Most people are glad for somebody else to share their own story of how they have found spiritual help. The problems start when you begin to universalize your story - when your narrative becomes authoritative and begins affecting their lives as well.

A church is not a Fortune 500 company. It's not simply another nonprofit organization, nor is it a social club. In fact, a healthy church is unlike any organization that man has ever devised, because man didn't devise it.

I do want to pray for the Lord to glorify himself and, yes, I also will pray for an outpouring of his Spirit, but I also will rejoice in what he is doing now, and I will try to be a faithful steward of the gospel by preaching it "in season and out of season", as Paul reminds us. So I want to be careful not to make an idol out of revival, or to rely upon it to the point where I don't plan for evangelism.

I recognize that not all of us may have the same abilities and talents in sharing the gospel. But I want to keep the heat on all of us for getting the good news out there.

Keep going until you get good counsel that is persuasive for you that you should go elsewhere.

Your plans are fine, as long as you realize God has the right to change them.

Our examples of enduring hardship are often more powerful than our stories of success and triumph.