Choosing Your Team | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Running Hope Unfiltered, Real, raw and relevant.

Thank you.

It's our very first live podcast.

We're doing it during 212, and we got a lot of people that watch us that are not church people. They watch it for the entertainment value, I guess, of you calling out every word that I mess up. They like that entertainment value. But this is a 212 conference that we have here at our church, and the fact is, we just decided to try something fun and say, hey, we're going to do it live with a live audience so they can boo if we say something awful. They can say, yay if we say something they like. And either way, I'm glad you guys are here. We're glad that you guys are here and appreciate it so much. This is the first one you've been back after.

No, I did one already this week.

That's right. You did do one this week, didn't you? But you were gone in about three of them, and I had to do them with other people.

You hold grudges.

I know it. Nobody was as pretty as you.

You hold grudges. You don't drop things.

You made me do it by myself.

Over a week, Ronald.

Yeah, but you haven't been doing these with me, though.

Ronaldo. That's what I call him. Ronaldo. That's it. That's his San Jose name. That's his Mexican name. He's Ronaldo.

You can tell. I really look Mexican.

He tries to get me to call him Poppy, but I won't do that.

What does that mean again? Somebody told us what that means.

Daddy.

I like Poppy.

It's better than the other name. You try to get me to call you as Lord.

Look, in the Bible, Sarah called Abraham Lord. I don't understand what the problem is.

It's not happening. It's not happening.

If Sarah called Abraham, you can still do that today. I said, you know, walk around corgit, and you say lord. Lord, you call it. So anyway, we do. We don't do long podcasts. We're not Joe Rogan. You know how he sits there and does those things for 3 hours and 20 minutes? Minutes. I don't know. I got a touch of add. I can't stay that long. We try to do ours around a half hour. How many of you ever seen one? Have you ever seen one of the podcasts? Appreciate that. So those of you that are watching like it, subscribe to it, you know, download, whatever, because we. This is a time you can't really Preach what we talk about on here. And we chat and talk and we banter and we go back and forth at each other and we laugh and we cut up. We've cried a few times, but it's kind of getting us in a different vein. And that's what I really enjoy about it. When we first started, I didn't know if we'd like it, if I'd like it, but I've really grown. It's become one of the more enjoyable things that we do.

It's like our morning coffee time.

Yep. How many.

How many sit around and chat and talk. And that's what we do here.

Yeah, we do that in the. Every morning, one hour. We do that every morning. That's our time together. Because we don't know what time we're getting home. So every morning we raise the blinds, we have a great view. We kind of live out in the country a little bit, and we have coffee together and we kind of talk about what all is going on in our life that don't have anything to do with you. We love you, but we don't want to talk about you all the time, you know? So, anyway, long and short, here's what we felt like. We had a hard time coming up with a topic for today. We're unscripted normally, but I'm not going to lie. When she told me what she wanted to talk about, I did just type some things in because when she told me, I just had these things start hitting my mind. It is our goal to come into these things totally unscripted, so you get the real raw element. And we just talk right out of our heart what comes into our head at that time. But there's one thing I can tell you. How many of you want to do something great for God? Do something great in your life before your life is over? How many of you want to.

Okay, everybody. Everybody.

Here's one thing I can tell you about destiny. You will not get there by yourself.

That's right. Yeah.

So Hope and I knowing that said, there's something that. Whether you're in ministry, whether you're in marketplace, whether you're building something, whether you aspire to build something one day, whether it's a nonprofit, whether it's a service provider, or whether it's your own personal business, one thing you're going to have to do at some time or another, you're going to have to choose a team. So Hope and I want to talk to you. Kind of some of the things we go through mentally, not necessarily in an interview. But the mental exercise we go through when we are considering team members and things we've learned that are going to have to carry the vision with us at a very high level. And, you know, there's a lot of people that come and go in your life, but there are some people that come to stay, and you've got to evaluate that. And you probably have to sort through a lot to find a few. Yeah, amen. You have to sort through a lot to find a few. That's true. And there are some things that we do. This is not out of a book. This is not something I heard a great John Maxwell do. This is just something we do. And we've done it this way a long time. And for the most part, it works. We score more than we lose using this method. And while you're talking a little bit about that, I'm going to pull up some of the notes that I wrote down because I want to talk to them about things. I think they need to keep in mind what they look for in a team member.

I think it's a big hurdle, number one, to overcome when you are. When you are realizing, you know, I'm, I can't do this alone. I can't do life alone. I can't do ministry alone. I've got to expand my business or whatever area that you're in. Just the hurdle of overcoming, ugh, I gotta deal with people, you know, ugh, I got to invite people into my circle. I got to have new people. I've got to share this platform. I've got to be able to trust to bring people to my side. I think that's the biggest thing to overcome. I think it's the fear of being hurt is why we don't want to expand our world to bring more people into it. But until we overcome that fear, and yes, you're going to still get hurt, but your world is never going to explode because, you know, one can put a thousand to flight, two can put 10,000. Look at the multiplication and just adding one. And then when you add another, then when you add another. So you do have to have a process of elimination. You have to have a process, a criteria. It's not just anybody can run with you, but you do have to get over the hurdle of, ugh, to do this thing, this life thing, this ministry thing, this business thing. I have got to invite more people into my world. So we're going to try to help you limit, eliminate some people.

And hurt.

And then gather some people and then.

Hurt always Comes from Judases.

Yeah.

And let me tell you something about Judas'. This sitting in our teaching. This is just. You say, I gotta get. I gotta get rid of all the Judases in my circle. I got a question for you. If Jesus couldn't get rid of his Judases, how are you gonna get rid of all your Judases? There is no Judas elimination book. It doesn't exist. Because only God knows the heart of a man. People can disguise themselves. The book is full of talking about wolves in sheep's clothing. Wolves never show up looking like wolves. Wolves show up looking like sheep. That's the problem with wolves. And so Judas, everybody says, I got to get the Judas out of my mind. Let me define one of the things you don't want. Before we define what you do want, let me tell you what a Judas is. We always think of Judas as a betrayer. But, you know, without Judas, Jesus wouldn't have gotten to the cross. So you always know that your enemies promote you. So some of you that have just had, you know, you feel like you've been leveled by somebody you trusted or you delegated a certain part of yourself or what, you steward to somebody else and they just leveled you. Let me understand something. You are in the greatest position to be promoted than you ever have because.

You are in the greatest position.

The greatest position be. Promotion.

Promoted. Promoted.

I've got very little sleep and it's been a very long day. Hallelujah.

You're in the greatest position to be promotion.

Okay, call. Okay, she's calling me up. You're in a very good position to be promoted.

Yes.

Did I get that right?

Yes.

Because as I've said for years, you know, your friends comfort you, your family humbles you, but enemies always promote you.

Yes.

You would never know anything about a David if it weren't for Goliath. You wouldn't hear nothing about Moses if it wasn't for a Pharaoh. And you wouldn't know anything about Jesus if it wasn't for a cross.

My goodness.

So these are the things that move you to your next level. And you've got to identify them as that. You say, well, my world's coming to an end. No, your next season is opening up. Because enemies always announce. One season is closing and another season is opening. And doors, for those of you who've heard my teaching, they always go together. They're always there. If you see a new enemy, go ahead and throw your party because that's a new door. Doors and enemies show up at the same time. Opportunities present themselves. With conflict simultaneously. Judas is dangerous. Let me tell you why Judas is dangerous. Because he's a friend to you. But he's a friend in the presence of your enemy. The elders, chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, they wanted to kill Jesus. And Judas could sit in Jesus circle, and Judas could sit in their circle. And I'm going to tell you something. If you sit down in the circle of my enemies, you just became my enemy.

Yes, you did that part.

Okay, well, I thought. Wait a minute. I thought we was in church. No, this is the podcast. This ain't church. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

I give this illustration. There was a time where I had one gentleman that split my church. He cost me about 1200 people in a day. Somebody that had been with me 19 years, that's a long time. And did so much damage. We're probably running about 10,000, but 1,000 people is a thousand people. And about 1,200 people walked out the door when this gentleman left. And I had a very good friend. This happened on January 8th. I remember, because they quit with a post it note on a coffee table. And they had it effective January 8th. So this person quit January 8th, went up the street and announced on TV he was starting another church. And literally up the street, you could have walked to it, right up the street. And about three months later, two months later, this was in March, I go to a friend's conference to preach a conference. And this guy was up on the stage helping him with the conference. Conference. Now he is in the middle of splitting my church, and I'm preaching, and he's up in this guy's conference.

And the guy who hosted the conference is supposed to be our friend.

Yeah, good friend. So let me tell you something. The friend came to me. Look, I got all the attention now. So the friend came to me. He could tell I was off and. Am I yelling?

You are yelling.

You have called me out twice in the first five minutes already.

This ain't preaching. This is a podcast.

Okay? So the guy came and the guy came and said. The guy came and said, are we good? Are you good? I said, no, I'm not. And he said, why? I said, because I'm no longer safe in your house. I looked him right in his eyes. I said, I'm no longer safe in your house. I said, if you will allow that, knowing what he's doing to me right now, this is not a safe place for me. And I left. I called my sister. I said, get me on the next plane out of here. And I left because. And the relationship, it never was the same because that was actually a consistent trait in the relationship, doing things like that. But somebody I cared about deeply. But I could not sustain a relationship. Why? It's too painful. And sometimes you got to protect your emotional health and quit putting it in other people's hands. So long and short of it. What we look for for in a team and some things that I think may help you as you identify team members, a lot of you, I know where you are. And I do believe that there's people that want to do great things all over the room. And you may be in the beginning stages, you may be in the advanced stages. And you may have said, man, I've already had the stuffings beat out of me. Please tell me something so I don't repeat that again. Number one, please understand. Habakkuk says, write the vision and make it plain that they that read it may run with it. If I'm reading that scripture right, that tells me that I can presuppose that God has already got people assigned to me, that at different stages of the vision they are to enter and exit my life at different times. Okay, when somebody. When it's time for them to exit your life, you don't need to character assassinate them.

No, you don't.

I don't know. I told one time, I said, I'm going to do a sermon on how to leave church, right?

Or leave a business, how to leave.

How do you exit gracefully? We don't got to go to war because it's your time to exit. And so that they that read it may run with it. There's different stages of the vision where God is already predestined people to enter your life. When you enter that stage and when you make sure that what's in your heart is plain and not vague, but it's plain. Okay? What I mean by plain? Let me talk to you. My world, my world's ministry. Somebody come up to me crying, I want to be in ministry. Youth ministry, children's ministry, prayer ministry. Missions ministry, pastoral ministry, production ministry. I can't run with you. It's not even clear to you. How can I run with you when it's not clear to you? It sure isn't clear to me. You see what I'm talking about? You know, I just want to be a leader. I want to go into business for myself. I can't run with you. Don't mean you're bad.

I love it when people come to us and say, but I just know.

I'm called That happens a lot in this sense. I mean, they're sitting there crying and just got out of the altar and God's been moving. And I know I'm called and I want you to help me because I'm called.

To what?

To what? To who, to where. You know, geographically, what's your. I can't run with you yet. I can talk to you, I can counsel you, but I can't run with you until it becomes plain. So knowing that I've got to have other people to get to where God wants me to go and it's going to take people being assigned to my life, if God has assigned people, then please know that you have an enemy that has assigned people. And one of my mentors always said this. When the wrong people exit your life, wrong things quit happening.

That's right.

And when the right people enter your life, right things start happening. I have found that to be very true. If there's something right, it's because it's right people. If there's something wrong, many times it's because wrong people. Let me tell you something else. Am I talking too loud again? Am I doing it right? I hardly stand sitting down. I want to go walk around and teach. Every problem is a system problem or a person problem.

Every problem.

In any 100% of your problems, you have a bad system run by a good person or you have a bad person running a good system, or sometimes they're both bad. So whenever we see Contention in this ministry, I have 172 employees. I have about 13, 20 volunteers. Whenever we see Contention. Contention does not mean I need to cast out a devil, at least most of the time. Contention is always the blinking light on your dash that says service Engine Soon.

Indicator. Indicator that change is necessary.

In other words, that service engine light. It don't mean it's going to put you on the side of the road right now. But if you drive it that way two months, it's going to put you on the side of the road. So when we see Contention, Contention is not a bad thing. Contention, you just said, is an indicator.

Change is necessary.

Change is necessary.

Change is.

So we try to go into our places of contention, number one, examine our system. Do we need to change our system? Do we need to tweak our system? Do we need to tear the whole thing down and start over? Okay, if we get to the place we have come to the conclusion our system is a good system, then we've only got one other thing. We've got a bad person or a wrong.

Not Necessarily bad and a wrong fit.

Have you called me out again? I said the wrong word again?

No, not that. They're bad. In a bad person, they're not the fit.

They're not the right fit.

Don't fit.

You don't have the right person running it. So that is a simplification that I literally got from a military retired colonel. He said they are taught in the military, every problem is procedural or system or it's personnel. And I thought, that's one of the smartest things I've ever heard because that eliminates a whole lot of stuff real quick. Just go study two things and at the bottom of one of them you're going to find your problem. Is this all right? Am I doing okay? I'm not in church, so I can't tell if you're with me or not. Okay, so having come to that place where you're now examining people, what do we look for in a team member? Hope for me. And you can disagree. We can disagree right here in front of everybody. To me, it's character first. Yeah, it's character first.

And that doesn't mean that you have to be perfect. That just means your heart. You know, David wasn't perfect, but God looked at his heart and was like man. He had a lot of sins, but God looked at his heart and said, he's got a good heart. He's a. He's a man after my heart. So. Not that we're looking for perfection. We are looking for people who are quick to repent, quick to own it, quick to say.

Say that again. Say that again.

No, it's not perfection. It's quick to repent. It's quick to say. I tell my assistant, Jaslyn, is she in here? There she is.

I always tell Jaslyn, no, she's somewhere planning worship at 8:30 in the morning. Yeah, yeah, leave her alone.

I always tell her, and I told her from the beginning, and she is the best assistant I have ever had in 34 years. She is, but.

Except when she plans worship at 8:30 in the morning.

But however, I told her from the beginning and I occasionally will remind her that if she drops the ball or if something is wrong or if I'm like, who did this? What happened here? I don't want excuses. I always tell her, don't give me excuses. Don't say, well, I meant to just say, pastor, I did it. Pastor, I'm sorry. You know what? I dropped the ball. And I never mad. I'm like, okay, let's go, let's Fix it.

Because when you don't own it, you put us on a journey of trying to find out what's wrong.

Yeah.

And I don't want to have 17 meetings when the fact is you just dropped the ball.

Yeah.

So I would much rather hear pastor that's on me.

And I'm like, okay, let's go.

I messed that one up because I do that all the time. I have learned the art of what pastoring is. You know what pastoring is? Saying I'm sorry. Saying I'm sorry all the time for stuff you had nothing to do with. I apologize all the time. Why? Because when you're the leader, it may not be your fault, but it's always your responsibility.

Yes.

It's always your responsibility. So I may not have actually did it, but I was in charge of the person who did it. And so therefore, I have to apologize.

So when we talk about character, just please be plain. We are not talking about perfection. You've got to be a perfect glow in the dark Christian who Shamalama ding dongs all the time and never messes up and all that. That is not what we're looking for. But we are looking for people who are in an upward pursuit to know him more, to love him better, and to have a great home and a great marriage and great character.

Let me define it a little further. Character. To me. To me. And this is where my old school gonna come out. That's all right. I embrace a lot of my old school. I think moral authority is the greatest authority on the earth. Moral authority is when somebody comes and issues me a directive, and I know that they live their life in such a way I can respect them and the directive they just gave me. There is nothing worse than to be under somebody's authority you do not respect.

That's true.

That is a difficult work environment because.

You don't trust them.

You don't trust them. And every organization moves at the speed of trust. Okay. When trust is broken, the price goes up, efficiency goes down. When trust is kept, efficiency goes up, and the price goes down. So everything moves at the speed of trust. And if I don't trust you, there's parts of me you're not going to get because I'm going to protect myself from the chink in your character. Am I making sense to anybody in here? So we're big on character. Not that you can know everybody, but Hope has a very discerning spirit about her. And then we ask questions, and then we will run references. You know, what's the track record on this guy. What's the track record on this lady? We want to know how they functioned at other places before they came to us. Another thing you need to know about character, it goes hand in hand with integrity. And I've taught this in some of my teachings. I'm not sure what the title would be. The word integrity comes from the word integrate. Integrated. Someone who is integrous is someone who is integrated. What does it mean? What they do is integrated with what they believe is integrated with what they say is integrated with what they do is integrated with what they say is integrated with what they believe. In other words, you'll never see them say this and do that. They are an integrated person. The number one definition that God gives about himself is that he's holy. God calls himself holy. I, the Lord your God, am holy. You know what the word holy means? One.

One.

I am one.

He's integrated.

I'm integrated. You will never hear the Father contradict the Son. The Son will never contradict the Spirit. Don't ever come to me and tell me you have a prophecy that contradicts the Bible. The Spirit will never contradict the Word. The Word will never contradict the Father. Because I and the Father are one. I only do what I see my father do. I only say what I hear my father say they are integrated. And when I see somebody that I know, they think certain ways about things. They say what they think, and then they go and do what they say and they think. That makes me feel safe.

Let me tell you something else about integrity. If they. All they talk about is that they have integrity. They probably don't. We were in a meeting not long ago, and this person just blasting other people, just blasting, blasting, blasting other people for their other people's lack of integrity. And all they talked about was, I'm a man of integrity. My business has integrity. And I'm sitting there and I do have huge discernment. And my radar is going up. And I'm like, I'm getting that yucky feeling, you know, that yucky feeling on the inside of you. And I'm like, ugh, wow. The more you talk, the less I think you have integrity. Because, number one, you're so full of pride right now. And that's not integris, because you're talking down about everybody else who don't have integrity. But you're sitting there so blowed up, prideful, like a blowfish. I mean, how is that integrity?

Integrity is not earned through words. It's earned through action.

And Pointing out everybody else's flaws is not integrity. Is not integrity.

So, Pastor, your team here, how are they allowed? Are they allowed to question you? This is how we're set up here. You are allowed to question my head. You are not allowed to question my heart. Your idea may be better than mine, and I usually end up in the dime of the day. I submit to other people's ideas more than I try to get my own. Because I'm not a great idea guy, honestly, I'm not the most creative guy. I tend to be more administrative than creative. And usually other people have a lot better ideas, and I'm all right with that. But now, if someone within our institution questions my motives and questions my heart and questions the origins, passions, and where I want to do things, we're going to have a problem right there. So they're allowed to question my thought process. They're allowed to question my org chart. They're allowed to question. Do we have this thing set up the best way it can be set up? Do we need to do this on Thursday nights or Tuesday? All those things are up for debate. But what kind of person I am, I don't allow that to be questioned. At least not in the same room with me. They might do it at Chick Fil A on their lunch break, but they don't do it in the room with me. So that's how we look. Number one for character and integrity. This will be one and two with all of you. You'll have to decide which one is one and two. Secondly becomes aptitude. It becomes skill set.

Yeah, just a natural aspect.

Can you do the job?

If I'm hiring you to type, can.

You do the job?

Can you type?

Yep. Can you type?

Can you run a camera?

Now, let me tell you something. Who of you in here are functioning or leading in some area of ministry? How many? Okay, now, those of you in the business world, I am a businessman, but my business is a nonprofit, so I have limited insight into your world, and I'm going to admit that up front. But some of these things cross all the lines, and they'll get into marketplace or church. Okay, I don't know if I want to go here.

That's usually the best ones. Go, go, go, Shawnee, go, go.

You too many people go to their place of work, career, occupation, wanting it to give them things it was never designed to give. I want to go to work because that's where I need some friends. I want to go to work because I'm going through this divorce and I need Some emotional support. You are putting pressure on that work environment to give you something it was never designed to give you. And you are going to be a problem employee. Okay. Because you're going there to get from it instead of add to it. And those relationships where you're more of a taker than a giver never lasts long. They never last long. In work, in love, in marriage, if you go into it to take, it's not going to last long. The timer has already been set, and it's just a matter of time before the relationship is going to break. And so you've got to understand what work was desired to give you and what it wasn't designed to give you. I have to understand, when I walk in a room, I have the difficult job most people don't have. If you're in the marketplace, you are in the business world. My dad pastored, but he never pastored more than 200 people. My dad was a pastor 24 hours a day. Everybody loved him. He was a wonderful man. He never ticked anybody off. And he was pastor.

Yes.

This is a massive organization. Whether you think it is or not, for a church. It's got a lot of wheels turning from coast to coast. Okay. I have to find out when I walk into the room, do I have on my pastor hat or do I throw on my CEO hat? And that's always a balancing act, because there's a lot of people that. Man, I would love to work at the church, because they think if they work at the church, they can speak in tongues in a cubicle all day, or we can just go out and walk around the parking lot and pray all evening. No, but if I hired you to input data, you got to input data. Better get to typing, because I got a certain amount of God's money that I am steward over that I am applying to get this job done. And so there are some people that you've got, the CEO, them that are wanting you to pastor them. Okay. But you don't join a church staff to be pastored. Mm.

Mm. And they forget about the HR book when. When they don't feel good or their kid's sick, and they're like, but I just gonna stay home. My kid's sick. And I'm like, but you already used up all your sick days.

Yep.

You know, they forget all of those aspects of children.

And then when you. When you pull the boundaries on them, then. I thought you were a pastor. I thought you. I don't want to hear that stuff right there. You know, we were very Thorough at your job description, what you were signing up for, and how we organize everything. So I wanted to throw that in there with character and integrity. I want to walk in a room. You know, right now, in the social media generation, people want to walk into a room and be popular. I want to walk into a room and be respected. It doesn't matter to me if I ever get a million followers. I got a million on Facebook. I don't know the other one.

You're like, wait a minute.

Don't matter for me if I get several million on there. It really don't. But I do want to go to a conference. And when I walk in, a man of God just entered the room. That means everything to me. Why? Because when they say a man of God enters the room, my words carry weight. Just because you're popular doesn't mean your words are weighty. But I want to be able to speak and see a room change. And that means I don't have to have a certain gift. It means I have to live a certain way to carry that kind. I want my skill set to be received because my life is lived right? So there's a lot of people that bring great skill, but they don't live in such a way anybody wants to receive their gift. If nobody's receiving your gift, then you're not impacting anybody, right? So a lot of times I don't think you can take the character part and the skill set part and really remove them. To me, they have to be glued together. Because what makes me receive your gift is that I know what kind of person you are. Do you see what I'm saying? I didn't get no claps on that, but amen. Anyway, here's another thing. When we look at skill sets, I've only got two more things we're going to share with you. When we look at skill sets, everybody say this in the room. Say it online. We say the number Naaman principle. The Naaman. Naaman. Naaman. There's a character in the Bible, his name was Naaman. If you go read about Naaman in the Bible, the Bible gives a resume about him in two verses that everybody wish you had on your tombstone one day. Naaman was a mighty warrior. Naaman. A mighty man of valor. Naaman. He brought great victories to his king. I mean, you just got this resume, like, man, this dude is impressive. And then it goes, but okay, be careful who you show your butt to.

Everybody can't handle it.

Be careful who sees your butt. But he was a leper. In biblical times, you got leprosy, you died. It's just a matter of time. It was a death sentence. I did some study on that verse. I said, there's something here. This dude gets this resume and then this. But he was a leper. And Hope and I have something we put in place about 15 years ago called the Naaman Principle. This is how we handle our team members. In that day, kings would take their highest ranking military commander and let them live in the palace. Leprosy was highly contagious, was a sickness unto death. And Naaman was so valuable to his king, he was willing to risk the leprosy to keep the victory that he brought to us.

Come on.

To remain in this organization, your victories have to outweigh your leprosy. Case in point, maybe to this day. And we've got some great creative people. One of the greatest creative minds we ever hired. Okay, I remember her name. I can see her right now. Okay, well, outside of you, outside of you. You know who I'm talking about, though.

I do.

One of the greatest creative minds we ever hired. Long time ago, Rebuild revolutionized a lot of the way we did church, a lot of the branding, a lot of the way we communicated what we said to the world. An innovative thinker that our organization didn't have. But, man, she got it done. But when she got it done, there was a trail of blood three miles long.

She didn't care who she was.

We would have a 212 and 212 would be unbelievable.

But all our staff was in therapy next week.

And from here, from here, you know, to Monterey, there was blood and skeleton bones everywhere because she loved us but hated everybody else. And if you're going to love us, you got to love my team.

Yes.

You can't just love me. You got to love each other.

Yes.

And I remember I was sitting there because she was so valuable.

Yes, she was. And we were like, ugh.

I mean, just struggling. But she was killing the morale of anyone. Any room she had to go in. She just destroyed morale. Nobody wanted to work with her because of the way she spoke, how difficult she was to work with. She would throw you under the bus. She never took responsibility for failure. She took all credit for wins. And so she had low character and a very high skill set. And I had to let her go because at the end of the day, I can't handle more leprosy than I handle victories. And there's going to be people who, they bring you great victories, but they got great problems. And you're going to be put in the dilemma of weighing out which is greater. And those are when you earn your paycheck, making those decisions. I think those are difficult decisions.

I think we have always had to look at people's. And you also just preached a sermon not long ago, the treasure in the field. Yeah, I don't know if you guys heard that, but, you know, to get to the treasure, a gold miner knows going into mine, the mining process, that there's going to be tons of dirt, there's going to be tons of stuff that he doesn't want, that he's got to excavate a lot of work just to get to that ounce of gold. And I think we have really tried to employ that, that if we could keep the dirt or the leprosy just surrounded by that one person, just into that one person, and it didn't affect the rest, but when it started affecting the rest of the staff, when it started affecting us, our sleep, our peace, the morale in the house, that's when we had to make a decision. But if it was isolated just to that person and it didn't spread through the team and they were willing to let us help them and develop them, that's one thing. But when it just bled through the whole staff, we had to make a move.

We had another couple like that. And I'll go on, because I got one last thing I want to say before we stop the podcast. We had another couple like that that I remember very well. And you know what couple I'm talking about, too. Same thing, different area, very high skill set. And, man, I mean, they just changed the whole culture of the offices and made them toxic. And I would walk down the hallway and everybody started shutting their doors. And I'm like, what's going on? Because a lot of times they don't want to come to me and tell me. And so I'm sitting here trying to say, something ain't right, something's off, but I don't know what it is. This time it was a man and a woman who both worked on the staff. And this was early, in the early days when I had not had to fire a lot of people yet and had not gotten to this place yet where I enjoyed it. I was going to see if you caught that one right there. And I was tormented. I was tormented. And so I called my father in the faith, a spiritual father. And I remember walking in a parking lot saying, man, I am in a dilemma. And he stopped me. I started telling him the dilemma. He just stopped Me, he said, ron, he said, when you stand before God and give an account for everything you've done and everything God gave you responsibility for, he said, God is not going to ask you, did you keep a friend? He's going to ask you, did you steward my ministry? And he said, your stewardship is always to the whole, never to the individual. Now, I'm not getting many claps on that because you want somebody to take care of you. But if you're leading an organization, your stewardship is to the whole. It's not to maintain the friendship of an individual. And that's what we were fighting because here again, this couple would have done anything for Ron and Hope. We needed a babysitter and we were in Columbus, Ohio. We woke up the next morning, they had driven all night and said, go on and do your conference. We're going to stay here and keep your kids. I mean, drove all night, then kept my kids. My kids are hard to keep if you've had a good night's sleep. Just stuff like that. So they were very valuable to us, but they were killing everybody else. The third thing, and this is a newer word we started using lately, self. Aware. I want everybody to say that. Self aware, man. It's amazing to me how many people are good at something and they ain't good at it, but they think they are. And they're going to keep on until you have to tell them, right? It amazes me. I know I can't sing, so I look at my praise team and say, I'm going to get it started. But by the second phrase, you better be all coming in behind me because I am not a soloist. So what amazes me is the people that aren't soloists but they are determined.

They going to sing a solo.

To sing a solo. People that can't speak but dying to be on stage, they're great in the area you have them, but they want to be in the place of their incompetency and they're not aware of it. Not aware of your own weaknesses. I think at 55, I'm very aware of the things I do well and I'm very aware of the things I don't do well because I've been living with hope 30 some years to point them out. You see what I'm talking about? About so self aware. Especially self aware. Not just self aware people, self aware.

Supposed to tell you self aware leaders, I'm your helper.

Well, you're good at it.

I want you to look bad in public.

You're good at it. Amen. Have you ever encountered anybody like that that just don't get it, that they can't do it, but they're determined to do it? And if you tell them they can't do it, they're devastated. I'm about at the end of my rope with that. I've had all of that drama I can take where everybody. Because what happens is if you don't address it, then everybody starts dancing around it, and it becomes the big elephant in the room, and they don't trust you. But the leader, and then they're sitting there saying, is he leader enough to do what needs to be done? And so I try to look for people that are aware of where they belong and aware of where they do not belong, and do not get the two confused. That's all I'll say with that. And lastly, I probably could spend the whole podcast on this, but I'll just end it here because we've actually gone 45 minutes. We usually go 30 people that are a cultural fit. When I say culture, our DNA, Redemption is not a common church. Not normal in a sea of vanilla. We don't blend. We don't blend. And everybody that comes through here becomes intrigued. Just look at the makeup of this room you're sitting in. Do you know the small percentile of churches that look like this room looks like right now? Miniscule amount of churches anywhere in America that has the makeup of this room right now? Our worship is not common. Our passion is not common. Our approach to God is not common. The way we structure or lack thereof of service is not common. And I offered a position to a gentleman that was here on stage this week. And I said, you're a fit. I said, I have a hard time finding fits at redemption. I look long and hard. And I said, you fit? And I was talking about this number four, this DNA. We're not common. And so when I find somebody that comes in and, like, slides their hand in the glove and it works, then those are the people that I try to hold onto and say, you really could make this place better.

When we came here six years ago and we were taken over for Pastor Dick, we had hoped to keep all of his staff because, you know, we just kept probably 90%, a lot of them.

I'm proud of that.

And just such a great fit and just so apt to change. And their. Their skill set was high and just their love for Jesus. But there was a couple people I remember when we took back to Greenville. So what we did is, you know, you you need to come with us and see what we've been doing. You know, we took them back to Greenville and before we actually made the transition and said, I want you to sit in our services, I want you to be in the offices. I want you to get up under our current staff people and see how we just do ministry. And I remember there was a one gentleman when we came back, he turned in his resignation the day he got back San Jose from being with us a week in. In Greenville. And he said, y' all just work too hard. I was telling you. He said, I. He said, I've.

He said, I can't grind like that.

I can't grind like that. I've never had to report to anybody. And you're telling me there's a hierarchy and I got a department head and I got da, da, da, da, da.

And I actually have to show up to the office to show up.

Yeah, more than two days a week. He said, I just can't do it. So, you know, there is a DNA of everybody's church and everybody's company, and those hires have to be able to flow in the same DNA.

I'll leave you with this, and maybe this will give you, if you got some team members here with you, some talking material to tonight. I want to let you out early, have plenty of time, get rested for tonight. I want to rip the paint off the walls tonight, man. I'm expecting a tremendous time tonight. So text somebody, get them here, invite them, tell them, don't miss it, because last night was nuts.

Yeah, it was great.

And I believe God's just going to build on that tonight. Here's what I want to leave you with. If you got to leave and start all over with all the resources you needed, you could leave, shut it down. And somebody's saying, here's the resources. I'm seeding it. Here's the investment. And you could go to another place that is your dream place. You've got the resources to get the facilities, everything, equipment, everything you need. And they say, now I want you to identify the team members that you would take with you to this new start that bring you such value, you would want them to make the trip and start this new endeavor with you. And then he went through an exercise. I actually did this in a classroom. He said, I want you to write those people down. And I started writing those names down. I probably had a staff of about 28 or 30 at this time. And I wrote those down, and I probably had about 10 or 12 names out of that 28 or 30. And then everybody got through with the exercise. And the guy who was leading this particular class looked, just said, now all those other people, if you wouldn't take them to your new endeavor, why do you have them in this endeavor? Oh.

And he's the same man. This is Sam Chan. He said the first. He said the first time you think about letting somebody go is the time you're supposed to let them go. The very first time.

He says, after that, you're delaying the inevitable and giving the disease time to spread. I found them to be pretty much dead on. Pretty dead on. So leading is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of dynamics and mental exercises and choices you have to go through, but you're here because you want to get better. I'm grateful for our first live podcast that you did it with us. Amen. Running hope unfiltered, Real raw and relevant. Come on, let's send them off with a big hand clap.