Embrace the Race - Chad Williams with Five Q

On this episode of the Ministry at Scale podcast, we hear a talk given by Chad Williams from
the 2022 Digital Ministry Conference held in Nashville. Chad is the founder and CEO of Five Q
and gave this talk on the opening night of the conference based on the theme of the
conference: Embrace the Race.

Chad used the story of his son Josiah’s high school running career to teach about some
deeper principles. Since Josiah started cross country his freshmen year, he grew to love the
sport and really wanted to push himself to improve and become a better athlete. One year he
ran 1,000 miles in just one year as a part of his own personal training and through
determination and perseverance, Josiah completed his goal even when it meant running
outside in below freezing temperatures. He put in the effort to accomplish the goal which is a
large part in what it means to “embrace the race”.

Another aspect of embracing the race is having a character of integrity to do the right thing
even when no one is watching. In Josiah’s case, when his coach would tell the team where
they would be running for that day, many of the other runners would take shortcuts so they
wouldn’t have to run so far. Even though the coach would have never known, Josiah still chose
to run the assigned route and even began leading others to do the same.

The third part of embracing the race involves measuring success by God’s standards rather
than by the world’s standards. Throughout his entire running career in high school, Josiah
wanted to make it to state. He worked hard, put in the effort, did the training and pushed
himself to do his best, but in the end he was seconds away from achieving a fast enough
qualifying time. Although the world might view that as a failure, Josiah character and leadership
abilities grew during his running career to a point where he eventually became student body
president at Moody Bible Institute. He achieved success in much more important areas than a
state qualification.

To hear more about embracing the race, listen to the entirety of episode #65 of the Ministry at
Scale podcast.