Chris Hodges: ‘God’s Supernatural Power Does What Seems Humanly Impossible’
Multiplying my impact gets me out of bed each morning.
As I grow older, I’m not content just to continue living out the calling God placed on my life more than 40 years ago to launch a church, train pastors, plant churches, and mentor other leaders. Through the years the Lord has continued to bless me with more opportunities, relationships, resources, and responsibilities, and I want to make the most of all He has entrusted to me as I complete my divine mission. Basically, I feel called to live according to what my friend John Nuzzo calls the acceleration mandate.
With the time I have remaining in this life, I want to share all I’ve learned about shepherding God’s people in a church committed to transforming lives and serving the surrounding community. I have a compelling need to pour into younger leaders and the next generation of pastors with the same passion, power, and practices that my mentors poured into me. A heartfelt desire to train and equip younger men and women on the largest scale possible without compromising the quality of their educational experience and the authenticity of their relationships with faculty, staff, and other students.
Which explains why I recently made the pivot from leading Church of the Highlands, which I founded 25 years ago, to serving as chancellor of Highlands College, a four-year accredited, state-of-the-art ministry training university. My love for the church hasn’t wavered, but my desire to maximize the impact of my influence and gifting has led me to ensure Highlands College reaches its full potential to instruct, equip, inspire, and empower those God has called to become servant leaders.
When I was first starting out, I could never have imagined the dreams God would give me, let alone the stunning and often miraculous ways He would bring those dreams to life. Church of the Highlands started with a vision God gave me while sipping a Starbucks coffee during a visit to Birmingham. With 34 launch team members committed, we sent out a mailer to announce our first service in a local high school auditorium. When more than 400 people showed up, I was humbled, excited, terrified, and thrilled to see all that God would do through Highlands.
From there, I’ve been blessed to be part of ARC, GrowLeader, and now Highlands College. Throughout my journey I’ve become even more willing to trust God for so much more than I could ever do on my own. He only asks me to be a faithful steward and to trust Him for more than I can imagine. This process has made me fully aware that I am blessed to be a blessing. To go all in. To hold nothing back and pour all I am and all I have into those around me.
This is the essence of The Acceleration Mandate. Drawing on examples and exhortation in both the Old and New Testaments, along with his own experience and passion for evangelism, John Nuzzo reveals a biblical blueprint for multiplying your impact. He shows us the way generational collaboration accelerates the power of the gospel message to change lives, heal families, unite communities, and advance God’s Kingdom on earth.
Amidst a world fractured by constant change, uncertainty, anxiety, fear, pessimism, and division, the message of this book is more than timely—it’s a God-given mandate for restoring the church as the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus to the world around us.
As John explains, the church has historically been divided by the preferences and proclivities of each new generation. Unfortunately, the cumulative impact has now resulted in lost momentum, membership, and mission-centric motivation for God’s people. In order to experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to revive the church, we must overcome generational barriers and unite in our purpose—to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ as we love and serve everyone around us.
If this sounds ambitious or even idealistic, John reminds us of God’s supernatural power to do what seems humanly impossible—to unite where there is division, to heal where there is injury, and to overcome where there appears no way forward. And this mandate is not reserved for pastors and leaders. John makes it clear that God calls each of us to do our part in bridging faith from one generation to the next. Anyone who follows Jesus has a significant part to play in sharing His love and carrying His presence into the world.
So if you’re feeling stuck in how you live out your faith, then get ready to get unstuck. If you’re struggling and wondering if what you do makes a difference, rest assured God is using you right where you are whether you can see it or not. If you’re already seeing God move in dramatic ways in your home, workplace, neighborhood, church, and community, then know that there’s so much more to come. So much more that you are called to be part of bringing to life and making happen.
The way God has worked in my life, in John’s life, is the way He’s working in your life. You can close the gap between the generations before you and after you, bringing diverse people together in the family of God. You can restore the church and intensify its light in our dark world. My prayer for you is that you would take the acceleration mandate to heart and pour your time, attention, and resources into an eternal legacy.
