So I googled myself tonight.

I hadn’t googled myself in several months and I wanted to see if there were any links out there I wasn’t aware of. It was somewhat surreal. Awhile back, only a few pages popped up when I googled my name. There are 84,700 tonight. And 90% of them were somehow related to me because there are only 384 Battersons in the United States at last count. And I only know of one other Mark Batterson.

Anywho.

I was sort of surprised at a couple blogs that were lamblasting me Wow! Granted, there were hundreds of really positive links. But I read a couple negative ones thinking to myself, “Hey, I’m really not that bad a guy!”

NCC is a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church, but it seems like our unorthodox approach to ministry makes some people nervous. Part of me was laughing. Among other things, we were accused of being practical, creative and too positive. Huh?

One of the tough lessons I’ve learned in recent months is this: as your influence expands so does the target on your back

I felt a little bit like a human dart board

For what it’s worth, I stopped reading negative blogs about four months ago. It just wasn’t worth the time and effort. Life is too short And there is too much kingdom work to be done to waste my time trying to play defense. Especially with people who are supposed to be on the same team

Criticism used to bother me to no end. And it’s not like I enjoy it now But I’ve learned that there is only one way to avoid criticism: don’t do anything. Better yet, don’t say anything!

It is so hard to read things that people write about you that you know aren’t true. It’s so hard to be misunderstood or quoted out of context. It’s so hard to be unjustly impugned by people who have never even visited National Community Church. But if we are following in the footsteps of Christ, shouldn’t we expect a little criticism along the way? Honestly, if anything ought to concern us, it should be the lack of criticism! Because it proably means we aren’t doing anything or saying anything that matters!

Jesus had a huge target on his back. And the Pharisees threw darts all day long! Especially on the Sabbath! The Pharisees had this amazing ability to find something wrong with something right.

I live by an Abraham Lincoln motto.

You can please all of the people some of the time, you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time!

So who are you going to please?

I don’t want to be a people pleaser. I want to be a God pleaser. And that means some people won’t be pleased