Stop Maintaining!!!

I’ve been rolling around what I want to say for this particular blog for about a week now. I’ve known what I want to talk about, but not exactly how I need to say it. You guys are gonna have to bear with me—this might just come out as a huge word vomit.


It is time for us to stop maintaining. It is time to quit doing just enough to get by. We’ve got to quit barely meeting our needs, accepting mediocrity, doing just enough to avoid consequences, being satisfied with how things are, living off other people’s excess, and coasting through on other people’s dreams.

Maintaining is something that encourages settling. When you are in maintenance mode, you get comfortable with just keeping things the way they are. Instead of pushing forward, you are cool with setting the cruise control and taking it easy.

Usually, this is where I’d make up some example to illustrate my point. Now I don’t know if this word is for you (although I do think it’s for somebody out there), but I definitely know it’s for me. So I’m going to make this example a real-life one…straight from the life of Adam Kees.

I just took over as Worship Leader at PromiseLand Metro in Owensboro, KY; I guess it’s officially been about a month since I took the reins. When I came in, there was already a worship team in place that all knew each other and about 70 or so people that were regular attendees of this 7-month old church plant. After sitting in a handful of services and talking to the pastor about where we wanted to go, the transition was set to look like this: implement some new songs, get to know the praise team, make a few changes to songs they knew, and gradually introduce a new style of worship. That was my plan.

But since arriving there, things aren’t transpiring in a business-as-usual sort of way. The Spirit of God has been noticeably thick from the very start. People in the services are visibly and openly hungry for the Word of God, and the presence of God. There is a sense of something new happening, and a consistent stirring in my spirit like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. All of this makes it very apparent to me that my initial plans need to be changed.

First and foremost, we’re gonna be here to worship. That shall never change. Let’s just set that straight from the start. From there, however, my approach to everything has got to be different. You can see from what I told you of my initial transition thoughts that it was a very tame plan—one in which people could remain comfortable as we got to know each other, not be challenged to commit to anything very time-consuming, not be asked to sacrifice much of themselves in the interest of moving the group forward, not to really do anything but maintain what was already going on.

Now, the things that were going on already weren’t bad. Not at all. The Word of God was being preached, and people were being drawn into the presence of God. But I am not content to only keep hearing about what the Lord did yesterday. I don’t want to settle on yesterday’s move of God. I want to see what God is going to do today! I want the current level of anointing plus some!

That means that the attitude of chilling in maintenance mode has no place here. It is time to dream again, time to push, time to yearn for the things of God to show up in a way so powerful and real that the world has no choice but to take notice. I want to see miracles that move stone hearts to repentance, I want to see relationships put back together and love return to families void of it for years, I want to see emptiness and apathy vanish in an instant as people realize that there is a God in Heaven that longs for them and loves them jealously. I want to see the Glory of the Lord fill the earth.

My primary role at this moment is to lead the praise team into a place of deeper commitment, intimacy, and sacrifice so that we can do the same for our congregation, our city, our region, and our world. I refuse to merely maintain any longer. I’m still figuring out what all this means for me in every area of my life, but I am ready to push forward. I don’t have to know the details to trust that my future is taken care of.