Staff Development Meeting

- Hey, families, such an honor and a blessing to be able to speak into your life on the PANDO app. Man, from right here in McKinney, Texas, at Life Fellowship Church, what a blessing the PANDO app is. I wish I had it when I was incarcerated. My name's Logan Williams and my TDC number was 1490-218. I was in a similar situation as many of you guys, round and round and round. I could never stay out for very long. I got four numbers after that. I thought that that was gonna be just my life, my lot in life because I never could get right. But man, when I finally got ahold of Jesus and got all in, Jesus was after me the whole time. I just never said yes. I would kind of say yes, but I wouldn't fully say yes. I wouldn't lay down everything. And when I finally did, man, staying out of prison was pretty easy, to be honest with you. He is exceedingly and abundantly above all we can think or ask it's the scriptures are true. And so, man, this is my heart for, is to try to give that hope to you guys, give that encouragement to you guys, 'cause I was a knucklehead. And if he can get ahold of me and use me, he can use anybody. He can use you right there where you're at. I don't care what your situation is.

I don't care what you've brought in there, what you've done in your past, Jesus will meet you right where you are. That is a promise. And so, hey, tell your friends and family they can download the same Pando app on their phone. They can subscribe to Life Fellowship, get the same videos that you guys are getting. You can talk about it when you see each other in visitation or on the phone. Hey, would the Holy Spirit speak to you through that message? Hey, wasn't that a cool message? I like it when he brought up this point or that point. You can do the walk together. And that's the point, is we're supposed to be doing this walk together. We are not, God doesn't want us alone and isolated. That's where the enemy can attack and deceive. And if we don't have that spiritual connection with other people who can see that stuff in our lives, just say, "Hey, man, I see you going down a path that I've been down before and it doesn't end well." That accountability that I just always ask you guys to try to put in your lives if you can find one person, two people, a Bible study group to somebody that's like-minded and will do that accountability with you guys, man. It makes all the difference in the world. And so I was reading Proverb 21 today because it's July 21st.

And there's just a few verses that kind of jump out at me. Proverbs is a really good book. It's a book on wisdom. It was written by the wisest guy that's ever walked the planet and God gave him the choice, the option to, he was gonna give him anything he wanted and he could've chose money and power and riches and stuff and women and he chose wisdom. And God really gave him that wisdom. And he wrote it down in a book called Proverbs and there's 31 of them. So there's the ability to read one every day of the month and that's a good practice to do that. So this morning in verse two, that jumped out. People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines hearts. And so when I read something like that, I always try to flip it into a question or an examination of myself, like, how is my heart? How am I really on the inside? Am I thinking about God and what he wants and how he thinks and what he can bring to this situation or am I thinking about what I want? What I think, me wanting to control this situation. And only I know that. See, I can put up a front and I can say the right things and make people think that I'm spiritual, I'm doing well, I'm this, I'm that, but it says the Lord examines the hearts. Thank God for that.

Thank God for that. Because the Holy Spirit will convict us when we're straying. He will never shame you. The Holy Spirit will never shame or condemn, but he will convict. And when he does convict, it's our duty. It's our job to repent. Turn around, go the opposite direction. Verse three said, "The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer him sacrifices." Maybe you've heard the saying, obedience is better God wants us to do what is right and just. He wants us to deny ourselves. Not because he just wants us to suffer, because he's like, yeah, I just want them to not do what they want to do, because he knows that what's in us is selfish and inherently evil and selfish and about us. And so he knows that. So he knows it's better for us if we can deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him. He's more pleased with that than if we were to work an 80 hour week, get all that money, all that overtime and take the whole check and offer it as a sacrifice. He'd rather us do what is right, do the right thing. He'd rather us take a few minutes and pour into somebody, take a few minutes and check on somebody and take a few minutes and do something for him

that would actually produce fruit that would last. And I know that's a foreign concept to some of us if we're new believers because the only fruit, the only treasure that we can identify with is this here on earth, my stuff, my car, my clothes, my watch, my phone, my bank account, what the number on this screen says that the bank says I have, these are the things that we can get obsessed about. These are the things that we have a tendency because that's all we've done for so long to default back to and God says, "No man, don't store up treasure on earth for yourself, "but store up treasure in heaven, "something that's lasting." And so when we do that, okay, it's better than offering him a sacrifice and then down in verse number 23, it says, "Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut "and you will stay out of trouble." God, Lee, how correct is that saying so many times I want to just be right. So many times I want to just try to let people know how smart I am or how you've heard the saying, would you rather be happier or right? Would you rather be at peace or would you rather be right? And a lot of times the things that I do with my mouth, our mouth create the words, the spoken word creates. It creates our future. In James 3, it talks about how a big giant cruise ship can be going huge, right?

But it's little rudder is what steers it, what the direction that it goes in, the giant ship and this tiny rudder. The rudder's going to tell the boat which way it's going. Our tongue is going to tell us as a person which way we're going, it's the rudder for our lives. So we need to think about the words that we speak in. A lot of times here, you'll see it more in the word, but here in Proverbs, it's better just to not even talk, to watch your tongue and you'll stay out of trouble. - First number 26 says, "Some people are always greedy "from more, but the godly love to give." There we go again, talking about treasure in heaven. Where is our mind? What is our mindset on? Is it on me and my stuff and what I can get? Or is it on, "Hey man, how can I bless somebody?" And it doesn't always have to be financially sure. You could give somebody a pack of noodles, you could give somebody a shot of coffee, you should do that if you're able to. If you're blessed, if you have people in the world that are blessing you with money on your commissary account, you should probably be a blessing to other people. And I'm not telling you to traffic and trade, I'm just generally speaking here. We can apply that to anything. When you get out and you get a good job and you have blessings, you should be a blessing to someone. But it says that some people are always greedy for more.

So sometimes I can find myself defaulting back to that, especially when you have families and you want to get a house, you want to get stuff, you want your kids to have nice stuff, but it says the godly love to give. And then down in verse number 30, it says, "No human wisdom or understanding or plan can stand against the Lord." That's my plans, my designs, my stuff. If I have a mind that is set on the flesh, it ends in death. But my mind that's set on the spirit is life in peace. And what that's telling me is, if I'm thinking about me and my plans, I have a mind that is set on the flesh, everything that I do, everything I start, every one of my endeavors, I don't care how much I put into it, spirit. What does God want? What would God have me be? Or what would God have me do in this situation? That's what leads to life. And a lot of times it's counterintuitive to what we, how we think, because we spent such a large percentage of our lives thinking about ourselves and just looking out for ourselves. So it takes effort sometimes to live this new way. It takes having awareness in the moment as we do life to put our minds on other people. But in the position that you guys are in right now, it's a perfect place to practice, man. Perfect, perfect time to try to live these spiritual principles out. And so I want to just encourage you guys to do that. So Father, I just lift up everyone that's listening to the sound of my voice. God, I thank you for technology and that we can be standing here at a church in McKinney, Texas, and be speaking to people who are incarcerated that need encouragement, that need hope, that need life, they need love, they need Jesus. God, I pray that you would touch them, man, that your Holy Spirit would touch them, that you would draw even more people to this app and to your teachings. You're so awesome and amazing in how you move and you draw people. And so we just thank you, God, for that you're in our lives, that you're leaving 99 to go after us, that you're

calling us, that you have a plan for our life and a purpose for our life. And so God, I just pray that you would give everyone listening, that wisdom, that knowledge, that discernment of how they can practice these principles where they are right here right now in the place that they're at. God, you always have a plan and you always want to use us. And I pray that you would let some of the people know that are listening, that that plan does not start when they get out and get their life together, but that you want to use them right here and right now. And so God, we thank you for who you are and for all that you've done. Thank you for what you did on the cross, Jesus. Thank you, God, for just the plan of salvation that we can be reconciled to you. And we just love you. We give you all the praise and glory in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. And you know, I got one more question for you. Who's house? God's house? Let's give him some praise. Good morning. It is a good day to be here. Amen. All right. I'm never going to stand on their feet. I'd like to start off just by reading Psalm 100, which a lot of you know, but make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name. For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. His faithfulness to all generations. I think yesterday was a testament to that as we saw the generations worshiping. Some of them were our kids, some of them were your kids and kids that we mentor and that look up to us and we got to be that example for them. What a beautiful, what a beautiful symbol of his faithfulness to all generations. And so this morning, let's just enter into his courts with thanksgiving. Let's give him thanks for how good he has been. Let's give him thanks for waking us up this morning and getting us here safely. For the simple things that we often overlook like the sunshine and a beautiful day. Lord thank you, Lord, we are so thankful. We're so thankful for your presence, for who you are, for your grace, your mercy, your loving kindness, Lord. We will never cease to say thank you. Greatful heart soul. What a privilege we have to serve you. To be able to lift up your name freely. To be able to exalt you and glorify your name. All of my days, I want to praise the wonders of your mighty. And my comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you.

Shout to the Lord of the earth, let us see. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the words of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand and nothing compays to the promise I have in you. My Jesus, my Savior, your there is not like you. All of my days, I want to praise the wonders of your mighty. You're my comfort, my comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, all never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord of the earth, let us see. Power and majesty, praise to the King. And mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. And I sing for joy at the words of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand and nothing compays to the promise I have seen again, say shout, oh shout to the Lord of the earth, let us see. Power and majesty, praise to the King. And mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. And I sing for joy at the words of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand and nothing compays to the promise I have in you. ♪ And nothing compares to the purpose ♪ and nothing compares to the promise I have in you can't just take a minute and thank you just speak out loud how grateful you are town hall grade he is we thank your father you are great and greatly to be praised we are so grateful for your presence we're grateful for who you are in our lives we're grateful for every blessing you are good father you're great thank you lord thank you lord how we love your presence how we love to be in your presence lord thank you we recognize you in this room we recognize that you are in our midst

and we're so grateful that you chose to be here among us we're so grateful that every time that we open our mouth or that we come before you or with hearts that are hungry thirst for you you always show up you're always faithful to come and visit your children thank you lord because you're always in your presence or everything changes in your presence we are a story in you come and do something new in us lord we need your presence we need your touch we need your transformation in the glory of your presence I find rest for my soul in the depths of your love I find peace makes me whole I love I love I love your presence I love I love I love your presence I love I love I love you Jesus I love I love I love your presence recognize you in this room today where would be without your presence where would it be without your presence is everything to us it's everything to us in the glory of your presence I find rest for my soul in the depths of your love I love, I love I love your presence

I love, I love I love your presence I love, I love I love you Jesus, I love, I love Oh, and I love, come on the greatest of Jesus ♪ Oh, I love, I love ♪ ♪ I love your presence, your precious presence ♪ ♪ I love, I love ♪ ♪ I love your presence ♪ ♪ I love, I love ♪ ♪ And I love you, Jesus ♪ ♪ I love, I love ♪ ♪ I love your presence ♪ Thank you, Lord, for your presence. Minister to the heart of the people today, Lord. Minister to the heart of your people today, Lord. Come, Lord, because every time that you come, everything changes Lord, everything changes Lord. We need your presence. Come on your own words, get an express. How desperate you are for His presence. How much we need His presence, His transformation, His love over us. Pour out all of your presence in this room Lord. Pour out all of you God. We need you. We need you Lord. We need you Lord. We need you Lord. We want you Lord. Come Lord. Come Lord Jesus. Come fill this place with your presence. Come fill this place with your glory. Come fill this place Lord. All that His presence transform you. Let His presence transform and change you. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Thank you Jesus. You're the cry of a people. You're the cry of a people. You're the cry of a people Lord. We need you. We need you. Come on cry to this presence. Cry for more of His presence. Cry for more of His presence in this room Lord. I love you Lord. I love you Lord. I love you Lord. And I lift my voice to worship you. Oh my soul, rejoice. Take you in my key. In what you hear. Let it be a sweet, sweet sound. In your ears. Come on let's sing this one more time. I love you Lord.

And I love you Lord. And I lift my voice to worship you Lord. ♪ Who I say ♪ ♪ Oh, Master ♪ ♪ Be rejoices ♪ ♪ Hey, join my King ♪ ♪ In what you hear ♪ ♪ Let it be ♪ ♪ Let it be a sweet ♪ ♪ Sweet, let it be a sweet sweet song ♪ ♪ Oh, let it be a sweet ♪ ♪ Sweet, let it be your ♪ ♪ Let it be a sweet ♪ ♪ Sweet song ♪ ♪ In your ears ♪ ♪ Take control ♪ ♪ Like me ♪ - I love that. ♪ In what you hear ♪ ♪ Let it, let it be a sweet ♪ ♪ Sweet sweet ♪ ♪ In your arms ♪ - As Alma said, give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my meditation. Harken into the voice of my cry, my King, and my God. For unto thee will I pray. My voice shall now hear in the morning. O Lord, in the morning. Will I direct my prayer and my worship, my heart? And unto thee will I look up. ♪ Take joy, my King ♪

♪ In what you hear ♪ ♪ Let it be a sweet, sweet ♪ ♪ Let it be a sweet, sweet ♪ ♪ Sound in your ears ♪ - Lord, we just give the rest of this morning to you. Holy Spirit, direct our thoughts, our words, our ears to hear our hearts to receive. As we do it in faith today, and love for you, and love for one another, thank you for this opportunity. We have to be together, in Jesus name, amen. How good is that, huh? Thank you, thank you. Does it ever occur to you you get paid to do this? - Wow, how good it's got. Well, you can be seated. Okay. Spinning table, that's gonna be interesting. I wanna echo, as we start, I wanna echo what Trent said a moment ago yesterday was just great. So much life here and at the North Campus, I told some of you, Trent pulled up his fast car right outside the door, and after I hosted at 10.45, we jumped in his car and went to the North Campus, and just went and shook hands and hugged people and got to hear some stories. John, man, it was awesome. Thanks for inviting us over there, and just for what you're doing, you sense it in the office, and very, very encouraging. It gives me context that I need,

as I serve with you, and... But it was great, and I wish I could have stayed to hear Jackson preach, and I understand where's Jackson. Okay, getting coffee, all right, all right, so. But it was great, Pastor Matt, thank you for just your word here. So, so good, really, really enjoyed it. Let me just jump into this. Like I said, I have a lot I wanna share. I'll try to watch the time. If the time gets away from me, I'll just hit the last things, bam, bam, bam, real quick. One funny thing is, a few years ago, I did talk similar to this, but it was after I'd written an e-book, and the e-book was entitled 40 Expectations of a Lead Pastor. And there were 40, and I tried to do all that, So I've taken some of those things and some things that are just in my heart and taken it down to about 12 and I'll try not to elaborate much on all of them but I will a few of them and a few of those will just hit really really quickly but if you have some paper or pen or of course with your devices there's those 12 things you may want to jot some of those things down. I want to jump into this first by just saying I know these last few months have been very challenging for you guys and I just wanted to say that this is my first opportunity to just really have you sit and let me talk to you and say how much I realize that. I know that just knowing a little bit about what's taken place and how that impacts team members. I'm sorry first of all secondly I can empathize with you. We've had some things happen and just in all the years I've served in ministry that have just been hard and I just I just want you to know that my observation here so far is that you've shown great resilience and I'll even go as far to say great faith and great love, great love for your your leaders, great love for this church. I know how much you loved your your previous leaders and that just made it so much harder

but your love for them has been transferred into your love for your not transfer taken away but just also shown in your love for your church and for the leadership that's here now and so and I feel it so I'm a beneficiary of the love that you've shown previous leaders and Cindy and I felt the last two weeks so much of a welcome and so much love coming from you guys and thank you thank you I just can't can't express that enough. The reality is that kingdom work is hard we all have targets on our back whether you realize and wake up in the morning even think about that probably not but the enemy wants to take you out too he wants to take us out and he will take out those of influence so that he can take out more people because people follow people of influence and follow leaders so if he can take the leaders out he'll take others out and the enemy has a strategic plan and we're part of it and so that means we've got to target on our backs which just means the wind is blowing in our face many many times but we by faith have to say okay but we're going to counter that how are we how are we going to do that with what we're doing this morning with what we did just a few moments ago in worship and heart seeking Jesus and your quiet time your daily chair time your quiet times I just can't emphasize that enough is be strong in the Lord and the power of his in the power of his might I had a friend call me or text me last night and he said pass today I need a word from you he said I'm just feeling dry and I text him right back and say get your quiet time every day don't miss it and you'll never be dry so obviously you're not in the word you're not sent any time with Jesus and you don't go dry when you do that and so I then I gave you some scripture and loved on him a little bit but I want you to join with me as we've seen the enemy just try to do some things to tear us apart and even some of the team members that have left for various reasons I know you you've loved them as well but the enemy again is after each one of us but I just want us together to say devil no not today not today not here not me not us we're going to continue to move forward in faith together and I just have a sense that that you've already turned a corner the last few weeks I know there's things still in your heart things you're wrestling with but in ministry together I just sense that there's already a corner that's being turned it's probably already been was turning before I got here but I'm just thankful for that I feel that and all the glory goes to God and I just want to say thank you for all you're doing to help that you've been resilient sometimes great faith is just simply just showing up just just getting up and going another day that's what they said the Hebrew writer celebrated in Hebrews 11 is that they showed faith and it was great faith because they kept that faith all the way to the end they

just kept showing up they kept doing the right thing before God and that's that's amazing there's some importance there's some important things that together as a team that we must do and I'm a little bit of talk about teacher preacher so if you see here's something that you agree with say amen or nod your head or at least smile I don't want to try to force a smile out of you so so please just just let me know even if I say some things you don't agree with just go ahead and act like you do by faith we'll figure it out later no I'm just I'm just teasing you but there's some things that I've observed that you're doing and those things are already are what I'm going to talk about today. I'm just going to celebrate number one, things that you're already doing. And just remind you, let's keep doing those things. There might be a couple or three things that you hear like, okay, I don't know if I'm really -- I haven't maybe been doing those things, but I can step it up. I can lean into that. I also think one of the most unfair things in the world is to have a leader to have expectation of me and I don't know what he wants. I don't know what he needs. I don't know what he expects. So I want to bring some clarity so that as I'm serving here with you that you can have clear expectation and we can do this together. So I'll try to be clear. Some of you may have one question and that is like, how long are you here for or what do you do here? I know, you know what I do on Sunday and maybe even Monday, but the reality is I'm here for months and I want to bring some clarity to that, Chant and I were talking about it this morning. You've already enlisted a search committee. The leaders here have already enlisted a search committee, a team, to help search for the next lead pastor. However, that won't even start for a period of time and that's at the direction of our transition leader that I'm accountable to, Dr. Ron Mingmanis, who by the way has done this for 25 years and has a 98% success rate with churches of helping them find their next senior lead pastor that stays and helps lead them into their future.

So this is a very wise gentleman in his 70s that I love dearly that he worked with our church as we transitioned to a next generation leader and it went beautifully and so he has not only recommended but just said to Trent and the elders and myself, look, we're not even going to let the search committee start running for three months, two to three months and there's good reason for that. The reason part is we need time, we need time to heal, we need time to fully turn a corner, we need time to just get past the past and move into the future in a very, very healthy way even though I sense so much health in this church already, but from our leader who has much experience and much wisdom, we're going to do that. We're going to wait weeks before we really meet with the church committee and say, okay, what's step one, step two, step three? So just relax. What we're doing now is what we're going to do for a while and I can say I think we're a minimum six months with this bald-headed guy showing up on the weekends and helping out and so I'm here to help out and so at least six months it could be more. These transitions sometimes go nine months to a year. I'm available to whatever time line that is. So I just want to kind of bring some clarity there and if there's any questions you may have in addition to that, please pull me over to the side and I'm happy to talk about it and Trent is as well. Does that help just a little bit? Okay. And if people ask you, I think it's okay to tell them that that's the plan. There's no reason to try to hide any of that. First Thessalonis chapter one, okay? All right, here we go. I got a lot. So you ready? My clock hasn't started yet. So stop it.

Okay. Here we go. We'll do a stand-up break here in a minute if we need to. First Thessalonis one verse one, Paul, Silas, and Timothy to the church of Thessalonians and God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you. We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. You preachers in the room. There's a good three-point sermon right there. Your work or your labor prompted by love work by faith, the labor by love, your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Man, that's happening here. That's you. For we know brothers and sisters love by God that He has chosen you, just say He's chosen me. There's no doubt about it because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power with the Holy Spirit in deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. And so you became a model to all the believers. Underline that in your mind. You became a model to all the believers in Macedonia. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Verse 8, "The Lord's message rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and the K.I. Your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to say anything about it. For they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God for idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who rescues us from the coming What is it about this team that your faith is going to become known everywhere?

Or what things can we do? That if those things continue to happen, it will enable us to have ministry effectiveness, it will enable us to have peace and relationships, it will enable us to have unity of spirit, so we so need unity of heart and fruitfulness and even longevity in our work for Christ here at Life Fellowship. So I'm going to give you, like I said, 12 things and some are going to be very brief, some are going to give it a little bit more context to. The first one is this, and this is more of a leadership talk than it is a sermon. So I do not have a 12-point sermon, do not accuse me of that. Number one, we lean in to learn. I hope you write that down, we lean in to learn. I had several great experiences of being able to go to the Atlanta Falcons chapel on a Saturday evening before Sunday game day in Atlanta, and the only team that's possibly more disappointing than the Dallas Cowboys would be the Atlanta Falcons. Our current senior pastor is a huge Falcons fan, and he was asked to serve as the assistant chaplain for the Falcons for a number of years, Pastor Daniel. And Pastor Daniel would invite me from time to time to come and do their chapel service on Saturday night. And the first time I was there, it was just amazing. We were in a room similar to this, a little conference room in a hotel, and they were sitting there, and they would have their notepads out like many of you have, and they would lean in. And it was almost like, okay, I can't wait for the next word. And I'm like, wow, they were really excited that I would come and speak to them, or they really want to hear from me, and I quickly realized that is not what they're doing. But they had been taught and trained as world-class athletes that when we have a team meeting, you better not miss a word. You better not miss an assignment, because Sunday is game day, and there's millions of dollars on the line, not just for others, but for you as well as the player. So they had been taught to lean in to those meetings, and so I took that away, and I can't

tell you how many times I've talked about that, and how many times I have tried to model that, when I'm sitting in rooms like we're in today, or when I'm sitting on the front row on Sunday morning, or a service on another night of the week, or whenever, leaning in and making sure that what is being said, that I'm capturing to the very best of my ability, because you know what, they knew that Sunday matters. But what happens on Monday matters for Sunday, and so that's my word as we start today. Lean in, lean in to learn, lean in to take it in, and then we're going to do the second thing, and that is we're going to model the way for others. And when you as leaders lean in and listen and learn, others will see that, and they'll say, you know what, I want to learn and lean in like my leaders are doing. As you're taking notes, you might want to write this down. Rarely will a people rise above their leaders. Rarely will a people rise above their leaders. They're just something about they can see where you're at, and they will try to get there. Now some are just aggressive spiritual people themselves, and spiritual leaders themselves, and they might get there quickly, or they might rise above us. I want to challenge you to not let anybody rise above you, but as a leader, lean in and learn and grow and seek the Lord with all of your heart, might, and soul and strength, and be the kind of leader God has designed you to be and called you to be. When you lean in, my point is others will lean in. When you worship, others will see you worship, and they will not only have a desire to worship, they'll want to follow you in your worship. I've had the privilege of being a worship leader in my past, but I still feel like I am, because others are seeing, and they're following, and so there's eyes on you when you gather in a worship experience in a place. People are watching you, John. People are watching you, Logan. People are watching where you are and what you are doing, and if I can encourage someone to worship my Jesus with the heart that I have, man, that's what I want to do.

Paul said, "I'm an example. Follow me as I follow Christ." realize mauling the way is so so very important. When you speak, speak kindly, model the way in your speech. You're showing others how a Christ-filled spirit-filled believer should speak to people. Model the way. When you're in a small group, share about it. Talk about it. Because others will begin to say, "I need to be in community as well." Needs are being met in community. It's a simple and powerful truth that when the life team models the way the life – when I say the life team, the life fellowship team models the way, what you're doing is establishing a powerful culture for others to enjoy. If you can do it, others will do it. Your leaders, your influencers, you model the way. No pressure. Sure, there's some pressure. There's some pressure in being a leader. God wants us to get this right with Him. And if we don't, we confess our failures and our sins and He's faithful to forgive us and get us up and start again because we will miss it. But God is faithful. One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves today, and I think regularly, is this. If everyone in this church, a life fellowship, did just like me, what kind of church would we have? If everyone did just like me – you can go down the list – all the different ways that we live and behave and live out our values – if everyone did just like me, what kind of church would we have? Well, some of you might be thinking, "Man, it'd be awesome." Some of you might be thinking, "I'm not sure." But that question challenges me.

It's a fair question to determine how and why we do things. So we lean in to learn, we model the way, and number three, and I'm just going to touch on this. We fulfill mission. As I wrote this down and started thinking through it, I realized that this is really a separate talk all on its own. So I'm going to kind of say this for later, but I will say this. We fulfill mission because mission is about the main thing. It's about the main thing. It's really why we get up in the morning. And if we're doing things that never come back to our mission, and we're spending all of our days doing things that really are not attached to the mission, then we're really missing it. It's about more changed lives. I think I've seen on the website, and it's got to be more than a website slogan, but we're addicted to change lives. We used to say more changed lives. We just want to see more changed lives, which includes no God, fine freedom, discover purpose, make a difference. So all that's a part of that. So I said I wasn't going to talk about it because I'm going to save it for later and I am, but we have to fulfill mission. And that's what we do when we get up in the morning. All right, number four, things that we do. We have great attitudes. Say amen, Pastor Dave. That's a good place. Amen. We have great attitudes. And you know what, you have that. At least you're just faking it or you're acting different because you got a guest kind of here. Listen, officially, I'm no longer a guest as of today, all right? So just be you, but I know behind those smiley faces are great attitudes. Everybody's been so nice and I've loved being with you. Here's what I know.

You can have a great attitude and then something happens because stuff happens. You can have your time with Jesus in the morning. You can be driving to the office and on the way. You get a text. You can call somebody, "Oh, stuff happens." It just does. We heard that it doesn't impact Matt when somebody does something out on the highway, but it just does. And as church leaders, we sometimes have to, in fact, oftentimes we have to get involved with other people's stuff. So now we've taken on burden that somebody else has or the frustration or the problems that they're carrying and it affects us. Their mess becomes our mess and it happens. But we choose a great attitude. Attitude is a choice. Two men looked out of prison bars, one saw mud, one saw stars. It's a choice. I was meeting with Leslie last week and she said, "I choose joy. I choose joy." That's my choice. I want to walk in joy. It doesn't mean that when things are going bad or we've had a tough day or we've taken on other people's stuff, stuff happens. It doesn't mean that we have to fake it and act like we're happy when we're not. But I think it does mean sometimes we have to faith it. Faith that by faith, I choose joy today. By faith, I'm going to have a great attitude today. By faith, I'm going to walk as Jesus would want to be. Forgiveness should happen fast for mature Christian leaders. We do not carry offense. I'm just going to tell you right now, I'm very hard to offend. I just am. I'm making myself hard to offend. I'm going to choose to forgive fast and we're going to move on. Now you could say something about something that I'm probably like. But now I'm not going to live with offense. And if something happens, I'm going to go to that person and we're going to talk about it. We're going to have prayer together. We're going to work through it together.

We address offense as team members at Life Fellowship. We address offense with Jesus. And then we go and when necessary address it with the person that we need to address it with or maybe we need to talk to somebody else about help me walk through it. I'm struggling. It's okay to struggle. You don't have to struggle alone. So address it with somebody else. Those are things that we do. And I just think that if we carry within us the spirit of Jesus, how can we carry within us an unforgiving spirit? It makes sense or a bad spirit or a bad attitude at the same time. We can't. So conversely, number five, we also show appreciation and show gratitude. And we do that. We show gratitude and appreciation. And we start, I think the best place to start is right here with each other. In fact, in a few minutes, Pastor Trent's going to come up and we're going to have some shout outs. So get ready for that. Think about one thing. You're going to encourage somebody else with. We need to do that. And I've seen you do that already here. When someone helps you, show gratitude. When you see our church family and you see people just serving and helping and jumping in, man, and they're going the extra mile. Just show gratitude, show appreciation. If you saw something that was just extra special yesterday, write them a hand written note today or send somebody to Texas. So great. And continue to do that amongst you. Because here's what the enemy do. He'll start talking to somebody's ear and say, "Nobody saw you. Nobody cares about you. What you're doing makes no difference." And the enemy is a liar. If he's moving his lips, he's lying. So we're not going to let the enemy get the upper hand in anybody on this team. We're going to keep letting people know how much we appreciate them. Show gratitude. When someone gives you something, Trent, thank you for the coffee pour over this morning. I'm glad because I don't know how to do that. But thank you for doing that for me. It's a better cup of coffee. But when someone gives you a meal, when someone does something special, Desi, thank you for the food this morning. I think we ought to do it every morning. I told somebody that earlier. And we'll help. We'll help you do it. That's my first day men this morning. But thank you. Yeah, it's great. When someone gives a gift to you, make sure you're saying thank you. Here's what I think. When we don't say thank you for an active kindness, we're effectively saying, "Don't ever do that for me again." Well, I don't want that. If somebody gives me a gift or a bonus or something, I want to say thank you because I keep that coming. Praise God. No, we want to show appreciation and gratitude. A grateful heart expresses gratitude. Number six, it's really important. We work together. Let's face it, we're really better when we work together.

And you're doing that so well. We're just coming out of vacation season. There's been handoffs that have been given. Members taking care of one another. I know you've got this. I've got your back attitude here and keep that up. Since we have two locations, we all serve. We help each other both with campuses, even though it's maybe not in our titles or job descriptions. How many of you help Pastor John at North Campus in any way you help out in some way? I see hands going up, but I haven't seen that in your job description or your title. But you do that because we're doing this together. We're all in it together. You help Logan and you help prison ministries and all the different things. We help each other. How many of you served yesterday after one of the services praying with people, but next gen is not in your title or job description? Yeah, absolutely. We work together. That's because we're about towels, not titles. Jesus was history's greatest leader because he was history's greatest servant. And he served with the towel. And we served with the towel. I guess so many experiences that pop in my head, but we've got an elementary school, preschool back in Atlanta. A number of years ago, there was a big Thanksgiving lunch for parents to to come in and have Thanksgiving meal with their kids. Whatever and the trash was piling up. I saw the trash came piling up So I just walked over and I just picked up a couple bags of trash bagged it tied it and carried him out Our preschool elementary director still talks about that I'm like I took out the trash. I do it every week at home. All right But but she was like man a senior pastor. It's just you know, he loves Jesus He takes out the trash. No, we all take out the trash That's what we do. It doesn't matter. We just jump in and help where we can We work together to serve the Two locations and two campuses, but we also work together to do do the serve days and to do the pursuit nights and do the next-gen Sundays and the big events we all my point is we all must have a whole church mentality that Just means I'm here to serve the whole Not just my area and your area is important. Stay focused there. Stay in your lane But step out of your lane and serve everyone else as well That's what we do and those are Paul's words in verse three that that I read earlier We remember before our God your work produced by faith and your labor prompted by love for each other

I'm thankful for that All right, the next one is bigger. I almost feel a little bit more time on the next one number seven How are we doing on time? We okay? I'll try to move quicker. All right number seven We serve at the highest possible level. We serve. That's the first thing we serve But we do it at the highest possible level which means we attempt to make whatever we're doing the best we possibly can at the highest possible level and we do that within the time that we have and The budget that we have and we I thought I get out of there I was waiting on that one right there and we do it all for the glory of God Some some have said it this way and I love this. This is what our one of our value statements used to say We've changed it a little bit, but it is this excellent honors God and inspires people Excellent honors God inspires people But what that means is we're just going to give God our best We're going to do what's expected and then some we're going to kind of do it above even what might be Expected and I just call that the highest possible level whatever that is from caring for people and serving people To the audio video lighting to the facilities and maintenance to the music the worship to to next-gen to digital Communications into anything and everything that represents Jesus a life fellowship. We do it at the highest Possible level. I see that here already You were doing it before I ever showed up and draws people people and inspires people that lets people see You know, but this is a place I can bring my family and I can feel good about it And when you see something that needs needs repaired needs cleaned or out of place I know there's some process of who you let know and all that but you know what if it's mine or just jump in and do it Yourself just pick it up clean it up if you can If not say something for sure and you obviously are doing that Highest possible level is also seen in how we serve people the people who walk in our front doors and how we care for them personally The people you were praying with yesterday the families you were talking to you were serving them at the highest possible level How we serve those people who come in the front doors with excellence the people we speak to on the phones How we're talking to whoever calls in it might as well be the governor of the mayor because we're gonna treat them and serve them with respect and love at the highest possible level With great respect That's excellence. That's what we do That's who we are and practically speaking if I could say when people email us you probably already do this

We try to email them back same day as if possible or text them When they call us we call them back We must do what Jesus did we must treat the poor And the marginalized as the most important people in town I haven't seen a lot of people I haven't seen a lot of poor people at live fellowship, but They're here. I've had at least one or two people in the last couple weeks come up to me and I thought okay, they're struggling But I wanted to treat them like they were the most important person that came in the building that we can We've got to have the Jesus heart and the Jesus mindset And so this is what we don't do We don't make ourselves unreachable We don't make ourselves untouchable Or we don't seem that like we're always too busy for people Mark was sitting near the back and he introduced myself or he introduced himself. And he said, "Would there be maybe 10, 15 minutes "I could get from you sometime? "Just to kind of talk about where my life journey is "and where it's going?" I said, "Mark, I would love to do that." And we'll figure it out. And I suggest a couple of times that it wasn't gonna work for him. It wasn't gonna work for me, but I said, "We're gonna do that." And I've got Mark's name and I'm gonna make sure the Mark and I get together. And I don't know Mark from anybody, but Mark matters. You had people like that that you talked to yesterday

and there's somebody that may be popping in your mind right now that you know what? I need to text them today or I need to write a handwritten note or I need to do something to let them know that I saw you, I heard you, and you matter to me. And we can be so busy about so many other things. The thing that really is the most important and it is our mission, is that people matter to God and they need to matter to us as well. And I believe you're doing that. I love how this team has a Daniel 6'3 spirit. It's coming up on the screen and I'll just highlight it. It says, "Then this Daniel distinguished himself "because an excellent spirit was in him." I love that. And you have that as well. All right, can we keep going? All right, this was a little heavier. Say, "It ain't heavy, you're my brother." No, no, because here it is. No break. We are all stewards of God's money. Things we must do. We are all stewards of God's money. Everything we have comes from God. It's all his and we are his stewards. We are his managers. And since it's all his, this is how we behave. First, and you know this,

but we honor God with the tithe. That's what we do. We are stewards of his money and God says, the first part is holy. The first part of our money, his money that we're stewards of is set up. Now let me say something about this. Two things, number one. And I just think that it's important, it's really practical and it makes sense, but it's really important for us to just be reminded of. We are all paid by people who believe and practice tithing. That's where the money comes from. I had a young adult college student in our church, in Atlanta here a few months ago, come up to me and she said, she said, you know, where's all the money come from that supports all this? I'm like, you're part of our SEU campus here and you don't know that. I didn't say that, but I'm thinking. I said, well, people tithe and give offerings. She goes to do all this. I said, yeah, it's all supported that way. There's no other money that comes in from any other stream that enables us to do what we do every weekend and serve people. And she was like, and that's true about this church and most every other church. And it's true at life fellowship that we get paid,

you get our salaries from people who write a tithe to the Lord. And so would it make any sense that we wouldn't do the same? So I think that's just one of the things that we have to say right up front that we guess got to be reminded of that. The second thing is that tithing is always a faith act. Whether you're tithing out of abundance or you're trying to tithe when there doesn't seem to be enough. Now, there is enough, doesn't seem like there is enough. It's the thing we've got to have clarity on. When you practice tithing as a faith act, and you probably know this, but let's go say it, there's always enough to tithe if you're doing it as an act of faith. Why? Because you're doing it first. When you're doing it first, it's still there. It hasn't gone to rent yet, hadn't gone to utilities yet, hadn't gone to car expense yet, and it's still there, so I'm gonna give it to God first. And that's where we believe by faith, the 90% will go further than the 100% when we trust God and test God. That's why he said prove me here with says the Lord of Host. If I will not make a way and bless you and help you as you trust me with the tithe. And so that's something that we as a team have to model the way with. We have to trust the Lord.

This is what we don't do. If you struggle here or ever struggle here, it may be something. What we don't do is we don't keep the struggle to ourselves. And I say that in regard to anything, you don't have to keep the struggle to yourself. There's people here that love you. There's pastors here that love you. The pastors here that wanna help you walk through this and do that together. So just share with your pastor, share with your executive pastor, leader, myself, honestly, and why the struggle is present and we'll walk through that together. And we will pastor you, but what we don't do is we don't withhold the tithe. And it's like, why is that happening? I'll say more about over and above giving later, and then we give over and above. Now, the over and above may be very minimal, maybe because I'm just not at a place where I can do more than $5 or $10 a week or $20 bucks, or give the king about. I just, I bet we can do something. We can do something. So that's important. Not only are we stewards as tithers and givers, we're also stewards as a church staff. I think I'm gonna get an amen. I feel it coming on right here.

We're stewards when we monitor the thermostats to save dollars. We're stewards when we negotiate the very best possible price. We're stewards of God's money when we don't spend the budget just because we have it to spend. We're not like some companies that if you don't spend it, you won't get it next year. No, we'll talk about what you need next year, but don't spend it if we don't have to. Let's be stewards of what God has blessed us with. And we're entrusted by God to do that. Be good managers of God's money. And it's been given through tithes and offering. Are we okay? Did we get through that good? All right. It's practical, it's faith, it's what we believe. Let me give you a few more things we do. And I'm gonna give these pretty bam, bam, bam, 'cause we're out of time with me. Number nine, we are accountable. We are accountable. This simply means that if you can't do what's expected, just let somebody know. Let somebody know, be accountable. Accountability, I believe, has an upward flow. It's you being accountable to those that you're accountable to. And we're all under authority. We all have accountability. I have accountability.

Multiple ways. One, her name is Cindy. And I'm a counter. I talked to her and said, hey, what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this today. So I'm accountable Cindy. I'm accountable to Dr. Ron McManus. I'm accountable to the similes of God. I feel like I'm accountable to you all. Accountability isn't just upward flow, but it's this way too. I mean, we're accountable to each other. So that simply means we communicate when maybe there's times we just can't do what's expected. Even all these things I'm talking about, if there's something like, I just can't do that. And so I'm gonna let somebody know why. And the why answers the question. But rather than you being asked by somebody, how come you, that never feels good. I get on the defensive when somebody says, how come you, but man, it's easy when I offer, this is why. And everybody's like, yeah, of course, make sense. Go do it. It applies to so many areas. But I also think it speaks to our character as followers of Jesus. Number 10, I'm going fast. We are flexible.

We are flexible. Things don't always go like we expect, right? We're flexible. It's what we do. A lady asks her gym instructor, would you teach me to do the splits? He said, how flexible are you? She said, well, I can't make Tuesdays. Oh, let's keep going. (audience laughing) Number 11. Yeah, we needed that right there, okay. Number 11. We are punctual. You may want me to move to the next one to know. (laughs) I don't do this teaching with Cindy's in the audience, by the way. She's got a God lover, obviously, it just. (audience laughing) Pulling her out the door. So, okay. Here's the reality. As Christians leaders, we could all miss it at times, me included, and I'll miss it today on one of my appointments. But this, in part, is also about respect. And I just want to say that. Respecting commitments that we've made, respecting the time of others. Let's give God and others our best,

and just do our best to be on time when you can't, and you're, you know, be accountable, and just talk about it. Arrive early if possible. And then number 12. We practice confidentiality and discretion. As people of God, as church leaders, we practice confidentiality and discretion. Here's the reality. We see and hear a lot of things just by being a part of this team. You'll see people walk in the building to have a meeting with someone that it's really nobody else's business that you saw that. It just happens. You can't avoid it. I've run into several different challenges over the years when all of a sudden a spouse found out that somebody was at the church office meeting with someone, and it wasn't mine or anybody else's to share that with her, but she found out, or he found out. There's things that we hear that we shouldn't have, Remember this, just because you know something doesn't give you the right to share it. And discernment and discretion is so, so important in the ministry. Now some people just love to know information and to share information. And they want to be the first to tell someone that person can't be on this staff or that person has to change. So what I'm saying is don't be that person because that person will usually find themselves

saying something that they have no business talking about. Discretion is knowing what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to, or often in our case here, maybe not saying it at all. We practice confidentiality and discretion. That does deserve a big amen right there. I think we all know that. And then finally this one's free, this is extra, this is number 13, all right? And I'll get a big amen on this one. We pray together. It's not even on the screen. We pray together. That's what we do. We pray together. Philippians 4-6, I'll close with this. Don't worry about anything. I love this, how the new living translation, NLT. Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything to God what you need and thank Him for what He has done. Why don't you stand up with me right now and let's just do that. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Lord, thank you for this time together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We just worship you today and praise you. Once again, we say we love you, Lord. Thank you for just reminding us of these important things. These areas that will help us live together and work together in a way that glorifies you and honors you and helps us to serve people at the highest possible level, help us to serve one another, helps us to make kingdom impact for your glory and for your praise. Lord, we just pray that the peace of God would rule in our hearts that your shalom, nothing missing, nothing broken, would be sufficient for us today and in this coming week. Pray for your blessing and peace on the remainder of our time together in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. All right. You want to take five minutes or you?

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