How To Make Jesus Look Good | Doug Preston

speaker-0: Well, welcome to the very first episode of the circuit. It is the official podcast of the Indiana Southwest Lein district. Our mission is very simple. is this connecting the 46 counties of Indiana South to the heart of the mission. And so we're honoring our heritage as circuit riders by hitting the road digitally to talk about church health, revitalization and multiplication. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But I'm your host, ⁓ Chuck Hollenbeck, and sitting across the virtual table today is the man, the myth, the legend who knows every mile of those 46 counties. He's our district superintendent, Doug Preston. Doug, welcome to the show.

speaker-1: Thank you. Good to be here.

speaker-0: How are you doing today?

speaker-1: I'm doing great. I'm in sunny Florida, so I'm enjoying 80 degree weather.

speaker-0: That's good. That's good. Well, Doug, you probably spend more time on the road than anyone else in the district. So we've got a lot of miles between the Ohio River and the Central Plains. And when you are driving, we're just going to start off with a ⁓ fun icebreaker here to just get everybody going. But ⁓ when you're driving the circuit, we call it, ⁓ what is the one gas station snack or roadside restaurant? that you stop and you simply just cannot pass up when you're going at it.

speaker-1: I would have to say Dunkin Donuts. ⁓ I love their cold brew coffee. ⁓ Steve Knaf, I tell him that he owes me because he got me addicted to cold brew Charlie's. ⁓ When we were down in the gathering in Tennessee, ⁓ he went to Dunkin Donuts and bought me this coffee and came back and said it's a cold brew Charlie's from Dunkin's and I love them and I fell in love with them. So every time I go buy one. I pray for him because he got me addicted to cold brew Charlie. So it's been kind of a joke between him and I actually not too long ago. ⁓ I went there and preached for him and they sent me a Duncan card so that I could have my cold brew Charlie's as I traveled across the road. So yeah, I don't do apps, but I got a Duncan app. You know, I keep my points. mean, you know, I'm a Duncan all the way so that Steve Knapp gets blamed for that.

speaker-0: That awesome. That is awesome. yeah, you can't go wrong with Dunkin Donuts, man. Their coffee is good. hey, I just want to thank you for being on this morning. And we're going to be probably seeing your face a lot in the next couple of episodes. So ⁓ I just wanted to jump in because we're launching this actually at the start of a brand new year, 2026, which is crazy. We're getting ready to jump into this.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: When you look at the map of Indiana South for 2026, Doug, what is the one thing or the primary theme that you are praying for over our church's history?

speaker-1: Yeah, well, check I thought about that a lot over the last few days. One of the things I've done even in my ministry as a pastor, I'd always ask God every year to give me a word or a phrase so that I could carry that throughout the congregation and I would I would share that with them and I'd build sermons around that or just keep that in front of them throughout the year. And when I became the DS almost four years ago now, I asked God what the word was for the district, you know, and that's when I felt like it was the one and we've kind of kept that and maintained that. I don't want that to lose its significance because I do believe that without a doubt. We're going to win our mission field one person at a time, one soul at a time. But as I thought of this question, looking at it in a new year, how do we boil this down for one thing? And I would have to say that it's prayer. And I think it's a different level of prayer than what most of us are used to. One of the things I've said over the last, I don't know, probably 10 years of my ministry is that when we get in our gut and we realize that every individual that we pass on the street, every person that we meet is either going to go to heaven or hell. There's no in-between. It's either or. I think it changes our prayer life. But I think we have to get to that point first. And I visit a lot of churches and and believe me I believe in healing I do I believe that God can heal us physically ⁓ But I think the primary ⁓ focus should be spiritual healing And I think that it changes our prayer lives ⁓ when we really ⁓ Get to the one thing the one thing that that we have to realize that I have maybe one opportunity to pass someone And I asked myself, is God gonna hold me responsible for not witnessing if I had an opportunity to witness? The other thing that kind of goes with that, I think, is back at our last camp meeting, back at David Gibbs came and spoke on a Friday night. And one of the things, and I'm telling you for the last six months, this has kind of stuck with me. He said, we as Christians have one job to do, and that's to make Jesus look good. think, wow, Chuck, I am I making Jesus look good? If I'm willing to pass you in Walmart and not care about your soul, am I making Jesus look good? And I don't think I am. I think if Jesus was walking down that aisle, he would care about that person pushing a car, a shopping cart. And so I if there's the one thing that I think that we And I think they go together. It almost sounds like two things, but I think it goes together as prayer. But the only way I can really get into prayer is if I make souls personal. If I really get into the fact is that that every soul has a name. And that soul is an individual. It's a mother, it's a dad, it's a brother, it's a sister, it's an aunt, it's an uncle, it's a grandpa, grandma. It's a sibling. It's more than just passing on the wind. They will spin eternally some. So press.

speaker-0: That so good. That sticks with you. Are you making Jesus the center? Are you representing Jesus well? I love the fact that we get the opportunity as pastors to do that every day. Sometimes we're really good at it and sometimes we're really bad at

speaker-1: Absolutely.

speaker-0: but ⁓ praise the Lord we have this opportunity.

speaker-1: And you know, I would say to you that I don't want to over spiritualize it because I do think we have to live our life. ⁓ But what I what for me is every day when I get up and I do my devotions, I ask God to give me an opportunity today. I can't I can't do anything what I did yesterday and I may never have tomorrow, but I have right now I have the present. And so I have to keep reminding myself that It's what I do today is really what's going to matter. And I think that sometimes we can get so busy in church work, or we can get so busy in the things that are all important, but I forget the main thing. And the main thing is that I've got to keep my prayer life to the point that I'm sharp. And I failed. Believe me, I failed at this. I wish I didn't, but I have to admit that I failed because I don't pray like I should sometimes. but, and I don't witness like I shed something, but it grieves my heart when I realize I have it. And I think that's the difference. I want to make sure that my heart stays tender towards the law.

speaker-0: Yeah, and I think that's the one thing like we love about you. We just love your heart and your authenticity. And I think we know that every pastor knows that we feel that you care about us. And so we are so thankful for you as the DS. And I want to kind of lead into this next segment because we talk about the difference between growth and health. numbers and the health spiritually of the church or the health of the church. ⁓ In a world of ⁓ big numbers, right? There's so much, what do you say, competition out there, but why are we to be focused on health first? Why is health so important over numbers or is it? What would you say to that?

speaker-1: Well, I think that's a very good question. And I think it's a question that if we're just honest, every pastor wrestled with. I said about 15 years ago in conversations that we got to change the scorecard because the scorecard has always been measured on how many we can attract to an audience. and ⁓ you know, as well as I do, Chuck, if you get in with a group of pastors that it isn't very long till someone will say, well, how big a church do you have? is based on numbers. And if you say, well, I've got a small rural church and running 25, we automatically get discounted. Like we don't know really what we're doing or we must be sub-pire because if we were great, God wouldn't leave us there. And I think that is so wrong. I think that we have, in the church world today, we've abandoned the rural area. even if you look, and I can really talk about this and get deep, so. be able to stop me if you feel like that. But you do, but you know, and when I was doing revitalization, one of the things that as we started doing statistics, we found out that ⁓ the drug culture now has went to the rural areas. And you know why? Because the churches abandoned them. We shut down small churches and said they're not significant anymore. ⁓ But there's been a lot of evangelists and missionaries called out of small rural churches. So I don't think it's the number on the board. I think it's the health of the church that has to be so important. Because I may not be able to, too, because I don't really feel like I'm that good of an orator, but I can be a good speech maker and grow a crowd. You know, just this last weekend ⁓ in the Charlie Kirk you know, thing that they did, you know, so America first, whatever the name of that was 31,000 people. 31,000 people came to that rabbit. You can grow a crowd. You can put on a show, you can grow a crowd. But are we making a difference? Are we seeing souls saved? Are we making heaven crowded? And I think that's got to be our goal. And so, and I know in a world of numbers, its numbers reflect souls. It's a hard area of course to really wrestle to the ground, but I believe that you can be small, healthy churches. And I think there could be large healthy churches. But I also think there could be small unhealthy churches and there could be large unhealthy churches. it's the health that what I want to focus on. I want to ask churches, are we making a difference in our community? Are people's lives changing because we're there? And one of the things that we ask in revitalization, we ask a couple of questions. One of the things we ask is, is if your church closed tomorrow. what people group in your community would suffer? And if you can't name that right off, you're probably not healthy. Because you haven't found your niche. You haven't found your calling in your community. ⁓ And that to me is health. You know, when I can say this people group is going to suffer, then I am now being ⁓ I'm making a difference in the community that I live in. If it's only us that's in our group, you know, or 20 or 25. You know, you could say, well, we are going to suffer. Yes, but you're already Christians. I'm asking outside your walls. That's where I think we get the health at. I'm going to go back and piggyback on the one thing too with this is because here's what I can tell you. Two things that you can tell whether church is healthy or not. First of all, look at their budget. You know, is there money being spent inside the walls or outside the walls? If you're being spent inside, they're not healthy. they need be spent outside the wall. ⁓ The other thing that I ⁓ would ask is, is how many people are you sending out? I mean, you're sending out. Because if we're not sending people, we're not healthy. We're not creating disciples to go be disciples. And so we ought to always be a sending church, a re-river, so to speak, that one of the things that Steve McFady likes to talk about is rivers. We have to be flowing. has to come in through us and go back out. through us go back out. But let me just say this. I started to say this earlier in the prayer thing. I go to a lot of churches. Just like I said earlier, I do believe in healing. But here's what I hear in most of our churches. I want you to pray for my co-workers, grandma. because she had a heart attack. But you can't even tell me her name. You're not interested in her soul. You want to make yourself feel good. And I know that's hard teaching, but that's what we do. We make ourselves feel good because we're praying for something. What if we ask them, hey, if you want me to pray for your grandmother, what's her name? And how is she spiritually? Because that's my goal. I want to pray for her spiritually because she can go to heaven with cancer. She can go to heaven with a heart attack. She can go to heaven with sugar diabetes. She can't go to heaven with sin in her heart. If God heals her and she still dies and goes to hell, did I really accomplish anything other than the feel-good feeling? The health is when I start looking at the main things, the main thing, and I allow my friends to know that, hey, I'll be glad to play for your grandmother, but I want you to know I'm more interested in her spiritually than I am for cancer. Does make sense?

speaker-0: Man, that is, yeah, so good. So good. Because we do, we get distracted from keeping the main thing, the main thing, you know, my, my wife, Shannon always tells me, she goes, man, you just, just like I go off in paths and just like a deer, just like, Hey, let's chase a squirrel. I don't know if deer chase squirrels or not, but totally like you're right. That focus on, on that, that is so helpful.

speaker-1: And I think that's where health comes from. I think that will generate growth. But growth will not necessarily generate health. So if you don't get healthy, for you to grow and be healthy. One of the things that ⁓ a couple months ago I said a DSP. I'm going to use this because this is good. Steve Dineff from College Westling Church did the devotions for us. And he talked about the altar in the church and he said what we've done wrong is that we've let the church build the altar instead of the altar building the church. That hit me because I've been saying that I hadn't put it in terms like that, but that's exactly what we've done. We've built a building. We've painted it. We've fixed it up. We we've hired good people. We want to know why people that we've but we didn't start with the altar. We should have started with prayer meetings. Let God take care of the mewsh stuff out here. I know buildings and stuff are good, but the church cannot build the altar. But the altar can build a church. And so ⁓ that's, think that's the difference between growth and health. That was a long, deep road to go in, but I'm really passionate about this because I can, I, and I am passionate, think, so let me just, let me just be vulnerable here to you. This stuff's not easy and it's not easy for me either. We have to be intentional. We have to keep reminding ourselves. And I have to keep reminding myself ⁓ of what the guardrails are so that I can stay there because one of the reasons why I don't like vacation because it gets me out of my routine because I'm a routine person. If I can get in my routine, I can do my devotions daily. I can do my prayer daily. I can keep myself focused daily, but I have to work on that daily because if not, I'm chasing squirrels somewhere. You know, I really am. And so I've learned in ministry for me, I have to keep these paths, I have to, so that I can stay focused. But after a while, I think it becomes nature for me to care for the lost. I I just can't imagine me dying and going to heaven and me not being able to make a difference. You what am going tell Jesus? You did it for me, but I didn't care enough about the other people to share the gifts you gave me. Think about that.

speaker-0: is so powerful.

speaker-1: Yeah, but we're really. When this airs, it's going to be right after Christmas. You know, so gift giving is still going to be on our mind. And I just think, how many of us got a gift at Christmas that we want to show off? Look what my wife bought me. Look what my kids bought me. But we don't go to the parish or Walmart and say, do you realize what God did for me? I want to share my gift of salvation and eternal life with you. because he changed my life. He did the same for you. So yeah.

speaker-0: That's so good. Yeah. And one of the ways that we're, and the reason why we're doing this is to help pastors and leaders and board members get healthier because I think one of the things is we tend to not ⁓ think about those things, Doug, that you bring up. And so our strategy for this podcast is built on three lanes. And I want to kind of dive into what these three, lanes and walk through these specifically. We're going to bring these lanes up a lot so our leaders know kind of where we're heading. And so the first lane

speaker-1: Chuck, I'm not hearing you. There we go.

speaker-0: So one of the things that ⁓ we're gonna talk about is ⁓ the strategy on that because what you said is so good. And ⁓ the strategy for this podcast is built on three lanes. And I wanna kind of walk through these specifically so that our leaders kind of know where we're heading. And one of the lanes is revitalization. So. We're going to bring this up over and over, but revitalization is the first lane. And Doug, you have a heart for the Dirt Roads Network and you were a big part of that. And they focus on the rural church, you know, the smaller churches. ⁓ What is your word, Doug, right now as we kind of walk through these lanes ⁓ to the pastor listening right now ⁓ who feels basically tired, whose numbers are down and who is basically just desperate.

speaker-1: for. You went silent again, can't hear you.

speaker-0: That's weird. Okay. I don't know why it keeps doing that.

speaker-1: Well, I think that's a good, this is where I could camp out for a long time. So we could do many podcasts on revitalization. I would say that you're asking me what is the one word that's after this listing? Well, I tell you, it can't just be one, but I think first of all, let me back up a moment. And I think that. I've always been a bivocational pastor. ⁓ And I believe in bivocational pastors. That's what I wanted to be. felt like that's what God called me to be. And I know that's when you get tired and things seem impossible. But one of the things that happened early in my ministry is that I had a reason that I had to come to terms with my call. So what I think if my one word to a pastor would be is, are you called? and are you called to where you're at? Or will you accept that call? Because I think that there's pastors that have been called to an area, but they haven't accepted it. They went obediently, but they only did it in action, their heart's still not there. And I think those two have to join together. And because what happens is when we're called and we've come to terms with that, with God, we don't get as tired and we don't get as discouraged when the numbers are down because we are in the will of God. See, Satan gets on our back when we lose people or our numbers are down and says, well, are you really where you're supposed to be anyway? And then we try to take that form. We are stewards of the Church of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, it's not our responsibility to grow the church. It's our responsibility to be faithful. God said he would grow the church. And God spoke to me that very early on in my ministry. He said, what I need you to do is to be faithful in what I've called you to do, and I'll grow the church. And when I got that all in my head right, God grew the church.

speaker-0: And that is good. And it's relying on God. mean.

speaker-1: totally totally relying on god. Yeah, I can't do it. I mean, I don't even know why people would want to come and hear me preach. You know, honestly, I mean, uh for me, um preaching is one of the hardest things I've ever is the most enjoyable thing I've ever do. It's the hardest thing ever. I I hear pastors all the time and I hear guys talking about so well, I'm driving down the road. I had this conversation with god. Boy, this message started coming. I had to pull over and And I ended up writing three sermons on the side of the road. I mean, I almost slapped them. That's never happened to me. That's never happened to me. It's like I'm begging God to give me, know, sermon outlines. I'm begging God to give me a subject. And then I have to research and pull it out. And part of that, though, I think is I've come to conclusion after 25 years of ministry, God knows my personality. And if it came easy, I'd get arrogant. Every message I preach, I gotta depend on God. I don't have it in me. I just don't have it in me. I can't do that. And ⁓ so I think it comes to that whole thing for revitalization is I am depending on you, God. There's nothing in me that can do it other than I can go where you lead me. Period. Other than that, I have nothing. It's almost like a little drummer boy.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: all I got, but I'll give you everything I have." And when we do that, I don't think we're going to get tired, but we don't get us tired. ⁓ We don't get us discouraged. And ⁓ we're willing to ⁓ ride out until God turns around.

speaker-0: So good. That's so good. Well, we're going to move into lane two because we've got to rely on God. But what happens ⁓ in lane two is the healthy established churches. So we got. revitalization in lane one, healthy established in lane two. And for our churches that are stable and doing well, how do they move? Because we know that some churches can get a little bit comfortable. How do they move from comfortable to actually contributing? How can they help support the rest of the district? If they're in a large church or they're a board member in a large church or a leader, how can they help? the district ⁓ if they're like man like we are we are comfortable but we want to contribute.

speaker-1: Chuck, that's a very, very, very good question. And I hesitate almost to answer it because I think there will be people that could get offended, but I just want to be honest. not all healthy churches, but I think. One of the dangers that a healthy church really has to work again is not becoming an island to themselves. In other words, I don't need you, we've got it figured out. And so when you say, don't need you as a district, what you're really saying is we're not there to help you as a district even. A healthy church, my prayer would be is that we can convince these pastors to help us raise up leaders, healthy leaders. But we're willing to send them out as Timothys and it's not selfish and say, I want to be part of the solution and aggressively take their health and have it integrated within the district. I know that's a broad stroke, but And there's lots of ways to break that down. I know we don't have time today. But I think that That's the way for us not become comfortable. But I think that as hard as it is for a pastor in decline to stay in courage, it's just as hard for a church that is growing and healthy to not get complacent in an island to their self. And I could tell you I struggled with that as a pastor because ⁓ when I was at Greensburg, ⁓ I went And when I was interviewed there, they said, you're our last pastor. If you can't turn us around, the church has been closed. Well, I like challenges, number one, and I really feel like I'm a revitalization pastor. That's what God has called me to do. ⁓ So I made everything within me. We're not closing this church. We're going to make it grow. ⁓ That church now today is a healthy 200 and 220 people, know, different location. It's not just me, but it's what God did. When I first got there, was like, want all the help I can get. And then when we started growing, I kind of pulled back and said, ⁓ we've got this. And God started working with me and said, you're part of the team, regardless of whether you're small or large, you're part of the team. got to be part of the team. I've been through that. I understand how that we have to fight through that and get pushed through that and stay a team player.

speaker-0: ⁓ That is good because I've never seen or been there but I can see where we as all churches can get comfortable.

speaker-1: Absolutely.

speaker-0: And ⁓ man, it's moving forward. It's trying to say this is a family, a district. You you say that a lot is, you know, we're a family here. And ⁓ that brings me into.

speaker-1: Let me just make one more comment though, because I think that where we have to get Chuck to in our mind is that I have, and this goes for small ending, so let's pull these together. How do we make small, declining churches and growing and healthy churches, how can they become part of the same family? And one of the ways we do that is, is we celebrate together. If we isolate ourselves in either part, become, you know, it's not the right thing for the family. So if we look at Indiana South as a family, I need to take a healthy church and let them encourage the declining church. the defining church needs to come and learn from the healthy church. So there's a reason for both of them to be there. But if the healthy churches takes all the resources and say, that's blasphemy, that's we don't care about you, then we will, we're depriving our brothers and sisters of some of the knowledge that maybe God's already shared with us. But I think that when we look at big picture, is that I need to celebrate every time you have a soul that 500 North for your pastoring, every baptism, every time someone comes to Jesus Christ, I need to celebrate. I need to celebrate it across the district, whether I have a church of 20 or a church of 2500. Every time the church of 2500 has baptisms and salvations, this church of 25 needs to celebrate. But we can only do that when we become a family. And that's the reason I think that healthy churches need to be reminded that they need to be part of the smaller churches to keep them encouraged.

speaker-0: That's good. That's so good. Well, that moves us into our third lane, which is actually multiplication. ⁓ So we have a goal to start new churches on the district, right? Like we started a few, but. ⁓ Why is church planting so vital for us now? Why can't we just focus on churches that are already there? Why church planting? Why is that so vital for the district at this moment?

speaker-1: Well, I believe if we look at life cycles, all, ⁓ there's a life cycle in everything that we do. ⁓ We have a life cycle, our pets have a life cycle, our automobile has a life cycle. mean, there's not everything that we touch and do as a life cycle. And so, but one of the things that we've not ever been willing to admit is the church does have a life cycle. I'm not saying the church, I don't know what the life cycle of the church I it's different. mean, I think there's some could be 150. I think there's some could be 50 and God has different purpose for it. What I do know is that in the day and age that we live in, especially established churches do not like change. And I understand that the older I get the less change I want. But if we don't change, we're not going to attract new. generational people, whether it's Gen C's or whatever label you want to put on each group of people. And sometimes church planting is the easiest way to do that. Because I do think I have to respect the ones, because you and I both are standing on the shoulders of people years behind us. We wouldn't be here if they hadn't sacrificed, if they hadn't taken chances, if they hadn't grown. And I believe God wants us to honor that. So it's not like I should go around just change every church. What I think is sometimes there's two lanes. There's one for this and there's lanes for us to keep moving forward so that we're attracting a different generation of people. I think that's probably the biggest reason we need to replant because it gives us new life. ⁓ And new life is exciting and it should be exciting in the district. ⁓ I can remember when my ⁓ first daughter was born. But I also remember when my first grandson was born. And I really remember when my first great-grandson was born. And if I think about that as a church. I still love my daughter. But I'm going to tell you, my great-grandson's pretty special. Do you see what I'm saying? My daughter is never going to be my great-grandson. She can't be. First of all, she's female, not male like my great-grandson is. I mean, you know, she's 48 years old and he's five years old. Yeah, it would be. But we're willing to celebrate that in every aspect of life except the church. And so what we do in the church, we'll say,

speaker-0: No word, wouldn't it?

speaker-1: Well, why are you spending all that money in the new church? Why aren't you out here helping us? Well, what if my daughter, every time that I went and bought my great-grandson a present, she said, Dad, that's not fair. I'm your daughter. Why aren't you spending that money on me? Let's think in a minute. That's exactly what we do in the church, but we don't live that way. What I tell my daughter is, I raised you well, you've got a good job, you're on your own. I'm gonna help take care of this little one now, he needs my help. And he's gonna now grow up another family. But we're not willing to let that same cycle happen in the church. Does that make sense?

speaker-0: Yeah, it does. It does. And so, so what What is where we're getting ready to kind of close in on this, but before we get to our final segment, ⁓ here's the thing I want to move into. I want to move into kind of a challenge ⁓ that you have, Doug, to give the listeners some like boots on the ground direction. Because if you could give every pastor and lay leader in Indiana South ⁓ District a homework assignment for the month of January, right? So ⁓ we've talked about all of these different lanes. We've talked about being a family. We ⁓ talked about helping each other. ⁓ But if you could give them a homework assignment for the month of January, what would it be for this month?

speaker-1: Ahem. Probably the most important question you've asked, honestly, today. And I'm gonna make it really simple. Do a soul check. Where are you? Where are you? Because God can't bless your ministry in 2026 if you're not there yet. So if we're gonna start the year outright. Why don't we start out by saying, God, will you show me my weaknesses so that I can improve on? God, would you show me how I can love you more? ⁓ Lots of times even in my prayer, my devotions, I said, God, look in the very corners of my heart. Because I really want God to scrape around and make sure that there's nothing wrong. I'm human, just like you are, and just like everybody else across the district. But if I had one homework assignment for every pastor, there would be two things. Come to terms with your call and do a soul check. because the church that you're leading will probably never be any closer to God than you are. And so we have to ask ourselves a question. Are you willing to allow your congregation only be as close to God as you are right now? And we have to answer that question. because we are the leader, God's put us in charge, we're the spiritual leader, we're not the dictator, we're the spiritual leader. And leaders lead, they don't drive, they lead. And we lead by example. If we want our church to pray, we've to pray first. If we want our church to serve, we have to serve first. If we want our church to do work, we have to do the work first. They have to imitate us as we imitate Christ. The reason we have unhealthy churches today across America is because we have men and women that are filling a job opening instead of filling a calling. And I believe that with all that I've learned. And the longer I'm in ministry and the longer I'm in district-type ministry, I believe that even with...

speaker-0: And that is exactly what I mean exactly spot on to what we're going to close with on the pulse check because we endeavor we're going to end every episode of the circuit with a segment called the pulse check. And this is where we kind of look at the internal ⁓ vitality of our leaders. So Doug. ⁓ going off of what you just said, which was so good. What is taking the temperature of our own souls in the hardest part of leadership? In your view, what is the primary sign of a healthy spiritual pulse in a leader? And how do you know if you are personally healthy?

speaker-1: I don't know. Can I just be honest? I don't know. I'm working on that as myself. I wish Chuck that it was a one, two, three, because I could do those three things and check them off and then I could say I'm healthy. I really think that it comes down to this. And I think we don't focus on this enough. And I don't even know if this is the right answer, but this is what I'll tell you. You know, when Jesus was going to the cross and he asked his disciples to go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray with him, you all know the story very well. And Jesus goes off by himself. And I believe if we're just honest, the human side of Jesus did not want to go to a cross, or he wouldn't have to pray through that. mean the God's side knew, he knew he was going to die first, he knew he was going to have to his life up, and he knew that intellectually. And I think we know some things intellectually. but we're not really willing to welcome out. And the only thing I know for sure about this is that, and I got to do this often, but as Jesus did pray, the Bible tells us that his sweat was as drops of blood. He was in agony. And he asked God to take the father to take this cut from him, the cross. But he finally said with blood running out of his pores saying, but father, not my will be yours. I even ask you today, do you understand really what that is? I don't think I do. And I don't know that I think that I'm striving to get there. But how do I get to the place that I'm saying, God, I just give it a hundred percent. I mean, it's one thing for me to say it intellectually. It's another thing for me to do it emotionally and spiritually. Because I know that's what I got to do. I know that's what God desires, but I don't know how to get there. Other than I just got to keep going back to that, got to keep going back. I got to continue going and saying, not my little fool. But I also think that there's times that I have to just admit, help my unbelief. It helped me unbelieve. That's what one of the disciples said, Jesus help me. But I want it. I believe in you. But man, I'm struggling getting there. so I would say is that the sign of a healthy leader probably is how often do we go to the Garden of Destiny. I them. And I would tell you that I don't go off of them now. And honestly, sitting here just talking to you, there's a little bit of heartfelt guilt because I don't do it enough. But I think that is a sign of healthiness that we're willing to say, God, I haven't done it enough, but I'll do better.

speaker-0: Yeah, man, kind of give me chills here. It's like the Holy Spirit is working through this. It's so good. ⁓ know, Doug, thanks for leading us and being a leader for all of us around this district and the counties and for being our first guest here on the circuit. And it's to be good going forward to everyone listening in those 46 counties. ⁓ We see you. I want you to hear this. ⁓ Doug sees you we see you we're praying for you and we're all in this together, right? So ⁓ This is so good. I I'm excited to get this out next month. It's Christmas right now, but next month and We're diving next month into lane two. All right, and we're gonna be going and talking

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: in link to the Healthy Established Church. We're specifically focusing on the foundation of everything and that's praying first. And Doug is actually going to be back with us for episode two to talk about praying first. ⁓ thanks for joining us today. Hey, we look forward to being with you again. Doug, thank you again for all and we will see you next time on the circuit.

speaker-1: Thank you.