I’ll now rewind the story back to the late 1970s. I roared out of college in 1978 and attacked my business career with a vengeance. Having played football through college and ice hockey from age 4 to 14, I took that competitiveness into my adult life and it wasn’t long before I was hitting success at every turn. At age 35 in 1990, I became President and CEO of a business with $1 Billion invested and $300 million in annual sales. 

I said: “I made it!” God said: “Welcome to the world’s stress chamber.”

I found time to attend church through these years in the 1980s and early 1990s, but that was the extent of my commitment to God. During this period of my life, I thought being a Christian meant you were nice to people and prayed if someone was in the hospital. I didn’t have any spiritual discernment. I didn’t have any Godly wisdom. And I definitely didn’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I was an activity management machine with a wonderful “system” for my life, but I hadn’t thought for even one minute about the consequences of my quest. I was so uptight that I couldn’t relax or think about anything not connected to my success. People would talk about going to the zoo or a parade and I’d think they had gone mad. I even made church part of my activity management game by taking Saddleback’s Membership Class (101) in 1992. 

Then, as incredible as it sounds given my state of mind and heart at that time, the very next month I attended the Spiritual Maturity Class 201. My goal, however misguided when viewed today through the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, was to “endure the four hours and then come out the other end spiritually mature.”

God had other ideas and used Class 201 to dismantle the myths that had formed my flawed view of Christianity. God showed me that day how spiritual maturity was a life-long journey and not a short-term destination. It was actually reassuring to learn that you can’t snap your fingers and “be” spiritually mature. 

What happened after that day in Pastor Tom Holladay’s Spiritual Maturity Class 201? In spite of my angst, I decided to subordinate doubt and turn everything over to God. I made a strong commitment to start the habits of a disciple taught in Class 201—God’s Word; Prayer; Tithing; and Fellowship—and was blessed immediately. 

I started to volunteer at the very next class and eventually became one of the 201 teachers (nearly 20 years now). My heart began to change. There were dramatic improvements in every aspect of my life. My circumstances began to change. My life began to change.

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, I was blessed beyond comprehension–as a husband, father, lay pastor, and CEO. That change was made possible when God brought me into his inner sanctuary 20 years ago with those four little words–love God fear nothing—uttered on a sun-soaked morning while driving down a busy freeway in Orange County, California. 

I learned a lot about what God says about fear and worry in my CEO years. I then added more learning teaching the spiritual maturity class at Saddleback. 

All of that growth was great, but my understanding of God’s Word on fear and worry turned out to be limited and untested until I experienced the “crash” of a lifetime in 2008. 

My “faith crucible” came after 20+ years of success as a CEO developing the U.S. avocado category where annual sales skyrocketed from $100 million to $1 billion while I was at the helm. 

On my 20-year anniversary, I was recognized by the industry at a four-hour tribute with incredible testimonials of my success. That day was the high point of my professional life. 

But what goes up must come down, right?  After the tribute, God called me into full-time ministry to lead Rick Warren’s Global PEACE Plan at Saddleback.

Word traveled through the industry fast and then my “Golden Boy” image came crashing down. Overnight, I became a villain and took on heavy fire about how we had spent grower money.  

The assault came as personal attacks—not from my board, but from rebel growers trying to take control of the organization after I announced plans to go into ministry.

It’s still hard, even now all these years later, to fully understand how and why everything happened. That’s the bad news. The good part surfaced as God formed this ministry’s message around the life lessons he taught me during this refining trial. Even though the misleading stories will continue to “live” online, the avocado ordeal is having a transformative impact on other Christians. 

So that is precisely why I started LGFN—to tell my story of being wracked with fear as a Christian CEO and how God completely changed my life.

LGFN emerged from the ashes of my biggest challenge to help Christians grow in their relationship with Christ by getting underneath their faces and facades to heal the wounds that keep them from having an intimate relationship with Christ. 

The ministry’s heart is an imperative for daily connection with God and life-long spiritual growth--not just at church, but in the real world, too.