S2E3: Leaning On the Wisdom of Others

Well, it is so good to be back with you to continue to grow in our leadership together. ⁓ today what I want to talk to us about is leaning on the wisdom of others. Leaning on the wisdom of others. Now, for review's sake, ⁓ we first talked about God and how he's wired us. ⁓ it's been a very internal focus that because we're Uniquely made, fearfully and wonderfully made. We know what the scripture says, not only in our gifting, but our calling, this our personalities, and God shapes us through circumstances, through people. And it's important to know how we're being shaped by God and use the gifts that God's given us and to under recognize He loves us, He knows us, and even our perfections when we're weak, He is strong. And so we want to just be faithful to that calling to understand that. Because I tell people all the time, there's nothing, nothing better than doing. What God has called you to do. So we want to know that calling. We want to know that giftings. We want to assess that. We want to move forward that in our leadership. The next leadership lesson we talked about was rethinking our current challenges. Now, you may have a great and clear calling, but you're going to still have some opposition, right? We let's face it, we live in this world that's broken and there's spiritual warfare. We fight against sin, Satan, and the flesh. And so ⁓ there is opposition to the things that we want to do. And especially in our calling to serve the Lord and his church. And so their challenges that come up in ministry, we need to rethink or renew our mind to what God's word says, constantly ⁓ claiming the promises of God and and going to Jesus for clarity on how to think the challenges that we face. And so as leaders, we need to be followers, always getting ⁓ his perspective, his directive from the Lord. I know that we all know this, trusting the Lord with all of our heart. Lean not on our own understanding, but in all our ways, acknowledge him and he'll direct our paths. But it's a lot harder when you have to facture actually do that, right? When it's a functionality and not just a theology. And the Bible says we're blessed when we actually walk this out. And so ⁓ so far in our leadership lessons, our cohort time, ⁓ we've been talking about our wiring, our calling, walking in that wisdom, growing in that. It's been very internal. And today what I want to do and I want you to see. Is we need to grow not only internally but externally, and how God has graced us with a gift of community to grow in our leadership. And so God has not created us just to be ⁓ growing internally through spiritual disciplines, but externally through fellowship, ⁓ through disciplines of being in fellowship and learning from one another. We know that our God is a triune God, and He made us in His image, and so. ⁓ man, it it matters that we walk in our leadership like God is and calls us to and follow his ways. As he was a trying God walking in love, it's not just what we do, it's how we do it. We need to walk in love and do this in community. And so ⁓ we often say this at CGN, we are better together. We are better together. You probably know this verse, ⁓ but it's worth repeating. Ecclesiastes four, nine through twelve. Two are better than one. Because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against the one who is alone, two will withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. The Bible makes it clear that ⁓ in scripture that we should be in community. Yes, you and I, even as pastors, church leaders, missionaries, church planners, ⁓ we all should be in community. And this is a gift, a grace of God, even if it's sometimes hard. As iron sharpens iron, there's going to be some sparks, but it's good for us, and we grow in that. God doesn't want us to be alone, isolated, and to miss out on the blessing of hearing from other leaders to walk us through challenges and situations we go through. And so What I want to tackle in this video is how do we build community for our lives personally and for our leadership, our calling, the things that God's called us to? Because the reality is we need wisdom to serve God. This is what James 1 5 is all about, right? ⁓ if anyone lacks wisdom, ⁓ man, let him ask God who gives generously and ⁓ without reproach, reproach, it will actually be given to us. And so oftentimes we misdirect that. Verse and we fail to realize that God not only gives us direction and vision and wisdom from his word and in prayer, but through these other disciplines like community. And so, man, God gives wisdom by his grace through others. But we need to be humble enough to accept that, to know that. And so oftentimes God gives wisdom through community as well as our own quiet time, our personal time. Listen to what Proverbs says on the subject of wisdom and community. Wisdom and community. Proverbs fifteen, verse twenty-two says, Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed. Proverbs eleven twenty four, where there is no guidance, a people falls, but an abundance of counselors there is safety. Proverbs twenty four six says For by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors, there is victory. Now I'm sure there's more verses and proverbs on the importance of wisdom through community, but you get my point. Don't neglect this. Realize this is an asset to your leadership. People can actually bless you. They're not the enemy. God uses his body and uses people with Gifts and abilities, talents, wisdom that have gone before, and and can actually serve you and grace you with wisdom as you go to them and you glean with others that have gone before you. And so ⁓ what I want us to understand is God not only gives us wisdom through his word and prayer, but he also gives us this grace as well. ⁓ recently I put this to the test. I was in a situation where ⁓ I needed counsel. I this is a big situation. I'll be able to share it publicly soon. ⁓ but it wasn't just not dealing with me my family but our whole entire church and and I I had to ask and bring in my community and ask trusted leaders, people that were faithful, wise people that have gone before, just to input, to pray with me, to bear this load. It was a heavy load and a decision. And it was so helpful, so good. Because the weight was huge. And I find oftentimes if you're in community, the weight becomes a little lighter. ⁓ you find yourself not alone. And this is Such a good thing to have as church leaders to build a community of support, especially in times of emergency, are when situations like come up and you need direct wisdom. And so we have to build community now though, because it's when we come up with a situation or an emergency, it's too late in a crisis. We need to start now and be thinking about that now. ⁓ and so, ⁓ man, I hope I convinced you. Community matters, right? I hope I convinced you. ⁓ But let me just talk about how, how now. Some personal wisdom from me to you about how you build community and how you glean wisdom from others. And I hope that they'll be helpful as they've been helpful to me. Five things that I want to just give you. How do you do this? Number one is this you need to listen to wise counsel. Having 50 foolish counselors does you no good. Okay. When it talks about a multitude of counselors, if they're all foolish and not Seeking Jesus and and in tune with the spirit, it does you no good. Multiple counselors are fools, won't help. All right. And so we need to be careful as leaders, especially as pastors, church planners, missionaries, who we listen to. ⁓ you know, are they godly? Asking questions, is there fruit in their life? Can they be trusted? Will they gossip? This is so important to come up with these types of questions and to glean from this because biblically we know that there are multiple examples of. Of godly people who listened to the wrong people and it cost them something terrible. You remember Abram listened to his wife Sarai, Genesis chapter 16? Hey, sleep with my maidservant. Mmm, Ishmael came. What about David who consulted his commanders in Chronicles 13 and ⁓ 14? ⁓ and then he counted the people, which he shouldn't have, cost him something. ⁓ maybe another famous or well known passage is Solomon's son Rehobohem, when he started to get the rain. He ⁓ followed the wrong counsel, his young, foolish, ignorant, young advisories, rather than the wide chazes, first Kings chapter twelve, it ended up costing him losing the kingdom, half the kingdom left. ⁓ I I like this verse, second Chronicles twenty two, verse four. It's about a king ⁓ who really had some foolishness on his part, listened to the wrong people, ⁓ Ahazi. He did, it says, what was evil in the sight of the Lord as the house of Ahab had done. For the death of his father, they were his c counselors to his undoing. Have you ever had people that that caused you death? It was their undoing. It's it's you hung out with the wrong crowd. Listen, as pastors, as leaders, we need to listen to wise counsel. ⁓ so use wisdom, use discernment, use prayer. Who will you listen to? What books will you read? What podcast are you gonna filter into your mind? It matters. So be careful. That's number one, who you listen to. Second, assess your need. Assess your need. We all know that there are different seasons in life and in ministry. And so we've talked about that. ⁓ but we need to understand that things change. So where right now do you need to grow? This is ⁓ should be a valuation question, if not yearly, ⁓ every quarter. Where do you need to grow? For example, there are seasons in life when you have young kids, and so you should actually find some parents maybe ahead of you to give you some important parenting lessons. This would be great. Or maybe you're a married couple and ⁓ you're a young married couple, you should find someone maybe that year ten or year twenty to get some godly counsel of how you even con fight healthy or or have conflict resolution, right? ⁓ This is so important and good. Oftentimes as pastors, it's very typical that pastors hang out with other pastors of the same church size. Why is this? Because they're dealing with the same problems. They're in the same mindset. Someone with a member of a 2000 church has asked different questions than someone with 200 people in their church. And that's okay. That's good. We learn from one another in the season that we're at, we're asking certain questions. Have you assessed where you're really at? Do you have someone in your life that can ask you those questions like, where are you? What are your blind spots? Where do you need to grow? ⁓ right now in my life, I'm going to school. Now, ⁓ specifically for a degree in church planning and revitalization to train others in this subject because I feel like that is a call on my life to ⁓ help other church planners, church leaders, pastors, minister to them. And I've been pastoring now, it's crazy. I feel like a little bit of an old man, especially in the Calvary movement. ⁓ at 40, I've been pastoring for 20 years now with no seminary. And that's not to boast or flex. ⁓ that's where the Lord and my story has. But in my story right now, I recognize that I wanted more wisdom in the calling God's called me to. So I want to be around people and learn how do I train church planners, missionaries, to revitalize churches, to help the local church and pastors. That that's a calling. That's what I want to grow in. I want to learn. And so now, because I put myself in a situation. I assess myself. I need to grow in this area. I put myself in school for this training. I'm literally in a cohort with the regional director of dynamic church planning international all over Europe. Or in another ⁓ another guy in my cohort's planted multiple churches, 10 plus churches. ⁓ and so I'm having discussions and training and conversation, real talk, and growing exponentially because I'm around great godly leaders because I assess that's where I want to be. I want to around myself with other guys and girls that can I could learn from in this area. And so where are you at? Maybe you need to ⁓ order some books to learn in a certain subject, have certain conversations, get in in in in conferences you've never gone to or listen to podcasts. But how can you grow? Don't just don't just keep doing the same thing. Assess where you're at and where you need to learn. Another thing or the third thing that I want to encourage you in is Is invest time and resources. Invest time and resources. If you're going after wisdom of others, you're gonna need to invest in relationship. And this just literally takes effort, it takes time, it takes resources. ⁓ for example, you're listening right now. I know how busy you all are. Okay. ⁓ you're putting forth effort. ⁓ you've joined a cohort, you're gonna discuss, you're setting up a system. ⁓ maybe for some of you it's going to a conference or building relationship. in people in locally in your city, whatever it may be, it's going to take some time, effort, and resources for you to glean some wisdom. The proverb says, hey, seek wisdom at all cost. Okay. It's important. It's valuable. And it's the best way. I found one of the best ways to grow in our wisdom is through relationship. Yes, podcasts are good. Yes, books are good, but having a live one-on-one, a relationship, a cell phone, a call, a coffee is so valuable as a church leader. In fact, ⁓ having a mentor, a coach ⁓ and even peers around you, they say statistically speaking, this is one of the measures are things that helps a church plant last. ⁓ you guys may know church plants tend to fall out, not last as long or be as fruitful because the church planner gets discouraged. And no matter what the size, the budget, or the resources, the stats have said if a church planner has a coach, a mentor, and some peers around them, it will exponentially help that person last and be more faithful to the call that God's called them to. And so relationships take time. They matter. They're valuable. and so from the very beginning of when I moved to South Florida as a parachute church planner, meaning I didn't know anyone in the city that we launched our church in and planted, I've sort of had a priority to invest in relationship. In fact, I tithe 10% of my time to church leaders, to our city, having coffee, relationship, meeting people, and it's always, always inconvenient. I mean, for the most part. Okay, I enjoy it, I love it, but being a busy leader, I got so much stuff to do. And relationships sometimes can be a drag because you're just like building and building and building. But when you grab a coffee with a local pastor, when you pray with another brother or sister or family, man, if you're intentional to spend that time, you will grow. And so, what about you? How can you invest your time and your resources? How are you doing that? How do you need to adjust? ⁓ I find that it's super helpful. Because you need to be asking, I I could be in a different season. What does this look like for me right now? Number four, the fourth thing that I think that I can pass on to you, something that I've done that's super helpful for me, ask questions. Ask questions. ⁓ man, are you spending time with people? Yes. Great, awesome. Are you asking them questions? It's it's literally that simple. Like I think sometimes we forget that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should be slow to speak, ⁓ quick to listen. And so I found the best way to learn is actually to listen and to make it easy for people to speak by asking questions. Sometimes, literally, I'll go into meetings with a one sheet of paper prepared to ask questions, especially if it's a guy or a girl that I respect in leadership or want to grow in. I'm gonna ask them questions. because a lot of godly leaders, busy leaders, If you just straight ask them to coach you or mentor you, they're gonna say no. Just hands down. They don't have time, it's a big obstacle, it's relationship. ⁓ I don't know what's in it for me. But hey man, do you have you have 30 minutes to just chat? Can I get 15 minutes of your time? How about an hour? Hey, ⁓ and then boom, go right into it, ask those questions, and you make it easy for people to mentor you, to coach you, to glean and pull that out. Proverbs says you could pull stuff out of men's hearts by asking questions, drawing it out, and so. listen, asking questions isn't just for mentors, for coaches, for people that are ahead of you. Ask questions to teenagers. Ask questions of people on your team. Ask questions of people that know you, that know blind spots of you. You can learn from everyone. You can make this a culture, ⁓ especially people that are around you to see ⁓ your blind spots. I found a lot of people, they just won't give you your ⁓ their opinion unless you draw it out and you ask them a question. And so one common question I ask people, especially on my team, is this if you were me, what would you do? I don't even ask people, what well, what do you think? Because they're thinking as themselves. I I want them to think as if they had the authority, the leadership, the capacity to do something. Hey, if you were me or if you were that person, what would you do? Hey, if you could change the situation, what would that be? How did you grow? How did you do this? How did you learn? Like, ask the questions. Draw it out of people, get their point of view, their feedback, their opinion. Even when their opinion is hard, don't crush people and defend yourself. Get the information. Most people need a safe space to actually give their opinion. And you as a leader can draw that out by giving them a safe space of asking questions. Well, the last thing, the fifth thing for you is create a system. Create a system to glean stuff out of people, right? You're assessing, you're asking questions, you're spending time. Resources, you're listening to wise counsel, ⁓ create create a system. I have a pastor friend who says three things you need to be successful. One, you need to be intentional. Why are you doing the things that you do? Nothing happens by accident. You're not gonna grow in your rock with Jesus by accident, you're not gonna grow in your leadership by accident. You need to be intentional. Why do you do the things you do? Okay. Then you need to put a system to it, be systematic, which means It has to go on the calendar. It has to be a priority for you. So you're gonna know why you're doing what you're doing, then you're gonna know what to do. You're gonna put it on the calendar. You're gonna say, This is important, this is amazing. I'm gonna spend time to do it. But here's the key: the third thing, you have to be consistent. You have to have a repeatable system. Okay. You have to repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. If you're intentional, if you're systematic, and if you're consistent, Man, you're gonna find success in your leadership and you're gonna grow. And so how can you be intentional? Do you even know the why? The priority of how you even need to grow? How can you put that in your calendar to grow? Be systematic. And then how can you be consistent in those things, in asking questions, in coming to cohorts, in learning? Man, go to an annual conference, do a monthly coffee, whatever. What does it look like for you? To be intentional, systematic, and consistent. For me personally, this is just one example. It was a podcast. I know they're very popular. I get it, but I started a podcast years and years ago, and it's called the Leadership Lessons Podcast. It's through a ministry I have called EE Leaders, which is the goal is to encourage and equip EE leaders to encourage and equip church leaders. And so this podcast has been a lot of work at times, ⁓ but it actually has helped me. To learn in my leadership and to be consistent. I I'm on season six where I have video lessons just like this, where I share with people. Sometimes I teach, but most of the time I actually am the host and I ask other church leaders I'm connected with just to share a leadership lesson they could share with other church leaders. I even have a small segment in there called One Piece of Advice. Just give me a piece of advice that you'd want to share with someone else. ⁓ in fact, It actually allows me to be intentional and ask questions and have interviews on this podcast. And so, yes, it's a ministry for others. It's a public podcast. Many subscribers and people listen to it, but it's actually helped my growth. It was for me to be intentional, to have ⁓ a system to be able to interview a guy like David Guzick from Enduring Word, who wrote a whole commentary in the Bible to now speak with him about, hey, how do you actually study the Bible in this way and give sp answer specific questions that I had. Or to have a guy that ⁓ is a regional director here in South Florida, Jim Gallagher from Calvary Chapel, ⁓ Vero Beach, to say, Hey, can you give me a lesson on preaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and how that that's so important, not only for as a pastor, but for the team, and I could play that video for my team. It gave me context to learn. As a matter of fact, this is why I called it the Leadership Lessons Podcast, because as a leader, I can always learn from others. And so I wanted to have a system. I was very intentional to have a system that I could repeat over and over and over again to grow in my leadership. And listen, I would love for you to subscribe and for you to share, but you don't gotta have your own podcast to have this intentionality system and intent and and and ⁓ be consistent. And so, man, this worked for me. I I would love to hear what works for you. And so We should as church leaders be leaning on the wisdom of others. ⁓ it's so important in our lives and in our leadership. And these are just a few ideas, a few thoughts that came to my mind to help you grow and learn. I hope that was important for you. I'll recap. We're to listen to wise counsel, who you listen to matters, where to assess our needs. ⁓ where do we need to grow? We should be asking that question. We it's gonna take some time and investment, some resources, efforts, ⁓ but it's worth it. You're gonna have to ask questions, meaning you're gonna need to be humble and learn, but that's okay. God pours out the grace to the humble, right? And then you wanna create a system. You wanna be consistent, intentional, systematic, and consistent. And so I hope that helped you and inspired you to start learning from others as well. And I hope that we can glean wisdom from one another as we just talk about, man, we can grow in our leadership through learning from others.