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The prophet Habakkuk received a word from God and was told to do something specific with it: write it down. Make it plain. Put it where people can read it on the run.
“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” — Habakkuk 2:2 There is something instructive there for leaders. Clarity is not accidental. Vision doesn’t communicate itself. The work of articulating what you believe — plainly, specifically, memorably — is itself a leadership act. So let me be plain. There are four things I believe about the Crossroads District. Not four programs we are launching. Not four initiatives we are evaluating. Four convictions: settled beliefs about what is true, what matters, and what God is calling us to pursue together. These convictions will shape everything we do in this next season. Every coaching call, every training event, every resource we invest, every conversation I have with a pastor or board — it all flows from here. I want you to know what they are. I want you to be able to say them. I want them to become our shared language. Conviction One: Pastors Need to Be Healthy I have been in ministry long enough to know that a pastor who is running on empty is a liability — not because they don’t care, but because you cannot give what you do not have. Spiritually depleted pastors preach depleted sermons, make clouded decisions, and create anxious cultures. The emotional and relational health of the person in the pulpit shapes the health of everyone in the pew. This is why I believe the highest-leverage investment the Crossroads District can make is in the human beings who stand in our 105 pulpits every week. Not in programs. Not in buildings. In people. In pastors who are spiritually alive, emotionally grounded, and relationally connected — people who are genuinely thriving, not just surviving. When this conviction is missing, churches stagnate regardless of strategy. When it is present, everything else becomes possible. Conviction Two: Churches Need Clarity Ask the average congregation member what their church is uniquely called to do in their community, and most of the time you will get a shrug. Ask the pastor, and you might get a borrowed vision statement from a conference they attended three years ago. The biggest challenge facing most of our churches is not a lack of commitment. It is a lack of clarity. Busy churches are not necessarily effective churches. Activity is not the same as mission. And borrowed vision always fits someone else’s church better than yours. Every congregation in this district deserves to know who they are and what God is specifically calling them to do. When that clarity is missing, churches drift. Resources get scattered. Leaders grow frustrated. Good people work hard at the wrong things. When clarity is present, everything aligns. Energy compounds. Momentum builds. People know why they are here. Conviction Three: Communities Need the Church John Wesley didn’t just preach for the conversion of souls. He mobilized a movement that cared for the poor, advanced education, addressed physical needs, and challenged injustices like slavery. For Wesley, personal holiness and social engagement were not competing priorities. They were inseparable expressions of a heart transformed by the love of God. We are his theological heirs. Wesleyan holiness has always had an outward dimension. A church that exists only for what happens inside its walls on Sunday morning is not fulfilling the full scope of its calling. Our communities — the cities and towns and neighborhoods where our 105 churches are planted — are waiting for the church of Jesus Christ to show up as more than a Sunday crowd. They need churches that address real needs with the real hope of the Gospel, that make communities demonstrably better because they are present. When this conviction is missing, churches become inward and institutional. When it is present, the church becomes what it was always meant to be: a community-transforming movement. Conviction Four: The Mission Is Global Here is a number I cannot get out of my head: four in ten. Four in ten people on this planet today have no meaningful access to the Gospel. They are not simply unchurched. They live in contexts where the message of Jesus has not yet arrived in a form they can understand and receive. Indiana is not the end of our mission field. It is the beginning. That is not a statistic. That is a moral emergency, and it is the responsibility of every church in this district to respond to it. I am not suggesting that every church needs to send a mission team this year. I am saying that every church needs to raise its eyes past its own community and ask what God is calling it to do for the nations. The Great Commission does not stop at the Indiana state line. A church that has no heartbeat for the world is a church with a smaller God than the one Scripture describes. This conviction is personal for me. Over the last several years, international ministry travel to multiple places across the globe, completing the Perspectives course alongside Marietta, and attending the International Conference of The Wesleyan Church in Johannesburg have permanently reshaped how I see God’s mission. What I discovered is that my vision had been too narrow, too focused on North America, when God’s heart extends to every nation, tribe, and tongue. I want that enlargement for every pastor and every congregation in this district. These Are Not New Ideas I want to be honest about something. These four convictions are not original to me. They are rooted in Scripture, shaped by our Wesleyan theological heritage, and grounded in what I have been learning across nearly three decades of coaching and leading in the church. What I am doing is naming them clearly, committing to them publicly, and building everything we do around them. Habakkuk was told to write the vision plainly so that a herald may run with it. That is what I am asking you to do with these four convictions. Not just to read them, but to run with them. To let them shape how you lead your church, how you invest your time and energy, how you evaluate what is working and what is not. A Leadership Practice for This Week Set aside twenty minutes this week — not to create anxiety, but to name reality honestly as a starting point. Evaluate where your church currently stands on each of the four convictions:
Don’t answer in the abstract. Write it down. Make it plain. Comments are closed.
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