Christ-centered leadership is at the heart of REVEAL’s best-practice findings. How do you keep your passion for Jesus fired up?
Bill Hybels: In Romans 12:11, Paul says: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” He’s saying don’t let your zeal burn low, but he’s also saying you’re responsible for your zeal. I like to remind myself of that. It’s my responsibility to keep my passion hot. It’s no one else’s. So if mine starts running low, I have to discern what cooled it off, and then I’ve got to stop letting that happen. I have to figure out who the people are, what the books and the experiences are, that refresh my spirit—and then lean into whatever works to re-fire a passion for Jesus.
For example, whenever I’m around certain people for any length of time, I feel my pulse rate increasing. They fire me up. I need to be around them a little more. And, besides the Bible, the book I’ve turned to more often than any other for inspiration and encouragement is Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines. If I need spiritual refueling, that book works for me. So, who I’m with, what I read, where I go—that’s what keeps me charged up.
To close, do you have a final word of advice or encouragement for church planters?
Bill Hybels: You’re one of the luckiest people on the planet—because the most important thing happening on earth is the establishment and building of local churches. God selected you to be able to form a community where this incredibly important work is going to be going on under your direction for perhaps the next 40 years. You won the lottery!
Enjoy it! Every day realize you don’t have to stand at a drill press. You don’t have to load and unload trucks. You get to traffic in kingdom ideas and work with great people who are pulling with you to try to form this Acts 2 dream of Christ’s church. You should fall on your knees and say, “God, what an incredible privilege to be invited by your Holy Spirit to play a key role in the most important thing happening on planet Earth.”
I tell pastors all the time that I’ve had a ball! We’ve taken our hits. There are bad days. But I’ve had an astonishingly blessed ride. And I think God would have that same heart toward every pastor. I think he wants every pastor to love His Word and love the adventure of His work. I don’t even know what it’s like to lay my head on the pillow and say that today was a waste. Every night, I feel like we moved the ball. We may have only moved it a foot, but we moved the kingdom ball ahead a little bit today. That’s good enough for me.
A high percentage of the human race hits the pillow at night feeling like their day was a waste. They didn’t move anything eternal ahead. They didn’t touch any lives. They didn’t do anything that’s going to outlive them. So my final word to church planters is this—you won the lottery! You get to lead the coolest endeavor on planet Earth, the only agency God said he was going to predictably bless and favor.
You get to be a part of that!
