I didn’t want to go to church Sunday. And I certainly didn’t want to preach. As I lay in bed comfortable under the covers, I wrestled for 15 minutes with the decision to get up.

I could call in sick.

One of our associates was preaching in our chapel service, and he could preach in the main auditorium too.

I’ve never bailed at the last minute before. Our executive pastor would be OK with it.

It’s not that I don’t feel called to preach. But it had been a heavy week: Sermon planning for all of 2019. A death in the family of a good friend followed immediately by the death of a longtime member in our church. People close to me wrestling with worrisome health issues.

It would be a good morning to sleep. It would be a good afternoon to sleep.

Videographer and You Tube sensation Casey Neistat (more than 10 million subscribers!) puts it this way: “Don’t let perfection get in the way of good enough. Story is always king. Four good enough shots that tell the story are better than the perfect shot that misses the story.”

I first met Scott in Colorado as we both stepped into a mentor group that would begin to shift and change both of us as leaders. I have always described him as the most down to earth man with the most amazing leadership. When you hang with Scott he is like any other guy on the surface. He is funny, sarcastic, loving, self-deprecating (in the best of ways), and yet he drops the nuggets of gold that you start to take notice of.

I preached at our church Sunday morning—it was my first Sunday on the platform after being away for a month. “We could totally tell you were fresh and ready to get back,” somebody said to me that morning. And they were right.

Soon after I started here, our elders instituted this annual break. “If you’re going to be in this ministry for the long haul, you can’t do 50 weeks a year, even 40,” they told me. “You need time to be alone, to rest, to be with your family.”

I’m so thankful for their wisdom.

On this episode we sit down with Christon Gray. He is an amazing man who loves using his gifts in the music world to bring hope to the church and the world around him. His influence has reached into Hollywood, the NBA, the NFL, and the mainstream music market. He is signed with RCA Records and has new music set to drop this fall.