, and genuine rest. It is where we can accept love, hear constructive advice, and live without fear.

One quest for a follower of Jesus is to find congruence in their life. Whenever we are out of alignment in one area, we are required to change to bring everything back into order. Sometimes that means correcting our beliefs, but usually it means changing our thought life or a particular behavior.

If you are tired, stressed, and anxious, it is usually because you have lost the harmony and agreement in your life. Incongruence creates tension in the soul. We feel it when our words outpace our obedience, when our public faith does not match our private practices, or when our convictions stay theoretical rather than lived. Over time, that tension leads to weariness, cynicism, and even hypocrisy.

The gospel offers a better way. Jesus doesn’t invite us to work harder, but to come back into alignment with Him. Congruence isn’t about having it all together; it’s about honestly bringing our whole lives under His lordship.

In that place of alignment, we discover the peace the world cannot give.

Mark Twain has been quoted as saying, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

Giving someone a polite expression of praise and admiration is an overlooked tool in our work for Jesus. A good compliment is genuine, specific, and focuses on character or effort. It makes the recipient feel truly seen and valued, not just praised superficially. It avoids vagueness or backhandedness to create a meaningful connection.

You can change someone’s day, maybe even their month or year, by complimenting them. It is best to do it face-to-face, but a card, email, or text can be effective.

Words have the power to change worlds, and a good compliment is unequaled in its magnitude. Take the time today to express what you appreciate about someone you know. I guarantee that they will be thankful you did.

There is a difference between thinking and being able to repeat what someone else told you.

Thinking requires you to engage information and mentally process ideas. It requires us to search for material that supports or disproves our conclusions. Thinking means having conversations that stimulate the mind with differing views and coordinating concepts. Thinking is complex and can take us years to get our thoughts right.

Repetition masquerades as thinking. Someone might hear a piece of information and then repeat it as an answer to an issue. This does not require anything from us, merely the ability to remember a few facts or a quote that we agree with in principle. Repetition can make for good grades or a stellar trivia participant, but requires little of us and can be achieved with a quick internet search.

The issues that this raises are multifaceted. Does the person I am talking to really think this way, or are they parroting information? How do I get people to think deeply about something I care about, like the Christian faith, without settling for trivial beliefs?

The challenge for people today is to develop their thinking. Thinking leads to convictions. And convictions will change behavior.

One reason people continue to act in ungodly ways is that they have never honestly thought about it.

There is a rug in my house that I know will get stuck in the vacuum cleaner every time I go over it. It is an indisputable fact that if I attempt to clean it with the rest of the carpet, it will not end well.

Do you want to know how many times I have sucked that thin little floor covering up?

Every. Single. Time.

My brain knows it will happen. In my heart, I know this will not end well. But I try to get as close to it as I can without it happening. I get right up next to the edge and move slowly down the side. Then, inevitably, I catch it in the brushes, and it gets pulled into the vacuum.

Sin is enticing. Even when we know the consequences can be devastating, we often try to come as close as possible, hoping nothing bad will happen this time.

Perhaps for a time or two, we are fine. Then we get confident in our behavior, and suddenly there is the smell of burning rubber from the belt, the squeal of the motor, and everything comes to a halt.

The question should never be, “How close can we get to sin and get away with it?” It should be “How can we stay far enough away that we will never have an issue?”

The Church I lead is thriving right now. People are inviting their friends, guests are coming, people are being baptized, new people are stepping up to serve, and many have committed to praying and reading their Bibles to start the year. It is truly an exciting time to be a leader at this Church.

Here is the part of the story you need to know. I have been leading here for 11 and a half years, and it has only been in the last year and a half that things have really taken off. The first ten years were spent laying the foundation for trust, surviving Covid, restructuring leadership, and creating a culture where people invite their friends.

Our little Church may have grown exponentially, but that growth took years.

My encouragement to any Church leader who is discouraged is simply to keep doing the work. Don’t give up, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up.

And my encouragement to our Church is to keep doing the right things, and I am excited to see what God does in the next 10 years.

One transition that happens as a Church community grows is that the group moves from a single-cell organism to a multicell organization.

When a Church is under 200 people, it is common for someone to stand up and say, “So and So is in the hospital, and they would like everyone to stop by and visit. It would also be great if everyone could send a card.” This is a totally reasonable and valid request. The majority of the community knows this person, and everyone can share their love and concern.

After a Church passes 250 in attendance, the dynamics change. Now, very few people may know this person. Their connection point is not the whole Church; rather, it is their Sunday school class, small group, or ministry team. The Church moves from being one extensive family network with a gathering every Sunday to a group of individual families ranging from 5 to 15 people who care about their immediate connections.

I know the fear, people will jump up and say, “The Church is supposed to care about every single person.” And I would argue that this happens better in a multicell group than in a large gathering. When you connect with that handful of people in authentic relationships, every person in that circle will genuinely show their concern. They will make meals, pay visits, and take care of the people in their group. After all, these are “My People.”

This is a challenging transition to make, and that is why roughly 80% of all Churches have fewer than 200 people. We like the intimate feel and the idea that everyone there cares about us. But if a Church can break through that barrier, the joy of having a handful of people who care deeply is always better than the care given by a large group of people who are mildly concerned about you.

Before you post about our faith online, it’s worth pausing to ask yourselves: Am I actually walking this path? Am I spending time in Scripture, talking with God, giving generously, serving others, worshiping with my church family, building genuine relationships, and maturing in my faith?

God’s kingdom isn’t built on clever posts or inspirational quotes. It takes root in the hearts of those who’ve truly given their lives to Christ and are doing the hard, daily work of following him.

People can distinguish between performance and reality. They may scroll past hypocrisy without a second thought. But authenticity? That stops them in their tracks. That earns their respect. That makes them wonder if this Jesus we talk about might be for them.

Our most powerful testimony isn’t what we post; it’s how we live.

I was a new preacher when I heard John Maxwell say in a leadership lesson, “As a pastor, you need to move with the movers.”

At the time, I didn’t comprehend exactly what he was saying. As a pastor, my heart should be for all the people of the Church I lead. Everyone matters to God, and therefore, they should matter to me. I thought that, under my insightful leadership, I would help every single person grow and become the person God desires them to be. We will all move forward together.

Now, after over thirty years of ministry, I understand what he was saying. Almost unbelievably to me, some people in the Church did not want to grow spiritually; they certainly did not all want to grow numerically, and many were very content to see themselves remain the same, along with their Church family.

Occasionally, someone comes into the Church and is excited to mature as a believer. They genuinely want us to reach people with the gospel, and they have a heart for ministry. These wonderful souls wish for the Church to move forward in faith for the kingdom of God. Whenever those people arrive in a faith community, my job is to link arms with them and move this thing forward.

I still care about every single person who attends worship on Sunday morning, but I move ministry forward with the movers. I connect to the sacred few who want to see God glorified through our community. I spend time with people who desire to grow spiritually. I move with the movers.

If you want to have a closer relationship with your pastor, don’t ask him to slow down and spend time with you; get moving and you can connect as you both move forward together.

The new year is firmly underway. The new calendar is out, the new notebook has started, and I am five days into my Bible reading plan.

God has blessed me with another year to serve him to the best of my ability.

That realization brings feelings of both gratitude and responsibility. Gratitude, because every new year is a gift from God. Responsibility, because time is something we steward, not something we own. The question is never whether God will be faithful in the year ahead; rather, it is: will I be faithful with the days He places in my hands?

I don’t know what this year will hold. There will be joys I can’t yet imagine and challenges I would rather avoid. But I step into this year with confidence, not in my plans or discipline, but in the God who walks with me into every unknown.

So with open hands and a willing heart, let’s roll!