Everyone has a start. In other words, the most successful people on the planet had to start somewhere. Someone gave them a chance. I think back to the first interview I had with the pulpit committee here at Emmanuel. I had no real experience as a lead pastor. I had been a youth pastor or involved in youth ministry for two decades, but that’s very different than leading multiple generations in a le...  Read More

Main Point and Overview:  There is a dearth of leadership in God’s church! Why is that? It’s because not enough “investment” is taking place. By definition, investment is an act of devoting time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result (Oxford Languages). The American church is filled with consumers over producers. We tend to come and “take in” fro...  Read More

Driving along I-75 this week, I noticed a billboard advertising the upcoming lottery jackpot. My mind quickly and lazily went into a pleasant daydream focusing on what I would do with the winnings.  Maybe you’ve done the same. Statistics show that one of the first things that lottery winners do is quit their job followed by paying off debt, booking a luxury vacation, going on a shopping spree; buy...  Read More

Planning for the long game. That requires strategic thinking. I spent a couple of years as a war planner. We were stationed in Germany at the time of that assignment. It was during that time our country experienced the tragedy of 9/11. I found myself in the middle of writing war plans and annexes for how we would embed media, talking points and messaging, and our overall public affairs strategy. I...  Read More

I remember the day I walked through Great Lakes Baptist Temple with the other Pastors, the vision of another campus was in full swing, everything was falling into place but what I didn't realize was the amount of work that would go into the transformation of that building. From the roof needing to be redone, to bathrooms needing repaired, to a gym floor, to countless upgrades. We had the team in p...  Read More

A “living sacrifice”—that is quite an oxymoron. How can a person be living, while also being a sacrifice? From what the human mind thinks of when it comes to sacrifice, nothing about that sounds fun. Sacrificing in modern day times, usually is in reference to giving up something—like time, money, possessions, those types of things. We don’t have a context for what sacrificing means when it comes t...  Read More