Can someone be too educated? You know, so brilliant that they can no longer relate with “common” folk and therefore they lose their potential to impact others.

If anyone would be a candidate, you’d think it’d be Ed Stetzer. After all he has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has written dozens of articles and books.

Funny thing is…Ed isn’t such a candidate. Rather he’s completely relatable and he’s spot on with his message and his medium. So much so that he’s been invited to such conferences like Catalyst and Equip (by the way check out his upcoming seminar in Columbus this summer).

Ed is well educated both in the academy and in life. He’s on the Lifeway Research Team, a Visiting Professor at Trinity, and the Author of Breaking the Missional Code, Comeback Churches, Planting Missional Churches, etc. Check out my 5 questions with Ed:

1. How did you get from there to here? I started my first church at 21 years old in the inner-city of Buffalo, NY and fell in love with being on mission.  I planted there and in Erie, PA and started reading all I could on ministry and mission.  I planted for 10 years, then became a seminary professor, earned a Ph.D., and wrote my first book.  Now, I basically do research, write, and speak to pastors and church leaders.
2. Give us the Big Idea (3-4 sentences) behind Lost and Found. Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them is a book that shows the younger unchurched people are open spiritually (even more so than their older unchurched counterparts), but are closed to church.  However, instead of just telling you that, we looked at churches and ministries that were actually reaching the younger unchurched.
3. Please identify one of your leadership weaknesses that’s been exposed while in ministry.  I fail to take care of myself when I lead others.
4. How have you closed that leadership gap?  God has recently convicted me of that very thing and I have sought to lead myself into better spiritual, emotional, and physical health.
5. Don’t worry about sounding arrogant or bold, but what are some God-sized dreams He’s placed in your heart? I would like to help evangelical churches across the Western world to take their biblically-driven theology and apply it as they live on mission in their contexts.

If you’ve read anything by Ed or heard him speak, give a quick impression or thought below. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this research guru, a.k.a. the “yoda” of church planting. Thanks for the interview Ed!