This time of year takes me back to 2002, the summer before my senior year of college. I was engaged, and we were planning our wedding to follow graduation by one week at the end of June 2003. After finals I headed toward Capitol Hill for an internship originally planned for the committee that established the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. But I ended up working for the committee’s co-chairman, Congressman J. C. Watts Jr., who also led the House Republican Conference.

This summer changed my life. I worked alongside ambitious colleagues, fellow interns from Princeton, Duke, and Harvard. Unpaid as an intern, I worked a second job across the street in the Republican National Committee basement, dialing for political dollars well into the night. I was terrible at the job. Unable to secure credit card numbers from scared grandmothers who hated Nancy Pelosi, I ended up talking education policy and national security with donors a few hours behind in California.

I learned that to excel in politics, it doesn’t pay to have convictions. Few of my Republican colleagues on the Hill wanted to discuss issues of the day. I certainly didn’t see much piety from the party of family values. Mostly I learned that no matter how much I value the work of government, I didn’t belong in those halls myself. Instead I looked for more ways to get involved with Capitol Hill Baptist Church, which occupied the Lord’s Day with lengthy morning worship and an evening service we were also expected to attend. That summer clarified my choices and confirmed my call to ministry. After four years at Christianity Today and three years of seminary, I ended up at The Gospel Coalition, which brought together my journalism training with my church calling.

After graduation and our wedding, my friends scattered to the corners of the earth. One friend and classmate worked his way to the top of our journalism profession at ESPN. Another put the rest of us to shame by becoming one of the most renowned novelists in the United States before we turned 30. Another served on the mission field in a closed country before he enrolled at Stanford Law School. Another quickly climbed the academic ladder in Switzerland and became one of the world’s leading biomedical researchers. Another became one of the earliest employees at Facebook and has already retired. Another topped us all with a successful acting career before she became the Duchess of Sussex. (I didn’t know Meghan Markle, but my wife did.)

When my first job paid $20,000 and wasn’t even guaranteed after 12 months, the HR rep asked if really understood the offer. I did. And I felt lucky to have it. My new wife and I settled into a cheap apartment with noisy neighbors, then put down all our savings on a nearby condo. We lost all that money a few years later when the housing market crashed. It still pains me to type those words, almost 15 years later. But generous donors paid for my seminary education, the Lord provided work for my wife, and we recovered.

Every so often another Substack laments why evangelicals aren’t elite and posits theories of why Catholics or Mormons or some other subgroup excel by comparison in such exclusive venues as the Supreme Court and big business. Usually I wonder if those writers just don’t know “elite” evangelicals. You’ll find them in the law firms and the Fortune 500 companies. You’ll see them on TV in shows and sports. You’ll read them in bestselling books and in their perches with legacy media. If they’re hiding it’s in plain sight.

Should more evangelicals seek to become elite, so they can change the culture? Perhaps. I would give thanks to God if I could see a Supreme Court justice who shares my theological convictions. Surely elite academia could use a whole lot more diversity of thought in the form of anyone who doesn’t toe the liberal party line. I respect and support friends working toward these ends.

But I’m not wringing my hands over the alleged lack of elite evangelicals. Even in the examples I’ve offered, I’ve seen friends fall away from their faith while climbing the ladder of success. Pride. Ambition. Respect. Money. Jesus warned us about all of them, and all of them can still stifle spiritual growth today. A few years ago Brett McCracken wrote about the “Corrosive Quest for Respectability,” and I’m far more worried about that problem among evangelicals than any supposed lack of elite influence.

When I was in seminary, my mentors recommended I enroll at Yale for my PhD. (Professor Molly Worthen has lived my alternative life.) While grateful for the encouragement of my mentors, I knew Yale wasn’t in my future. I didn’t have the right beliefs. Or politics. Or gender. Or ethnic background. Even if I’d completed the required decade of academic training, I had no guarantees of employment, especially given the cultural moment and my interests in theology and war.

While I briefly considered this path, another mentor asked me, “So, do you want to teach at Yale when you’re done?” It didn’t take long to respond. No, I did not. I learned my lesson on Capitol Hill. I wanted to serve the church, wherever the Lord would have me go.

So I’m not elite. I write newsletters. I record podcasts. I train pastors. Sometimes my books sell some copies and I can take my family to dinner on the royalties. I live in the Heart of Dixie, the Buckle of the Bible Belt, far away from any meaningful national influence. My kids seem to enjoy life here.

Maybe right now you’re finishing school, starting a career, getting married. Maybe you’re called to enter those elite doors I departed. If so, God goes before you. Only remember the words of Jesus from Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”