Some of life’s toughest battles happen in the mind. Not every thought is truth, and not every fear deserves your attention. Guard your mind. Protect your peace. Win the battle within.

I’M GOING TO SAY SOMETHING THAT MAY MAKE SOME CHURCH PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE. After more than three decades of all kinds of non-profit work across dozens and dozens of denominations, and I’ve seen some incredible things…. and some things that absolutely break my heart. We’ve become better at exposing preachers than reaching broken people. We can spend hours tearing somebody’s ministry apart online (and YES some should be shut down! I completely stand against spiritual abuse of any kind)…and…neglect brokenness across the street. We can identify everybody else’s spiritual failures while ignoring the brokenness in our own hearts. We call ourselves apostles. Prophets. Watchmen. Spiritual warriors. BUT WHERE IS THE FRUIT? Where are the addicted finding hope? The wounded finding healing? The questioning finding compassion? The lost finding Jesus? Churches are closing. Communities are hurting. People are losing hope. And we’re fighting over who’s more anointed. I’ve learned something after all these years. A title doesn’t make you a leader. A platform doesn’t make you anointed. And tearing somebody else down doesn’t mean you’re standing for truth. And I’m asking myself these questions too. Am I building something? Am I actually helping anybody? Or am I just making religious noise? Because I don’t want to spend what’s left of my life defending religious machinery while broken people are bleeding outside its doors. We don’t need more people chasing platforms while neglecting people. We need people who will pray when nobody’s watching. Serve when nobody’s applauding. Build when everybody else is criticizing. And love people who may never agree with them. Maybe the greatest threat to the Church isn’t the darkness outside its walls. Maybe it’s that we’ve become so consumed with fighting over who is in the spotlight, we’ve forgotten how to be salt and light.

Dear Lord this week, focus the distracted, fight for the embattled, replenish the burnt out, enrich the disempowered, strengthen the vulnerable & encourage the depressed.

I wonder sometimes if we’ve become more loyal to our churches than we are to Jesus. And that thought bothers me. I’ve spent decades preaching across multiple different denominations. I’ve seen beautiful people who genuinely love God. I’ve also watched people defend a church, a denomination, a preacher, or a religious tradition or their POSITION more fiercely than they’ll defend truth, grace, or a broken human being. And I’ll admit something. I’ve had to examine that in myself too. Because it’s easy to confuse being loyal to something we’ve always known with being faithful to Jesus. We defend the name over the door. The traditions. The theology. The way we’ve always done things. Meanwhile, somebody is sitting in the back row barely holding their life together, wondering whether there’s still room for them. And sometimes we’re so busy protecting the institution that we forget the people Jesus died for. I love the Church. I’ve given much of my life to serving it. But I wonder… When we stand before God, will He be impressed by the denomination we defended? The building we attended? The religious arguments we won? Or will the fruit of our lives tell a different story? Did we love anybody? Did we show mercy? Did we help the wounded? Did we make room for the questioning? Did we use what God entrusted to us to lift people up…or keep them under our control? Jesus said we’d recognize people by their fruit. Not their religious label. Their fruit. And maybe the most uncomfortable question of all is this: Have we spent so much time defending our INHERITED version of Christianity that we’ve unknowingly forgotten to actually live like Christ? I’m still learning. Still examining my own theology. Still discovering how much I don’t know. But one thing is becoming painfully clear to me. I don’t want to spend what’s left of my life defending religious machinery while broken people are bleeding outside its doors. I want to love people. Tell the truth. Make room for questions. Give grace as freely as I’ve needed it. And point people toward Jesus. Because when this life is over… I don’t want to be remembered for the religious walls I defended. I want to be remembered for the people I helped find their way through this walk of life.

There are things I preached years ago that I wouldn’t preach the same way today. That’s difficult for a preacher to admit. Because somewhere along the way, people decided that if you stand behind a pulpit, you’re supposed to have God figured out. I don’t. And the older I get, the less embarrassed I am to say it. My theology has changed. My understanding of grace has changed. The way I see broken people has changed. Because I became one of them. There was a season in my life when life fell apart. I failed. I thought. “I didn’t shake you to break you. I shook you to shift you.” -Jesus to me. And if I’m being completely transparent, there were moments when I wondered if what I was taught…kept teaching me. I knew the Scriptures. I knew what I had preached. I knew all the Christian answers. But suddenly the answers I had given everybody else had to survive my own pain. And some of them didn’t. That season changed me. Not because I stopped believing in Jesus. But because I began discovering a Jesus who was much more comfortable sitting in the wreckage with me than some religious people were. That will change your theology. Because grace sounds beautiful when you preach about it. Grace becomes something entirely different when you desperately need it yourself. For a long time, I looked at that part of my story as a broken piece. Something embarrassing. Something I wished I could remove from the story. Something that surely made me less useful to God. But Jesus didn’t throw that piece away. He picked it up. And somewhere along the journey, I began realizing that the piece of my life I thought disqualified me was becoming one of the pieces God used most. Because now when somebody tells me they screwed up… I don’t immediately reach for a sermon. I understand. When somebody tells me their life fell apart… I don’t hand them three religious clichés. I listen. When somebody tells me they’re questioning everything they once believed… I’m not afraid of them. I’ve sat in that room too. Maybe that’s what I meant when I wrote about the mosaic. A mosaic isn’t made from perfect pieces. It’s made from broken ones. Different shapes. Different colors. Jagged edges. Pieces that look useless when they’re lying by themselves on the floor. But put those pieces into the hands of an artist… and suddenly the brokenness becomes part of something beautiful. I would have thrown some pieces of my life away. Jesus didn’t. And maybe somebody reading this needs to hear that. Your divorce may be a piece. Your addiction may be a piece. Your failure may be a piece. Your doubt may be a piece. Your grief may be a piece. Your church hurt may be a piece. Your biggest regret may be a piece. None of those things have to become the definition of your life. But in the hands of grace… They can become part of the mosaic. I’m still reconstructing. Still learning. Still changing. Still occasionally realizing I was wrong. And after all these years of preaching, maybe one of the greatest things I’m learning is this: Brokenness doesn’t necessarily destroy ministry. Sometimes…brokenness produces it. So let me ask you something personal… You don’t have to give details you’re not comfortable sharing. But what’s one broken piece of your story you thought would disqualify you, define you, or destroy you, may actually be becoming part of your mosaic?

I know there are moments when doing the right thing costs more than you ever imagined it would. When loving people hurts. When sacrificing goes unnoticed. When you keep showing up, keep giving, keep believing—and somewhere inside you’re wondering how much more you have left. I understand that more than you might think. I preach about faith, courage, hope and perseverance…but I struggle too. There are days I get tired. Days I get disappointed. Days I question myself. Days when the weight of what I carry feels heavier than the strength I have to carry it. But we don’t have to let disappointment make you bitter. Don’t let what it cost you convince you that obedience wasn’t worth it. Some of the most sacred things you will ever do in this life will cost you something. Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” — John 15:13 NKJV That cross behind me in this picture reminds me that love has always had a price. And nobody understands the cost of loving people more than Jesus. So today, I’m reminding myself right along with you: Don’t give up. Don’t stop. Keep believing. And don’t let the pain have the final word. Keep going. There is still more of your story to be written. A new chapter is coming….

If this last season wrecked you… if it stripped you down, isolated you, or left you carrying grief, fear, or wounds you don’t even have words for, please hear me: You don’t have to fake joy. You don’t have to pretend you’re “fine” just because the world is celebrating. You can collapse at the feet of a Savior who doesn’t wait for you to get it together. Immanuel steps into the dirt, the darkness, the mess. Right where you are, and brings hope that refuses to die. You’re still here. You’re still fighting. And you’re not alone. “Those who walk in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in spaces of deepest darkness, a light has dawned.” — Isaiah 9:2

One of the most painful places in life is not failure. It’s knowing. Knowing what needs to change. Knowing what you’re supposed to do. Knowing there’s more inside of you. And doing nothing. That’s where this book was born. The Undoing of Not Doing. Your copy-a.co/d/0aQcV5et

Available Here- a.co/d/00usLjoq

“Jesus was never meant to be an accessory to your mission. Your mission was meant to die so His could live through you. Most men spend their lives building kingdoms with their own hands… then pause long enough to ask God to bless what they created. But surrender was never God’s plan B. The greatest breakthrough in a man’s life comes when he lays down his ambition, his image, his control, and even his carefully crafted dreams at the feet of Christ. Stop asking God to endorse your plans. Start asking Him to crucify them and resurrect His. That’s where freedom begins. That’s where power is released. That’s where the impossible becomes reality. Christ in you isn’t self-improvement. It’s complete transformation.” -From The Undoing of Not Doing on Amazon. Link in comments #Faith #Discipline #Purpose #ChristInYou #RockNRollReverend

Grab it here-a.co/d/07A1yP2d

Thank you @discoveryparktn What a night!

ROCKIN Discovery Park of America May 22… if it rains we rock inside! Gates open 5:30p. Cross & Wren 6:30p RocknRoll Reverend 7:40p

Wake up alarms are sounding, but are we listening? I talk about it in my new book, The Undoing of Not Doing. Available on Amazon. #alarms #revival #spiritualawakening #bible

When you decide to step out and take real, calculated risks, something wild happens: 1.You find security in the middle of insecurity. 2. Stability shows up in the chaos. 3. Safety rises in the danger. 4. Control is discovered in vulnerability. 5. Life breaks through where things looked dead. 6. And what once felt like “the end” becomes steadiness for the next beginning. God plants destiny hidden inside your decisions. Show me your choices, and I’ll show you the direction your life is already moving. We act like risk and wisdom can’t live in the same room anymore, but a leap of faith was never meant to be a leap into ignorance. It’s a leap with your eyes open. One of my favorite songs right now, Clear Horizon by Alter Bridge, says it perfectly: “I want to take a risk I want to learn to live To find the one thing that can’t be sold Awake now I see The clear horizon Was just out of reach From the start The day we can see The clear horizon Is the moment We save our broken hearts.” How many times would you have changed everything, if you just had a little more clarity? A little more truth? A little more information? Destiny reveals itself at the collision point of information + risk. That’s where new roads open. That’s where God starts rewriting the story. Isaiah 43:18–19 Behold, I will do a new thing… I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. “Lord, empower me to live in the new…” *more in my new book, The Undoing of Not Doing *on Amazon now