The individual leader, personal devotion, support.

The individual leader

When you’re planting a church you’re studying, praying, reading, observing great cultures. Then you get there in the moment to start and it feels overwhelming. Your mind goes blank. You need to be reminded that God is your answer, in every season of the church. The early stage of feeling on your own, all sorts of leaders in scripture went through those moments. Those cave moments. We had to learn on our own that it’s us and God. If you don’t learn that early as a planter, you’ll end up relying on your own strength, or putting too much pressure on the people around you to be your foundation rather than God. That’s where your prayer life is forged. That’s where your weakness becomes God’s strength in you.

During the years where we were building momentum as a church, growing fast and seeing fruit, I can look back now and know I was living outside my window. I was running on adrenaline. So much pressure, so much demand, fight or flight. I didn’t realize my nervous system was on eleven. This season happened right before Covid hit. When Covid came, I was already at that state, and I just tried to keep alive what we had built. I didn’t step back and ask if it was sustainable. I didn’t fully grasp the impact of living in that zone.

I was in a burnout season. I felt resentment and even a disdain toward the church I had built. I was codependent on it. I was getting a lot of my emotional energy from the church.

I share that so we can see, our strength can also be our greatest weakness. Part of my strength is my drive. It can backfire if it’s not managed. I like impossible things. You may relate, or it may be another area in your life that’s your strength. But realize that the thing that fuels you can also be your greatest hindrance, because you can end up leading from the flesh and the gift rather than the Spirit. You can outrun the favor and the grace of God and start operating out of your own striving. God will grace you to do something, and the success of that is where you’re tested in how you manage it. How you manage the success and the fruit shows whether you’ll continue to lead from the Spirit or from the flesh. It’s not your hustle that builds the church. It’s the Spirit.

Personal devotion

So often as pastors we spend all our devotion time on other people. We read the word to prepare a message. We pray through situations for the people we’re shepherding. We easily miss spending time with the Lord just for ourselves. This is one of the great pitfalls of the journey, and it leads to an unhealthy life emotionally and spiritually.

The place of revelation, the place of peace, has to be first and foremost between him and you. If it’s only for others, when hurt or offense or difficulty comes, you end up projecting it onto God and creating a disconnect between you and him. Over time the jadedness from dealing with people bleeds into your view of God. You go numb toward God because of hurt from people. People become your God if you only spend time with him for them.

Three pitfalls where personal devotion falls away:

You’re too busy. Doing everything for everyone else. You end up not saying what you think, bottling up emotions, not going to God for prayer and guidance. Instead you keep it all in. That’s where the jadedness toward God gets built.

You’re under too much pressure. You take on the pressure and start to believe you can handle it alone. A false god of self forms in your life. Personal devotion doesn’t feel necessary because you’re attempting to carry it all.

You don’t see the fruit. Expectations aren’t met. This causes personal frustration toward yourself and toward God. You create distance because you aren’t seeing him working.

How to get back on track

Maybe you’ve been in one of those pitfalls. Or maybe you’re thinking, Josh, that will never be me, I love the Lord too much to stop spending time with him. The reality is you will face one of them. It might not be a huge struggle, but it will come. You have to focus on getting out of it with God, before you try to get out of it yourself. Three things that help:

Be honest with the Lord. Religion says fake it, pretend, act like you’re ok. Relationship says be honest, be open, be vulnerable to find freedom. Acknowledge first why you’re not spending time with him. What’s your reason? How did you fall away?

Know that God can handle it. He can handle your anger, your frustration, your numbness. The Psalmists knew this. He can handle your failure, anger, mistakes. He’s bigger than your emotions.

Be diligent and intentional. The only way to set up personal devotion again, in the midst of business and pressure, is being intentional. You have to hold the revelation that it matters. If that revelation isn’t clear, personal devotion will be the first thing to go when the hard days come.

At different stages this will happen differently. You’ll have your own indicators of when your personal devotion is slipping. Know the steps to come back. Be honest, know God is bigger, be intentional to change. You can see the warning signs and respond early. There will still be ups and downs. Be OK with them and keep growing.

The support

You have to be intentional about creating a network around you. You have to get over the fear of not having it together, of being vulnerable, and find safe places to go where you can be real while still being filled with faith. If you already have a great network as you start, keep fostering it. Water those relationships. They will carry you in the beginning days.

If you don’t, here’s what we did. Pray for friends. Specifically. God cares about your kids, your marriage, your friendships. Pastors need friends. You need a great team, and you need real friends in your life. The support of friendship will carry you through so many trials.

Understand that a culture of honor is not compromised by friendship. Some pastors feel they can’t have friends in their church, that it would dilute their authority. That can happen if you don’t live well among them. So what often happens is that pastors have all their friends outside the church. Which builds a separation. You draw your health outside while teaching your church to build it inside. You have to example what you want to replicate. Be intentional about building friendships from the beginning.

That said, build friendship where there is trust, security, and vulnerability. Don’t open up to that level with every person on your team. Pray. Ask God to reveal the people you can build that trust with. Keep them close.

Once you have those people, you don’t have to talk about the church with them. Be normal. Talk about fun things. Your kids. Your families. Movies. Books. Talk about your personal relationship with God. Talk about scriptures impacting you, not just the message from Sunday. Let the person in. Glean from them. Iron sharpens iron, not only in church contexts, but in the relational health of ordinary friendship.