Whenever a pastor falls into public and scandalous sin, it leaves a trail of desolating damage in many lives.

First and foremost is the pastor’s own wife and children. What devastation, to see one they loved and trusted over many years, one who ministered God’s Word to them, not just in public but in private, end up doing exactly the opposite of all that he stood for.

Then, there’s the damage done to the Christians in the pastor’s congregation, especially those who were converted and blessed under his ministry. They have so many debilitating questions: Was my conversion through his ministry real or just imagined? Were the blessings under his preaching genuine or was I deceived? Many will be angry—rightfully so—at the pastor’s sinful selfishness.

What wreckage this leaves in the lives of children in the congregation. The man they looked up to and regarded as a holy man is proven to be a fraud. How many doubts this sows, not just about the man but about his message. What painful conversations are provoked between Christian parents and their children. The wounds are multiplied if the pastor has also been a regular speaker at local school assemblies, with hundreds of unchurched children knowing him as the only pastor in their lives.

There are mass casualties among non-Christians in the church and the community. It hardens some in unbelief as they use the hypocrisy of the pastor to justify their continued resistance. It deters seekers as they think, “Well if he can’t make it work, what hope do I have?” It weakens doubters who already have serious questions about Christianity. It strengthens skeptics who openly mock the church, pastors and Christians for their double standards.

The ministry in general is contaminated as people wonder “Are they all like that.” Pastors in the community feel ashamed, wondering if people are wondering about them. The marriages of Christian pastors are undermined as their wives worry if their own husband is also at it. Suspicion grows and trust weakens. The congregation’s replacement pastor is going to have to wait a long time to regain the confidence of the congregation.

Depending on how well-known the pastor was, the damage may not just be local but national. When megachurch pastors fall, the mega-scandal weakens the church and its witness all over the nation.

Repairing the Damage

So, what can be done to repair the damage? Here are some essential steps to take.

1. Tell the whole truth. The remaining church leaders must level with the congregation and with the public. The least hint of a cover-up or of spin will be found out and will only end up making the situation even worse. No matter how damaging the truth about a pastor’s fall, it is even more damaging to tell lies about it, or admit to the truth only as it is discovered from other sources. Instead of letting the facts dribble out bit by bit, better to get it all out at once and then move on. Otherwise, as fallen politicians can tell us, death by a thousand leaks only prolongs and worsens the agony.

2. Minister to the damage. Difficult though it is to bring up all the painful trauma of these events, it’s far better to deal with it than ignore it, minimize it and “move on.” Sermons should be preached with a clear focus on addressing the damage, “Question and Answer” sessions should be organized, resources should be supplied, homes should be visited and conversations initiated about the specific problems that have resulted from the situation. Yes, it’s going to be a stressful time for the remaining church leadership, but better to be honest and open about the wounds in order to heal them. Otherwise, they will continue to fester and become a source of infection in the church for years to come. Tomorrow I’ll make some suggestions about what people need to hear in these situations.

3. Prioritize the wife and children. Each of the groups above need pastoring but none more so than the wife and the children of the fallen man. Bizarrely, the wife is sometimes a target of blame when a pastor falls. This can even come from the fallen pastor, as was the case a few years ago when a megachurch pastor who had committed adultery went to a national newspaper and said, “Well she did it first.” But even where there is no blaming of the wife, she needs massive support and comfort from the Christian community. Let her be in no doubt about their love and commitment to her. Special care should also be taken to shepherd the children through this dark valley.

4. Pastor the ex-pastor. This is not the priority—the casualties he’s caused are—but the ex-pastor also needs care. Sadly, many pastors who commit adultery and are removed from the ministry tend to become resentful toward the church, harden their hearts and refuse all attempts to shepherd them to repentance. However, if the pastor is humble, truly repents and wants spiritual (and marital) restoration, then much time will have to be spent in guiding him through this process, and encouraging him to find alternative work to provide for his family.

5. Prayer and patience. Recovery is going to take a long time for all concerned. The damage can be generational, taking 15-20 years before its effects eventually fade. It’s not just the faith of Christians that’s shaken; their mental health will be also. I remember talking to a Christian psychiatrist in Scotland a couple of years after a horrendous church division. He said he continued to be inundated with Christians from both sides of the divide. Huge supplies of prayer (public and private) and patience are going to be required before all the devastation of this tsunami is cleaned up.

This article originally appeared here.

Abraham, Noah, Moses and the saints of old walked forward with God in head-scratching obedience. Noah builds an ancient Titanic. Abraham logs more steps than a Fitbit can handle. Moses stood up to a political superpower. How? By faith.

Hebrews 11—The Hall of Faith—catalogs for us the ways our biblical ancestors lived by faith with our great God and Savior. But, I have a quibble.

Let’s stop calling it the Hall of Faith.

It’s plain to see the connections. Hall of Fame, ah, Hall of Faith. But a Christian-spin-cycle on a cultural shrine and a low-hanging play on words isn’t always helpful to understanding the Kingdom of Christ. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who take the seat at the end of the table, and the ones who aren’t always yelling shotgun in the parking lot of the world.

A Hall of Fame riff toward a Hall of Faith doesn’t compute with the ways of our meek Messiah. It smells clever but is undercooked in its meaning.

WHY HALLS EXIST

The problem with the comparing a basketball, baseball, football or rock-and-roll Hall of Fame with Hebrews 11 is that Halls of Fame exist to elevate and separate. Halls of Fame extract the best from the ordinary, the unimpressive, the forgettable, the duds. This is fine for sports and music but not fit for the Kingdom.

The Hall of Fame doesn’t exist to inspire your imitation. It reminds you of someone else’s greatness, their accomplishments and how only an elite few can ever reach this status. I can’t imitate Michael Jordan. I can try but I look silly jumping to the rim net with my tongue out.

WHY HEBREWS 11 EXISTS

But, Hebrews 11 exists for your imitation. God didn’t give us this section of the Bible for us to think, “Look at these great followers of God. I’ll never be like them.” Chapter 11 is filed for our imitation. The barrage of by faiths is there to weave us together, join us in the story of God’s glory—not bronze the heads of saints before our eyes.

Hebrews 11 doesn’t exist to museum-ify those who came before us. It is there to motivate and encourage us that if these folks could live by faith, so can we. We know Christ! Our biblical ancestors and their stat lines show us that by faith, we too can endure and walk with God—we can look to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus and endure with him till the end.

Since we have this cloud of witnesses as our pedigree, our family tree, “Let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:1–2 CSB). The Hall of Fame doesn’t move me toward holiness—but faith in Jesus does. It changes us forever.

The Hall of Fame, in every sport, is an incredible but temporal accomplishment. By faith we look to a heavenly city where duds, the forgotten, the overlooked, are welcome by faith in Christ’s accomplishments. His and his alone.

This article originally appeared here.

This week I’ve participated in a gathering with Leadership Network called Multi-Site Accelerator. It’s a great learning experience. I appreciate the Leadership Network team, and how they help churches across the country.

The focus of this gathering was to learn and gain insights from business organizations. The idea is to translate those learnings to become more efficient in the multi-site church model.

That’s the context for the content, and it’s great. But I’ll bet you’ve experienced, like me, that some great insights also come from more lateral thoughts and hallway conversations.

So, here’s one of those add value ideas, broken down into five bullet points.

1. Leaders in very large churches tend to be driven, and get restless when the church isn’t growing as fast as experienced in recent years or even just months. (This doesn’t mean that leaders in small and mid-sized churches aren’t driven. It was merely the context of this gathering.)

2. This restlessness causes high capacity driven leaders to divert their primary and creative energies from core activities to launch new endeavors within their churches. The danger is that the basics are perceived as boring, and the new creative things capture time, attention and energy. The new projects gain quick momentum and can give the illusion that the church is moving forward. But this momentum is usually short lived. In reality, the church is simply busier reaching the same people.

3. These new ministries, projects or events are good, but not focused and streamlined in a way that helps the church make concrete and measurable progress. Reaching more people is not the result. Restlessness can become busyness.

4. The irony is that this investment of leadership energy is often the very thing that slows or prevents the primary mission, to reach more people for Christ and help them mature in their faith.

5. The better investment of leadership energy is to dig deep into the basics and stay focused there. Combine that with massive doses of discipline along with innovation toward improvements. But again, stay focused on only that which is imperative for the church to thrive. Everything else is eliminated.

The point is to redirect restlessness that becomes wasted sideways energy by focusing on core basics that are mission-critical.

The following are practical questions to help you discern if this is a reality in your church.

• Is your church growing slowly or perhaps plateaued?
• Are your high capacity leaders looking for a new challenge to conquer but not improving the basics?
• Is that new challenge something that is necessary to achieve the mission of your church?
• Are you exercising “innovative discipline” to get better at the basics in ministry?
• Is there any restless energy in you, your staff or key leaders that needs to be redirected back to mission critical ministries, processes or practices?

This article originally appeared here.

I Don’t See You as a Black Friend

I grew up in the hills of West Virginia and had no African Americans in my graduating class. I attended a university with a fairly diverse campus, but most of my interactions with people who weren’t white came on the basketball court.

My experience in church was much of the same. After I became a Christian, I moved to Texas and was part of a solid, but mostly white congregation. I later became the pastor of a church plant in a small oil town named Graham, Texas. In the seven years I pastored there, we had one black member, a brother named Bobby whose “amens” and “tell’em preacher” encouragements still ring in my soul.

Though I had a few black acquaintances, most of my friends looked like me, thought like me, felt like me and experienced life in the same way I did. But all that changed in 2011 when I moved to Washington, D.C., to do an internship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

Our intern class consisted of six men, one of whom was black.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

Trip Lee was a quiet guy with a baby face. When I met him, I thought he couldn’t be more than 13 years old, but as our friendship developed, I grew to respect Trip for his devotion to Jesus and desire to be a humble servant of Christ’s church. We had regular discussions about theology, church, culture, and then one day—we talked about race.

As the discussion went deeper, Trip mentioned something about him being a black man. I leaned in and with all sincerity said to him, “Trip, when I see you, I don’t see you as black. I see you as my brother in Christ. I see you as a friend, but I don’t see you as a black friend.”

My intention was to communicate respect and to ensure him that I was “color-blind” because that was the height of love—right?

Wrong.

Trip looked at me and gently said, “Listen man, we are brothers in Christ, and that means something. But if you and I are going to be able to be real friends that go deep, you need to know that I am a man—but I am a black man.”

After a moment of silent staring, I pushed back and said that I didn’t understand. I explained that I never thought of myself as a white man and I wouldn’t want him to think of me as his “white friend.”

Trip said to me, “I hear you, but you’ve got to know that being a black man affects everything I do. Every time I walk into a store, every time a policeman looks at me, every time I step into our very-white church. I feel it. I breathe it. I live it. I am a black man, that is who God made me.”

He went on to explain that being a black man meant that, in many ways, he experienced life differently than I do. His pains and joys and fears were similar to mine, but also very different. He has fears for his children that are different than the fears I have for my children. He has hurdles in relationships that I don’t have to jump. He has to trust God in ways that are both similar and different than me. And those differences matter.

A Journey of Love

That conversation with Trip proved to be pivotal for me. It opened my eyes to the fact that not everyone sees and experiences life in the same way I do. This shouldn’t have been such a revelation to me, but it was.

I later became the lead pastor at Del Ray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va. Our church is mostly white, but is slowly increasing in diversity. Shai Linne, our assistant pastor, is an African American brother who has graciously allowed me to ask him questions and wrestle openly with things I find confusing about race and ethnicity.

After George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, Shai and I had several conversations about why the news was so upsetting to many of my black friends, including him. We eventually had a public discussion with about 20 other people where I (the ignorant white friend) got to ask Shai questions about how he saw and experienced the tragic event—not just as a Christian man, but also as a Christian black man.

During our dialogue, Shai humbly shared about a time when he was walking down the street and was stopped by police. He was questioned, cuffed and put into the back of a police cruiser because he “fit the description of someone they were looking for.” He described to us the pit that formed in his stomach when a car with a white woman pulled up next to him to identify if he was the person they were looking for. He said, “My life flashed before my eyes. In that moment I knew that if she said ‘that’s him’ that my life was over. I was going to jail. My whole life hung on what that woman said.”

I will never forget his tears as he told his story. I never knew that about him. But it made me love him and hate our fallen world and desire for Jesus to come back in a way I hadn’t felt before.

Nor will I ever forget the interaction Shai had with his young son after the news broke that the police who killed Eric Garner would not be facing any charges. While watching the news, his son asked, “Daddy, what are they talking about?” Shai said to him “black lives matter.” And then with innocent eyes he looked at his father and asked, “Why are they talking about that?”

Now, as a father, I’ve had to answer tough questions from my children before. But that kind of heart wrenching questioning has never happened in my house. Shai and my other black friends have to explain things to their children that I don’t have explain to my children.

Yes, we have the same kinds of concerns about the persecution our children will face if they follow Christ (2 Timothy 3:12), but most of my black friends and their children have had and still do have, a path that with more obstacles than the one I and my family walk on.

The Lord has given me relationships with friends from different ethnicities and cultures to open my eyes, not just to what it means to be black or Asian or Hispanic, but to what it means to love people who are different than I am. Moreover, these relationships have even impacted the way I read and apply the Scriptures.

Seeing More Clearly

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.” Psalm 119:18

I’d like to highlight three passages from God’s Word that have taken on a whole new meaning for me because of the diverse friendships God has brought into my life.

#1 – “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” Romans 12:15

If my black brothers and sisters weep and lose sleep over something, God-glorifying love calls me to care about it. I may not understand why they are weeping, but if they hurt, God calls me to sympathize with them and to seek to understand. There is no room in the heart of a Christian for apathy or indifference toward other believers (1 Peter 4:8).

Not all of my black friends have been affected in the same way by the Ferguson and Eric Garner decisions. But many of them have—and that must mean something if I am a Christian. Why? Because we are “members of one body” (Ephesians 4:25), and I am certain that when my day of weeping comes, I will want others to weep with me.

#2 – “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

We live in a fallen world that is filled with suffering. In many ways, all people’s suffering is similar, but there are also unique burdens each of us bear. Many of my African American friends have unique burdens to bear. And though understanding why they are burdened by certain events may not come natural to me, loving them (fulfilling the law of Christ) requires that I ask them to help me understand how I can bear their burden with them.

Sometimes this burden-bearing comes in the form of a prayer or a phone call. Oftentimes it comes just through listening and striving to learn more about your brother’s suffering. One of our white church members recently asked if he could have dinner with a few African American couples to talk about the issues of racial tension in our country that have been exposed through the events in Ferguson. They graciously agreed and one of the brothers said to him, “I really appreciate you asking to talk with me about this, because from my experience, it is very rare that someone would reach out to talk about these issues.”

Burden bearing begins by taking a step of love toward another and saying, “Do you need help carrying that? I’m not sure I can help, but if I can, I’m here, and I’d like to try.”

#3 – “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. ¹³And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy…their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel…” Galatians 2.11–14″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Galatians 2:11–14

In days past I would have wholeheartedly dismissed the notion that “race issues” were Gospel issues. But the Apostle Paul clearly states here that because Peter and Barnabas (Jews) segregated themselves from the Gentile believers, “their conduct was not in step with the truth of the Gospel.” It was anti-Gospel to step away from brothers and sisters who weren’t like them in order to keep traditions that Jesus died to set them free from.

One of the goals of Jesus’ saving work on the cross is to “break down the wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile and to create in Himself a new humanity where hostility is put to death and we are united in peace (Ephesians 2:14-16, John 17.20-21″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>17:20-21).

If there is any place that love and unity seems tenuous, it is along racial lines. Marin Luther King famously said, “The most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.” While we can praise God that there has been tremendous progress in race relations in the church since Dr. King’s day, we must all admit there is a long way to go.

And what is the way there? It is the way of Christ. God calls all His people to be “of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 2:2).

It is through loving those who are “other” to us that we most walk in step with the truth of the Gospel. It does us good to consider the fact that we are more “other” to Jesus than any of us are to each other. Jesus is God, and it doesn’t get any more “other” than that. Yet, what did Jesus do? He was moved by compassion and love for sinners to come and serve and die and rise for us (Philippians 2:1-11). Jesus teaches us what it means to love.

Shai recently preached about loving those who are “other” in this.

A Few Final Lessons About Love 

While there is much that could be said, I want to conclude with three reminders about what Gospel love requires from us.

#1 – Love requires relationship.

If we are going to learn to understand people who are different than us, we must pursue relationships with people who are different than us. This isn’t limited to black and white relationships of course, but it is certainly true for them. If love is going to flourish in the church, we must be willing to risk stepping out of our comfort zones and into the lives of other people.

I can hear what black men and women think on blogs and interviews, but love must go beyond this. As Shai said in the sermon I referenced above, “The more time and conversations you have with someone, the more sympathy is developed. It’s not going to happen through Facebook. It’s not going to happen on Twitter. It’s not going to happen on a blog post. It won’t be through watching news on cable, but it’s gonna be over the dinner table.”

How are you stretching yourself to develop authentic relationships with people who are different than you?

#2 – Love listens.

Love requires that I listen. I have learned that it is best for me to ask more questions and make fewer assumptions. This allows my brother the opportunity to speak for himself. And where better should we have the freedom to have these kinds of conversations than with our church family?

White police officers should be able to sit down with black members and talk about their mutual fears. They should also be able to encourage each other with how the Gospel gives them mutual hope. God is glorified in this, and the world is amazed.

#3 – Love risks.

If you walk down the path of love, you will be hurt and you will hurt others. As John Piper recently said, “There is no love in this world without tears.” If you take the risk of walking with people, you will encounter relational briars of racism and apathy and skepticism and bitterness and cynicism. These will hurt you, and your own briars will hurt others.

And this is why I am more convinced than ever that diversity in relationships is one of the best catalysts to our spiritual growth. When we are stretched to love and forgive and rejoice and weep in ways that are not natural to us, we are forced to lean upon Jesus in freshly desperate ways. And when we are all equally desperate before Jesus, we have great hope that He will move to unite us in ways that will call the world to ponder the power of our Lord.

There has been progress in our country and in our church. We have great reason to hope that God will grant even more progress. But this progress will not come from being colorblind. Progress will come when we see each other as we are, and prayerfully draw together for the honor and glory of God.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

This article originally appeared here.

Paul’s great summary of the gospel is laid out in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (ESV).

Those verses give us the four most crucial things to understand about salvation: the basis, the instrument, the result and the confidence.

1. The basis of salvation is grace.

You may have heard salvation described something like this: “I was drowning in a sea of my sin, and Jesus came by in a boat and threw the life vest out to me and pulled me onboard and saved me.”

David Nasser says that that sounds really good, but it’s just not the gospel. The gospel is that we weren’t just drowning in a sea of our sin. We were dead, floating face down in a sea of our sin, and Jesus came and pulled our lifeless bodies into the boat and breathed eternal life into our lungs.

Salvation was not a reward for good behavior. It was not because we were “less bad” than someone else or had a good heart or had great potential. It’s not even a reward for showing faith. “Grace” means that it was based on nothing good or meritorious about us; it was a gift of God.

Notice that little word “this” in verse 8. What does “this” point to? In Greek, the “this” refers back to the entire earlier phrase, including both salvation and faith. God didn’t just offer salvation as a gift; he also freely gave us the faith to believe in the first place.

2. The instrument of salvation is faith.

Faith is not simply a religious feeling or becoming more “Christian.” Faith is the hand that lays hold of Jesus. It’s the belief that Christ has accomplished it all, just like he said he did, and simply resting our hope on that.

The best picture of this is in the Old Testament—where all the best pictures are. When you brought a lamb to sacrifice for your sins, the priest would put it on the altar. Then, you would reach your hand out and put it on the head of the lamb, and you would begin to confess your sinfulness. As you confessed, the priest would take a knife and cut the throat of the lamb, and the blood would drain out. Your hand symbolized your sinfulness being transferred onto the innocent lamb.

When you become a Christian, you reach out to the Lamb of God and say, “I believe you came for me. You died for me. And there is nothing I can do to save myself. I am transferring my guilt onto your head. You are my blessed assurance.”

God has already (past tense) completed the purchase of our salvation. When we claim that as our own in faith, it becomes ours.

3. The result of salvation is good works.

We’re not saved by good works; but if we are saved, we will do good works.

That’s because when God saves us, he unites us to Christ and begins to infuse his life into us. There’s no way to be hit with that kind of force, to have that kind of power working in us, and not change.

Imagine I was late to church one day and finally came running up onstage and said, “I’m so sorry I’m late. As I got in my car to come to church, a grand piano fell on my head—just like the cartoons! I got up, all accordion-like, and it took me a few minutes to collect myself. But man, did it hurt!” Your response would probably be to call me a liar, because there’s no way I could show up at church in one piece after a grand piano landed on my head.

Have you experienced the grace of God? Then how can you say you understand and believe the gospel and not love him? How can you say you love God while enjoying those things that put him on the cross?

We’re saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.

4. The confidence of salvation is that what God started, he will finish.

“Prepared beforehand” means God has pre-planned these good works for us. He’s already created the opportunity for them and pre-supplied the power for us to do them.

Literally, in Greek, the word is poema (it’s where we get the English word “poem”). God has started composing our lives into a beautiful song that glorifies him. And what he has started, he will finish.

That word, poema, is used only one other place in the Greek Bible, referring to God’s creation in Genesis 1. At creation, God spoke something into nothing. He didn’t start with raw material. He started with nothing and created everything. He spoke a light that did not exist into absolute darkness.

When God saved you, he took a righteousness that did not exist in you and spoke it into being. The same powers that spoke the universe into existence began to create righteousness in us.

The darkness in our souls is no more able to resist the transforming power of God than the night is able to resist the sunrise.

Which means that all we have to do is yield ourselves to Jesus to let him do his work through us. Christianity is not about us doing anything for God but letting Christ do everything through us.

This article originally appeared here.

I’d been a mom for a few short days the first time it hit me. Sore and sleep-deprived, recovering from a long labor and emergency C-section that had the hospital suggesting I get a blood transfusion, I rode a wheelchair down to the parking garage, watched my husband, Tim, snap our barely six-pound newborn’s car seat into the backseat, and then, moving slower than I’d ever moved before to get into my own seat, braced myself to be driven home. That was when I started to see what I continue to see now, months later with an active baby bouncing in the living room: Becoming a parent is bewilderingly sweet and undeservedly good. But, as every new parent would attest to, becoming a parent is also hard.

In those first few weeks tucked in at home, family members making our meals, days turning into nights as we planted ourselves on the sofa caring for our beautiful boy, it took all my effort to move from the living room to the bathroom, from the bathroom to our own bed. Tim had to pick up Rocco and bring him to me every few hours during the night; I couldn’t get up on my own. Tim had to change diapers for me; I couldn’t bend over. And without other people nearby to see what we were facing in the especially hard work of those early weeks, how much effort it took for us to get from one day to the next, that was when I first heard the temptation: If you’re sacrificing and serving and no one notices, what you’re doing must not matter at all.

Affirmation for Mothering

Jesus says to the disciples, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). Parenting has long been a practice that demanded unseen sacrifice. Who remembers all the times their parents changed their diapers, got up with them in the middle of the night, comforted hurts, cared for injuries? How many meals does a mother cook for her family throughout their lives? How many of the kind words and thoughtful conversations given from loving parents get logged permanently in a child’s memory bank?

But today, thanks to the world of social media, practicing the daily sacrifices of mothering doesn’t have to be hidden. It is easier than ever to share. And in the monotony of cleaning spit-up, cooking another meal, responding to another tantrum, we can unknowingly begin to resist entrusting our unseen service to the one who knows all things. We seek affirmation from one another instead of from God (John 5:44). Right at our fingertips is a way to post a status or picture and, right that moment, feel the satisfaction of reassuring likes.

Made to Delight in Jesus

The allure of immediate validation is obvious, especially to someone who’s facing new challenges at home. Motherhood can feel isolating and lonely and, with its constant demands, discouraging in ways a woman has never before experienced. In my short stint as a mom, I’ve already wondered, more times than I like, if I’m doing it right. But looking to the reward of others’ approval on social media is not the answer to my heart’s questions. When I find myself wondering if my days have value, how to have joy, there is only one source I can trust.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

Because I was made to delight in Jesus, the one who demonstrated perfectly what it means to give up life for another, I don’t have to trade the temporal satisfaction of being noticed for the eternal glory that is to come. Instead of looking to hearts on Instagram to fill me up in quiet moments while the baby sleeps, I can look to the one who sees every momentary, little sacrifice and uses it for good. I can fight for faith that the hidden work of motherhood matters—because nothing we do or think is hidden to him. Nobody else has to see this moment; he does.

So as mothers, when we’re wiping another mess, making another meal, losing sleep or wondering if this quiet work matters at all, we can take hold of delight—not just in the affection we feel for our precious children, but also in the truth that serving them matters to our God. This is why our humdrum, ordinary, simple days are important: Because we believe they are important to him. In every moment, he is with us. He is in us. He hears us. He sees us. He is, in our days at home as anywhere else, working out his purposes in a thousand ways we cannot see and like and comment on in this life.

What do you need to become a super healthy leader over the long haul?

Too many leaders get discouraged, drained and defeated over the long haul in leadership. None of them set out to end up that way, but without careful attention to important disciplines, it happens.

That question can seem difficult to answer until you realize that leaders who do well in the long run all seem to adopt common habits and practices that help them thrive, not just survive, in leadership.

After two decades in church leadership (with a few more to come…I hope!), here are 10 things that leaders who are thriving these days almost always have in common and almost always have in abundance.

And, conversely, leaders who are missing most of these generally don’t survive in our changing culture.

The good news is you can thrive—not just survive—in today’s church culture if you pursue the right things.

If you want to get better as a leader, make sure you get to Rethink Leadership in Atlanta April 26-28. I’ll be speaking at it along with Bob Goff, Jon Acuff, Reggie Joiner, Les McKeown, Nicole Baker Fulgham, Brad Lomenick, Dan Reiland, Jeff Henderson, Darius Wise, Kara Powell and many more.

There are just a few tickets left…so hurry before it sells out.

On that note, I’m giving away two tickets to RL17, and the winners will get also get coffee with me backstage at the event.

Here’s how to win.

• Register for the event today.
• Leave a comment on this blog post, telling me you’re coming and what you’d love to pick my brain on over coffee.
• We’ll refund the registration fee to our winner.

Already registered? Just leave a comment on this post with what you want you’d like to pick my brain on over coffee. We’ll choose one previous registrant as a winner, refund your admission and invite you to coffee.

Your comment below is your entry ballot in the contest. Comment to win!

Now…here are 10 best practices I see super healthy leaders embrace.

1. Cultivate a Few Great Friends With Whom You Can Be 100 Percent Honest

Ministry is hard. Isolation makes it much harder.

When you’re transitioning a church (and these days, we’re ALL transitioning churches because change is so rapid), it’s important you have a trustworthy few with whom you can be 100 percent honest.

You can’t publicly or even privately complain about the situation you’re facing with the people you’re leading. It’s bad leadership.

You do need a few people who understand your situation and who can empathize, pray with you and correct you (you’re not always right and your attitude needs adjusting from time to time).

In this respect, I usually find I connect best with peers who hold a similar position and responsibility in another city. They get what I’m struggling with, and I can play the same role for them.

2. Relationships With Leaders Who Are One or Two Steps Ahead

Having a few friends with whom you can be 100 percent honest is different than finding a few leaders who are one or two steps ahead of you.

The first group functions as friends and colleagues, the second as mentors.

You don’t have to piggy back your leadership on someone famous. Too many leaders hold out for that opportunity to be mentored by Andy Stanley or Perry Noble, and decide they can’t settle for anything less.

Guess what? That will probably never happen. (It was also one of the reasons I started my leadership podcast, so you could be mentored by leaders like Andy, Perry and Craig Groeschel, even virtually. Best of all, it’s free).

But nothing is stopping you from finding a pastor or church leader who is just one or two steps ahead of you. Maybe you’re trying to break the 200 attendance barrier and he’s got a church of 300. Ask to go for lunch and come with great questions and an open notebook.

Maybe you’re looking to handle more volunteers than you’ve ever handled? Find the ministry leader who’s handling twice the number you are and ask her for lunch. You’ll learn a ton.

Mentors are closer than you think and more accessible than you think.

3. Spend Meaningful Time With People Who Give You Energy

This group isn’t necessarily people with whom you can be 100 percent honest. They’re not even mentors. It’s different.

This group is about people you personally find energizing.

I frequently ask ministry leaders, “When was the last time you went out for dinner with a couple who left you feeling completely energized and replenished?”

The blank looks and the looks of shock and disappointment on leaders’ faces tells the story.

We don’t do this nearly enough.

Ministry is giving. And because ministry is giving, it can be draining.

Your leadership is like a bank account. You can only give so much without becoming overdrawn. Be overdrawn long enough and you go bankrupt.

Go find some friends who energize you. Then, hang out!

4.  A Bullet-Proof Devotional Routine

You got into ministry because you love Jesus. But far too many leaders fall out of love with Christ while in ministry.

Why is that?

As Bill Hybels has famously pointed out, too often we let doing the work of Christ destroy the work of Christ within us.

The best way I know how to keep your passion for Christ fresh and alive is to develop a bullet-proof devotional routine.

By bullet-proof, I mean it needs to work at home and when you’re on the road, when you’re busy and when you’re on vacation, when you’re at your most stressed and when you’re at your most relaxed.

I outline mine here.

5. Exceptional Clarity Around How and When to Say No

The enemy of great leadership is not lack of opportunity; it’s the overabundance of opportunity.

The more successful you become, the more opportunity you will have. At first, your temptation is to say yes to everything. After all, you’ve waited your whole life for a crack at some things.

But saying yes to something good means you’ve likely said no to something potentially great.

Doing a few things extremely well always trumps doing many things adequately.

If you’re struggling with how to say no (and most of us are), here are some guidelines I use.

6. Regularly Scheduled Work-on-It Time

The problem with most of our jobs is that they are largely reactive unless you decide they won’t be.

You can spend an entire day answering emails, responding to messages and attending meetings you didn’t call only to hit 6:00 p.m. and realize you didn’t move the mission forward one iota.

Long term, this will kill your ministry.

Realize that in a post-Christian culture, momentum doesn’t come naturally.

The most effective leaders always budget significant blocks of time to work on their ministry, not just in it.

Here are seven work-on-it things you should start budgeting more time for starting this week if you want to be effective.

7. A Diversified Learning Menu

The challenge for many of us in church leadership is that we listen to the same voices over and over again.

You become a fan of a certain preacher, a certain theologian, and you read and listen to only them.

I find I often learn the most from people who are least like me.

Sometimes the answers to your problem lie outside your discipline, not within it.

8. A Great Marriage or Healthy Personal Life

It’s hard to lead well at work and at home. Usually one suffers at the expense of the other.

You either use your best energy at work and have none left for home…

or you use all your energy on your personal life and have little left for work.

As a result, married leaders who excel at work often end up with a less than ideal family life, and single people who pour their heart into their ministry end up with a much reduced personal life. (I wrote about what I’ve learned in my marriage here.)

Neither is a great scenario.

If you pour the level of intentionality into your life that you pour into your leadership, you will have a better life.

9. A Hobby That Takes Your Mind Off Things

One of the challenges of leadership in ministry is that it requires both your mind and your heart. And the great leaders always throw their heart and mind fully into it.

Which means it can be hard to turn things off when it’s time to go home.

I talk to too many leaders who just can’t seem to turn it off.

Which is why having a hobby or something else that takes your mind off of work is one of the best things you can do.

What works? Anything that will take your mind off of your day job. That can be cycling, cooking, wood working, hiking, art or watching a movie. Anything that gives your mind a break.

10. Enough Financial Margin

If there’s one thing the future will require, it’s more sacrifice.

This seems a bit tough in an era in which many church staff are underpaid and many are bi-vocational.

But developing financial margin is critical. Having no margin severely limits how you can respond to the opportunities in front of you.

I think more of this margin will be required in the future than in the past as church budgets struggle and as governments inevitably take away tax savings from churches and church staff.

The bottom line is this: The more margin you have, the more opportunities you can seize.

The less margin you have (as a person or as a church), the more those opportunities will pass you by.

Enter to Win Admission to Rethink Leadership

I’d love to hear from anyone heading to Rethink Leadership 2017 in the comments.

Tell me what you’d love to talk about when we meet one on one, and we’ll draw two winners.

This article originally appeared here.

“But Paul chose Silas and departed, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:40).

“Tom, I need your help.”

“Ed, can you drop whatever you’re doing and meet me this morning?”

“Roger, I’ve got a tough visit to make and was wondering if you could go with me.”

Pastors don’t ask just anyone for this.

A preacher friend tells of the call he received in the wee hours of the night.

“A woman in the church was waving a gun around and threatening her family. In recent weeks, we had been trying to help her with certain problems. As I headed out the door for her house, I dialed the number for a deacon friend.

“When he answered, I said something like, ‘Bob, I just had a call that there is trouble at the Swearheart’s home and I’m going there now.’ Bob said, ‘I’m on my way.’”

The pastor told me, “He did not say, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Or ‘I’ll be praying.’ He said, ‘I’m on my way.’”

“That,” he said, “is a real deacon.”

That little incident says worlds about that particular man and why the pastor values him so much.

That pastor had his choice from two dozen active deacons, yet he called that one. I never asked his reasons, but he had them, I’m sure. They surely would have involved compassion, maturity and courage.

The highest compliment the pastor could give was to dial that brother first when a crisis occurred.

I told recently of a Wednesday night some years ago when a woman to whom we’d been ministering asked if the church could arrange to move her and her three children to a new apartment that very night. Otherwise, she would lose her deposit.

That very night. And it was already 8 o’clock, near the end of what had been a busy day.

Whew. Crisis time.

If we were going to do this, I had to act quickly before our people left the church building.

I walked to the still-open microphone and called out, “Jim Parrie, I need to see you now. Jim Smith. Marcus Bouler. Wesley Bouler,” and some others.

That night, a dozen of us moved that woman and her three children from her old apartment to another.

The highest compliment a pastor can give is for them to be the one he calls on first.

Paul gave the highest compliment to a fellow named Onesiphorus. Here’s the story…

Paul was in prison in Rome. Most believers shied away from him, fearing that if they showed up at the Mamartime Prison, their cover would be blown and they would be outed as Christ-followers. Perhaps they felt that if it happened in the course of their daily lives and there was no help for it, then that was one thing. But to willingly put themselves in harm’s way—to draw a target on their own back—was something else entirely. So, they left Paul in the prison. He wrote to Timothy in Ephesus, “You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.”

Everyone except Onesiphorus. Paul continued,

“The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he was in Rome, he eagerly searched for me, and found me—the Lord grant to him to find mercy from the Lord on that day—and you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus” (Second Timothy 1:15-18).

Some people do not wait to see what is safe, what will be easy, which action would be convenient or “on their way,” but even go out of their way to do the right thing, no matter the cost or the difficulty.

Paul had no hesitation in mentioning such people. They were his champions.

Scripture mentions some of these people in the amazing Hebrews 11. At one point, the writer interrupts himself (herself?) to exclaim, “Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God!” (Hebrews 11:16).

When both God and the pastor consider you their champions, it doesn’t get any better than that.

This article originally appeared here.