[2015.8.20] Staff Lab: Q&A (#5)

While you're transitioning. My thought was I started the year in stafflive talking about old wells and how one of the enemies of what you're working on can be something else you start working on, something else you start working on. Next thing you know you have too many things going. I've strongly felt like coming out of Staff advance, that it would be a little tactical mistake to just come in, teach something brand new, rather than a concept that I really believe in, which is kind of revisiting, measuring, and going deeper into the practical side of things that you learn. It seemed like Staff advance went over really well this year. The feedback was all tremendous. I wanted to be able to be helpful on maybe a consultant level to look into some situations where you've tried to apply some things, or as you've been unpacking them, it's had further questions. My only request from you today would be that you ask what you really want to ask, not what you think would impress me or impress the room or anything like that, or that you would feel like you're going to get punished if you say something that's off color. I'd rather deal with interesting questions. I'm not as easy to offend as I used to be. I get over stuff, so I can take it if you want to ask me something, particularly even about, hey, as we're transitioning as a church into new things, I'm happy to talk about things that were changing or things that work and things that don't. It's fine. That's good. The only thing that would be really boring to me is if I had to re preach my Staff advance stuff to you because you asked just real simple general questions. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from you at a nuanced level and what's on your heart. Let's go. You're up first, Jeff. All right, thanks. What number of staff events was this year's for you? I believe it was six. Nice. Yeah, six. So in session four, you spoke about how the church does not play defense, but instead we must infiltrate culture, which was really inspiring to me. I love that sentiment. So what are your thoughts for increasing the engagement of our church and increasing the influence upon culture outside of the weekends? Is it more about continually repackaging the things that we're doing on the weekend and trying to get that same message out more in unique ways? Or have you ever considered increasing influence through other markets and culture, like retail or entertainment or restaurants or whatever, like through the ministry? One of the favorite ways I Ever heard it put was on the feeding of the 5,000 and that the disciples were given the food and the disciples had to give it to the people. And when you want to touch culture, the only way to do that if you're on a church staff is to empower people for ministry because they're in culture. If you want to talk about impacting culture through designing an app or impacting culture by making a Christian film or impacting culture, all of those are ways to participate in culture. But influencing culture would look to me far less like let's do a Christian version of this or a Christian version of that, and more in line with how we empower people who are God, God bless you who are in positions either of influence, positions of power. When you begin to influence people who have influence now you're touching culture. When you begin to influence how somebody thinks who is perhaps a leader in entertainment, a leader in business, a leader in any sector we can mention when they take the values that are being stirred up in them through the ministry of the church and then take them back. You're giving bread to the disciples, the disciples are feeding the people. So to do that requires a mentality that when you're ministering to your church, you're not really just trying to feed the crowd, you're trying to give the disciples something that they can go and then have bread to feed the people in their sphere that week. That's how I think. I think one thing that's tempting is to have sexy vocabulary about reaching culture, changing culture, touching culture, affecting culture. And let's be honest, the bar has been so low for church for a long time that if you even have your crap together, people are going to come in and think you're cutting edge in terms of culture. If your stuff works, if your screens don't look, if you put a video on a screen, some people in certain environments would think that's cutting edge for church. So that wouldn't be my bar is to say how can we get to a culturally acceptable level? To me that would be a no brainer. It needs to be on par. Where I think we have the opportunity to impact culture is through inspiring people who will not be on church staff. Our job is to empower them. When you read Ephesians 4, it says that he gave some to be apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, teachers to build the people up for their works of service. So the ministry is really in their hands and culture is really is going to be school principals. Not only school principals, but people who are in Decision making, pockets within culture. That's how you affect culture. It's really complicated. It's not as simple as, oh, well, if the church really was better with web design or something like that, I think that gets us in the conversation. But that doesn't change culture because that's not something that the world doesn't have that they are looking to the church for. So typically we're not going to be as disruptive as Amazon. We're not going to figure out distribution at the level of Amazon. We're not even really playing that game. What we would hope to do is make the greatest spiritual impact on people so that there is purpose to their work. And then people that would work in those spheres would have been touched by our ministry. But it's really in their hands as to whether or not we affect culture. Hello, Pastor. Hello. Good morning. Thanks for doing this. Certainly you taught us the importance of spending time with our former and future selves and so specifically talking more about inside elevation. So if we are trying to teach and resource other churches on how we think things work best, how are we supposed to do that while in the middle of transition and change? Say the last part again. There was a little music I was hearing in the background or something. Does anybody hear it? It's like a little. You hear it? I don't know if it's angels. I think, yeah, it sounds of angels, but I got distracted. So I need you to come one more time with that. So specifically speaking, more on the lines for inside elevations. We're going to be doing multiple events over time. And for example, right now we're transitioning away from sermon series. But the target market that's coming, it's really beneficial for them to learn about sermon series because it's relevant for them. So how do we teach and equip churches in the middle of change? It's really in your language and your approach. I like to say that any good leader should always be working a theory. You should always be working a theory. You should say something like this, how many EKID staff do we have in here? You would say we're working a theory right now that we believe that kids are drawn back to church by X, Y and Z and that they're not as drawn by A, B and C. Here's what we're doing. You can explain to people in those terms to try to help them. See, right now I'll take sermon series. That's a great example, actually. I would say, and this is how I explain it to people. I've Talked to other pastors about it. I say I'm kind of messing around with the idea of sermon series right now. I'm going to spend some time away from the box of sermon series. And then I explain the reasons why I say things like this. I wonder how much it contributes to our growth. I wonder if I would be able to get into deeper messages. I explained a little bit about my style and how I kind of started doing series for one reason, but as my style or my preferences or even maybe my abilities have evolved, now I'm looking at it differently. I would say it in a way that makes nothing permanent. I would just say I would speak in the language of experiment. And I would also not leave the benefits of the series behind. I would say series were very helpful for us in this, this, and this. Who knows? We may go right back to series. This may be a horrible idea. But here are some of the things that we're learning in the process. Here are some of the challenges it's creating. Here are some of the things it's getting me to think about. Here's what I like, here's what I wonder about. Here's where it's weird. I think whether you're doing inside elevation or whether you're talking internally, not kind of having a transitional mindset that leaves behind all the lessons that you learned from something or kind of devalues it or doesn't realize that it may come back around again. That's what makes it tough. I think if you speak in the language of journey, discovery, experiment, and you kind of break it down, I actually think that's more interesting to smart people because then you allow them to kind of hear, hey, we've done both. We've done both. We've been rich, we've been poor, we've had series. We've not had series. We've been married, we've been single, we've had kids. The more of those things that you've experienced, I think the more you can speak to people, then they can actually decide and we can kind of get out of this idea that people are coming to clone us. We will actually make them think for themselves by creating attention about their values and their talents. So the less we can tell them, here's the package of how you do church like elevation. The more that's going to create good conversations for their team, and they're going to come away with something that's embedded in them by God, something that's inherent to them by their nature. They're going to be much better. Served than putting on Saul's suit and coming here and trying something we don't even do anymore. I think it's actually an advantage when we speak in those terms. Not sounding wishy washy, but just explaining that we see the benefits of all these things. I get Joel Osteen, I get him. I get Rob Bell. I get him. If you don't like the fact that I get both of them, that's okay. But there are parts of both of them that I see the advantage, I see the strength. I see where they're coming from. A lot of people aren't comfortable with that. They only subscribe to one philosophy. I'm personally not willing to be that narrow, either in philosophy when it comes to ministry or in practice. I want to grow, I want to evolve, and I think I have something to learn from everybody. Good question. Just that. Hi, Pastor. Hi, Cherish did a great job running the new creative meeting Tuesday, by the way, Flying V. We had a great time. Thank you. Stepping up, leading big. This is kind of what actually from the same session, but a more personal take on it. So you talked about how you need to spend time with your former self and you your future self. I think I tend to focus on my former self and spend too much time there. So what does focusing on your future self look like? I mean, it can look like a lot of things. It's kind of aspirational. I'm preaching this weekend on Paul, and I don't want to give it to you now. I really don't. I gave myself a speech before I came like, don't preach your weekend sermon to the staff today. This is Q and A. But it's really exciting to me because I'm getting into the idea this weekend. I wanted to preach this subject for a while. It's really coming alive called making friends with frustration. That's my sermon this weekend. I'm using Paul as an example. If you read 2 Corinthians 12, Paul almost talks like he's schizophrenic. He says, I know a man who was caught up 14 years ago to heaven and saw things you can't even talk about. I would brag about that guy, but I would never brag about myself. And it's very strange. That's 2 Corinthians 12, 5. That's not the part I'm preaching on, but it really spoke to me because I felt Paul being caught up between this gift he knew he had and this thing God had put in him and this other thing that he said was his weak self. But yet he didn't despise the weak self. He said, if I'm going to talk, I'm going to talk to you about that guy. It really confused me because it is the opposite of how we're taught. Focus on your strengths, all this stuff. But it's a profound passage. And in answer to your question, I don't think that spending time with your former self and living with your regrets are synonymous. When I say spending time with your former self, I'm talking about this may sound New Agey, forgive me. I'm talking about being in touch sometimes with the part of you that produced the passion in the first place. What I mean by former self is it's good every once in a while for me to look around and say, you're 35. Look at what God has accomplished through your life in 35 years. I have a tough time doing that. So to back up and remember what 12 year old me dreamed of and the way 12 year old me saw the world and now I've seen things that I didn't even know existed, it produces gratitude, it produces perspective. But for me, my former self might not have the same baggage that yours might or that yours might, or it may have more. We're all in different places, right? So I don't think that's some kind of formula. It's like 50% former, 50% future. I think there have been times for me where in order to go forward, I needed to go back in that season. It was getting in touch with my uniqueness. Maybe I'm in transition and I'm trying to figure out what's core to me and what things I've assimilated from just watching others and what I'm copying versus what's uniquely me. So then I need to go back and just kind of remember what makes me tick. I wrote a thing in my new book about my mom and she hadn't read it yet. I used to have these bands that I'd put together. We play Hootie and the blowfish, R.E.M. green Day, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Rage against the Machine. So my mom listened to us play one day. I said, how was it? This office is probably like 14 or 15. She said it was good. But she said it kind of a little too in that mom way where it was like it was good. I'm saying that because I'm your mom. Besides the fact that the musical quality wasn't that good, which I didn't know at the time, she said something really powerful. She said I was just wondering, when are we going to hear you sing? But I was the lead singer. She wasn't saying that because I was. I wasn't getting a shot to sing. She said, when are we going to hear you sing? That's all she said. And she may not even remember that, but I remember it. What she's saying is, I heard you do Darius. I heard you do Michael Stite. I heard you do Eddie Vedder. When are we going to hear you sing? When I say spending time with your former self, I mean staying in touch with how far you've come. And I also mean staying in touch with what makes you you. There are different ways that we all do that. And yet at the same time, I think it can become really detrimental to spend too much time in either place without visiting the other. I really do. I think that without staying in touch with what made you who you are, and this would apply to us as a church, to go away from the things that got us here would be a horrible mistake. To stay with the things that got us here might even be worse. So it's going to require both in all of our lives and in our church to go forward in different seasons. You'll need different things. If you're stuck with former you, then you would probably want to get around people more often who aren't familiar with former you. People who can speak to current you and future you and get around people who are more headed where you're going. That's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean you don't appreciate the people back here. But Jesus couldn't do many miracles in their hometown because some of them saw him in diapers. As long as they were stuck on the former iteration of who Jesus was. There will be people in our church who, as we move forward into something new, and even people on our staff who will be so in love with former elevation that they won't want to make the trip with future. That is a struggle for me right now. There are things about the size, the growth of the church that I really can't stand, that I really can't stand of not knowing how to get things done. I was talking to Holly about this the other day as the spokes have increased to the hub. It's so complicated sometimes for me to figure out how to change something. It drives me crazy. I don't really like how much we're having to market me right now. I never liked that. I never put my photo on the billboard. I never put my statue in the lobby. I Never put me and Holly on the side of the church bus. That is a church model. A lot of you wouldn't be familiar with it, but that is a church model. But to reach more people and for the platform to grow, there's a necessity to have this kind of. Sometimes I can't even watch my own TV show because I just hate the picture of me. I don't love all that all the time, but to go where we're going, I can't stay with this little humble sounding thing and then kind of squelch the gift. Just because it sounds humble doesn't mean it is. So we're all fighting this battle on different levels. But I would say that Paul, in the passage that I mentioned, made trips back and forth between the two, and he traversed both terrains and he said that one of them, the weak one, was given so that he wouldn't become conceited. Or you might say that he would stay grounded. The other one was given so that he would go up higher. Cherish. I would suggest, and to anybody who feels this way, that often the part of you you're embarrassed about is the gift God gives to keep you grounded as he takes you higher. If you lost that part, you wouldn't be weighted enough to be able to sustain what God is building. I can unpack that more with the passage, but again, I think some of it will be in the sermon this weekend. And I don't really want to sermonize. I would say organizations, individuals, have to do both. In touch enough with where you came from to make sure you appreciate where you're going and take the right stuff when you get there, but focused enough on where you're going that you don't die in the complacency of where you were. And we're all going back and forth all the time, and we never really leave one for the other. Of course, the place where we live that out has to be now. So really I can only get to either place from now. And being present now and developing now. So it's a tension. Don't let it tear you apart. We all deal with it. Hey, Pastor. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. What does your shirt say? It says expensive taste. All right. My husband bought it for me. It is a good headline. I have a question. It's inspired by fighting against complacency, but it has to do with telling the stories of the ministry, telling the stories of what's happening in this church. Part of my job. It's also something I coach a lot of the cps and other people on. I just wondered without having to like commit to this is the only type of story you like to hear. But I do wonder a lot of times, in your opinion, what makes a great story to tell this church. Yeah, that's awesome. And thank you for asking me that because it's very important to me right now. The creative team has heard some of this and the campus pastors have heard a little bit. I'll try to be brief. I even challenged this Tuesday that I'm okay with stories that show struggles and steps. I really think that a great showcase of somebody's life that was changed would have a balance of both. We're working on a segment right now called beyond the Baptism. Have any of you heard about this? The idea is I heard your snippet you wrote on an index card before they put you under the water. I'd like to hear from you a year later. I'd like to know, did it change anything? I'd like to know, are you the same person? I'd like to know, are you different? I'd just like to know more than I could get on the commercial. You're only talking about a three minute story again, so it's not a documentary of the person's life. But we watched one Tuesday and I thought it was good. I thought it was a really good start. I'm challenging the team even more though, that when you tell a story, context is everything. I'm sure you've all seen a Comedy Central roast. Put those same conversations at an Academy Awards ceremony. They don't work. Context is everything. You can even make fun of the President at the White House Correspondents dinner. Christmas party is one thing. Sunday morning is another. A good story for a movie can leave so much ambiguity because the movie doesn't promise that I'm going to teach you any solution. The same with a sermon. If I were a stand up comic, I could say things and do things and reference things that don't belong in the pulpit. That's the first thing understanding what is the scope of this story. When the church tells a story, there has to be something instructive about it and aspirational and it can't be so messy that you put somebody in. Hey, a year ago when I got baptized, I was sleeping around. I'm still sleeping around. But I know I can go to God for forgiveness and pray for me. That's not going to work. That might be a real story, that might be honest, but we have a responsibility that we're showing people something they can Follow the example of we have to showcase people that are taking steps forward. What I think we've done traditionally is only showed the steps and not shown the struggle. Why? Because I think that was what was needed to a certain point to create an inspirational tone for our church. God changes lives. Here we even have segments. Life change story. I don't like that term anymore. I don't know that life change. We don't change like that. Your life rarely changes to the point that your life changed. My finances are changing, my body is changing, my kid's age is changing, My. My emotions, I'm changing. But to call the whole thing that my life just changed. So specificity is our friend to say. Here is one area where I've made a step and get away from the exaggeration of everything changed and now I have peace and my marriage is restored. I don't want to hear that. I want to hear, you know, I've been taking my wife out on dates because I heard in a sermon, blah, blah, blah. The first time we went out, it was super awkward. She expected me to get her door. And I was like, you think I'm going to get your door? But I learned how I need to date my wife again. The first restaurant I took her to, it didn't work out too good. So I didn't try again for three weeks. Three weeks later, you know what? On that third day, on that three weeks later, we connected. We talked about this and that. It's opened up some real conversations. Although there are 15 years of marriage that were really hard and we're working through it and it's going to take some time. I now have some of the tools I need, and my kids are starting to notice a difference. I think life really can be different if I follow on this path. I would rather hear that all day long. Then marriage is restored. We are restoration projects in process. Show me progress, don't show me perfection. Because if you show me perfection, not only do you exclude me if I'm not perfect, but you put me off if I don't believe in your fairytale bullcrap. We always want to talk to the person who's not sure and say is steps and struggles. The struggle could be beyond the baptism. Man. I got baptized and the next week was the worst week of my life. I was like, man, this doesn't work. But you know what? I didn't even go to my group for three weeks. But my group leader stayed after me and they stayed with me. They explained to me it's not about that everything is going to change overnight. It's just about that. You're becoming more of a person with your heart more inclined to God. And you know what? Invite people into something. Flat characters are boring. If we present people whose lives were changed as flat characters, Nobody watches that movie. Why do they want to hear it in church either? And the Bible isn't written around flat characters. Peter's cussing, David's whoremongering, Moses is murdering, Gideon is scared to death, Jacob is tricking people, conniving. That's our heroes. Let's not make better heroes at elevation than God made in the Bible. Let's just make people who have struggles and steps personal is more powerful. But that's a whole other seminar. But those are some thoughts to get you thinking about what we celebrate. If there's nothing to celebrate in the way of steps, then it's not a story ready to be told yet. But if there's a step and a struggle, put them both out there and give people hope that we're taking steps and struggling all at the same time. I'm telling you, that's a story that not only inspires people, but it gives them hope that they themselves, they can put themselves in that story too. And the more we do that, the more people will touch. So good. Thanks. Hey Pastor, Good morning. So in session one, you said God doesn't demand what he doesn't deposit. And when God makes a demand, it indicates a deposit. And as soon as you said it, I thought to myself, a lot of times I'm in a meeting or in a conversation and I'll hear an idea or maybe it's even a self imposed expectation, but I automatically assume I can do it. Like I'm a driver. And so I'm like, I can do that. I'll figure out a way. But I think a lot of times I need to take a step back and has the deposit actually been made? And so what are some indicators that I can actually take with me that will determine is this actually a demand that God has made and has the deposit been made in my life? Yeah, I love that line of thought. What would be an example of one that you're wrestling with right now? Like for example, we would be in a meeting, we just talking about some deposit or some budgeting stuff for Raleigh. We were just talking about it this morning and immediately I thought, okay, I can totally revamp how we do our budgeting for, for weekly supplies for Raleigh. I'm, I'm not in the finance department and that's not my role on staff. But I can. I could figure that out. And so just real practically, how do I determine if that's actually a demand? Because I'm in the conversation and I can do something about it. But should I? What are some indicators that I should or should not take that step? I don't think just because you feel that you have it in you to initiate something necessarily means that you have it in you to completely implement something. Sometimes it's a question of, at what level does God want me contribute to this? Sometimes God will speak to you about something you don't have a very strong gift in, or he'll stir you. Let's say it that way. He'll stir you. Because I don't like this God speaks to you about. Because God apparently tells a lot of people to do really crazy things when you hear them tell it. Let's say you feel stirred. You feel inclined to something. Starting a church involves so many elements, yet God put it in me that I'm gifted to do it. That didn't mean that every gift I needed for the church was in me. It meant that the gift, to identify those with the gift and to bring them together and to compel them was in me. If I would have looked at every component of starting a church, I would have stopped cold. Because this is not humble pie. I am not good at very much. I'm really not. I think. I think about a lot of things at good levels that are helpful. But if you look at my actual tactical skill set, I don't know. I can't tell you many things that fit into it just in terms of actually being good at a specific thing. Instead of that stopping me, it forced me into interdependency, which meant that now instead of, I can do it, we can do it, and he can do it, and she can do it. That forced me, outside of myself to place myself on the team. Sometimes what you're passionate about will be your purpose, but it will not be your personal responsibility. Then it's through somebody you're going to empower, motivate, encourage alignment that you're going to bring, that you're going to accomplish something. You're not going to follow the whole thing through. What this doesn't mean is then you go tell the finance department what they need to do and empower them. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying that perhaps there's a way you can support. When you said, step back from it, I really like that you are driven. You are an Instigator, which is great. I'd rather have 10,000 like you than 10,000 that were too passive. But that step back is really important. When the Charleston massacre happened, it hit me so hard. It took me two hours that morning to even figure out, what do I do? What do I do? I need to do something. I felt so awful that I couldn't do anything. It's like I'm a pastor. This is horrible. What do I do? I know a lot of our people would be feeling this. I know there has to be something I can do. There was nothing I could do until I thought I could write something. I have a way with words. There are a lot of people who don't have words for what they feel right now. I could give them some words. I have words. So I aligned this big thing and I found my little entry point into this big thing. I got up in front of our church, then the following weekend and talked about my dad and God, showed me what I was to do about the situation. But if I would have tried to analyze how to fix racial relations in the United States of America, particularly the south, between blacks and whites, I would have never moved. But when I wrote one thing, and that's my role and that's my lane, and that's what I'm graced for, then it had a healing effect. People were thanking me for that Sunday and thanking me for what I wrote. I felt like it was so minimal compared to the need. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was I had contributed what God had given me to contribute. So the feeling that I felt that morning was indicating there's something in you that needs to come, come out. It took me a little time on into the weekend to figure out what exactly that was. But at least I was searching for it. That's the spirit of what I was trying to say. When God stirs you toward something, there's a part you're to play in it. What you think that part is at the beginning won't always be what the part actually is. The only way to know is to enter into it. Then you find out, well, God, I had no idea that this is what the finance actually was. My whole idea was wrong. But I bet you find within that something you can strengthen, something you can understand. And the only way to know is to go into it. That's the only way you're going to be able to find out those things. Remember when God called Moses? Moses didn't feel capable, but Aaron was already assigned to do the part. Moses Couldn't do. A lot of times, instead of leading you to something within yourself, when God stirs something in you, he's going to lead you to something in someone else you can partner with. The thing will be fulfilled through that connection. In a self realized, individualistic culture, this lies in the face of it because you can be whatever you want to be. It's your dream and it's your thing, but it's really not. I could talk more about it, but I think that's the heart of what I would want to say to you. Thank you. Hey, Pastor. Morning. Morning. One of the things you said at Staff advance that spoke to me was about Timothy and that his temptation was to be timid. I mean, I related to that just in terms of timidity. But at the same time, I'm trying to figure out what aspects of my personality I need to embrace and what aspects I need to challenge. Like, for instance, I'm introverted, but I've got this calling to build relationships with people. And so, you know, it's draining for me to spend time with people. I need to be alone to recharge. But I'm trying to figure out, where do I challenge that? Where do I say, well, tonight I need to go spend time with somebody, tonight I need to build that relationship. It's like, what aspects? What aspect. How do I know what aspects of my personality I need to embrace and what aspects I need to challenge? I don't think you're going to believe me when I said that. That's what my new book is about. That's the whole thing. It's when do I embrace, when do I replace? What I came to, and I had to rewrite the first whole half of the book to get to it, is that you embrace to replace. Let me show you. I'll show you the main verse we used again, same passage, 2 Corinthians 12:10. Paul said, When I am weak, then I am strong. He didn't say, first, I am weak, then I am strong. I once was weak, now I am strong. When I am weak, then I am strong. I asked God to give me a picture of that. What he showed me is people in the gym trying to lift weights at the moment they are failing. The biggest guy you see in the gym is the one who has failed the most. He also might have some help. But the biggest guy you see in the gym is the one who failed the most. That's the way he grew. That's the only way his muscles grew. He failed more than anybody else in the gym. I saw a talk the other day from Google. I'm working on a sermon about rejection. And I found the guy talking about rejection. If you've seen this, it's amazing. I almost turned it off. The guy was so timid. He was so timid. He was up there talking. I was like, I'm going to give him five minutes. It was a 40 minute talk. But I couldn't find much on rejection, so I wanted to hear it. The guy starts talking about how he did a 100 day rejection experiment. He said he was so scared of rejection, that's what he couched it in. He decided for 100 days he would ask one person something ridiculous every day. He said, I went to an airfield and asked the pilot, can I fly your plane? The pilot said, do you have a license? I said, no, I've never even taken a class. I asked a cop, could I drive his car? I flagged him down and asked, could I drive his car? This is a timid guy. Now this is not a salesman. They both said, yes. He put a picture of him in the plane and a picture of him in the car. Now the guy in the plane only let him fly two feet off the ground. It was a little crop duster plane. The cop only let him drive a little bit, but he shared all kinds of examples. The funniest one he actually videoed. He went in Krispy Kreme and said, I want a specialized box. I want you to make my donuts like the Olympic rings. Has anybody seen this? And the woman goes, you want what? I want my donuts like Olympic rings. She goes, when do you want this? By it comes up a subtitle he put on his video. Hadn't thought about that. So he just goes, 15 minutes. She goes, well, let me see what I can do. She comes out with a box of perfectly colored Olympic rings. When he goes to pay, she says, no, this one is on me. She said later after that, that video went viral. It's really cool. I don't remember the name of the video, but I'm sure you can find it. That video went viral of Krispy Kreme and he and the woman became friends. She was thanking him for coming in her boring job and giving her a challenge because she's like, I'm not an idiot, but I have to work like an idiot all day long now. He said at the end of 100 days, he said it was real confidence building. He said, about half the time people would say yes, half the time people would say no. I turned off the video. And I wrote down 10 possible ways I could preach about that. I came to this. The reward of rejection. The reward of rejection is always that you discover anytime you step out to do something and it's not received or it's not loved or it's not passed or it's not respected, you discover in that moment resilience. Resilience is the reward of rejection. I think that this idea for you may be helpful, but really for all of us in the room. Because to put yourself out there is agonizing. To really put yourself out there, to know every week that I'm going to put something out there that I put my heart into. In preaching, you know, it's wear and tear because you're always coming with something that's very meaningful to you and wondering will it mean anything to them? And in a meeting to speak up and offer an idea, to move the conversation along is a real battle for most of us. Whether you're the leader or whether you're just somebody in the room. If you're the leader, you're trying to look smart so you don't want to sound stupid. If you're just in the room and barely in the room, you want to get invited back so you have a different set. Is this my place? Whatever, Whatever, whatever, whatever. I think what we really fear a lot of the time turns out to be a ghost. One of the stats the guy used was pretty interesting. He said when Barack Obama became the most powerful man in the world, 49% of the country had rejected him. Think about that. He's the most powerful man in the world because he was willing to be rejected by half of the country. I thought about that a lot. If I don't put myself out there, if I'm not willing to do that, to say, they may not like it this time, they may not get it this time, this may not go over. The real risk is not in being rejected because you can always move on to something else or someone else. The real risk is that what was in you never found a life. That would be the real risk. I would say that the risk of rejection is usually a myth. When someone rejects you a lot of times in any way, often it's not even a reflection of your idea or your thing. It may be a reflection of where they're at. It may be a reflection of what's going on in their life. So I would just encourage everybody in here, maybe not a hundred day experiment, maybe not Krispy Kreme don't go. But I would Challenge you to find ways to fail and find ways to learn that it's okay and to find ways to learn that you can laugh at yourself. I think that's what really changed as a preacher for me between year maybe seven and eight, I just became okay. If I get in the moment and nobody goes there with me, I just decided I'm going to have the moment anyway. I found out that usually my perception is off. A lot of times, even what I think is being rejected isn't. So we live in this kind of. It's like funhouse mirrors, getting back what we think people think of us, and it's all stupid anyway. I like being in meetings with people who will start something by saying, this may sound stupid, but since nobody else is saying anything, let me throw this out there. That person is very valuable. That person is very confident. Even if their idea doesn't get done, at least they got us somewhere. At least they got us a step toward this or that. They call it in songwriting. They say, the willingness to look completely stupid in a moment being the number one skill that leads to a great song. So it would be true in everything. The willingness to start with something that's wrong, the willingness to start with fighting. I texted Elijah yesterday. Harry potter got rejected 12 times. J.K. rowling, 12 times. 12 official times. I just like to think about stuff like that because it lets me know, did I answer your question or did I go off on my own thing? A little bit. A little bit. I want to do. No, I want to do better. I'm sorry. I want to do better. What else? I don't want to miss the mark. I mean, I think. How do you know what part of you. Yeah, it's like, what aspects of my personality at that point is like. I think timidity is definitely something that should be challenged. But what do you think timidity means? I mean, I think it's being afraid to step out on something that God calls you. Yeah. To challenge that for sure. But as far as being an introvert, it's like, don't challenge your personality type. Yeah, no, you don't challenge your personality type. But if I feel like. So here's my vulnerability right now. I feel like. Like I was saying, God's called me to build relationships. Like, I've got a student group. I've got an adult E group. I've got, you know, just friends that I want to be with. But at the same time, part of me just wants to go home every night and just be alone. Yeah. I'm like, where do I find that balance? And that's just one example. But where do I find the balance of like, okay, yeah, I know I need to spend time alone, but I know what you want. You want a formula. You want. I do, too. I do, too. You're using a word that is helpful to a degree. You're saying the balance of it. I think what we always want the balance to be is that I know when to do this and when to do that. What I was trying to get to in the explanation is Paul said they are both happening at the same time. So he is saying that the weakness and the strength are present in the same moment in the same experience. He is not saying that I am weak a little, I am strong a little, but it balances out in the end. He is saying, when I am weak, then I am strong. Okay, applied to your specific thing, I would challenge myself in the areas where something is at stake, for sure. I would challenge myself in the areas where, you know, it's creating a pattern that is more based out of fear. The more you can know the motivation of why you're pulling back, the more you can determine, is this a moment to push ahead or not? It's a moment to push ahead. If there's something you feel would be a significant contribution or benefit to your life or if it would just be fun for you and you're not doing it because of how you might look, what people might think, what. Or the fact that you just want to be in a cave, that would be a time to push through. If it's that, you know, I've been going, going, going, I really do need to recharge, and I'm an introvert, and this is the way I recharge. And I really want to read a book for four hours or I really. What do you do that you love so much? The Office on Netflix? Yeah. Yeah. I really want to binge on. I really want to binge right now. You know, that's not always horrible. That is not always horrible. So it's knowing the motivation. Is the motivation that I want to be replenished? Is the motivation that this is a healthy way I recharge, or is the motivation that I don't want to risk, that I don't want to step out, that I don't want to be rejected? If you ask that honestly, I believe you always know the answer, but you have to take it situation by situation. If it's causing a harmful effect, then it's always good to push against. If it's causing you to go into this place. I don't know. The example of that for me would be on Mondays. The best thing I do is pick up the phone and make my little phone calls to people who are going through things in church. I never feel like doing it. My voice is always tired. My brain is always tired. I never feel like doing it on Mondays. I used to tell myself, boy, after preaching all weekend, I deserve a day to just do nothing. But guess what? I did. But it drained me more. Doing nothing drained me more. So I realized I have to exercise on Mondays. I have to. I have to push through the instinct to do nothing on Monday. I have to make my phone calls on Monday. I have to start my sermon on Monday. I have to get some momentum on Monday. So I learned that about myself, that, hey, when I pull back on Monday, although it seems intuitively like it's going to rest me, it's not replenishing me. So I see over and over again, I'm more drained. I'm more drained. I'm more drained. It's time for something to change. And when you see those patterns, challenge the rhythm. Yeah. Is that better? I mean, they're both great. So. Okay. It's awesome. I want to hit the spot. So we could talk later, too. Send me an email. Send me a text. Hey, Pastor session one. You talked about coming to the altar again and the fact that we need to feed ourselves before we can feed others. And I wrestle with this practical tension every weekend of being at Blakeney. And I'm trying to worship for myself, but then I'm also thinking about leading from the front and that my worship sets an example for everyone in the room. Think about that. And I'm thinking about my welcome or the clothes, how to tie in from what you're saying with the sermon. And so I'm always wrestling with this tension. I'm trying to feed myself, but then also being focused in the moment of what I'm called to do. And so one of the things I love that you do every weekend is I feel like you're always worshiping. And then when you come up and take that moment, it's coming from this authentic place, but then it's also focused on what you're called to do. And so how can I do that better? How do you do that? Fake it. No, I'm just kidding. Would that crush you if that was my answer? Fake it. Joel, the process to be in the moment on the front row like you just described is a real struggle for me. Half the battle for me is to get up on stage and not be irritated or distracted. That's why I don't talk to many people before I go out. It's like I just need to not be irritated and distracted. Then once I get in there, I'm going to go a little different route than the expected. I'm going to tell you my most recent mind trick to do it. This has been working for me for a little while. When I look around, let me see if I can do this. I hope God will help me do it for you because it has really been powerful for me. It started, I guess, we were on some vacation somewhere and a lady said to me, I was apologizing for something or whatever. It's like a service thing. I needed something. I apologize. Sorry, sorry, sorry. She said, don't apologize. It's your vacation. It's your vacation. It was like her attitude in it was. And maybe I inferred a lot, but she was trained to think of it like that. I might have 51 weeks a year where I work hard and one week where I get to go on vacation. And so she saw it as her job to make sure. Somehow that touched me. I don't know why. I wish I could describe it better, but it transferred to where I look around the church and think, this is their 90 minutes. This is their hour and a half. I think about those people. I think about hell they're going through and challenges they're facing and things about themselves and their lives that they hate. I think about how we get to give them a half hour that we get to facilitate where they can be told that they're loved, they can be treated with honor and respect. A lot of them aren't getting any respect anywhere else that week. They're not getting respect at home, they're not getting respect at work. They can be in a place where they matter. They can feel something in their soul. A lot of people are dead numb, just getting through. They don't really have the luxury to consider purpose. They're just trying to survive and do good. And for 90 minutes a week, they get to think about their lives in a larger context. They get to be connected with people. They get to have ownership in something if they serve. So what I'm doing when I'm entering into that moment from the front like you described, is not divorcing my role as a leader from myself as a worshiper. I'm really trying to let that fuel. Fuel me even more to be in the moment with them so that I know that for me, this is the third time I've done it. And for me, this might be the fourth different sermon I've preached that week. I may have been on the road, I may have been going hard, but this is their 90 minutes. That woman, wherever it was, I don't remember if it was Graham's Disney cruise or something else. I want to say it was Grim's Disney cruise, but she's on that ship. God knows how many weeks a year looking at God knows how many overweight Americans demanding God knows what kind of stuff. But how? She said, it's your vacation. She put herself, like, for me, this is my job. For you, this is your vacation. For us, this is our life. But for other people, it's their refuge, it's their oasis, it's their connection point with God. It's their safe place. If you ever see me, Joel, look around. That's what's going through my mind, that this is their moment to sing out loud. And nobody makes fun of them. This is their moment to be able to talk to. Most people don't pray. This is their moment to sing a prayer to God. Most people don't open their Bibles. They don't get it. This is their moment to have it open and something explained to them that's outlasted centuries. I do it like that. That puts me on stage. Like, this is their 90 minutes. This is their 10 minutes. This is their whatever that time is. I feel really responsible for it, and I actually feel connected with them. I actually feel connected. I'm not trying to shut them out so I can have this personal moment with God. I'm trying to get my arms around them in a way where I'm like, yeah, keep doing this. And then hopefully they feel that when I get up there. That's so powerful. Thank you. Cool, thanks. Morning, Pastor. Morning. It's been brought up a couple times, but session one, you said the line. It's about holding on to where I started as I reach toward where I'm going. And so that got me thinking about what where I started means. And so I went back to when I came on staff In April of 2012, and less than two months later, we filmed Elevation Essentials in this room. And so I started reading through those notes and just trying to think back to all of those things. And so it got me thinking about how you just answered. Cherish the importance of staying in touch with who you are. And so as we're reaching forward, launching campuses, going for 100,000, thinking through the essentials, like what are those core things to our staff culture and us as individuals, as leaders that we have to hold on to and that we have to kind of almost get back to as we're. As we're looking forward? Like, what are those things that we need to hold on to? What would. What would any of you on leadership team think about that? What things come to your mind from being around for? I mean, I would say the drive, the initiative early on, that was like this unfiltered, doesn't matter what people think, like sweat equity, willing to put in the work. We're just going to go. We're going to go. We're going to go versus we got some resource now or we got some people. I can delegate that. And we feel like we're being better leaders because we're delegating, but it's because maybe we lost some of the drive. So holding onto that, to me, is one of the big ones. I would say we worked hard to identify a lot of those things in our code. Like, those are the things we really need to protect. But if I had to identify one thing, I would say it's the ability to shift in any season to not hold on too tightly to a role. But we're called to be leaders in the church at large. Yeah, I would say agility to go along with that. The agility of the early days. How about two of you? I mean, my, My mind always goes towards, like, the, like, are you in all in type of mentality. And I think that as long as we always have people that are all in, then God will continue to keep, you know, moving us forward and we'll be able to keep replicating that. So sometimes I just. I just get nervous as it gets larger and larger and as you look around and as I don't know everybody personally, that we get this, like, are, like, they all in or is this just a job? Because everything is just great, you know, versus it being all in when things are struggling. I mean, especially when we just open all these, you know, new office space like this, it's a pretty great place to work. So I come back to that saying, like, hey, if we can. If we can hold on to that all in, then I feel like we'll be able to keep moving. Haircut looks good. Nice haircut, Josh. I'm bitter. For me, it plays a little bit into what you were, you know, just referring to, with regards to the 90 minutes that people have to experience God and we. Whether it's calling people far from God, I don't Know if it's the tag of what we label people as who we're creating the experience for. But everybody does everything we do so that people can experience God. And so we all. We kind of hang on to that. And we create a moment every weekend for people to get that and to see that and do that. And we do it through groups, we do it through anything you write. We do it through everything. But the ability for our staff to be able to attach what they're doing. That connects all the way back to the fact that though you're not on stage on the weekend, you're back in the finance department doing credit card receipts. It does tie back to the ultimate vision and our ability as a staff. As we've gotten bigger, it seems harder because used to be everybody did everything and everybody did have a role on the weekend, and they were doing stuff that was very directed towards people's lives being affected and touching God. But now it's getting further and further. But our ability to hang on to the fact that though it may seem mundane, it's not. It's all connected. Holly, did you have anything? I would probably say just gratefulness and just always keeping it before myself. Like, I can't believe we get to do this. So even when things don't necessarily go the way that we expected them or something doesn't necessarily turn out the way we thought it would. Just keeping a higher perspective. Bird's eye view, if you will, of just, I can't believe this is what I get to do with my life. And so on the day to day when I'm disappointed, if I can zoom out and see, you know, and think about the baptism videos and think about the. Just the people who I know that their lives really have. Have been changed because of what we do, then that keeps it all in perspective for me. Yeah. And for me, not in an abstract way. People were tough to get us to this point. Just tough. It's like thick skin. I can take it. I can change. I can have a hard conversation. I can handle a demotion, a promotion. I can handle something hard for the sake of something I love. It would require a lot of people being that way. If we were to go to 100,000 like we want to, it would require a lot of people who are not in love with their contribution to any degree as much as they're in love with our calling corporately. And we always had that. We always had that. But if you get a culture, Joe, where it's like, well, I have to manage the emotions of Those that I lead all the time, all the energy is spent on that, on making sure that everybody that can become very quickly just a total drain on progress. It's all about making sure that everybody is all the time. Whatever, whatever. The early group, and I'm not just talking about year one, I would say first five years were highly self motivated. They needed very few pep talks. It was just very self motivated for the sake of what we were building. So I think we'd have to fight very hard to only hire tough people and to only keep tough people around and then not let somebody stay around who's not tough because they're talented and manage a bunch of egos. I would think all of that would be incumbent on the leaders in the church and the peers to challenge each other and to suck it up. It's ridiculous to me to read. Please forgive me if you disagree with my opinion, but I thought that New York Times article on Amazon was about the biggest botched piece of journalism since the Charlotte Observer. I thought it was hack, hack writing. You take a company that has 100. Did anybody see it? You ought to read it because it just will help you understand what I was trying to preach about this weekend. You take a company. I don't know, I don't work at Amazon. Maybe it's horrible, but just the sheer method by which the story was written, a company with 150,000 employees, you take less than 100 who have left over the years, who left and use them as primary sources for the corporate culture of Amazon. Americans are so stupid. Collectively, we are so stupid that it's in the New York Times, it's on the headline. Amazon's horrible. But not even taking the time to contrast how it was written. I just think for me personally as a leader, and I'm coming from the heart here, when I hear that somebody left the staff my temptation or that they don't like it or it's too hard or whatever. It's like there's a part of me that wants to bring the intensity down, you know what I'm saying? To accommodate everybody. That would be tragic because then you would hate what you were a part of a year later because it would be mediocre, be average, and it wouldn't be what you signed up for. For me, as a leader, I can't design this around the lowest common denominator of the person who really doesn't even want to be here. So I got to keep my expectations high of people. Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't fussing at you, by the way, I was fussing with the New York Times. So this is coming out of like a current tension that I'm trying to figure out. Just as a young leader, you talked about building people and affirming people, but then also correcting people. And I'm just finding that I just fumble my way through correction because I don't want to be too harsh, but then I also don't want to be too soft. And then normally I land on one extreme or the other. Okay, I'll give you a few tips. I see exactly what you mean. And I'm probably going to go 10 more minutes. So if you want to get in line, it's the last call. Deliver the blow. Whether you have something good to say or something bad to say, deliver the blow. If you're sitting me down to correct me, then start like this. If you're over me, say, I need to talk to you about something that's going to be kind of tough. I'm really not happy with the way you're blank. Put it in the way of your perspective and ask questions. That's the best way to do it. Deliver the blow and allow it to ask questions. But do not insult someone's intelligence by trying to sugarcoat something. Say it. Say it strong. And that will have two benefits. It will respect the intelligent and it will reveal those who aren't resilient. If I'm the kind of person that is growth oriented, I'm going to appreciate eventually. I may not dance in that moment, but I'm going to eventually see, you know what? I appreciate that they brought that up. I appreciate that they helped me. I've taught on this before on what it means that correction is a sign of investment. I know you're not asking me to re preach that. You're asking me, well, how do I do it? So what I'm telling you is to respect the person. You know, everybody hates to be sold, Everybody hates to be pitched. Everybody hates when they get a phone call and the person spends the first 10 minutes and you're like, what do you want? You know, I was just telling my mom that the other day she made pork chops for me. I went and ate lunch with her and this person had left me a message and I was rolling my eyes because he's going on for two minutes and I'm like, what do you want? And then we can catch up. But what do you want? I don't like being led into something. I feel like you need to give me the opportunity to either respond to direct feedback. And what makes your feedback direct? I need it to be concrete. If you just come in saying, I just feel like your heart is not totally there because I'm just getting this feeling from you. No, no, no, no, no. The other day you were 10 minutes late and everybody else was 10 minutes early. Do you realize how that looked? And let it sit. Do you realize how that looked? That's a great question. If you're mad, be a little mad. You know what I'm saying? If they're meant to stay, Jesus turned around to the disciples, said, y' all want to leave too? Do you take off? He was like that. He was secure. So who is supposed to stay will typically find a way to stay and who is not meant to be there. You can't make them stick with superglue, so lead them well. Now, here's what you can't do. You can't just come in and confront people and never coach. You can't do that. People can't take it, and people shouldn't want to take it. I need to understand. I'm the worst at this. I beat it to death. I go now. Do you understand? I don't think you do. Let's go over it one more time. Let me hear it out of your mouth. Let me hear it in Spanish. Let me hear it in Latin. I'm like, I want to make sure you got it. Is that true? I'm like, do you get it? Do you understand? But I coach on the fly. I turned a buck and hollered at him Saturday night. There's something he did that I didn't like. If he can't take that on the fly after this many years with me, if he doesn't know I care about him by now, I don't need him right there. You see what I'm saying? But if he were somebody else, if he were you, Brennan, I wouldn't do that. It would depend on the relationship. It would depend on the relationship because if I did that to you, you wouldn't sleep for a week. Do you see what I'm saying? Because you don't have that interaction with me. That's a lot of it, too, is knowing the thing. But I would definitely get you to ask questions. And it will be harder than you think to get the person to understand what you're actually correcting. Because their first wave will be an emotional defense, so they won't even hear the issue because they'll hear an attack. So you're going to have to get past the fact that I'm attacking you and get to. No, no. This is what I'm saying. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're making it about this. That's not the problem. I'm happy with this. What I'm saying is da, da, da, da, da. Stay with it until you've identified it and make clear what you want to see remedied. So from now on, I need to see this or I'd like to see it. If it's peer to peer, it's a little different. I'm speaking a little bit. If you're supervising someone, I don't know that I can deal with all of them in the time I have, but the principles still apply. For God's sake, Whatever you're doing in that, don't look at it as that. A corrective conversation always has to be confrontational. Let me give you an example of that. You can lead with something you're struggling with in a way to say help me and get yourself on the same side. Typically, if I'm correcting character or if I'm correcting that you didn't listen or if I'm correcting that I feel like you didn't follow an instruction, it's head on. If I feel like you are doing all of those things but you're not able, then I would want to get a posture of. They said that sometimes even in a situation where you can join the other person on the same physical side of the table rather than sitting across from them, it actually is good because we're looking at this together. Help me figure out how to. And what. Da, da, da, da. There's different gears for different things. Typically. I'm going to tell you one temptation. The people we should confront head on because they have character issues. We piss around with because we're intimidated because they're the ones who don't handle it well. So we let somebody's bad response make us afraid to confront them and they're the ones we should be grabbing by the collar. But we take it out on the ones who receive correction well, and we're harder on them because they can take it. That's jacked up. So have the guts to talk to the person you really need to talk to the way you need to talk to them. Thank you. Hi. Hi. So I had three questions, but this might be dumb, but I'm going to ask you one that I hadn't really scripted or anything like that. It might be. It might be. We'll see as we grow. I've noticed that our peers have changed. Now you know who we used to be. Our peers aren't our peers anymore. Now our peers are Life, Church and New Spring. Now our peers are Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen. What do you see? And we're not them. We're not. But what do you see as our biggest differences, our biggest differentiators between who they are and the ministry that they run and our ministry and how we reach people? Yeah, I love the question. We would have to narrow it though because New Spring couldn't be more different than Joel Osteen. So for me to say how are we different? And then just group every big church or ministry, they're all very different. Where our mentality needs to come up in general and where we need to keep our distinctive is how I'll frame this. Where our mentality needs to come up goes to a conversation you were involved in last week. We have always been intentional as a church, but we have not been strategic enough. We're strategic about certain things. Church growth related, financially related. There is strategy. There's strategy to how we do our creative process. But we don't connect strategy to results enough. Now we're learning how in worship, we're learning how in other areas and we're making those moves. We're learning how do TV ministries actually get supported so that they. We talked about this. There's connections of strategy that a Joyce Meyer ministry would have learned to make that we haven't learned to make yet. Yet about how you take somebody from just being a fan of your ministry and liking your ministry to actually playing a part in supporting, which is a good thing. We've never learned how to convert those people. We celebrate 600,000 installs of the app. We don't even care how many of those people ever give back to the ministry or in some way engage with us. That has to change. So we've got to become more strategic. Always been intentional, need to become more strategic. Does that make sense? So that's the one where we need to come up to that level. The one where we're going to be very different from everyone you just mentioned. I could go to a different one. You mentioned a few that are primarily TV ministries. And then local church is either secondary or non existent. We will never be that. We will always be local, church driven. And not just locally in terms of Charlotte, but now locally as we try to establish a platform that goes beyond TV and everything else is a part of that strategy. We build our church. First. Let me contrast it with Louie Giglio. Louie Giglio built A movement and then built a church. We built a church and now we're trying to figure out what a movement out of the church looks like. So it will be different. You'll have people along the way that you'll go. What I love about Joel Osteen is that he is very consistent in the message he delivers to the point of being redundant. But people understand him as a guy that helps them get through their day and they go to him for that. His commitment to that discipline is remarkable. His knowledge of his television markets is unsurpassed. His ability to become an actual light for faith in a world that doesn't take us seriously with a message that some think is cheesy. And his commitment to do that and not waver. I admire what's different. I'm rawer than Joel Osteen. I'm different. I'm more spontaneous. There's a ton of differences. But the main difference about us, from everybody you just mentioned is not going to be in a style or a format or anything like that. What would be your guess as to what it is? I mean, I think our culture is drastically different. And I think that everything we do as a church stems from our culture and drives what we do. So I mean, that's the biggest difference that I can see. Just kind of like out of the gate. But I mean, I mean, I'm asking the question because, you know, I wanted to hear your feedback on how, you know, kind of the. Your take on where we're going and how we, where our niche is, where we really fit in, in between all those other big players. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's different in different spaces on TV. I'm the only 35 year old you're gonna find on TV. And every day right now you see some other guys on there from time to time. But I'm the only one with a daily spot that's kind of cool. I'm probably the only guy on there that's going to say stuff like I cussed at my wife on the phone while I was dumping packing peanuts. I'm probably the only guy who's going to tell that story on TVN right now. So there's going to be a rawness and a realness that is going to attract a lot of people. I'm going to tell you why God gave me a revelation back at the beginning of the year. As the age becomes more artificial, the authentic will become more attractive. As the age becomes more artificial, the authentic will become more attractive. So we've got to operate from that mindset that as we get more strategic and in some ways slicker than ever before, that the heart of our message has to stay very, very relational. We really are a new thing. We really are a voice for this time. We really do have our own oil. I believe all of that. I don't think it would be wise for us to limit ourselves, though, and say, I don't ever want to limit or define myself by how I'm different from another ministry. I just want to find the distinctives of what is compelling about what we do and then multiply that. I would actually challenge the premise that the main thing is to figure out how we're different than those. I would say that the goal now is to go deeper into who we are. And so out of that will emerge all the things that make us unique if we go deeper into who we really are. That's an excellent question. Thank you for asking it. I'm going to take both of you all. Hi. So I really appreciated when you talked about building a beast and a lot of those conversations of, like, what we as an employee would want our supervisor to know if. And a lot of those things really hit home to me. So where I struggle is with this idea of, like, I tend to be somebody who has a little bit of a fear of making a mistake or letting down my supervisor or disappointing them or not meeting that expectation. So I guess my question is, how would you approach one that fear that I have of, like, I don't want to make mistakes, I don't want to lose those opportunities, and I don't want to lose your trust in yourself. How do you approach that fear? But then how do you also approach your supervisor in saying, hey, I did make a mistake without losing those opportunities and that trust? Well, a good supervisor is always going to evaluate the mistake based on whether or not they think that you understand what the mistake actually was and whether or not you will repeat it. If a supervisor sees you come in and knows that you not only have solved everything you can solve about the mistake, but that you've analyzed it, that tells them that you think like a leader. If you will do their job on yourself and bring that to them, I guarantee you it will increase their confidence, not weaken it. They already know it's failing. But if you show them that, you don't even have to have 90% of this conversation with me, because I've already had it with myself and my team, and we've already implemented some things we would like you to think about, that is going to actually Be a debit or a credit to your account rather than a debit. It's going to take them from thinking you're somebody who just follows orders to somebody who can actually get out there and learn from the mistakes. I promise you that that is an absolute fact. Over time, if they know you're committed to it, I think the level you make the mistake at, the level you analyze it and what they really just don't want at the end of the day is for you to make the same mistake over and over and over again. There is a difference between a mistake that was made because you swung too hard and a mistake that was made because you didn't listen the first time. What really irritates leaders is when you didn't listen to what I was telling you and you didn't ask the right stuff and you didn't prioritize and you didn't put it up there. That is what gets you untrusted. I believe, I think that there would be 80 examples in this room of huge mistakes that were made and the person didn't lose their position. And the person learned through it and grew through it and has since been given more responsibility. That's the irrational fear. The thing you should be afraid of is making a mistake because of lack of effort or making a mistake because of not prioritizing or not taking the mistake seriously. Because what kills me is if you didn't care, and I do, and I don't think it mattered to you. Now we have a problem. Close us out, Kenny. How you doing, Pastor? I'm doing pretty well. I've been awesome. This has been awesome. Thank you. In session one of staff events, you talked about holding our charge. And specifically you said, I'm short. Specifically you said, we can only reach as far as we've gone deep. And I was wondering if you could give us some good handles on how you think we need to go deeper as a staff in this next increasing the reach of our church. Well, I would want all of you to have something that God is speaking to you about in your personal life at any time. Sometimes I wonder, is that work getting done? Are you either taking something that's being taught or do you have something that's going on in your own world? If I walked up to you and said, what have you been thinking about lately from the Bible? I don't mean a legalistic thing. Did you read your Bible? 30 minutes today. But what are you wrestling with? I want you to have an answer to that in personal, spiritual depth. I would also hope that everybody who's on staff here. In terms of the depth, I think what I meant. I don't remember exactly where I was when I said that in my session, but I think what I meant by that is that elevation for the next 10 years can't be a presentation oriented organization where things are more shell than substance. So what I mean, it would go to any area. If you guys as CPS don't have people who are getting baptized who have really good stories, that's going to show eventually. When I see 20 teenage girls up saying, I grew up in a Christian home and life was pretty good, but at student camp I cried and I want to be baptized today, that is an indication that there's not depth in that area. That would be one area in songwriting. If you don't have several ideas going, you're not going to get one good song. So there would need to be depth in that. You need more ideas. David had five stones when he went to fight Goliath only needed one, but he had more than he needed. I think that's what I mean. When I get up to preach, I want more than I need. Because if I'm working out of the shallows where I only just have enough to get through that sermon, that is going to feel much different than if something is gushing out of me and I could just keep going. If I don't have anything going on on Evernote, I can't do Q and A with you. I can't just do this if there's nothing in here. So I didn't prepare a lick for this today. I didn't see your questions, but like I've said before, I put enough in me. I have something in the well. So if you go where. Yes, I have a thought about that. Yes. So when you're ministering to people as a campus pastor, you should be able. I talked to somebody yesterday who lost their church. They were a pastor and they lost their church. I had three things. I said, you know, I'm thinking about this for you and I'm thinking about this for you, and I'm thinking about that for you. I was really pleased with that conversation because they came to the well and I had something to give them. I wasn't even in a personal the best day of my life mood or anything. I wasn't all that happy. But my well still worked. You know what I'm saying? I think it's like. What I mean by that is that if we don't have whether it's strategy to what we do or whether it's content and substance to what we, then it's going to show. It's going to feel like a shell. It's going to feel like a veneer. We don't want that. If you get up as a campus pastor on stage and you don't read your Bible and you don't know, you can't go off, chase the chariot, but if you've got something in you, you can be called upon and you can do it, that would go for any skill, not just on stage. I don't mean. By that. This is what I don't mean. Let's just all get lost in the depth of. I don't mean that. I guess I was just trying to say, Ken, that the show, the showcase side of what we do can only get us so far without the strategic and substantial side of what we do forcing that out. I think. I don't want to be a church that has weak food and pretty plates. I never went to a restaurant and said I'm going back because the plates were pretty. Maybe you have, but I never did. I never went back to a restaurant because the plates were pretty. I don't want to serve people a script of a video with beautiful images but half caught content. I don't care how pretty the plate is. I came for the steak. Now, if you can have a pretty plate and a good steak, I'll come back. That's awesome. Thank you. It's perfect. All right. Thank you.