Week 3

Week 3! Hey everybody, great job last week with the empathy. I haven't got a chance to review everyone's postings and things of that nature, but it seems like you're rocking this. So good work in exploring the empathy angle. And this week we're going to be celebrating your God-ordained creativity, and we're going to link it to a concept called design thinking. So your readings for this week are Creative Confidence. We're going to do chapters 6 through 8. Called to Create, we're going to do chapters 5 and 6. So it'll be an exciting week of growth and development. I know that many of you are seniors and you're like, you're ready to be done. And so when I talk about, hey, this is going to be exciting, you know, you might just be like, Todd, I'm already living a pretty exciting life. I just want to get this degree finished. All right. But, you know, I just challenge that. a little bit. You're not done growing. I mean, think about what senioritis is. It's sort of like saying, I don't need to grow anymore. It's a little bit lacking in humility. I'm not trying to come at anybody for this because I get it. I was a senior many times. You know, I was a senior in high school. I was a senior for my bachelor's and master's and doctorate. Basically, you're never a senior when you get a graduate degree, but I've been there. I've been towards the end, and I've seen The relief, and part of what I do outside of BGU is I sit in on final MBA presentations, and then they get their degree immediately thereafter. I've seen the relief. I know everyone wants to be done. But let's just remember, there's a chance senioritis is like, I don't have any more to learn. I'm done with this. And I wanna just be— I wanna caution you in that approach. You received a call to make disciples of all nations. That was your call that God put on your life, and he led you to Bethany Global University, warts and all, right? Transition shutdown, transition to totally online and all, being recalled back from your— I don't think anybody here was called back from their major, actually, or from their missions, but I get that, right? And believe me, it's not— what you experience with BGU is experienced by almost every senior, okay? I experienced it. I went to Northwestern College in St. Paul for my 4-year degree. I got a degree in marketing. I remember like your senior year you just start to get fed up with administration and policies and teachers, and you're just like— you sort of do reach this less than humble state of, I don't need you anymore. And I think we all do that with our parents too. You know, you go, I got it from here, you know. But I just want to be cautious about that. If this is a calling from God, he led you to BGU, and you're like, I'm done learning, I don't need to do this, like, let me just check this box, and you find yourself not really reading things, you find yourself not meeting deadlines, I just— yeah, it's just a word of caution that, you know, This is a real thing. You know, you've been guided here, and the Lord wanted you to finish your studies here. He wanted you to receive your calling and to come here. So maybe finish strong, maybe get back after it, try to get a second wind so you can finish up. But, uh, um, so here's what's coming anyway this week. We're going to read the chapters and look into a reflection. We're going to build on last week's empathy work, and you're going to continue to use your Berkman Reports for the IC activity. To explore team dynamics. So the Kellys are going to show us how to turn grace into action— excuse me, ideas into action— while Rayner is tying creativity to our identity given to us in Genesis 1:27. So these are some perfect things to think about to innovate your ministry. Let's keep in mind ministries sometimes need to be reinvented, right? You, you reach a point where you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, and it's less and less and less effective. So because times change, moods change, policies, politics change, geopolitical realities change, and the mission isn't still seeking the Lord for that fresh guidance and direction— you know, the gospel never changes, God never changes, but the methodology does because the technology is changing. right? And so is the sort of the mood of the people you're trying to reach. And so it's important to lean into this and to look to maybe improve ministries you are a part of. It's fun in a way to reflect back on ministries that you were a part of and think through how you could be involved. You know, what would you do if you were the boss of your last mission outreach? But the inspiring part is the Great Commission needs— I really do think the Lord is wiring the church for unique creativity to reach unreached people. I think— I don't want to say God needs that because we know God doesn't need us, but let's just be honest. I mean, we the church are Plan A, right? There is no Plan B. I don't know why. Don't ask me why. Yeah, if you and I were God, probably Jesus wouldn't have been born in a manger, right? Probably would have been born in Rome in Caesar's palace. Like, let's do the Moses thing here where we get Moses into the Pharaoh's palace. Like, why, why wouldn't you? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not God. All I know is these dirty, untrained Ordinary fishermen were the ones chosen to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and to prophesy, and to spread the Gospel. And thousands responded. All I know is, a former murderer of Christians, Paul, was chosen. Saul was chosen to become Paul. That's all I know. I don't know why sweaty, dirty fishermen are the ones that are at the root of this. It's not for us to really say. It is just— it is what it is. We are Plan A and there is no Plan B. And Peter kind of affirms this. The teachings on gifts affirm this. Like, why teach about gifts if we aren't supposed to understand our role in things? In 1 Peter 4:10, Peter says there's a wide variety of spiritual gifts available. A wide variety. Okay, well, when I go to a restaurant and if that restaurant says we have a wide variety of menu items, if there's 7 menu items there, I'm not thinking that's a wide variety, right? I'm thinking like, oh, okay, I thought you said this is a wide variety. All right, I'll have the number 6, I guess. Eat the meal, take off, thanks, give a decent tip, whatever, but you leave there thinking, wide variety? A lot of spiritual gifts tests end up with 7 spiritual gifts. Which 1 or 2 do you have? Well, I think computer programming is a gift. I think there's a wide variety of spiritual gifts. I think when 1 Peter— that's a New Living Translation, you know, to each their own on that. But I think they're onto something there where spiritual gifts aren't just like lumped into 7. I think that our unique creativity Manifests in the form of these gifts, and we need everybody to reach unreached people. Raynor reminds us like we're made in God's image in order to create, and some of your ideas could start a church where none exists. Some of you will start things that sort of resemble capital C Church— a congregation, a gathering of people with a purpose. It's not happening on a Sunday. There's not a guy in a suit walking down the middle of the aisle taking an offering or handing out little tiny cups of communion juice and little crazy mass-produced squares of who knows what that are supposed to be communion. Like, but it might be something else. It might be like in my instance, you know, a discipleship initiative sprung forth from a homeschool cooperative that I'm a part of. And as time has gone on, I realized this isn't their church. This isn't a church, but it is a gathering of believers who want to grow in their faith. And they do. And some of them go on to do things because of their time in that cooperative. That was a big part in nudging them to move beyond just a regular life and into missions or disciple-making. And, uh, you know, as I look back in my life, what I've been a part of, it's like, yeah, this homeschool cooperative that I Innovative and creatively, like, like a chiropractor, you know. I took this thing that was mostly academic and pretty, pretty okay, not great, and, and like, hey, this could be a great discipleship initiative. A little chiropractic adjustment there, but that innovation and creativity led to like, I should teach a Christian discipleship class, and you know, I should create a chapel experience for these homeschool students. Suddenly, like, now we have— You know, I just looked at a survey that I use every term when I teach this Christian discipleship. You know, there's like 85 students on there that I've got to teach discipleship skills to through the Discovery Bible Study. You know, and it's like, that's a lot of people in 4 years. A lot of youth pastors don't get to work with that many people over a 4-year period. There's a lot of paid youth pastors that, you know, with benefits, bring in $50,000 to $70,000 a year, and they're reaching about 40 to 60 kids. Kids. Sometimes it's like 15 to 25 kids. I'm not like counseling them or meeting with them outside of this, but the Lord has definitely like done some things through this. And in our area, the homeschool cooperatives are pretty lukewarm in terms of their faith. There's a lot of sports focus, and there's a lot of trying to be normal by doing things that the public schools do, and there's not a lot of like intensive Jesus disciple-making type things. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, maybe you're going to start something new to reach unreached people, or maybe you're going to reinvent something from within, you know, from within an existing context. But let's just take it all to heart and pray for the vision to serve the nations together using our individual wirings. But yeah, I mean, I have sent— I haven't sent out, but I've encouraged, and I could— I can see probably 15 or so that have gone to unreached people groups to make disciples, and a good chunk of it I think comes from some of the disciple-making activities that I've helped them be a part of at this homeschool cooperative that I reimagined, you know, so I am serving the nations together with them as they go. I'm the sender, I guess. I'm the one that sends. And they're the one that goes. And so we're all a team, you know, and we all need to be creatively making this happen prayerfully. So in our discussions, you'll connect all of this. You're gonna connect this Rayner's view of creation to ministry strategies. So it'd be great to see your thoughts, and make sure you support each other by getting into the responses. And next week we'll tie More empathy to disciple-making. So keep the ideas flowing and make sure you reach out if you have any questions. And just remember, when you're part of this class, when you're prayerfully engaging, you are building something eternal. Every effort that you make in this class this week, it just moves you closer to understanding the Lord and his mission. Is that because I know what God wants to do in your life exactly? No, it's not. me doing it. What I mean is, if you're getting into alignment, you know, if you're getting into that alignment with God's wired me for something special, he wants me to innovate and create so that the unreached peoples can be reached, so he can return, right? It's exciting. And so every effort that you make is moving us collectively there. And so I hope that, uh, I hope that you finish strong, and I wish you the very best. And reach out with questions. All right, have a great week.