If you are reading this , you have survived one of the most chaotic and tumultuous years that humanity has ever experienced . The difficulties of the COVID pandemic , the divisions from racial and political polarization and the disengagement we have all felt from people especially within the church world . You have discovered that the news is not your friend , social media is incredibly loud and that the differentiation between truth and lies has become a gray area known as normal .
As I have talked with pastors and church leaders throughout the United States , the majority of churches are experiencing a return rate of less than 40 % of people who were previously engaged in worship service and / or small group attendance . There are thousands of churches who have closed their doors permanently and there are countless non-profits and ministries who have put their dream and calling on a shelf in hopes of better days . Every leader I have spoken to and know would readily admit that quitting has crossed their mind and that the future seems more bleak than before . It feels like there is an absence of hope for leaders these days and few know how to move forward . It seems that leaders have bought into the lie that our circumstances dictate our success and that we are stuck reacting to conditions rather than creating our own .
When I started writing my book Rise Above the Lies back in 2018 , I had no idea that we would be in this situation . I was a passionate church planter and pastor who had experienced incredible success in the first 5 years of our church . What started as a small group of nine people in my living room had grown into a multi-site church with hundreds of people being baptized each year while making a massive impact missionally in our city ! The motivation behind the book was to magnify the many lessons I learned as an entrepreneur and leader . It ’ s a book that details how as leaders we operate with a certain set of beliefs and that these beliefs are what determine our behavior . While most of these beliefs serve us well as leaders , there are also times when these beliefs get distorted and shaped into lies that negatively affect our performance . These negative implications come with consequences that cause pain and frustration . Inadvertently , we end up limiting our leadership by these distortions , or lies , we believe . When truth gets distorted and embraced as a belief , the actions that follow have devastating consequences . This process is seen most clearly in the Adam and Eve account that we find in Genesis 2 and that I elaborate on in my book .
“ The creation account found in the Bible tells the story of God creating the very first people , Adam and Eve . They were a perfect couple with the world at their fingertips . A beautiful garden . A plethora of animals . Fruits and vegetables aplenty . Just imagine a beautiful oasis with warm sunshine , cool air , birds chirping , and a river with the subtle sounds of rushing water — like a scene from one of those Sandals Resorts commercials that is so perfect it appears to be fake . Adam and Eve are newlyweds , completely naked , hanging out in paradise . It doesn ’ t get much better than that . They had it all . Life was good . Until it all came crashing down .
We ’ re told that Satan appeared in the form of a serpent one afternoon and asked just one question of Eve : “ Did God really say , ‘ You must not eat from any tree in the garden ?’” Eve replied with the clear instructions that God had given to her and her husband . They could eat of any
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