“Meester Volansky, how you say in English? In Ukrainian, we say it like when person live in house. Jesus is my house. I live in Him . . . Because Jesus is like my house . . . I has hope!” Where did Diana get her hope? Somehow, despite the horror of the moment in which the Wolansky family found themselves, and despite whatever horrors Diana had faced in her past over her own children, she seemed to have enough hope to calm everyone else down and to take charge of the situation. Where did she get that capacity? Could Petr and Jen find this type of hope to endure?

Be Connected follows the first and second books in this discipleship trilogy, Be Different: Finding the Resilience to Lead and Be Surrendered: Finding the Maturity to Lead. This third book traces the same characters, Pastor Al and the Wolansky family, as they deal with a new trial; trying to figure out God’s plan and how they are to walk with Him in order to find hope. How do any of us find the hope to lead, especially to lead like Jesus? We argue that finding the hope to lead like Jesus springs from being connected to God and being connected to His Church.

Connection to God is what takes us to the final level of differentiation, the topic of our first book. Surrender is what places us in the center of God’s will when we don’t have the wisdom or strength to understand His will. Connection is how we access the hope to sustain our leadership during the trials and tribulations of life. Connection is what Jesus did when He was in the greatest trouble of His life, Who “went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” (Matthew 14: 23) This is a book about how you, when you have trials as a leader, can connect and remain in the vine “to bear much fruit” (John 15: 5) so that you, like Jesus, can rise again with hope that does not disappoint.