As a leader — whether at home, at work, at church, wherever I am — I’ve got one job that’s more important that any other. I need to replace myself.

The mobile strategies I see churches deploying today feel very similar to what I saw happening with websites back in the early 2000s. In those days, the common mantra was ... JUST DO IT! Everyone knew that you had to have a website if you wanted to be ‘relevant’, but little thought was given to what? How? And why? These questions were pushed aside in a rush to get something — anything — on the web. Few churches were asking how a website could help them achieve more purposeful goals like engaging people and moving them towards deeper connection and community.

I say a lot of things I don’t actually do. I don’t intend to lie, or even drop the ball. It is just that I don’t seem to be able to execute consistently what I envision in the future. The gap between what we say and what we do can be hard to acknowledge. In fact, I used to really beat myself up for this, but as it turns out, I am not alone in this gap between what I espouse and what I actually produce. Even Paul in Romans points to this gap: