Lately I have been daydreaming about opening a BBQ Tri Tip food truck. When Beth and I lived in Hawaii there was a little shop that would set up a tent outside the grocery store. They would chop up the steak into little cubes; you would pay for it by the gram like Mongolian BBQ or cocaine. They would put it in a little styrofoam container with some rice. That business model always appealed to me, they did really well. I can cook a mean steak. A few years ago I bought an infrared grill that cooks at 1500 degrees. I had heard of that type of grill after my first and only time eating at Ruth’s Chris. I can cook a trip tip roast to a perfect medium rare in 22 minutes. Melt in your mouth… mmmm… I think I’m going to get a roast tonight…
For 10 years I worked as a pastor. I was about 3 years into being a pastor when I stopped saying, “we just need to get past *this event* and then things will slow down a bit.” It never slowed down. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. It’s just that the job of a pastor will never end. There is always another event. There is always another program. There is always another crisis that you are needed in. But even in that never-ending cycle of doing stuff for God there were milestones. We work hard to put on an event, we put the event on and we see the results of that event… good or bad. A lot of being a pastor is immeasurable. But there are pieces that are.
While there are still elements of what a pastor does in my current role, my primary job is not putting on events, running programs, and mentoring high school students. A little over one year into this journey with Generation Echo I am realizing more and more that in this current season, there are almost zero things that I am doing that are measurable. The finish line for Generation Echo is a moving goal post. Every possible missionary. Every mission organization. Every unreached people group. There are so many factors that go into each of them.
Some potential missionaries I speak to are ready to go right now. Some will go through my first 6 month cohort and then bail. Some will go through the whole 1 year program we built and still need more time discerning, some will be ready to go. Some mission orgs have denominational ties. Some only work in certain regions. Some use business professionals for their mission. Some require degrees, some don’t. Some Unreached People Groups are open to missionaries. Some must be reached by locals.
All of those are like tectonic plates shifting alongside one another. There is friction and tremors. It is truly a challenging situation.
The temptation is to view each of those people as problems to solve… and not the image bearers of God called uniquely to accomplish a mission that God has prepared for them before the foundation of the world.
If Generation Echo is going to be successful we must treat every person we interact with with the dignity of maintaining their humanity by not turning them into a number or process or program.
I get why steaks are so appealing to me. Every roast is a task that can be completed in a set time. It’s predictable. It’s controllable.
I don’t have a lot in my life that is like that right now.
I want that in my life.
But the nature of the beast that I have created for myself is that I cannot have it right now.
I even think about my goals for 2026…
- 7 missionary applications submitted
- 7 people moved to the “Connected” stage
- 10 university partnerships solidified
- 10 church partnerships solidified
- 10 organization partnerships activated
- 24 pillar videos published
- 1,000 average 30-day views per video
- 24 speaking engagements booked
- 40 discernment calls
- 200 new Discord joins
On paper, it looks clean.
Ten. Twenty-four. Forty. Two hundred.
Numbers I can track.
Numbers I can measure.
Numbers I can chase.
This is a tri tip at 22 minutes in the infrared grill.
But it’s not.
Its people. People with lives and problems and questions and doubts. And if this is not handled with care those tectonic plates are going to collide into one another and people are going to get hurt.
I wish I knew how to end this thing. I wish I could say I am on track to hit those goals. I wish I could say that I have always treated people as people.
I want to continue to pursue leading this ministry the Jesus way. I want to fight the temptation to turn people into numbers and programs and events. I want to not worry about my lack of control. I want to embrace the chaos that involves the beautiful work of the person.
I want to steward people with surrender rather than control outcomes with systems.
Jesus, would you help me do this the way you want me to.
