Years ago, while visiting my airline’s corporate office, I witnessed what must have been the quickest rejection of a job applicant. A young, shaggy-haired man with baggy clothes, hanging low around his rear, approached the front desk and requested a job application. The secretary asked if he would like to complete the form and submit it immediately. He declined and moped toward the exit. Before he could step outside, the secretary shot me the “not in a million years” look about this young man.

This young man’s dress and demeanor reminded me of a conversation I had with a teen around the same time. This teen felt that individual expression should trump societal norms, but there is a reason you pass the rolls and not throw them, unless you’re at Lambert’s Cafe in Missouri where it’s expected. While I do believe in expression of individuality, my flight kit had a comic with people floating in the water with a plane sinking; the caption read: “Bad day at work.” Things like dress or table manners transcend the individual. They say something about what you believe about yourself and others.

I’ve met with many parents who desire that their children learn to respect authority yet think nothing about speeding, which is a subtle (or sometimes blatant) disregard for authority. Little do these parents realize that they are undermining their own authority. (Dear Alanis Morissette, that’s real irony).

This line of thinking inspired me to develop the Everything Speaks message series. As a professional speaker, I learned many years ago — like our appearance and driving — that everything speaks; everything communicates something about what we believe, even if unintentionally. It’s why we value things like punctuality, firm handshakes and grace.

During the message series, we discovered that how we pray, how we surrender and how we serve each say something about what we believe about God’s power, sovereignty and our own depth of love for our neighbor.

If we have a weak prayer life, it can communicate to others that we believe our God is weak and unable. A hesitant surrender can expose a lack of trust in God. And a torpid level of serving might broadcast a lack of concern for others. Everything speaks. So I challenged my congregation to pray some risky prayers. I say risky because if you pray them earnestly, prepare to never be the same, again.

Pray: Search me; Psalm 139:23 — “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” Ask God to reveal the sins and fears in your life that are keeping you from the plan He has for your life.

Pray: Break me; Job 17:1 — “My spirit is crushed, and my life is nearly snuffed out.” Pray for a brokenness that requires a dependency solely on God, which fosters intimacy, clarity of purpose, and your God-given identity.

Pray: Use me; Luke 22:42 — “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Pray that, because of you, others would come to know Christ and your actions would bring glory to God.

Pray: To desire the world less and Him more — downward mobility versus upward mobility. (My prayer growing up: Lord, help. Please help me to want to love You, to know You and to serve You.)

Pray: To be rich in the things that matter — invite family into a better story: prayer and reading the Word, serving together; be known more for what you give than what you have; seek intimate and purposeful relationships; view school/work/career as a mission field not a paycheck, etc.

Pray: To be fully surrendered to His will — trusting in His provision and strength to die to old habits that keep you at anything less than full surrender. His Word: learn it, love it, live it.

Referencing John 13: Pray: To get up — to leave a place of comfort and familiarity. (Jesus left the table); free up your schedule by setting your priorities and living them. Pray: to open up—to not only be more trusting/vulnerable, trusting ultimately in yourself and God’s voice in your life, but also about being someone that is trustworthy. Pray: To do it — Put your purpose (and redemptive story) into action with empathy and mercy in a way that brings God glory through serving your neighbor … loving them as you love yourself.

C.J. Wetzler is the Next-Gen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments, he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

If you were like me as a kid, Christmas morning was the most anticipated morning of the year. I would toss and turn all night until about 4 a.m. when I would embark upon the mission of waking my parents — year after year to no avail.

In my 12th year of life, there was added expectancy. I was confident Santa Claus would deliver the year’s hottest toy: a Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash track set. Undoubtably by 9 a.m., my Hot Wheels cars would be whirling along the clover-shaped track, zooming through one of four intersecting “crash zones.” Months of agonizing waiting would finally come to bear its fruit in the form of epic crashes.

Santa delivered, both figuratively and literally. An overwhelming sense of happiness burst forth as I ripped the wrapping paper to reveal my Criss Cross Crash track set. The moment had arrived. Immediately I began to build the track. Wait a minute. This can’t be right. Where is it? It has to be here! No. No! These were my thoughts as I realized that one piece of track was missing. I had, for the most part, lost every little league baseball game up until this point in my life, and yet somehow, this moment was considerably more deflating.

As soon as the stores re-opened my dad and I went to make an exchange only to experience calamity number two: No Criss Cross track sets in stock. In this moment of crushing disappointment, somehow I found myself in the BB gun section of the store with my dad asking the most glorious question of all, “Would you rather have a BB gun?” Life changed forever. Criss Cross Crash would fall to the bottom of the memory pit — forgotten, thanks to my new Daisy pump-action BB gun rifle, and the countless hours spent protecting my backyard from an invasion of GI Joe and Ninja Turtle action figures — and my sister’s New Kids on the Block figurine.

I learned a valuable lesson that Christmas: Sometimes you have to give up something you love for something you love more. And 15 years later, God would have me revisit this wisdom.

During my mid-20s, I came across Pastor Craig Groeschel’s book titled Chazown: Define Your Vision. Pursue Your Passion. Live Your Life on Purpose. Pastor Craig uses the Venn Diagram method to reveal how when our spiritual gifts, core values and past experiences merge, we discover a clearer understanding of our God-given purpose. It was through much prayer, meditation and wise counsel that I discovered my God-given purpose.

At age of 27, I gave up something I loved (flying commercially) for something I loved more (investing in the next generation).

Too often we are afraid to fully surrender to the will of God citing the example of the wealthy ruler who asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life (Luke 18:18). When Jesus instructed him to sell all his possessions, we know that he left sorrowful, unwilling to give up what he loved—in his case, wealth (Luke 18:22-23). We fear Jesus will ask us the same of us regarding whatever it is we choose to love more than Him. But when we grasp the magnitude of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross, we will acknowledge that the things we love are “worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:7-8). It is in this revelation that our response will differ from the sorrowful ruler as we willfully give up the things we love for the One we love more to live the purpose God has for our life — knowing everything we need can be found in the provisions of our Savior. He is all we need.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

At the time of writing this article, the population of the United States is 324,192,360. Of those, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 130,000 of them are employed as a commercial or airline pilot. That means only .0004 percent of the U.S. population fly cargo or people professionally. If you were to attend a sold-out Yankees game, of the 54,251 spectators, statistically there are only 22 pilots in the stands. That’s three less people than one team’s active roster! It’s a prestigious career with few completing the extensive training, unrelenting testing and demands that professional pilots experience. I know this because I was one — a captain by age 24, even.

Six years after my departure from the airline industry people still ask, “What kind of plane did you fly?” And when I reply that I operated the CRJ-200, a 50-seat regional jet, forget what I wrote above. I might as well have said that I pulled a Radio Flyer wagon behind my Big Wheel and, yet, some would still consider that the more prestigious.

Easily disregarded by the public is the fact that regional aircraft and crew are held to the same certification and reliability standards as the mainline carriers, which is proven by the regional airlines’ exceedingly unprecedented safety and reliability record. Also ignored, regional pilots — one could argue — possess surpassing “stick-and-rudder” skills as a direct result of the increased amount of operations in what is statistically considered the most dangerous part of the flight which is the take-off and landing (or terminal) environment. Finally, consider how the regional jet has positively impacted the market for the customer by expanding to service smaller cities and providing greater schedule flexibility. Yet, no one wants to fly on the “tiny” jets — the scourge of the industry. Vacation, yes; via a regional jet, no.

As a pastor, the size game continues. How many people go to your church? How many youth went on the summer trip? How many students attend the Wednesday night experience? Numbers, numbers, numbers! In aviation, you’re not a real pilot until you’ve flown a plane with 100 seats or more. And in ministry, you’re not a real pastor until your weekly attendance exceeds 2000 with the additional “pastor street credential” bonus for being multi-site.

Please hear me; I believe God has, and will, use varying church styles and sizes. But what’s being increasingly neglected by church-goers is the focus of what’s most important in the ministry — Christ. Somewhere we’ve come to measure the health and success of a church solely by two metrics: attendance and giving. Can these two be indicators of health or deficiency either way? Yes, they can. But should they be the sole qualifiers? I say absolutely not! As recorded in Matthew 7:20, Jesus says, “[Just] as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”

Timothy Keller, in Shaped By the Gospel, writes, “The most important [action taken] is that a ministry be faithful to the Word and sound in doctrine,” with Christ at the center. We must resist the temptation to be ensnared by shallow number-crunching and instead hold fast to the promise of what God desires to accomplish through a handful of people fully surrendered to His will.

It is we, who call ourselves Christians, that have been commissioned to gather as the body, the Church, and to be known by our actions. We are people with a “passion for His presence, a deep craving to reach the lost, sincere integrity, Spirit-led faith, down-to-earth humility,” and a recognition of our own “brokenness” (It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It, Craig Groeschel).

When we act in such a way, we’ll see rebellious hearts turn toward God and He will “add to the Church” because we abandoned seat-counting and returned to devoting ourselves “to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer” Acts 2:38-47.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

Minutes before midnight on Dec. 29, 1979, Eastern Airlines flight 401, originating from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, with 163 passengers and 13 crew on board, crashed into the Everglades, just short of their destination, Miami International Airport. In total, 96 lives were lost due to a faulty light.

While on approach to land, the nose wheel “down-and-locked” indicator light failed to illuminate. A missed approach was executed, which included climbing to 2000 ft. over the Everglades. The crew re-engaged the autopilot and investigated.

During the commotion, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the captain, when turning to speak with the flight engineer, may have inadvertently disconnected the autopilot, resulting in a shallow descent. Given the moonless night and dark terrain below, it would have been near impossible to visually recognize the departure from the established altitude.

Allow me to pause. Do you believe what we say and how we say it matters? Proverbs 18:21 teaches that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” James likens the tongue to a small rudder which “makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go — “for, if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.” (James 3:2-3). It’s important for us to understand that even seemingly insignificant words carry this same power.

We could argue the first link broke in the chain of events leading to the disaster stems from a seemingly insignificant piece of hardware. This malfunctioning light interrupted a normal approach and diverted the crews’ attention — a large catastrophe caused by a little light bulb.

If you’re like me, the latest catastrophes around the world can be overwhelming. I understand the “call to love” more. But can my personal choice to do so really make any difference in the grand scheme of the world’s problems? Then, I am reminded of Eastern Airlines Flight 401. Little things can make a huge difference — for better … or for worse.

For instance, now, if the autopilot is bumped off, an audible alert sounds. Another modest improvement, which has saved countless lives, is the concept of “pilot-flying” and “pilot-not-flying.” In the event of a situation, as with Flight 401, a crew-member’s sole responsibility would have been to positively monitor the instruments, immediately noticing the break from altitude. It’s simple, yet powerful — like our words (and even our actions).

From this day forward, recognize the power you possess to share love with others. It may seem trite, but let someone into traffic ahead of you. Buy the lunch of the person behind you in the drive-through. Visit a nursing home or VA. Write a personal note to someone. Call your parents. When someone is walking your way on the sidewalk, make room for them to pass — or honk less in traffic.

Love is a verb with limitless opportunities to be expressed. And while governing authorities may serve as relief, it is the power of love, exhibited on the personal level — albeit even minuscule — which heals a relationship, a family, a neighborhood, a community, a city, a state, a nation, a world. Never underestimate the capacity of simple words … it’s the power of life and death.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

I’ve heard that social media is good and bad. Unfortunately, both are an oversimplification, void of a deeper understanding (as I would argue that social media has both “good” and “bad” qualities — key word, qualities).

One of the “bad” qualities is what researchers have determined about stories in our social media newsfeed, how they carry equal weight. Everything shares the proverbial front page. Couple that with the saturation of tragedies posted, desensitizing us to their weightiness, and no wonder silly cat videos go viral. The “bad” qualities have led us straight into being overwhelmed, jaded and complacent … case-and-point, me.

Last week, while scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across a picture of a young boy lying in a hospital bed connected to monitoring equipment. The tag line asked for prayer. I started to pray. I wish I could say that I rolled out of bed and dropped to my knees. Or that I at least prayed something more meaningful than, “Lord, be with this young boy; heal him.” But I didn’t. And it was then and there that the Holy Spirit convicted me. I asked God to lead me in what I should pray. What flashed through my mind next was probably one of the most authentic prayers I’ve ever uttered. “Lord, I wish I cared more.”

The truth: I was going through the motions — knocking out my obligatory prayer. I wanted to sleep. But God, after His conviction, prompted me to continue to aimlessly scroll through my newsfeed. He knew that just a few posts away was the same boy, except this time, the picture included detailed instructions how to pray. God is good and I prayed — for real.

While the main plot was that of the young boy — whose surgery went well — the side story included my growth. I decided from that day forward I would commit to caring more. Philippians 2:4 reads, “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too” and Romans 12:10 says, “Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.” I want to take this wisdom to heart as I live the command of John 13:34-35 to “[love] each other [just] as [Christ has] loved you,” so that “[your] love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Did you know that the average age for children being recruited for prostitution is 13 years old, which Peter Haas, in his book Broken Escalators: Funny and Frightful Lessons about Moth Eating and Moving to the Next Level, reports that these children who are coerced or trafficked comprise nearly 20 percent of Internet porn. And just how much cash is spent on pornographic material daily? Haas confirms that among China, the U.S., Japan and South Korea, a whopping $236 million is consumed … per day. What else happens per day? Haas continues, 21,000 children under 5 years old die from poverty-related illnesses. Toss in racism, terrorism, corruption you name it, and it can be overwhelming living in a world that has succumbed to sin.

If you’re like me, you will want to do something. You will want to care more. I love what Benjamin Kerns writes about righting injustices in his book From the Pen to the Palace: A Youth Ministry Evangelism and Discipleship Strategy For a Post-Christian Culture; he calls us to “[leverage] our power for the benefit of others.” We see this modeled by Christ in how He cared, how He loved. Eugene Cho writes in Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World than Actually Changing the World? whether it was the widow, the leper, the adulterer, the prostitute, the marginalized, the oppressed, the forgotten, the rich, the poor, the hurting, the joyful, (you name it), Jesus lived justly and He calls us to follow suit: to love as He loves … to care more.

Join me and, together, let us be the Church — one that loves others by caring more than just in thought, but in deed.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

I dare say that my role as a pastor for students and their families is considerably more challenging than my previous one as an airline captain. That’s not to downplay the demands of the airline profession — trust me, it’s intense. It’s just that when you find yourself embedded in the clouds, with no land in sight, the instrumentation, airport technology and air traffic control perform exactly as they’re designed to: guiding the plane safely, under zero visibility, to the runway. And, let me tell you, when you break out of the cloud deck at 50 ft. above the runway while hauling toward the Earth at roughly 150 miles per hour, it’s exhilarating … but, predictable … quite the opposite from children and teens.

There is the messy business of being called to “Train up a child in the way [they] should go” so that when they are older, “[they] will not depart from it” Proverbs 22:6. That begs the question: In which way should they go?

Dr. Seuss has a few suggestions, as do the authors of Nurture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. They set out to identify a list of “supertraits” hoping children with a firm grasp of “gratitude, honesty, empathy [and] fairness” would become “good children” in which problems such as “stealing, feeling bored or distressed, excluding others, early sexual activity and succumbing to peer pressure” would essentially “bounce off them just as easily as bullets bounced off Superman.” What they discovered though, through copious amounts of research, is that these “supertraits” can’t be relied upon to act as “moral Kevlar.”

In this absence of a predictable outcome, control has become our new idol. In the documentary Trophy Kids, one parent of a 9-year-old shares his belief about the goal of parenting: “Get [your] kid to buy into your dream and to your ambition, that’s the key.” Another parent with twin 14-year-old boys informed them that their identity is in playing tennis, and that her will for them, for which she’s made a covenant with God on their behalf, is that they become tennis superstars.

Maybe the aforementioned parents teeter on the extreme, but a new generation of controlling parents has materialized called “Helicopter Parents.” Dr. Tim Elmore in his book Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future says this of Helicopter Parents: “These hovering ‘helicopters’ can be controlling and obsessive in their efforts to ensure that everything goes well for their children and that no negative incident affects their self-esteem or their prospects.” Little do these parents understand that, because of their actions, their child isn’t learning the ability to fail and persevere. The “hovering” parent is “[preparing] the path for the child instead of the child for the path.”

In Scripture, time and time again, God prepares the individual for the path, not the other way around. Take David for example. Battling Goliath wasn’t his first altercation. In 1 Samuel 17:33 we see that David “has been a warrior from his youth”— going all commando against lions and bears (“Oh my!” says every parent). Prior to the big match-up, Saul offered up his armor to David, which he declined, knowing it wasn’t needed. (How many times do we try to put our identity — that we rationalize as “armor” or “protection”— on the children under our care?) Later, we see that David “ran quickly toward the battle…” 1 Samuel 17:48, signifying his eagerness and trust in the Lord, slinging the stone, which had the same take-down force of a .45 caliber pistol, into the forehead of the towering infantryman armed with a spear — talk about your classic bringing a knife to a gun fight — “… thus David prevailed over the Philistine” 1 Samuel 17:50.

In David’s story, we see God’s design for the way a child should go — to prevail. They are to be equipped through undergoing challenging experiences, yes, struggles that reveal a true relationship with their Father, creating in them a secure understanding of their identity — who God has ordained them to become. From there, we can trust (in God) that they will eagerly take up their calling and accomplish — prevail in — His work, not ours.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments, he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

Let me share with you a few of my favorite places to eat here in South Florida. (Trust me; I have a point.) When I want a great burger and fries, there’s no place I love more than Flanigan’s Seafood Bar & Grill. Pizza, now that’s a toss-up because, with so many New England transplants in SoFlo, there’s a plethora of great pizza stops. I’ll give my shout out to Big Louie’s and Mizner Pizzeria. Last, but certainly not least, a true staple of the southeastern states, the “Pub Sub” from the Publix Deli. Can you find a better sandwich?

It’s easy to want to share with you my favorite food stops, but there is one thing I cannot do and that’s tell you how great the food is at the Olympia Flame Diner. Why? Because I’ve never stopped in to have a bite. I’ve heard excellent reviews. I’ve seen pictures of the place when I Googled it for this article, but, the fact remains: I have no first-hand experience.

I imagine the above logic makes sense. Few people — if any — review movies they haven’t seen. So allow me to insert what author and speaker Jon Acuff calls a “Jesus Juke” — radically altering the course of conversation toward Jesus.

Are you consuming your Word daily? Do you spend intentional time in the presence of our Lord hearing from Him through meditation on His Word? Are you experiencing Him personally—without ceasing?

Matthew 28:19 commands us to “… go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

I have to ask, how can we fulfill this great commission with any authenticity and authority if we have yet to truly experience the life-changing message of the Gospel first-hand?

Joshua 1:8 says, “Study [the Word] continually. Meditate on it day and night so that you will be sure to obey everything written in it.” When we do so, He promises to “draw near to you,” James 4:8.

Think about that; the Creator of all the galaxies and beyond wants to draw close to you.

To put that in perspective, I’d like to draw from the science presented by Reverend Francis Chan. The speed of light travels at 186,000 miles per second … yes second! A light year then is a measure of the distance that light travels at that 186,000 mile per second for a whole year. That’s far! So how many light years would it take to travel from one end of our galaxy – the Milky Way Galaxy, the one in which our solar system resides – to the other? 100,000 light years. Let that sink in. Still not impressed? Scientist estimate there are 350 billion galaxies like our Milky Way in space. And somewhere, tucked deep within our universe, is Earth, where the Creator of those galaxies and beyond desires to draw close to you in a personal — first-hand — relationship.

It is then, and only then, when we will be able to understand our identity in Him, able to venture into a lost world in desperate need of a Savior. With authority, fervency and joy, we will share what we know about our faith, not from having only read a Yelp review, but from our personal experience: a changed life. In this depth of knowing Him, others will come to know Him, too. He is a relational God who has given us the ultimate text message: His Word. Read and respond; for you have been set apart for His purposes. And because of your obedience, His will will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments, he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

The flight deck door flung open. A crazed man towered in the entryway wielding a knife at the throat of a helpless flight attendant. Training took over as I swung around while unholstering my service weapon, took aim and stopped the threat.

“Good shots,” declared my firearms instructor. “Care to know where you hit?”

I lowered my weapon. It had the same look and feel as a real firearm only, instead of using live rounds, the pistol was equipped with a muzzle-mounted laser which, upon trigger pull, sends an invisible pulse of light from the barrel to the target. A large computer simulation screen, located behind the mock flight deck, detected each of my shots with realistic ballistic accuracy. Everything about the scenario felt real; but, it was only training; it was pretend.

Honestly, I had no recollection of how many shots I fired before pausing to reassess the threat. I was stupefied that, while only a simulation experience, my brain had jettisoned the memory of the number of trigger pulls. I was at the mercy of my training — rote. Much to my satisfaction, having been coached by some of the best federal firearms instructors in the nation, I learned the only casualty was the simulated perp. I had reacted as desired, going through the motions that I’d been taught.

To this day, the power of pretend continues to amaze me. It’s probably why I love movies. The motion picture industry has long leveraged the concept of “suspension of disbelief” allowing the viewer to become immersed in stories absent of reality. They know it’s pretend; but, in the moment, like my simulation experience, it’s real.

Yet, a paradox exists. While pretend is necessary, it has crept into our faith. God, speaking to the people of Judah in Isaiah 29:13, said, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.” In short: Going through the motions — pretending.

While we cerebrally understand that true worship permeates from our full dependency on God, we give “lip service” when we pretend to have it all together, that we are healthy apart from Christ. In Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, author John Piper says, “The difference between Uncle Sam and Jesus Christ is that Uncle Sam won’t enlist you in his service unless you are healthy and Jesus won’t enlist you unless you are sick.” Mark 2:17 affirms this when Jesus said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor — sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

My plea: Follow the instruction of Psalm 123:2 in that we “keep looking to the Lord our God for His mercy.” Christ compared the church to a hospital for good reason. If you break your leg, you don’t pretend you are fine. Conversely, while in a hospital with, let’s say, a nail through your hand, you don’t complete the paperwork as if all is well.

Let us stop pretending, no matter how real it feels, and return to the true heart of worship, with arms raised accepting His power and grace, our need of Him. In Mathew 11:28-30, Christ says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” We can remove the burden of pretending — as if we’d ever be able to measure up — with our soul finding rest in the assurance of salvation, believing that our righteousness is freely given because of the real sacrifice of our savior: Jesus.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain, and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments, he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

Before rising to fame on NBC’s hit show The Voice, or opening for country super-star Toby Keith, or even headlining the Folds of Honor concert series, Corey Kent White, 21, sought a reasonable plan B.

I met Corey in 2011, following a presentation I made to his school about leadership and career exploration. After my talk, Corey found his way back to tap me on my shoulder. He had enjoyed my aviator stories and was eager to ask aviation-related questions. The airline pilot in me was happy to oblige.

That evening we connected via Facebook, where he shared his concern as a 16-year-old searching for direction:

“Pretty much, I am all over the place. I have a few connections in the music biz (and that’s my first love), but I also realize that it’s very difficult to make a living through music and a lot of it has to do with luck. So I am searching for a reasonable plan B.”

Instantly, I knew there was something special about this young man; while most teens are pushing the boundaries of adolescence, Corey was searching for a reasonable plan B.

I invited Corey to meet. We talked about God and what it would look like to scratch plan B and wholeheartedly seek God’s call. He was on board. Still hanging on my refrigerator is the list he wrote of his priorities, with God in the No. 1 spot.

Flash forward: Today, Corey has more than just a “few” connections in the “music biz.” He is making a living pursuing his love of music. He didn’t need luck, and attributes all his success to God. The millions who have bought his music are surely glad he didn’t pursue a “reasonable” plan B.

While it would be easy for him to drop God from the No. 1 spot, as he rides the momentum of his success, it’s Romans 12:1-21 that encapsulates his heart. He understands and applies what it means to give of his body to “be a living and holy sacrifice,” which Romans asserts is the true “way to worship [God].” Corey seeks accountability to keep himself from “[copying] the behavior and customs of this world,” by allowing “God [to] transform [him] into a new person by changing the way [he thinks].” It is this that allows him to confidently know God’s will for him, “which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Corey is humble, honest in his evaluation of self so as to give credit to God over taking it for himself, recognizing that “we are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other” for the glory of God. He knows he’s been given a “special function” (as we all have), and by God’s grace “[He] has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.”

With this understanding, Corey uses his gifts to share the Gospel. He uses his platform to boldly profess the love of Christ to millions. His fruits reveal the passionate pursuit (ironically) not of music, but his call.

How does one with such a fandom and seemingly crowded schedule enthusiastically serve the Lord? Corey begins each day growing closer to God by trading in plan B for a reading plan—Scripture reading. This has allowed his prayer life to evolve from a formal “Dear God of the universe” prayer intro to “Good morning, Father.” Intimately knowing His Father allows him to pray without ceasing during the day, keeping him on track in pursuit of holiness as he seeks to align his life with the Truth found in the Word of God.

In the business of music, much is at stake; but, for Corey, and for each of us in our own right, growing closer to God and knowing who He has called us to become will ensure that we don’t need a reasonable plan B. We can rest in the assurance that the God of the universe is not some far off cosmic ruler, and, as Chris Tomlin sings, “God is a good, good father” and you can trust Him with your future. Just ask Corey Kent White.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.

Ray Romano once said, “As a comedian, you don’t want to upset someone with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). They’ll write you a letter … and another one … and another one … and another one.”

We may laugh, but the reality is that OCD is crippling. People suffering from this condition develop compulsive behaviors in which they become obsessed with performing certain rituals repeatedly to only temporarily find relief from the plaguing anxiety. Simply put: Someone obsessing over their safety may lock and re-lock a door again and again. For many, this is a neurotic condition; they know the repetition is for naught. They understand that they are no safer whether they lock the same lock once or four times over.

If you’ve read this far, you’re either my mom or you’re curious to see what this has to do with Christianity. Allow me to explain.

While not true OCD, I believe many of us have what I like to call OCD Christianity. We’ve latched on to certain obsessions within our faith and have created rituals that help us feel more Christian. And, as with OCD, we recognize these behaviors and still perform them even though we know they do not draw us closer to God. If anything, they weigh us down and distract us from strengthening our personal relationship with Him.

To grasp my abstract thought, track with me through three things we obsess about. One, we obsess about condemnation. We see the world living in sin and think, “Turn or burn.” We use guilt and shame to bring people into the faith. Unfortunately, this approach makes God’s plan small and boring — uninviting and unexciting.

And, naturally, if we begin to obsess over condemnation for others, it’s not long before, two, we obsess about self-preservation — Are we saved? Are we good, God? Check out Luke 3:7, when John the Baptist addressed the Pharisees and Sadducees: “You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee God’s coming wrath?” He pointed out that, just as snakes flee a brush fire to save themselves, these guys were only concerned about self-preservation, believing their rituals would save them. As much as it may pain us to admit, in this case, we probably relate more to the Pharisees and Sadducees than to the recent converts.

Three, we obsess over comfort — doing everything in our power to avoid being uncomfortable. Yet, nowhere in Scripture do we find a call to safe and comfortable living. Quite the opposite, right? This obsession blinds us from the realization that Heavenly comfort is facilitated by earthly discomfort.

So, there they are. I had to put them out there to say this: From these obsessions, we’ve created rituals that ransack our understanding of Matthew 7:22-23: “On judgment day many will say to me ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’” To put it in modern context: “Without leaving our comfort zone, we started a small group in your name and read our Bibles, and attended Sunday school, in your name, and even had a really cool event that grew our attendance … in your name, of course.” Yet comprehend carefully Christ’s response in Matthew 7:23: “But I will reply, ‘I never KNEW you. Get away from me…’” [emphasis added].

Wait, what? So there are people who do Christian-ey things and they won’t enter Heaven?

Yes.

God isn’t asking us to do things because they make us feel like Christians. He’s inviting us into an authentic relationship with Him. But, if we obsess about condemnation, self-preservation and discomfort, we’ll read our Bibles, pray, give of our time and resources, etc., because doing so will make us feel like “we’re good” instead of an effort to actually deepen our relationship with Him. We’ll miss the point completely — be His disciple; go and make disciples. It’ll all be, as with OCD, for naught.

But, be filled with hope! John the Baptist prepared the way for Christ, who would, once and for all, atone for our sins. Find joy in that we are free from having to lock and re-lock the door, metaphorically speaking. We can brake — put a stop to our obsessions — by fully surrendering to His will, by trusting Him at His Word, by accepting that He is our assurance of salvation. And then, out of our overflow, we will freely live the two most important commands: Love God and love your neighbor — without the crippling fruitless rituals which bring us no closer to being known by Him.

C.J. Wetzler is the NextGen pastor at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, CJ was a commercial airline captain and high school leadership and science teacher. For questions or comments, he can be reached at cj@deerfieldfirst.com.