I hate busyness.

Yet for some ridiculous reason I continuously find myself being busy over productive. It’s probably one of the most frustrating things I have encountered in adulthood.

My time is often determined by someone else’s priorities and my personal mission and vision can fall by the wayside if I’m not careful. But that is not the fault of others. It is my responsibility alone. If I determine my future direction by my present actions then I can’t shift the blame to anyone else but myself. I can’t expect to do great and be greater if I consistently cut myself at the knees with my bad decisions.

I think it’s fair to say that most people fall into the same category as me. We know what we want, but for different reasons, we come across obstacles that stop us from doing what we want (or need) to do which in turn prevents us from becoming the people we want to become.

We all want to be known for how we hustle and grind. The question is, do you really hustle and grind?

When we think of the words hustle and grind, most people only think about work. I would venture to say that those two words don’t just represent our attitude and ethic towards work, but to everything we do in life. My faith, my marriage, my relationships, my parenting, my work, my health, my personal projects…everything I do should be affected positively by my ability to hustle and grind.

Why is this important?

So often I hear people claim that they are on their hustle and grind only to see them spend ridiculous hours on busy work, see no progress and see every other area in their lives falling apart.

People hustle and grind at work, but come home to a failing marriage. Their relationships are falling apart because their is no investment. Their health has taken such a backseat that they wear the damage they do to their bodies as a badge of honor. They parent their kids out of authority instead of influence because their hustle and grind has caused them to never be mentally present with their children even when they are physically present.

Personally, I am tired of seeing people attempting to wear this hustle and grind badge while their lives are falling apart. It’s not good for anyone. And for myself? I’ve come to the realization that those words mean way more than just the work I put in my vocation.

My definition has changed.

If anything in my life lacks, then I’m not hustling and I’m not grinding.

What made me think about this? I was listening to a interview Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church did with Bishop TD Jakes. You can watch that interview Here. Bishop Jakes at one point during the interview says that “there is an old person deep inside of you depending on you to make the right decisions now when you are at your youngest and strongest.”

Yikes.

I will be the first to say that I have let this old person down plenty of times. I cannot continue to trend in the same direction, claim hustle and grind and expect to live a fully satisfied life in the future.

My hustle and grind means nothing without a strong marriage.

My hustle and grind means nothing without strong friendships.

My hustle and grind means nothing if I can’t influence my kids.

My hustle and grind means nothing if I don’t take care of my health.

My hustle and grind means nothing if I can’t develop my faith.

My hustle and grind means nothing if I succeed at work and destroy my life in the process.

Can you imagine what a REAL hustle and grind looks like if all of those things are covered? Strive for that. I know I will.

Have you ever read or heard a phrase that you can’t seem to get out of your head?

Maybe you read it in a book and it stopped you dead in your tracks.

Maybe you heard it on a podcast and you had to stop listening in order to chew on whatever was just shared.

Well, over the last 6 weeks, that was me.

I could not shake this idea in my head.

Multiplication over exaltation.

About 6 weeks ago, Pastor James Hilton at the Journey preached one of the most powerful sermons I had ever heard in my life. In all honesty, it came from a biblical text that I have always read over, but for this time this text stopped me in my tracks.

At the Journey we just finished a series called “When I Don’t See It.” It focused on the life of Abraham and his constant need to trust God even when things don’t look likely or make sense.

Here is the link to the sermon on YouTube: When I Don’t See It – Part 4

I think anyone can relate to parts of Abraham’s story and see themselves in it. But this specific text floored me.

In Genesis 17:5 we see God speaking to Abraham and he actually changes his name. Abram will now be known as Abraham. There is so much depth to this name change and the meaning of it.

Abram: Father of Exaltation

Abraham: Father of Multiplication

Why multiplication over exaltation? Because Abraham was going to and did become the father to a multitude of nations that still live today.

This made me think deeply about myself and multiplication instead of exaltation.

Every time you see expansion in the Bible, it comes from multiplication. Movements of the Spirit don’t add, they multiply. Strategic discipleship doesn’t add, it multiplies.

So often we believe our legacy in this world will be determined by how often we are exalted or how highly we are regarded. This shatters that idea. Our legacy in life is not determined by our exaltation but instead by our multiplication.

We will always be remembered and defined by who we poured into.

So as I look at my own life, I don’t want to be someone constantly looking for exaltation. I don’t need an “attaboy!”

But being intentional about multiplication means feeling like you have something to share that could be beneficial to others.

With that comes a desire for significance and exaltation.

See, it’s hard to feel like you have anything significant to share.

Do people want to listen or do people want to read anything I have to say?

I think we all feel that tension of feeling unimportant. Why? Because we feel like we need to be exalted in order to do what God has called us to do.

I feel this tension every day of my life.

Exaltation is in front of my face every single day when I go on instagram and see influencers. I go on Tik Tok and see their influencers. I go on YouTube and see YouTubers posting videos with thousands of views in only a couple of hours.

I cannot and we cannot let exaltation of others drive us away from what God is calling us to do.

This is why I need to do something new.

I need to reframe the way I think.

I need to rebuild my faith in God’s promises and call in my life.

What I need to do is to share the little bits of wisdom I’ve gained over these last 28 years so that the people I am intentionally pouring into don’t make the same dumb mistakes I did.

What does that look like for me? I’m not sure. All I know is that I want to find more ways to multiply. I cannot give everyone I meet intentional 1 on 1 time with me. I can do that for some, but not for all.

That means its time to get creative.

I think this blog is a start because what gets shared online stays forever.

Is it a YouTube channel talking through things that teenage and college aged students need to know? Maybe.

Is it a book for youth pastors and parents on the future of student ministry? Maybe.

I just know that I personally want to find more ways to multiply. Not to exalt myself by any means, but to help others grow in wisdom and faith.

Like Pastor James said in his sermon, “what was keeping you from being Abraham was being Abram.”

I want to get out of my own way in this. I want to multiply.

So for you, who are you pouring into?

How are you pouring into them?

What else can you do to share the wisdom you’ve gained with the people God has gifted you to have influence over?

I don’t know what those answers are for you, but for myself, I’m going to keep searching and working towards multiplication.

If you want to check out the sermon, you can click on the link below. He begins talking about this text at the 22:38 mark of the video. Make sure you check it out, give it a like and subscribe.

When I Don’t See It – Part 4

There are few things that frustrate me more than waking up before my alarm is scheduled to go off in the morning. I’m talking about being wide awake yet still exhausted 30-45 minutes before the alarm. It always feels like someone deliberately woke me up before my alarm and made sure that my attempts to go back to sleep would be futile. Most of the time, I am desperate to go to sleep immediately, but I always seem to fall asleep moments before the clock fast-forwards to my scheduled wake up time. During that time I toss, I turn, I think, and do anything but fall to sleep.

I think what annoys me the most about those moments is that in my futile effort to get more sleep, I am wasting time. In those moments, I know I am not going to back to sleep or even feel rejuvenated by the minimal amount of time I have to close my eyes.

Ultimately, I am put in a position where I have to choose between sleep or wasting time. I view this as a catch-22. Do I choose to try to sleep now and waste time or do I try to make the most of time now and sleep later even though I will have less time? It’s a weird question to answer simply because sleep is essential for function, but time is a finite resource we can never get back.

This is a dilemma for anyone who desires both sleep and a wise use of their time. For years I have been stuck trying to figure out what I find most important between the two. In the past, I have chosen to let the time go by while I tried to make the most of sleep. Recently, I have chosen to make the most of my time and put off rest until it will give me what I need.

In my opinion, rest has to have an ROI (return on investment). To rest without purpose is foolish and sloth. Rest and sleep are a gift of rejuvenation to the soul and body, not a way to pass time.

Proverbs 6:9 and 20:13 finally make sense.

“How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?” – Proverbs 6:9

“Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.” – Proverbs 20:13

So in an effort to personally grow in my abilities and productivity, I have come to this conclusion:

To be wise with my time awake is to be wise with my time to rest.

That might be common sense to some and new to others just like it is to me. It is a simple yet powerful concept. If I make the most of time awake, then I will make the most of my time to rest. If we are called to be good stewards of everything God gives us, then time, being a finite resource, should be at the top of that list.

This is what I’m doing about it:

If I’m wide awake for no reason in the middle of the night or earlier than expected, I am going to trust that it is for a reason. Is it to pray, to write, to read, to plan, to prepare? I have no idea. My goal is to determine what that reason is.

Then, I’m going to get up and do something. I’ll do anything. Prayer, writing, reading, planning, preparation, etc. Even if it’s emptying the dishwasher. It doesn’t have to be profound. The time just has to be stewarded well.

Finally, if the time allows and my body desires it, I go back to rest. The time was stewarded well and now my body has recognized that rest is not to be wasted.

So often I hear from people that have big dreams and ideas but never enough time to implement them. I get it, life is busy, work and family takes up most of the time. But I wonder what would happen in the world if the dreams and desires God has given us are pursued in the moments He desires for us to take advantage of.

If it feels like someone is waking me intentionally, what if it’s God leading me to make the most of the time that I have to work towards the future He has for me? If that’s a real possibility, I will make time for that.

If we trust and say that everything happens for a reason, maybe those moments of waking happen so we can take advantage of them too.

My wife loves to debrief her day with me and I truly love it too. Even though we work together at the church, I don’t always know what she’s gone through in a particular day, and for that reason I enjoy our debrief. But I am ashamed to say that sometimes I sit down with her while she shares and I HEAR her talking but I am not LISTENING to what she’s saying. I know there are words coming out of her mouth because I can audibly hear them, but I cannot comprehend those words or process them. Why? In those moments I have committed to giving my wife my time, but not my attention.

I know this example resonates with married men as it always seem to be the running joke on sitcoms with the laugh sign style audience. But I think everyone deals with this in one way or another.

Maybe you’ve been accused of not being fully engaged in a conversation while on a car ride, at dinner, or watching a movie. You sit with your phone in your hand and you hear the sounds of the movie in the background but your eyes are glued to whatever is on your phone screen.

When we do things like this, we are giving others our time, but not our attention. Sometimes we see them as one in the same, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are vastly different and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate the difference between the two until I read and broke down Hosea 6:6.

For context, Hosea’s life as a prophet is one of the most heartbreaking in the Bible. He is a faithful man that God communicates with and through. But God takes his connection to Hosea a step further by giving him a life where he will experience the same feelings that God has.

What do I mean by that? In Hosea 1:2-3, God commands Hosea to a wife that will be unfaithful to him. Yes, God commands Hosea to live a life of agony and heartache due to the unfaithfulness of his wife. This way Hosea will experience the same agony and heartache that God feels as He sees the people of Israel pursue other gods when things are good and only return back to the one true God when things fall apart.

It is because of this experience that Hosea can call the people of Israel to repent and the anguish in his words are real because he experiences it everyday when he goes home. So with those thoughts in mind, let’s read Hosea 6:6.

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” – Hosea 6:6

For us, the words in this verse don’t really mean much on the surface, but remember the context. This is what he is encouraging people to do in their relationship with God. But what would this look like if he was speaking to his wife? My guess is it would look a little something like this:

***Disclaimer: Not a valid retranslation of the verse. This is just used as an example.

“For I desire true, unwavering, steadfast love and not going through the motions pretending we have a relationship. I want to get to know you more intimately rather than just sit here pretending that we are present in each other’s lives.”

Quite simply, I don’t want to give you time. I want you to give you attention. I want to be laser focused. I don’t want to pretend for the outside world. I want this to be real between the two of us.

Just thinking about that in the terms of Hosea’s marriage to his wife, Gomer, is painful. I cannot imagine the anguish, devastation and longing for relief he felt every day coming home knowing his wife had been unfaithful to him and yet because of his commitment to marriage, he endured it.

Now let’s bring it home.

How do you think God feels when we give him our time, just going through the motions with no real loving desire behind it? How do you think God feels when we sit with him, but have no desire to learn more about him? How do you think God feels when we do things that make us look religious and righteous on the outside but not caring about the actual relationship we have with him?

God does not want our time. God wants our attention.

Time is given out of duty.

Attention is given out of love, respect and honor.

So how do we give God our attention in the way that this passage calls us to? In two main ways outlined in the verse:

1. Let Your Public Love for God Overflow from Your Private Love for God

If I am honest with you, it can be really easy to see which relationships are struggling because of what people post on social media. As a millennial, I see people attempting to cover their crumbling relationship by constantly posting about how great it is. It’s an attempt to convince others and themselves that everything is okay even when it’s not.

The best relationships aren’t grounded in how often they publicly profess their love. Instead, how they publicly profess their love overflows from how they privately profess their love. You know the difference by how subtle the public displays are. Their laughter, their willingness to serve one another, their desire to check in on each other during the day, etc. Those things aren’t done to convince themselves or other people how they feel. It’s just how they are.

As Christians, we have the tendency to do the same things. When we are feeling like we are slipping in our relationship with God, rather than address it internally, we try to project something different externally. But that isn’t the cure. Your private intentionality in your relationship with Jesus is the cure. When you’re intentional in private, you don’t have to prove or fake anything in public.

2. Learn About Who Jesus Is, Not Just Who He Was

Why do some relationships fail? Because eventually the honeymoon phase ends and the good times are a distant memory instead of a present reality.

With Jesus, we tend to do the same thing. We get so caught up in the very real historical Jesus that we forget He is still that person today. We view Him as a historical figure to learn about rather than a person with a depth to be known.

It’s like my relationship with my wife. Yes, I have fond memories of when we dated and first got married, but what about now? Life has changed, circumstances and challenges have changed. Who she is at her core remains consistent, but the way she tackles challenges and views situations changes as well. If don’t take the time to know her, I will grow far from her. That’s why me sitting down with her and listening to what she says is so important.

That’s why it’s so important to learn the depth of who Jesus is. We will never be able to grasp the fullness of who He is on this side of eternity. But we can take the time to dive and learn more and more about Him.

Here is the ultimate truth:

Even as we cheat the Creator of the universe and run towards idols in our own foolishness, Jesus still waits at the door. Even though He has been with mankind since the very beginning, it is not His time with us that made the difference, it is His attention and intentionality with us that separates Christianity from the rest of the world. He could have let us rot while He sat there waiting for us to change. Instead, He did the unthinkable.

While we have been unfaithful, He has been the most faithful. Faithful to His death on the cross and faithful to His resurrection three days later.

He has paid attention to us, so it is our turn to pay attention to Him.

Give God your attention because in doing so you are giving Him more of your time.

Over the last few months I have felt a sense of complacency in my personal ministry. I lead a student ministry that averages over 200 students a week across 4 physical locations. Now that we moved everything online because of COVID-19, I am beginning to wonder if I am making good use of my time.

I will say this: I am not leaving student ministry anytime soon.

My concern is that I am not operating in my full potential as a pastor. The same zeal that I had when I first started in ministry is dwindling away and I do not like it. In fact, it has raised a flag that something I am doing might be off. Luckily, I think I found it.

“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you be prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.”

– 1 Timothy 4:13-15

This morning, during my quiet time, wrestling with this question, I come across this passage. The question I was asking myself was a legitimate one.

“Why does it feel like I am not operating in my full potential in ministry? Why does it feel like I am going backwards instead of forward?”

There it is.

I have not been devoting myself the way I should to the public reading of Scripture, exhortation, or teaching. It is that simple. I have neglected the gifting that was granted to me. I haven’t practiced them. I haven’t immersed myself in them. And because of that no one, including myself, has seen progress.

Don’t get me wrong…during this time I have definitely improved in other areas of ministry and in my ability to lead people. I am still not anywhere near where I want to be, but this is the truth.

But now that I see the issue, I have no choice but to address it. I was the most in energized and in love with my ministry when I devoted myself to this. From this overflow I learned how to pour into myself and other people. It gave me a hunger for the Scriptures and I could never have enough of it.

So I’m bringing it back. I am making it my mission to readjust my schedule to work on my read, teaching, preaching and exhortation again. I am going to study. I am already doing some of that by writing these blogs, but I think I want to be more intentional with how I write them. Maybe it’s more time, more editing, more practice, more reading out loud, more studying, etc. I am anticipating that starting my YouTube channel would do the same for me. I am going to enjoy this.

It just needs to be done and now I have rediscovered the excitement for my call to ministry. I cannot wait to see what the benefits of this will be. I hope that it blesses not just you, but those that I try to pour into on a weekly basis.

I cannot wait to get to this and to be re-energized by the initial gift God has given me that has been confirmed through the elders.

I have said over and over again that I am an avid reader and leaner. I am dedicated to learning as much as I can about the topics that currently apply to my life. I want to grow in maturity, knowledge and wisdom.

I have always been this way and I don’t think I will ever stop being this way. It is in my DNA.

But over the last month or so I have had a hard time finding something new to read that would grasp my attention. In fact, I would even say that it feels like every book I pick up or article I read doesn’t feel new. It all feels like old news. It feels like every leadership book is recycled and every productivity YouTube video is the same as the other 50 productivity gurus on the platform.

I feel stuck. I am hungry for knowledge and wisdom yet finding myself unsatisfied.

What am I going to do about it?

I’ve got a few things in mind.

1. Dive into Scripture

The most fun time of my life when I was learning was during my undergrad. I loved learning more about the Bible and the depth that it had. Truthfully, at times I have struggled to get into simply because I had craved something new and fresh. But lately, that has changed. I am ready to dive into my true heart’s passion. Getting to know the God of the universe better.

There is too much depth to Scripture to believe that it is always the same. I have not yet found the surface of the well of knowledge that the Bible has. I need to dig and as I dig through Scripture with a spoon, God will excavate my heart.

2. Look Over What I’ve Read

I have read A LOT of good books. Books have changed my life. The way I act and view the world has changed because of the words written on pages by ordinary men. Yet, I still feel like something is missing. I would venture to say that there is a lot that I know and still have not applied.

My goal over the next few weeks is not to read anything new, but to instead skim through some old books and apply what I’ve already read. It’s going to be fun and painful at the same time to read through old books and see highlighted or underlined quotes that I never applied to my life. I plan on making a list and an action plan to make that happen.

I hope that when you find yourself in a learning rut that you do whatever you can to get out of it. There is never enough wisdom or knowledge to apply in the world. But sometimes you just need to take a step back and get back to basics until the time comes when your heart is set on pursuing a new understanding of something.

Yesterday I fasted for the entire day for the first time in years. I did not like the thought of fasting going into it, but now being on the other side of it I was happy I did it.

Fasting has always been part of the Christian life, but unfortunately not always a part of mine. It has incredible spiritual benefits as Yu deny yourself the food that normally sustains you and you look for other things to sustain you,

Beyond that, fasting has great health benefits that include cleansing the body (which can also been seen as a spiritual benefit) and there is even some research linking fasting to lowering the possibility of developing cancer. I won’t go through the findings here because its not my point. I just want to talk about how to do it easily.

The most difficult part about fasting isn’t not eating. The most difficult part is the constant thinking of food because you’re aware of not eating. In the past, that has always been my downfall with fasting. I would decide to fast, lock myself in my house and my room to avoid temptation, be extremely bored, thinking about how hungry I am, and then I would eventually cave into my desires.

Yesterday for the very first time I felt something different. It had everything to do with how I organized my day.

The secret?

I kept myself busy.

I worked in the office all day and didn’t stop moving. I stopped to pray at moments in order to align my heart to why I was fasting. When I came home, I drove my mother back to her house and had great conversation. When I got back to my house my wife and I went for a drive with our baby. We spent some time together as a family when we got home and then we called it night early. I was in bed by 8 PM and asleep by 9:15 PM.

Right now, I’m awake and I haven’t eaten yet. But I feel refreshed and renewed by fasting. I’m glad I did it as I feel like I gained clarity on a lot of things through my fasting.

I encourage you to give it a try. I know it can and will be difficult, but the spiritual benefits and health benefits are worth it. This morning my heart feels aligned with God’s and I LOVE that. This will be part of my weekly Thursday routine for the next few weeks. I am hoping each day is just like yesterday.

Have you ever tried to start a new habit only to have your day be so messed up that it makes it nearly impossible to continue? Maybe you’re a perfectionist and you weren’t able to continue your habit in the same way you normally do, therefore, you don’t find the habit worth doing that day?

Welcome to my life. My current goal is to get up every morning at 5 AM and write a blog post until I get to 50 total. I know for a FACT I would not be waking up at 5 AM this morning. Why? Because it’s 2:51 AM and my 8 month old daughter has been awake since 1:30 AM because of this sleep regression phase she is in.

FUN.

I don’t want to let the hardships of life win over discipline, so as I stay up and help support my wife as she tries to help our baby go back to sleep, I figured I’d write my post now so that I do not have to wake back up again at 5 AM because that would SUCK.

This is my constant battle and struggle. My schedule can be so unpredictable that I never know what I will and won’t be able to do on a given day. That is ministry life and this new world of parent life that I am trying to figure out.

But even with the obstacle of my unpredictable schedule, I am doing whatever I can to continue pushing forward in my habit building. Here are a few of the things I am tryin to do to keep momentum and not lose it:

1. Acknowledge the Unpredictable

I will argue till the end of time that awareness is the first step to any kind of success or progress. To acknowledge the possibility of change and unpredictability makes you hyper aware so that when changes do happen you can absorb the blows and move forward. Nothing will surprise you at that point.

2. Fight the Excuse of Perfection

I think the biggest habit buster is and always will be perfectionism. When you can’t do the same thing the same way at the same time it will always feel like a failure. You have to fight against that thought and remember that the setting and the time isn’t the primary goal most times. The goal is the action your building into a habit. It doesn’t need perfection, it just needs commitment.

3. Get Creative

If your goal is to do 100 push ups every day and you do 50 in the morning and 50 at night, there is a good chance you’re going to fail if you miss your morning set of 50. So maybe the best option for you is to break up your goal during the day. Maybe you can’t do your morning or night time set so you do 10 in your office at the start of every hour. That’s just one example, but you get the point. The goal is not the setting or the time. The goal is the action.

4. Push Through and Get it Done

Sometimes days will not workout the way you want them to. When those days happens, you just have to deal with it, put your head down and grind through it. It’s the way life works.

I wonder if I’m qualified to talk about a lot of these topics. I would venture to say I’m not because my goal is to just share things that I’m learning.

I am not the best habit builder by any means. I fail at more goals than I accomplish in my opinion, but this is still something I am trying to do myself.

I hope this would encourage and inspire you to do more. That’s all I want to do. I want to inspire you to learn more and be a better version of you.

2020 is insane.

This is by far the weirdest time to be alive. There is worldwide pandemic, people are being ordered to stay home by state governments, politicians are fighting the narrative from two different angles because it’s an election year and no one knows which media source to trust. Sprinkle in the first time we’ve had a pandemic with the internet, our ability to communicate (mostly with memes) and you have a recipe for worldwide overreaction.

Unfortunately, we can’t control people overreacting or not taking it seriously enough. The only thing we can control is what we do. We have completely control over our reaction and the truth is it will determine how we come out on the other side of this.

I’ve though about this a lot. If I can only control how I react to this then how do I want look back at this time? Do I want to look at it with regret? Will I look in the mirror and see evidence of someone who survived on a diet of Chik-Fil-A and M&Ms? Will I look at me reading list for the year and see a gap for a few months that I didn’t read books even though I was forced to stay home? What about my goals for starting a blog and YouTube channel? Will I blame anyone and anything else for my shortcomings during this time?

No way.

I’m taking steps during this time. I am doing everything that I can to learn more about myself. I want to figure out what I’m made out of. I want to figure out if I have the grit and drive to push forward.

I want to know that I’m bold enough to follow my dreams and pursue my goals.

I want to know if I have what it takes.

Maybe success isn’t found in skyrocketing your stress levels and denying sleep in order to get things done. Maybe it’s just a matter of making the most of the time you do have. Not just that, but making that time matter consistently.

Here are some of the things I have done over this time. Maybe they can inspire you to take a step to do something new that you’ve always wanted to do.

– I finally have a time where my Bible reading is built in and built to last.

– I read The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon

– I read Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni

– I read Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

– I am currently reading The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason and Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt.

– I’m trying to learn how to cook better tasting and healthier meal prep meals. The one’s I’ve attempted to make so far have not been good but I’m determined to get it right!

– My goal right now is to blog every morning. I am currently on a 3-4 day streak. I was initially hesitant because I thought I would run out of things to write about, but luckily that hasn’t happened so far.

– I am committed to starting my YouTube Channel. My account has been made for months and now it’s time to take the step. I have a list of content that I will be working on over the next few weeks.

– I bought Final Cut Pro for my MacBook. Not cheap by any means.

– I subscribed Skill Share to learn about how to edit on Final Cut Pro, how to record video on iPhone and how to cultivate good content for Instagram.

– I am trying Teige Hanley’s face wash line of products. I’ve always wanted to try them, so I figured now is the time.

Take a step to learn and grow during this time. Don’t waste this time because you never know what opportunities will present themselves on the other side of this.

The following blog post was originally written for the student ministry staff that I currently lead at my church. It has been modified to fit a wider audience. The ideas came from the book Leading Not Normal Volunteers: A Not Normal Guide for Leading Your Incredible, Quirky Team by Sue Miller and Adam Duckworth. If you’re interested in purchasing the book you can find it here.

One of the most difficult things about leading a ministry at a multi site church or a growing organization is that the vision can get watered down. With so many hands, hearts and minds involved under the same banner, the original intent of a ministry or company can get lost. Good vision is clear and never up for interpretation. When communicated effectively it can change the identity of a people and can open up the floodgates for people to take steps to grow personally and progress practically. When communicated poorly and with a lack of clarity the vision can be damaging to the organization and lead to the burnout of people because of perceived expectations.

So how do we cast the vision effectively?

We answer three questions that are outlined in the book Leading Not Normal Volunteers: A Not Normal Guide for Leading Your Incredible, Quirky Team by Sue Miller and Adam Duckworth.

Understand – What problem are we trying to solve?

Vision is not casted out of perfection. Vision comes to life because there are problems to be solved, and people to be loved and served. Vision is the beginning of the answer to that problem. Identify the issue, call it out and make it clear what needs to change.

Activate – What can one person do to help you solve your problem?

The problem has been identified and communicated. Now it is time to connect the person to the problem. People will not be drawn to your vision if they cannot play a part in it. Show them how they can be part of the solution and the story. Anyone you recruit can join in. Whether their role is large or small, each person that joins in on the mission takes us a step closer to execution of the vision.

Communicate – What is going to be better in the future if we can accomplish the vision?

Now that the problem has been identified and the person has been encouraged to join the fight, where do you see the rest of the story going? People aren’t recruited to help the organization take a step back. People are recruited to take a step forward. Explain what success looks like from the smallest step to the biggest step. Keep it in stages. Point to an ultimate goal while celebrating small wins along the way.

Effect leaders cast and communicate clear and effective vision. It is part of the job. So practice the vision. Use the right words. Show your passion. Nail it down. Have it in your back pocket and ready to go because you never know when you will meet someone that needs to hear it.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

– Proverbs 29:18 KJV