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"Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things." Joshua 3:5
You are days away from Easter Sunday. By the time you read this, you are probably already in that particular kind of holy intensity that pastors know well — the final sermon details, the logistics of a bigger crowd, the quiet prayer that this Sunday would be more than just a well-attended service. That this Sunday, something would actually happen in people. I want to start there. Because I think it matters that this conversation begins on Easter week. Everything I want to say to you over the next thirteen weeks grows out of what we celebrate this Sunday: that death does not get the final word. That God raises what appears to be finished. That the same power that rolled away the stone is available — not just in first-century Jerusalem, but in your church, in your community, in your leadership, right now. I believe that. I hope you do too. Something Greater Is Possible For the next thirteen weeks — from today through June 22, the week before District Conference — Leadership Matters is going to be building toward something specific. Not just delivering content week to week, but developing a shared set of convictions about what the Crossroads District is called to be and do in this next season. I want to name that from the beginning, because you deserve to know where we are headed. Here is the premise I am starting with: the Crossroads District has more potential than it is currently realizing — and this is the moment to step into it. That is not a criticism. It is an invitation. And it is rooted in what I genuinely see when I look across this district. What I See I see 105 churches in central and northern Indiana. Some of them are genuinely thriving — growing, planting, sending, making disciples who make disciples. When I sit with those pastors, I leave the conversation energized and grateful. I also see pastors carrying weight they were never meant to carry alone — spiritually thin, emotionally stretched, without someone consistently investing in them and asking the hard questions. When pastors fail to thrive, their congregations eventually feel it. And I care too much about you and about your people to let that continue without doing something about it. I see churches with real heart and genuine love for God who have drifted — sometimes gradually, sometimes without even noticing — from mission into maintenance. Not because they stopped caring, but because they lost clarity about who they are and what God is specifically calling them to do. Unclear churches don't pursue the mission — they default to managing the preferences of the people already in the room. And churches built around preferences eventually produce consumers, not disciples. I believe most of our pastors know, somewhere deep down, that something more is possible. I see a disciple-making deficit that we have to name honestly. We have done a reasonable job of leading people to faith. We have not done as well at forming those people into disciples who make other disciples. A disciple, by definition, is someone who does what Jesus did — including fishing for others. That gap between where most of our churches are and what Jesus actually commissioned us to produce is real. And I believe it can be closed. And here is what I want you to hear most clearly: I see a district with everything it needs to be something genuinely extraordinary. We have adequate funding — the result of years of wise, faithful stewardship. We have a network of 105 congregations across one of the most accessible mission fields in the country. We have the theological clarity of our Wesleyan heritage, which has always believed that the Gospel transforms people and communities and the world. We have relationships of trust, built over years of shared ministry, that no program can manufacture. We are not starting from nothing. We are not in the wilderness. We are standing at a threshold — and there is something worth stepping toward on the other side. The Joshua 3 Moment The night before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, God gave them an unusual instruction: "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things." He did not tell them the crossing would be easy. He did not hand them a detailed plan. He asked them to prepare themselves — spiritually, intentionally — for the possibility that what was coming was worth being ready for. I think that is our invitation right now. Not a crisis to manage. Not a problem to solve. A threshold to cross. And the question in front of us is simply whether we will step forward into the future God has been preparing for us — or whether we will stay where we are because it is familiar and the crossing feels uncertain. What the Next Thirteen Weeks Are About Starting next week and moving through June 22, we are going to build a shared language and a shared set of convictions together. We are going to talk about what it means for pastors to truly thrive — not just survive ministry but flourish in it. We are going to wrestle with what church clarity actually looks like and why so many of our congregations are living below their kingdom potential. We are going to talk about communities that need the church to show up as more than a Sunday morning program, and about a world that is waiting for the Church to take the Great Commission seriously. By June 27, when we gather for District Conference, I want every pastor and key leader in this district to be able to say with clarity and conviction: this is what we believe, this is where we are going, and this is why it matters. One More Thing, Before Sunday You are about to proclaim the victory that Jesus won through the resurrection. You are going to stand in front of your congregation — some of them people you have prayed over for years, some of them walking through your doors for the first time — and you are going to tell them that the tomb is empty, that death lost, that the future is open, and that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is alive and active right now. Preach it like you believe it. Because everything else — every leadership conversation we will have over the next thirteen weeks — is downstream from that. The best days of this district are ahead. I believe that with everything I have. HE IS RISEN! Let's proclaim it to everyone in Central and Northern Indiana! Reflection for the Week Take a few unhurried minutes before or after Easter Sunday with these three questions:
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