“He has it all.”
That’s what we might think, even in the Christian world, if we took a quick glance at Dr. Michael Stevens’ bio. He’s a pastor, college professor, author and podcast host as well as a husband and father.
But there was a time when, he says, all his so-called success came crashing in on him. Of his longtime pastorate (he’s the founding and senior pastor of the City Church in Huntersville, North Carolina), he says, “For the first 20-something-odd years, all the motives might have been the wrong motives. In other words, we grew. We were aggressive, progressive; we bought facilities and acreages and did everything you would want those late 1980s, early ’90s megachurches had to do.
“But unfortunately, I put the church before my family, and I paid a very dear price for that,” Stevens adds. “I had to take some time off about five years ago and literally hit the sabbatical button, hit the restoration button, go-get-some-counseling button and say, ‘You know what, when all this is said and done, it won’t be about the size of the church, or the acreage, all of the TV ads and careers and magazines and all of that wonderful stuff. What’s going to matter is my walk with the Lord, and then my walk with my wife, and then the respect with my three kids.'”
Steven says today, he and his wife believe “Someone has to come out of the pit and tell people that life can be sweet again. … Someone has to say, ‘You know what? You can build on the ashes of yesterday’s ruins and let God use you in such a profound way.'”
To hear more from Dr. Michael Stevens about how God can restore what the enemy has stolen and how you can rise from destruction to a life of blessing and restoration, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here and subscribe to the Greenelines podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
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