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6 Foundational Convictions for a Healthy Church

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Building a Better Life

You tend to base your decisions on one of four motivations in life: circumstances, conveniences, criticisms, or convictions. Yet only decisions that are based on your convictions will last and leave a lasting legacy. The people who have made the greatest impact on this world, for good or bad, are those who had the deepest convictions. They weren’t necessarily the smartest people, the brightest people, the most educated, the wealthiest, or even the most famous. If you’re going to build convictions, you need to build them on something that’s going to last. Everything changes. Fads change, fashions change. Psychology changes. Even science textbooks change. We keep learning more and more. There’s only one thing that never changes. That is the truth of God. If it was true a thousand years ago, it will be true today and it will be true a thousand years from tomorrow because truth does not change. The Bible says this in Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever” (NLT). Saddleback Church has been built on six biblical convictions that are all based on God’s eternal Word. I’m willing to go to the mat for all six convictions. Here they are.

1. It’s all about God.

It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s not about profit, politics, or anything else. It’s all about God. Until you understand that, life and ministry are never going to make sense. In Romans 11:36, the Bible says, "For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory" (NLT). What’s the implication of that? If it’s all about God, and it’s not all about making money or being popular or anything else the world thinks is important, then the implication is that it is more important to love God than anything else. It’s my very first priority. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-38, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (NIV).

2. Only the church will last forever.

Nothing on earth will last forever—no business, government, or nation. But the church will. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (NLT). A thousand years from today, there may not be a United States of America. No nation lasts forever—no empire lasts forever. Where’s the Roman Empire today? Where’s the Greek Empire? A thousand years from today, there probably won’t be a Microsoft. A thousand years from today, even many of our good Christian organizations will be gone. Nothing man-made lasts. Nothing but the church. I'll give my entire life to serve the church—Saddleback and the global Body of Christ. That matters more to me than anything else in the world. All of our staff tithes their time. That means 10 percent of our time goes to help other churches. We’re not in this just for our church. Over the years we’ve trained more than 400,000 pastors from 163 countries. What does this conviction mean for you and me? If we’re all going to live together forever, we'd better get along. It’s not enough just to love God. You must love the church—despite all of our differences. The Bible says Christ died for the church, the whole church, anyone who has made Jesus Lord of his or her life. Love is more important than personal differences in the family of God. Love is more important than political differences. We need to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

3. God expects me to love everybody else too.

I don’t know if you see the pattern here, but it’s all about love. Life is not about the acquisition of things. It’s not about achievement. It’s not about popularity. It’s about learning how to love. If you miss that, you miss the lesson of life. God is love. And he says the most important thing is to love him. The second most important thing is in Mark 12:31, “The second most important commandment is this: Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (GW). So who is our neighbor? That’s not a new question. It was asked right after Jesus said this. That’s when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The short answer is everybody is your neighbor. There is nobody you’re allowed to not love on this earth. That means you’re to love the unlovely, those who are different, difficult—and even dangerous. You’re supposed to love everyone. It’s easy to love people who agree with you. It’s easy to love people who are cool. And it’s easy to love people who are safe. But God says that he wants you to take it even further. He says we’re to love even our enemies (Luke 6:35). It’s tough to love people who are treating you poorly—or love someone who believes something totally antithetical to what the Bible teaches. But God says we’re to love even our enemies.

4. The whole world needs Jesus.

The whole Bible testifies to this, particularly the Great Commission. In it, Jesus tells us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19-20 NIV). Does it say, go and make disciples of some nations? No. All nations. Does that include Syria? Yes. Does that include North Korea? Yes. Does that include Iran? Yes. No nation is off limits. As Christians, we report to a higher authority—Jesus Christ. I’m not a politician; I’m a pastor. If Iran opens the door, I’m going. There is no place I won’t go. I’d go into hell if I could bring people out with me. There is no place I would not go. If the whole world needs Jesus, then we have to share the Good News. To keep it a secret would be criminal. If you knew the cure for a dreaded disease—like cancer or AIDS—and you didn’t share it, that would be criminal. We have something better than that. We know the cure for the human heart. We know the cure for the deepest needs of mankind. We need our past forgiven, a purpose for living, and a home in heaven—we need Jesus. You may be a pastor, yet you’ve never made this truth your own. It’ll change your life. How? First, it’ll change your priorities. You no longer live for yourself; you’re living for Jesus. Then your perspective changes. You no longer regard people the way you used to. They’re not objects; they’re priceless souls that Jesus shed his precious blood for. They’re worthwhile and they’re valuable. I don’t care if the person is a drug addict in the alley, he or she is valuable to God. We must look at people not as objects but with a broken heart.

5. Everything is possible with God.

The Bible says, “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:26 NIV). Why did we launch the P.E.A.C.E. Plan? What makes us think that Saddleback Church could lead hundreds of thousands of other churches to go after the five biggest problems on the planet? The answer is we have a big God. Jesus also said: “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29 NIV). You know what the implication is? God’s waiting on you. God is waiting for you to trust him. God wants to use you. He wants to bless you. He wants to do amazing things in your life. He wants you to be a world changer. You just need to stop saying, “I can’t.” That’s a lie. All things are possible to him who believes God. God gets the most glory when we trust him for the impossible.

6. History’s conclusion is inevitable.

I believe this with all my heart. It’s a fait accompli. It’s done. It’s finished. There’s no doubt. I’ve read the final chapter. The Bible tells us how it’s going to end. One day, God’s going to wrap it all up here on earth and he’s going to take his children who've trusted him to heaven for ever and ever. In Matthew 24 the Bible says, “The Good News about (God’s) Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it, and then, finally, the end will come” (TLB). It’s a certainty. Fellow pastors, we are not trying to bring in the Kingdom here on earth. It’s not going to happen here on earth. What we are trying to do is populate the Kingdom of Heaven. We want to take all our friends and everybody else with us. We want to get people into the Kingdom of Heaven, where they’re going to be for eternity. These six convictions of mine are behind everything we do at Saddleback and everything I say. It’s all about God’s glory. God gets glory when I love him with all my heart. He gets glory when I love you and other people in the family of God. God gets glory when I love my neighbor and the people I’m least likely to love. He gets glory when I love my enemy and when I treat them with dignity and respect even though they disrespect me. God gets glory when I share the Good News with everybody. God gets glory when I trust him with problems in my life that cannot be solved except through a miracle. And God gets glory when I know and trust that the end is inevitable and, in the end, he wins.

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Five Ways to Slow Down Before You Burn Out

There have been times when I thought I was too busy to take time off. It never worked.You don’t have to be a prophet to know that technology has made three things happen in the world: It has made the world smaller, more complex, and faster. You live a much faster lifestyle than your parents did. Your children will live an even faster lifestyle than you do.As you and I know, pastors aren’t immune to these time pressures. With meetings, ever-shrinking sermon preparation time, and a crowded pastoral care schedule, our office calendars can stay full if we’re not careful. Then we get home and rush our kids to after-school events, grab a quick dinner, run to the hospital, go home, jump in bed, and hope there are no late-night phone calls.We can identify with what a USA Today article once said about life for many people: “Today people are souped up, stressed out, and overscheduled. In this brave new world, boundaries between work and family are disappearing. Everybody is mobile, and every moment is scheduled.”The Bible tells us that hurry, worry, and scurry have dramatic negative effects on our lives and ministries. If you’re serious about slowing your life down to a more humane pace, you’re going to have to make five countercultural changes to your lifestyle.1. Learn contentment. It starts in the heart. Paul says this about contentment: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12 NIV). Contentment isn’t part of human nature—for pastors or for anyone else! We want life to be different—better. But we can’t slow down our lives unless we start being content with what we have.Contentment doesn’t mean you don’t want your church to grow. It doesn’t mean you don’t go after your God-given vision for your church. It just means a bigger church won’t make you any happier. Your relationship with Christ is where you find your true joy. Until you come to that conclusion, you won’t slow down.2. Obey the fourth commandment. Most of us would bristle if we were told that we were consistently breaking the Ten Commandments. But, pastor, many of us are. Remember the fourth commandment? We're supposed to take one day off every week. Are you doing that? For most of us, that’s not Sunday. We’re preaching, meeting with people, and overseeing worship services—we’re not resting. It doesn’t matter which day it is, but we need a day off.During the times that I’ve worked constantly—without taking time off—things always just got worse. I became more irritated with my family. I became more tired. And I didn’t get as much done. It was so prideful of me to think that what I was doing at that moment was more important than listening to what God said about how he made me.I know a pastor who had a church member get mad at him because he tried to call him several times on Monday and couldn’t get ahold of him. The pastor said, “Sorry, but that’s my day off.” The member said, “The devil doesn’t take a day off.” And the pastor replied, “You’re right. And if I didn’t, I’d be just like the devil.”3. Pause and pray before deciding. Stop and pray about the decisions you make on a regular basis. That doesn’t mean you wait a year before deciding something. I’m talking about 10 to 15 seconds. As you sit in an elders’ meeting or a counseling session, ask, “God, what do you want me to do in this instance?”How does this help you slow down? You’re pausing to get perspective. Perspective is what helps you make wise decisions. Most of us just want to make decisions faster, but it’s perspective that really makes better decisions.4. Learn to say no. You can’t keep adding things to your schedule without eliminating other things. Every time you add a new activity to your schedule, you need to take something else off the calendar. Whenever I used to see one of my mentors, Peter Drucker, he would say, “Don’t tell me what new thing you’re doing. Tell me what you’ve stopped doing.” The mark of leadership is knowing what not to do.Most of us have a hard time saying no to opportunities. So ask yourself two questions every time you’re given a new opportunity:Is it worth it? With every opportunity, you need to ask yourself whether it’s worth your energy, effort, reputation, and ultimately, your time. Your time is your life, and you need to decide whether the new opportunity is worth a portion of your life.What am I going to give up? You can’t just keep adding, adding, and adding. You have to give something up to take hold of a new opportunity. What will it be?5. Trust God’s timing. Impatience is often why we hurry. But impatience is simply a lack of trust. When you’re impatient, you’re saying, “God, I don’t really trust you. I don’t think you have my best interest at heart. You don’t know when I need it, and I’m in a hurry.” Is fast always better? No, it’s not.God has a plan for your life. You know that. But he also has a timetable for your life—and for your church, for that matter. Unfortunately, God never explains his timetable. And that can be frustrating! At Saddleback, we waited for years to get our own land and our own building. I couldn’t understand God’s timing. But God knew exactly what he was doing. Our church campus is visible from one of the busiest freeways in our community—a freeway that didn’t exist when we first started looking for land. That’s God’s timing.It’s painful when you’re in a hurry and God’s not. But it’s part of maturing and growing up. Children have to learn the difference between “no” and “not yet,” and we have to learn that too as we follow God’s lead. God knows the right time and the right way. He has a plan and a timetable.Ministry is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. God doesn’t want you to burn out. Whether you’re 30 or 70, he has purposes he wants to complete through you—and burnout won’t help you be ready for that work. Learning to slow down might be the most important ministry skill you learn this year.

Lead without Fear—the Lord Is for You

“The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 NLT)Pastor, God is calling you to be a promise person—someone who chooses to focus on him and his promises even when ministry gets tough.If you’re leading anything that truly matters, criticism will come. People may misunderstand your decisions, question your motives, or resist your leadership. It’s part of shepherding people toward spiritual growth.But you don’t have to focus on the naysayers or the challenges that come with leadership. Focus instead on the Lord and his promises.Jesus modeled this perfectly: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23 NIV).When criticism comes, resist the urge to defend yourself or vent your frustration. Instead, entrust yourself—and your ministry—to God. Pray, “Lord, I know you love me. I know you called me. I’m going to trust you with both the work and the outcome.”That’s the kind of mindset David had when he wrote, “The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 NLT). You don’t need anyone else’s approval to keep serving faithfully. The Lord is for you, and his opinion is the one that matters most.In the Message paraphrase, David says, “I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart” (Psalm 119:11). That’s the secret to staying steady when criticism or fatigue sets in: Keep storing up God’s promises until they outweigh the voices of doubt.So this week, take time to meditate on God’s promises. Write them down. Memorize them. Remind yourself that your worth and success come from his call, not from anyone’s applause.The Lord is for you. Trust his promises—and lead with courage and peace.

Trust God’s Promises as You Lead

“The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 NLT)Pastor, God is calling you to be a promise person—someone who chooses to focus on him and his promises even when ministry gets tough.When you’re leading something that truly matters, criticism will come. People may misunderstand your decisions, question your motives, or resist your leadership. It’s part of shepherding people toward spiritual growth.But you don’t have to focus on the naysayers or the challenges that come with leadership. Focus instead on the Lord and his promises.Jesus modeled this perfectly: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23 NIV).When criticism comes, resist the urge to defend yourself or vent your frustration. Instead, entrust yourself—and your ministry—to God. Pray, “Lord, I know you love me. I know you’ve called me. I’m going to trust you with both the work and the outcome.”David understood this when he wrote, “The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 NLT). You don’t need anyone else’s approval to keep serving faithfully. The Lord is for you, and his opinion is the one that matters most.In the Message paraphrase, David said, “I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart” (Psalm 119:11). That’s the secret to staying steady when criticism or fatigue sets in—keep storing up God’s promises until they outweigh the voices of doubt.So this week, take time to meditate on God’s promises. Write them down. Memorize them. Remind yourself that your worth and success come from his call, not from anyone’s applause.The Lord is for you. Trust his promises—and lead with courage and peace.

The Art of Delegation in Ministry

Read any book on time management, and you’ll find this advice about delegating: You can’t do everything. The quickest way to burn out is to try to be Superman.Your highest calling as a pastor is to shepherd the spiritual health and growth of your people. If you’re all wrapped up in who’s printing the bulletins and who’s staffing the nursery, you’ll get sidetracked from your primary calling. Delegation helps you keep ministry and administration in balance.Leading with Limited ResourcesDuring the early years of Saddleback Church, I realized I needed someone who could handle administrative details—someone who could carry out the vision daily. So we brought on an executive pastor, whose gifts in administration and organization helped our church thrive.If your church has the resources to add someone like that, do it. But if you don’t, equip gifted volunteers to fill those gaps.At Saddleback, we used the acronym SHAPE to help place people in ministry:- Spiritual Gifts- Heart- Abilities- Personality- ExperiencesOnce you know a person’s SHAPE, you can delegate tasks confidently and give them freedom to accomplish goals creatively.Keys to Delegating EffectivelyI’ve found three simple keys that have helped me delegate well:Break down major goals into smaller tasks. When we started Saddleback, everyone had a specific job. One person managed the bulletins; another set up the nursery. Everyone had ownership.Develop clear job descriptions. People deserve to know what’s expected of them.Match the right person with the right task. The wrong person in the wrong role can kill motivation. The right match brings joy and productivity.Delegation is more than passing off work. It’s about understanding the task, knowing people’s strengths, and setting them free to use their creativity.Equipping People for MinistryAt Saddleback, we had great volunteer teams that modeled this kind of shared ministry. One team helped research stories and examples for my sermons; another created executive summaries of books to lighten my load. These ministries weren’t my idea—they were theirs. That’s the power of delegation. When leaders trust others, they unlock creativity and energy that no single person could generate alone.As pastors, we’re not called to do all the ministry ourselves. Every believer is a minister. Our role is to identify each person’s SHAPE and help them use it in service to God. That’s when we most closely follow Jesus’ example of servant leadership.

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