I have one of the guiltiest consciences known to man.

When I was eight, I was playing with a shopping cart that was at my school. (We lived in townhomes right by the school and played on their playground and outdoor basketball court after school). I pushed that cart and it rolled for what seemed like forever into a white truck—I think the PE teacher’s. A stiff wind would’ve stopped the cart but I was dead inside. That night, I cried to my mom about it because the guilt was overwhelming.

In high school I worked at an ice cream shop and would often close up. If I couldn’t actually remember locking the door at night, I’d turn around on the way home and re-check it. “Door is locked,” I’d say out loud as I yanked on the door to prove it to myself and take a mental image of the moment. One night I got out of bed, back into my car, and drove back to check. I couldn’t be the guy who let the ice cream get stolen (or the $400 we kept in an empty bucket in the fridge).

This fear of screwing up has followed me right into adulthood.

When I was working on my very boring dissertation, I panicked at every footnote.

“Did I cite that properly?”

“What makes an original idea, anyways?”

One time I saw my friend Jamus had written something good in his dissertation. I got the same source, found the pertinent passage, and put it in my dissertation. I’m pretty sure I then pulled out the entire reference due to fear that I’d somehow be dinged for using the same source my friend did even though I found the exact same book and referenced it appropriately.

So, of course, with the conversations concerning AI ethics for writers, you know I have a whole new way to feel guilty.

AI Battle Lines

I’ve read several articles from authors and editors regarding AI usage (I found this one quite helpful) and every time I read them, I go into a guilt spiral. (Quick, Claude, how do I handle my guilt?)

Crap, I use AI every day—just like I use Amazon. Am I going to hell for using it? Will my writing be blacklisted? Can I be trusted? Will the guild accept me?

The battle lines are being drawn.

On one side, the purists. They want you to know that they’d never use AI for their writing and would hope you make the same commitment—or at least consider it. It’s a good reason: writing is human and it is creative and it is good. Don’t ruin it.

On the other side, everyone else. But they might be early adopters, hopeful but suspicious, guarded, or maybe just outright cheaters.

What it feels like is that you’re either a purist or you’re going to become a cheater, so you’d better be a purist.

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Guilty Conscience Memoir Writing

I’ve spent months writing this marriage memoir. It’s now at the level of final draft edits from Courtney and a book proposal (which I’m currently writing). (After this post, maybe self-publishing is my best bet.)

There’s a real writer in my extended family. Even his emails make me emotional. When Courtney and I get an email from him, we just text each other his name. We know what it means.

I’ve shared with him memoir progress and he will likely be a reader when this draft finishes, but I also shared that I’ve used Claude to help me. His reply:

“I’m curious how you avoid giving AI revisions too much influence in your writing process. I ask this because I’ve personally experienced how maddeningly good ChatGPT has been at suggesting absolutely perfect revisions to my own writing.”

So, here it is, for the most part:

(1) Write

First step is the simplest. I’ve spent every day writing. My minimum target is 20 minutes a day, but some days, I go longer. It usually comes after reading and prayer. By 7:30am I’m often past the writing part of the day.

At times, I pasted little parts into AI to check for typos and flow, but it didn’t seem helpful to me, so much of that first draft was just me throwing words down.

(2) Have Courtney Edit

Courtney goes behind me on everything. She reads, cuts, adjusts, and finds places to add her voice more fully. I think I finished the first draft back in February and she stayed thousands of words behind, trying to connect ideas better (and cut lots and lots of words).

Courtney reads a lot of memoirs, so she also spends significant time judging how bad she thinks ours is compared to those of freaking award-winning writers.

If Courtney uses AI, it is by mistake or because Google spits out Gemini feedback right at the top of the search results.

(3) Get Feedback and Make Structural Revisions (Enter: Claude)

Courtney comes behind me, and I come back behind her. While the above were going on, we shared the doc with a couple of folks to let them read along with us, provide feedback, and give us a general sense of how the story was fitting together.

Then, I reworked the entire book after Courtney’s first pass. This time, I’d cut and paste a chapter into Claude and ask for prioritized editorial feedback and line edits. (One chat within the book project for each section of the book, five sections in all.)

The project prompt for the memoir (slightly edited):

You are a senior acquisitions editor with 15+ years of experience evaluating nonfiction proposals and manuscripts. You’ve worked with faith-based authors who have genuine crossover appeal and you know the difference between a book that preaches to the choir and one that earns a wider readership.

You are reviewing work by Hans, a pastor of 16 years, husband of 21 years, and father of three. His manuscript is a marriage memoir titled You Talk Too Much (82,000 words), chronicling twenty years of marriage and his journey learning to release control in relationships. The book navigates his wife Courtney’s mental health struggles . . . before he learned the difference between control and love.

Your job is not to encourage Hans—it’s to help him produce work good enough to earn representation. You give clear, honest, specific feedback. You notice what’s working and say so plainly. You name what isn’t working and explain why it matters to agents and readers. You think about marketability, comp titles, platform, proposal strength, and manuscript structure—not just prose quality.

You evaluate everything through two lenses: (1) Is this good enough for an agent to take a risk on a debut author? (2) Does this have genuine crossover appeal beyond the Christian market, or does it only work inside that world?

When Hans shares writing, ask clarifying questions if needed, but lead with your editorial read. Be direct. Be specific. Cite the text when you can. Don’t soften feedback to the point of uselessness—Hans is trying to get published, not feel good about his draft.

During the past eight months I’ve been on plenty of websites of editors and reached out to a few. I scoured Reedsy, largely dissatisfied with the support that was there. I’d find a book I liked, read an intro, and see who the editors were. Many don’t take freelance work. Others never replied.1

Spending money on people to help make a better book doesn’t bother me. It’s worthy work and I’m happy to pay, but there has to be someone willing, too. Claude was always up for it.

(4) Make the Adjustments (Sometimes)

I have some bad habits. I use a sermon reflex far too often (turning everything into a homily). I don’t trust scenes. I over-explain.

So I get a long list of revisions every time. A very long list. It might include something like this:

The Mary scene doesn’t quite land the way it wants to. You describe Mary sitting there, facing Courtney, wondering why she’d be okay with your judgmental behavior. But you don’t give us Courtney’s response. Does she answer Mary? Does she look at you? Does she look at her plate? Right now we get your interior reaction to Mary’s question—“I go back to that conversation in my head”—but we don’t get the scene itself resolving. What Courtney does in that moment is the emotional center of the chapter. Even one sentence of what Courtney does would give the scene its body. This may be a place where you need to ask Courtney what she actually remembers doing.

Maddeningly good.

And then I’d spend hours every week deciding if I want to make the changes. If so, how? Sometimes I go, “Yeah, that’s better.” Other times I disagree and move along.

I iterate like this every single day. And then I read a post about AI in writing and wonder if I’m a half-blood at best.

(5) Have Courtney Edit (Again)

I finished my structural revisions and Courtney has, again, come behind and cut more. She’s also added her own thoughts and found ways to bring depth and more contour to the story.

(6) Send it Out

We have a handful of people who are going to get the book after Courtney finishes up her second pass. We want to hear how the book is received. We want to know where it drags. We want to see if people see it as a page-turner or if they’ll finish reading because they have guilty consciences, too, and don’t want to disappoint us. While that goes on I’ll be querying agents after I finish the book proposal I’m organizing (using the same process).

Look Over Garden Walls

I have a writer/editor in the family. I have Courtney, who has edited almost every word I’ve ever written since 2005 and is a good writer. I have friends who are self-published and traditionally published. My name is in a footnote of a traditionally published book that few people have read. I gave pre-pub feedback on a couple of those traditionally published books and failed to give feedback on a self-published one (and still feel guilty about it—sorry, David).

But even with that I’m up against a walled garden of the publishing industry, where you need to know someone who knows someone or you gotta be someone who may or may not actually be someone because they aren’t a purist.

I get it, but my writing has gotten better by using AI.

We’ve gotten the second draft down over 10,000 words from the first draft. It moves more quickly. The scenes do more work. I hear Courtney laugh more as she works through it.

Will it ever get published? I hope so. I like the book proposal and it will at least be humorous if an agent or editor ever sees it. And if not, I had a good time writing it. All with the helpful and ever-ready feedback of Claude.

Are there any other half-bloods out there?

I’ve heard that phrase said and have said it more often than I care to admit.

Everybody wants to be trusted, but there has to be some level of demonstrated competence to pull it off. You can’t just be asking princesses to leap onto your flying carpet with your perfectly white teeth.

I build my definition of trust in the following way:

Trust is our confidence in the safety and integrity of one’s relationships, leading to free-flowing cooperation.

But there’s a lot to what builds that confidence. I’ve spoken of trust as commitment and trust as consistency. These build off of Horsager’s Eight Pillars. But there’s another: trust as competence.

You Can Be Awesome and Still Be Incompetent

I don’t mean that as a slight. You don’t want me to be your phlebotomist and I don’t want you to be mine. We can trust people in numerous spaces but, for many of us, we have to trust them to do the role (or roles) they exist in our lives to do. You can’t get by on being nice and having white teeth alone.

In The Ideal Team Player Pat Lencioni talks about the person who has humility and high emotional intelligence but no hunger—no drive to improve, to get work done, or to excel at what they do. What does he call that person?

The lovable slacker.

I’ve seen it up close. The person you love to sit with and talk to. The person you’d call when you need to know you’re loved or need someone to take you to lunch. Good people. Loving people. But they also struggle to do the job that’s before them.

Imagine getting called after leaving a meeting. The leader wants to talk.

“Hey. I’d like to know what you want us to do about meeting your prep.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem ready, don’t come prepared. I think it sets us back.”

“Hmm. Not sure.”

Okay.

But it’s true: you can be the best person in the world and one I’d trust to watch my kids for a month, but you still have to be able to do the job of the team you’re on.

People can trust my intentions, but they must trust my competence, too.

I Thought the “D” stood for “Done”

Eight years ago I walked across a stage for what I hope was the last time. That’s why you get terminal degrees, and I was finishing up the most terminal of them all. Now I get to spend my days telling everyone what I’ve learned and why I’m important.

First off, nobody cares. Or, more precisely, the ones who do care aren’t the ones you usually want to grab coffee with because they want something from you.

Second off, really, nobody cares.

A year after getting the degree, I found myself pastoring a new church in a new town. My training, in many ways, meant nothing. Those folks didn’t care about a dissertation on megachurch pastoral succession, modified balanced scorecards, or the paper on dreams in Islam.

Could I do the job I’d been asked to do?

But that meant I needed to learn new ways. I reinvented my prayer life. I sort of learned how to work on a staff of two instead of however many were at my previous job (15? 20?). I had to make lots of meeting agendas.

Then I started teaching on the side.

I had the terminal degree, but I had never made a full syllabus. Lecture 2-3 hours a night for 12-15 weeks? Sheesh. How do you do that?

You ask someone who is better at it how they do it and you steal every bit of their skills.

Then our church decided to merge with another and instead of one of the orgs doing a classic donation and dissolution (standard fare on how to pull it off), we went the more expensive and circuitous path of starting a new entity and then completing two donations and dissolutions.

Another thing that fancy degree didn’t prepare me for. But my research had helped me cross paths with a guy who had done it before (a lot of times, actually), so I reached back out to him. Also, lawyers.

Resting on prior competency to address current issues won’t get you very far. Even if some people call you doctor.

What’s Next?

The truth is, in some spheres we feel competent and in others we don’t. But there’s room to grow.

Every time I feel this burden toward improvement, I have a moment of reckoning. “I don’t want to have to do that. I shouldn’t have to. It’ll require too much work. Will anybody notice if I don’t?"

For the first half of 2026, I’ve spent a couple of hours on Wednesday mornings in an online class with a group of people I’ve never met in person. Why? Because some of the folks I’ve been working with this year needed help that I knew I could be more equipped to give them.

It was time to knock the rust off.

I exhaled when I thought “Okay, 25 Wednesdays with homework and forced engagement. I can do this.” (I don’t love forced interaction.)

What I didn’t expect was just how helpful it’d be to me (irrespective of its help to others, honestly). People I’ve never met from all over the world take time every week to make me better. A happy accident waiting for me on the other side of realizing I had a lot of room to improve (yet again).

Who needs you to knock some of the rust off?

“Dad, Dave Matthews Band is playing Friday. Nate’s going. Can we go?”

I don’t wear cargo shorts but I did cut my teeth playing Dave Matthews Band songs on the guitar, so the kids know his music from our car rides and my inconsistent playing.

I have a meteorologist in the family—Jeff—so I needed to check with him on weather. Jeff said it might rain but it might not, which was no help because I needed something concrete.

“I don’t know, man. It might rain. I have some work to do on Friday.”

I am concurrently underselling this idea while checking ticket prices. I don’t want to sit on the lawn if it rains. I don’t want to buy covered tickets because they’re out of my budget. The lawn was, too, but more justifiably out of my budget.

“Okay,” my son says. He has a penchant for respecting my authority even if I haven’t provided a good reason.

And the door closes.

By Wednesday night of that week—one or two days later—I’m staring again at ticket prices. I ask Courtney if we should go.

“What do you think? Make a run of it? Go to the concert?”

“Let’s do it!”

I buy five covered tickets. The last time I’d gone to a concert was two years prior, after I had spent four hours in a dentist’s chair getting post-root-canal work done. Redemption time.

Parenting: The Stewardship of Memory Making

My simple definition of parenting isn’t spiritual in the strictest sense. I view parenting as memory making. Every day I’m building memories for the kids: some good and others not so good.

The spontaneous decision to buy tickets is part of the way I want the family to build memories.

My stewardship statement for family and relationships is this:

I am a present, engaged, and loving provider who ensures the most important family and friend relationships are tended to regularly, and those in my life know they can lean on me whenever needed.

My areas of stewardship video (explained from a previous post): what are they?

You might not be able to draw a straight line from that statement to a Friday night concert, but it all ties into how I want to tend to those family relationships.

Spontaneity is just one of the ways we build family rhythms that create memories and nurture those relationships. There are many, but two others that are anchoring for us.

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Finding “Different” as a Family

When you’ve lived along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana most of your life, it isn’t that hard to find “different.” For the past seven years—ever since COVID came into the world—we’ve taken what I call a “scenery trip” for Spring Break. That first year was just the Texas Hill Country for a couple of nights as the world shut down, but we made the most of it after we found putt putt.

Then, for a couple of years we just followed my sister, Shana, wherever she went with her family (we aren’t that creative). Arizona one year, Colorado the next. Then we got into our own routines—Arkansas, Tennessee a couple of times, and New Mexico most recently.

We merged “the spontaneous” and “the different” in April 2025 when we decided to take the family to California for a wedding I was officiating. We did the napkin math and thought, since my expenses were largely covered, this was the cheapest we would ever be able to go to California together. They threw frisbees down a vineyard hill and apparently made a short about it.

The Consistent

And every summer we load up for the same trip over and over again. Pine Cove Family Camp. This is our consistent space—many times with the same families who have become extended family for us over fourteen-or-so years.

Listen. I’m not a camper. I don’t do spunky. I am not big on game nights. I have never purposefully dressed for a theme night. After our first year at camp, Courtney and I got into a huge fight on the way home as a mark of just how bad of campers we were.

But we keep going back, and not only because of the views on my many walks.

The consistent space gives us a benchmark—year after year—to ask certain kinds of questions. How has the past year been? Where do we need to grow? Where have we grown? How much weight have I gained or lost? (Because of all the pics the camp staff take of you.)

I re-up every year unsure of how I’ll pay for the next year, but we keep going. We don’t go because we must. We go because it’s good for us.

It Doesn’t Happen by Accident

I sat that Friday night amidst 16,000 or so strangers, save for the handful of people we knew were somewhere in the crowd. It didn't rain (the forecast was right). The kids had not been to a concert before. I didn't know how they'd respond to the size, the noise, or anything. The opener was one of my absolute favorites.

And as we stood there listening to that first song, I was holding back tears—hoping nobody saw me. Sure, I could have a few hundred more dollars in the bank, but I would’ve paid many times more for that memory—for them, for me, for us.

We don’t stumble into well-tended relationships. I’d love to hear what you do.

“Hey, Dad, can I play disc golf this Saturday?”

[Checks calendar. Nothing on it. But still not sure I want to approve.]

“I’m not sure. It’s only Monday. Can we talk about it later?”

“You always tell me you want to talk about it later.”

“Okay. But can we?”

“There’s nothing on the calendar.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

Now I have a choice to make: Do I enter into the conversation or do I bail out?

The temptation for any leader—in or outside the home—is to leverage positional power to get things done (or avoid them). You want people to do something, and you saying it should be reason enough for them to do it.

“I need you to do that because I said so.”

It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Makes us feel important. Like we matter.

But it doesn’t accomplish what we think it will.

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Pulling Rank: Your Reserve Chute

If you jump out of any plane, you are jumping with a reserve chute. Pulling rank is the reserve chute of leadership. When it comes out, you should be running out of options.

Too many of us run to the reserve chute of authority to solve almost all of our leadership problems. Why actually confront a team member when we can just sit in our office and shoot off an email giving a new command? Why take a strategy question from a confused staff member when we feel like we’ve been crystal clear?

“Please just do what I said.”

Many times pulling rank means you can’t trust the relationship—it can’t stand up under the test. It reveals we don’t have the relational clout to lead and we have to resort to the position because we’ve lost everything else.

There’s Certainly a Time For Authority

Reserve chutes are for a reason.

There’s necessary (and beautiful) merit in responding to authority properly. When a decision gets made, we should abide. There are chains of command for a reason.

A decision was made that I took the liberty of questioning. (If you know me, you are not surprised.) I wanted to offer a different perspective on the conversation but I didn’t realize it wasn’t actually a conversation. Another person, over 20 years my senior, said to me, “Hans, the decision has been made and you need to align.”

It was the only time I can remember where rank was clearly pulled and clearly needed. A lesson in what nagging does to people in authority.

I think that was the last time.

A Better Way: “What Am I Missing?”

Exasperated leaders live and die by the reserve chute when they are out of options all the time. The result is a demanding culture with unclear reasoning and a good bit of confusion.

“Why can’t anyone listen to me?”

But we are often far less clear than we think and don’t know how much of the confusion we’re creating.

Rather than say, “Because I said so,” consider asking others, “What am I missing?”

“What Am I Missing” is Harder to Ask Than We Think

A few weeks ago I was in a staff meeting and it didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped. We were ill-prepared for a conversation on an agenda item I had given a week prior.

I said, “Well clearly we aren’t ready for this item so we’ll move on to the next,” but my face said, “Why was this so hard and why weren’t we prepared for the thing I said we were doing?” (When I say “clearly,” I am really saying “ugh.”)

But the entire week I was bugged. I was bugged because at least 70% of the meeting kerfuffle was my lack of preparation of the team. I was asking for serious reasoning and unfiltered conversation. I didn’t prepare them in advance. I didn’t give any parameters on how we were going to talk. I didn’t remind them of the importance of the topic.

It was on me, not them.

When my son wants to schedule a disc golf tournament with me at night and I say, “Not right now,” it’s because I’ve been gone all day—not because he wants to be a nuisance. It’s me, not him.

“Because I said so” is often not a way to help someone recognize the chain of command—it’s a smokescreen for ineffective leadership that wants outcomes the easy way.

When it comes to your desire to pull rank, what have you found you’re missing?

There was a point in time—well, half of 2019—where tunnel vision took over. Our house was full of issues and I had a list of solutions. The solution I thought most important was to tear up my house, get down to the foundation, apply epoxy, and then rebuild.

When I told an epoxy floor guy my problems he said, “I’d just sell it.”

I was committed, though. We were going to fix the problem. Well, I was going to fix it. Courtney was just going to let me because she knew she had no choice . . . or she didn’t care.

To save money, and because I was sure I could fix it well, I was going to take this on. I was given great confidence by a contractor who’d dedicated his life’s work to installing epoxy floors for moisture mitigation.

“You could probably do it yourself better than 99% of the idiots that do it professionally.” (His words.)

I’m not an idiot! I can do this.

I got my gallons of epoxy. I rented a HEPA vacuum, an air scrubber, a concrete grinder. I even created a negative air pressure room.

Then I began. I had to strip the floors down to the slab and needed to get started early on a Friday.

Excerpt: Not Made for Tyvek

My uniform that day included a Tyvek suit like the remediation pros, rubber boots, and a dual-cartridge respirator. It was July in Houston and the AC in my house wasn’t on and I was wearing an impermeable suit while working indoors. What could go wrong?

Time to start.

I poured a bucket of water onto the floor, which included self-leveler (from our renovation), old tile mortar (from previous work), and the old asbestos linoleum (original to the house). I had to get through all of them to expose the slab and I was there for as long as it took.

Water. Grind. Shovel.

Each pass of the grinder created a gross concrete sludge that I had to shovel out and dump into a bucket. I was sweating so much that my Tyvek suit was filling with it.

Squish. Squish. Squish.

Each step over time getting noisier and grosser in those boots.

Water. Grind. Shovel.

A few hours later I took a minute, let the concrete dry out some, and surveyed the scene.

I wasn’t sure I’d made any progress. I mean, I saw circular lines in the concrete from the grinder I’d rented, but I didn’t see much progress in the floor itself. I kept trying.

Then I went into the garage, which contained our entire downstairs, and changed. I assumed my clothes were dead so they went into the garbage. I couldn’t go home (at that time, my sister’s house) in asbestos clothes.

But I didn’t go home. I went to a local park because I’d scheduled concrete day on the same day as the church picnic. So I moved from a house with no AC to a grill outside at a park—a grill I’d made so hot you’d fry if you got near it. I grilled the chicken and burgers and sausage people had brought.

I saw the kids so that they could remember what their dad looked like. I talked to Courtney. Then I went back to the house, put on another Tyvek suit, and got back to work.

By the end of the day—after 10PM by my last photo of dirty boots—I’d made next to no progress. I left the house messier and in worse shape than I’d found it. I changed and got back to my sister’s defeated, dirty, and with fewer options than when I’d begun.

Tunnel Vision on Lesser Things

I spent months of 2018 and 2019 largely navigating my house issues—both the original renovation (2018) and the journey of redoing the entire first floor with epoxy (2019). My email history is littered with requests for help and advice on what to do. I now know more about moisture mitigation than any human should and I’ve made zero dollars off of that knowledge. (However, I can help my neighbors when they get the same issue because I now know how to address it and not just mask it.)

I also continue to deal with mild house trauma and still pray about it so anxiety doesn’t set in.

Am I glad it happened? Debatable. I am glad for the army of people who helped and the relationships forged through concrete grinders. I’m grateful for my brother and cousin spending a Sunday with me to epoxy almost the entire first floor bit by bit.

But tunnel vision is expensive in ways that don’t show up on an invoice.

I mortgaged away months of my life staring at that floor. I spent thousands of dollars on my solution. I stole away time from family and friends. I lost plenty of sleep. My mind could rarely be present in any one place.

We were experiencing a year of significant family transition—changing jobs, moving to a new state, changing schools, settling into new routines—and I was trying to distribute my focus as if I had an inexhaustible supply.

I got hyper-fixated on fixing.

I neglected the people closest to me. I lived a half-distracted life.

I know it’s “just a season” but “just a seasons” stack up. All of a sudden you’re in a vortex you can’t escape and have a pain in your upper back from wearing the stress.

It comes on faster than you might think. . .and then you wonder what you lost.

We all can get caught in a black hole of making less significant things feel more significant. When it happens, how do you get out? And what has it cost you?

If you're at Whole Foods, you might not have to worry as much. If you're in our fridge or pantry, you might. (No, Trader Joe's cookie butter is not organic—but I believe it is vegan so we have that going for us.)

People want organic, but it comes with a cost. Organic produce runs 50% more on average—and over 100% for some items.

Organic costs more because it requires more attention. The crop might get reduced by bugs, someone might have to hand-weed parts of the field, and the types of products you are allowed to use to remain “certified organic” simply cost more.

And that means your iceberg lettuce costs 180% more than the version you eat in your favorite restaurant salad.

I Want It to “Feel Organic”

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a penchant for structure. I’ve been in plenty of meetings where I harp on the need for a clear plan or process. (I’ve probably triggered some staff reading this.)

At times, I’ve heard the phrase, “Yeah, but we want it to be organic.”

Kiss of death.

“You do know how much work it takes for something to be organic, right?”

Anyone with a garden knows they can’t go a day without giving it attention. Two days and look out. A week? Game over. It takes daily effort. Inattentive gardeners end up with an overgrown planter box and a lot of regret.

My day job (pastoring) is notorious for a love of the organic. Organic as anti-structure, organic as letting the Spirit move, organic as “how it used to be.”1

Nothing wrong, but often misguided—as if any structure automatically kills the thing.

Farming is hard work. And whether the fields you work are literal acreage or the people in your care, the effort to “feel organic” only increases with size. But everyone has a ceiling—and when you hit it, what felt like a garden turns out to be a houseplant.

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Personality at Scale

In the work of people, the ceiling that defines organic is less about the reality of what is and isn’t “organic” and more about what one’s personality can tolerate.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard some version of “I want to know everyone.”

That’s a personality preference potentially masquerading as a virtue.

What does it mean to know everyone? You mean first-name basis? Able to name all of their kids? Have a meal with them once a month? Daily text thread? What about your neighbors—are you allowed to know them the same way? Co-workers?

“No, I don’t need all of that. I wouldn’t expect that.”

But push into it and the expectation usually comes down to this: people want a relational structure they can personally tolerate.

It’s one’s personality applied to all personalities in the group—an elusive target that is hard to hit for any leader.

When someone says they want the structures to be “organic,” they generally mean something else. Below is a quick video on how leaders can hear the question behind the question.

Know Your Field

We don’t take care of plants at our house. We’ve made that call and are happy with it. We don’t have the drive to take care of plants.

Several years back a freeze knocked out a good number of our bushes out front. They’re still missing. We have no gardens. We’ve removed three trees. I paid a guy to remove the bushes from the back along the garage so I’d have less to manage.

I know my lane.

In the realm of people—vocation, friendships, all of it—I’m obsessive.

There are others in my life who manage fewer relationships by design, or know their temperament enjoys a little less structure. Being great at caring for five people doesn’t mean you need to care for 200. Enjoying more fire pit chats with a few doesn’t mean you need to go start a church bonfire.

Know what that approach gains you and what it costs you. And appreciate the others who contribute differently.

Know what your work requires.

Regardless of approach, it isn’t the size that makes something more or less organic—it’s the attention you give it.

What's your field?

Greg’s a guy I want everybody to know. However, knowing him is rare—he spends most of his time overseas with his family. Trained as a petroleum engineer, he’s spent his adult life largely in the Middle East raising his family, doing his day job, training leaders, and helping people start businesses throughout the world.

Why does a guy who works in oil and gas make me cry?

Bringing Order to Disorder

When I taught seminary students, I’d bring Greg in for a video session. When I led a coaching cohort last year, I brought him in to teach the same material. He taught late at night (his time) for the cohort. Then got up at 3am to fly to Tunisia to watch his kid play oboe (can’t make this up).

It’s common to hear people talk about work as a curse—something to be endured. Greg talks about it as a blessing—something original to how we were created. Work matters because it has always mattered.

But we lose that too often—drowned out by years of clocking in and clocking out.

He’ll ask why it’s so satisfying to cook a big meal for friends. The kitchen is a mess, the dishes will take a week to clean up, and the house will smell like spices for days—but we are content.

It’s the same with a garden. Why do we spend so much time tending to plants, fighting bugs, and insisting that a tomato bought at the store isn’t a real tomato?

Because there’s something inherently dignifying about creating good things for others.

Greg then talks about work as one of the ultimate ways to create good things for people.

As I debrief with class after his teaching, I’ll often hear, “I’ve always thought that was true but I’ve never had the words for it.”

Then, as I try to summarize, I get choked up. In part for the content and in part because I love my friend.

Vocation and Contribution

I recently shared about different areas of stewardship—areas everyone is responsible for, even if we neglect them.

Our “vocation and contribution” isn’t trivial. I define this area as your work and service—the way you use your gifts and talents to benefit others.

While earning income is important, knowing how we live out our vocation matters. It’s why I’ll say “and contribution” as a part of it.

Even if you don’t earn income, you can learn how you uniquely contribute and add value and meaning to those around you—named and unnamed.

For me, right now, the clarifying statement I have around this is:

I pastor, lead, and coach with thoughtfulness, care, and intentionality—investing deeply in individuals and teams to help them thrive, and trusting that faithful work expands its influence in ways I won’t always get to see.

The clarifying statement can change. It’s never gospel truth, but it reorients me when I lose focus—or when I feel like I’m in a rat race.

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What You Do Matters

One of the reasons Greg’s teaching resonates so deeply in my heart is because it is a constant battle: why does anything I do matter?

One of my favorite moments is watching someone recognize the value they actually bring to others—paid or unpaid. It doesn’t always come quickly—but when it connects, it connects significantly.

The payoff, at times, seems vague. I’ve also known those who have recognized that their job is the way to provide for their more significant contributions. There are people who do their jobs well, but they then go home to invest in the things and people they love. They’re using their job as a means to engage more fully in their vocation.

Where do you most feel like you’re actually contributing something that matters?

There’s a moment after the games where you huddle up with the team and do your little post-game speech. Parents hover at a distance to act like they can’t hear but they are listening. I remember another coach friend of mine, Dave, who would hold the pow-wow in the outfield, far away from the parents.

“Hey, Dave, why do you do it that way?”

“Parents don’t need to hear what I say. The kids will tell them anyways. Not a secret but a team conversation.”

Made sense. So when I managed my second season—now a pro—I would run with the team into the outfield for the post-game moment. It was fun to watch Bennett—one of the fastest kids on the team—use it as an opportunity to see how far he could slide. You play like you practice.

Little League Accountability

Quickly in the season, that moment became what we called “shout-outs and own-ups.”

Shout-outs: Talk about something good one of your teammates did this game.

Own-ups: Talk about a way you know you could’ve improved.

I wanted a time that wasn’t built on me having to fill the team moment with platitudes like “You guys have what it takes.”

What surprised me was how quickly it took. These kids were about ten at the time and they took to the opportunity to do both.

Shout-Outs (in kid terms, without significant specificity):

• Jake came in and pitched great.

• Brayden had a good hit.

• Mac was funny.

It was great to see how quickly the boys volunteered support to one another and highlighted the contributions of their teammates.

Own-Ups were my favorite, though.

• I let my attitude get the best of me.

• I missed an easy throw that I should’ve made.

• I didn’t hustle on that hit.

• I got in my head during my at-bats.

I was proud of the kids for how easily it came to them with a simple structure for how to engage, encourage, and take accountability.

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Structuring for Accountability

What was I going for? There’s a proverb that says, “Let another praise you and not your own mouth.” So I wanted to create a space where others could be encouraged and lifted up. I had a buddy at school who would say, “I do not think anyone can be overly-encouraged.” It might be uncomfortable to hear (especially if we aren’t used to it), but it isn’t rejected. Encouragement is like oxygen—and most of us are deprived.

I also want people to have enough humility to realize there is always room to grow. So the “own-up” produces a space where people are expected to name areas where they know they need to improve.

And here’s the truth: you don’t have to be ten or eleven to do it.

I’ve run this with 30- and 40-year-olds—same words, same structure, same result.

I think my favorite moment to watch—regardless of team—is how surprised people become with how their teammates view them. What I’ve seen on teams—in work, in marriages—is that they operate at an encouragement deficit.

So when the team starts to praise one another (even if they have real trust issues to deal with), it becomes an antidote for the cynicism that creeps in.

I sat in a room and watched someone begin to tear up as she realized the value the team saw in her. There’s a significant difference between “I think I do good work” and hearing people say, “You do good work.” You might believe you’re a good communicator. But hearing someone else say it? That lands differently.

Similarly, when a leader says, “I’m failing you guys by not giving enough attention to supporting you,” the team doesn’t get mad—they get helpful.

That’s the permission we’ve been waiting for—a place where praise remains constant and failures don’t bring retaliation.

Whether it is your workplace, your marriage and family, your friendships, or your 12u baseball team—we all need it.

What do you need contribute more of—shouting out or owning up?

I think my 5th grade PE teacher—Coach Smith—gave me that advice. If not her, then someone like her. Standard advice for anyone wanting to know their actual weight without a day of regret on the scale.

I’ve also heard the full spectrum: “Weigh every day to measure change” and “Don’t weigh at all—just go by whether your clothes fit more loosely.”

You can game that last one, though, by not washing your jeans—convincing yourself over the course of a week that you’ve lost 45 pounds.

For most of the past thirteen years, I’ve had more days than not standing on the scale.

You name it, I tried it. Logged my weight daily. Measured weekly. Used apps. Asked Courtney some version of “Am I losing weight?” or “Do I look okay?” on a rotating basis.

She’d reply with either, “You’re crazy and must have body dysmorphia,” or “Yeah, I mean, your love handles are real but I don’t care.”

“Wait—why don’t you care?!?!”

Needless to say, I had (and have) problems.

Bayou Trips to the Doc

I had historically not been a “get your physical” guy. I mean if you’re sick, sure. Go to the doctor. If you’re not sick, who needs a physical? Don’t drink, don’t smoke, sort of move around, eat Chick-fil-A and trust God.

Instead, I’d just write my weight every day (often by tenths of a pound to try and get some extra positive momentum) and make Courtney wonder why she married me.

But then you become middle-aged. You wonder how you’re doing. My Baton Rouge doctor—still a friend—told me he’d still be my doc but I’d have to see him in person once a year. Aside from that I could just text and go, “Hey what’s this thing on my chin?” and he’d answer if he had the confidence to. Other times, like many folks, you just let urgent care be your doc.

During these years (early 2020s to now), I’d drive up around the new year and see some friends, then go get my bloodwork done and drive home.

If you’re wondering why I spent 9-10 hours of driving to spend 28 minutes at the doctor’s office, you’re not alone. It’s about 1800 miles of driving over three years for 70 minutes of being at the doctor.

New Numbers, New Stressors

Then in 2025 they flagged something in my bloodwork. By clinical terms I was pre-diabetic. I guess the one before that is pre-pre-diabetic, AKA normal people.

That bugged me. A lot.

Literally nobody believed me, which had the comfort of absolutely nothing.

I’d share the actual screen grab of the result and it might get met with, “Well, that’s weird.”

And it was weird.

I spent the next five months (yes, five months) chasing some picture of health. I’d tweak diet. I started exercising more. I became highly cognizant of my decisions. I still had Jell-O (blame Courtney, who would essentially tell me I have love handles while handing me Jell-O).

Got my new blood work and the numbers went up.

Now I’m comfortably moving toward “definitely probably diabetic.”

It made no sense.

So I do what any normal human does: I start 16:8 intermittent fasting and check my blood sugar (with finger sticks) roughly 150 times over the next two months.

I drive back across the Mississippi for a mid-year doc visit. I text the doc my PDF of glucose numbers. He laughs at me in his understated doctor friend way.

The result: I’m back to my original panic number from January, moving the needle almost none over the past two months despite significant lifestyle changes and loving yet quiet mockery from my wife (you know, the actual diabetic).

Chasing the Wrong Goal

We’ve all chased numbers to try and close gaps we’re feeling—the scale, barbell, the 401k. Sometimes those numbers are the goal; sometimes they aren’t.

But all my efforts were changing almost nothing (except marital harmony).

It wasn’t until around December of last year that I had finally settled into some changes I felt could stick. I was working through areas of stewardship—a simple framework I’m using—where I had to write a broad statement for what “ideal” was for me in different areas of life.

Introduction to Areas of Stewardship

Under “health and fitness” I wrote this:

I keep an active lifestyle, making wise decisions every day and maintaining a weight that affords me the ability, Lord willing, to enjoy my life into old age.

The statement isn’t supposed to be a SMART goal. It’s an ideal. A picture of what I want. Then I work backwards from there. It re-orients the number as supporting evidence but it isn’t what I chase.

Funny how there was nothing about bloodwork on there.

The scale wasn’t the enemy. Neither was the bloodwork. I just kept asking the numbers to tell me something they were never designed to tell me.

What are you measuring that might be answering a question you’re not actually asking?

I was guarding this guy, I think it was Andrew. Andrew is probably 5-10 years younger than I am and very fast. I pride myself in old man defense—using your size and your brain to not kill yourself. So I get low and wide and put my left foot down.

Pop.

I’ve heard the phrase “I felt a pop” before but have never experienced it. It felt like they said—something in my knee popped. Immediate weakness.

Over the next week, it started to swell. I had a PT friend test it. ACL seemed intact.

“Probably a meniscus.”

“Do I fix it?”

“Nah. You’re not an athlete. If you can function with it and walk around, then you’re fine. Fix it when you can’t handle it anymore.”

Re-Injury Anxiety

There’s a real thing called kinesiophobia: an irrational fear of movement triggered by a former injury.

Sports medicine has a whole assessment framework for psychological readiness to return to sport—separate from physical clearance. It shows up especially around significant injuries like an ACL, where the last time you trusted your knee to handle the force of planting your foot, your ACL said, “No, thanks.”

Even with repair and rehab, some people can’t get past the thought that their knee won’t be able to withstand the force. It’s why athletes talk about physical rehab and mental rehab.

In my case, I never got the repair. I walk around with a pain of 1 or 2 out of 10 most days. Largely fine. But certain moves give me pause. I don’t like moving left and then changing direction. Much of my basketball is behind me. I can jog, but I go straight and rarely turn.

I operate differently.

Note: Even knowing this, I don’t follow my own advice. Here’s proof.

Repaired Teams, Same Behaviors

Every team is a system of relationships, and that system produces behaviors that become ingrained. We don’t even know we’ve learned a way of operating.

• John shows up bugged most mornings, so people stay away from him.

• Hans (different Hans, I promise) shows up overly critical, so people stop bringing ideas.

• David can’t keep a secret, so people stay surface level.

• The boss always does what he wants, so people know their input won’t matter and stop contributing.

Those behaviors become the team's muscle memory—like me showing up differently at the gym.

But what if the change is real?

• John’s anger softens and he starts to listen.

• Hans starts to encourage.

• David becomes trustworthy.

• The boss stops demanding outcomes.

Many times, we still don't believe it. We want to—but last time we tried, we got burned.

So we keep doing what we’ve always done: avoidance, no vulnerability, no real contribution. We behave as if the repair can’t hold.

When we believe nothing’s changed, nothing changes.

The Mental Game of Teamwork

The big change in teamwork is always the change in us. We’re John—or Hans, or David, or whoever. There’s some way we’re contributing to the strain, and we have to keep looking at that honestly.

Someone on staff recently mentioned that, at times, I have a look on my face when they come into my office of, “Why the heck are you in here?” The result? Guess who will come into the office less?

But just as the first change is in us, the second change is also in us.

Assume the team begins to change. John really is different. He’s changed and is changing. Hans does want you in the office. There’s a line from 1 Corinthians 13—probably read at a wedding near you—that love “believes all things.”

What does that mean?

It means extending trust to the person who has changed and believing the repair is real. Choosing that posture before the track record is long enough to be convincing—because it’s the better posture to have.

You have to believe the dynamics are different with very little evidence.

You have to plant your foot.

Say it Out Loud

Take a moment and consider your own relationships. There’s either someone you’re avoiding or someone who is avoiding you. There’s a disengagement somewhere—and someone misses their connection with you.

Whatever it is, name it. Don’t let it exist in the dark.

“I’m afraid of contributing ideas because I’ve been critiqued too often.”

Then bring a trusted person or two into the light with it. Tell them what it is, what you’re working on, and why. Naming it changes your relationship to it—and gives the people around you a chance to respond to the real thing, not the compensation pattern.

And then?

Do it again.

Also, if you’d like to hear Courtney and me talk about this incident, managing diabetes, and our failures of not getting continuous glucose monitoring earlier, we' have just the treat for you! Listen below to the extended version of the story.

I have a tendency of reaching over toward Courtney at night and asking, “Are you okay?” She’s a light sleeper and will usually answer me regardless of the hour. If she fails to answer, I know there is a problem. This particular night—in Old City Jerusalem—I reached over. Cold and damp. Not good.

The cause? Low blood sugar. If you’re awake, you catch it.

But Courtney was dead asleep. The sweating made her colder as she slept. She really was crashing—soaked through her clothes and relatively unresponsive.

I entered into a controlled panic.

“Courtney, can you hear me?”

If she could, she was playing coy.

“Courtney, I need you to wake up.”

Light murmurs. Some semblance of consciousness but alarming.

I had no means of helping her. Smart people have glucagon pens for these occasions. We did not. Our hotel didn’t have an elevator to our floor. It’s a small hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem. I had to bolt down a few flights of tile stairs, descending at tight, 90-degree angles.

I arrived in the lobby, a little intense-looking, and started asking people for something to drink. The bartender wasn’t there.

“Hello? I need some help. I need something sweet.”

Another tourist spotted me in the lobby.

“Calm down. It’s going to be okay.”

I knew she was just trying to help, but I also knew for a fact that things would not be okay without intervention.

I procured a beverage of some kind—warm, sweet, chocolaty. I headed back upstairs, assuming we were on the home stretch. I had done this enough to know a little sugar and about 15 minutes work wonders.

The only problem? Courtney is too incapacitated to swallow. What I was trying to get her to drink just fell right out, getting into her hair and onto her pillow. So gross, but we hadn’t gotten anywhere near bringing her sugars to a normal human level.

And there was so. much. shrieking.

During this entire ordeal Courtney wasn’t speaking; she was just shrieking. Loudly. The noise she landed on was one part banshee, one part getting stitches with no anesthetic. I was sitting there, wondering why nobody was waking up to help us out. What kind of team had we traveled with? It wasn’t like the walls were thick. Our door was perpendicular to another, and we did not even get a knock asking, “Is everything okay?” You’re quietly begging that someone can hear this noise, wake up, and lend a hand (doing what? No clue). The other part of you just wants your wife to shut up so that you don’t draw more attention.

Apparently, people did wake up, but they “thought it was a cat” and paid no mind. I’d married a diabetic cat.

To that point, Courtney hadn’t improved any. How do I bring my sweaty, incapacitated wife down several flights of stairs and get her into a taxi so that we can get to whatever hospital we need? What was the Hebrew 9-1-1?

I look for help one more time and someone whom I assume is hotel staff brings me to the kitchen.

I should’ve been laser-focused on Courtney, but the kitchen was hideous. Dishes piled everywhere. These were the dishes that were used for breakfast! I probably could’ve found my plate if I’d looked closely enough. Now I had two problems: (1) my wife was maybe on the brink of catastrophe, and (2) I wasn’t sure I could eat at the hotel anymore. By the end of the trip, I wasn’t eating breakfast anywhere we stayed, but that could also be because I didn’t really want sliced tomatoes for breakfast—or ever.

The procurement of honey packets realigned my priorities.

I got back to Courtney, honey in hand. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started dipping my finger in the honey and rubbing it on the inside of her cheek while she shrieked. Some of it mixed with spit and got in her hair as she lay there. Finger, honey, cheek, shriek, sticky hair. Rinse and repeat.

I learned later that substances like honey can get absorbed into the bloodstream under the tongue. Thus, even though the cheek isn’t the tongue, there was enough honey in her mouth that some got absorbed.

When Courtney recounts all of the chaos, she remembers staring up at a ceiling fan in our room that was spinning. That’s it, just spaced out, confusion, and a ceiling fan. Must be nice to not register all of the chaos and trauma going on. That part is for me, and now for you.

After some time had passed I assessed the situation. Next step? Check her blood sugar. So I found her glucometer, pricked her finger, and squeezed a drop of blood on it. I fully expected to see something in the 20s, which is the “better figure something out or your wife may die” zone.

However, her sugar was comfortably over 100—which is the “live your life and enjoy it” zone. A reading in that range and she should be fully functioning.

Great. Now what?

The shrieking had slowed but Courtney, while conscious, was still not really responsive. I had no bullets left. The script I have is “give her 15 or so grams of carbs and 15 minutes and she’ll get back to normal.” I didn’t have a “and if she doesn’t, then do this” move. In a little over two years of marriage, we had played that game enough times and every single time I had been able to work it out.

Unable to work it out, I began settling into another thought.

During all of the shrieking, the flights of stairs, and the stress, I thought, “I guess this is the rest of my marriage.”

I genuinely believed that something inside Courtney had died (physically, this time, not emotionally) and I needed to settle in for a marriage where the rest of my life would be taking care of my immobile and generally unresponsive wife.

This thought process wasn’t resignation or fear; it was ownership of my new phase of marriage.

But there we were, on the top story of a small hotel in Jerusalem in the middle of the night in the midst of a medical emergency, and I was doing everything I could for her.

When all my interventions proved woefully inadequate, it was there that I thought, “Here we are.”

And it was truly us.

Courtney interrupted my thought process by barely mumbling, “Ccccooolld.”

She’s cold? Well that would make sense. She had sweated through her pajamas. I’d be cold, too, but I’d still be able to move. Her blood sugar had been so low for so long that she was also dealing with hypothermia as her body fought for survival.

I was fresh out of campfires and electric blankets there in Jerusalem, but I did have a bathtub that, by God’s grace, had a detachable shower head. I picked her up and put her in the tub. I’m glad I didn’t need to carry her down three flights of stairs. The fifteen feet from the bed to the bathtub seemed Herculean enough. Shoutout to all the nurses who move people every day.

I began to spray her down with warm water while I left the stopper in the tub to fill it up. This felt like how you would spray a pet, not a wife.

Within moments, she snapped back. Because she was back in the land of the living, she quickly realized her hair was a sticky, gross mess and decided to shower. I went into the room and emotionally surveyed the impact of those last moments. She emerged conscious and clean. Soon after, she shared how much her mouth hurt now. Apparently, she had tried to eat the honey on her cheeks by gnawing on them, causing sore cheeks for the rest of the trip.

All worth it, though. Courtney was back. We were back.

Her pillow was gross.

Other Memoir-realted Posts:

I’ll start with one of the more obvious dumb tasks: air conditioner repair.

Our office has roughly 15 air conditioners. When your facility has been frankensteined together over 30-40 years, you make do. They’re almost all residential units. Deferred maintenance has meant that in the past 26 months we have replaced (I think) six of them. We have done repairs and diagnostics on another three or four. One currently doesn’t work. Another one has a wire mesh screwed over the top of the condenser unit.

One of our AC vendors keeps vampire hours. He’ll work on a unit until late into the night if the customer is up for it. He was built for odd hours and has the stories to show it.

So he has to replace one of our bigger units and he chose vampire time to take care of it. No problem, I thought. I’ll volunteer as tribute.

It’s the right thing to do.

Assuming the Role of the Joyful Martyr

If you’re like me, you might be a joyful martyr—that person who gladly suffers just a little more because you assume nobody else will join you or help you.

On the surface you’re the team-player. You’re the “take the lowest place” kind of person. You live to serve, right? Nothing wrong with that.

Not so fast.

The joyful martyr assumes nobody else is interested. He or she takes the place, in part, because of an inflated view of self-importance. (I speak about myself here.)

I mean, can you not even ask?

So there I am, sitting up at the building. It’s 10pm, 11pm, 12am. It’s so dumb. I’m exhausted. Why am I not just leaving the guys here? If we can’t hire a trustworthy contractor we have more than AC problems.

But there I sit. Forever. I go sit in my office, do work, and then climb the stairs and check in on the guys working.

“Done yet?”

“Not yet. Need to do a few more things.”

Sitting. Waiting. Walking. Working.

Now I’m annoyed. “Joyful” left a long time ago.

Keeping Help at Bay

The joyful martyr in me enjoys being the last to leave and the one who appears the most willing to help.

But all of this got slowed (I won’t yet say “halted”) a year or so ago. I was in an eval with some other leaders on the team and my propensity for stepping in and taking on tasks I assumed no one else wanted came up.

“We’re on the same team. You have to stop taking these on yourself.”

Okay, so maybe the joyful side isn’t as obvious as I thought it was.

What mindset did I actually have? One that assumed only I was the one who needed to do the most annoying tasks. Such a perspective limits in at least two, inter-connected ways: (1) it removes the chance that someone else might actually want to do the task and enjoy it, and (2) it prevents me from leaning on those around me.

But assume that nobody wants the task (which with vampire ACs is usually the case) and it is no one’s direct job to keep vampire AC hours (besides the AC vendor himself). What then?

This is where that second reason becomes so important.

It doesn’t have to be your job to step in—it can happen simply because you’re on the team. You share the tasks and distribute the load.

Just Ask

It might sound simple but the allure of being the joyful martyr—and that little bit of self-inflicted suffering we get from it—keeps us from leaning on others.

Every team has vampire tasks (even if it isn’t necessarily keeping late hours). Sometimes those tasks have a clear owner; other times they don’t.

Rather than assume you need to do it because you’re the bigger servant, share the load. Let others step in. Let them help. Without it, you’re assuming the team you’re on can’t handle the load and you have to take it on yourself.

That’s not a team I’d want to be on (even if I am complicit in creating it).

And what do you gain when you ask? You gain a team with a new capacity to serve one another.

Where are you under-estimating those around you?

(Also, for the record, I just leave our AC guy at the building now.)

I mainly have stories. That time at Thanksgiving she printed out and recited text messages. That time in high school she made me a cheeseburger after I came home from work. Her laugh had this unforgettable way it ramped up into an unstoppable force of staccatoed glee.

Most of you didn’t know her, so here we are, over 21 years ago:

My mom was great and I have plenty of stories about her. She also drove me crazy in ways that only moms can.

But one thing she was really good at—something Courtney and I still regularly talk about—was being a mom to an adult, married son. The story I remember the most, and retell the most, is how she set her expectations for my marriage.

Mom’s Marriage Comment

I am not a fan of how people talk about marriage sometimes.

“I’m not losing a son/daughter. I’m gaining a daughter/son.”

I don’t think that’s true. Marriage fundamentally changes the way that you relate to your family of origin. You lose your unmarried son and you gain a married son, but in doing that, you also lose a whole lot. Marriage establishes a new, more important, union.

My mom understood this and wanted me to know, very early on, how she was going to operate as Courtney and I began our life together. One day, she pulled me aside and shared with me something that was important for her to share. (This is my paraphrase.)

Hans, you can see your father and me as much as you want, but you never have to see us. You’re always welcome but never expected.

Mom nor Dad ever expected us to be with them for a holiday. They had no traditions that were so important that we had to show up. There was never even a time (that I can recall) where Mom said, “I’d like you to be there,” or, “I haven’t seen you in a while; it might be nice if . . . .” She fully trusted me to be a husband first and then, somewhere down the line, her son. And it was true—she was always glad to see me but she never expected me.

My mom made being her son very easy up until her last day.

Over two decades later, two main thoughts stay loud in my mind.

Embrace the New Stage

Why do I keep going back to that perspective? Why do Courtney and I replay it? Why does Courtney say when friends might be frustrated with their in-laws, “My in-laws have been great”? (I’ll add into this my siblings since the also read this—you’re great, too, Shana and Dale.)

Because Mom and Dad knew how to embrace the new stage they had—as articulated by Mom’s advice/charge/comments/grace.

The pivot from kids in the home to kids out of the home is fierce—we’re not far from that in our own home. The pivot from unmarried kids to married kids hits hard, too. Your child truly and wholly becomes a new unit.

So many of us fight against these relational changes because we are fighting for something that doesn’t exist anymore. We want a time capsule from another era when, really, we need to die to what used to be and embrace what is.

It is one thing to pay lip service to the idea. It is another to live it out. My mom lived it out.

Say It Out Loud

The other aspect of Mom’s advice that was so powerful was that she put herself on record with it. She said it directly to me and couldn’t back away from it.

Her words mattered, and they stuck. I never needed to call her back to those words.

Can you imagine first how freeing it is to hear such a statement? Second, how endearing it made me toward my mom? Would I, with all of that love and trust, want to go, “Thanks, lady, see ya!”

Never.

It is one thing to believe something, and another to articulate it. Something powerful happens when your perspective leaves your mind and heart and actually comes out of your mouth. Now you’re official—now others have heard it. You can’t go backwards. Mom kept herself from going backwards, which allowed us both to go forward.

I miss my mom, but I’m glad for what she taught me. I’m sad for my boys because they’re at the age where they could’ve really cherished her disquieting zaniness and mid-tier opportunities she took to be slightly embarrassing. We can’t drive home from seeing her and laugh together about how goofy or loving she was. They (we) don’t get that, and soon most memories will fade into what we can recall from photographs.

But one thing that the boys will be able to experience, should marriage be in their future, is the same advice: be who you need to be. And I’m always here for you.

They’re there when you get together with a group of friends at night—that person who wants to explain their (accurate) opinion on everything that is wrong with the world. You just want to enjoy your dinner.

You might live by them—that individual who has details on every person in the neighborhood.

In a staff meeting years ago, one of our staffers taught me a phrase she has used for such relationships: sandpaper people.

What is a sandpaper person? They’re someone who is rough to us. They make us uneasy for any myriad reasons. It could be they’re too opinionated, needy, confusing, insecure, overly confident, too outgoing, too introverted.

I can’t tell you who your sandpaper person is and you can’t tell me who mine is. Depends on the day, the hour, my mood.

We’re all fickle about who these people are.

You Are Someone Else’s Sandpaper

Before it becomes too much about “them,” you need to know that you are someone else’s sandpaper person. Someone (or many someones) in your life has to adjust who they feel like they are when you show up in their world.

For a while—I kid you not—I had a staff member or two tell me that they got nervous walking by my office. Because of where my desk is located, if my door is open, I see anyone who comes in (unless one guy tries really hard not to be seen). I don’t want that, do I?

Could it be that I’m the difficult one? I wonder if maybe the idea I originally had for sandpaper people was wrong.

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Sandpaper People: Who is the Problem?

Different grit sandpapers serve different needs—but all of it smooths. We might think that these rougher people are the problem, but that isn’t the case. Then, after one type, the other type doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

If we sit in the center of our universe, then sandpaper people are those who are merely hindrances to us getting what we want. If that is the case there’s really only one thing to do: avoid them at all costs.

But such an approach removes the very thing that might be good for us. If we avoid those more difficult relationships, we lose out on our own growth.

That’s when I realized the person at work who taught me this very phrase taught it to me to teach me a lesson: that these people aren’t the problem, but that I have the rough edges that need smoothing.

I didn’t like hearing that idea because it is far easier to address others—to address “them”—as the issue. If that’s the case, I am fine and everyone else is the problem.

If you flip the script, I am the problem—we are the problem—that needs changing.

Behind the scenes of Sandpaper People

Sandpaper People: How Can I Grow?

This concept stuck with me because of how me-centered my universe can be.

I started a task this year in order to start learning the ways that I can be the problem in relationships. Twice a month I ask someone in my life this question: How can I improve? I let them answer the question however they want. Different people know me in different ways and the feedback will be varied based upon the contours of that relationship.

I tend to ask this to anyone I’m around at the time. I’ve started mainly with people who know me well—it is safer. But recently I asked someone in my extended network just to see how it might go.

I was at lunch with a few other leaders in the area. I asked the question to the whole table but directed it at my friend Michael—I wanted his answer (honestly, because I felt he’d be the most likely to give it).

“Oh no. I’ve learned not to answer those types of questions after a lunch.”

“Come on! Anyone?”

Michael chimes in, “Okay, I have one.”

“Great.”

“This doesn’t bother me; I like vinegar on my fries.”

I had no idea where this was headed.

“Okay?”

“You are very intense. For a guy like me, that’s fine. I’ll match that. But others won’t be able to handle it. You need to be aware of what other people are needing in a conversation so that you don’t miss an opportunity to serve them in a way that helps them.”

“Man. That’s perceptive.”

I’ve only spent a few hours of my life with this guy and yet, anyone who has known me for years would tell you the same thing.

How kind of a friend of mine to take a moment to point out an area where I cause others discomfort. I took a note in my “How Can I Improve? Convos” file.

And it was a huge help.

Rather than look at your relationships thinking of how people are difficult for you, I’d invite you to join me in learning how you might be difficult for others.

How are you someone else’s sandpaper person?

Fall of 2020 our boys started a new school. We flipped from public to private school. This was a big deal because I’d been ride or die public school for years.

Schooling choices amongst people in my world are akin to gangs you join. And once you get jumped in, changing allegiance can be tough.

On the one side, you have the homeschoolers. These committed moms and dads use these years of young influence to provide as much hands-on education as they can to their kids. They’re good people, but you can usually pick them out of a crowd. They drive vans or big bus-like vehicles and their kids, while polite, also might be feral because they rarely wear shoes and if you ask them where their parents are, they will probably say “No” and then hit you in the leg and run off. Then they’ll build a campfire for you and cook you dinner after their mom, who was nursing a newborn somewhere, makes them apologize to you not just with words but with actions.

On another side, you have private schoolers. These folks are bougie and spend their well-earned money on providing education for their kids the normies can’t afford. If you tell people your kids are in private school, you’ll get some side-eye and then people will wonder who you murdered to get all of that money to send your kids to school. The private school parents are the most likely to be helicopter parents with strong entitlement vibes because they’re paying customers. They don’t want the school to just educate their kids but also provide their social calendar. If their kids misbehave, it must be the school’s fault.

Then you have the public schoolers. This is the traditional route. Mom and dad might both be working but they’re committed to their neighborhood and their kids’ education. They have a firm conviction that public education is the right way to appropriately train their kids for how to engage with different worldviews. They send their little missionary kids to school every day to make a positive impact. Their kids are probably cussing under their breath a little, too.

Side note: Whatever path you choose brings with it blessings and curses. There’s no perfect model and you’ll always be dealing with (and compensating for) your schooling decisions.

When Expectations Don’t Match Reality

Making the switch for us took some time, some prayer, some processing, some support, and a longer-than-expected interview process. At least it was during COVID so numerous aspects of the application process were cut short.

Driving up, the campus looked nice—small cottages with play areas for each age group (the equivalent of elementary, middle, and high school, though you can’t use those words in classical education). We walk in and are greeted by two members of the admissions team and then ushered into a small library.

There, sitting at the table, the litany of questions begins. I don’t remember all of the questions. I just remember the feeling.

Anger. Embarrassment. Confusion as to whose kids these were.

The admissions interviewers for the meeting didn’t seem to be bothered.

I was bothered.

The story behind the story:

With every one-word or half-answer or “I don’t know,” I found myself wanting to snap. Come on, boys, this isn’t hard. Just do what you’re supposed to do. Be kind; don’t be a jerk. And, for goodness’ sake, stop crying about uniforms and homework.

Forty-five excruciating minutes later, the meeting was over. I want to yell at my kids, but my commitment to conflict resolution means I can’t let the school see me yell at them. I have to wait until we get in the car and yell at them like a normal dad.

Then it starts. My words might be off here, but my feelings are not.

“Boys, you were very rude in that meeting.”

“What?!?”

“You were rude. You were disrespectful. Why couldn’t you answer the questions? That was unacceptable.”

The tears begin to flow. I don’t care. I just keep driving.

“That is not the way you talk to adults; that’s not the way you interview.”

Tears continue. I wonder if they will actually accept us. “Pastor’s family denied admission to local Christian school.”

Just Tell Us!

The drive home has one light that always takes a little longer because traffic backs up. My oldest, ever the honest one, through tears, says, “You just needed to tell us!”

That one cut deep.

In what world should a dad assume his kids magically know how to handle situations they’ve never been in? That’s apparently what citizens do in the world I’ve created in my mind.

Welcome to Hans’ head. Population: zero, because nobody can survive.

My pride wants me to double down. “Kids should know better,” I’d like to think. But why should they know better? That’s why they have parents. I’m their dad.

The perception of a ten-year-old to give such a tearful rebuke still sits with me. I’m at a light about to turn and I realize just how askew my own heart is. School acceptance or not, I can’t be this kind of person.

We get home and I process the words. I know that simple things like helping my young kids understand expectations goes far better for them. I know they need my encouragement more than my evisceration about not measuring up. I’m their guide in this world, not their drill sergeant.

They need their dad.

Speaking of, here’s a great song about dads being dads.

Don’t Assume, Friends

Too many of us expect people to simply know how to act in any situation. That was my problem—my failure. At times, it still is.

But that’s isn’t how it works, is it?

Parents, in particular, are gentle guides to help their kids navigate what is ever a circuitous road. They don’t need your anger; they need you.

Where do you need to set someone up for success rather than tell them where they didn’t measure up?

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Related Posts

You tell your co-worker, or your spouse, or your friend, or your mail lady that you will get something for them tomorrow.

“Sure thing, Pam. I’ll gladly get you that document in the afternoon.”

“Great. Thank you!”

At that moment, all parties have a level of confidence that said document will be in Pam's hands tomorrow afternoon. Jim, who we’ll say is the promiser here, has a lot riding on his success.

The next day comes and goes and that promise is broken.

The standard response?

“No big deal!”

This phrase, or one of its counterparts, exists in relational lore.

• Totes fine.

• Not a problem.

• It’ll get it done.

• You’re good.

• Don’t worry about it.

Why do we paper over offenses?

Your response need not be catastrophic (“HOW DARE YOU!”) but if we want to be men and women of integrity, and I assume you do, then keeping even small commitments matters. People watch. People remember.

If you’re married, I hope you keep your wedding vows. That’s a big vow. But if you told someone you’d buy them a book and you forgot, that’s still a type of vow—a promise, a commitment, an agreement that you will deliver.

It does us good to keep our word.

Yet our misplaced desire to appear gracious actually prevents us from extending grace. In our attempt to make it better and fill the gap that has been created, we short-circuit an important part of our relational needs: making amends.

Admit, Ask, Make Amends

To the one who caused the offense: run to the problem. Don’t run from it.

This isn’t just spiritual jargon. This isn’t if you told your pastor you’d be in church Sunday and then you weren’t. This is for the time you forgot about a lunch date.

It doesn’t matter what the offense is: don’t be the judge of how much you did or did not offend someone. Simply make it a practice to do three things:

• Admit that you didn’t deliver (“I failed you.”): Own the offense you caused. Don’t wait to get found out.

• Ask for Forgiveness (“Will you forgive me?”): You’re at a deficit that you created. Ask the one you offended to forgive it—fill it back up.

• Make Amends (“How do I make it right?”): Don’t miss this one. Don’t let someone rush to forgive you while you still have a promise you can make good on.

And if you hear “It’s no big deal” about to emerge from the other person, stop it and say, “No, it is a big deal. I gave you my word and I didn’t follow through. Even though you’re okay, it wasn’t okay that I did what I did.”

Feel, Forgive, Move Forward

To the one offended: hear them out and speak honestly.

Do not short-circuit the process by cutting someone off at the conversational pass. Let them say what they need to say. Then, you have your moves:

• Feel the offense (“That hurt.”): If we’re honest, we don’t like when even small offenses occur. We get pretty good and calloused toward them, but we still don’t like them. Explain the hurt the offense caused.

• Forgive the person (“I forgive you.”): You have to mean it. To forgive it means you’ll absorb all the consequences of the offense and never bring it back up to that person again. Unforgiveness carries shrapnel and the collateral damage can last a long time.

• Move Forward (“Here’s what we can do.”): Explain what moving forward looks like. If the commitment can still be made, albeit a little later, let them finish it. If it can’t be and it’s done, then figure out how to make the miss less likely next time.

When both offender and offended do their part, the relationship actually gets stronger.

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Take an Inventory, Make it Right

If you’re like me, you probably have a couple of outstanding commitments you never closed out. There’s a guy I’ve never met face-to-face but I committed (either internally or directly to him) to give $100 for some advice he gave me back in 2019.

It took me six years to pay him.

Are you doing the math? That’s right. 2025. By that time we usually have moved on and put down deep roots into “It’s no big deal” land.

But it was a big deal.

Even though we'd never met or even spoken on the phone—just emails and texts—that nagging feeling stayed with me. I knew I'd made a commitment and tried to move past it, but that reminder kept coming back.

“He won’t care. That was so long ago. He doesn’t even need the money.”

I reached out to the number I had for him to ask if it was still him. While I didn’t go through all the steps (I hadn’t written this post yet), I did tell him I owed it to him, never paid it, and wanted to pay him.

He did not “no big deal” me. He said he wouldn’t turn it down. I found a way to get him the money (thanks, Zelle), added some interest, and got his reply.

“Definitely not necessary, but what a story that this makes about answering spam messages.”

From spam to one less broken commitment. I’m sure there are more I need to make in my inventory. I wonder what will come to mind next.

What about you? Where can you make it right?

And me? I stepped into the world of coaching recreational youth baseball.

I had never played baseball. I sat down with friends to learn how to run a practice.

“Do you know what a double cut is?”

“A double what?”

“Double cut.”

“No. Sounds important. How do I teach this to eight- and nine-year-olds?”

(Note: was not important nor could they do it.)

I pieced together lineups, practice plans, and game plans. I bought books on coaching and more than one gimmick. In future years, I made a document (complete with GIFs) on batting stance, launch position, coiling, and throwing mechanics.

I rotated pitchers. I had kids play positions of which they had no knowledge. I got mad at parents and they got mad at me. I lost sleep wondering what I did wrong when we lost a game. I made great friends.

In sum: I loved it.

The Youth Sports Death Grip

Recreational ball is my speed. The competition? Pretty bad. The fun? High. I miss the ballparks. I miss coaching with my friends—Matt, Lupe, Adam, Dave, Bret, and Scott, to name a few. Good men, good leaders, and engaged parents. There are worse things to be.

But I also got caught up in the never-ending cycle of “more” that goes along with many youth sports. Baseball got way too much of my attention. After a year or two of rec ball, you gotta make a change. If you want your son to have a chance to be the starting shortstop for the Astros, you have to play on one of the ten billion select teams around led by someone who might’ve played low-A ball.

So you do. You buy a new bat every year. You steal from college savings to pay the insane gate fees. You mortgage away half of your weekends to sit at ballfields while your youngest son beats his head against the bleachers out of boredom. You do it for your kid—he's your retirement.

You also do it for the relationships you’ve formed and the people you’ve gotten to know over years.

You also sort of do it for yourself—well, I did.

And we were pretty tame with it. Baseball was mildly disruptive to our larger commitments. We’d leave practice early to head to student ministry events. We only played locally. Never did one of the 700 world series events you could do. If a game was on a Sunday, we’d head out early, probably lose the 8am game, and then drive to church. If we won the game, we’d still go to church, then head back out afterward and go lose that game.

But it was a lot. Anyone in competitive anything will tell you it’s a lot. They just get mad when you say that maybe it’s too much. I’d get mad at you, too.

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Teenage Wisdom

Thus, the prayers for our family started early. While we loved it—while I loved it—I can’t always promise I loved it for the right reasons. So I’d pray that we wouldn’t make an idol out of baseball. I’d pray for wisdom. I’d talk to friends. I coached in some iteration four seasons. We tried to make it a family affair.

One of our boys played an additional three seasons with different groupings of friends from those rec days.

Then, it ended.

I committed, as much as possible, to be the baseball dad. It was a part of how I bonded. One week, Courtney texted that our son might want to be done playing.

This news came as a surprise to me.

However, on a drive home from practice one night, I heard it from him.

“Mom says you want to be done.”

“Yeah. I don’t like that baseball takes so much time away from the family. From important stuff. I don’t want to spend all my time there.”

“Yeah but are you sure? Maybe you should talk to people who know this world more. Talk to Andrew [student minister]. Talk to Nolan [great guy at our church who played college baseball].”

What am I doing? On one hand I’m enormously proud of him and want him to process with other people who love him. On the other hand I’m sort of hoping he backs out or can be convinced otherwise because wHaT aBoUt Me?!?

“I mean. Have you prayed about this?”

“Yes. One of the reasons I think this is the right thing to do is because it wasn’t on my mind at all when the season started.”

“Then let’s enjoy the rest of the season and ride off into the sunset.”

I’m grateful for the men who invested in our family through baseball. I still keep up with many of them. Last week I grabbed coffee with one to talk life, parenting, and faith. I work with another one now—he helped hire me here in Texas. I swap family pics and videos with a third. And I still text a friend and dad who was one of our son’s biggest fans—the one who helped us make sure he got to all those games.

It was sad to untether that.

I had to grieve (and realize how quietly fanatic I had become).

The Best Decision is the One I Didn’t Make

Honestly, our boy’s better wisdom to take a big step and quit baseball was one of the best decisions our family has ever made. And I didn’t even make it.

I credit him, a thirteen-year-old at the time, with changing the trajectory of our family for the better.

I tell him regularly, “You quitting baseball was one of the best things that happened to us.”

“Really? Cool.”

Courtney and I want to teach our kids to pray, use wisdom, and trust God to give them direction. But we didn’t really think it would work. You need to be at least voting age before you make those decisions, right?

However, I can say without a doubt that our family is in a much healthier spot because our son made a decision I wasn’t ready to make.

Thanks, son.

What does he do with his free time? Well, some of it includes making content for a YouTube channel he has with his friends.

This is better, right? Please tell me this is better. At least we’re still using the bats.

He didn’t give exams in class. Instead, he gave “celebrations of learning.” You had to take them outside of class time, without notes, and answer his handful of open-ended questions. When you finished, you’d have almost ten pages and over 3,000 words written. It wasn’t uncommon to get failing grades on these exams.

He expected a lot of us.

One class period he kept asking us questions about a specific period of history. The class was unprepared to answer his questions.

“Okay. Nobody is ready. Class dismissed. Go to the library and read about this and then come back next time ready to discuss.”

He wasn’t joking, either. Stunned, we all shuffled out of class.

When you were with him, it felt like life mattered to him.

He stood for something.

And then, one time, he said the phrase that connected a lot of the dots for me:

He didn’t claim originality. He attributed the phrase to someone else, but I never actually found the original quote from that someone.

To me, he’s the one who said it. And I’ve never forgotten it.

The Balance Brigade

A “whatabout” exists around every corner of passion.

I never know precisely when salience comes into a human heart regarding a direction, but when it does, look out.

The fire that shows up in the belly of a person who has pored over a new idea, longed for a new startup, knew it was time for a career change, or was ready to tackle a new problem stands out. It’s like a brand-new engine gets dropped inside that person—and the capacity is unimaginable.

Then come the doubters.

“We’ve tried that before.”

“But what about your family? How do they feel?”

“You have a good job.”

“You don’t want to burn out.”

“I don’t see that working.”

“Slow down. Have you thought about the implications?”

Those moments are tough. I’ve been a wet blanket a few too many times for people who want to pursue an idea.

Those moments are when our passion gets tested. Sometimes we have the fortitude to push through. Other times we back off. Often, a gap exists between our passion and the opportunity to execute. Doubts (and doubters) thrive in the waiting.

I’ve had passions I’ve backed off of—youthful or otherwise—and others I’ve kept at.

But a desire for “balance” won’t get you far. The desire will just keep you—keep us—a little safer, maybe with a little more money in the bank and a handful more regrets than some other folks.

Let Imbalance Make You Uncomfortable

But if we could be a little imbalanced—if there is midnight oil to spare—we might realize there’s more in us than we thought. What might be missing is an awakening to pursue something worth fighting for, losing sleep over, and maybe even arguing about.1

• This is the young woman who decided to quit her job to pour into her kids while they’re in the home. It’s unbalanced. She left money on the table.

• This is the small business owner who worked a month straight because he knew good would come from his idea. He’s a little more tired but ends the month grateful.

• This is the friend who goes to school at night for a new degree. “I think it’s crazy,” you say. But five years later, your friend finishes and you realize all you’ve done is thought he was crazy.

• This is the high schooler (he might be related to me) who spends his free time running disc golf tournaments to try and build a community in the city. “Yeah, but you can’t make a career out of that.” (How many high schoolers are building a place to connect youth and adults around a fun hobby?)

• This is the professor who makes his students leave class because they aren’t ready to have a real discussion.

Don’t make that fire in your belly the measuring rod for someone else. I can’t carry your fire, but I can let it illuminate parts of my own life and knock me off balance in the best of ways.

My professor’s words ring true even 20 years later: balanced people have nothing to say.

So say something.

Where have you let a good idea die due to inattention, discouragement, or distraction? We all have them. What does it take to knock the rust off and get back after it? I’d love to hear about it (and potentially help you get back after it).

Most of those steps were alone with my own thoughts and prayers. I have found that the more output I have in life, the more time I need to process. On times I’m not alone with my gait, it’s because Courtney has joined me. We also took several walks with friends from church. Over the break I walked with two of our boys for a quick getaway from a family party.

During a walk after Christmas, and right after Courtney and the boys traveled to Louisiana for about ten days, I finished up a podcast I listen to semi-regularly. On it, the contributors were asked what their favorite piece of journalism was outside of their own platform.

One contributor went back to an article from the beginning of 2025, “The Anti-Social Century” by Derek Thompson of The Atlantic (paywalled, but can be found on Apple News if you have it).

This article doesn’t rant about loneliness—in fact, Thompson highlights the difference between loneliness (which many people do not feel) and solitude (which is used in the article as being “the only person in the room” even if on a device engaging with others). I started this article from a coffee shop by myself; I’m in solitude for all intents and purposes.

(The irony isn’t lost on me that I listened to this article while walking by myself.)

Thompson’s thesis:

The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching—for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.

I found much in the article to be true. Yet there was this unspoken part of me as I considered the people I’ve engaged with over years—men, in particular—who struggle to connect with peers. I think about that long-tenured meme (though the number can be debated, thanks to Judas):

This article reminded me of something I wrote about years ago and say to anyone who will listen: if you want friends, you have to be a friend.

Easier said than done. In fact, we often view our relationships—even our closest ones—as transactional. I’ve done it, too.

However, realizing just how much solitude impacts our culture, I thought more about how this impacts us when it comes to our friendships—men, in particular.

Friendship: A Lost Art, Especially for Men

I come across people who suffer from relational isolation. They so badly want friends but they can’t seem to cross the divide. This feeling can result from one’s crushing insecurity, self-imposed “my spouse is my best friend” jargon,1 the simple fact that some of us are quite difficult to befriend, or something that falls in between.

One aspect I find, at least anecdotally, is this: we want something from people we often have not first been willing to give.

Our cultural phrases teach us that we should know better.

• You get out what you put in.

• No pain, no gain.

• Be the change you want to see.

Whatever your phrase, I’ll say this: friendship is hard. To be a friend takes a significant amount of work.

Men, we cannot meaningfully connect to others as genuine friends without significant sacrifices. In other words, it’ll cost you.

• Time: Friendships aren’t built in solitude and don’t get cooked in a microwave. You have to invest substantial time with people—very often without much in return. Not only that—and they don’t teach you this in school—but you might have to put in significant time with people before you find one you might have a strong connection with. And the place you might have to give up time in order to be with others? Your “me” time.

• Money: I’m not talking about buying friends, which would be a Michael Scott strategy. I’m talking about being generous. Be the one who buys lunch with no paybacks. Even if you have people over, you’re providing them something from your fridge or pantry. It’s always money well-spent but it needs to be a part of how you think nonetheless. Our general rule as a family with our boys’ friends: If they’re with us, they don’t pay, because they’re part of the family at that moment.

• Pain: To let someone get close enough to hurt you is a vulnerable thing, but it comes with the territory. In fact, the ones you let get the closest to you are the ones who will hurt you the most. When you’re face to face with someone who has hurt you (or you’ve hurt), you can’t walk away from your device. You’re stuck there, and you have to deal with it.

For some, these costs are a no-brainer. For others, they’re a bridge too far. However, if you want the benefits of deep friendships, you have to pony up.

Sow Seeds of Friendship Wide

I don’t plan to stop walking anytime soon. It’s where I process, pray, and consider those people in my life who are dear to me. The solitude helps prepare me for the face time with others. But I don’t live for the solitude.

We keep our Christmas cards up the entire next year. This display is largely due to our own lack of desire to take them down. People come over and are surprised by the number. I’d say we got roughly 90 in 2025 (which isn’t that many). Still, we’ve been at it a long time, so you get a card from someone and you go, “Shoot, I guess we need to send them one, too.” There’s some formality to it I laugh over.

But how many did we send? Over 400. People don’t see that part.

Doing the math, that means for about every four cards we send, we get one back.

But the math is irrelevant because we don’t send out cards to get cards. We send out cards to make one more connection with people in our lives. Some we know well, others not as well, but each family matters.

Those 90 will be staring at us throughout much of 2026 and give me a reminder. At times, we take a card down and tell the kids a story about the family and something we appreciate about them. We might pray for them, too.

All that to say: sow seeds of friendship wide and see what harvest may come.

What do I mean? Invest broadly in people who cross your path. Take them to coffee. Invite them over. Ask them questions about where they came from and what they’re passionate about. Shoot, go a little over budget to feed them. Let yourself be interrupted by them.

Then, do it again. This time with someone else.

You may not realize how many new relationships begin to form.

• The responsible is the one doing the work.

• The accountable is the one ultimately in charge of the project.

• The consulted don’t do the work but are brought in when their voice matters.

• The informed are those who need to know what’s going on at the right time.

One word: Boring.

One question: Are we allowed to say “RACI” anymore? It has an unfortunate homonym that I think might get you fired.

One thought: The chart doesn’t even flow in a logical order. Why would the second person on the list be the one ultimately responsible?

Then again, running around saying “ARCI” isn’t really any better, is it?

ORCA Delegation Clears up the Confusion

One staff meeting, I simultaneously lamented our staff’s struggle to appropriately assign responsibility and my disdain of RACI because it won’t work. Within five minutes, maybe my most favorite staff creation came about—from word to dumb GPT-created logo.

O – Owner: The person ultimately accountable for the item being discussed. Any item in question only has one owner. We cannot make a department or team the owner. However, an owner might exist on a team of responsible parties.

R – Responsible: The doer(s). They’re hands-on, executing the work and moving the ball forward. They report to the owner. An event or ministry might have multiple areas of responsibility, but there is still one responsible person per task or deliverable.

C – Coordinated: The people who need to stay in sync on any project. They often interact with the responsible party or parties. They’re not doing the work, but their input, timing, and/or alignment matters.

A – Aware: These are the people who are kept in the loop. They’re informed, not involved in the doing or deciding, but benefit from visibility. Awareness helps them stay aligned and ready to support if needed.

Implementing ORCA

Say you have an idea or there’s a new project. The flow becomes simple.

Assign the Owner: Any project or task the team is working on needs one leader—the Owner. You should keep asking, “Who owns that?” until it’s crystal clear and one name is attached.

Determine Spans of Responsibility: The Owner helps determine the other roles needed. Owners can also have some area of responsibility, should their time allow, but the responsible parties all need to know what they’re responsible for.

Let your Rs Run Free: Not too free, but their lane should be clear enough that they know what to do. They can bring in the people they need (Cs, largely) to get it done.

Make Aware When Needed: The group who needs to be aware can change, but the people closest to the activity likely have the best idea of who needs to be where.

By using ORCA, you bring some clarity to your collaboration (and yes, whales). It helps us avoid confusion, reduce duplication, and ensure everyone knows their role and who they’re responsible to—so we can serve with excellence and move forward together.

Author’s Commentary: The value of ORCA for the team.

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When we landed on this language, we recorded a podcast on it for our church. You can listen below (the discussion happens on the back third of the podcast)