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The Isms That Are Eating Us Alive

I’ve spent all of my adult life in the church.

I love the church. I’ve given my life to it. I’ve seen people healed in the church, marriages restored, addicts find freedom, lonely people find family, and people discover a God they never knew was looking for them.

Which is probably why some of what I’m seeing right now troubles me as much as it does.

We seem angry.

Not just angry about things. Angry at people… suspicious and afraid.

And I’m increasingly unconvinced that anger is the actual problem.

Maybe anger is the symptom.

Maybe the deeper question is:

What has been forming us?

Because we are all being formed, all the time. By stories and families and churches. By advertisements and algorithms. By politics. By what we fear and what we love. By what we repeatedly give our attention to.

And I wonder if part of the current crisis in Western Christianity is that while we were working really hard to get people to believe the right things about Jesus, we didn’t always pay attention to all the other things teaching us how to live.

Things with names.

Consumerism. Individualism. Fundamentalism. Sectarianism. Sexism. Racism. Nationalism. Politicism. Celebrityism. Tribalism.

That’s a lot of isms.

And I’m not standing outside all of this throwing rocks. I’ve breathed this air too. Some of it has formed me. Some of it probably still does.

That’s the uncomfortable part.

None of these things arrived at the church door one morning and announced, “Hello. We’re here to distort the gospel.”

They came quietly.

They borrowed Christian language. They learned our songs. They quoted our Bible verses. Sometimes we even built theology around them.

And eventually we stopped noticing they were there.

The Gospel According to Me

Consumerism taught us to ask a very simple question:

What’s in this for me?

We shop for shoes, phones, restaurants, experiences, neighborhoods, and eventually churches.

Do I like the preaching? Do they have something for my kids? Do I like the music? Am I being fed? Did I get something out of it?

I understand those questions because I’ve asked them too. None of them is necessarily wrong. But something happens when they become our primary questions.

Consumerism tells us that life is found in acquiring. More experiences. More stuff. More recognition. More options.

More.

And individualism whispers that the most important project in the whole thing is me. My calling. My purpose. My platform. My spiritual gifts. My destiny. Even my personal relationship with Jesus.

There is truth in some of that.

But then I listen to the prayer Jesus taught us.

Our Father. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us. Deliver us.

There is a stubborn plural pronoun running through the gospel.

The first Christians weren’t simply individuals who happened to attend the same religious event. They were learning how to become a people.

Maybe that’s one of the things we’ve lost.

Consumerism says, Acquire.

Individualism says, Protect yourself.

Jesus keeps saying things like:

Give. Share. Forgive. Come to the table. Lose your life.

Those are very different visions of what it means to be alive.

When Being Right Becomes the Point

I grew up in a stream of Christianity that took truth seriously. I’m grateful for that. I still take truth seriously.

But there is a difference between conviction and certainty.

Fundamentalism has sometimes taught us that the more certain we are, the more faithful we are. Questions become suspicious. Curiosity feels dangerous. “I don’t know” sounds weak.

So we define the boundaries, defend the boundaries, and eventually police the boundaries.

And before long we can become more interested in being right about God than actually becoming like God.

That should bother us.

Because Jesus seemed remarkably comfortable with mystery. He answered questions with questions. He told stories that confused people. His own disciples regularly misunderstood him.

And he somehow managed not to panic about it.

Maybe humility is one of the spiritual practices we most desperately need to recover.

“I don’t know.”

“I could be wrong.”

“Tell me more.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Those might be deeply Christian sentences.

The trouble is, once we’re certain we’re right, it’s remarkably easy to decide who is wrong.

Then come the tribes.

Evangelical. Progressive. Conservative. Liberal. Reformed. Charismatic. Traditional. Fundamentalist. Deconstructed.

Pick your group. Learn the language. Learn the heroes. Learn the villains.

Eventually we stop seeing people.

We see categories.

I’ve watched this happen in the church. I’ve watched it happen in myself. And I think this is one of the ways otherwise kind people become cruel.

We become convinced that something so important is at stake that our cruelty is justified.

Sometimes we even convince ourselves we’re defending Jesus.

Jesus, strangely enough, never seemed to need that kind of defending.

When Power Gets Baptized

Some of these isms go deeper because they haven’t simply distorted us.

They’ve hurt people.

Sexism is one of them.

For generations, the church could say women and men were equally valuable while constructing systems where women were not equally heard, trusted, empowered, protected, or given agency.

Sometimes we called that tradition. Sometimes protection. Sometimes biblical order.

And then you watch Jesus.

Women fund his ministry. Women sit at his feet as disciples. Women engage him theologically. Women remain near the cross when others disappear. Women become the first witnesses announcing resurrection.

And I find myself wondering:

How much of what we’ve defended as God’s order was actually our order with God’s name attached to it?

That’s not a question I ask casually.

But I think we have to be willing to ask it.

Racism requires the same kind of honesty.

Sometimes racism is obvious. But sometimes it is remarkably polite. It can live in neighborhoods, friend groups, leadership tables, church histories, the stories we tell and the stories we don’t tell.

It shows up in whose pain we instinctively believe. Whose anger we consider understandable. Whose anger makes us uncomfortable. Whose voice sounds authoritative to us. Whose presence feels threatening.

This is where I think we Christians sometimes rush too quickly toward reconciliation.

I believe deeply in reconciliation.

But reconciliation without truth usually means somebody is being asked to pretend the wound didn’t happen.

Jesus never seemed interested in that kind of peace.

He kept crossing lines. Talking to the wrong people. Touching the wrong people. Eating with the wrong people.

Then he tells a story about a man bleeding beside a road and makes the Samaritan the hero.

Wrong ethnicity. Wrong religion. Wrong tribe.

He was the hated “other.”

And then:

Go and do likewise.

Become that kind of neighbor.

When Jesus Gets Wrapped in a Flag

This one is particularly hard to ignore right now.

There is nothing wrong with loving your country. I do. There is nothing wrong with participating in politics. We should. Policies matter because people matter.

But something changes when our political identity begins discipling us more deeply than Jesus does.

Nationalism tells us that protecting our nation is somehow synonymous with advancing God’s kingdom. Politicism tells us every election is apocalyptic, every disagreement is existential, and everyone on the other side is dangerous.

Fear is remarkably effective at forming people.

It keeps us clicking, watching, posting, donating, raging, and coming back tomorrow to find out what terrible thing they did overnight.

I don’t think this is making us well.

And I’m fairly certain it’s not making us more like Jesus.

Jesus lived under an empire. He understood politics. He understood oppression. He understood power.

And yet he announced another kingdom.

A kingdom where enemies are loved, peacemakers are blessed, greatness looks like serving, forgiveness interrupts retaliation, outsiders become neighbors, and power kneels down and washes feet.

Jesus remains incredibly inconvenient for every political party because nobody gets to own him.

I think we need to remember that.

And perhaps this is connected to another strange development in Western Christianity: somewhere along the way, we started confusing visibility with significance.

Big churches. Big platforms. Big conferences. Big followings. Big everything!

Christian celebrities.

And then we were surprised when Christian leaders started building their lives around being seen.

I understand this temptation too. Being noticed feels good. Being invited feels good. Watching something you created succeed feels good.

But Jesus spent most of his life in obscurity.

Thirty obscure years before three public years.

He walked away from crowds. He noticed people who could do absolutely nothing for his platform: children, widows, lepers, the poor, the inconvenient.

Maybe heaven measures influence differently than we do.

I suspect some of the most important things happening in the kingdom of God today will never trend. Nobody will write a book about them. Nobody will invite them onto a stage.

And heaven will somehow be just fine with that.

What Kind of People Are We Becoming?

That’s the question I keep coming back to.

Not: Are we winning? Are our churches growing? Is our theology airtight? Did our candidate win? Are people listening to us?

But:

What kind of people are we becoming?

Are we becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, self-controlled?

Because those were supposed to be the indicators.

Fruit.

Actual human beings becoming more alive in the Spirit.

And if our version of Christianity continually produces people who are angry, afraid, suspicious, defensive, exhausted, and contemptuous of their enemies, I think we have to be courageous enough to ask what is actually forming us.

And then comes the question every pastor loves:

So what do we do?

My pastor brain immediately wants a strategy. Give me the framework. The book. The conference. The seven steps.

But I’m not sure we need another program.

Maybe the way out is far more ordinary.

Maybe we eat with people.

Not networking.

Dinner.

Invite someone over. Cook something. Pour something. Stay at the table longer than you planned.

Especially with people whose stories complicate your categories.

It’s harder to demonize someone while passing them the potatoes.

Maybe we learn our neighbors’ names. Actually know them. The woman across the street. The guy who makes our coffee. The immigrant family at the park. The person whose history is nothing like ours.

Love becomes much harder to sentimentalize when it has a name.

Maybe we practice enough.

Enough money. Enough recognition. Enough house. Enough success. Enough ministry. Enough followers.

Enough.

Consumerism needs us perpetually dissatisfied.

Gratitude breaks the spell.

Maybe we give some power away.

Listen before defending. Invite voices into the room that haven’t historically been there. Ask who gets to decide. Ask who carries responsibility without authority. Ask who benefits from the way things currently work.

And then be willing to change something.

Maybe we become curious again.

How did you come to believe that?

What has your experience been?

What am I missing?

Tell me your story.

Curiosity may be one of the quiet forms of love.

It says, You are more interesting to me than my assumptions about you.

And maybe we do some things nobody knows about.

Give money. Help somebody. Visit somebody. Fix something. Pray. Serve.

Tell nobody.

There is something cleansing about doing good that cannot become content.

And then walk.

Make things.

Plant something.

Sit in silence.

Put the phone down.

Watch the sunrise.

Stand beside the ocean.

Laugh until your stomach hurts.

Take the long way home.

Pay attention.

Becoming Human Again

I wonder if beneath all these isms is an even deeper problem.

We’ve forgotten that being alive is astonishing.

We keep fighting about how the world should work while barely noticing the world.

Jesus noticed.

Birds and flowers. Seeds and bread. Wine. Children. Weather. Weddings. Fields. Trees.

Ordinary things.

Maybe the kingdom of God isn’t primarily somewhere else.

Maybe it’s hiding in plain sight.

And maybe the great spiritual task of our moment isn’t winning the argument.

Maybe it is becoming human again.

Less angry. Less afraid. Less addicted to being right. Less willing to excuse harm because it comes from our side. Less obsessed with being seen.

More curious.

More generous.

More present.

More willing to listen.

More willing to tell the truth.

More willing to repair what we’ve broken.

More willing to sit at tables with people who complicate our categories.

More willing to say, “I don’t know.”

More willing to love without needing to win.

Because maybe the opposite of all these isms isn’t another ism.

Maybe it’s a way.

A way of walking through the world. A way of seeing people. A way of holding power. A way of opening our homes. A way of paying attention. A way of forgiving.

A way of becoming free.

Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

And he didn’t simply tell us to believe in it.

He said it was near.

Here.

Among us.

Available.

Which means the invitation isn’t to escape the mess we’ve made.

It’s to start living differently inside it.

At our tables. In our neighborhoods. With our money. With our politics. With our power. With our enemies. With our attention.

With the next person standing in front of us.

Maybe that’s how things begin to change.

Not all at once.

Not through another angry movement.

But one human being at a time becoming more fully alive.

And helping somebody else remember how.

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Labor Day

When Work Remembers The Worker

Tomorrow we celebrate Labor Day.

For most of us, that means a long weekend, a barbecue, maybe one last trip before summer disappears. But Labor Day began with a much more disruptive question:

What is a human being worth?

Not what can they produce. Not how much can they accomplish. Not how efficiently can they work.

What are they worth?

By the late 1800s, America was exploding with possibility. Railroads were crossing the continent. Factories were filling cities. Steel was rising. Industry was booming. Fortunes were being made.

America was becoming an economic powerhouse.

But underneath all that prosperity were millions of people working incredibly long hours, often six or seven days a week, sometimes twelve or fourteen hours a day. Children worked. Factories were dangerous. Job security was almost nonexistent. Workers had few protections and very little power.

The system was creating enormous wealth.

But it was also raising a question we are still asking:

Who gets the benefit of the system?

In 1882, about 10,000 workers walked through the streets of New York City in what became the first Labor Day parade.

Think about that.

They stopped working.

And walked.

Together.

Their presence was the message:

Look at us. We are here. We built this. We matter.

There is some debate about who first imagined Labor Day. Peter McGuire, a carpenter and labor leader, often gets the credit. Matthew Maguire, a machinist and union organizer, may actually have been the one who proposed it.

Maybe there is something fitting about not knowing exactly whose idea it was.

Because Labor Day was never really about one person.

It was about the people whose names don’t end up on buildings… the carpenter, the machinist, the railroad worker, the seamstress, the miner, the factory worker, the immigrant. The person who shows up every morning, does the work, goes home tired, and does it again tomorrow.

And somewhere in the middle of that history another idea began gaining momentum:

Eight hours for work. Eight hours for rest. Eight hours for what we will.

That phrase gets me.

Because buried inside it is a deeply spiritual idea:

You are more than what you produce.

You need work. But you also need rest. You need relationships. Play. Worship. Time when you aren’t accomplishing anything at all.

Which sounds remarkably like something God said thousands of years earlier.

Six days you shall labor.

And then…

stop.

Sabbath.

It is striking that one of the commands God gave Israel after freeing them from Egypt concerned their work.

Egypt had taught them another way.

Pharaoh’s economy said:

More bricks.

More production.

More output.

And when the people couldn’t keep up?

Take away their straw and demand the same number of bricks.

That is Pharaoh.

More.

Faster.

Again.

So God leads these slaves into freedom and says something revolutionary:

One day every week, you stop.

You don’t make bricks. You don’t build cities. You don’t increase production. You don’t prove your worth.

You rest.

And not just you. Your children rest. Your servants rest. The immigrant rests. Even the animals rest.

Because Sabbath wasn’t simply a day off.

It was a declaration:

You are not a machine.

You are not property.

You are not what you produce.

Your worth does not come from your productivity.

Your worth comes from God.

Perhaps this is why Labor Day matters more than we realize.

By 1894, after years of strikes, violence, organizing, conflict between corporations and workers, and growing social unrest, the United States made Labor Day a federal holiday.

The nation was trying to say something:

Workers matter.

The people doing the work matter.

Human dignity matters.

And over the decades that followed, the labor movement helped secure things most of us now barely think about: shorter workdays, weekends, restrictions on child labor, workplace safety, overtime protections, minimum wage, and workers’ compensation.

Those changes did not happen because powerful people suddenly decided they were good ideas.

People struggled for them.

People marched.

People organized.

Some lost jobs.

Some were beaten.

Some died.

That makes Labor Day considerably more interesting than a mattress sale.

And maybe there is another question worth asking.

Because Pharaoh hasn’t disappeared.

Pharaoh just changes clothes.

Sometimes Pharaoh is a corporation. Sometimes it is an organization. Sometimes it is a church.

And sometimes…

Pharaoh lives inside us.

More.

Accomplish more.

Build more.

Grow more.

Earn more.

Answer another email.

Take another meeting.

Prove yourself again.

Until somehow we begin believing that exhaustion is evidence that our lives matter.

It isn’t.

I say this as someone who loves vision, movement, possibility, and the next thing. I can turn even meaningful work into something that consumes me if I’m not careful.

Which is why perhaps Labor Day is not merely a celebration of work.

Maybe it is also a reminder of the limits of work.

Work is good. Meaningful work is a gift. Creating something matters. Building something matters. Serving people matters.

But work makes a terrible god.

Because eventually it will always ask you for one more brick.

Jesus offers another way:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Not increased productivity.

Rest.

Maybe that is the word worth carrying into Labor Day.

You have work to do.

Absolutely.

There are things in this world only you can contribute. Places where your gifts matter. People who need what you carry.

But you are not valuable because you work.

You work because you are already valuable.

There is an enormous difference.

So tomorrow perhaps we raise a glass to the workers who came before us – the people who marched, organized, struggled, and insisted that human beings were worth more than the economic value they could produce.

And then perhaps we practice the freedom they fought for.

We stop.

We eat.

We laugh.

We sit around a table.

We take a walk.

We notice the people we love.

We receive the world again.

And for one day, at least, we leave the bricks where they are.

Because there will always be more bricks.

But there is only one life.

And it is far too sacred to spend all of it working.

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When the Slippery Slope Becomes Sacred Ground

There is a phrase people use when they are afraid.

“That’s a slippery slope.”

You hear it in boardrooms. You hear it in churches. You hear it when someone raises a question that makes the room uncomfortable. You hear it when an old system begins to feel the pressure of a new work of the Spirit.

“That’s a slippery slope.”

And sometimes, of course, they are right.

Not every new idea is wisdom. Not every open door is from God. Not every cultural shift is something the church should champion and call faithfulness. Some slopes really are dangerous. Some compromises really do begin small. Some decisions really do carry consequences nobody wants to name at the beginning.

So discernment is important.

But here is what I have been thinking about: sometimes the cry of “slippery slope” is not discernment. Sometimes it is fear wearing the clothes of faithfulness. Sometimes it is anxiety using spiritual language, or a refusal to listen because listening might require us to change.

And that is where it gets dangerous.

Because fear has a way of making us feel righteous.
Fear can convince us we are protecting truth when we are actually protecting comfort.
Fear can tell us we are defending holiness when we are really defending familiarity.
Fear can make the familiar feel sacred and the unfamiliar feel suspicious.

Before we know it, we are not asking, “Is God in this?” We are asking, “Will this threaten the world I already understand?”

Those are not the same question.

One is discernment…The other is self-protection.

The Bible is full of people standing at the edge of what looked like a slippery slope.

Moses stood in front of a burning bush in the wilderness. A bush that burned but was not consumed. Strange. Unexplainable. Disruptive. And when he turned aside to look, God said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Holy ground did not look like holy ground at first.

It looked like an interruption. It looked like a problem. It looked like something outside the normal categories. Moses could have kept walking. He could have said, “This is strange. This is unsafe. This is not how God usually speaks.”

But he turned aside…pay attention to that phrase…He turned aside.

He allowed his attention to be interrupted. He allowed wonder to disrupt certainty. He allowed God to speak from a place he had not planned to visit.

And that strange ground became sacred ground.

Isn’t this how God so often works?!

God meets people outside the controlled center.
God speaks from wilderness places.
God calls people across boundaries.
God sends prophets to kings, fishermen to nations, women to tombs, persecutors into apostleship, and the church into rooms it never expected to enter.

And almost every time God does something new, somebody nearby is nervous.

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, people called it dangerous. When Jesus ate with sinners, people called it compromise. When Jesus touched lepers, people called it unclean. When Jesus welcomed women as disciples, people called it inappropriate. When Jesus told stories where Samaritans were heroes, people called it offensive. When Jesus forgave sins, people called it blasphemy.

From the outside, the kingdom often looked like a slippery slope.

But it was sacred ground, a holy moment.

Not because Jesus abandoned holiness, but because Jesus revealed that holiness was never supposed to be a fence built around fear. Holiness was the fire of God moving toward the wounded, the excluded, the forgotten, the complicated, the unclean, and the afraid.

The problem was not that Jesus ignored truth.

The problem was that Jesus embodied truth in a way that threatened people who had confused control with faithfulness.

That still happens.

A church begins to ask honest questions about who is missing from the table, and someone says, “Careful. That’s a slippery slope.”

A leader begins listening to people who have been harmed by systems, and someone says, “Careful. That’s a slippery slope.”

A board begins to wonder whether its policies are protecting the mission or just preserving power, and someone says, “Careful. That’s a slippery slope.”

A denomination begins to wrestle with culture, justice, race, gender, leadership, mission, and the Spirit’s activity in unexpected places, and someone says, “Careful. That’s a slippery slope.”

Again, maybe…

Maybe there is a real warning there. But maybe there is also an invitation.

Maybe the question is not, “Could this become a slippery slope?” Almost anything can.

The better question is, “Could this be sacred ground?”

Could God be speaking here? Could the Spirit be revealing something we have not wanted to see? Could our fear be louder than our obedience? Could our need for certainty be keeping us from discernment? Could our instinct to protect the past be preventing us from participating in the future God is bringing?

Peter had to face this.

In Acts 10, Peter sees a vision of a sheet lowered from heaven, full of animals his tradition had taught him not to eat. He hears a voice say, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

Peter says no.

Not because he is rebellious, but because he is faithful. At least, faithful to what he understood.

He says, “Surely not, Lord.”

Which is one of the most honest and revealing prayers in Scripture.

Surely not.

Lord.

We want Jesus to be Lord, but we also want to tell him where the boundaries are.

Surely not, Lord. Surely not them. Surely not that conversation. Surely not that change. Surely not that new wineskin. Surely not that person. Surely not that table. Surely not that movement.

But the voice says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Then Peter is sent to Cornelius, a Gentile. An outsider. A person Peter had been trained to avoid. And suddenly Peter realizes the vision was not just about food.

It was about people.

It was about the gospel crossing a boundary Peter thought was fixed. It was about God moving ahead of Peter’s theology and inviting Peter to catch up.

That must have felt like a slippery slope.

But it became sacred ground.

The Spirit fell. The outsiders were welcomed. The church was stretched. The gospel was larger than they thought.

And here is the part we must not miss: Peter did not abandon discernment. He did not simply say, “Everything is fine now.” He paid attention to the Spirit. He listened. He watched for fruit. He testified to what God had done.

That is the difference.

Fear reacts.

Discernment listens.

Fear labels.

Discernment tests.

Fear protects the familiar.

Discernment seeks the presence of God.

Fear asks, “What could go wrong?”

Discernment also asks, “What might God be doing?”

We need both caution and courage. Caution without courage becomes paralysis. Courage without caution becomes recklessness. But Spirit-led discernment holds both. It refuses to be naive, but it also refuses to let fear sit at the head of the table.

Because fear is a terrible pastor.

Fear will keep the church safe, small, suspicious, and slowly dying. Fear will make sure nothing gets out of control, including the mission. Fear will preserve the wineskin long after the wine is gone.

Fear will call it wisdom. Fear will call it faithfulness. Fear will call it “guarding the truth.”

But Jesus did not give the church a spirit of fear.

He gave us the Spirit of truth.

And the Spirit of truth is not fragile. The Spirit can handle questions. The Spirit can handle complexity. The Spirit can handle hard conversations. The Spirit can lead us into all truth, but that means we have to be willing to be led.

And being led means we are not always in the place we started.

That is the part we often resist.

We want God to guide us without moving us. We want revelation without disruption. We want renewal without repentance. We want growth without discomfort. We want mission without crossing boundaries.

But the God of Scripture keeps calling people to leave what they know.

Abram, leave your country.

Moses, go back to Egypt.

Esther, step into the risk.

Mary, carry what no one will understand.

Peter, go to Cornelius.

Paul, preach to the Gentiles.

Church, go to the ends of the earth.

At some point, obedience almost always looks like risk. At some point, faithfulness almost always feels like leaving the shore. At some point, the place we fear may be the place where God is waiting to meet us.

So maybe before we say, “That’s a slippery slope,” we should pause.

Take a breath.

Tell the truth about our fear.

And ask better questions.

What exactly are we afraid of?

Are we afraid of losing the gospel, or are we afraid of losing control? Are we protecting orthodoxy, or are we protecting a system that has benefited us? Are we listening to the Spirit, or are we listening to anxiety? Have we confused tradition with God? Have we confused discomfort with danger? Have we confused change with compromise?

And maybe the most important question is this:

Are we willing to take off our sandals long enough to see whether this ground is holy?

Because sometimes the slippery slope is real.

But sometimes the place we warned people not to step is the very place where God has started a fire.

Sometimes the conversation we avoided becomes the doorway to healing. Sometimes the people we were taught to fear become the ones who show us Jesus. Sometimes the question we tried to silence becomes the question that saves us. Sometimes what looks like a threat to our faith is actually an invitation into deeper faithfulness.

Not a faithfulness rooted in fear. Not a faithfulness rooted in nostalgia. Not a faithfulness rooted in control.

But a faithfulness rooted in the living God.

The God who still speaks. The God who still disrupts. The God who still sends. The God who still says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”

The challenge is that new things rarely feel safe at first.

They feel uncertain. They feel costly. They feel like wilderness. They feel like fire. They feel like a slope.

But if God is there, then the call is not to panic.

The call is to pay attention.

The call is to discern.

The call is to remove our sandals.

The call is to listen deeply enough that our fear no longer gets the final word.

Because the ground we are most afraid to stand on may be the ground where God is asking us to finally become brave.

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The Exhausted Leader Is Not The Enemy

There is a kind of room you can feel before anyone says a word.

The agenda is printed. The coffee is poured. The board packet is open.

The principal is sitting there… The pastor is sitting there… The superintendent is sitting there… The nonprofit executive is sitting there… And everyone in the room knows something is off.

The energy is low.

The imagination is thin.

The conversations are more guarded than generative.

The leader looks present, but not fully there.

And then the assumptions begin.

Maybe they have lost their edge….Maybe they are not visionary enough…Maybe they are resistant to change…Maybe they are protecting their turf…Maybe they are the reason we are stuck.

And sometimes, yes, leaders do get stuck. Sometimes leaders avoid hard conversations. Sometimes leaders hide behind process. Sometimes leaders become the lid on the very organization they were called to lead.

But not always.

Sometimes the leader is not the problem.

Sometimes the leader is tired.

And there is a difference.

We Often Misread Exhaustion

A tired leader is not the same thing as a bad leader. An exhausted leader is not the enemy.

But many boards, churches, schools, and organizations don’t know what to do with exhaustion. So they misread it.

They misread depletion as defiance.

They misread caution as cowardice.

They misread silence as secrecy.

They misread slower decision-making as lack of vision.

They misread emotional flatness as lack of care.

But what if the leader still cares deeply?

What if the leader is not disengaged, but overextended?

What if the leader is not visionless, but carrying too many unresolved tensions to dream clearly?

What if the person everyone is frustrated with is also the person who has absorbed more pain, more pressure, more criticism, more impossible expectations, and more invisible responsibility than anyone else in the system?

This is important to consider because tired systems often look for a person to blame.

And the leader is usually the easiest target.

Boards blame the executive…Parents blame the principal…Congregations blame the pastor…Staff blame the superintendent…Communities blame whoever is visible.

And visibility is expensive.

Visibility Is Expensive

Visible leaders carry the weight of decisions they did not fully create.

They carry the consequences of budgets they did not wish for.

They carry the grief of people leaving.

They carry the anger of people staying.

They carry legacy expectations, new cultural realities, staffing shortages, financial pressure, emotional reactivity, public criticism, private disappointments, and the never-ending demand to be calm while everyone else is allowed to be anxious.

And then we ask them to be visionary.

After the crisis…After the emails…After the meeting…After the complaint…After the personnel issue…After the Sunday…After the school board meeting…After the donor call…After the conflict they cannot publicly explain.

We ask them to walk into the room glowing with fresh possibility.

But sometimes they walk in with just enough energy to make it through the agenda.

That is not a character flaw.

That is a warning light.

The dashboard is blinking, and wise organizations pay attention to blinking lights.

They don’t shame the engine for overheating.

They ask what the system has been demanding from it.

Boards Have to Ask Better Questions

This is where boards and leadership teams have to grow up.

Because the easiest board posture is evaluation from a distance.

“Why haven’t you fixed this?”

“Why is morale low?”

“Why are people frustrated?”

“Why are we not growing?”

“Why is the staff tired?”

“Why is the community restless?”

Those may be fair questions.

But there is another set of questions mature boards learn to ask.

“What have we asked this leader to carry that no human can carry alone?”

“Where have we confused accountability with constant pressure?”

“What decisions have we delayed that have forced the leader to absorb the consequences?”

“Where have we expected courage from the leader while offering very little covering?”

“Have we created a culture where the leader can tell the truth before they are in crisis?”

Did you catch that last question?

That is an important question because many leaders are not allowed to be honest until they are already broken.

They can talk about vision…They can talk about strategy…They can talk about metrics…They can talk about growth…They can talk about mission.

But they cannot say, “I am not okay.”

They cannot say, “This pace is not sustainable.”

They cannot say, “I am carrying too much.”

They cannot say, “I am losing joy.”

They cannot say, “I need help.”

Because the moment they say it, people start wondering if they are still fit to lead.

So they keep going.

They keep smiling.

They keep answering emails.

They keep showing up.

They keep taking the meeting.

They keep absorbing the tension.

They keep performing stability for everyone else.

Until one day the system is shocked that they are burned out.

But the truth is, the signs were there.

A Leader Can Disappear While Still Showing Up

The joy got quieter.

The creativity narrowed.

The leader became more reactive.

The leader stopped initiating.

The leader started postponing conversations.

The leader became harder to read.

The leader began protecting small pockets of control because the larger system felt uncontrollable.

The leader did not suddenly collapse.

They slowly disappeared while still showing up.

That last line should sober us.

A leader can disappear while still showing up.

They can preach, teach, manage, supervise, respond, attend, report, and produce while the deeper part of them is running on fumes.

And when that happens, the answer is not sentimental kindness.

This is not about lowering the bar.

This is not about excusing poor leadership.

This is not about pretending outcomes do not matter.

In fact, it is the opposite.

Healthy accountability requires a healthy human.

A depleted leader will eventually make depleted decisions.

They will avoid necessary risk.

They will overreact to minor issues.

They will underreact to major ones.

They will choose short-term relief over long-term health.

They will become more controlling because they have lost the energy for trust.

They will become more passive because every decision feels costly.

They will mistake motion for progress because motion is easier to measure than renewal.

So yes, leaders need accountability.

But they also need care.

Not Sentimental Care. Structural Care.

Leaders do not need performative care.

Not “we appreciate you” once a year with a gift card and a public prayer.

Real care.

Structural care.

The kind of care that changes calendars, expectations, decision rights, meeting loads, sabbath rhythms, crisis protocols, staffing plans, and board behavior.

Because exhausted leaders rarely need one more inspirational quote.

They need a different architecture.

They need the system to stop rewarding over-functioning.

They need boards that do not just ask, “How are you doing?” but also ask, “What are we doing that is making this unsustainable?”

They need teams that do not confuse access with intimacy.

They need communities that understand that urgency is not always importance.

They need space to recover imagination.

And that is one of the great losses of exhausted leadership.

Not just energy.

Imagination.

Exhaustion Steals Imagination

Tired leaders can still execute.

They can still manage.

They can still maintain.

They can still keep the machine running.

But renewal requires imagination.

Turnaround requires imagination.

Education requires imagination.

Mission requires imagination.

A board can demand innovation all day long, but if the leader’s internal world is crowded with unresolved conflict, chronic criticism, financial anxiety, and emotional fatigue, imagination will be the first thing to go.

You cannot spreadsheet your way into wonder.

You cannot shame a tired leader into creativity.

You cannot pressure an exhausted system into health.

At some point, somebody has to tell the truth:

We are not just stuck because we lack strategy.

We are stuck because we are tired.

And tired people need more than a plan.

They need permission to become human again.

The Board’s Work Is More Than Evaluation

This is especially important for boards.

A good board does not simply protect the organization from the leader.

A good board also protects the leader for the sake of the organization.

That does not mean blind loyalty.

That does not mean avoiding hard feedback.

That does not mean tolerating dysfunction.

It means understanding that the health of the leader and the health of the mission are connected.

You cannot burn out the leader and then act surprised when the mission loses momentum.

You cannot allow the system to consume people and then call it faithfulness.

You cannot keep asking for courageous leadership while punishing every courageous decision.

So maybe the next great board conversation is not, “How do we get more out of our leader?”

Maybe it is, “How do we build a system where our leader, staff, and community can be honest, healthy, courageous, and clear?”

That one shift changes the room.

Instead of blame, curiosity.

Instead of suspicion, truth.

Instead of pressure, partnership.

Instead of rescuing or attacking the leader, we begin reading the system.

Read the System, Not Just the Leader

What is this organization rewarding?

What is it avoiding?

Where is anxiety being transferred?

Where are decisions getting stuck?

Where are expectations unclear?

Where are people confusing personal preference with mission?

Where has the leader been left alone to carry what belongs to the whole board, the whole team, the whole community?

Because that is often what exhaustion is.

It is not just too much work.

It is too much aloneness.

Too much responsibility without shared ownership.

Too much visibility without covering.

Too much criticism without context.

Too much urgency without clarity.

Too much mission without renewal.

The exhausted leader is not the enemy.

But exhaustion is.

And if we do not name it, we will keep replacing leaders and recreating the same conditions that exhausted the last one.

Otherwise, the Cycle Repeats

A new leader may bring fresh energy for a season.

But if the system remains anxious, unclear, reactive, conflict-avoidant, and unrealistic, that new leader will eventually become tired too.

Then the cycle starts again.

Hope.

Pressure.

Disappointment.

Blame.

Exit.

Repeat.

There is a better way.

We can build boards that know how to ask better questions.

We can build schools where principals are not left alone between angry parents, exhausted teachers, anxious students, and political pressure.

We can build churches where pastors are not expected to be endlessly available and spiritually full while carrying everyone else’s pain.

We can build nonprofits where mission does not become a beautiful word used to justify unhealthy work.

We can build teams where truth is told early, not after damage is done.

We can build leadership cultures where courage and care belong together.

Renewal Begins When We Change the Room

The future will not belong to organizations that merely push harder.

The future will belong to organizations that learn how to renew the people carrying the mission.

That does not mean soft leadership.

It means sustainable leadership.

It means honest leadership.

It means human leadership.

It means we stop treating exhaustion like a private weakness and start treating it like organizational information.

The tired leader is telling us something.

The tired staff is telling us something.

The tired teacher is telling us something.

The tired pastor is telling us something.

The tired board is telling us something.

The question is whether we are humble enough to listen.

Because sometimes the most strategic thing a board can do is not demand a new plan.

Sometimes the most strategic thing a board can do is help create the conditions where vision can breathe again.

And maybe that starts with a different sentence.

Not, “What is wrong with this leader?”

But, “What has this leader been carrying, and what does health now require from all of us?”

That question will not solve everything.

But it may change the room.

And in tired systems, changing the room is often where renewal begins.