The Church I lead is not for everyone.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone. Individual Churches are not.

I approach my preaching from my personal perspective. My type of humor, my method for developing a sermon, my personality, my delivery style, and every part of my communication are shaped by my home Church pastor, college professors, and the thousands of sermons I have heard.

The same is true for my leadership. I am the product of a highly functioning Church that took some wrong turns while I watched my dad as a leader. It comes from years of ministry and dealing with all types of people. The books I have read, the conferences I have attended, and the pastors who mentored me have shaped my ideas and decision-making process.

Early in my ministry, it upset me that people didn’t like me. They would attend a worship program and then walk away and never return. They would get involved in the Church and then suddenly disappear because they didn’t like how I handled something.

I would spend hours trying to fix myself and make everyone happy. If I could have mass appeal, then the Church I was leading would grow, and the gospel could touch everyone’s life. I found that the more I tried to make everyone happy, the less people responded, and the more miserable I became.

Then one day it hit me (in part, thanks to Seth Godin). No product is for everyone. There are Coke people, Dr. Pepper people, Mountain Dew people, and Pepsi people. Everything appeals to someone, and you have to find “your people.”

After that, I began to lean into my personality and not away from it. I am a goofball who makes more mistakes than I have successes. I tell stories and regularly embarrass myself. I lead with both confidence and humility. I am not afraid of people seeing my flaws, hearing my frustrations, or walking with me through pain.

I know I am unique, just like you. I know that not everyone will like me, but some will. So I keep using my life, my experiences, and how God shaped me for his glory. Every year, I am amazed at the lives God touches through my ministry.

You are not for everyone. But you can have an impact on someone.

Be completely you and do it for God’s glory.

I saw a book for preachers on why preaching book by book, verse by verse, is the best way to grow believers in their faith.

Picking it up, I flip to the chapter headings to see his line of thinking. Much to my surprise, the book was topical, giving his reasoning by jumping all over the Bible.

It’s like when I was at a conference and heard a lecture on why lectures no longer work with believers.

Whenever Christians call other Christians to transformation, the method we use must support the conclusions we reach.

You can’t lead people to love and grace by getting angry and yelling at them.

It means to surrender or give up resistance. In most contexts, that sounds like defeat with people waving white flags. Armies capitulate when they’ve been overpowered. Negotiators capitulate when they’ve lost leverage. It’s rarely seen as a good thing.

But when we look at the Christian life, we see this concept woven into the Scriptures. Jesus himself said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) It’s only when we lay down our arms before God that He can begin His transforming work in us. That’s the paradox of faith: victory comes through surrender.

So maybe today, instead of trying harder, we need to surrender to the loving Savior. We are to surrender our will to God’s, acknowledging that our way has led us into sin and separation, and yielding to His forgiveness and lordship. We stop fighting against His truth and embrace it instead.

But capitulation isn’t a one-time event. Daily, we’re called to surrender our plans to His purposes, our desires to His wisdom, our fears to His faithfulness. So, today, what is God asking you to capitulate to? What battle are you still fighting that He’s calling you to surrender? True victory in the Christian life doesn’t come from resisting God, but rather it comes from yielding to Him.

We have billions of pieces of information at our fingertips. A quick search for any topic or question will yield numerous articles and videos to help you understand it quickly. Many times, the facts and figures revealed prove to be mere trivia with little practical application. We have our answers, but they do not transform our lives.

I have noticed this same information addiction among Christians. We like to know things about the Bible and be able to answer questions about theology. That way, we look smart in Church conversations and can contribute adequately to small group discussions. Put us in a room with someone who doesn’t know the Bible, and we feel proud of how spiritual we are.

The trouble is that it rarely leads us to transformation. You can know a lot of Bible trivia and little else. The essential question is not “Do I know more about the Bible after what I read?” It is “Am I becoming what God desires, having read the Bible?”

Recently, I completed teaching the Membership Class at the Church I lead, along with our Next Steps Pastor, Gary. Once completed, I wait a week for them to review the material I did not cover, and then I schedule a follow-up with everyone who attended. I will answer all the questions about what we believe and about how we do things here in the Church. My time with them lasts anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. As they are leaving, I give them a ministry list and tell them to look it over. Gary will contact them to follow up and encourage them to serve as a volunteer somewhere in the Church.

I have a dream about how that meeting with him will go. I want them to show up having read through the list and be completely ready to start serving. There will be no hard push or prompting to get them involved. This mythical person will take ministry seriously and is prepared to use their gifts for God. All they need is a few connections and a little instruction, and they will handle the rest.

Once they have chosen their ministry, they will make sure the leader knows when they are available. They will plan their Sunday mornings around serving and will find joy in using their lives in the service of the Lord. As a result, I trust their choices as they move this ministry forward with vision and direction. They will become a priceless asset to the Church with their selfless service and deep commitment to making Jesus famous in our community.

Granted, this rarely happens, but I keep dreaming … and praying for it.

Whenever you have not done something in a while, the first few attempts are nowhere near perfect. It often takes multiple efforts over several days before the actions we once knew so well begin to feel normal again.

Picking up an instrument after years without playing it can be painful to hear. Watching a sports star return from an injury that kept them sidelined for months rarely results in them returning to their preinjury form immediately.

When someone steps up to read the Bible, I can immediately tell whether they do it regularly. If someone is forced into a situation where they are required to pray publicly, it is quickly apparent if they have prayed much lately. Often it occurs with people whom I know were once very close to God in their spiritual walk.

The good news is that if you keep making an effort, your performance will eventually improve. A commitment to doing the work is evident in the long run.

Sometimes, when I hear someone read or pray, I can tell they are out of practice, but then I smile because I know that if they commit to doing the work, this will be the first step on a road to improvement.

It’s okay if you feel out of practice with spiritual things; you can keep doing them until it feels normal again.

I live two blocks from a railroad track. I have lived in that house for over 10 years now, and I can no longer hear the trains go by in the middle of the night. I have become deaf to the loud noise of the train as it rumbles past my house with the horn blaring every night.

I read the Bible every day. I have been consistent in my plan to do that since 2009. If I am not careful, I can become deaf to what I am reading. It can shift from being life-changing information to a low rumble in the background of my days.

I wish every single believer would read their Bible regularly. But with that comes the potential to no longer hear its instruction and power.

One valid prayer before you read the Bible, attend a small group, or listen to a sermon is to ask God directly, “Open my eyes and ears to see and hear what you want me to know.” Otherwise, the train of God may pass us by without us even noticing.

There’s a fine line between telling people what they need to hear and what they want to hear.

A pastor or teacher can stand before a congregation, speak truth, and receive enthusiastic agreement. The room erupts with “Amens” and “Praise Jesus.” People feel affirmed in their faith and convictions. But without careful discernment, these speakers may be feeding self-righteousness rather than cultivating genuine righteousness.

What believers truly need is teaching that shapes them into Christ’s image and not messages that merely validate their existing views. The challenge is that this kind of leadership is messy. It rarely earns applause and often makes people uncomfortable.

As a church leader, I want my congregation to love their community of faith. But I also want to challenge them toward Christlikeness rather than simply affirm what they already believe.

Distinguishing between true righteousness and self-righteousness isn’t always easy.

One of my jobs as a pastor is not to tell you everything about faith. While I want to give the people I lead a thorough understanding of the Bible, that usually only has limited results.

A goal for my ministry is always to show people how to develop their own faith. I want them to know how to read the Bible, how to interpret it correctly, and how to apply what they have learned.

I can shout from the stage every week, “Believe this” and “Believe that,” or I can hold their hand while they are discovering what the Bible says on their own.

In my experience, spiritual growth has the longest-lasting impact when people are shown the way to faith and not when they are told what to believe.

This concept appears in fifteen verses in the book of Psalms, five times in Isaiah, and a few other scattered times throughout the Old Testament. Most of the commentaries I read on the passages say the same thing. They encourage us to wait and renew our strength. The concept is that we are tired, and God calls us to wait so that we can be physically and mentally prepared to take off again.

While reading this week, I was struck by something else about this phrase. Another reason that we are called to wait is that we are always running ahead of God.

When my children were little, my wife and I would take the boys for a walk. They would get on their tiny bikes and take off ahead of us. We would specifically say, “You can ride to the next road, and you have to sit and wait at the crosswalk for us.” They always wanted to move at a quicker pace than we could walk, and they loved the freedom of speeding ahead.

Often, the call to wait on the Lord is the response when we have been running ahead of him. We had our own dreams, plans, and desires, and we took off on our own. The stopping is not so much to rest as it is about getting back on God’s timing and plan.

God’s pace always seems slower than mine, and whenever I am tempted to run ahead into the unknown without his guidance, I should stop and wait for him to join me to lead me in the right direction.