Keep your head.
That may be the single most crucial advice I can offer leaders my age and younger.
We’re living in turbulent times—with church leaders rising and falling all around us, shifting tides that unsettle congregations, and a relentless stream of challenges surging in from every side. When the sea is tempestuous, the most countercultural presence we can offer the world is single-mindedness. Steadiness. We can be consistent. Predictable. Stable. Ever drawing people back to the basics—the truthfulness of God’s Word, the power of the gospel, and the mission of the church.
Remember how the apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthian church: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). Look again at those first two descriptions: Steadfast. Immovable. And then look at what grounds that stability: knowing our labor in the Lord isn’t in vain. Perhaps the reason so many Christians today seem frantic and frenzied is because, deep down, we don’t believe the promise that our labor in the Lord truly counts. We fear we labor in vain. Anxiety and fear are the telltale signs that our hearts remain uncertain about whether God is really at work through ordinary obedience.
Pillars over Platforms
In his latest book, Australian church leader Mark Sayers contrasts two visions of influence: platforms and pillars. We live in an age enthralled with platforms—marked by social media reach, packed auditoriums, book sales, or online presence. But these platforms, impressive as they may be in the short run, often fail to have a lasting influence because their incentives draw us away from building something larger than ourselves, something that will outlast us.
Pillars, by contrast, stand quietly but powerfully. “The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God,” Jesus says (Rev. 3:12). Pillars never stand alone. They depend on other pillars that uphold and make possible spaces where true community can flourish. As the apostle Peter puts it, we’re to be “living stones” built into God’s spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5), a source of stability and interconnectedness.
Real pillars—those faithful, humble saints who don’t do ministry for their own glory or gain, who aren’t tossed about by the waves of culture or driven to delight or despair by whatever headlines emanate from Washington, DC—contribute to lasting legacies through steady and sacrificial lives. They make possible spaces where others grow and thrive. They seldom seek applause, and their steady presence becomes most noticeable in times of chaos.
Stability amid the Frenzy
In an age marked by noise and upheaval, stability becomes a startling witness precisely because it’s so rare. Our anxious hearts can be distracted by the pursuit of grandiose ideas or dramatic shifts—whatever solutions promise immediate relief. But stability calls us back to reality: Most of the world’s insanity lies beyond our control. Stability reminds us where we can have the biggest influence—in our families, our churches, our communities. That influence is felt not through anxious striving but through faithful steadiness.
Paul told the early Christians living in the Roman Empire, “Seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands . . . so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone” (1 Thess. 4:11–12). This quiet stability might seem ordinary or boring, but it stands out in a frantic age.
Sayers shares a recent illustration of the world’s hunger for rootedness. He describes stopping to pray at an old church undergoing renovation in a rapidly transforming suburb, where he encountered a woman who asked if the building would remain a church. When Mark assured her it would, she sighed and said, “I’m so relieved. Everything seems to be falling down at the moment.” There’s something we can learn from that reaction—to not underestimate the appeal of the heart’s cry for something stable, for steadiness, for faithful places of strength amid societal chaos.
Plodding Visionaries
Fifteen years ago, Kevin DeYoung commended the “plodding visionary”—the believer who demonstrates faithfulness not by spectacular, headline-grabbing feats but by relentless, steady obedience. He wrote,
What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church—a multitude of faithful, risk-taking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.
This faithful plodding—what Eugene Peterson famously termed “a long obedience in the same direction”—is what will stand out in today’s world. This is the life that brings heavenly reward, even when earthly applause falls silent. Paul encouraged the early Christians, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up” (Gal. 6:9).
Anchored in Trust
Spiritual stability flows from trust. We must trust God’s promise that his Word doesn’t return void. We trust he’s present with us in the ordinary means of grace. We trust that our quiet obedience, unseen by many, will be honored by God. We trust that steady obedience outlasts flashy but fleeting influence. We trust God to empower ordinary believers as tangible sources of strength and stability in an anxious and chaotic world.
Steadfastness is an element of our identity as salt and light. While storms rage around us, steady believers, firmly rooted in faith, become unshakable anchors for anxious neighbors and frantic friends.
A Vision for Generations
Looking forward, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer an anxious age is our calm, faithful stability. Something unchanging. Something rooted. Imagine future generations looking back on our era, commending the quiet, steady, resilient witness of Christians in our time, who met the unprecedented chaos and uncertainty of our era with persistent, prayerful faithfulness. “Everything was going crazy,” they might say, “but they kept their heads, because they knew their Head.”
This is the renewal we labor and pray for. Not a stability of resignation but the steadfastness of perseverance. What more do we have to offer a world marked by volatility than the courage of a steadfast heart anchored in God’s promises?
If you would like my future articles sent to your email, as well as a curated list of books, podcasts, and helpful links I find online, enter your address.
