Stepping Stones and Grace
I look around this wild, spinning world of ours and I see a disease more contagious than COVID ever dreamed of being — the Stepping-Stone Syndrome.
A contagion of climbing, clawing, corporate-ladder Christianity.
Pastors treating churches like rungs on a résumé instead of flocks entrusted by the Chief Shepherd.
Back in the day — not ancient history, just twenty-five years ago — a man could punch in at Caterpillar or the steel mill and expect to punch out four decades later with a gold watch and a handful of stories.
Stability. Loyalty. Roots.
Now?
The average worker jumps ship in two to five years.
Pastors too.
Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal — doesn’t matter the denomination.
The revolving door spins like a malfunctioning carnival ride.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes: churches treated like stepping stones.
Three years here, two years there — climb the ladder, get the bigger building, the bigger paycheck, the bigger applause.
Stepping stones to a kingdom made not of God’s glory but human ambition dressed up in choir robes.
And then throw in a little chaos — another round of lockdowns, Target wide-open while little churches get padlocked, the political circus, the Epstein files nobody will release, the economy see-sawing like a drunk on roller skates —
and you get a middle class crushed and crazed, chasing “success” like it’s oxygen.
I’ve been in retail management.
I’ve seen the parade of yes-men orbiting a store manager like moons around a sad little planet.
“Yes, boss… whatever you want… please notice me… please promote me…”
Clawing. Scratching. Hungry wolves with perfect smiles.
Then I walked into ministry and shock hit me like cold steel to the ribs:
Same spirit. Different building.
Pastors surrounded by yes-men in suits instead of polos.
A corporate spirit wearing a cross necklace.
But let me tell you a truth that shakes kingdoms:
Promotion does not come from yes-men.
Promotion comes from God.
The God who raises up kings and knocks them flat.
The God who lifts a Trump one day and a Biden the next — not because they’re worthy, but because He alone is sovereign over the rise and the fall.
And pride?
Pride is the grease on the staircase of self-destruction.
So this Thanksgiving — hear me —
Bloom where you’re planted.
Stop using your church as a stepping stone.
Stop treating your family like stepping stones.
Stop treating your job like a launch pad to “somewhere better.”
When I look at my people — my congregation — I try to see them the way Jesus saw His:
Not as stepping stones…
but as souls to shepherd into eternity.
Jesus never looked at Peter, James, John, the 12, the 70, or the 120 as elevators to greatness.
Christ was not building His résumé with human souls.
They were His family.
His mission.
His joy.
His inheritance… His friends.
And yes — I’ve been offered other churches around 8-10 years ago.
More money.
More comfort.
Bigger platforms.
But I’m not looking for a ladder.
I’m looking for a cross.
And I’m blooming where I’m planted, because the sheep the Lord has given me are not stepping stones —
they are the treasure of God placed in my hands to love, guard, and carry.
So let me end this with the words of the Master Himself —
the Shepherd who refuses to use anyone as a stepping stone:
John 17:24 (NIV)
“Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world.”
Aren’t you glad —
Oh aren’t you glad —
that Jesus never used YOU as a stepping stone?
Because in His eyes…
you weren’t a rung on a ladder.
You were the reason He climbed the hill called Calvary.
Note: Thank you, Jesus, not in my church! And Thank You, Jesus, for Men of God who DO hear the Call of the Master to leave a church for a new mission field!