Let’s talk about the universal panic of a dying phone battery.
It usually starts at 20%. You get that first notification on your screen. You’re slightly annoyed, but you just tap “Low Power Mode,” turn down your brightness a little bit, and keep moving.
Then it hits 10%. The anxiety starts to set in. You immediately stop scrolling social media. You swipe up and close out of every unnecessary background app. You are no longer using your phone for fun or connection; you are strictly reserving it for survival—waiting on one important text or trying to keep your GPS alive .
And then… it hits 1%. The screen gets painfully dim. That little battery icon turns red. In that moment, your entire relationship with your device changes. You ruthlessly protect whatever tiny sliver of energy you have left, desperately trying to make it to a charger before everything goes black .
Now, be honest: How often do you run your actual life that exact same way?
How often do you pull into the church parking lot on a Sunday morning, grab your lanyard, and walk into your small group completely depleted—running on 1% battery, desperately trying to conserve enough energy just to make it to 10:15 AM?
If you lead long enough, it happens to all of us. But here is why leading on 1% is so incredibly dangerous right now:
We are leading Generation Alpha. They are growing up in an ecosystem that never, ever powers down. It’s not just that they have iPads or play competitive sports—it’s that they are marinating in a cultural baseline of constant hurry. They are the most chronically over-stimulated and under-rested kids in human history.
Because of this, when they walk through our doors on Sunday, they aren’t looking for more noise. They are subconsciously looking for a non-anxious presence.
And here is the hard truth: You cannot fake a non-anxious presence to a highly anxious generation.
If you walk into your circle running on 1%, your internal “low power mode” means you have nothing left to give them but a lesson plan. You can read the script, you can hand out the crayons, but you cannot give them peace. They will smell the fumes of your exhaustion, and they will quietly assume that following Jesus just makes you tired.
This brings us to the second sub-principle of Making It Personal: Set Priorities.
Last week, we talked about how you cannot export a community you do not possess. The same is true for your relationship with Jesus. You cannot introduce a highly anxious elementary kid to the Prince of Peace if you are a frantically stressed-out leader.
Here is where this gets a little on the nose for us as Christians.
We love to adopt the theology of Jesus, but we completely ignore the lifestyle of Jesus. We try to squeeze a five-minute religious “quiet time” into an exhausted schedule, and then we wonder why we feel so disconnected from God.
But if you look at the Gospels, you will notice something shocking: Jesus was never in a hurry.
The Savior of the world, with only three years to accomplish His mission, constantly walked away from crowds. He disappointed people who wanted a piece of His time just so He could withdraw and be with His Father. He slept through storms. He wasn’t ruled by the tyranny of the urgent. He had peace because He ruthlessly protected His priorities.
You cannot claim to follow Jesus if you refuse to walk at His pace.
If we are going to lead these kids, we have to adopt the pace of Jesus so we can actually experience the peace of Jesus. Setting priorities means eliminating the hurry from your calendar and protecting your own personal time with Him—not so you can prep a better Sunday School lesson, but so you have a full cup that can spill over onto your few.
Kids don’t just listen to your words; they absorb the pace at which you live.
As you prepare for your circle this weekend, I want to leave you with a question to chew on:
If the kids in your circle adopted your exact current pace of life, your level of hurry, and the way you personally prioritize your time with Jesus… would they end up with a vibrant, peaceful faith, or would they just end up exhausted?
Think about that. Because we can only lead them as far as we have gone ourselves.