ON DECEMBER 31, 1759, Arthur Guinness opened a brewery in Dublin, Ireland, leasing a four-acre piece of property at St. James Gate. As the western entrance to the city, it had great foot traffic. It was also the site of an annual fair where the best-selling item was ale. But Guinness didn’t choose it for those reasons. He knew that city planners intended to build Ireland’s Grand Canal adjacent to St. James Gate, which would give his brewery a built-in shipping lane right in its backyard.
Guinness had an eye for opportunity, and he must have had a knack for negotiation too, because he managed to secure a nine-thousand-year lease. You read that right, a nine-thousand-year lease! That must be a Guinness World Record, pun intended.1 Arthur Guinness put down one hundred pounds and agreed to pay forty-five pounds per annum.
I have no idea why Arthur proposed a nine-thousand-year timeline versus eight thousand or ten thousand. But he was obviously in it for the long haul. Guinness, which is older than America, has a traditional policy that has guided their decision making for 257 years—considering long and acting quickly.2
That dual-edged philosophy is a good rule of thumb in both business and warfare. Before joining David’s ranks, the mighty men undoubtedly did some scenario analysis. If you are part of a coup d’état that fails, it’s not just the leader who loses his head. Joining David’s band of brothers was a dangerous decision, so I’m sure they thought long and hard about it. But once the decision was made, they acted quickly. After all, it took catlike reflexes for Benaiah to outsmart and outfight that lion!
Considering long.
One of the biggest mistakes we make is thinking in terms of one generation. It’s not only shortsighted; it’s also selfish. We think that what God does for us is for us. And it is, but it isn’t. It’s also for the third and fourth generations.
We think right here, right now.
God is thinking nations and generations.
The key to dreaming big is thinking long. And the bigger the dream, the longer the timeline. If you’re thinking in terms of eternity, you should have some dreams that can’t be accomplished in your lifetime.
Unborn Millions
Before the Battle of Long Island, General George Washington reminded his troops whom they were fighting for. It wasn’t just for their freedom as first-generation Americans. “The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.”3
One hundred fifty years later Abraham Lincoln was trying to get the Thirteenth Amendment, which would abolish slavery, through Congress. Two votes short, Lincoln appealed to the Republican caucus: “The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all…time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come—a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured.”4
Unborn millions.
Washington and Lincoln had their eyes on the third and fourth generations. That’s who they were fighting for. Their dream wasn’t about them. It was about the next generation and the generation after that.
Just as Washington and Lincoln were fighting for the next generation of Americans, David and his mighty men were fighting for the next generation of Jews. A kingdom hung in the balance. I can hear David inspiring his men with the same words George Washington used to inspire the Continental army: “We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer, or to die.”5
Like our Founding Fathers, David’s mighty men mutually pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to their cause, their calling. And the rest is history. Their heroic deeds are long remembered, long considered.
What are you doing today that will make a difference one hundred years from now?
Every generation must steward what’s been entrusted to them. It starts with honoring the generation that has gone before us by learning everything we can from them. But that’s only half the equation when it comes to passing along a generational blessing. It continues by empowering the generation that comes after us. That’s how the baton of blessing is passed to the third and fourth generation. And that is what the psalmist advocated in Psalm 78:
So the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.6
A Single Seed
In 1914 a young preacher named Ben Mahan started preaching on street corners in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. A church was eventually formed and started gathering above a butcher’s shop. Five years later, in 1919, the congregation bought their first church building.7 And a few years later, a sixteen-year-old boy named George Wood gave his heart to Christ after one of Mahan’s messages.
In 1932, George and his wife, Elizabeth, felt called to Northwest China as missionaries. They shared the gospel as best they could, and a church was established. Three children were born to them, including their youngest, also called George, on September 1, 1941.
When Christian missionaries were kicked out of the country, the church that the Woods pastored numbered two hundred souls. For many decades the church went underground. When it resurfaced in 1983, one of the Chinese pastors with whom George Wood had worked restarted that congregation with thirty people. When he died in 2004, the church numbered fifteen thousand people!
When asked how it happened, the ninety-six-year-old pastor said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we prayed a lot.”
Your dream is setting up someone else’s dream. You are planting seeds that someone else will harvest, just as you are harvesting seeds that someone else planted. I love the way Stanley Tam said it: “God can’t reward Abraham yet because his seed is still multiplying.”8 And the same is true of Ben Mahan, George Wood, and you.
Ben Mahan had no earthly idea when he planted a church in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, that the seeds he sowed would reap a harvest in the Qinghai province of China a hundred years later. But when we plant and water, God gives the increase. And He determines when, where, and how.
Seeds of faith germinate across nations and generations.
I first heard that story from the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, George Wood—the son of missionaries George and Elizabeth Wood. In fact, he shared the story not far from the church in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, where his dad got saved. George had recently visited the church and walked the same aisle his father walked when he got saved in 1924.
Just as George Wood inherited his name from his father, his name has been passed down to his son and grandson—four generations of Georges. There are fifty-eight members in their extended family, and fifty-six of them know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. I might suggest that each and every one of them is Ben Mahan’s downline.
The seed of faith Ben Mahan planted is multiplying across nations—from Jeannette, Pennsylvania, to the Qinghai province. And it’s germinating across generations. The Assemblies of God is the fastest-growing movement in the history of Christendom, with sixty-seven million adherents worldwide just a century after it started.
Don’t underestimate the power of a single seed.
It has the power to influence nations and generations.
Dream Journal
Every year our staff at NCC goes on two retreats. Our summer retreat is called Pray and Play, and, you guessed it, we pray and play. Our fall retreat is called Pray and Plan. We’ve done our fall retreat in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor fifteen years running now. The by-product of that retreat is a strategic plan. We establish priorities and put timelines to our dreams. Of course, God surprises us every year with things we most definitely didn’t plan.
Before our latest retreat I went back and read our strategic plan from a decade earlier. It not only reminded me of how far we’ve come, but I also saw the seeds of some of the dreams that have come to pass since then.
On October 18, 2015, NCC launched its eighth campus at the largest music venue and dance club in Washington, DC. The Echostage is situated right next to a gentlemen’s club and across the street from a marijuana manufacturing plant. And they both let us use their parking lots on Sunday mornings.
Shortly after opening that campus, a car pulled up and asked one of our parking volunteers when the strip club opened. He said, “I’m not sure, but we’re having church right now.” The two guys in the front seat drove off but not before the girl in the backseat got out of the car and walked into church.
One of our core convictions is that the church belongs in the middle of the marketplace. It’s why we meet in movie theaters. It’s why we built a coffeehouse. It’s why we own and operate a first-rate, second-run movie theater on Capitol Hill. And it’s why we meet in a music venue next to a strip club.
Here’s what I wrote in our strategic plan a decade before:
We’re called to the middle of the marketplace—right now that means meeting in a movie theater. In 2006 it will mean opening a coffeehouse where the church and community can cross paths. We also need to look to redeem other social spaces like dance clubs.
I have no recollection of writing those words. A dance club? I couldn’t even do the Running Man back then! But the seeds of what God is doing now were planted in my spirit a decade before.
A decade ago I was a nervous leader. I was afraid that if we missed it, we would miss it. I failed to appreciate the fact that God does what God does in spite of us, not just because of us. We just need to stay out of the way! God is the One ordaining our days, ordering our footsteps, and preparing good works in advance. And when that’s the locus of your confidence, it’s not self-confidence. It’s holy confidence.
It’s an unshakable sense of destiny.
It’s a sanctified stubborn streak.
Next to my Bible, nothing is more sacred to me than my journal. I call it a prayer journal, but it doubles as my dream journal. After all, praying is a form of dreaming, and dreaming is a form of praying.
One of my annual rituals is doubling back and rereading my journal. It’s my way of making sure I’m learning the lessons God is trying to teach me. It also helps me connect the dots between my prayers and God’s answers. My dream journal is the seedbed where God ideas germinate.
One of our eight campuses is the historic Lincoln Theatre, where Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald got their start. If you looked through my journals, you’d find the Lincoln Theatre circled half a dozen times over a span of several years. We dreamed of meeting there long before the door finally opened. If we hadn’t nurtured that seed of faith by circling it in prayer, I’m not sure it would be one of our campuses today.
Every dream, no matter how big, starts out as a seed. And like a seed, it often goes underground for a season. That’s when we get discouraged because we don’t see any physical evidence of the dream’s progress. But it has to take root before it can bear fruit.
A Hundred Years from Now
A panoramic picture of the Sun Moon Mountain pass hangs on the wall of George Wood’s office as a reminder of the place where he spent the first six years of his life. It’s also a reminder of the legacy his missionary parents left him.
Two maxims, repeated by his mother, Elizabeth, are foundational to George’s approach to life and ministry. “When we stand before God,” his mother said, “He won’t ask us if we’ve been successful. He’ll ask us if we’ve been faithful.”
The second maxim was repeated as often as George got upset: “Now, Georgie, it won’t matter a hundred years from now.”
At different points in my life, I’ve felt like the dream God has given me is too big for me. And that’s because it is. By definition, a God-sized dream is beyond your ability, beyond your resources. If a dream is from God, it will require divine intervention. But I’ve also learned that sometimes a dream feels as if it’s too big for us because it’s not just for us!
That’s how I felt when we purchased the castle on Capitol Hill for $29.3 million. I didn’t have a category for a dream that big. Honestly, I wasn’t sure we needed a city block. And maybe we don’t. But the next generation might. And that’s who we’re building it for.
It’s not about us.
It’s not about now.
Whatever God is doing in us here and now, He’s doing for the third and fourth generation. The dream God has given you is the seed of something He wants to do a hundred years from now. You likely won’t be around to witness it, but others are going to reap where they haven’t sown because of your faithfulness.
I love Elizabeth Wood’s maxim “It won’t matter a hundred years from now.” It’s a reminder to zoom out and see the big picture. It’s a reminder that one’s life will soon be past and only what’s done for Christ will last. Don’t worry about the things that have zero bearing on eternity! Your only regret at the end of the day will be the time, talent, and treasure you didn’t give back to God.
Now let me also flip the maxim: it will matter a hundred years from now. No prayer will go unanswered. No sacrifice will go unnoticed. No gift will go unrewarded. Those things will compound interest for all eternity!
Don’t give up on your dream. If you do, you aren’t just giving up on its present-tense reality. You’re giving up on its future-tense potential. Were there moments when we felt like throwing in the towel on National Community Church? Absolutely! Especially during the first two years. But we wouldn’t have been giving up on just the hundred people who attended NCC at the time. We would have been forfeiting everything God has done over the last two decades.
Keep dreaming God-sized dreams.
Keep chasing five-hundred-pound lions.
It makes all the difference in the world.
It makes all the difference for eternity.
Before You Were Born
Jonathan Gray grew up in the nation’s capital when it was the murder capital of the country. The city is safer now than it was then, but it’s still the tale of two cities. As the political epicenter of the free world, it’s the epitome of first-world power. But those who live here know that there is also a statistical third-world country in our backyard. Crime and poverty are far too rampant, homelessness and fatherlessness are epidemic, and the HIV rate is higher than in many African nations.
Jonathan grew up in the middle of that mayhem. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and started down the wrong path. Jonathan didn’t go to church, but one day the church came to him. At the age of thirteen, Jonathan gave his life to Christ at a Teen Challenge outreach. Three decades later Jonathan Gray serves as the executive director of that very same ministry.
Jonathan and his wife have raised their three children in the suburbs, but when they turn fourteen, Jonathan has a sacred ritual. He drives them into the city and parks at the corner of Blaine and 50th Street NE. Then he tells them what God did for them before they were even born.
“I tell them how I was running the streets, stealing from everyone, and getting into all kinds of trouble,” Jonathan says. “Then I tell them how a man brought a church into our neighborhood, set up on a street corner, and starting telling everyone about Jesus.”
That street corner is Jonathan’s Damascus road. It’s the place where Jesus intersected Jonathan’s life and Jonathan made a right turn. There are now three generations of Grays following Christ, but each of their spiritual genealogies traces back to that street corner. It wasn’t just the turning point of Jonathan’s life; it was the turning point for generations yet to be born.
“I tell my children what Christ’s coming into my life did for them even before they were born,” Jonathan says. “I tell them that the Lord was taking excellent care of them before they were even born.”
Your destiny doesn’t begin at birth. Before your parents even met, God was setting you up. You were conceived in the mind of God before you were conceived in your mother’s womb. And everything God did for them, He was doing for you.
Everything God did for George Wood Sr., he did for George Wood Jr.
Everything God did for Jonathan, he did for Charles, Janelle, and Alana.
And everything God did for David, he did for Solomon.
Your story might not seem as dramatic as Jonathan’s, but it’s no less providential. Your dream may not seem as historic as David’s, but it’s no less significant.
Before you were born, God was at work in your life by working in the lives of those who would influence you. And it’s not limited to one or two generations. For me it goes back at least six generations.
Last Will and Testament
Until recently I knew very little about my family tree—a few names, a few stories. But it’s amazing what you can unearth with a Google search. I discovered a family treasure, a copy of my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s will.
Andreas Pannenkuchen was born in Philadelphia County in 1730. At some point his German surname was Americanized to Pancake. And, yes, it’s rather ironic that a Batter-son comes from a long line of Pancakes!
On September 11, 1793, Andrew Pancake drafted his last will and testament. He left one black cow to his wife, Elisabeth. He left five pounds to his oldest son, John, who executed the will. And he left the farm, literally, to his son Joseph. Then he penned these words: “Being at presant weak in body but of sound Disposing mind and memory thanks be to god for his Goodness and mercyes.”9
I love the allusion to the Twenty-third Psalm. It happens to be one of my favorite phrases in all of Scripture—“surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Coincidentally, it was my grandmother on the Pancake side of the family that first helped me memorize that psalm.
I got goose bumps when I first read my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s will because I realized that God’s goodness and mercy have been following me for at least six generations!
The word follow can also be translated chase; in fact, it might be a better translation. Just as Benaiah chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day, God’s goodness and mercy are chasing after you. The Hebrew root, radaph, is a hunting term. The Hound of Heaven is on your tail, on your trail. He chases us down the corridors of time until the day we repent. Then He captures us with His goodness and mercy for all eternity.
No matter how far or how long you run away from God, if you turn around, you’ll discover that God has been following you. He’s right behind you with arms open wide, ready to embrace you. My own grandfather is a testimony to this fact. The only time he used God’s name, it was in vain. But even after a lifetime of running away from God, my grandpa discovered that God had been running after him. In a hospital room in Forest Lake, Minnesota, he was captured by the goodness and mercy of God, which had chased him for seventy-six years!
Thirty-Nine Begats
Most of us know next to nothing about our great-great-grandparents, but the decisions they made have influenced our lives in innumerable and incalculable ways. If my great-great-grandfather-in-law, Christian Schmidgall, hadn’t immigrated to America in 1902, the landscape of my life would look very different. The same is true of my Swedish ancestors, the Johanssons, who immigrated to America in the nineteenth century.
Our eyes often glaze over when we get to the genealogies in Scripture. They’re long lists of names we can’t even pronounce. But I’ve come to appreciate the genealogies as a timeless testimony to God’s faithfulness.
Every dream has a genealogy—even the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Son of David. The genealogy of Jesus is recorded in Matthew’s gospel. There are forty-two generations, forty-two begats, and, I would submit, forty-two miracles.
A genealogy is a storyline. And the names listed are the cast of characters. In the case of Jesus, there is one plot twist that hyperlinks with 2 Samuel 23: “Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah.”10
You probably know the storyline but perhaps not the subplot. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then he tried to cover it up by having Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed. You might assume that Uriah was a random soldier in David’s army, but he was actually one of David’s mighty men. The last name listed in 2 Samuel 23 is Uriah the Hittite. So David used the crown that Uriah helped him secure to betray his marriage and plot against his life.
As messed up as those circumstances were, God still begat the Messiah. Even in the midst of heartbreak, God still begets miracles! And it’s not the first or last time.
Remember Rahab?
That one act of kindness generated a ripple effect that resulted in your salvation!
A few years ago we launched an initiative in Washington, DC, called City Fathers. The heart behind it is simple: if we don’t honor those who have gone before us, we rob them of the opportunity to bless those who come behind. We live in a culture that prioritizes fifteen minutes of fame higher than a lifetime of faithfulness. It’s all about the latest and greatest. So we decided to honor our city fathers and city mothers—those who have been plowing and planting in this harvest field long before we showed up.
At our first event we invited four pastors. The longest tenured pastor was Bishop Alfred Owens, pastor of Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, who has pastored in this city for half a century. He’s pastored in this city longer than I’ve been alive! The four pastors have cumulatively spent 147 years in ministry in Washington, DC.
My point? I’m reaping where I have not sown! The blessings I’ve enjoyed are the direct and indirect by-product of the faithfulness of those who have gone before me. Their dreams have leveraged me in ways I won’t even be able to imagine until I cross the space-time continuum.
Lion Chaser
We shared only one lunch together, but Dr. Richard Halverson, is a hero of mine. The former senate chaplain sowed seeds in the nation’s capital that are still germinating decades after his death. One such seed is the benediction I pronounce at the end of our services at National Community Church. It was inspired by and adapted from his benediction as pastor of Fourth Presbyterian in Bethesda, Maryland.
When you leave this place you don’t leave the presence of God. You take the presence of God with you wherever you go.
I’ve perused many of Dr. Halverson’s sermons and prayers, and my personal favorite may be his “old man” speech. And it goes for old women too.
You’re going to meet an old man someday down the road—ten, thirty, fifty years from now—waiting there for you….That old man will be you. He’ll be the composite of everything you do, say, and think—today and tomorrow….His heart will be turning out what you’ve been putting into it. Every little thought, every deed goes into this old man.
Every day in every way you are becoming more and more like yourself. Amazing but true. You’re beginning to look more like yourself, think more like yourself, and talk more like yourself. You’re becoming yourself more and more.
I can imagine each of David’s mighty men as old men. Their many battles had left their bodies bruised and battered, shells of their former selves. Josheb suffered from bursitis in his shoulders. Eleazar had arthritis in his wrists. And Benaiah could barely bend over because of a slipped disc or two. Their fighting days had taken a toll, but they would pay the price all over again. Not one of them would trade a single day! And no one could take away the dream that became reality during their lifetime—they crowned David king, their legacy for all eternity!
David’s mighty men must have felt a little like the soldiers who heard King Henry V’s immortal words before the Battle of Agincourt:
Gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.11
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Chase the Lion is not just a book; it’s a call to arms! It’s okay to pray a hedge of protection around those you love—God is our Refuge, our Shield. But He is also our Banner—the God who goes before us, the God who fights for us!
Jesus didn’t die just to keep you safe.
He died to make you dangerous!
Can I tell you who I think you are? You are a lion chaser!
So do what you were destined to do.
Chase the lion!