Building Where You Stand: From Retreat to Engagement

An earlier article I wrote invites a natural question: What now? I do not pretend to have a universal answer. Faithfulness will look different depending on calling, capacity, and conviction. There is no silver-bullet next step and no one-size-fits-all plan. What can be said with confidence is this: Whatever comes next must aim at worshiping and honoring Christ in ways that cultivate righteousness and enact justice within the church and throughout the world God has placed us in.

Throughout Scripture, God ties proper worship to the fruit it produces. From the Law and the Prophets, through the words of Jesus, and into the writings of James and Revelation, worship that honors Him bears the fruit of justice and righteousness, not merely private professions of faith and devotion. When justice breaks down in the courts, authority serves itself, work is leveraged rather than honored, and truth is reshaped to protect comfort and control, God does not desire empty worship, but repentance.

Building the house does not abandon the foundation. It returns to it again and again, ensuring every beam is aligned with the Word. Any attempt to build that ignores this will be misaligned from the start.

Your House First

Start close: yourself, your wife, your children. Scripture consistently orders faithfulness this way. Before we look outward, we are called to cultivate a household shaped by obedience, discipline, and love.

Guard your household. If possible, and where circumstances allow, keep your wife home raising and training your children. Homeschooling may be daunting, but you cannot send your kids to Rome and expect them to come back unshaped by it. Live simply and build intentionally. You should not be a consumer of much, either with money or time. Simplicity makes space for purpose.

Work to own, not just to earn. If you can, build or work to buy a business, however small. Employ people from your town. You are not just earning income; you are exercising dominion through stewardship. Men, lead. Take responsibility. Set the course. Do not hand it off. Leadership is not tyranny; it is accountability before God.

Women, your role is indispensable. The mission does not move without you. Build the home your men need. A home that strengthens their resolve to fight and steadies them for the work ahead. Above all, encourage them, always.

You will get things wrong. That is fine. The Christian life is a rhythm of building, examining, and rebuilding. The work of the kingdom is rarely clean or perfectly sequenced. As a coworker once told me, “You are not working if you are not making mistakes.” Fear of failure must not paralyze obedience. Let it drive you to prayer, humility, and dependence on God.

First Step: This week, draft a one-page family mission statement and read Deuteronomy 6 aloud together.

Your City

With your family rightly ordered and Christ your focus, extend outward to your community, then county, then state, then country. This is the biblical order of stewardship. Faithfulness does not begin at the highest echelon of influence, but at the nearest point of responsibility. For most of us, that responsibility will remain relatively close to home, and that is enough.

You cannot shape what you do not know. Many of us can name national figures but not the leaders of our own city. That imbalance matters. Start where you can have the most presence and the most influence.

Learn who actually shapes your community. This includes obvious civic leaders such as the mayor, city council, sheriff, police chief, and school board, but it does not stop there. Business owners, builders, realtors, bankers, employers, and union leaders often exert just as much influence. So do pastors, school administrators, city attorneys, judges, utility directors, and even the editor of the local paper.

In many towns, civic groups like Rotary, Kiwanis, or the Elks still function as informal hubs of influence. You may not agree with every value they promote, but knowing who gathers there and what shapes conversation still matters. Awareness is not endorsement; it is engagement with discernment.

You cannot understand the needs or opportunities of your city without showing up. Like scoring a goal in hockey, impact depends not only on skill or strategy, but on position. Presence precedes opportunity. If you are not connected to the community, you will not see where the gospel is needed or where your efforts can do the most good.

Start small. Identify five to ten local leaders. Learn who they are. Meet them. Pray for them. Seek to bless them. You cannot impact a community you have never seen or met. You will stumble at times. You will say the wrong thing. You may overreach and meet resistance. Do not retreat. Adjust. Learn. Apologize when needed, then keep showing up. Faithfulness is not perfection; it is endurance under correction.

Finally, find others who are building too. Encouragement and accountability keep the work steady when progress feels slow. 

First Step: Find and meet with one local leader this month. Be sensitive to their time. Yes, it will feel strange, do it anyway.

Pastors: Kindle the Fire

This is not an indictment, but an invitation. The power of the gospel changes not only individual lives, but whole communities. Encouraging your people to engage the world does not weaken theological integrity; it tests and strengthens it. When a congregation wrestles with how to live faithfully in public, it is driven deeper into Scripture, not away from it.

Many of the church’s muscles, once used to pursue justice and righteousness in civic and communal life, have atrophied through disuse. Rebuilding them will require intentional effort and discomfort. You do not need to have all the answers. You need the willingness to identify and elevate faithful believers within your congregation who can help train and encourage others through use.

Not every member will move at the same pace. Some are theologically weak or spiritually fragile and need patient care. But that reality must not immobilize the entire body. Shepherd the tender while still stirring the strong.

Preach and teach to equip the saints for their work beyond the sanctuary, not to keep them dependent within it. Sound doctrine proves its strength when it is lived publicly.

First Step: Pastor, invite one faithful believer to speak to your congregation on a topic beyond the ecclesiastical realm. Discern your flock’s readiness and ambition. A 5-minute pulpit update or Sunday “equipping hour” topic, your choice.

From Conviction to Construction

You will not lose what has been built by building more; you will prove the foundation’s strength. Start small. Build faithfully. Stay local. Return often to the Word that set the foundation. When you stumble, pray. When you err, repent. When you are corrected, thank God He still shapes clay.

Aren’t things inevitably getting worse? Maybe. For some, that leads to resignation. Come what may, they say, because their hope is not in this world. And they are right. Our ultimate hope is not here.

But while we remain, we are still stewards. Whatever your eschatology, can we not live like people entrusted with time, talent, and resources that still matter? Should our lives not reflect the goodness and sovereignty of the God who made all things? Has God’s demand for justice and righteousness waned?

We serve the God who created everything and still rules over it. Scripture speaks of mustard seeds and yeast, small things with disproportionate power. Even if the work never reaches completion in our lifetime, is it not better to live with active hope than passive acceptance?
This work will often feel boring. Building usually does. Roughing in plumbing, electrical, and HVAC is mostly unseen and uninspiring. Insulation itches. Drywall gathers dust. Cleanup is constant. Progress feels slow, and much of the work looks unimpressive in isolation. Yet every task, no matter how small or unnoticed, is essential to the whole. Progress comes only because someone stayed faithful through the slow parts.

Now Build

Build knowing the foundation is firm, even when your hands shake. Build knowing the world may not applaud. Build knowing you will make mistakes and spend more time sweeping floors than raising walls. Build knowing the Lord sees every act of obedience. Do not despise the small, the unseen, or the slow. God has never needed spectacle. He asks for faithfulness.

If the house never stands in your lifetime, still build, and entrust the work to your children and your children’s children. Every act of obedience declares the foundation true. 

The house belongs to Him. Build for His glory.

Author’s Note: These reflections are offered as the work of an ordinary Christian seeking to be faithful where God has placed him. They are not a blueprint or a claim to expertise, but an attempt to act responsibly with what Scripture makes clear. My hope is simply to encourage others to build carefully, prayerfully, and with confidence that the foundation is sure.

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