146. Freedom to be an Effective Leader

I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority! If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got... Hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. You'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey, don't you lay your head back. I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? You better nod your head yes, are you? Come on, put it out there. Stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe if you have a cold day and healthy, probably get my balance to a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in Scripture. It is a part of the Scripture. But the defining principle in Scripture is love. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found a joy I can't lose. And thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me. And heaven broke through. From the moment you found me, I found my freedom in you. Welcome to the For Freedom podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now, here are your hosts, James Safer and Brad Martin. Well, welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. Thank you for being with us today. We are having a great time here at church. I'll tell you something that I just did, James, that, man, it was such an incredible blessing. This past Sunday, I went down to the Jackson Coliseum, to the State Fairgrounds in Jackson, Mississippi. And the Mississippi Baptists had a booth set up with a side-by-side, you know, four-wheeler in it. And they were giving people an opportunity to sign up to win it for a three-minute gospel presentation. We joined together with another church in our association called Pearl Hill Baptist Church. We went down there. We had a three-hour slot. And we had a group of 14. And in that three-hour slot, we talked to approximately 150 people. We gave 150 people the gospel. And we had 23 salvations. Amen. And so it was just an incredible blessing. You know, you're a little nervous at first. But, man, once you get out there and you get in the groove of things and people were coming up. And they were saying, look, I've heard the gospel. I'm saved. I just want you to pray for me. And I was praying for knees and praying for moms and surgeries and people were rededicating their life. It was just a tremendous, tremendous blessing. It's something that the Mississippi Baptists do is they get that side-by-side and they give it away every year. And they have different events where you listen to the gospel. You get entered in to win it. And it's a tremendous evangelism tool. And, man, it was such an incredible blessing for us to be able to do that. Man, that's awesome. I love it. I love when you told me about that opportunity last year, how you were going to be going down this year. I think that's fantastic. And I think it's an awesome thing that you guys are doing. Mine is nowhere near as spiritual as you, Brett. Me and John, he wanted to do a pick-em every week of all the football games for the NFL. And we're week six. And this past week, Brett, 14 for 14. I was perfect. Every single one of my picks was right. And, man, I was on cloud nine because you got two games left, the Sunday night and Monday night game. And I'm like, man, am I going to get this? Is this going to be perfect? Because I'm perfect so far. And sure enough, my picks came through. And so I was victorious over John this week. And it's been good. We've got a little competition going on. And so, John, if you're listening to this, boo-yow. And that's how it goes. So, yeah, we are doing well. Family's doing well. And things are going good here at the church. We did have one saved two weeks ago. And she came forward this past Sunday and made a profession of faith, which was awesome. And so that was a blessing. Still continuing to serve. We're taking a load of stuff down this week to Pisgah Forest. That's a little south of Asheville to help a church out down there. And just excited about what the Lord's doing and excited about rolling over this year. I'm preaching through 1 Corinthians right now, 13, talking through what is love. And it's been a great, great couple of weeks talking through that. So, yeah. We took an offering this past Sunday for Nathan's Church, for Hope Church Asheville. And to give people an opportunity to give to it again, because we had some people out this past Sunday, we're taking another offering this coming Sunday. And so we're looking forward to gathering that offering and sending it straight to Hope Church. If you're interested in giving to Hope Church Asheville, you can go to HopeAVL.com. HopeAVL.com. We'll post that link for you. And you can give directly to Hope Church Asheville. And you can make sure that your money goes straight to a local church in Asheville that will use 100% of the funds to help relief efforts. And so we definitely want to promote that. And so we're doing that. And I've got some other churches in our association that are given to Hope Church as well. And so we definitely want to be a part of that. We want to promote that. We want to help them as much as we can help them. Absolutely. And great things are going over there, man. There's some great opportunities. Just got word that the Asheville area, the Blue Ridge area, has opened back up water. And so water access is now flowing again. The treatment plants are able to process it. They are still requesting that people boil their water. They're cooking with it just to make sure the bacteria is out of it. But the treatment plants are starting to run, which is a great thing. The hard part right now is it's getting cold. And people are going to start freezing. And there's going to be, you know, Brett, when I was up in and I get pictures, I've got a guy that's up in the mountain, mountain areas of North Carolina. And he sent me a picture the other day of just whole villages that were tent camps, 40, 50 tents set up. People were just living in them. That's all they've got. It looked like, if you can remember back to, like, the movies where people were traveling on horseback and they'd find a clear spot of land and you'd have a fire in the middle and sort of tents surrounding them. That's what it looked like because that's all they have. And with temperatures dropping and some parts of North Carolina are showing snow this week or next week, the temperature is what's going to be the problem now. And we've got winds coming in, some strong winds now that are coming in from this cold front, which they say are going to start dropping trees and make power out just happen again. Because, again, the ground is still so wet in some of these areas that it's just going to be detrimental again. So definitely some areas we can continue to pray and continue to help and give and go. And so we are loving what we can do for the sake of the gospel. Speaking of for the sake of the gospel. That's that right there. You like that? We are right on the cusp of the for the sake of the gospel conference. It's man, Brett, I am tickled pink about being down in Catoosa and Ringgold. Brett, my whole family's coming. I think that we had talked about that. I think my wife actually she's supposed to ask off work. I don't know if she did or not. She's a loser about those things. She doesn't listen to this. So I can talk about about if I want to. She's supposed to ask off work. Me and my three kids are coming down and we'll be there for that one night. And then Brett, you and your family will be down there. And we're rooming with another couple and we'll be down there. Schedules out Friday night meetup Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon sessions, Saturday night sort of a meetup again. And then Sunday morning, JC will close it out at his church. Man, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be a blessing to be down there. I can't wait. We're going to try to record a little bit while we're down there in person. Maybe even record some video stuff we're talking about, possibly doing a little funny skit. And man, I'm pumped about that. And I hope you are as well. But we hope to see you down there. It's no cost. All you have to do is provide your lodging and your food and have a great time of just fellowship, worship together with family. And I know you're going to enjoy it as well. Brett, man, I hope you're looking forward to it just as much as I am. Oh, man, I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to be there. I'm excited. JC locked down the old Greg Locke to preach. Amen. And, you know, he's going to hand out a posse. You know, instead of honorary doctorates, he's going to be handing out apostleship certificates. Let's go. So we can get our apostleship there. So that'll be awesome. I will be hanging that on my wall, too. Oh, yeah. Bestowing the gifts upon us. Let's go. And so we are looking forward to being there in Ringgold, Georgia for the sake of the Gospel Conference. We look forward to it every year. Yeah. Well, Brett, what is our topic today for our episode? We are going to be talking today about the subject of effective leadership. And in fact, we have 12 qualities of effective leadership that we would like to give you. This comes from a book called Being Leaders, The Nature of Authentic Christian Leadership by Aubrey Malfers. And not just pastoral leadership, but this is any type of Christian leader in a church. Let me start out by giving you this statement before we get into the rest of our outline today. In the context of, you know, a pastor leading in a church and church members leading in a church, here's a statement right here. A pastor, and I want you to think about this, James, and I want you to tell me your take on this quote. A pastor serves by leading. Everybody else leads by serving. So I'm going to say it one more time. A pastor serves by leading. And everybody else leads by serving. You know, because it's the pastor's job to equip people to do the ministry, not to do the ministry by himself. But it's the people that actually do the work of the ministry. The pastor, he serves by leading. Like his job is to be the leader of the church. But everybody else in the church, when they, you know, when they serve, when they stand up to serve, then they become a leader by them serving. What do you think of that? Yeah, I agree with it. I think that a good practical illustration of this would be Moses, one of the great first leaders that we have in the Bible. Moses led the children of Israel by serving them. He went before God. He prayed. He got away. He sought the Lord. He sought wisdom from people that are around him. He led them. And then they had to do the work. They were the ones that were serving the community. They were the ones that were serving one another. And that was their, that were their way of leading was by serving. And so I agree with what you're saying. And I think that you can look through effective leaders throughout scripture. And you can see that all throughout scripture. There's got to be someone that's casting the vision. We're going to talk about that. And if you've got a hundred people casting a hundred different visions, well, then the church is just going to go in circles. But if you've got one main thought, one main leader that's casting vision, that's growing, that's leading that way, then others can grasp a hold of what the vision is and serve that way. Now, we will say that leadership is a gift given by God. Leadership is a spiritual gift. It's something that God gives you. However, to some degree, leadership can also be taught. Okay. It can be improved. Improve. The leadership skills you have can be improved. You can become a better leader. You can hone your talents, hone your skills. You can sharpen your leadership skills as well. In Christian leadership, it's very similar to secular leadership in a lot of ways. You can improve your leadership qualities by reading secular books. You can listen to a TED Talk. You can read a Forbes magazine and get better on leading because there is a lot of crossover. There are a lot of Christian leaders that get ideas of how to lead by reading Fortune 500 CEOs. Now, I will say, however, that Christian leadership is more nuanced than secular leadership because you've got feelings to consider. You've got to come at it from love. You've got the Holy Spirit that is influencing your actions. You want the fruits of the Holy Spirit to be evident in your life. Now, we're going to tie all these into Scripture. We're going to give you practical steps today to develop good leadership habits. But before we get to our foundational leadership through Scripture, let me just say that leadership in the Old Testament does differ from leadership in the New Testament because Jesus brought something different. Jesus brought us something called servant leadership. We didn't see that before Jesus. The Son of Man didn't come to be served. He came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Servant leadership is leading by example, and it means leading with humility. It means being a good follower. A servant leader seeks to meet the needs of his followers opposed to just gaining more power, gaining more notoriety, or becoming a celebrity. A servant leader is as much a student as they are a teacher. Yes, Jesus gave instruction. Yes, Jesus told Peter, get behind me, Satan. Jesus said, pick up your cross and follow me. But Jesus also washed the disciples' feet. Jesus said, whoever's least in the kingdom will be the greatest. You know, and so these are some principles that we're going to look at as we get into this thing of leadership. But we've got some Scripture here to go over. James, why don't you lead us into these verses here? Yeah, before I lead you to that, I do want to share one thing as what you said was we can learn from other secular leaders. And part of that in the biblical counseling movement is called common grace. We share common grace through leadership and through other advice. Doctors are there that give wisdom in that area. And so we're able to glean from that, and we're able to use that to help us. And so some Scriptural basis for some of these things, and I'll sort of read through the first couple ones, and then you can give the three steps to be a good leader. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. This is how we can trust in God, and we seek his guidance in a foundational way of our leadership. How is the Lord directing our leadership? Are we trusting the Lord with our whole heart, or are we trusting in himself with our whole heart? What are we doing? How are our actions representative of what we believe in? And how are we leading on our own understanding, or are we taking the truth from Scripture and the truth from the Lord and guiding that as a guiding foundational principle in our life? Brett? I mean, Christian leadership, when I think about this first, Proverbs 3, 5, Christian leadership, it's not about digging deep and finding something in there you didn't realize was there. Christian leadership is about hitting your knees and realizing that you know nothing's there. It's realizing that you are empty and that you don't have what it takes and that you can't do this without God. That's what it means to trust with the Lord with all your heart and lean not onto your own understanding. It's realizing that you don't have what it takes without God. And we'll never be effective Christian leaders if we don't realize that we truly do come to God empty-handed. Yeah. Number two, Brett, I think it's also important for us to understand is if you're leading an expedition and you are going to go to the North Pole and you've got your compass out and you know north is in the top of that compass, and that arrow is going to begin to move left and right, and you're going to have to readjust in order to continue to go north in your direction of where you're going. And the same thing holds true to the life of a leader of a spiritual leadership. The Bible says in John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. The word of God is our spiritual north, true north direction. And the word of God must guide all leaders and all decisions and all actions that they take. We've got to take the word of God and run everything that we do through the word of God as a filter system. And as we are looking at the word of God as our true north, if we begin to waver to the right or to the left of the Bible, well, then that point of that needle is going to should begin moving and should begin to realign us back. And we should be able to see that we're off course. We're off track. And the Bible is what brings us back to our center. Bibles are, you're 100% right. The Bible is our final authority. And we need to remember that. Listen, it's not the Constitution that's our final authority. It's not the bylaws that are our final authority, not the Baptist faith and message or the Apostle Crees. And I'm not dumping on any of that stuff. All that stuff is good and necessary, but we have to keep the main thing, the main thing. And we need to let the word of God guide us, lead us and direct us. Yeah, absolutely. Brad, a funny story about that is had a pastor friend of mine who was at a church and he was only there about a year. And he said that he was at a deacon's meeting. And one of the men, he was wanting to change a couple of things and had his Bible out and was leading some things. And he wanted to do something. And one of the deacons pulled out the bylaws and took the pieces of paper and walked over to the pastor and sat them down on top of his Bible and said, Pastor, you're not doing this according to the bylaws. And he said, well, these bylaws are just a piece of paper. They don't really, they're there to help the governing documents of the church. But ultimately, it's the Bible that gives us direction. And the deacon said, Pastor, if it goes against the bylaws, it's more important than the Bible. And he's taking a step back and he said, so when you walked over here and you put these pieces of paper on top of my Bible, you were literally saying, this is more important. And it was all done. I'm not talking about that. But all of a sudden, the guy realized what he said and tried backing out of it. And he said that he just realized in that moment that he was, there was, there wasn't a church as willing to make change. And the Bible has to be, as you said, our final word of faith and practice in everything that we do, which leads us to Psalm 119. How can a young man keep his ways pure? By guarding it according, again, to your word. This is the importance of prayer and the Holy Spirit, the daily, daily leadership tool of our life, of praying and seeking the Holy Spirit. Lord, what do I do today? How do I be an effective leader? How do I minister to your people? How do I serve your people? And using that as a way where we can guide and direct our paths according to the Lord. Amen. You know, we are too quick to forget prayer when it comes to leadership. We are so quick to forget yielding to the Holy Spirit. Listen, before you have a meeting, a council meeting, a deacons meeting, a committee meeting, any kind of meeting, you have to make sure you are yielded to the Holy Spirit. And we must not forget to do that each and every time we lead. And look, this episode is not just geared toward pastors. There are Christian, there are layman Christian leaders all throughout the church. Any layman Christian leader can take these principles and use them. In fact, we'll go right into the three steps of being a good leader. And man, we're going to sound like Lee Robertson here. Number one, word of God. Number two, prayer. Number three, the Holy Spirit. These are essential things when it comes to being a good leader. The word of God. Daily study. Meditation on scripture. Be a regular prayer warrior. You know, you intentionally pray for guidance, which leads to the Holy Spirit. You have to trust that the Holy Spirit will give you the direction. That the Holy Spirit will empower you to lead. And, you know, if you don't regularly do this with these three things, you're not going to be a good Christian leader. And I know it sounds silly to say. I know it sounds silly to say to come on here. Look, Christian leaders need to read their Bible, pray and yield to the Holy Spirit. But how many Christian leaders in our churches don't do these simple things? Yeah. They don't think it's necessary. They do maybe one or two, but not all three. And we got leaders in our churches that ain't doing none of it. Okay. But these are very important things that we absolutely have to take care of when it comes to being a good Christian leader. It is essential. And you're not going to be a good leader without it. We're going right into our 12 qualities. James, did you have anything to say about that before you take us into our first quality? Well, I think that it's always good to understand that the true three to thrive would be the word of God, prayer, and the Holy Spirit. Three to thrive. Amen. And so we. That's the truth right there. Yeah. It's not necessarily about being in church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Sunday night. But it's, it's understanding the truth of the word of God, understanding that even Jesus, while on this earth needed. It's time to talk to his heavenly father and the Holy Spirit that leads and directs and guides us is, is untold, amazing, valuable asset. I say asset, but it's a way of living in the, in the spirit every day of our life and being controlled by the spirit. And so, Hey, let's walk through these 12, 12 qualities to be an effective leader. We'll try not to spend too much time on each of them. We'll just go through them. The first one is being self-aware. Uh, this is understanding that yourself, including your strengths, weaknesses, and emotions is crucial. Humility is a key part of being self-aware because it lets you lead with the authenticity and the transparency of understanding that we are nothing. Brett, I'm actually preparing a message right now. I'm talking this coming Sunday on, uh, not being envious and not being, um, uh, boastful of yourself. And one of my statements that I wrote down by John MacArthur is this, uh, envy. No, I'm sorry. Uh, the only being in the universe that has the right to be jealous or boastful is God because he created us to love and to serve him. And we, in turn, instead of serving him serve self, which leads us to be an envious and boastful. And oftentimes in our Christian journey, we begin to take out this element of humility. And, uh, we have to understand that Jesus was fully aware of his mission. Uh, he remained humble even as a leader. Philippians 2, verse 5 and 8 says this. It says, uh, the attitude of Christ is this, who existed in the form of God, yet did not consider himself equal with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeliness of a human. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even to the death of the cross. And for this reason, let's continue on this, because for this reason, because he humbled himself, God highly exalted him and gave him the name above all their names. The name of Jesus, where every knee would bow in heaven and earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God, the father. Amen. You know, God advances his own through suffering. This is a principle of scripture. He did it with Joseph. He did it with Moses. He did it with Jesus. Okay. He did it with everyone in the Bible. He advances us through suffering. And leadership is no different. Okay. There's a little cliche, funny story out there where, you know, somebody goes in for a job interview and he's sitting down at the interview and he says, you know, my strengths are also my weaknesses. My weakness is that I work too hard, that I spend too many hours at work after everybody's went home. And it's kind of a tongue in cheek way of saying that my weaknesses are in actuality strengths. Well, for the Christian context, that's true because the weaker you are, the stronger you'll be for the Lord because the more opportunity God will have to work through you. Listen, Paul does not become the apostle that he was without his thorn in the flesh. It doesn't happen. That thorn in the flesh is what made Paul so great. And God knew that because God advances his own through suffering and weakness and leadership. And we need to be self-aware of that. The second one is respect. Okay. Respect builds trust and fosters collaboration. Jesus consistently showed respect even to those who opposed him. He created a culture of honor. Respect isn't just about avoiding disrespect. It's about valuing others' perspectives. Okay. There's a scene in the office where Ryan the Temp says, I want leadership, but don't just like boss me around. You know, like lead me. Lead me when I'm in the mood to be led. And, you know, James, we come from a church background and a culture. We were raised with leadership that did not respect anybody else's opinion. They did not respect anybody else's opinion but their own. And if someone disagreed with them or had a different take on something instead of actively listening, they would just completely shut that person down. And that stifles growth. It stifles creativity. It stifles ingenuity. And it kills respect. Respect isn't demanded. Respect is earned. Amen. You know, Brett, one of the statements that I heard, I wish I had the clips for this. And if you find them afterwards, send them to me and I'll put them in here. But the clips that I heard as a kid growing up was, bless God, I'm the pastor and you're going to listen to what I have to say today. You know, the door works both ways. You can walk in this door. I'm somebody. I'm somebody. And you can walk out that door. Bless God. The door. Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord splits you. Amen. Amen. So that's what I heard growing up. And it was this fear through respect through fear. And that's never how respect is earned. Respect should be earned through understanding that you love them, that you care about them, that you have your best interest out for them and they care about you. Which leads to the third one, which is compassion. Compassion is empathy and action. A leader must not listen, but must not only listen, but also take meaningful action to help others. Imagine here Jesus is feeding the 5,000 as an example. And he said, Jesus, these people who have followed you, they're hungry. They, they've been traveling with you and they need some food. And he says, well, I'm going to give them food. Bless God. I'm going to keep teaching them. That's the only food they need. And Jesus in that moment, if he had done that, he knew that he would have been losing people. People would have been walking away. People would have been leaving to go take care of their families and to take care of food. But instead he said, let's put them in the grassy areas and let's, let's gather some food for them. And while we find food, I will also teach them at the same time. And so Jesus through compassion met their need, even though they had been listening to him. He then sat them down and fed them. And while they were eating into their fullness, he also fed them through the miracle and he fed them through his teaching. And so through compassion, we were able to do this. And which is why compassion ministers are so powerful right now with Samaritan's purse on the ground and other compassion ministries that are serving people, that are helping people, that are helping organizations, as ultimately as the hands and feet of Christ. It's a great way where we're able to share the gospel, where we're able to tell others about why we're out here doing this. And so this is a great opportunity in so many different areas of our life where we can show compassion. You know, it's everybody knows this saying, nobody cares how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And I think that that's what Jesus was showing them. They came out there to hear him speak because they wanted to hear what he knew. But what really touched them is when they saw how much he cared for them and had compassion on them and fed them, because that's what compassion is, compassion making action. Okay, if somebody shares a concern with you, if somebody speaks up, they're not going to truly feel heard unless you take some type of meaningful action on that information. How many times have we spoke up in the past to our leadership and it just falls on deaf ears, almost like they don't even care about us, okay? It's all about part of Christian leadership is having that compassion. Next is vision, okay? Vision motivates others and aligns them with a larger goal. Leaders must help others find meaning in their work and demonstrate how daily tasks connect to the larger mission. And that's what Jesus did. Jesus always pointed his disciples towards the kingdom of God. Jesus was all about the mission. Listen, you've got to cast vision to motivate people. You, as the leader, you have to set the goal. You have to steer the ship in the direction that, you know, you want it to go in. People don't know what their priorities should be unless you tell them. You know, people, if you've got a team there and they don't know what their priorities should be, they're going to prioritize different things and you're never going to go anywhere. You're not going to make any advancement or any headway. The leader has to step up and say, no, these are what your priorities looks like. This is what a win is. When we get more of these, we get more wins. Okay, if you say, don't focus on that right now, that's not as important as this over here. That's going to be helping cast vision because they're not going to know what's prioritized until you tell them. And you want to communicate this vision in ways that people can understand, that people can remember. So your followers can go out and share that, share your vision with other people. And so vision is incredibly important when it comes to Christian leadership. Absolutely. Agree 100%. Next one is communication. If you can't communicate as a leader, then you're ineffective as a leader as well. Communication is more than just transmitted information. It is about active listening, storytelling, and ensuring that others being heard, hearing. Jesus communicated through parables, which is making complex truth accessible. Oftentimes you'll hear it be said, I think Adrian Rogers was one of the ones that said that illustrations are the windows into your message. They are the way where people are able to peer into where your message is at. They're able to see what you're trying to say and communicate. And you will not be a true leader until conflict shows up. Everyone is a leader until there's a problem. Then the leader takes a step forward. Uh, this is quoted from the book, uh, handling conflict with wisdom and grace is how we effectively communicate. Um, I'm oftentimes reminding myself of proverbs of sometimes it's better to keep quiet and let the room talk than to open up and to share things. But I'm also reminded that sometimes a good leader has to stand up and take control and has to communicate effectively. It has to lead well. Um, and so there's appropriate times for both of these, there's been times in my ministry here, uh, in this last year where there were times where a discussion topic was being said. And man, I just, I, and I, I told my, uh, even in Nicaragua, I told Logan who was down there with us. Uh, there was a time where I was, I was ready to, I mean, I was wanting to step up, but I knew what I was going to say was I was going to be the new guy on the block. And, you know, I was going to be the guy that's just coming in and changing and ruffling things up and I didn't want to, but I was ready to say it. I was, I was about to step up. And right before I said something, Logan, who was my chairman of deacons, he stepped up and he said almost exactly what I was going to say. And I told him, I said, I appreciate you doing that because you helped me from being the bad guy. Like you're the inside guy. You're the guy that's been here through all the, the ups and downs and the turmoil. And you said what I wanted to say. And I appreciate that because you stepped up and became a leader in that moment. Um, and so, uh, I appreciate those things and that's what communication does. It's able to talk effectively. It's more than just lecturing. Communication is also listening and it's being able to actively listening, listen, and give good feedback from what you just heard and not talk over people oftentimes. And I'm guilty of this, Brett. I don't know if you are. I'm constantly trying to think of how I'm going to solve whatever problem they're coming to me about. And I'm not listening to what they're saying. And I'm ready to, to say something before they're even done saying it. And my wife will, will get onto me. She'll say, James, you didn't really listen to what they were saying. And, uh, I'm, I'm guilty of that oftentimes. Yep. You know, communication is key and, and, and you've got to learn to communicate in several different ways. You know, if you're a good preacher, I'm glad if you're a good Sunday school teacher, I'm glad, but you've got to learn to communicate through social media. You've got to learn to communicate through email, through text. You got to make sure that everybody's on the same page. Everybody's on the same level. And you have to put it where everybody can understand it, which leads us into our next, uh, quality of leadership is learning agility. This is being able to respond when the path is unclear. Um, this, this is a crucial leadership skill. Leaders who are quick learners and open to new experiences are often more successful in navigating challenges. You know, uh, for instance, after the apostles had to learn and adapt quickly after Jesus's ascension. Think about Peter, uh, and the apostles, you know, in Acts two, they had never experienced that type of meeting. That was the first time they'd ever had something like that. They had to roll with the punches. They had to learn it on the fly. This, this learning agility. This is the ability to know what to do when you don't know what to do. Sometimes you got to fake it till you make it. Sometimes you got to, you got to be the one to step up and make the decision when nobody else wants to, wants to speak. Yes, you're going to stub your toe. Yes, you're going to get a black eye. Yes, you're going to get a bloody nose from time to time. You're going to make a mistake. But leadership is about taking the reins, even if you're going to get beat up a little bit, because you can't let the ship go off the road. You have to keep it true. You have to keep it straight. And so you may have to stumble and fumble and make mistakes a few times, but you know, when nobody's willing to step up and stand in that gap, even if you're a newbie at it, you've got to be willing to step up and stand in the gap when nobody else will. Yeah, absolutely. I agree 100%. Collaboration is the next one is good leaders work across boundaries and bring diverse people together. Jesus often worked across cultural lines as shown in his image. When he began talking about the Good Samaritan, oftentimes Jesus was giving illustrations of, hey, we've got to work together. We've got to go to the ones that are the abandoned. He went to the Matthew. He went to the tax collector. He went to the ones that were considered the crooks of the day. Peter, who was swindling people in his job, who was doing the wrong things that he shouldn't be doing. He went to the guys that was not necessarily the ones we would have thought to go to. He didn't go to the church. He didn't go to the synagogue of the time, to the Pharisees that knew the Bible front and back. He went to the ones that were going to make a difference. He even chose Judas, the one that was going to betray him, because he was willing to work across diverse lines. And he knew that collaboration was going to be there. He was willing to go against the flow. And this is a great illustration for us of how we can collaborate together. You know, it's never wise to put yourself on an island, especially, you know, for us Southern Baptist churches. I've got some churches in my association here that they put themselves on an island, even though they're a part of the convention. They don't ever fellowship with any other churches. They don't ever participate with the other associational meetings. And they act like they're just on islands by themselves. And what this actually leads to, me and you know something about this, is this leads to a cult mentality. Because if we don't let anybody else in our sphere, then, you know, we come over here and say, oh, well, we're the only ones that have the truth. If we then we come over to this ditch where we're like, oh, we're not letting anyone else in. We're the only ones that have the truth. But then on the other side of that road, if we're over collaborative too much and we become, say, more loyal to the denomination and collaborating with others than our standards, then when that denomination starts to drift, we'll compromise to keep the denomination together. We'll compromise our doctrinal purity. So we need to strike a balance between being right in the middle here where, you know, we need to like collaborate with other churches. But at the same time, we need to keep our doctrinal purity, which leads us into influence. Influence, leadership isn't about power, but about the ability to influence others towards a common goal. Jesus influenced his disciples and crowds without force using wisdom and love. Listen to me, leader. You cannot do it by yourself. You have to delegate. You have to find volunteers. You have to find somebody else to run the thing because you can't do everything yourself. That is the quickest way to get burnt out. You have to influence others to step up, to volunteer, to take the reins. Um, you have to use your influence to where you're not the only one who's doing the work. Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree. And, uh, you must, must do that. Number nine here, as we continue on integrity, a leader must act with honest and strong moral principles. Even when it's hard, Jesus's life exemplified this perfectly. Even in his hardest moments, such as his, uh, such as during his trial and his crucifixion, uh, Brett, uh, we've seen leaders fall recently. Um, specifically one man that I have went to his conference just recently and man, I respect the heck out of him. He's a great guy, but recently had a moral failure. I was listening to Al Mohler, given address to Southern seminary after this happened two days after it happened. And Al Mohler made this statement and he said, I don't want you to repeat this statement in chapel. He's talking to young people. He said, but I was told this advice years and years ago. And, uh, he said, I want it to encourage you. I wanted to help you today. And he says, it's a bold statement, but it's going to help you with your integrity. He said, you will never have an affair with a woman. That's not your wife. If you only, if you're, if you're never alone with a woman, that's not your wife. He said, you put yourself alone in a room with a woman. That's not your wife. You're setting yourself up for a momentary time of failure. He said, integrity, never put yourself alone in a room. That's not your, uh, with a woman. That's not your wife because you'll never have sex with that woman because she'll always be your wife. And I thought that's such a profound, simple statement. Like just, if we can just have these moments where we can simply just put integrity on top shelf and say, I'm going to be as much as integrity as I possibly can. I'm going to fail. I'm going to make a stupid mistake. It's wrong. But if I can be an integrity person and I can be an honest person as most as humanly possible, not saying to be perfect, but if you can live with moral principles and you can say, when times are tough, I'm going to trust my principles. I'm going to trust what Jesus did was enough and trust in him. It's going to help us out in an amazing, amazing way as leaders. Let me tell you a quick story about integrity. I had a youth pastor that took us on a youth trip. I actually trying to think when it was, I think he took us to Shawnee to camp at Shawnee and we went and, but he went to Walmart and he bought a box fan, used it the whole week, came back, took it back to Walmart and got his money back for it because he only wanted it for the trip. Well, me being 13, 14 years old, I went home and I told my stepdad what he did, you know, because I thought it was funny because my youth pastor did it. But my stepfather did not think it was funny. He thought it was dishonest. And it completely not only turned my stepfather off of that youth pastor, but off of that entire church, you know, as a leader, you have to do the right thing. You have to always do right, even if it hurts, because that's what a leader does. And just like you said about not being in a room with a woman alone that's not your wife, you've got to set up guardrails. Yeah. It's it. That's good advice. You know, it's good advice. It's a good guardrail to set up, which let's go to our next one, which is courage. Courage is another leadership quality. Leadership requires courage, especially in difficult times. You know, Jesus exemplified courage by standing firm in his mission, even knowing it would lead to his death. Listen, can't you can't step back. You can't back down. That's what leadership is. Leadership when everybody else is stepping back, you're the one stepping forward. Yeah, absolutely. Next one is gratitude, Brett. Gratitude is leaders showing appreciation for those they lead. Gratitude encourages and uplifts others. Paul often expressed gratitude for his fellow believers in his letters. Oftentimes you'll see where he addresses believers that are around him, believers that have encouraged him at the beginning of the end of his letter. For instance, in Philippians 1, it says, I give thanks to God for my remembrance of you, always praying with joy for you in my every prayer, because you were partners in the gospel from the first day until now. So Paul is saying, hey, listen, there's people that are around me. It's not just me doing this. There's people that are surrounding me. And I think oftentimes when we understand that gratitude is there and we can just say a simple word of thanks to those who are around us, it goes a whole long ways. If we can just say, hey, thank you, church, for what you've done. I said. My open announcements, church, just want to thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for bringing in supplies and donations and things that are going to help people. We are not going to know how how many people are going to hear the gospel by the bottles of water that you gave out. And it's just simply being grateful for what people do. Oftentimes in my deacons meeting, I'll open up the meeting. Men, thank you for taking time away from your families today. Thank you for neglecting. I mean, it's a neglect. You're neglecting your family to be here late at night. And I'll thank them for that because that's what they're doing. They are sacrificing so that the gospel can be spread. And we in the same way are encouraging them through gratitude. I think an attitude of gratitude, it's part of being humble. It's part of realizing that you didn't do this on your own. All good things come from God. And being ungrateful is actually the quickest way to let pride overinflate your head where you fall over and chase your followers away is being ungrateful. And then this is the last one. The last one is resilience. Resilience allows leaders to persevere in the face of adversity. Look at Paul's ministry as an example. He was beaten, imprisoned, persecuted, yet he continued to lead and to serve. And all I want to say about resilience is never, never give up. Never surrender. Yes, you might have to take a break. Yes, you might have to go on vacation. Yes, you may have to take a sabbatical. Everyone does. But you just keep keeping on. You keep plugging away. Hey, listen, you're going to fail. You're going to fall. You're going to organize a meeting and nobody's going to show up. But you just keep going on. You're going to feel like a failure, but don't give up. Keep plugging forward. Yeah, there's something about being faithful. There's something about being faithful to the end. I just buried a dear lady this last week, Brett. She was 91 years old, faithful to her husband for 69 years, played the church organ for 50 plus years, 54 years, something like that, and was faithful all of her life. I used Titus, too, in talking about being faithful as a faithful wife, as a faithful mother, as a faithful steward of God's word. And I was just reminded in doing that of Jesus. How are we being faithful? And this is a wonderful thing for us to be able to look back and say, am I being faithful to the end? Their entire life, as I was talking about that dear brother, and then near the end of his ministry, near the end of his life, he'll fall into sin and he was not found faithful. My prayer is that I will be found faithful at the end of my life, that I will be found faithful when it comes to the Lord judge my life. And we can have that prayer of when times get hard, I'm going to stick it through. I'm going to stay through it. I'm reminded of John MacArthur when he was in his eighth or tenth year of ministry at Grace Baptist Church, Grace Community Church there in California, where he had some horrible uproar in the church. People not wanting him there, just had some upset people. And he just determined that that's where the Lord wanted him and he was going to be faithful and stay in there. And now for 50 something years, he's been faithful to be the pastor. The church has grown. The college has grown. People have been sent out to be pastors out of his church. And it's because he was faithful. And I think there's a good life lesson for us when we are being found faithful. Amen. Good stuff. Love it. And so, uh, and to examine your own self here, ask yourself where you're at, ask yourself what, where these areas can you grow, uh, both spiritually and practically. We've given some scripture on a lot of these, um, and really ask yourself, uh, are you seeking the Lord daily in his word? Are you seeking the Lord daily in prayer? Lead God and direct you in all your ways, uh, because a servant leader will do those things. A servant leader will ultimately begin to look like Christ. And our goal of my life and Brett's life is to be a Christian, which is Christ-like. And so we must ask ourselves, are we being examples of Christ everywhere we go? And these are the examples of Christ. Amen. Uh, you know, leadership is something that, you know, no one ever, when I was growing up, I never expected that I would be called to be a pastor. Um, I actually, actually told my friends that I would never, ever be a pastor. Um, but you know, leadership is what God has called me to. And, uh, we can learn leadership more through reading, study, studying God's word and through, uh, examples of great leaders, great men. Um, and like I said earlier, it's not just pastors, uh, there can be leaders in churches and we just need to get the word of God and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and direct us. Absolutely. You're exactly right. Well, Brett, I hope you, uh, listeners have loved the episode today of me and Brett, uh, on leadership. We have a couple of crossover events coming up over the next couple of weeks leading up to the RFP meetup. And, uh, we hope you'll join us there and I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thank you for those who have reached out over the last couple of weeks. And, uh, thank you for giving and helping in the North Carolina, uh, recovery efforts and also in the Florida recovery efforts of what they've got going on there after the last hurricane Milton. And, uh, just lots of areas where we can serve lots of areas where we can help others and, uh, we can be a blessing for the cause of Christ. And so hope to see you in just a couple of weeks and until next time to God, not the pastor, be the glory. I found my new name, found that good grace, found that healing and the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance, found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since, I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the 4 Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the 4 Freedom Podcast. Thank you.

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