S6.E7 - Walking in Unity

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Leadership Lessons Podcast. This is episode eight as today we're going to talk about walking in Newly. Did you know that Psalm 133 tells us that we are blessed when we walk in Newly.

[00:00:18] That the Lord actually commands a blessing when we walk in Newly. This is something that I found to be so helpful, so good, so incredible in my life to have other brothers and sisters people that I could unify and be walking along in this

[00:00:33] venture of faith, following Jesus and leading his church. It is so helpful, so fruitful and if it's good and me so much blessing in my life, I'm drinking the cool aid my friends.

[00:00:43] I'm not just a preacher of it, I am a practitioner as many of you all know even merging and uniting two fellowships in the process right now, creating a culture to be better together over at Calvary Chapel, the Palm Beach is I love God's bride, the church and

[00:00:59] I am so blessed to be able to have a podcast where I can minister to other church leaders and to be unified. Now listen, Unity does not mean uniformity. We are all different, there are different tribes, different listeners, different theological

[00:01:12] backgrounds that are listened to even this podcast and serve Jesus that have many different interpretations of Scripture but I find authority comes from Jesus who is the head of the church, his word giving us that insight and wisdom and we walk together to bring him glory.

[00:01:28] I love when we walk in Unity, Jesus actually is pleased because he prayed for that in John 17. And so it's such an important aspect of being a church leader to understand that I am unique

[00:01:43] and yet my uniqueness sometimes can cause friction or tension because other people think differently than me but guess what, through love, man it covers a multitude of sin and it helps us unite.

[00:01:54] The gospel united us to the Father, united us to one another and we are baptized through the Spirit in the capital C church. And so I love being able to talk about Unity, walk in Unity and I think it's so important

[00:02:07] in our walk with Jesus Christ and serving His church because there are so many beautiful aspects of the church that we need to understand and be a part of and just to appreciate.

[00:02:19] So this episode is going to be talking about walking in Unity and I have a couple of like-minded brothers on this podcast, Billy Alguroon, Sean Allen, and Eddie Copeland. Eddie Copeland will start with the leadership lesson today. He is the director of church united here in South Florida.

[00:02:38] They have a mission to connect, collaborate and celebrate churches in our area and we see God move in many and mighty ways through this network of local churches connecting, scall-abbrating, celebrating for the sake of the gospel to help people in our area and share

[00:02:57] the gospel and be on mission together. And so Eddie is a dear friend, he is the director of church united which is growing exponentially in example to our nation and other areas in this world of how to partner as churches for the sake of the gospel.

[00:03:14] I was recently with Eddie and Brian Brookens, and a car ride from St. Augustine. My friend Billy, who you're going to hear, a one piece of advice in this episode, he actually is on the board of uniting people up in Jacksonville, County and that city,

[00:03:29] St. Augustine that whole area. They were having a big meeting there, a rally so we went up to drive a eyedrobe up to go support him, spend time with him and Eddie and Brian was able to drive back down

[00:03:42] to South Florida and spend a handful of hours with him just hanging out dreaming and talking about all that God has done. As we've had a posture of humility and to try to unite churches and church leaders together

[00:03:55] for the sake of the gospel and the answer Jesus prayer. It's just so cool and encouraging to see one how hard this is to do but also how rewarding it is to do.

[00:04:06] To be able to walk in unity and so Eddie is going to share a little bit about that with this leadership lesson in this episode. He's not again just a preacher, but a practitioner.

[00:04:17] Yes we were at this one event but we also are all local pastors, church planners and people that really have desired to truly connect with people, collaborate with other church leaders and celebrate. So it's so encouraging to hear.

[00:04:33] I want you to check out churchunitedfl.com and just be inspired by how God has worked in South Florida but God is not only working here in South Florida to unite churches together to walk in unity but throughout our nation and our world.

[00:04:49] I see God moving through networks and through relationship because of Kingdom of God is relational and so I'm really connected and glad that God has connected me to a guy like Eddie, two-gall like Sean, Arbili and these friends through this ministry of EE leaders

[00:05:04] to be able to bring you some wisdom on how to walk in unity. The importance of it. Why we do that and the great benefits of that. So here without further ado is Eddie Copeland, the director of church united and he's

[00:05:18] going to talk to us in his leadership lesson about the power of unity. Hey guys, Eddie Copeland here, Executive Director of Church United, a church unity movement here in South Florida that's part of the larger story, the larger ecosystem with the National

[00:05:35] Christian Foundation of South Florida where we're pursuing the question what would it look like when generous donors, marketplace leaders, churches and ministries could catch a vision of a unified capital sea church that's pushing back the darkness into this region here in South Florida.

[00:05:51] But as we talk about a leadership principle or something that I just want to unpack with you all today is what does it look like to actually connect and collaborate for the sake of mission in your region? Just share a little bit of the story of church united.

[00:06:07] About eight years ago, we had two high-profile moral failings happen in the life of the church. We had two large church senior leaders, not just morally fall but I mean morally fall. If you catch what I mean and that same year for other pastors actually morally fell,

[00:06:25] they just weren't as well known and we pulled together some of the leading pastors in like I guess you'd come Christian influencers that I hate that term will come back to that in a second.

[00:06:34] But we pulled them together and we said like there's something happening in the soil that is causing these moral failings and it's not just bad behavior, it's not just poor governance. What we discovered was at our core where isolated were alone.

[00:06:52] We actually don't have a lot of friends that we deeply connect with in ministry. You don't have brothers and sisters in our lives that are kind of doing the journey and going alongside us asking hard questions and in that we start to view each other as competition.

[00:07:08] We start to view each other not as co-waverage which we were designed to do and I'll never forget this a few years ago in that meeting when we had those pastors and ministry leaders

[00:07:17] just kind of asking the bigger question of what's going on here in South Florida, something incredible happened and I'm not the most charismatic guy but the Holy Spirit showed up in a really powerful way.

[00:07:29] But a couple guys just start opening up going hey man like if I'm honest like when I pass by your church I don't pray for it. In fact like I get mad and angry inside about the people that I know I've lost to your

[00:07:41] church and a couple other guys started to share similar stories and then something really cool happened one guy just let out in repentance and in tears just looked at this other brother and said I've wronged you I've wronged your church I've spoken ill of your

[00:07:56] church and what happened into that moment sparked an incredible unity movement that is today church united and we had no intention of starting this gospel city movement this unity movement at the time but we realize that when God shows up in the context of relationships

[00:08:14] when we enter into relationship with other pastors and ministry leaders and authentically share and just be vulnerable and go I need you in my life and you need me God will show up and it's interesting if you look at Jesus' prayer just 24 hours before his death in

[00:08:35] John 17 if you've ever heard a unity you know sermon or you know there's some guy like me and probably in your city that's like we should work together and they're probably quoting John 17 and they're saying something like this we need to be one just as you

[00:08:48] and your father are one and we tend to stop there. We tend to forget that verse actually goes on again this is Jesus just 24 hours before his death and that verse goes on to say so that the watching world will know and believe in me

[00:09:05] in Jesus Christ. You see the way that we relate to one another the way that we speak of one another the unity of the church is perhaps one of the greatest apologetics that we can offer

[00:09:17] to our lost friends, neighbors, co-workers and cities that God has planted us and it was designed to be this way and I'm sure if you're a pastor if you're a ministry leader it's a

[00:09:29] likely that you've had some experience with death. You've sat with people that are close to dying, you've probably been in hospital rooms as people are taking their last breath and I promise you there's not a single time where the person that was so close to death was like

[00:09:45] hey where'd you go on vacation again or like nice shoes nice watch like let me tell you about some superficial thing no no no they're talking with you about their legacy the things that

[00:09:55] either want you to remember them by maybe the things that they're repenting of and this is the mindset where we find Jesus in the garden of Gisem and he when he's praying for you and I

[00:10:07] fellow followers of Jesus Christ he's praying for us and he's not telling us about anything superficial he's not even given us a life principle this isn't the sermon on the mal. This is I believe

[00:10:19] Jesus sharing his heart as he's pleading with his father that we would be one just as he and his father are one so that the watching world will know and believe in Jesus and I don't know about

[00:10:33] your region but here in South Florida only 3% of our population identifies as a committed follower of Jesus Christ or an evangelical Christian 3%. So we can either continue to view each other as

[00:10:47] competition to speak ill of one another or go I don't like that church they do this I don't like this church they do this maybe they baptize this where have this view of the end times

[00:10:56] guys like we need to come back to we need these churches we need these ministries not so that we can sing kumba ya not so that we can go gather and rake leaves together or go bless schools so that

[00:11:11] we can demonstrate the heart and love of God our Father and speak about Christ in our regions. You see unity, collaboration, centers on evangelism it centers on evangelistic mission and to quote a friend Nicky Gumbel founder of Alpha just hand down here in South Florida we love

[00:11:34] those guys we love HTB we love Alpha but I will never forget something that he said once in a small group setting you speak into a group of pastors and he goes when you do evangelism you get

[00:11:46] everything else you get marriage minister you get prison minister you get youth in next gen but when you just focus on a cause when you just focus on hey let's all go bless schools for Jesus let's all

[00:11:57] go rally around foster care those are all great things and the church of Jesus Christ needs to be in those spaces don't don't don't don't understand me but when we focus on evangelism when we

[00:12:09] unify for the sake of mission not only I think is God please not only do I think we get everything else and all the downline things that we get out of ministry we get to demonstrate to our

[00:12:20] lost friends neighbors co-workers in broader region that God is on the throne and that the church of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world it's God's plan A to bring redemption restoration

[00:12:34] and renewal to our cities and God does not have a plan B so as we think about Unities we think about connection and collaboration we do so finding Jesus into this place right before his death

[00:12:49] and I think it should give us pause to ask Lord how can I lead into this how can I how can you use me the talents the gifts the the vision that you've given me for my church for my ministry

[00:13:02] for my city how can that actually be fueled and aided by the other pastors the other ministry leaders that you've also sent and called to this city to labor alongside me because the kingdom of God

[00:13:16] will go forward in your city with or without you so maybe instead of like gimmicks and marketing and all the things that we give so much time and attention to as local pastors and ministry

[00:13:28] leaders and listen I know we need those things but maybe instead of our image on social media or how many followers clicks likes YouTube views that we have on our sermons or latest newsletter

[00:13:39] we could focus on do I know other pastors in my region do I pray for them do I know their story do I know their kids do I sit with them do we pray together do we trust God for something that's

[00:13:51] beyond any one of us and if that enters no can I just ask and implore you to go what's one pastor that you can meet with today what's one relationship that you could run towards and go paint

[00:14:03] I think we should be friends tell me your story wait what brought you to this region why why did you end up here maybe ask the question why you got into ministry in the first place

[00:14:11] and that's an interesting thing when you ask another pastor a ministry leader why they got into ministry in the first place I promise you it wasn't to run committees it wasn't to be someone

[00:14:20] on social media it would come back to either there is a kingdom problem that I wanted to solve or I felt God was calling me to solve or is I wanted to see lost people move from death into new

[00:14:32] life in Christ I was once lost you were once lost and now we have been found in Jesus Christ and that's our shared story that's our shared commonality you see our identity is sons and daughters

[00:14:45] of the King of Kings the Lord of Lords is what holds unity connection and collaboration together the fact that we're sons and daughters of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords more loved

[00:14:56] except that an approved of them could ever dare dream or imagine this is what holds the body of Christ together and this is what unites us and this is why the Apostle Paul and Ephesians

[00:15:08] 123 and if you don't kill me I'm going to quote it from the message I know so me I don't like the message but it's great it says at the center of all of this Christ rules the church the church

[00:15:19] you see isn't peripheral to the world the world is peripheral to the church the church you and I are Christ's body through which he speaks in Acts and by which through which he fills everything

[00:15:32] with his presence if you're listening to this it's it's likely that you want to see your region filled with the presence of God and the church the capital sea church is not your brand it's

[00:15:47] not your ego it's not your logo and it doesn't require your pesos that church is the means by which God is bringing restoration and renewal to our regions and that church is expressed by other churches other pastors other ministry leaders coming together and asking the question

[00:16:07] what could we do together for the kingdom of God that we couldn't do on our own you see none of us can own the lossness the brokenness and the pain of our regions alone we were designed we were

[00:16:19] hardwired to do that together and in closing I've always found it interesting that the Apostle Paul and all of his letters to the church isn't writing to the first Baptist church of Del Ray Beach floor that he's not writing to Calvary Chapel for Waterdale or first Baptist

[00:16:36] of Houston no no he is writing to the church he is writing to the people of God to the leaders and the people gathered in a specific location and he's sharing to the heart of God towards those

[00:16:49] people and towards that church and if we were to write a letter together what would we say to our regions what would we say to the church of our regions if Paul were to write a cell letter I think

[00:17:00] well we would we be in some trouble he would have some wisdom and he would have some review for us but he would point us to our shared identity in Jesus Christ he would point us back to the gospel

[00:17:12] and he would point us back to this is how you pastor you ministry leader were created and designed to live an experience ministry not in isolation not alone but together with other pastors

[00:17:28] and ministry leaders in your area but some of us get stuck I'll just share my own story right like we don't actually find a lot of safety and trust in other pastors and ministry leaders

[00:17:39] and friends I yet it the capital C church has a tendency to shoot its wounded and that's something that pastor is no a little too well but as we take a vulnerable step take a little bit of risk

[00:17:52] share with another pastor share with another ministry leader not only about your dreams and visions for the regions but about the struggles that life and ministry bring you see we're actually all jourdying through very similar things together but the devil wants to keep us in isolation

[00:18:07] but friends listen to this the devil has a really really small but really really effective tool box he's actually a one trick pony he whispers the lies into our ears and gets us to believe

[00:18:17] these lies and I think pastors and ministry leaders are so susceptible to this because when we put our heads to the pillow at night it's you're not enough you're a fraud your church is not as good

[00:18:29] as that church down the street your ministry isn't as effective of that you're nothing but blank you're gonna get found out and friends nothing can be further from the truth because the

[00:18:39] gospel of Jesus Christ comes in and he quiets those lies and it says I am enough you are my beloved son you are my beloved daughter I have given you the robes of my righteousness I have given

[00:18:52] you my identity so that now you can go into your region not only in approach the throne room of grace with all of the dreams and visions God has given you but you can run towards other

[00:19:05] pastors and ministry leaders with a boldness and a confidence to say I'm fully known and fully loved by my father, by the king of kings and because that's the reality I want to now chase after

[00:19:19] mission and vision with you fellow pastor fellow minister leader God bless you guys well we walk in unity not just for unity sake but to reach people for the gospel one thing about John 17 that prayer is Jesus told us that they'll know where their where his disciples

[00:19:40] by our love for one another if you look at those first 12 they were so different tax collector to excel it fishermen to scholars like there is all these different types of people and yet

[00:19:53] either are unified under Jesus and that's how good and great Jesus and his gospel is it should unify us yes there are differences but when we're unified and walking in love it's a powerful testimony to reach the gospel I'm super excited about what Sean Allen is doing through

[00:20:10] missional unity a new nonprofit in south Florida that he is starting here in Palm Beach County as a godly great example to what it means to be able to unite for the sake of the gospel right

[00:20:23] now he has this big audacious goal to be able to contact every single church in Palm Beach County there's over 300 to be able to say hey what are you doing for the sake of the gospel do you have

[00:20:35] a heart for outreach and what does that look like being the homeless you know ministry to singles or widows like what is that all look like and he's trying to contact every single

[00:20:45] church and then going to make a master listen a website and then get that bright back to the local church so that way if three churches are really into homeless ministry they could partner

[00:20:56] together or if another church is into youth and youth ministry they can partner together it's amazing the synergy that you get when you find other like-minded people in fact when I first moved

[00:21:08] to south Florida to plan a church when statistic I read from Barnabely was when a local pastor is connected to another local pastor in their area the statistics of them staying in that area because they're encouraged and have fellowship actually exponentially grows to almost a decade

[00:21:26] and so I've been trying to reach out with my time, having 10% of my time to the city to be able to love people and connect with other like-minded pastors people that are all about Jesus and

[00:21:37] his word and making disciples and sure they have different theological differences in me or backgrounds but connecting myself to people to build relationship and it's really benefited me because it's helped me to stay encouraged to give me perspective at how people pray for me

[00:21:54] and I love what Sean Allen is doing through this missionally unity he's trying to connect people together for the sake of the gospel hey don't respen your wills learn from this person or that

[00:22:03] person or you know what it seems like did you know that there's this ministry right here you may not even know it's in your backyard and so I just had a great conversation in my patreon page

[00:22:13] I had a full 40-minute conversation about man ministry in music he's a worship leader the capital sea church and uh missionally unity and all more about his nonprofit but I just wanted to share

[00:22:26] a piece that we had a conversation just about how unity expands our reach as church leaders and as the church as we unify and partner we actually can reach more people and I think if we want to

[00:22:39] reach people um and these last days we gotta be open to how the spirit is leading and what his word tells us to do and so he tells us to love not only love God but others and to love one another

[00:22:51] in the church and yes we're gonna have disagreements but we can walk and unity and be on mission unified collaborating and even celebrating that goodness because we're the where the brothers dwell in unity Psalm 133 says the Lord commands of blessing and so I'm blessed to be

[00:23:07] able to walk with Sean in this journey of faith that he's having to be able to start this ministry and just super excited for you to hear just a snid bit just a little bit a few minutes of our conversation

[00:23:18] now we had talking about all type of stuff but this just expanding on the unity uh it how expands our gospel reach. How have you seen local connections um blessed the community

[00:23:34] and just give us a more God story you know? Yeah so you know I think the one of the things that I've noticed is that um we often rally people together for you know short term you know projects

[00:23:47] in short term you know kind of assignments and so forth and you know what we're envisioning with community life is inviting people to kind of stick together and to carry out some of the this

[00:23:59] the ways of the partnerships that they're envisioning so for instance maybe we came alongside and helped a homeless person, a one homeless man as we did you know last year we'd get off the streets

[00:24:11] and get some recovery from his you know alcohol addiction and so forth and find a place to live well then we would have looked like for the same churches who came and responded to that

[00:24:19] emerges situation to actually sit down and prayerfully think okay well there are many, many other people like this one guy that we're trying to help and that we have helped well what it looked

[00:24:29] like for us to actually help you know many of them and so right now as people probably know there aren't a lot there there aren't really any easy ways to help somebody who is in that situation

[00:24:39] into a residential you know a possibility. So what if we would have we set around and we prayerfully used our resources our knowledge our experience to actually and this is what I mean by looking at

[00:24:50] the systemic unmet needs you know what's happening in our in our culture in our county and in the systems how could we work together to say okay there are many people like this one individual

[00:25:01] and what are some things we could design how could we pull our resources how could we pull our prayer how could we pull our creativity and the members of your church and my church and others so

[00:25:10] the next time we meet somebody that's there on that street we don't have to go searching around you know so one thing we would love to have is for you to know hey there's one number to call there's one

[00:25:19] website to go to that they are going to literally help us see every possible way our church could respond to this person that we just met off the streets that that's the vision

[00:25:29] we have with community life. Is it all of that would be you know collected together and it would be very easy to access and you wouldn't have to go like I often do as a pastor and go try

[00:25:39] to figure out okay how do I help this person you know how does this person needs going to be met when I have a very limited amount of information again I have a heart for this stuff I don't know

[00:25:48] everything that's happening until I get to go do my own research well what if somebody else has already done that research for us and we can work together to respond. Well again that interview the

[00:26:00] full length interview could be found on my patreon page I'll release it this month so in case you want to get access to interviews that I have my last interview that I just released was one with

[00:26:10] Billy Almigier I butcher his name so much Billy Almigier but that is truly how you pronounce it and he's going to share a one piece of advice me and Billy actually do cohorts for our tribe

[00:26:23] Calvary Global Network and in fact this week the week that this is releasing we are actually in California together doing the workshop on how to be a part of a cohort and just the importance of

[00:26:35] having other church leaders people in your life this is something that we're working behind the scenes to be able to have a monthly cohort for EE leaders church leaders church planners that want to connect

[00:26:45] with one another collaborate and even celebrate what God is doing we give a leadership lesson some exclusive content talk about it in 75 minutes over lunch grab your lunch we go on zoom

[00:26:56] and we're going to be able to talk and discuss these things and I've been having the privilege to be able to do that in our tribe with Billy for quite a few months now over a year and it's been

[00:27:05] really really amazing and a blessing to be able to to be able to have people in your life and his one piece of advice he talks about don't do life by yourself it is so important to do life

[00:27:19] with others but oftentimes it's so little bit hard how do you meet people you know do you have time for that it's a lot of energy and effort so I would just encourage you whether it be in your

[00:27:29] denomination your network or even reach out to me Daniel at eeliters.com we're starting a beta group to be able to connect some of you all to build community that's one of the reasons why I have that

[00:27:40] patreon page to give you more inside content but also just you can ask questions and clean from wisdom and this is help me as I've been able to connect with all these other church planners,

[00:27:52] ministry leaders, all these people that have gone before me and passed that onto you through my system of a podcast I want to be able to create a system like a cohort, a community that gets

[00:28:02] together regularly to talk about Jesus, ministry things that are going on and to strengthen and build one another up and so it's so important to not do life alone to walk in community, to be walking

[00:28:14] in unity with other people that are like-minded and I would just encourage you to be a part of a network or to be a part of a community, a cohort or in your city that actually walks this stuff out

[00:28:26] it will be such a blessing yes it takes a lot of time and work right we're all crunched on time because we have stuff to do but the reward is exponentially higher because in those times of

[00:28:35] discouragement man will ecclesiasties for when talks about how how's someone gonna pick up be picked up or keep on going if you fall down but if you have someone by your side to give you that

[00:28:48] encouragement to give that phone call to ask hey can you send me over that you know system it helps so so so so much and I've been so blessed to be not only able to lead these type of cohorts

[00:29:01] but also to be a part of them I'm gonna give you Billy's one piece of advice then I'm gonna teach you or talk to you at the very end of this episode just in a moment just about something I'm

[00:29:12] learning and growing as I personally am a part of a cohort as well so here's Billy's one piece of advice he passed it up in St. Augustine and I love this guy check out his video

[00:29:30] hey I'm Billy Amikir I'm in St. Augustine Florida lead pastor at Awakens City Church and I just want to share really I think what one incredible piece of advice I would give to maybe someone like you

[00:29:42] so if I were to go back in time and and think about really some of the lessons that I've learned and that's where I'm drawing this from I wish that I would have had someone share this with me a

[00:29:52] lot sooner in life and it's this very simple principle of don't do live by yourself you can't you can't do live on your own and I think sometimes in ministry and I think sometimes in our culture

[00:30:03] we we celebrate you know being isolated we celebrate people trying to figure it out on their own and kind of like strong arm their way but if it's a move of God men celebrate that do that with

[00:30:17] others and so maybe that's a word for you maybe for some of you out there today you've been kind of the lone wolf you've been doing things by yourself and maybe intentionally but I would encourage

[00:30:26] you man open that make your family part of it make your family part of the ministry and the calling bring friends along with you and I think what you'll find is a long way you're going to be in

[00:30:36] a much healthier place you're going to have realistic expectations as opposed to unrealistic expectations and then hopefully you're in the game a lot longer because I think the more people you have doing life with you as a ministry leader and or pastor the longer you're going to be

[00:30:53] in ministry and let me tell you as a pastor and as a minister you don't retire you just have different seasons so we always need people in our lives so that we can do life with.

[00:31:04] Well thanks everyone for sticking tell the end I want to give you a little bit of encouragement that I've found as I'm walking in my own cohort yes I lead cohort yes I have a podcast and I'm

[00:31:15] collecting all this stuff to give to you but I want to grow in my leadership and so part of my cohort and my club my tribe right now is getting my masters in training others to church

[00:31:27] plant and we be right we revitalize churches through new covenant international university. The reason why this is on my head is because I was actually in a two hour cohort meeting today

[00:31:36] which was fire it was amazing we just so happened to have the board president of the university being our cohort Bob Doctor I should say Dr. Bob Abrinson the board president be able to

[00:31:52] pray over us and just give wisdom and advice he gave me two or gave me I'm taking it myself he gave us two things measures of success or maybe having satisfaction of ministry at the

[00:32:05] end of your life just things that he wanted to pass on to us as students he loves church planners he loves pouring into leaders he has written almost 50 books he's working on his 49th and 50

[00:32:16] book a lot of that is specifically two mentors church leaders coaches these type of things and so he just said two things stood out to him that he wanted to share with us one have a love for people in

[00:32:27] your heart before you get into the pool pit take time to just love people to take time to just pray for them and anything that you can do to be Christ to them it's all about love he would say he was

[00:32:41] one of those guys that just emulated love just poured out love it was like when you hear those stories about the apostle John of the end of his life he would just go into a town and just say

[00:32:51] love walk in love doctor bob aberson just said walk in love guys I know that you want to accomplish great things don't diminish the power of love though that you're able to pour out into

[00:33:02] people even if they don't know that you're loving them take that time to pause to pray to think to ponder and to love them before you and speak to them and so I just I loved that reminder

[00:33:15] the second thing he said is there is no plan B if you know that God has called you then stick to it God has chosen you uniquely made you and given you a task and assignment so don't give up

[00:33:27] don't quit just love people and do what God says love God love people sound pretty familiar Jesus said in Matthew 22 you can sub up all the law in these things and so I love being able to be

[00:33:41] around people that are more experienced and maybe even at the end of their life to sum up what really matters I think sometimes when you're young you have all this bright future of head but when the experience comes and the hardship comes what really really matters what what

[00:33:57] what happened in your life that carried you through and so one question I was able to ask Dr. A. Renson was hey what has helped you keep your passion and your love for Jesus and he shared

[00:34:09] a verse which is very simple but yet so profound and true it was Micah 6-8 some of you guys may know this but it talks about sort of three aspects or things that the Lord requires of us to love

[00:34:26] to do justly to love mercy and to walk humble before your God and he said these three things are super important for him to do justly just to do the right thing how important is for leaders to walk

[00:34:38] in in Cagre. No matter what the cost don't compromise because it will cost you something to walk in integrity but do the right thing if you can do the right thing for many many years over and over

[00:34:49] and over and over again it will build trust help your leadership but it will have personal integrity leadership where you can look upon the end of your life and say I've done what I could the right

[00:34:58] thing before God and before man and it brings a great freedom and joy to walk in integrity. The second thing he said was walk in love to love mercy and he said for years he thought him it just like

[00:35:16] giving mercy to other people right giving favor and loved other people but he said to love receiving mercy from God you're gonna mess up you're gonna blow it you don't really deserve anything

[00:35:27] but you need the love of God the mercy of God and when you receive that you're able to get that to other people so powerful so true again these are biblical principles versus we even know but just

[00:35:42] to hear a God that served the Lord for many years remind us to do the right thing to love mercy from God even when you blow and we deserve something else but to receive that love from him

[00:35:54] and he says when you do that you'll be able to give that mercy out to other people like in Matthew when it talks about when she said hey if you feed the least of these you fed me right

[00:36:03] if you've given mercy to those people that don't deserve this stuff it's like you're doing it to me he says listen when you when when we give mercy we are giving it back to Jesus that's why we long

[00:36:14] for mercy to receive mercy from God those that have been forgiven much love much and then we can be people of love loving others and then he says to walk humbly you have to fight for humility

[00:36:25] he says you know you were on stage people oh good job pastor oh you written a book oh doctor and you have this certificate in that degree and all of a sudden you can just start walking and

[00:36:35] pride but you have to fight for humility God wants us to do the right thing to love mercy and receive his forgiveness and love and just to walk humbly before him fighting against our pride

[00:36:47] and the things of the flesh that come up over and over and over again why do I mention these things one because it's just awesome wisdom and knowledge that I'm receiving but to emulate and to

[00:36:57] show you the fact fact and the importance of being a part of a community that can encourage you that could surround you there is many more things I could actually learn this was just a side

[00:37:08] thought from this man of wisdom this godly man there is more teaching more encouragement more strategic planning all that different stuff from from this cohort in this beautiful time of learning

[00:37:20] an education of two hours but the reality is is because I sacrificed to be able to be a part of a cohort like this it's given me so much benefit these guys are not a part of my tribe

[00:37:31] the cover global network tribe or a cavalry chapel they are a part of multiple tribes over multiple countries in fact I'm the only one in the United States in this cohort but yet I'm receiving just insight wisdom from missionaries church planners network directors all over the world

[00:37:50] and getting their perspective and we're doing this thing together and so I'm a firm believer that we are better together that when we walk in unity and have a humble spirit about us it will be really too truly grow something that I'm benefiting even today even just that

[00:38:04] little nugget I gave you just being reminded of this so awesome so cool I want to remind you and encourage you that there are people out there that will pour into you and you can pour into them

[00:38:14] now you can walk on this journey you don't have to be alone in fact that's why e-e-e leaders is starting and wants to start cohorts like this so that you can be a part of these things

[00:38:24] not that we have anything greater to offer but we just want to walk in unity and walk and fellowship with you guys and girls to be able to help you do what God has called you to do

[00:38:34] and so from Eddie from Sean from Billy from myself I hope you know and you see the value of unity and I want to let you know there are a lot of leaders on this podcast that are different

[00:38:46] tribes different pots but I hope that you've been blessed from having women share men share from having people from south Florida to the nations in a foreign country to being able to have

[00:38:59] multiple people from different tribes in the body of Christ share their wisdom of what is happening to us and just being able to just disseminate that information to us it's been such a blessing

[00:39:11] it's so rich and so as always it's such a privilege that you would even take this time to listen or watch that's right we're on YouTube you can subscribe you can share with a friend I try to break these

[00:39:22] videos down so that if you want to share them with your team like Eddie Copeland's video or a one piece of advice video you can just send the link to a friend or maybe your staff or whoever

[00:39:33] please feel free to share this content with other people and if you want to dive deeper go into the patron page build community reach out to me to start and be a part of a cohort or just whatever if

[00:39:44] you have questions and want to just chat for a little bit and have some coaching get reach out to me Daniel at eeleter.com join the patron community we will definitely make sure we reach out and connect

[00:39:53] because we want to walk together with you in this venture of faith and so thank you so much for listening to the end on this episode it's been awesome to be able to talk about unity and how we are

[00:40:03] walking in unity and I pray that as we continue to do this together you will be blessed and you will see the hand of God and favor of God on your life as you walk with us and so God bless you guys we

[00:40:15] will see you in the next episode.