[2015.2.5] Staff Lab: WWNTTFG - We Will Not Take This For Granted (#2)

Hey, be seated. I'm delighted to celebrate this day with you. It's cool how it worked out on the actual anniversary. And I had another type of teaching written. When I realized it was coming on the ninth anniversary, though, I shifted gears and I wanted to do something a little celebratory. So I'll put a little acronym on the screen for you, and if you know what it means, raise your hand with that first little thing on the teaching screen for me, if you could. I just gave them all of this because I was rewriting the seminar until the last minute I came in. The other one I was going to teach was good, but it was a little bit more corrective. The Lord was really speaking to my heart. Like, why do you always have to be so corrective with your staff? They're a great team today. Why would you. Why would you throw a pass when you have Marshawn lynch on the goal line? Good coaches often rise and fall on making the right calls, calling the right plays at the right time. I just felt like today we needed to celebrate some things about the culture God has created here at the church. That's exactly what we'll do. And I'll explain to you as we go. Are we going to have that support? It's coming. Here it is. Know what that means? Stare at it. Consider it. Meditate on it. Who's got it? Jesse's got it. Yeah. Say louder. Louder. Stand up on the chair and say it on the chair. No, we won't. We will not take this for granted. We will not say it. We will not. We shall not. We cannot. We must not. We better not take this for granted. It is the tenth element of our code, and I believe it sustains all of the others. We will not take this for granted. Think about the word granted. It's an interesting word. It has multiple meanings. I want to share a few scriptures around that. And then I have a bunch of thoughts, and we'll see where this goes this morning. I've always been fascinated by Psalm 51, where David is crying out from the depths of his soul about a disaster that is upon him because of a decision he made. Many of you would know that David wrote Psalm 51. At least we believe he penned it in connection to his sin with Bathsheba. And he finds God's faithfulness in the place of his failure. It takes him a little while to get to that point where he realizes God is still upholding him. But one of the things he prays in that psalm has been captivating me for Quite a while now where he says in verse 12, it's coming on the screen, or you can turn there as well. He says, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me. Everybody say, grant me. Grant me a willingness spirit to sustain me. We've been talking a lot about sustainable success. I want to stay right in that flow and tell you that what will sustain you to the finish is remembering why you started. That's why David said, the joy of your salvation. Let me remember, let me rehearse. Let me recall how much joy there was in this thing when it got started. How grateful I was when you first lifted my head. How surprised I was by your mercy when you called my name. Restore that kind of joy to me. David is no longer a novice, no longer a rookie, no longer a beginner. His resume has been piled high with accomplishments. But also his spirit has been contaminated with some other elements. When he gets to the core of it, he says, grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Great verse for mood swingers, by the way. How God is not ultimately concerned with how we feel, but how we feel ultimately affects everything that concerns our lives. I'll be sharing this week how Proverbs 4:23 says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. You know what I love about Psalm 51:12? He says that that willingness is what sustains you. You know, you can't endure anything for very long that you don't enjoy. At some level you can only gut it out so much. I was reading that and it took me over to another Old Testament passage in Joshua chapter 14. I want to look at this with you. It's on the screen. Just focus your attention up there where Caleb was approaching Gary sessions status. An 85 year old man who had gone into the promised land with Joshua. He went into the promised land with Joshua as one of the only remaining spies who God had sustained through the wilderness season. 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. When Caleb came upon the brink or the eve of the possession of the promised land, there was something about him. The scripture says that Caleb and Joshua were the minority report. When all the spies came back with with bad news about giants, they had a focus on the grapes or the blessings and the provision of God. One thing it says about them is they had a different spirit. They followed the lord wholeheartedly. When 40 years later, when they went into the land, Caleb references back to a promise God had made him because he had a different spirit, a willing spirit. When other people gave up on the promise, he he was sustained by what was in his spirit. If you always need things around you to sustain you, if you always need the encouragement of others to sustain you, you're always going to be at the mercy of everybody else's mood, depending on them to manage your eagerness. But what Caleb had was within. He had a gift of Faith. In Joshua 14:10, Caleb comes to Joshua. He says, hey, don't forget about your co captain. In other words, he was dividing out sections of land, saying, you live here, you live there, you live there. All the young bucks were getting their go. But then Caleb came up and said, now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive. See that sustaining power of God, your success is only as sustainable as it's. He said, God has kept me alive. He didn't talk about how much he had sacrificed. He didn't talk about his. His survival instincts. He just said, the Lord has sustained me. God has sustained me. God has kept me. That's why I'm still strong. So he said, the Lord has kept me alive for 45 years, since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today. Here I am today, after all this time, after all these babies had been born in the desert, after all of this wondering would it ever come to pass. Here I am today, 85 years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Get me back to why I started. I don't want to be where I started, but I don't ever want to lose why I started. Write it down. We don't want to stay where we started, but we always want to remember why we started. That's the key to getting where we're going. But he said, I'm just as vigorous. Bible nurse, perk up. Same word that is used to mean willing spirit in Psalm 51. Same original language word. I'm still just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Just as strong as when I got started. Now give me this hill country the Lord promised me that day. Notice how in both of the scriptures I read, both of the people were asking for God to give them something. David said, grant me a willing spirit. Caleb said, give me the land that's my inheritance that God has marked out for me. They were both asking for something, but they activated what they asked for. They asked God because they knew he was the source of it. But they activated something within themselves that made them able to receive what they were asking. For they did both. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified. But the Lord helping me, I will drive them out with arthritis, just as he said. Just as I put arthritis in, slipped it in. Then Joshua blessed Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. Cool scripture. He got his inheritance. He was granted the possession, but he had to take possession of what he was given. Here's the question I want us to consider today, everybody in the room, whether you're three weeks with us in the staff family or whether you're coming up on your first decade as an elevation staff member. Doesn't that sound cool? Decade of dominion, Something like that. Are you still willing? Are you still willing? Let's interact a little bit. Ask the person next to you, are you still willing? Are you still willing? I think it's an important question, don't you? Are you still willing? I mean, it's one thing to say I'm still here. That's what Caleb said first. He said, I'm still here, but are you still willing? You can still be working, but not be still willing to work. Are you still willing? Boy, that's convicting. Am I still willing? Am I more willing? To him whom much is given, much more will be asked. Are you still willing? Or were the people who started the church nine years ago with no salary more willing to sacrifice than you with full benefits? Getting quiet in this Presbyterian lab. Turn to the other person you're sitting around. In fact, turn to them, put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eye, look in their soul and say, are you still willing? I can't sit next to somebody who doesn't want to be here. I can't sit next to somebody who thinks they're doing God a favor by being on a church staff. I need somebody with a willing spirit sitting next to me. Here's the the price of admission determines the depth of appreciation. Yeah, I'm going to let it sit there until everybody responds like Larry Bride just did. Because when you get that one, I have this friend, I save him a seat at church. I mean, I don't personally do it. Wouldn't that be weird? But the team does. It pissed me off, though. He starts coming late. Then he started skipping, and he would say he was coming. He wasn't coming to Blakeney at 11:30. It pissed me off. Some people stand in line to get to Blakeney, 11:30. I said, whoever you send the message to, send the message that the next time he shows up late, his seat is gone. As a matter of fact, I told him five minutes early. I said, when you bring him in, I don't know if they ever did it, but I told him to. I said, when you bring him in, don't bring him in the backside, door, whatever. Let him walk around and see those lines of people standing out there. Let him see what other people go through to get into the experience. He can't even bother to get to on time. See, we started him out on the wrong level. It's our fault because we should have let him stand in line one time. And then after he came. You can't give people too much too fast sometimes because it's human psychology. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. That's why he didn't pay anything to get in. It didn't cost him anything. So how could he value something he had never seen the price tag of? I think what you fear, if you started something and I started a church, and the team that started the church, they probably would say the same thing in their own way. I think what you fear isn't that the people coming along don't appreciate the sacrifice you made. It's not that. It's not like, oh, we want to be recognized for all the times John Bishop pulled a trailer, like he wants that recognition. It's not like he wants his name on every trailer, like an airbrushed Bishop on every trailer commemorating when he used to pull it for free. Is not the recognition, it's the reproduction that you get concerned about. I'm not worried about this necessarily with the staff. I am going to celebrate you guys today. But I would just say that what I fear going forward. I say this all the time, and I wrote it in the code. Is that idea of taking for granted what was granted. When something is a gift, it can produce two responses. One is extreme gratitude. Wow. Man. I don't even deserve this. I could never earn this. Wow. I'll talk about some of the people here who have that attitude in a moment. But what it can also produce, as we all know too well, the other reaction to that is a real slackness in your spirit to where you're not as vigorous now as you were then, to where there's not as much at stake for you. When I took Abbey to see the Princesses on Ice, she wanted to leave, but I bought the best tickets. I didn't buy the cheap tickets. She was so terrified, she cried through half the thing. But I was determined to sit through it because the tickets went on my credit card. She doesn't have a credit card, so she didn't have to pay for it. So the first time it got scary and she didn't want to be there anymore. She wanted to go home. Because people have a very hard time persevering through something they didn't pay to be a part of. But that's why he said, remind me, God, of how much it costs you to love me. Remind me of the price that will help me persevere. That's what sustains you in the ministry. Amen. The price of admission determines the depth of appreciation. If you don't give a lot to be in this, you won't get enough out of it to keep you going. That's the way it works. I can just go through the room and do this, but I thought what we'd do. It's nine years. It's nine years. I want to go with nine things in. In a Patterson twist of my own. I have been known to create a twist of my own. I want to take just nine things for nine years. I don't want to take for granted about you people. I think there's an entitlement mentality a pastor can get for the people that make the vision happen. The Lord really dealt with me today, coming in and said, don't just challenge them not to take this for granted. Challenge yourself not to take them for granted. Everybody who's on a staff chooses to be there. Many people on this staff could possibly do something more profitable from a materialistic standpoint with their life. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? You're paid well, you're blessed, you're provided for. But at the same time, it's important that I feel like it works best when the people see their pastor as a gift God gave them to help build them up, and that the pastor sees the people as a gift God has given to him. Nowhere should that be more apparent than here. What I did. I wrote down nine things about you for nine years that I do not, will not, cannot, must not take for granted. I just want to share about them while I'm doing it. Realize this whatever you reward and recognize is what you reproduce. I read an article recently about how to raise smart kids. You know what the catch is? Don't brag on your kids to your kids for being smart. Because if all you ever tell your kid is how talented they are, how smart they are, when they hit a challenge in life, they'll think the key to success is their ability, not their effort. If you only ever affirm their natural talent, which is what we tend to do in a church, because the people who have talent that we can see get affirmed the most. If you don't affirm the effort, then the child will conclude when they fail that it was their lack of talent or ability that caused them to fail. The writer of the article was talking about what is proper praise. He said proper praise has to praise the process, not just the end result. If all you ever do is praise people's product or their end result, then you only affirm the ability or the natural talent. But that's what was granted to them. See, for me, preaching is, I work hard at it, but it's a stewardship of a gift. So I'm responsible for it. It was granted to me. It was given to me as a gift. Now what I do with it is a gift back to God. But if you only ever praise people's gift, if you only ever praise their ability, if you only ever praise their talent, and you only ever praise the effort they put in or the character it took for them to develop it, then when they hit a wall, they'll think it's out of their control. But if they have a growth mindset and they say that more effort. See, sometimes we would wait on something that we would think would be a product of ability. That's actually a requirement of more effort. I want to practice some proper praise today when I'm teaching these. I thought through them a lot in the short time I had. I thought through them and rewrote them and thought through them and rewrote them. Because I think these are the kinds of things you should be praising in volunteers. I think these are the kinds of characteristics and virtues the core team had that we want to reproduce. I think it's the kind of things you should be praising in each other. I think it's the kinds of things we should be asking God to grant us in our own hearts. Notice that David didn't start with a willing spirit. Notice that David started the psalm talking about the bones that were broken. But by the end, by the time he had talked himself through it, he was willing again. Are you still willing? Are these characteristics still yours in abundance? Let's go through them. I want to thank you and appreciate you and not take for granted that you are a staff with tremendous enthusiasm. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Kind of a weird moment to say that. I didn't say excitement, because excitement depends on an external stimulus. Come on, let's praise him. Church sweat dripping. I don't need Excitable staff. Because then your excitement is dependent on my ability to excite you. Excitable. Anybody can get excited. I think excitement can be a product of emotionalism. But enthusiasm is different. If you study the origin of the English word enthusiasm, it eventually comes around to entheos in God. Theos, Theological Theo, Theo, not huxtable theos. God in theos. You know what your enthusiasm, your passion should be rooted in. It should be rooted in God. But did you ever think about that? Your enthusiasm puts God in others. To be a carrier of God. That our enthusiasm, it's not that we become God, but we become a vessel for God to enter a situation where somebody may have felt void of hope, then your enthusiasm could turn someone's day around. Somebody you work with. I just appreciate being part of a culture that is known for enthusiasm. I want to have a little fun because I pulled a group, a committee. I had a committee meeting today, y'. All. I said, give me some people who's enthusiastic. They started talking about Garrett Wyrick, how enthusiastic he was about the E Kids album. I said, great. I said, let's put Garrett down. But let's. Let's don't stop because Garrett just got started. Oh, that's where we have to talk a little bit. I said, because I'm proud of Garrett. We need those new people with new enthusiasm. That's great. I'm not taking anything away from you. Where are you at, Garrett? In the back somewhere, probably. Oh, Davis, who's wired? Oh, Davis, it's not about your name, brother. It's all about the name of Jesus. Get a little humility. I'm sorry about that, but whatever, man. They were bragging about you. I said, but how long has he been on staff? How long is that? I said, six months. That's excitement. It's good. It's necessary. I said, but could we mention Jamie Waldron? I said, because Jamie. No, I want to talk about her. I'm not taking anything away from Garrett Weyrick or Garrett Davis, any of those. I'm just saying. The other day I asked my mom. I said, mom, describe to me the atmosphere of Downton. She had a little look on her face like, if you'd ever come over there, you wouldn't have to ask me. But she didn't say that. She was thinking it, though. You know, I don't get out much. I don't get out much. But I was like, tell me about Downton. She said, something blew my mind. She said, it kind of depends on whether Jamie is there. Or not. I thought, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Could one person have that much enthusiasm that they could light up a whole half of an office? Could there really be that much enthusiasm in one light bulb in one person? That's really powerful, she said, because it's kind of like one level when Jamie is there, one level when Jamie is not. That wasn't meant to be a slam on anybody else. It's just saying when she brings that passion, she brings that party. She's a walking party. Not all of us have that gift. Not all of us have that gift. Not all of us have that personality. I'm not talking about personality. I'm talking about passion. Enthusiasm is not a personality type. Enthusiasm is a reflection of passion. Enthusiasm. I hate this phrase people use as an insult. I know what it means, and it can be a bad thing. But they'll say, man, he tries too hard. He just tries too hard. To me. I know what you mean. If they're trying too hard to impress people, that's bad. If they're trying too hard to prove themselves, that's bad. But is that the worst thing that could be said about you? He tried too hard. He tried too hard. Okay, I'll err on that side. He tried too hard. I could stand by that. When I stand before God one day, if he's like, thou triedst too hard, I'd be like, yeah, maybe so. But I read about Peter cut off the man's ear in the garden. That is the exact opposite of what Jesus was doing in being crucified by his stripes. They were healed by Peter's sword. They were almost killed. But Jesus chose Peter. I think he said, I'd rather have an enthusiastic error than then complacent competency. Oh, God, that was anointed. That was right out of the throne room. I'd rather have an enthusiastic error than. What did I say? Complacent competency. On this staff. Love the Lord, your God with all your. Not just heart, there's other ones, too. With all your. With all your. That sounds like trying hard. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm isn't a mood, by the way. It's a decision and a course of action. Remember when I preached uptown heart and soul? Joel, your last name is still Delf. Joel Delf. Do you remember I preached that message about the fire? And I used an Old Testament scripture. The fire on the altar must be kept burning. It can never go out. It can never go out. I thank God for your enthusiasm. You really are an enthusiastic bunch. It's inspiring. I'm not naturally look, when I get up on stage, I have a certain energy that I'm responsible for, so I come out like that. But it's amazing how your enthusiasm, in so many different ways, in so many different interpretations, with so many different varieties of expression, how your enthusiasm is such a commonality. That's what we can't take for granted is like how many people go to work with people who all want to be there each day. That's what we're aiming for here. 100% willingness. 100%. Not 98, not 99, not this department, that department. But the day you don't want it anymore, the day the fire goes out. I'm not saying the first day you don't feel like doing your job, but the day you no longer feel like putting God into people should be your last day taking a paycheck from a church. We ought to be enthusiastic about it. Number two, I want to thank God for your loyalty. Now, I might get kind of serious talking about this because for most everybody in this room, your loyalty was tested in a major way when the media coverage of our church was so negative, so persistently. You know, it's weird because a pastor came to meet with me yesterday, a guy who looks to our church for leadership, and he asked me over lunch. I think it's what pushed me to have this focus for staff lab. Just to not take you for granted, he said. How much staff fallout did you see over all those news articles? Before he even got the rest out of his mouth, I went, and then I quantified it. I said, 0.000000000000. I mean, I don't know what Buck might have done with somebody. And they didn't tell me where the body was, but that I know of, not one, not one staff member. It kind of bleeds over into something else I wanted to talk about. But I think loyalty is often used as a backhanded compliment about people. Well, he's loyal. It almost means like they're not very good at what they do, but they're loyal. Like an old dog, old faithful. He's loyal. It means like he could barely walk across the living room, but he'll sit right there at your feet. He's loyal. Praise God, he's loyal. I don't mean it like that. I also don't mean a fear based loyalty. See, I wrote down the other day, it's interesting in raising your kids how the older they get, you're finding new ways to have leverage to get them to behave a Big part of being a parent is listening closely to figure out what your kids like so you can know what to take away or to threaten to take away when the moment is right. Oh, you like Minecraft? Noted. Three weeks of no Minecraft, standard threat until you move to the next trend. Oh, you're into Mario now? Noted. Oh, Graham, you like throwing a ball? I will deflate all of them. Oh, heavy. You like your hair braided? I'll cut it all off. You know, just leverage. You're just looking for leverage. I've never said that, but I'm saying a lot of times loyalty is created through leverage in leadership. I'm loyal to you because you know something about me or I'm loyal to you because I'm dependent on you in this way, or I'm loyal to you. Well, I think what's special about the sense of loyalty I feel from the staff, and I hope you feel it both ways to the degree you can. I feel like it's a loyalty that's based in love, not leverage. I think that's an important distinction. I really do. I think it's a loyalty based on more than just what you can do for me, what I can do for you. I think love based loyalty is a rare thing in our world today, don't you? It's a real special thing. I don't want to take that for granted because I realize your loyalty is a gift to me. When John and Heather were packing it up to come home, there was a text I sent, or maybe it was a voicemail I left or a note or something, some sort of communication. I remember what I said, but I don't remember how I said it. I remember the moment I heard, hey, Toronto isn't failing, but the Bishops feel like they can't complete the assignment anymore there. Their question was, is there a place for us back in Charlotte? How long do you think I had to pray about that? No, I'm serious. How long? No 40 day fast on this. I don't have to call a meeting and see what Blackson thinks. I don't care what anybody thinks, okay? There will always be a place. You might have to intern under Larry Bride for 24 months, but if you're willing to come on back on bended knee. Heather is original gangster. She's not some fly by night Johnny come lately who just is trying it out. We've been through stuff together. John helped me, I wouldn't say cheat through my Greek class, but creatively, he helped me through my Greek class. He helped me creatively pass Greek. It's not just that either. I remember when John didn't have a title. I remember when John didn't have a. I'm just saying that kind of loyalty that's built in love. I'm not saying everybody here is guaranteed a staff job at all times. No, because the worst thing we could ever do was to leave you in a place where you are no longer successful or fruitful. That would be the worst thing we could do for you. Some people, out of loyalty, tolerate incompetency, which leads to more frustration. It actually causes the person to implode. That's not love. That's not love, but real loyalty. Not like an old dumb dog, but like somebody who out of love. That's my number one thing, isn't it, Holly? Loyalty. That's the number one thing. Loyalty to me makes even people more physically attractive. I'm like, man, John is handsomer because he's loyal to me. To me. The eyes I see you through. I mean, loyalty makes people to me. Love covers a multitude of sin and even a multitude of mistakes. I appreciate the loyalty of this staff. I really do. It's remarkable and it should be important to you. I want to find this verse because it was so cool when I read it. When David had commissioned Solomon to build the temple and God gave him a command for not only what they should build, but the spirit they should build it in. In 1 Chronicles 29, jot. The reference, it said the people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders. Willing. Do you see a theme? Are you still willing when it costs something? Are you still willing when you get demoted? Are you still loyal when you don't get invited to that meeting? Are you still willing when nobody said thank you this week? Are you still willing when they changed it? And all your work that you did that didn't get shown on things, you're still willing? Well, the people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders, which was a sacrifice. I wanted to talk about sacrifice within willingness, but I realized sacrifice is the wrong word. A sacrifice means I gave more than I got. And none of us can say that about what we've experienced here. None of us. I can't say that, so I can't even call it a sacrifice. The willing response of their leaders, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord. I love it. There was a willing response in the new King James. Listen to how they put it. They brought all the Jasper and the iron and the bronze and the gold and the silver. And they asked, who is willing to consecrate himself this day to the Lord? Then the people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly because with a loyal heart, they had offered willingly to the Lord. And King David also rejoiced greatly. The scripture says, submit to those who rule over you so that it will not be a burden to them to lead you, for this would not be to your advantage. I just think that loyalty makes a huge difference in how a leader feels protected. They asked me at a pastor's roundtable last week, just 20, 30 pastors. They said, what's the secret to your great faith? First of all, I wanted to explain to them how my great faith really looks behind the scenes. Then after that, I said. I said, a lot of it is just insulation. I don't care how good the quarterback is if he doesn't have time to throw the ball. I don't care how talented he is if he doesn't have a pocket. There are a lot of pastors. I'm going to blow your mind. A lot of pastors who preach better, lead better, think better, love better than me. Their church will never be what this church is because they don't have a pocket to pass from. So a lot of what you see around here, it's not my faith, my gift, it's loyalty. Knowing that, hey, I can stand up and say it, and they got me. That's a great feeling. Loyalty. Loyalty based out of love, not based out of fear. I want to say one more thing. Loyalty. That's a lifestyle, not just lip service. See, if you're really loyal to someone, you'll say it every once in a while, but you won't have to say it much. You won't have to say it much. You'll just be there. It's amazing the ministry of presence that this staff has. You know how many times a campus pastor has been sitting in my driveway at my house until midnight, waiting to take a guest back to the hotel we were trying to host in town and take care of them so we could have extra time. Not Preston. Preston doesn't have no kids. He can sit out there all night. I'm talking about guys with kids, guys who might not have seen their own kids that week, but it's pretty precious to see him walking around the corner. And I shout, hey, thanks so much, Frank. Thanks for doing that. My privilege, Pastor. That's awesome. I never try to take advantage of it, but I sure do appreciate it. I don't ever want to take that for granted. Hopefully, I'll be known as a loyal pastor as well. Loyal and faithful, committed to what we're building. I thank God for your loyalty. I thank God for your excellence. I thank God for your excellence. That's the third thing that's on my heart to say. What did Bill Hybels teach us early on? Excellence honors God and inspires people. Both of those are important. When people see us giving our best, they assume that we think that our God is the best, that our message is the best, that our mission is the most important, that it's the highest priority. It's kind of an odd scripture to use, but I was reading in Luke, Chapter one, where Luke is talking about, hey, I know a lot of other people have written this stuff down, but I wanted to write it down, too. And he's writing it to Theophilus, and he says, with this in mind, Luke 13. Since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I've carefully investigated everything from the beginning. I, too, decided to write an orderly account for you. He's starting off this thing saying, I'm going to give my best to doing this. The scripture says, we are living epistles. Our lives are written on human hearts. And I wonder, are we thorough? I wonder, are we excellent as we can be, orderly as we can be? But then I like this. He says, I, too, decided to write an orderly account for you. Most excellent Theophilus. Most excellent Theophilus. He said, if I'm writing to someone who's excellent, I need to write it in a way that's excellent. Can I tell you a secret? I get nervous coming in to do staff teaching to you. I know that sounds weird. You have to be here. What's there to be nervous about? I get nervous. I always wondered, why is that? How could I be more nervous about the people who are on payroll than I could be nervous to go speak at an arena? But I do. I get more nervous. Ask Colleen. I pulled her back today. I was kind of all fidgety. I was like, colleen, I don't know why, this or that. I was nervous about coming in here. Nervous about it, nervous about it. Why was I nervous? I think it's because a spirit of excellence inspires accountability. I know how hard you work and I know how much you give. I know how much time you put in. I was watching Student Worship Night last night. That thing was excellent. It wasn't perfect. Because I don't want a culture of perfection that keeps people from trying stuff. Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. Yeah. I don't want a culture of perfectionism. Yeah. There was this one guy who sang off key and there was this one thing there. I don't care. What I saw was excellence. In fact, I saw enthusiasm and excellence. I did. I saw passion. It was like we were at Time Warner just for those. How many kids? 1200 kids or whatever you crammed in there. Breaking fire, coat all over the place. Chris preached an excellent message. An excellent. It was excellent. He took an idea, he put a thing at the end, Boom. Had the thing, went all out. Could have just mailed it in. It was excellent. I love anybody who's excellent at anything they do. I'll tell you a dirty secret. I don't even mind if somebody is doing it for God. If they do it well and they do it with excellence, I can learn something from how they did it. That's why people don't understand. How could you listen to that band? I think their excellence is in some ways a reflection of the image of God. Even if their message isn't directly connected to God. I love to see excellence. Don't you? It's crazy how in a church, I think it's crazy how over time it can drift from what's excellent to what's acceptable. I could have come in here today. I wrote four different messages for this today. Four. I'll use some of them later in the year. We have 10. But I wrote four. One was about scorecards, one was about climate change. Climate change. That was going to be good. I'm going to teach it still. But not today yet. There is something intrinsic in me that when I finish this today, I don't need you to just accept what I said. I need to know in myself this is what drives me, that I gave God and the people I'm called to serve my best offering Danger Zone. Nobody else can commend your excellence accuracy, because they don't really know what you're capable of. This is why people can tell you, that was awesome. That was amazing. But when you know you had more to give, when you know you got started late, when you know there was this one thing you could have changed, but you knew it would be more work. When you know you won't feel good about it. Not if you're a most excellent theophilus. Most excellent. I wonder who could I call most excellent today in the room? Let's see. I asked the group, I said, who is known for excellence? Man. They started talking about so many people. I couldn't get them all but one. They started talking about that I thought was kind of interesting. Not in that I didn't think this person was excellent, just that I was glad to hear his name was. They started talking about Ray Harper. That made me happy because Ray was there from the beginning. What they were saying about you, that was cool is how this is excellence on another level. When Gene went to Raleigh and it left an opening for a point person for the central data management that you didn't just assume the responsibilities but you assumed the leadership of the people who needed to carry the responsibilities to me when I heard that, I thought that's most excellent. Most excellent Ray E. Harper iii. I should call you that from now on. M E R. Most excellent Ray. Now here's where this will set you free. What he did that was excellent most of the room didn't know about. But if he's a person of excellence, excellence was its own reward for him. Because he didn't bring the offering to people to begin with. He brought it to God. I just appreciate a spirit of excellence more than anything. You can have a presentation that other people think is excellent but not have a spirit you know deep down in your heart was excellent. So you want to be a person of intrinsic excellence. Write that phrase down. Intrinsic excellence. Daniel six says that Daniel had an excellent spirit Man. I just appreciate the excellence of this staff on every level. I appreciate not only your abilities for excellence because we do have talented people, don't we? Don't we ever amazed you? Some of the people you work with just stuff they're good at. How you do that, it does me. But I appreciate not only the abilities, that's the gift God gives. I appreciate the effort toward excellence of not stopping until this is the best it can be. It's a great response. How you can tell if a person is committed to excellence is when there's a better idea that would require more effort. Is their first instinct willingness or is it resistance? I'm going to work on another teaching for another time called you won't get this but I'm going to do it. Every idea is an invoice. Think about it. Every idea is an invoice. So it comes with an associated cost. We could do this. We could do this. What happens after you've been doing it a long time? I said I'll teach on it another time. But I just want to teach on it a little bit right now. You see the idea and you immediately see the price of it rather than the potential of it. If you're a person of excellence, the first thing you're going to look at is the impact of the idea, not the invoice or the cost associated with it. Then you consider the cost. You count the cost. But the first thing you do is commit to it, to. Because I am a person of excellence. That's the main thing that has changed about my preaching in the last year. To be honest with you, I was nervous to come in here and teach you today. But if I know I gave my best, that's cool. I'm not paying attention to the three people who don't look like they want to be here. I'm looking at the 100 plus that are right there. Because if I know that I gave you the best offering I had today, I'm going to be better next year. I'm going to be better the next year. But today, right now, this was my best I can give right now. And. And that's a great way to live. That's a great feeling. Then people may like your work, they may not like your work. They may receive it, they may not. But you know, that was my best. And there's no other way to live. And I just want us to stay committed to excellence. I'm going to try to go a little quicker. I don't take your vision for granted. I appreciate your vision. They say, well, no, Pastor Steven, it's your vision. We're just implementing. No, no, no, no, no. Hey, I don't want to be bungee jumping by myself. That's why I changed the code. The first code said we are united under the visionary. I changed that. I didn't like that. At one time I thought it was important to establish because sometimes what we were saying is in church, people. People have different agendas and that we don't want to be driven by multiple agendas. Division, multiple visions. You don't want to dive vision. But what it started to sound like to me over time is that I am the fount of the vision. That's exhausting. Tell us what to do next, Pastor. We'll do it. We're ready. Just give us the vision. I gave you the vision. Now I need you to see it and show others the same vision. I need a room full of visionaries, not a room full of daydreamers. We talked about that last month, didn't we? Not that, but a room full of people who can see. To be honest with you, I was impressed by the new website because it reflected vision. I'm going to tell you why. It said, we took the data. We realized that everything is moving to Mobile. We're not going to build a website based on yesterday's methodologies and yesterday's trends and yesterday's habits. To me, that's vision. They didn't come up with something new necessarily, but within the old, well, they applied vision. That's visionary thinking. I was impressed by that. I was impressed to hear about John Broom. Walked around the other day, ran into John Broome. It's a running joke that he may or may not work here anymore, but I found out that boy is still working. I said, what are you doing? He was looking at something on his phone. He had his flat bill on. John Broom's style has changed since he was little Johnny Broom. He's a whole different guy now, but he's walking around looking at his phone. I said, what are you looking at, man? What are you working on so hard? He looked focused. He said, well, I'm going off of. When you said hospitality is a strategy and we're rebuilding the guest services on the. I said, hold on. I said, what? I forgot. I said it. I remembered when he told me, but he took something that was said in an interview format with a pastor who came in to visit where I just said a statement. I said, I think hospitality is a strategy. I think it's more than just a support system for the strategy. I think hospitality is a strategy for growth. I just shared the thought. That dude went and got a vision for what that looked like and started building it out. I thought, go, Johnny Broom. Rock your flat bill all over this office and do it, do it strong. And I'm going to brag on Dustin Stradley. Nothing to do with his biceps. I'm talking about his leadership. He came out today. He's here. I didn't even. Is this streaming? I'm going to say this, but when you hear it, put it in context. I didn't even want to be in Roanoke. It didn't make any sense to me why we would be in Roanoke. Because I'm thinking like, well, we got this campus locally. We got this. I fought the whole thing, but there's this great group of people. I know, they're great. They can watch the sermons. We'll send them the sermons. God bless them, we'll pray for them. But I don't want to have a campus area. We sent him out there to Roanoke. Almost like we're going to not even give you enough trail mix to make the journey. I'm serious. You could go out there, but I'm not even going to ever publicly recognize that anything is happening in Roanoke. But he had so much vision. See, it's one thing to say, Pastor, what's your vision for Roanoke? It's another thing to say, I know your vision. So that people far from God will be raised to life in Christ. I know your vision. I have the vision. Now, I'm going to see what you see, but I'm going to see it in places you will never even get to go. That's a visionary. What it did, it forced my faith to a new level. Thank you for that. Because it gets lonely when you're the visionary. But when you can be a visionary, that gets to show the vision to a visionary, that shows the vision to visionary. And I see it. I see it. I see it. I see it. I see it. I see it. I see it. Boy, then we become powerful. I just appreciate all of you that approach your job not just as laborers, but as visionaries. I think it makes a difference. I know you don't have everything under your control, and I know there's a lot of caveats to each of these, but I'm just saying, in general, there's nothing better than a leader. I told him this at Staff advance three years ago. Four years ago, I said, there's nothing better than a leader seeing people take what originated in his heart and give it back to him. Better than he ever thought of it. It's really cool. I appreciate your vision. We always quote Proverbs 29:18. Where there is no vision, the people perish. But it's just as true if you flip the sentence, where there are no people, the vision perishes. If all I ever had was a vision, I would have just been a madman. Did you guys ever see the TED Talk about the importance of first followers? Isn't that powerful? The first follower turns the lone nut into a leader. Let everybody who was on the core team stand up, don't clap or nothing. I just want to say something. All right? I don't think what I saw is as impressive as what you saw. I don't. I saw the potential for a church. But you saw potential in me. I didn't have anything to prove that with. But you didn't go off circumstantial evidence. I think sometimes when we say pastor's vision, Pastor Steven's vision. How about chunks vision to see something in me? How about Holly's vision? Right. How about Jay Rabin's vision? How about most excellent Reophilus vision? Ray Weirich? I'm just saying, can you see it and can you show it to others? And can you paint the picture? Well, I thank God for the way you do. Now you can clap for the core team. Y'. All. Good. Keep going. I thank God for your adaptability. That's a funny word. No, it's an awesome word. Because the ability to adapt to what's needed now, that's the most important skill you're ever going to learn. What I do as a leader now is not what I did as a leader. Nine years. Can you imagine if I was still up there leading the praise and worship? That would be so sad. Not that it wouldn't be decent. It would just be about 12 years dated. Not that it wouldn't be decent. It would just look kind of silly for the same guy to have to put the guitar down, then put the mic on. Nine years in. Some of the changes I've been through as a pastor have been uncomfortable. Sometimes you will enjoy the skills you got to use in one season more than the skills that are required in the next. Sometimes you'll miss the days when or whatever. But adaptability, I just think that it really revolves around why you're doing what you're doing, mattering more than what you're doing. I mentioned Frank, but I'll mention him again where I said, what do you think about heading up B kids? The dude was killing as a campus pastor, by the way. We forget that Tim Ferriss is awesome, but he was handed a Ferrari. Frank had it humming. That's the truth. He built it right. He built it right. Pastor Frank built it right. Let's bring it back today. Only Pastor Frank. One day. Only Pastor Frank. But how could you just be building a campus and then the pastor all of a sudden say, I need you over family ministry and just make that shift. That's a hard shift. Chunks wouldn't do it. No, I'm just kidding. He would. He would. He would. He used to be the campus pastor at Blakeney, by the way. Those were the dark Ages, y'. All. Let's thank God. Let's take a praise break that Chunks is no longer a campus pastor. Thank you, Jesus. Come on. God is so good. But look, it has never been about what I do. You can't build a great church on people who are so concerned with their job description that they miss their functional purpose. You can't build it. When the finance team has to adapt because of personnel transition, yet they never miss a report, never miss it. There's no excuse to it. We can't do it. I was thinking Joan Wood is pretty adaptable. She would be the patron saint of adaptability at this current season. It's true. Let's be honest. Joan had to adapt in general. She loves Pastor Steven as much as anybody other than some people in the room, the related people. She loves me, but she doesn't like when I say that pissed me off. She wishes I would say it different if she had her way. But I'm here for a purpose, not a preference. If he says one thing I don't like, but he says 99 things I do, I have to do the 99 and not get offended by the 1 because I'm adaptable. I'm not always looking for a reason to be offended or a reason to disconnect. I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for, what do you need me to be now? God. Good parents are adaptable. Good parents learn how to go from being one thing in one stage of the child's life to another thing. I don't know if I'm going to be a good parent yet, but I bet if I am, I'm going to be adaptable. Because what you use to keep them straight when they were six will not work when they're 16. You better be adaptable. If you're going to have a willing spirit to sustain you, you better be adaptable. Larry Bryce had every job title that's ever been posted on churchleader.com he's adaptable. Looked him dead in his eye one day. Now Larry Bry is renowned in the church planting world renowned. He commands a higher speaking fee than I do in the church planting world. This dude is top shelf. But you know what? I had to look at him on job eval and say, you're no longer going to be in meetings with me. You know how hard that was for me? About a tenth as hard as it was for him. But he said, I'll go to the position where I'm needed. And because I have an excellent spirit, whatever you tell me to be in charge of, it'll be excellent. You know what? He has more influence now than he ever would have staying there and staying stuck. Stay adaptable. It's a beautiful thing when a staff is adaptable and agile. Let's don't ever get so big that we can't pull off something at the last minute if we need to. Adaptable. Adaptable. I love people who have the ability. This is something I stole from Bishop Jakes because he was talking about Moses. Took the staff in his hand. This is really sketchy exegesis, but it makes a great point. So I love it. He said, the staff turned into a snake. The snake turned into the staff. He said, what you need is a staff that can turn into something, that can turn into whatever is needed next. When you release them, can you turn into something? Or are you just one thing? This is my area of ministry. Oh, it is. Remember when you told me one time it was your campus? Yeah. You didn't say that again. What I said is, no, no, no. This is our campus. I'm allowing you to lead for this season. Don't you ever start talking about my campus. You don't know where God is going to need you in the next season. Blessed are the flexible, for they will not break. So you have to learn how to be like, what's needed now is different, but I still have the right stuff. What is adaptability based in? The next thing I want to talk to you about trust. I thank God for your trust. I thank God that when it comes down to it, I believe that you believe the best about me as a leader. I referenced it earlier. I saw it when we were in a little bit of a skirmish. I see it when we hand down a programming decision that's going to mean somebody has to redo all the lighting. I just see it from top to bottom. There was a book written by Stephen Covey. Not Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits, but his son. He wrote a book called the Speed of Trust. And he talked about how much faster an organization or a family or relationship can progress when there's trust. Raise your hand. Have you ever been a part of a church or a work environment where there was a very low level of trust between all the people? Raise your hand. It is excruciating to sit through a meeting with people who don't trust each other. Again, I think we take the fact that we're around people we generally trust for granted. Now, if I could be a little bit preachy and not all celebratory, some of you are eroding some trust with some people with the commitments you're not keeping. There's two sides of trust. There's trust and trustworthiness. If people just always have to believe the best about you, but they're only getting the worst, it's just a matter of time before they can only assume that the pattern they've seen will be repeated. Hello. Yo, ladies. You can tell how much trust there is in an organization by how much pushback there is over preferences. I know, I know. I'm at the top of the church, so I only see everybody's best side. So I know I'm coming through. But this is my staff live today. So I'm doing what I appreciate about you. I hope this is pretty much reflective of what happens on the whole. But from my aerial perspective, I just feel like we work in an environment where people trust one another, where people say, I trust that you're giving me this feedback because you truly want me to be better, not because you don't like me. There's nothing worse in the world than to be in a culture where you have to qualify everything before you say it. Don't take this the wrong way, because I love the last thing you did. And the thing before that was pretty good, too. You've been really good for years. I trust you. Tell me what I need to know. Well, there's something on your pants. Oh, my God. Could you have just taken it like there's something in your teeth? When there's no trust, the simplest thing is hard to communicate just the simplest thing. Just easy things that you should just be able to do. If you don't trust your leader, every decision has to be explained. There are some times where you need to slow down the thought process and say, hey, can I get the why behind this so I can do it? Well, that's one thing I'm not talking about not asking questions, because sometimes you need to know, hey, let me know why we're doing this because I want to do it the best. And I might be able to help you figure out a better way, if I can understand it. That's important. I'm talking about just an atmosphere of suspicion that sometimes gets into organizations is miserable, where I don't really know if you're saying this because you're protecting your position or because you're trying to promote our purpose. I just don't sense much of that around here yet. I hope you'll help me protect it where it never becomes that. Where people are more guarded about their gift than they are involved in our growth. What's going to grow us if we're all coming from that place? You know what? You can have misunderstandings and remedy them. If there's trust, you can have a miscommunication and get it back together. If there's trust, trust, trust. It's foundational to our relationship with God. It's foundational to our relationships with one another. I just thank God for people. It's a phrase we use about somebody. We say, you know, they must have had a reason, even when they don't get to explain their reason. To me, it's saying they must have had a reason. I'm going to talk to them about it because they must have had a reason. Do we fundamentally operate out of trust or distrust? Well, if there's somebody who you fundamentally distrust, remove the person. But don't create an atmosphere of distrust to correct one problem with one person. Does that make sense? Okay. I thank God for your trust in me. And I'm doing my best to be trustworthy. I will let you down. I will. I'll let you down. But I'm going to tell you one thing about me. I'll get back up and I'll come back out and I'll do my best to do what I think God is telling me to do. Sometimes I miss it. Sometimes I think we're going to do it and it doesn't work. But I thank God for you trusting me. How much trust did it take for these families to come out here with me to start this church? Do you know when you got your job offer to work here and it was how much vacation days and how much salary and all that, you know what? They got a map of the United States. I promise you it's going to be somewhere around here. That's trust. That's major trust. Anyway, I always think it's one of my. If I can brag for a moment, my great accomplishments, that those people who trusted me are all still with me. I take that as a great sense. That's a great source of. I'll even say pride to me. It might even be a little bit braggadocious. But it is. It's a great sense of pride to me because it said it's required of a servant that he be found trustworthy. So I'm entrusted. So I want to be trustworthy. I thank God for your initiative. Initiative. See? Initiative. How did this touch screen get out here, by the way? I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for this. You know what Jolak did? He remembered that last time I did staff lab, I used a touch screen. So he made sure they brought it over in case I wanted it. I didn't even tell him a single word to put on it yet. He said, just in case pastor might want it, we have to get the touch screen over there. That's a small thing. You know how good that makes me feel? That makes me want to fight the devil. 15 rounds, yo. All right, Pastor. If you bring the content, we'll have the touchscreen ready. If you want it, it's ready. If you don't want it. It's still ready. But then it was in here, and Brody saw it. He said, wait a minute. It needs an update. It was just sitting in here. So he came over after the student worship night and made sure. The thing was, I didn't even say I wanted it yet. I still hadn't said a word about a touchscreen. Didn't send in a scripture. Didn't send in nothing. But just in case he wants it. That gives me chills. That gives me more chills than a thousand people saying, we're with you, Pastor. That's cool. But what I need is a touchscreen for when I forget to mention I'm going to need it. So it's there if I need it. That's what I really need. That's the little things. You want to bless your boss? Take initiative. I mean, bring them three options for something they couldn't figure out. One, to take initiative. Now I'm going to brag on my assistant team. They are queens of initiative. You heard of queens of the Stone Age? They're queens of initiative. You heard of the Queen City? They. They are queens of initiative. They will take so much initiative, it will make your head spin. If you come to them with a plan and you didn't take initiative. Thinking through it, you're about to find out the definition of initiative. It's beautiful and I need it and I love it. I appreciate your initiative, Jess and Christy and Caroline and Kim. It takes initiative. Kim just saved me $2,000, something she took initiative for of my personal money. Thank you, Jesus. God bless her. In Uganda. No dysentery on the Villareals because that woman took initiative for me. I'm praying blessings over her today because she took initiative. I love initiative. I hate the question, what do you need me to do? That shows me that you're not a person of initiative. I'm responsible for my job and yours, too. It's not my job to figure out yours. I don't need to pay you if I have to figure out. Anyway, this is a celebration. I thank God for your initiative. Talk about some staff members we had before you got here, people who are no longer with us. They didn't take initiative. But I thank God for your initiative. And I thank God for your optimism. Optimistic people. Again, I choose my words carefully. I did not say idealism. I don't like idealistic people that much because those people are always disappointed when conditions aren't ideal and they're the first ones to bail. Hello. Aren't they? But on the Other side of the thing, I like people who I don't know. They were mentioning Bailey and Landon. I said her name first because she can beat him up. No, I'm just kidding. Y' all know Landon's strong. I thought Bailey and Landon. I was going to put again the legend Larry bride for optimism. I thought, well, that's your optimist right there. They said, no, but you have to realize Bailey can send an email and teach you something about culture in the email and not even use an exclamation point. So I was interested by that because I was like, some of us are just all exclamation points. But an exclamation point is an optimism. Hype is an optimism. I said, well, why Landon? Bernie said, well, you just have to understand when you give him something to do, he always sees the way before he calculates the work. He didn't say it just like that, but he was saying he'll look at something and he'll always say, you know Christy Collins famous line. How many of you know Christy Collins motto, I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. I can do that, I can do that. It's an optimistic thing. I can handle it. I can do it. We'll figure it out and why I need it, why I appreciate it, why I'm saying it. I'm not the most optimistic person. I'm really not. That's why I had to surround myself with Wade Joyce. Now, Wade probably doesn't feel optimistic, but he is. Wade is so optimistic, and he's almost overly optimistic to where it's like, you know, pastor, that song, the melody is not real good right now. The instrumentation and the words need a lot of work. The tempo is not quite there, but I think it's going to be a good song. Other than that. So what exactly is the seed? A possibility. But to find the one thing. I found out that people who build on bright spots are the most effective in a culture like this. Just to find the one thing. That's how we had to build the church. We had nothing but what you might call blind faith when we started, it was just optimistic. It was just optimistic. That stuff is contagious, too. It really is. I think our church watches us as a staff to get a forecast for what our future is going to be. When we at a campus level or whatever are talking about what we're excited about, about the future, then that optimism starts to transfer, doesn't it? You can almost predict and prophesy something that may not have otherwise existed just by you being optimistic about it. Can I give you a tip? Sometimes you have to articulate optimism until you experience it. Sometimes you do. Don't ignore reality. But sometimes you have to choose to focus on that one thing and say, no, it's going to be great, it's going to be good. And work with the issues, but stay optimistic. Of course we all think about Stephen Lester. How could we not as an optimist? But I want you to see yourself in this picture, to be optimistic. Don't become jaded. Don't do it. I had to fess up to this a little bit at year end staff eval with the guys. I said, sometimes you're going to draft in my faith, but sometimes I'm going to need to draft in yours. I often think they believe in me more than I believe in me. You can relate. You've all had people in your life that are like, what do you see in me? How do you see that in me? I don't see that in me. They're optimistic. Have you given anybody the gift lately of your optimism concerning their gift? I see better things for you. Have you told Simon lately that he's Peter and he just doesn't know it yet? Anybody? Are you doing that for anybody? Well, that's how we got started. If we want the joy that started us to sustain us, we have to keep optimism and fight for optimism. Don't become so cynical. I'm preaching to me. It's hard not to become cynical, but you have to keep that spirit of optimism. That makes eight. I want to give you number nine, but I want to review all of them real quick. So I want Garrett Davis, I want him to come up and put something on a sheet of paper just that says enthusiasm on it. Just write it down and come up as quick as you can. Then I want the Bishops to come and hold up, just put some down on it that says loyalty. I don't care if it's on a paper or a screen or what, but it just needs to say loyalty and then excellence. I wanted Most Excellent Ray to put excellence on a sheet of paper and come up and Dustin, bring up those big biceps. I'll tell you what. You and John Broome, you hold one side, he could hold the other to where it says vision. And Joan, come up here. Don't piss me off. Put adaptability. Piss me off something awful. If you don't come up here, I get pissed off as crap. That'll suck. Put adaptability, put trust. I'll put Rebecca's on trust. They should do that. And then I'll definitely put Joe and Brody come out from the tech part and put initiative. And then I want those Anderson trotters to come up and put optimism. And I want a cherish to come up too, real quick. But cherish on yours and just stand up there in a line. Because I needed a word that started with the letter N for the last one because I was spelling elevation because I wanted it to be memorable. Y' all only need to hold one. Just hold one together. Yeah, like that. That's cute. But I wanted cherish to come up and I wanted you to write down this word. It's one of the only words I could ever find that starts with an N. Anytime I'm trying to spell stuff. Naivety. This one spelled on the screen for you. Every time I go to spell something with an N, I always have to use this word because it's one of the only nouns that starts with N. But you wrote me a card the other day. Stand right there. You wrote me a card for your seven year anniversary that I saw yesterday. I put it in my pocket to bring out, but I'm not going to read the whole thing. And I suppose this is okay to share, but she said. Pastor Steven, February 3, 2008. Seven years ago today, I walked into Providence High School, experienced the loud music heard from a former mafia boss, Michael Franzes. Record attendance. Listened as you gave an invitation that literally was for me and made the decision to follow Christ that day. I never could have imagined this day. We always say this is that. We hadn't said it in a long time, but we were saying it from the book of Acts. This is that which was spoken up by the prophet Joel. We will not take this for granted because this is that. Sometimes you're standing in that and you don't even recognize it. Because it's always this. If I could ever do that, if I could ever be part of something like that. One of the 2K tours. Don't you dare call them twerkers ever again. I heard that the other day. That's awful. No, total ban on that. Total pastoral ban on that. Okay. Right, Joan. Right? Joan said. Right, Joan. Joan knows all about it. Come on, Sarah. That's awkward. But one of the two K2 students, I had somebody tell him before they came out, they said, yeah, you'll like elevation for the style, but that stuff wears off. I won't call his name because he hasn't been here long enough to get a mention. You understand? That you have to be here a little while. What he said was so profound. I found the exact opposite. He said, I found people who. I found people who. The substance is much greater than the style. It's not that it just doesn't wear off. It even catches on and it catches fire and it just spreads. It just becomes that much more. That really blessed me because I don't want you to spend a few years working for something that wears off or that wears out. What she said in the card was really Psalm 51:12. She said that day, I never could have imagined this day being a part of this staff. This. We will not take this for granted. Tell somebody next to you say you are this. Tell them, I won't take you for granted. I won't take you for granted. I won't do it. I won't take for granted. Because there's some stuff about you I don't like. Like the fact that we're part of something where we all have common beliefs and a common goal is majorly okay. I'm really good with where I am. I won't take this for granted. She said, being a part of this staff, serving the same mission that helped save me, creating space for God to move. That's where it was. Serving the same mission that helped save me. There's a lot of detail to that that Cherish doesn't have to share with us, but restore unto me the joy of my salvation. I bet that's going to make it easier for you, dealing with these hooligans, dealing with these reprobates, dealing with these homeless artists that populate your project management responsibility. When she said, I'm serving the same mission that helped save me, creating space for God to move every single week. It just doesn't make any sense. But yet I am here. Caleb said, I'm still here because he sustained me and I'm still willing. She said, I know I've told you thank you a lot of times over the years, not nearly enough Cherish, but I don't think I can say it enough. Amen. Amen. I am grateful that you listened to God who told you when God told you to build this church, and that your passion to see people like me receive new life in Christ is what drives everything that we do. So it's not all your experience and all of that. That's great. We need experienced people. But there has to be at the heart of it that 1st Samuel 14, 6, 7, Larry Bride tattoo verse that says, you know, whatever is in your heart, whatever you have in your mind. I'm with you heart and soul. That means a lot to a pastor. Cherish just reminded me the other day. She goes on and talks about having constant character and some things that God showed her. But she said all that to say this to the best of my ability and with God's help. I want to be a person of character on this staff, someone you can count on. Have a long way to go, a lot to still learn. Jared Hogan said. Amen. Jared, here. Thank you, Jesus. It's only been seven years, but I couldn't be more excited for what's next. I want to continue to help build this church on the convictions that started it. I love it. I want to help continue to build this church on the convictions that started it. Wow. That's awesome. I want to see thousands more meet Jesus. Thanks for allowing me to be on this journey. As I remember that girl who walked into Providence seven years ago. I don't want to live in that place again, but I pray I'll never forget it. She represents for me the people still needing God's love to change their lives. There is more work to do. Don't ever lose that naivety that says God. Could you use someone like me? I'll do it. What do you need, Lord? I'll clean a toilet. What do you need, Lord? I had one this week. Chunk said, the Liberty basketball team is coming by. I want to know, will you do a devotion? They said they'll come to the church. I said, I'm busy. I had a staff lab. I had a meeting. I got another meeting. I've got to get week one of Mood Swingers ready. I've got to preach. How many times next week? Seven, eight times next week. On the road. I got to go on the road. I ain't got time for no devotion. Basketball team. Lord said, you used to drive two hours to go do a devotion. He said, no, I'm not telling you to do a devotion every Wednesday afternoon. Now go do one for the cheerleading squad at Butler. But I'm saying every once in a while, I just. Will you still just go over there like you used to when you were in high school and just go talk? It's not a livestream. It's no honorarium. Just go over there and talk to some athletes. I went over there and, you know, it was fulfilling. It was very fulfilling to go over there. I was glad I did it, but it had to have a willing spirit to it. I appreciate you being here. I think I appreciate the most you wanting to Be here. That's what means the most to me. For real. Because you could do anything you want with your life. But you're helping me and Holly alongside with each person who paid a high price of admission to get it started. To continue to build on the same foundation with the same conviction that started this thing. We will not take this for granted. I had a breakthrough in Hay Day yesterday. The girl who's managing a large majority of the worship experience is the girl who never even thought she was worthy to come to church seven years ago. So stay in that place that will sustain you. Don't take it for granted. We've been given a lot. Don't take for granted what's been granted to you. That's who we are. We're enthusiastic. We have a fire that can't be put out. We're loyal. We stand by each other. My God, man, stand by me. You know how many times you should have been fired? Stand by me too. We'll get each other's back. You didn't have no experience when you started here. That's why I love chunks. He knows each and every day. He'd still be rubbing somebody's bunion if I hadn't plucked him out of Shelby. He'd follow me anywhere. That's why he cries. Do you see how he cries when he starts talking about it? He's thinking about bunions. He's not thinking about Jesus. But, yeah, we're excellent. We do it with all our heart because it's for the Lord. We're people of vision. We're people of vision. We don't go with what we feel. We go with what we've seen, what God has shown us. I like my A a lot. I like being adaptable people because it means I'm not committed to the position. I'm committed to the purpose. And if the position needs to change to fit the purpose, you can still count me in. I'm still willing. How many of you are not doing right now what you were hired to do? And you're still willing? Beautiful. Good job. That's amazing. Stay adaptable. Continue to trust not only in me, not only in you, in yourself and each other, but continue to trust that God has you here for a reason. Continue to take that initiative. Boys, bring out the touchscreen. I might not use it. You might have to load it at 9:52. But I appreciate the initiative. It means a lot to me. Keep on looking on the bright side, Landon. I like somebody like you who would have a personality that everybody would think you're so reserved. But actually there's a fire in you. We interviewed Bailey and Heyday the other day. I could sell copies of that interview. Did you hear about was great. These two. If you want to learn how to order your world, don't talk to them. They'll make you feel horrible. They are beyond comprehension. And I guess stay cherished. They'll never get so focused on reaching people far from God that you forget that you were. Do you see what I'm saying? And that you would be and you could be if it wasn't for God's grace. And we will not take this for granted. In Jesus name. Was that good? That's great.