[2015.3.26] Staff Lab: Mastering Mindsets (#3)

Staff lab number three. Staff lab one was called. We do dirty work. Great. How many of you had the chance to re watch either Staff Lab one or two on the site where we've hosted it? All right, try to do that if you can. They're up there for a reason. You didn't get it all the first time. I promise you. You're not that smart. Staff lab number two was called. We will not take this for granted. Today I want to talk to you on the subject. Mastering mindsets. Mastering mindsets. Either you master your mindset or it will master you. I want to talk about mastering mindsets and particularly this concept of having a growth mindset. Matthew 25:14. Kind of staying in the theme of the genius of Jesus studying one of the parables that he used. Well known, well loved. Some of what I want to share from this today will be obvious. You've seen it before. Some of it you probably haven't. I've been digging out some cool stuff here, but Jesus wanted to set up what the kingdom was like and particularly this idea. Just checking out the back there. See some feet up on the chair. I don't really love that posture. Thanks, bro. Thank you. Jesus is talking about particularly what to do with the time between when you're. What's that? Somebody's mic. Hear it in the monitor. I think we've got a mic on that's not supposed to be on somewhere. Track it down. Track it down. Okay, cool. He's talking about what to do in between the time when you've been given an assignment and when you're checked up on. He uses this analogy of ten virgins who had ten lamps. Five put their oil in the lamp. They were ready when the bridegroom came. Five did not. They wanted to get the oil after the fact. But how many know the opportunity of a lifetime has to be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity? In Matthew 25:14, he goes into another parable. And you know this one pretty well. I'm sure I've shared about it before, but we're going to take it deeper today. Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one, he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work. Everybody say, put it to work. Tell the person next to you, put it to work. All right, we're going to use that thought a little bit today. He went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. The man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. I want you to listen, if you can, on four levels today to what I'm going to say while you're taking notes, kind of keep these separated on your notes. I'm going to go through some. Some thoughts. It'll take a moment before I get into the body of the content. But while I do, I want you to be looking out for mindsets that need to be celebrated. That's one category. I'm going to describe a certain type of mindset and I want you to look for individual examples of people on our team and beyond this room, obviously with volunteers that need to be celebrated, mindsets that need to be confronted. I'm thinking really here in terms of peer to peer or maybe someone you lead or maybe even someone that leads you. Confronting appropriately as well. I want you to look for mindsets that need to be corrected mostly within yourself here. I'm talking about where you need to work, things you need to work on. There will at least be one. If your confront others list is bigger than your correct yourself. That might be a sign then for number four for things you need to communicate out of what I say. Today we took our talent show concept. Welcome back, Kathleen. I love you so much. I'm so proud of you. I'm grateful you're on my team. Four Cs. Is it three Cs or 4s when you're shopping for diamonds? Four Cs so it's like a diamond. You're getting a diamond today. I want you to look for these four Cs. When I say communicated, I mean what will you take? And let it live beyond like we talked about in talent show. The talent show segment is based on this passage in the NIV I read from. The word talent isn't used, but he's talking about a measure of money, an ancient measure of money. Did you know that a talent was the equivalent of 20 years worth of wages for a day laborer? I point that out because this master wasn't giving these guys some chump change to look after Jeff. It was like, this is serious, serious responsibility. How many know we've been given a serious responsibility? I think we have to increase our understanding of the value of what we do if we're ever going to do it as well as we can. Because a lot of times in church the staffs are filled with people who frankly couldn't get a job doing something else. These are high stakes, I'm saying, in what we do. We don't have room on this team for anybody who doesn't take it seriously, for anybody who's not good at it, for anybody who's not gifted, anointed, oiled. To make it happen. You have to recognize that value. I still want to point out the word we're talking about here. Servants of all things. For James, the brother of Jesus to be identified by. When he wrote his letter, he called himself a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? You never graduate beyond servanthood. The way you serve God in one season may be different than the way you serve God in another. Wouldn't it be silly if I was still the worship leader making the set list? I served God that way in one season. The way I'm serving Him in the season changes. But servant is not a class you graduate from or a title you ever outgrow. So we're talking about the relationship of the master to the servants, but really we're talking about a tale of two mindsets, aren't we? We have three different men in the passage, and they're all given money and they all share the same master, but they have completely different mindsets. I've been studying a little bit in preparation for this series about what mindsets separate genius level thinkers from what habits, what activities, what advantages. Separate genius level thinkers, whether in literature or whether in architecture or in any field that you want to mention. Somebody can be a political genius, somebody can be a relational genius. Somebody can be a financial genius. You can be really, really smart in one area and really stupid in another. Yet everybody has the mind of Christ that calls on them. I've just been studying in the natural sense what makes a genius. One thing I came upon that was really helpful, I mentioned it last staff lab. I really only touched on it. I didn't do it justice. I talked about the importance of having a growth mindset. I'd like you to write that phrase down, growth mindset. Then ask yourself the question, do I have a growth mindset? I'm sure there's been a lot written on this. The lady I read was Carol Dweck. I guess I'm saying that right. D W E C K Carol Dweck. She wrote about this contrast that some people have a growth mindset, some People have a fixed mindset. Now, where I came upon this was I started telling Elijah about three years ago that he was a genius. I made up this story that I had a battery of tests taken on him, and his test came back and he's at genius level. I love such a great parenting technique because. Because I wanted to give him confidence, and God will forgive me for fudging a little bit, but I just said, hey, I've had an analysis done of you. You are genius level. Because I don't want him to fall short of his potential. I read this article where the lady said, one of the worst things you can do to a child is overpraise their natural abilities. What you want to be praising most of all is their effort. Here's why. If you only ever praise natural abilities, that's a good thing to do. But it will enforce the mindset in your child that their ability is something that's fixed. They'll learn to view effort as an enemy, not an ally. If they think they're so smart, then when something makes them feel stupid, whenever they encounter something that challenges them, they'll think, why can't I get this? I'm supposed to be able to do this, and this is supposed to be easy. The idea there was to praise the effort. Praise the effort, Praise the effort. I thought that was interesting, but it got me into this deeper thinking and study about a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Just a few distinctions. You don't have to write all these down, but just get the gist of it. In terms of desire, if you have a growth mindset, you stretch yourself. You take risk and learn. You say when you see a challenge, you. You say, I can handle it. If you have a fixed mindset, you want to look smart in every situation, and you feel the need to prove yourself over and over again. Your motto is never fail, never fail. That's your goal. That's your motto. That's your mantra. If you have a growth mindset, you evaluate situations by asking questions like, will this allow me to grow? Will this help me overcome some of my challenges? If you have a fixed mindset, you're paralyzed by will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or will I look dumb? I think we can find ourselves in these categories a little bit. If you have a growth mindset, when you deal with a setback, you look at it like, I failed. If you have a fixed mindset, you make it an issue of identity. I'm a failure in terms of challenges. People with a growth mindset embrace challenges. People with a fixed mindset, avoid them. Growth mindset in terms of effort knows that effort is the pathway to mastery. In a fixed mindset, why bother? Is not going to change anything. On and on you could apply it to criticism. If you have a growth mindset, you learn from criticism and you ask, how can I improve? You see it as a gift. If you have a fixed mindset, you ignore constructive criticism and you insulate yourself from it at all costs. You can see how this is a huge deal, this idea of a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. In order for our church to be what we say we're called, to be 100,000 people and I believe we can do it and all of that, we have to have layers and layers and layers and layers and layers of people with a growth mindset. Let me ask you a question real quick and you can just shout it out. I'll point at you, raise your hand. Where is our greatest opportunity for growth as a church right now? Where is our greatest opportunity for growth as a church right now? Maybe different answers from different people. Nothing wrong, Joel. Multiplying leaders, online media. Great. Next generation. Great. I was going to point to you, Preston, but you're very proactive. I appreciate that. I like a man who gets right in there. Love you, buddy. Extension sites in general, Love it. TV viewership. Great. One more. I got one. I got one, I got one. Where is our greatest opportunity for growth right now? Do this to the person next to you and say, between my fingers is your greatest opportunity for growth. Nothing grows until your mindset. Do the greatest thing you can do, first and foremost to help this church grow is to grow your mindset. That's why it's important that you expose yourself to big things. And that's why it's important that you learn to think in big ways. Because the greatest opportunity for growth is in our mindsets. Let's break that down a little bit more. I was thinking recently about the potential of one man's mind. I think somebody should do a book called One man's Mind. Not to be sexist, but one person's mind just doesn't alliterate as well. One man's mind. If you ever look at the Disney empire, it's amazing to step back and say all that from one man's mind. How could all of that have grown from the garden of one man's mind? We in London went on this horrible Shakespeare tour. It was horrible. Will you admit it was horrible? The tour was horrible, but it was amazing. The Perspective. All of these worlds that were created, existed in one man's mind. All of these worlds, all of these scenes, all of these settings from one man's mind. I'm trying to expose my children to great music these days. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, even trying to get them a little bit to know some classical music. But, but you think about Beethoven. All of the music that not only came from his mind, but that flowed from what flowed from his mind, that was influenced by it. That's what we're saying about the genius of Jesus. All of the good from all of the churches and all of the organizations that are a result of the churches were the result of one man's well tended mind. One man's mind. You look across the room like this and you say, I wonder what's in one man's mind, one woman's mind, if they ever actually grew what they had been given. It's an inspiring thing to think about, isn't it? Yet you have a choice to make. Am I a growth mindset individual or a fixed mindset? We're going to work on this. From the passage, I want to give you seven ways to master your mindset so that it can produce all of the possibilities that reside inside of you. I think all of these apply individually and corporately. I think what I'm saying to you is do this as a person. I'm saying to you, let's do this as a church. I know there are more than seven, but these came directly from the text. Now while I'm teaching this today, I made the decision just to be very simple. I'm not spelling anything. There's no don't look for acrostic and there isn't one. It's just seven things. It's boring. I'm just doing the verses. I'm going to tell you what the verse means. Nothing fancy, but it's going to be powerful. How many want a growth mindset? What is the opposite of growth? What's the opposite of growth? Death. Do you realize that? So you better have a strategy to grow your mindset. Can I tell you something? The people who are not in this room will mirror the mindset of the leaders that are. If your mindset isn't a growth mindset, this church will not be a growing church. God help us to master our mindset. Seven ways to do that. From the passage, I'm going to show you the point. Then I'm going to show you where I got it from. From the passage. Rip this off at will. Teach it at forward. Teach it at volunteer meeting. Teach it at Ekid's family. Connect five night at the next one and do it and do it and take it and multiply it. We don't maintain, we multiply. What does that require? A growth mindset. You have to master your mindset, number one. How do I grow my mindset so it can produce the growth I want in my life and in our church? Number one, over deliver without oversight. Shonda. That's my war tongue, Shonda. Over deliver without oversight. I'll tell you why Dunham was up here. Because she did it. She did it without having to be told to do it, without having to be begged to do it. In fact, I had a subtitle for this message. Can you throw that real quick? I skipped over it. I wanted to call the message, do it like Dunham. Do it like Dunham. Because when you can over deliver. I have noticed that in any staff or culture, some people will do what you ask them to do and nothing else. They'll do what you asked him to do, but that's it. Don't expect them to think of other ways they could have fulfilled. The thing I learned about babysitters. Some babysitters will do what you asked them to do and nothing else. They'll keep your kids from dying until you get home. That's it. Baseline, bare minimum. Where are we at in the text, Pastor? Verse 14, it said it'll be like a man going on a journey. Now if we could Skip to verse 19, I want to show the time lapse. After a long time, he came back. The space between was called responsibility. I've talked to this staff about taking responsibility, but I want to ask how much oversight you require. How much do I have to check in on you to get your best effort to keep you on track? Said that the man just left. Just gone. No forwarding address, no routine periodic visits to check back in. He put something in their hands. He left. And he left it up to them what it would be when he got back. Don't you know? God has dealt with us in that way in so many ways. He's given us so much freedom. He gives us so much decision, power in what we're going to do with our lives. There's so much he doesn't force us to do. He said it'll be like a man. You want to know what the kingdom is like? It's like a man who went on a journey. Not like a helicopter. God who hovers over you, making sure. Sometimes it's a matter of just understanding. That the more oversight you require, the less responsibility you're going to enjoy. My mom used to have this saying growing up that I would always hear her say to my dad, I never got it. I get it now. I have kids. He'd say, put those kids to work, make them wash the dishes. She would say, it's easier for me to do it myself. I never got that. I thought, it can't be. Have you ever tried to get a nine year old to wash dishes? You know, it's easier for me just to do it myself. Do you know why some of you aren't getting opportunities you think you could handle? Because you're not handling the opportunities you have. I'm coming right there today. I'm coming right there. He said it will be like a man who went on a journey. He said, and it's not what you do while people are looking on, but it's what you do while people aren't. I have noticed that some people will over deliver as long as they're being overseen. They'll work really hard if the right person is watching, they'll rise to the occasion if they think somebody is noticing. We used to do this at wrestling practice. The coaches would walk around the room. I was a real lazy wrestler. I don't think I'm a lazy person overall, but I was a lazy wrestler. I would learn how when the coach's back would turn, I would actually move to the coach's back so I could take a little bigger break. You learn you don't want to be in front of the coach's line of sight. Some people in an organization find the positioning where the least amount of effort is going to be required. It's like I want to get out of the line of sight. I want to get over here behind coach's back because then I can take a little bigger break. You can see it. You can see it in all kinds of different ways. But if you become the kind of person who can be trusted to over deliver without much oversight, that would be Joanna Davidson. If you want the babysitter analogy, when me and Holly go on a journey on a date night, stuff is going to get done at the house. I didn't even know needed to be done. Within two and a half hours, I'm gone and things are going to be handled that I didn't even know needed to be handled. It's just a different mentality. Some people never learn to operate without oversight. The amount of freedom we have here is staggering. There are many places you work where your personal Emails can't go out during the workday. We don't draw those lines here. There are certain places you go where every website is blocked on your computer. If you work there. You have so much freedom as a staff. I have so much freedom as a pastor. Really. I'm not talking about necessarily generating more activity. I'm talking about adding more value. What your leader is asking when they're deciding whether to give you something to do, what they're asking mentally is will they do it as well as I could or better will they do it? I'm the main leader in the organization. I can tell you what everybody on down is thinking before they give you something they want to know. Would it be easier for me to just do it myself because I'm going to have to redo it anyway. You locate yourself within a team and within a movement based on your willingness and your ability to over deliver without oversight. One thing I try to do and I'm going to give some tips for leaders as well as tips for followers because we're both, both. We're all both, I should say we're always leading and following, leading and following. One thing I've tried to do, whether it's with my assistant team or with the guys who are really close to me, I try not to punish a mistake if it's proactive. In other words, the other day there was something I needed to do and it got moved and it wasn't there. Do you remember that yesterday? I think Jess, but I don't fuss. If you tried to clear clutter out of my way and you thought I was done with it but I wasn't done with it yet, I figured that means you were trying to take action and think ahead. So I'm not going to punish proactive mistakes. What I tend to be a lot less tolerant of, zero tolerant is you didn't even think about what could have been done and you left something undone forever. Now I'm going to need to know where are my proactive people on this staff? Where are my people who don't need much oversight, who don't need a check in system? Some of y' all weren't even coming to worship experiences that you were serving and not even showing up to sit in one for a while until we had to institute a check in system. What is that? You need oversight to be in church and you work for one. I'm trying to win friends in here today. I'm trying to build a growth mindset. A growth mindset says you don't have to worry about whether I'm going to work on what you gave me to do. I don't need you to check in on me. I'm not 15 years old. I don't have to get a report card sent home. How many of you know how Chunks ended up being on the staff? He ended up being the first person I asked. You know, how did it happen? But there was a moment. There was a moment where I decided to ask him, does anybody know about that moment? There's a moment. I don't even know if he knows because I'm backing up before I even asked him. So this is not when he said yes. This is when I asked him. When I decided to ask him, there was a moment. That's the one. I went away on a journey, on a trip. He had been telling me for weeks, you need to landscape your yard, man. It's kind of redneck out here. I was like, man, I'm just not good at that. It's not my thing. I went on a preaching trip for the weekend. He and Amy came to pick me and Holly up from the airport. Maybe it had been a week. We came home and there was mulch all up in the flower beds. Watch this. He wasn't working for me. He wasn't on my payroll. He didn't even call me pastor yet. But without oversight, he was a good enough friend. He never mulched my yard again. He got what he came for, and he has been using me ever since. But the point I'm saying is when I saw. I said, that's the guy I need. Business credentials, theological education, Bible literacy, maybe. But you understand what I'm saying. While I was on a journey, you want to bless your boss. You want to make a difference in this church. You want to shine a little bit. You want to. You want to have a little bit more opportunity to make a difference around here while your boss isn't even looking, do something they didn't even think of. Nobody writing this down. I don't understand you people. I just told you how to go from where you are to where you want, and you didn't even write it. So I know you're not going to do it. You should be writing this down like, okay, what did I say, Angie? Say it again while no one is looking, that no one even asked you to do. I said it better. But you know what I'm saying? If you wrote it down, you would have it exactly like I said it. I'm going to tell you what Wade is doing while I'm teaching. He's already putting down how he's going to repurpose the principles I'm teaching for the people he leads. I don't have to ask him. I don't have to check. I know he will take this and turn it into something I know he will, because he doesn't require oversight. That's how you can be trusted. It said that the manager entrusted his servants, and you have to be trustworthy in that same way. Can we move from that one? Okay, y'. All. All right. All right. I'm just getting started. If you don't like this kind of teaching, you're welcome on the weekends. But those of us that work during the week, we don't need to be babysat on our tasks that we've been given to do. Those of us who work here, those of us that call this our calling. Number two. Expand your abilities. Expand your abilities. Tell somebody next to you you're better than you think you are. I've always taught this wrong. Maybe not wrong, but just incompletely. In verse 15, it says that when the Master went on his journey, he divided up the people. I could act this out as a skit, but just picture it. He put five bags of gold in one person's hand, two in another, and in another, one each according to his ability. Here's what I wrote down about that. There are the abilities you're given, and then there are the abilities you grow. Here's how I always taught this. I still think it's fine, but put it back up the verse one more time, each according to his ability. My thing was, all right. God knows how much ability you have, and he doesn't expect you to do more than you're able to do. Where I got that from is when you read the whole passage. The man with five talents doubled the investment and turned it into ten. The man with two talents also doubled the investment, turned it into four. My point I made was they both got the same congratulations from the Master. My point was it's not what you have, it's how you handle what you have. I still believe that. I still think God won't hold you accountable for a gift he did not place inside of you. I don't think God will ask me at the end of my life if I ran Billy Graham's race. I don't think God will ask you at the end of your life if you completed someone else's assignment. I still believe in that. Stay in your lane. And there are things you're called to do. But you know What I underestimated, I underestimated in reading the passage. The ability you have to affect the abilities you were given. I'll take myself as an example. I have the ability to communicate, but how I refine it, how much I put in the well, so that when I go to use my ability, there's something there to multiply, that's up to me. So for years now, now I'm going to tell you a little secret. This is kind of personal. I've been battling this internal thing of how far can the church go? And every once in a while I'll feel like I've hit my lid as a leader. I don't know if I can take us any further. That's a hard thing to come to terms with as a leader because on one hand that will keep you humble enough to know that you need God. But on another hand, it can be very self limiting in an ungodly way. But I deal with that and I wonder about that. Here's what I had started doing to justify this in my mind, and I did it with this passage. I started telling myself, you're a two talent guy. I would take what I see God doing through others and other imaginative things and I would go, that's five talent people. You're not a five talent person. It's okay. You're a two talent person. I didn't tell anybody. This is the first time I've ever said it. I've never said it to Holly. I've said it internally for a couple years now. It wasn't until I was preparing this talk for you that I saw the error of that fixed mindset. It didn't say the master gave them talents according to their natural giftedness. It's said according to their ability. An ability is something you can work on. It's something you can grow. I look at our church now and it's like, are we called to be beyond Charlotte and beyond the southeastern United States, or are we just a two talent church? Maybe we can't transcend cultures. Maybe we're not built to do it beyond here and there. Maybe we don't have the ability. God would say, maybe you need to grow the ability. This is not fixed. It's not fixed. What you will become, that's a fixed mindset. I'm a two talent person. I'm a one talent person. I'm a five talent person. He gave the opportunities based on the ability. But the ability can be a result of your ambition. You could get good at something. You're naturally gifted. In. On the other hand, you could have a gift you never grow into. Your ability is largely in your hands. What are you studying? What are you reading? What are you doing to grow your God given abilities Or I'm a too talented person. I have examples in my own life. But I wonder what are you saying I'm just not that good about? That's a fixed mindset that is detrimental and it doesn't glorify God. For all of you who know how the parable of these things ends, the guy who dug the hole in the ground and only had one doesn't come out too well in the job evaluation. He doesn't get a raise. I want to say it like this. It's in your hands. I want more opportunity. What have you done to grow your ability? Because generally what you have now is what you can handle. If you want more, I want you to think of it more like a muscle. That's why I put expand. You say, man, that guy has big muscles. Well, he has similar muscle like you have. He has just grown the fibers a little bit more. When we look at other churches or we look at other people and say, well, they're just five talent, that's a fixed mindset. When we look at it and say, I only have two right now, but if I'll get better, I can have more. It's in my power to get better. So expand your abilities. God can increase your opportunities as you strengthen your abilities. Amen. Number three. Eliminate the delay. Eliminate the delay. I think I stumbled upon the key phrase of this passage that separates the people who grow it, who multiply it from the people who maintain it and ultimately lose it. The people who maintain it and ultimately lose it. It's in verse 16, it says that the man who received five bags of gold, that's our guy. There's our Kathleen Dunham. Went at once. Skipped over that a million times. But when I saw that, I thought, there it is. Procrastination kills progress more than anything else. He went at once. He didn't try to calculate. When I see the master's headlights coming back in the driveway, then I'll straighten up the kitchen. He went at once because I don't know how long I've got. So I just have to assume before lethargy sets in that I have to do it. Now again, let's contrast it. In verse 19 it says after a long time the master came back. I'm just hypothetically suggesting that maybe the guy with one talent, when he first got the talent, he had some Ideas about things he could do to grow it. He put it on the calendar for next week. Master is going to be gone for a while. I'll get around to this. I'm thinking that maybe that guy had some investment ideas but didn't take immediate initiative. Some of you, it's not that you have the idea. It's not that you don't have the idea. You give the idea too long to implode before you act on it. I'm trying to help you here see why sometimes our intentions are so much better than our return. I want to ask a question that only you can answer. Well, maybe your supervisor could too. How is your response time on our TV show? The other day I was so mad because I called in to order. Well, I wasn't really going to order. I just wanted to see what happens when you call. I thought, it's cool. I have my own 866 number 888 or whatever it is. So I was like, let me call my number. I wanted to hear the person say, steven Furtick Ministries. I thought that would sound cool, just like a childhood dream or something. So I call it. This is right after my broadcast airs on Tuesday night on Trinity. At 9:30, I call in. I'm kind of nervous, like calling a girl or something. Hang up on her. And I'm calling and I'm waiting instead of son picking up. They said, you call is very important to us. Please hold for the next available operator. I said, okay, cool, man, we're popular tonight. A lot of people call in my number because it was the product offer to call in and make a donation and get the product. I waited and a minute went by. Then they came back on and said, you call is very important to us. Now I'm starting to think it was cool that a lot of people were calling. It was cool at first, but now I'm just thinking about all the people who are probably hanging up because nobody is going to call and wait. Just three minutes, just four minutes, just five minutes. This six minutes. I hung up on my own ministry hotline after a while because I no longer believe the call is very important to you if it takes you that long to get to it. Now, let's talk about our call. Let's talk about our responsibility. It's not important to you if you don't act on it immediately. Don't tell me it is. Don't tell me it is. We get these little phrases that we say. Well, yeah, we're working on that. Are you. Are you sitting on It. Because there's a difference. I understand that some things take time. We don't want to rush in certain ways. So for instance, it would be a mistake for me to say, if you have an open hire in your department, you need to fill that immediately. Well, that could be the dumbest decision ever to not wait for the right person. So waiting is sometimes good. But in this case, we see that the man started working on it immediately. Here's what I want to tell you. You can't always complete it immediately, but you can always begin it right now. Sometimes we get caught up in the fact that I can't finish this now. So we don't even start it now. We don't even work on it now. Well, I can't finish this song right now, so I'm not going to work on it yet. But you can make a little progress. Yeah, well, I can't really talk about this at the level I want to right now. I had to fuss at the guys at the end of last year a bit because I said I feel like what's happening sometimes is I'm having to ask you guys three times about something. What I used to only have to ask you one about because the thing is getting bigger. I used to ask somebody and they knew the answer, but now I. I ask somebody who asks somebody who asks somebody who asks somebody who was on vacation, who then tells somebody to ask somebody who asked somebody who was sick who asked somebody. It's like, if it's that hard for me to get an answer around here, I wonder how is our response time as an organization? What I'm not talking about is making other people's emergency your priority. I'm not saying you just go around putting out fires. And if you're working on a sermon, for instance, as a pastor, that you return every text within 30 seconds. I'm not talking about that kind of senseless, unprioritized activity. I'm talking about when you're given an assignment, when you're given something to do, does the priority of that assignment drive you to immediate action? It seems like for this guy with five, there was nothing more important for him than to get to work at once. Just in a way to help you now, because I want everybody in this church to get to do everything God put in you. If the people leading you sense that it's going to take longer for you to get around to it, they will start working around you to get it done. I can tell you there are about six or seven people I do things through that's really it that I would say directly, can you handle this? Can you look into that? Can we work on that? Whatever, Whatever. I learned the ones mentally, not intentionally, you just learn the ones that are going to get it done for you and you start going to them. Now here's the question. Are you the one that gets worked around? Are there opportunities you're not even getting because of the last one you didn't act on? I don't expect the leaders in this church to keep giving you stuff that you take three times as long as you should to turn around. I don't expect that from them. I expect for you to turn it around and, and to bring updates and to bring solutions and to keep them in the loop and to let them know, you know, how bad it feels for an already overwhelmed leader to have to come back to you and bring up something you forgot about. At least you could have updated them. At least you could have brought them up to speed. When you have a growth mindset, you say, if I want to be entrusted with more, I have to convince those who are giving something to me that is in good hands. Certain people, you know, they're working on it. And certain people, you wonder, don't you, can you relate to this with someone you lead? Or some names coming to mind? Some people go, wow, you already got around to that? Amazing. Thank you. Cool. I wasn't even expecting that until three days later. Other people, hey, about the. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm working on it. Well, if you're always just working on it, but you're never getting it done, it won't be long before you don't have very much important to work on. Then you'll feel underutilized, you'll feel disrespected, you'll feel untrusted. It's really the fact that you procrastinated. You have to have good priorities in this. So eliminate the delay so you don't get cut out of the process. Number four. Understand your authority. This one should be fun. Understand your authority. In verse 14, it says, the man entrusted his wealth, the master entrusted his wealth. Whose wealth? Who's his? The master's right. He entrusted his wealth to these servants. So no doubt about where the money originated. Verse 16, it says that the man with five talents, five bags of gold, went at once and put his money to work. Whose money? Whose money are we talking about now? The servants. That's right. Because that pronoun doesn't modify the master. That was two verses ago. I'm trying to Find out. Do you own it? Do you own it? When an assignment is given to you, even an assignment you don't particularly like, an assignment you might not have chosen to do that way, does it become yours? That's cool, huh? I never saw it in the passage, Frank. I read that thing so many times. I might preach on this this weekend because we have a lot of confusion in life about whose authority certain things are under. So we'll say, I give my life to God. That's fine. But he gave it to you, so that's great that you gave it to him. Not saying, I'm going to do it your way, but he gave it to you. You decide on a daily basis what you do to give him glory. Here's the phrase, it's yours for now. It's yours for now. Okay, Find three people on your row and tell them it's yours for now. We call this delegated authority. When you understand delegated authority, you operate with a completely different sense of accountability and ambition. Let me break this down a little bit more. When I hear sometimes. I wanted to title this talk when I first started working on it. What's stopping you from growing? What's stopping you from growing? Just to pose the question, then think about areas where you're having trouble growing. So campus pastors, think about something that's not growing on your campus. Those of you who have a personal growth thing in your life right now that's not happening. Personal development. Think about that. Whatever, it's not growing. Everybody have something that's not growing in your life or in your ministry or something. Now, we understand there are seasons where growth. There's spring, there's winter. Sometimes it's not growing because God is doing something. I'm taking that out of the picture. I'm talking about what's not growing that's supposed to grow. What's stopping you from growing? I broke it down. What I hear commonly, not so much from this staff. This is a really good staff in terms of. I don't get a lot of excuses. And I appreciate that. That's a real pleasure. Sometimes when I'm talking to just say other staff members. As I travel around, I hear the three Bs of why the ministry can't succeed. It really comes down to building budget. Boss, how's it going at your campus? I might ask a campus pastor. Another church. Well, it's good right now. We have some facility challenges. Who doesn't? The people with nice facilities have the challenge of paying for them. That's a facility challenge. We have some facility challenges, some parking problems. It's the building, okay? It's the building. Blame the building budget. Real tight right now in my department. I've asked three times for whatever, whatever, whatever, but it's the budget. Then silently. I don't think we have an overt culture of disrespect around here, but silently. You think it's. Who's in charge of me? It's the authority I'm under. They're really busy. I can't meet with them like that. I don't want to bother them like that. Not like I hate my boss. You don't think that way. You're good staff. I'm not talking about poor to good. I'm talking good to great. Do you understand that? That's what I'm talking to you about today? In that it becomes about somebody over me that's stopping me from going forward. Sometimes it is not very often, not really. The CPS can tell you about a time beginning of 2014, I met with them. I said, what are your challenges? Da da da da, da, da da. One of the things that was brought up, and I'm glad it was brought up, was sometimes we struggle to know how much authority we have as campus pastors. I was like, cool. Give me an example of something you would do if you had total authority on your campus that you can't do because you don't. It was. It was, wasn't it, Joel? No response. No response. I thought about that, and I wrote this down. This is fire right here. We overestimate what we would do with the authority we don't have and underestimate what we could do with the authority we do. Again. All right, Kenny. We overestimate we, we, we. I'm not preaching at you. I'm talking about we, we, we, we. We overestimate what we would do with the authority we don't have if I was in charge. You don't know what you'd do if you were in charge, you might be on prescription drugs. If you were in charge, you might be popping Xanax to make it through a day. If you were in charge, you might be curled up under the covers. If you were in charge. We underestimate what we could do with the authority we do have. You all know that a value around here is think inside the box. That's part of what I'm saying here. I'm saying understand your authority. Think about the parable we read. Think about how little detail there is. All he did is give them the money. He didn't tell them what kind of business they were to start with it. He didn't tell them what kind of industries they weren't allowed to get involved. He just. He had an expectation and he gave him authority. A lot of times it's in our own limitation. It's not taking the time to clarify how much authority we have and not having the courage to walk in. The authority we already know about. What's easier to do is to blame the building, blame the budget, blame the boss, because I can't change that. And it's a lot more fun to complain about what I can't change than to change what I can, isn't it? I know this frustrates you, too, when you're leading someone and they almost silently say, well, I didn't know I was allowed to do that. Well, why didn't you ask? Come to me. I asked the guys the other day. I'm going to tell the whole staff. Larry Hubecka, Wade Joy, Josh Blackson, Chunks Corbett. If there's something you can't get an answer on, you go directly to them. And if they can't give you. And I'm not talking about an idea you thought of in the middle of the night, I'm talking about something important. If you can't get it from them, I'll talk to you. Don't make excuses about, well, I didn't know what I was allowed to do. I didn't know. What that becomes is you are mastered by your mindset. That is a limitation from within. So now you have what the one talent man had. He had an imaginary slave driver. He had an imaginary boss. He had created an imaginary limitation. That's a whole lot more convenient than just owning. I'm enslaved by myself. I've enslaved myself. I'm in chains to myself. The good thing about that is if you locked yourself up, you can set yourself free. You can do it. Now, to belabor the point, people say not to belabor the point. I say to belabor the point. That's exactly what I want to do. You have to understand the nuances of the authority God has put you under, as well, understand the authority you've been given and understand the authority you serve. So how many of you have somebody in this church you report to? Okay, great. Now, with that being said, how much of a student are you of that person's priorities? Yes. Even their personality? Have you learned how they need to receive information to make good decisions? Do you understand your authority? What really got the one talent guy in trouble? Was his misunderstanding of his master. That's what really got him in trouble. I'll read the rest of the passage in a moment and you'll see it. But that's what got him in trouble more than anything else. He perceived his master in the wrong way. When you don't understand the God you serve, you don't serve him the way he wants to be served. When you misunderstand the people you serve under, you're not able to provide the support they need. Have you taken it on your we call that they're just a suck up or maybe they're just a student. I know there is a difference. That's when you're really nice to your boss and you treat everybody else like crap so your boss will see you in a good light. I don't want that in this church. But I'm just saying, do you know what's most important to the person you serve under right now? What are they working on that they're frustrated about? What is the thing they've given three people to do that three people haven't been able to do that? Maybe you could expand your ability and do. Have you thought about that? If you haven't, I'm just telling you there's a great opportunity to help grow the thing. Is there something I could use? An example of a weakness I see in our organization right now that I want to solve? But are you an expert at helping to solve the problem of the priority of the person that's over you? Because if you are, you're very valuable. Or are you kind of driven more by your own preferences? Are you kind of driven more by your own priorities? For a church to move forward together, we have to understand the priorities of who we're serving under. So it goes all the way to the top. God, what is your priority? To seek and to save what is lost. Okay. That's our priority. We'll serve that purpose. We have to understand the authority we've received and the authority we're under or our activities are never going to align with our authority's priorities. So take some more time to do that if you can. Don't do this. Don't everybody line up at your boss's office. What do you need me to do for you today? What's keeping you up at night? What's the three most pressing issues? Don't do that. I'm talking about you figure it out without even having to have a meeting with them by just watching what they're under and watching what they're dealing with. By the way, bosses. Maybe it'd be helpful if you'd open your mouth and share what those are voluntarily as well. From time to time, too. All right, guys, here's what I'm working on. Here's where we're going. If we can get one thing done, this will make a big difference. So let's do it on both sides. Let's express authority, let's understand authority, let's assume authority, and let's quit living in the imaginary land of what we would do with authority. We don't have. It's useless. How about number five? In order to have a growth mindset, you have to overcome overprotective tendencies. Overcome overprotective tendencies. How many know there are some things we're entrusted to protect. There are some things we have to protect ferociously. Some things we have to have zero tolerance policy for peer to peer protection. Like, hey, we don't talk like that. Hey, that's not our flow. Hey, we don't criticize other ministries. Hey, that's not our thing. That's great. But I want to just pose the question to you. What are you really protecting? So what happens at a church this size? And I'm worried about it sometimes is whoever I trusted first as my inner circle, then maybe trust a few more people. But then there are many of you out there who will be trustworthy. And will we as leaders be overprotective because we got here first? Or will we find ways to prove you? Yes, because you shouldn't be entrusted until you're proven. But once you're proven, will we give you the opportunity we received? I think a lot of pastors are really overprotective. I know I certainly can be. It's a challenge for me that sometimes what we're protecting is not really what we should value. I know that sometimes churches can get really protective of traditions they needed to discard. It will happen to us. We're called non traditional. We have our own traditions. What would we be willing to let go of? That's the difference between relevance and irrelevance is what you protect. Look at verse 25. Let me read the whole thing. Go. From where did I drop 19? Go to 20. Now we see what they did. Now we get to hear what they say. Cool. We saw what they did with their talents. Now we hear what they say about it. We get a glimpse into their motivations. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold. Timothy C. To it that you guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit. Guard with the help of the Holy Spirit. His power lives in us. You entrusted me with five bags of gold. It was a lot of money. It was overwhelming, man. It's crazy. By the way, just a thought. We don't know that this is the first time that guy was entrusted with money. Maybe the first time he started with one, maybe the next time he got two, maybe the next time he got three. But he had proven something, because the master knew his ability. The master saw what he was capable of on one level, so he could trust him on another. He said, master, you hooked me up. You trusted me more than all these chumps, and I didn't let you down. To him whom much is given, much is required. He said, I took what you gave me and gained five more. Nothing feels better to a leader than when you come back and you're like, who thought of that? Whose idea was this 10 year wall thing at Matthews with a little drawing from every week. That's amazing. You profited. A priority. I've expressed in a way I couldn't have done. I can't draw, but I love crap like that. Absolutely love it. I think it's the best. I love it. I walk by that thing and I'm looking at it and I love it and it makes me happy. See, the original investment is. I have always taught, let's be a visual culture, where we really have these altars and stones and monuments. That's important to me. So any way we can reflect it, then to one day just be walking over across the office and go, what? Oh no, you didn't. You took the five and gave me ten. That's really great. That puts confidence in me like you wouldn't believe. That makes me want to open another campus. The wall? Yeah, If I have staff who are on it enough to go over and start drawing stuff on the wall without asking permission. I didn't know if I could draw on the wall. We'll paint over it if it's not right. Just try to multiply something. That's amazing. Master's response. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now watch this, watch this. Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness. I'll save that until the end. The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, you entrusted me with two bags of gold. See, I've gained two more. Master replied, well done, good and Faithful servant. You've been faithful. The few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Come share your Master's happiness. Then the man who had received one back. You have to understand the genius of Jesus. Everybody is expecting that this guy is going to get mercy from the Master because he didn't have much after all. Poor little one. Talent guy never was good at much. That's what they're expecting. The point to be the Master understood this guy. Because when you don't have much, you can't do much. When you do much, you can't. You didn't get a good start. You didn't go to a nice school. You don't have a husband, you don't have a thing. And you never got training. So the man comes and says, master, I knew that you are a hard man. A hard man. I just read this guy gave Grammy Awards to the other two and gave them more to work with again. That doesn't sound hard to me. Well done. Good and faithful. Come on, let's party. Come be happy with me. What master are you serving? Same master, different mindset. Mastering mindsets, same job, totally different approach. One has joy, one has dread. It's your mindset. Somebody is doing more with less. Somebody is making more out of less. Because their mindset, same seed, different soil. It's our mind, it's our heart, it's our perspective. I knew you were a tough sob. Harvesting where you have not sown. Gathering where you have not sown. What's he doing? He's blaming the authority. Buildings, budgets, bosses. Buildings, budgets, bosses. I knew you as you. You did it. You wouldn't do it. You didn't give me a chance. You didn't. I know how you are. That's what he's saying. I know how you are. This is the way it is around here. Tried getting a meeting with Chunks. He didn't like my idea. Then you bring one bad idea to somebody in authority and they reject your bad idea. So you think they're rejecting you. They weren't rejecting you. They were rejecting your idea. Get a better idea and you won't be rejected because somebody else brought an idea and it got multiplied. Don't tell me. We interpret bad ideas sometimes as personal insults. We don't want to trust again. We don't want to try again. We don't want to speak up again. But you can get better. You can learn from that. If you have a growth mindset, you can say, well, it didn't work. Boy, that didn't really go well. When I brought that up that time, I guess I need to think it through a little more. Maybe I should have written a few things down before I brought it up. Maybe I should have had a few more conversations. That's a growth mindset. Not well, they don't like me around here. Not a place for me. I just don't fit in. That's this guy. It's 2 to 1 in favor of that. The Master is good. This guy is outvoted. How he thinks the Master is doesn't reflect reality. So he said, it's your fault. 25. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. He hid his gold. You know, I think there's hidden gold in this staff. I do. Hidden gold, hidden goal, hidden initiative, hidden insight, hidden talent, hidden intelligence. It's hidden and it's hidden because of assumptions. Number 6.6. Confront negative assumptions. To have a growth mindset. Confront negative assumptions. I know that you are a hard man, the servant said. I know that you are unrelenting. I know how you are. But yet we see the contrast between what he wanted to blame the Master for and what the Master really brought to the situation. You see in the Master's response, he's affirmative, he's rewarding, he's empowering. And sometimes your negative assumptions become self fulfilling prophecies. So if you assume you're going to get a harsh response, you're going to act in a way that's guarded and overprotective, and you're going to get a harsh response. He hid the man's gold. Can I tell you something about the hidden gold? It's not yours to hide. It is not yours to hide. You don't get to just bury it. You don't get to just decide, well, I'm going to play it safe. You don't get to overprotective. You have to multiply it. Because there isn't an accountability to the gift you're given. We don't get to decide as a church whether we want to grow bigger. That's not in our job description to make that decision. We get to figure out how to grow it. That's the fun part. We get to try and fail. Listen to the response of the Master. On the surface, it seems like he was right. He was a hard man. You wicked, lazy servant. You knew I harvest where I have not sown seed, gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then you should have put my money on deposit with the banker so that when I returned, I would have received it back. Now stop before you say, see, he was right. He was a hard man. The master is simply calling his bluff. He's saying, if that's the way I am, you would have done more. The problem wasn't that you thought I was hard. The problem was you took it easy because you're lazy. So you want to blame my character for your lack of initiative. And he's not having it. He's saying, this doesn't wash with me. He confronts that man's negative assumptions. He said, that's what happened with Cain and Abel. Abel was accepted for doing it right. And God said, if you do not right, will you not also be accepted? There are times I hear God saying that to me. You are experiencing your assumptions in real time. So if you assume the best about people and believe in them and multiply them and challenge them. See, even when I challenge you, when I come in this room and challenge you, that's a compliment. That's a compliment. Some of us are all weighed down. I got five bags of gold here. Five bags. So heavy. That's fine. Somebody else would love to carry them. This man, his negative assumption becomes his reality. It really all comes down to what he said in verse 25, doesn't it? He said, so I was afraid. I want to end on this note. Flip your fears. Flip your fears. We were on the front page of the paper two weeks ago, two Sundays ago. How many of you read that article? This is positive. I don't care. Who knows if the next one will be negative. I don't live by that. I used to hold up those newspapers in front of the church. We made the paper. I don't do that anymore. It really was A Tale of Two Headlines. It was about 13 months ago, you guys were meeting over there and I came in on the week. The headlines on the blogs and stuff. The church forces spontaneous baptisms at gunpoint or whatever they were saying about us at that point. I came back here and I talked about shake the snake, baptized people, whatever. Around about the time of all of that. The giving was down in the church from what it is this year to what it was last year. We're over by more than 30% this year from last year. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Everybody is going to get paid this month. Thank you, Lord. Nobody ought to celebrate a good offering like this room. Around that time, I had a lot of theories. As a leader, you're always working on a theory. What I mean by that is you're always trying to develop A theory and see if it's right. I have a theory right now that this and that. So I'm trying this and that. That's great leadership. But you're always working off of a theory as well. My theory, and I'm giving you a lesson I lived in at that time, was I don't need to be talking about money right now because people were going to associate it with personal greed. So I didn't speak very much about money at that time. As a result, the offerings went down. There was some wisdom to that. I think that was a good time to strengthen the church. I'm not sure if I'd do it a lot different, but there were months that went by where we would pass the offering. Don't talk about it, just put it at the door. We can't even mention that we're passing the offering bowls. If there's an offering bowl, the news camera might get it and zoom in. I don't know. It was a fear. I feared the way people were going to perceive us just for doing what we'd always done now that there was different light on us. So I shut it down. Then I went off of social media and I got all the squirrels out of my head for a little while. All that stuff that was eating away at my growth. I got up and I preached a series called Consider the Source. I stood up there and I talked about tithing like I was talking about tithing in 2006 and 2007 and 2008. Like I've tithed since I was a teenager. I just talked about what I teach and what I live. It was great because giving just like we're back on track the rest of the year. Some weeks down, some weeks up. We finished the year great. We even took a pretty substantial offering at the end of 2014. This year so far, we're over budget. Of course, everything equals out. But for the first quarter, everything is growing. We're in the paper for expansion now. In my mind, I was so afraid to talk about money. I realize now that I'm on a year on the other side of it, that it wasn't our reality that was drying up our money. It was my fear. I could blame the media and blame this and blame that, which is what the servant did. The one talent guy. All I want to, but the fact is it was my fear. When I say flip your fear, what I mean is not all fear. If you mean fear in the sense of what you're concerned about and what you try to avoid, not all fear is bad. Not all fear is bad. In fact, Jesus said one time, he said, don't fear those who can kill the body, and after that, do no more. Instead, fear the one who can throw both your body and soul into hell. Yes, fear. God. He was kind of like flipping fear around to make sure that, well, if you have one talent and that's all you have, and the Master expects you to bring a return on that one talent, maybe what you ought not be afraid of is losing that talent. As much as you're afraid of digging it back up and having to explain to the Master why you didn't do anything with it. Maybe you're just afraid of the wrong things. I know that insecurity is huge for all of us. I know that the possibility of mistakes is a big thing that a lot of us fear. So you start playing not to lose, and then you lose. This guy lost everything because he didn't want to lose anything. So what should you fear? What shouldn't you fear? I just want to flip it, and I do want to spell one thing before I quit. I want to spell fear. I want to spell it one way and then I want to spell it the other. Fear. Failure. Fear faithlessness. What upset the Master was the faithlessness of this man. So don't fear failure. Failure can be very fruitful. I have failed so many times leading this. I have put up with failures leading this. We failed our way into our future. That's why we're here today. That's the only way. That's that old John Butler quote when he said, if you get ahead of God, he'll shut the door. If you get behind him, he'll find someone else. Don't fear failure. Failure is fine. You can even bury failure and nobody will even know how it died. You can bury failure. That's okay. We're moving on, making a transition. Don't fear that. Fear faithlessness. Fear faithlessness. Don't fear embarrassment. Fear erosion. I had to find an E. In other words, don't fear. It's amazing how much stuff we don't say just because it might embarrass us for no other reason then people might think it sounds stupid. How much gold have you hidden because you didn't want to say something that sounded stupid? Hey, maybe you would sound stupid, but maybe somebody smarter in the room would pick up on that little kernel and make it something smart. Don't fear attack. Fear apathy. Flip your fear. Be afraid of the right things. I think a certain kind of paranoia is productive. I think a Certain kind of concern is valid and helpful. Don't fear an attack. We've been through attack together. We've been through attack. Attack won't kill you. Apathy will Attack won't destroy you. Despondency will. We can survive an attack, but. But we can't live apathetic. We won't have the will to live. Don't fear rejection, Fear regret. We're deciding right now whether we want to be a one talent, two talent or five talent Church. I don't think it's our destiny. I think it's our decision. All the master did is entrust him. It's up to you what's next. It's in your hands. For it to happen the way I saw it happening in Roanoke last Thursday night. For it to happen the way I saw it, University City on Thursday. Exciting times, man. Good things. Greater things ahead. It has to happen right here. So are you growing your area? Are you growing yourself? Is multiplication happening on your watch? Are you building your team? Do you see things that need to be done? Do you take ownership of areas but treat it as a stewardship, knowing that ultimately it didn't come from you and it's not for you? I wonder, just a question as I close. Did the guy with one talent silently feel pissed off because he only got one? I wonder if he didn't feel slighted going over there with my one talent. I'm a five talent guy. Silent frustrations. Ultimately, it's in your hands. I want to review. And then I want you to review at your tables for 15 minutes and we're done. How do I grow my mindset? How do I master it instead of it mastering me? I have to number one, say it with me. Over deliver without oversight. I don't need somebody to check in on me. I manage myself, thank you very much. As a matter of fact, you're not going to want to check in on me. Because if you do, you'll get in the way of my work. Because it's going to be so much better when I bring it back to you. You don't want to interrupt me while I'm on 7. Because I'll get the 10 if you just stay out of my way. I'm that kind of. Nobody has to check on. How's my sermon going? What is this? I'm a grown man. Edited version. Expand your abilities. Your abilities are not fixed. Don't ever teach. If I ever walk in a meeting and I hear the parable of the talents, well, God knows how much you can handle. Yeah, but you can handle more if you'll work with what you've got. Today's two talent person could be tomorrow's five palate leaders are made, not born. I believe that. Eliminate the delay. Check the response time. Did you multiply the last thing you were given and did you do it quickly? That's how I judge an investment. Don't you? If I put $100 in and it's going to take 10 years for it to be 110, I can make money somewhere else with that. I could do a lot better ROI somewhere else. So how quick is the yield when something is put in your hands? Number four. Understand your authority. Say it out loud. Understand your authority. I'm in authority and I'm under authority. Both are true at the same time. I want to read the quote one more time because that was my favorite one in the whole staff lab. Wasn't it good? We overestimate what we would do with the authority we don't have. While underestimating what we could do with the authority, we do overcome overprotective tendencies. What are you really protecting? A lot of people protect their position. A lot of people protect their preference. A lot of people protect their pride. What are you really protecting? Let's get down. Let's dig out the talent and see what's really keeping it buried. Number six. Confront negative assumptions. Think better. You'll do better. If you see correctly. You can perform accordingly. We understand that we serve a God who is actually affirmative, rewarding and empowering. God, you are. What is our spell? Affirmative, rewarding and empowering. It's a sickness. I can't help it. Because the other man, he said, you are a hard man. No, no, no. God, you are. Affirmative, rewarding, empowering. Well done. Affirmative, rewarding. Here's more. Talents, share in your master's happiness. Empowering. That's who he is. Let's be like him in the way we lead and flip your fears. For often it is not your reality that is causing the decline. It is your perception of the reality. You can grow the situation if you can grow yourself. I want to wonder one more thing about the man with one talent and I promise I'll shut up. Did he maybe not do as much because it wasn't his money to enjoy at the end? Was there a motivation issue? Was it kind of like, well, all I'm going to do is give it back to him anyway, so why take the chance? See, you work harder when it's yours, don't you? You work harder when it's Yours. I used to say, people don't wash rental cars. It would be crazy to wash a rental car because I'm going to give it back. People don't really like to put money into rental houses. Understandable. It's not yours until you understand this shared ownership. Come and share in your master's happiness. I don't think you'll ever have the motivation to take the risk. You'll always play it safe. But listen to me and listen to me good. There is a danger in playing it safe. There is a danger in hiding the gold. There is a danger in not doing all that you could have done. We just pray today that God would look on us and see us as worthy of entrusting more to us. That we could multiply something for him today. That we could bring it back to him better than he gave it to us. Hey, God, do you know how you gave me that gift? Well, I became a graphic designer. Then I started learning how to do stage design. Look what I did, God. They gave me a shopping spree to South Park. They were going to send me to New York. But I didn't know that. See what I did with what you gave me? God, look what I did. Check it out. See what I did, Jamie Waldron. See what I did with the staff kids? I made a camp called Juggernaut. I took them all to Florida. God bless her. I took them to Florida. I didn't just do a job. I created a culture in the next generation that would enable the investment to compound through the years. See what I did? You want to feel proud of what you present to the master? You want to say you gave me a little. I turned it into a lot. You gave me one, I made it two. You gave me two. I made it four. You gave me four, I'll make it eight. You gave me five. I'll make it 10. You give me 10, I'll make it 20. How much you want? Give it to me. It's in good hands because I have a growth mindset. I'm good ground. I'll grow it if you'll give it. I wonder, does God know that about us? That they will grow what they are given? I wonder, does your boss know that about you? They'll grow what they're given. I wonder, have you even decided that about yourself? I grow what I'm given. I don't bury it. I don't make excuses about it. I don't resent it. I don't lust after his. I grow what I'm given. If I'm given more, I'll grow more, but I'm at least going to give you double for your trouble. That's the bare minimum with me. I grow what I'm given. Now take my four Cs. Get in your little groups we've never gotten in before that we always say we're going to get into. And everybody Pointedly take those four Cs I gave you and identify, this is mine. I'm correcting. You don't have to tell about the confronting one. I could do that privately. That's not for everyone. Take the one you're celebrating and take the one. What's the other one? You're going to communicate right now. I'm calling you to an account for what you just heard. To say, if this is true, if this is how to master a mindset, what are you going to do with what the Master has entrusted to you? Father, I thank you for what can come out of one woman's mind. The best innovations are often hidden in the dirt of our assumptions. So today we're digging them out and we're putting them to work. We're taking one and we're turning it into two. By the time we get back to next staff lab, we're not going to be holding what we held today. It's going to be heavier, it's going to be better, we're going to have grown things, we're going to have failed in some ways. But even in our failures, we're going to bear fruit. Because you have entrusted us. We thank you for it. Now, in Jesus name, amen. Circle up, do it quick, 15 minutes max, and go to work and I love you and put it to work and I'm proud of you and let's do this Jesus name.