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On that particular day at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus was drawn to the main character of this miracle. John 5:5-7 (NLT) reads like this: “When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’ ‘I can’t, sir,’ the man said, ‘for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.'”

What an odd question to ask a sick person. Why would Jesus pose such a question? The man was 38 years as an invalid. The duration of the condition prompted Jesus to ask, “Would you like to get well?”

Getting well means getting up, getting a job, getting on with life. Do you really want to be healed? That’s the question Jesus asked then. That’s the question Jesus asks all of us. Do you want to get well? Remember my friend, you are never alone.

Read more You Are Never Alone: Trust in the Miracle of God's Presence & Power

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Is culture really a competitive advantage, or just something you deal with when there's time? After a decade of this work, Jenni's answer is that it's the whole thing — because growth doesn't create your culture problems, it exposes them. In this conversation, Jenni sits down with Mark Batterson, lead visionary of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., New York Times bestselling author, and author of Not My Circus, to talk about what thirty years of building culture on purpose actually looks like.

This episode kicks off 10 Years of 4Sight, a series marking 4Sight's 10th anniversary with the leaders Jenni has been privileged to serve alongside. Mark's team was one of the first to take a chance on her, and they've worked together on strategic planning, multi-site strategy, org design, and team dynamics across nearly the entire history of the company.

Mark's story started small and unglamorous. Coming off a failed church plant, he and a core group of 19 people began meeting in a D.C. public school. Average attendance that first year was 20-25. Monthly giving was around $2,000, and the rent was $1,600. It took five years to grow from 19 to 250. Three decades later, that same church has planted a network of churches, owns a debt-free city block on Capitol Hill, and still runs on a mindset Mark sums up simply: everything is an experiment.

Jenni and Mark dig into the culture barometer he uses to check himself, why values have to be lived creatively instead of codified and hung on a wall, and what it costs to build the kind of team culture that holds under growth. They share candidly about the seasons of leadership that require a leader to change, and why Mark decided to write a book he knew would cost him something.

What You'll Hear

• Why healthy culture turns growth into fuel, and unhealthy culture turns growth into a threat
• The NCC origin story: 19 people, a rented D.C. public school, and a long obedience in the same direction
• Why leading one church for 30 years has meant leading 17 different churches, and how to tell which season you're in
• What changed when Mark traded the title of Lead Pastor for Lead Visionary, and how he decided where his value actually sits now
• Mark's culture barometer: when you walk into the room, does the anxiety level go up or down?
• Leading with non-anxious curiosity, and the difference between a "here I am" leader and a "there you are" leader
• Inside the Play and Pray Retreat, the three-day gathering for staff plus spouses and kids, and why Mark defends the line item
• Why values only stick when you find creative, human ways to live them out
• Giving leadership away, teaching-church thinking, and building a pipeline for the next generation
• Mark's encouragement: reserve the right to get smarter later

Connect with Mark Batterson

• Website: https://www.markbatterson.com/
• Book: Not My Circus — releases October 20, 2026
• Church: https://national.cc/

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When Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest, ran a small Bible college, he learned that a couple who worked there was stealing supplies. Although at times it’s right to address wrongdoing, Oswald decided in this instance not to confront them, instead asking God to bring the matter to their hearts and minds. After several weeks, they came clean, expressing regret.

Success today doesn’t guarantee you’ll still matter tomorrow. 

In this episode, learn the three mistakes that took Myspace from the most visited website in America to nearly irrelevant—and how to avoid making those same mistakes in your business.

Next Steps:

• Watch our video What Really Killed Spirit Airlines? (It Wasn’t Fuel Prices).

• Order Dave’s most recent EntreLeadership® book, Build a Business You Love.

• Not sure what to do next in your business? Let’s figure it out together. Book a free 30-minute consult call with the EntreLeadership Team.

• Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message.

• Get EntreLeadership’s free weekly newsletter: expert advice and practical tips from the same playbook we used to build Ramsey Solutions into a $300 million company.

• Attend our world-class leadership conference, EntreLeadership Summit.

• Stop guessing. Get a plan built for your business and someone who holds you to it. Find out which coaching option is right for you.

• Bad hires. Strategies that never get off the ground. 60-hour workweeks. Sleepless nights. EntreLeadership Master Series is where you trade all that for the exact systems our Executive Team used to scale Ramsey Solutions to $300 million. Don’t wait until seats are sold out.

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Something is off in the West, and you can feel it: the vulnerable get sacrificed, the powerful get protected, and too many churches respond with silence. We sit down with Seth Gruber, president of White Rose Resistance and creator behind The Last Stand: Christ or Chaos and The 1916 Project, to name what many Christian men sense but struggle to articulate. Seth argues the culture war is not mainly about personalities or parties, but about a deeper spiritual conflict against Christ and the Christian foundation that gave the West its moral vocabulary: sanctity of life, human dignity, rule of law, and protection for the weak.

Come see us at the I'm Just a Guy Vision Men's Summit in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 10 and at The Camp For Men in Fall River, Kansas on October 23-25. To find out more and to register visit https://thelionwithin.us/events/ 

Most guys pretend they have it all together until life unexpectedly drops them flat on the mat. True strength begins when you swallow your pride, stop trying to walk alone, and finally admit you need backup. If this resonates you may enjoy this plan that just released on the Bible App. To dive into this 5-day plan check it out here https://thelionwithin.us/devotional/im-just-a-guy-mat/

It’s time to stop sitting on the sidelines.

Step into the fight and become the man God called you to be. Join a brotherhood built on truth, strength, and action. Visit thelionwithin.us right now and start leading with boldness and purpose. Iron sharpens iron — let’s go. https://thelionwithin.us/

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Men, if your ready to build lasting relationships, deepen your faith, and grow into the leaders God calls them to be, then this is for you. Step boldly into your calling—Lions seeking purpose, not house cats avoiding the challenge. https://den.thelionwithin.us/landing

New Book: Unleashing The Lion Within

The enemy is relentless—doing everything possible to steal, kill, and destroy what matters most in your life. It’s time to fight back. True transformation happens when intentionality meets obedience. Take notes, apply these truths, and extend grace to yourself. Real change takes time—but if you stay faithful, the impact will reach far beyond what you can see.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLWYQJMB

Get Free Daily Inspiration With Our Bible App Devotionals

Our devotionals dive deep into the pillars that define The Lion Within Us - health, wealth, and self. Wh...

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The man near the pool of Bethesda didn’t use the word “stuck,” but he sure could have. For 38 years near the edge of a pool, it was just him, his mat, and his paralyzed body. And since no one would help him, help never came.

Crowds of people, despondent, dejected, one after the other, awaited their chance to be placed in the pool where healing waters bubbled up. Can you envision them? And more important, can you envision Jesus walking among them?

All the gospels’ stories of help and healing invite us to embrace this wonderful promise: “Wherever Jesus went, he healed people of every sort of illness. And what pity he felt for the crowds that came because their problems were so great and they didn’t know what to do or where to go for help” (Matthew 9:35-36 TLB).

My friend, remember Jesus sees you and you are never alone.

Read more You Are Never Alone: Trust in the Miracle of God's Presence & Power

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Find out exactly what John Maxwell means when he says, "You have to give up to go up." In this week's episode, John reveals fifteen time-tested strategies to help you get more done in less time and take back control of your effectiveness as a leader!

After his lesson, Mark Cole and Belay CEO Tricia Sciortino deliver actionable steps and real-world strategies so you can immediately start maximizing your productivity with John's principles.

Key takeaways:

• Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.

• Clarity is the most important concept in personal productivity.

• "Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." — Elbert Hubbard

Our BONUS resource for this episode is the How to Get More Done in Less Time Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John's teaching. You can download the worksheet by visiting MaxwellPodcast.com/Effective and clicking "Download the Bonus Resource."

When I was young, I loved going to Chick-fil-A, a US-based fast-food restaurant, for waffle fries and sweet tea. When, as an adult, I moved to another state, I was shocked to discover there weren’t any locations for hundreds of miles! On family road trips, we’d even plan our routes to allow for stops at Chick-fil-A, all the while hoping someday one would open closer to home.