MUST READ: A Culture of Yes: How to Lead from Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

Illustrtion by Thomas Fluharty

Many pastors have confronted the limitations of their settings so often that a “culture of can’t” cripples their thoughts. Must this be the plight of the smaller congregation?

I wanted to dunk a basketball. After hours of watching Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — the stars of my childhood — prove that dunking a basketball shaped the path to athletic stardom, I was convinced that the ability to play above the rim would give me that treasured spot on my high school team.

So I spent hours jumping. I could not enter a room without testing to see if I could scrape my fingers on its ceiling. I exercised my fingers, seeking to expand them to the length necessary to grip a basketball in a way that I could achieve my acrobatic aerial goals.

Unfortunately, I was the smallest kid in my class. Even after hours of hanging on the swing set bars at a nearby park in an effort to stretch my tiny frame, it was clear I would fall at least a foot short of my goal of being 6’ 10” tall. If my dreams truly hinged on dunking a basketball, then I had only nightmares of disappointment ahead. Over time, reality sunk in. I faced the harsh conclusion that I could not, did not, and would not ever be able to dunk a basketball.

Early in my first pastorate, a wonderful collection of about 75 redeemed folks in a small Kansas town, I struggled with similar disappointment. No, the church basketball team was not lacking a post player; I might have been the best athlete in the congregation. But we were a long way from where I wanted us to be, and my dreams for the church seemed as far away as that 10-foot rim. Read more