The irony is we stand up and talk about Daniel in the lion's den but then we won't even confront elders. All of these bible heroes — David and Goliath — and we love to preach those sermons and draw these parallels and then we're scared to confront people. I think that dynamic alone is a big part of why the church is where it is. The leadership — or lack of leadership — is just so much fear of people. I don't know where that comes from.

I grew up with a dad who at a defining moment in my life I saw him slugged. When I was in the eight grade this guy was at the pulpit one Wednesday night and he used profanity and my dad walked up beside him and said we're not going to have that kind of language. The guy said, "You better watch out or you just might get hit," and my dad stood there and he hit my dad in the jaw. I can remember where I was standing; I remember the whole thing. Well you know that kind of marked me as a preacher's kid and as a pastor that you do the right thing and then you deal with the consequences, but you don't fear the consequences and do the wrong thing. I think it's been easy for me to embrace that because of what I saw in my father and what I experienced, maybe partly because of my personality.

When I see pastors who are scared I want to tell them, "Just lead. If they fire you and you don't think God will take care of you, then you have no message for your people anyway, because we get up every Sunday and say God's grace is sufficient. He's going to take care of you, He'll meet your every needs and you'll never see the righteous go hungry." It's what we preach but if our lack of faith in those practical things causes us to not to be able to lead then what's our message anyway?

It's easy for me to say that sitting here but when I started this church it was not easy for me to say because I had to face that whole issue of leaving my dad's church to do something on my own. There were no guarantees, there were no promises. You walk through that wall of fire a couple of times and you realize it's not so bad. God's grace is sufficient. He does show up. Those are the times we look back to and say I know there is a God because you know during those circumstances. I just wish pastors would get over their fear. We should be the most fearless leaders. What do we have to fear? We're the ones that say if God is for me who can be against me? Well, the deacons. Good grief.

Preaching: That connects with one of the other things you talk about: living in the shadow of uncertainty.

Stanley: Exactly. That whole example I used in the book of Joshua, saying we're crossing the Jordan river — we've never been there, I don't know what its like, I've never led an army and I don't know what were going to do but we're crossing. I want to be certain, be clear, we're crossing. I'm uncertain of what we'll face. And that's leadership — I've never been there before but here we go.