Building Healthy Leaders Part 3

Building Healthy Leaders Part 3 - The Goal

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this session from LeaderSource SGA, the speaker delves deep into the hidden pitfalls that often ensnare well-meaning leaders, leading to burnout and disillusionment. Through personal testimony and scriptural reflection, the importance of balancing ministry duties with personal spiritual nourishment is highlighted. Attendees are encouraged to evaluate their priorities and find rest, ensuring their leadership is rooted in genuine relationship with God, not just activities. The session closes with a call to reflect on personal focuses and sources of rest, aiming to build leaders who are both capable and connected to their true purpose.

Highlights

The speaker shares a personal story of becoming overwhelmed and burnt out in ministry due to focusing on tasks over spiritual health. 🔥
A pivotal moment in the speaker's journey was realizing the importance of integrating rest with repentance for holistic salvation. ✨
The session encouraged leaders to reflect on their current state and recognize burnout as a common challenge. 💬
Participants were guided to share reflections and support each other in pairs, reinforcing community and mutual support. 🤗
Scriptural references, including insights from Psalm 78, were used to redefine leadership qualities: character, calling, competency, and community. 📖

Key Takeaways

Burnout can happen to any leader if they're not careful about maintaining a balance between activities and personal time with God. 🙏
The good can often be the enemy of the best in ministry – focusing too much on doing rather than being. 🌟
Real rest involves more than a break; it’s about reconnecting with God and one's true self. 🌿
Leaders are encouraged to consider what truly absorbs their attention and where they find rest. 🧘‍♂️
Intimacy with God and community are essential aspects of effective and healthy leadership. 🤝

Overview

This intriguing session with LeaderSource SGA discusses the perils of overcommitting in leadership roles, which often leads to burnout. The speaker, drawing from personal experiences, emphasizes the need for leaders to engage not just in their roles but also make time for personal spiritual growth. It’s a gentle reminder that being busy with 'good' is not always being busy with 'best.'

In a heart-to-heart talk, the speaker illustrates through his own testimony how easy it is to lose personal touch with God amid ministry demands. He shared a transformative experience where rest and reflection in quietness and trust were revealed as the true path to restoring his passion and effectiveness in ministry. By integrating these elements, he regained clarity, realizing the importance of spiritual wholeness to leadership success.

Wrapping up the conversation, attendees were invited to reflect deeply on their leadership journeys by identifying personal focal points and avenues of rest. Discussions about fundamental leadership qualities, drawn from the wisdom of biblical texts, provided a comprehensive understanding of healthy leadership. The session underscored that authentic leadership is both a calling and a practice of continuous realignment with God’s purpose.

Chapters

00:00 - 02:30: Introduction and Personal Story The author discusses their background, highlighting their training at a prestigious seminary. They acknowledge having God-given abilities which initially left them feeling overwhelmed in ministry. However, as their skills developed, they were presented with more opportunities, resulting in an increasingly busy schedule.
02:30 - 05:00: Challenges in Ministry The chapter discusses the increasing busyness encountered in ministry work. The speaker describes becoming overwhelmed with the various opportunities and demands in ministry, leading to a hectic schedule with up to 70-hour work weeks. The narrative highlights the endless needs and opportunities present when working with people, and the speaker expresses a desire to make a meaningful impact, which inadvertently led to an overextension.
05:00 - 07:30: Burnout and Realization This chapter discusses the concept of being involved in numerous activities that might not necessarily be divinely ordained, yet are not inherently wrong or illicit. It contrasts the common temptations of overtly immoral actions, such as visiting pornographic websites or engaging in extramarital affairs, with the subtler temptation of busyness. The focus is on how being excessively occupied with seemingly good or 'righteous' activities can sometimes lead people to overlook more important or better opportunities. The chapter emphasizes the importance of discernment in choosing activities to ensure they align with higher, more meaningful priorities.
07:30 - 12:30: Turning Point and Renewed Calling The chapter emphasizes the idea that often in life, especially in ministry, 'the good' can be the enemy of 'the best.' It stresses the importance of prioritizing one's relationship with God above all other good works. The author shares a personal experience of becoming so involved in doing good things for others that they began to neglect their spiritual connection with God, the ultimate source, and only realized the imbalance under mounting pressure.
12:30 - 17:30: Reflection and Rest Chapter: Reflection and Rest This chapter describes a period of intense pressure and conflict experienced by the narrator. Initially managing well, the narrator eventually faces overwhelming opposition, leading to exhaustion and a lack of resources to cope. The chapter emphasizes the narrator's struggle with burnout, feelings of inadequacy, and the desire to quit. In the midst of this turmoil, the narrator calls out to a higher power for help, indicating a pivotal moment of vulnerability and a search for relief and guidance.
17:30 - 23:00: Exercise and Group Activity The narrator expresses a strong desire to leave their position as a pastor, feeling unworthy and believing the church deserves a better leader. They mention undergoing a series of crises, particularly highlighting a significant one involving their mentor who concluded that the narrator was no longer suitable.
23:00 - 28:00: Leadership Qualities from Psalm 78 The chapter discusses a personal experience of betrayal by a mentor, who was also a church leader. This leader not only opposed the narrator's ministry but also encouraged a significant portion of the church congregation to follow him, resulting in a major division in the church. The incident occurred after an initially successful period of five years, highlighting the challenges and emotional turmoil of leadership within a church setting.
28:00 - 37:00: Five Fundamental Categories of Leadership This chapter discusses the challenges faced by church leadership when dealing with incidents that might threaten the growth and stability of the church. It recounts events where the church's growth was dramatically affected by internal issues among its leaders. Specifically, it mentions a scenario where a church was experiencing a decline due to actions and attitudes of its treasury leader, who was living with his girlfriend out of wedlock. When confronted about aligning his lifestyle with church expectations without asking him to leave his position, the leader took offense and retaliated by sending letters to the membership and visitors, indicating the disruptive potential of unresolved internal conflicts within leadership roles.
37:00 - 38:00: Break for Lunch The chapter titled 'Break for Lunch' discusses a situation in a church where a pastor is accused of wrongdoings. It highlights a scenario where the pastor, possibly called Ezekiel, is criticized for exploiting the church members for personal gain. The controversy arises as slander about him spreads, lacking full transparency and context. For example, it is not mentioned that the pastor is under discipline for living with his girlfriend. Due to the lack of complete information, members of the church are confused and uncomfortable, reflecting their aversion to conflict, especially within religious settings.
38:00 - 43:14: Closing Prayer Session The chapter 'Closing Prayer Session' describes a period of loss for the church when a significant number of its members left due to an economic crisis. The crisis was rooted in the town's dependence on the petroleum industry, which failed in the late 1980s. This led to job losses and transfers, deeply affecting the congregation, including the departure of eight core leaders and an additional 25 members, halting the church's growth.

Building Healthy Leaders Part 3 - The Goal Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] i was one of those leaders who had excellent training i went to what is considered to be one of the leading seminaries in not only the united states but in the world uh and i knew that god gave me certain abilities and so in ministry i i i was overwhelmed at first but as i gained ability you know there were more opportunities and i got busier
00:30 - 01:00 and busier and busier as i saw those opportunities and tried to lay hold of them there were ministries just be initiated there were people to see and i found myself in ministry becoming very very busy at one point working 70 hours a week and this can happen to us because there's no shortage of need and no shortage of opportunity when you're working with people and i wanted to make my life count and so without realizing it i found myself
01:00 - 01:30 being drawn into many activities in debtors that perhaps god did not ask me to and i'm not saying that i was doing something that was illicit see i want you to see this that often the temptation is not to go to the porn shop there is that temptation to an affair to illicit behavior but sometimes it's enough if we just get tempted to be busy and do something righteous we're busy doing good things and because of it we miss the best thing
01:30 - 02:00 oftentimes the good is the enemy of the best and in ministry that's what we have to look out for because we're always doing good things or think we are but because of it we often we miss the best thing abiding with the god and this is where i found myself so busy doing good things for people that i began to neglect the best thing abiding with god the source of everything and again without knowing it gradually over time very subtly i i noticed that under the pressure
02:00 - 02:30 under the the strain i began to dry up and i got along fine as long as there wasn't that opposition but as the opposition grew i found i didn't have the reserves to give i didn't have the reserves to answer the attacks and i didn't have the the wisdom to know how to lead and i got to a breaking point and in fact i got to the point where i wanted to quit i was absolutely burned out and i cried out to god in the midst of
02:30 - 03:00 this take me out of here i don't deserve to be a pastor i don't want to be a pastor furthermore this church deserves a better pastor there was a series of three crises that really brought this to a head for me i won't describe them all in detail but let me just briefly in one of those crisis was the guy who i'd followed the pastor i'd followed who was my mentor he decided that i was no longer a good
03:00 - 03:30 leader and he decided to lead the church against me and totally undermined my ministry so i felt like i had been attacked by i was being betrayed by my mentor it was terribly destabilizing and a second incident that happened shortly after oh by the way that came to a head when he he decided to leave and he took with one third of the church with him so this pastor who had had a really good run the first five years
03:30 - 04:00 where the church was growing 10 every year now saw his church just being destroyed and in a second event a similar thing happened where one of the lay leaders the treasurer was living with his girlfriend and when we confronted him in in love and just said hey marry the girl or or just live in separate places who didn't even ask him to leave his post but just make it right he decided to take offense or he took offense and sent a letter to not just our members but to everyone who ever visited our
04:00 - 04:30 church to say that this pastor was the the that ezekiel pastor that devours the sheep you know that uses the sheep for his own good and because the slander had been spread people didn't have the discernment to know what was happening he didn't say what his situation was of course that he was being disciplined because he was living with his girlfriend none of that was mentioned in the letter so people hearing only part of the story were disturbed and of course people don't like conflict especially in the church
04:30 - 05:00 so another 25 of the church left again shortly afterwards economic crisis hit our town which had was solely dependent upon the petroleum business we had one industry and that industry failed in 19 i think it was 19 well i won't say it was in the late 80s and uh when that happened many people lost their jobs or were transferred to other cities and again i lost eight of my most core leaders and again another 25 of the church left so here's this church that had been growing growing growing growing
05:00 - 05:30 and now through one event and under all that pressure i found myself without a center and realizing i was a hollow man and that's when i cut out god take me out this church deserves a better pastor and i'm not it god led me to take a a weekend away just to seek him and a friend had a
05:30 - 06:00 cabin in the woods of new mexico and i went there and just searching the scriptures and i came across a scripture and it became that sort of the spirit that touched my heart because there i read in isaiah chapter 30 verse 15 words that he used to speak to me you know those words says in repentance and rest is your salvation now i know repentance
06:00 - 06:30 is geared to salvation we preach it but i never tied rest to salvation and repentance and rest is your salvation and what is salvation again remember we have that real holistic understanding of salvation if we really understand it's not just about crossing the finish line entering the kingdom it has to do with wholeness it has to do with healing it has to do with preservation it has to do with deliverance in repentance and rest is your salvation
06:30 - 07:00 and the next phrase in quietness and trust is your strength quietness trust those look like weakness to us a culture marked by hyperactivity a culture marked by noise in quietness and trust is your strength and i i heard those i heard god speaking
07:00 - 07:30 to me through those words but it was the next phrase that really cut to the quick because here we hear the prophets speaking the word of god to the israelites with this offer rest quietness trust but you would have none of it in other words i offered it to you and you'd pushed it away you didn't want it and i thought oh my god what have i done you have been offering this to me all along it was mine but i pushed it away
07:30 - 08:00 and repentance and rest is your salvation and quietness and trust is your strength but you would have none of it and then he speaks to them that's why he allowed the enemy just to ride over them and i realized that's why i'd been run over and through that finally he got my attention i spent much of that weekend on my face
08:00 - 08:30 and determined to re-enter ministry a different way and knowing i needed even more rest the weekend was not enough i asked god and i asked my congregation to give me a sabbatical and i thankfully a grant was provided by another organization and i took a long sabbatical and i just was pros god
08:30 - 09:00 approached my family because not only did i disconnect from god i disconnected from my family ministry is very very distracting to the things that are important and my wife said at one point i almost wish you had a mistress there were lots of pastors who had gotten caught in affairs and she said to me i almost wish you'd had a mistress because then i have a reason to be angry but your mistress is the ministry so how
09:00 - 09:30 could i even be angry so i had to reconnect with my family as well and then god gave me that chance then through those retreats those silent retreats in one year i did three one week silent retreats and slowly god drew me back to him where i could again hear his voice and get some discernment on my calling first of all because i was ready to trash it and i just was begging him let me do something else
09:30 - 10:00 but god graciously reaffirm my calling and over a period of time that prayer that i asked god was answered i asked him god give this church a new pastor give them another pastor and you know what he did but that new pastor had the same name and the same address and the same phone number and i end up being there another five years i think before god called me to this ministry of training pastors but i wanted to share my story because
10:00 - 10:30 i'm hoping that it will resonate with you sometimes we can hear through the scripture sometimes we can hear through a story a testimony and i want to ask you how are you feeling where are you in ministry do you ever feel burned out does anybody know am i the only one who has felt burned out honestly does anyone else know what i'm talking about okay i have some friends here okay it's a terrible place to be and in the
10:30 - 11:00 church oftentimes we celebrate a kind of super spirituality that does not allow us to recognize our humanity and i want to say that sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap do you know what i'm saying because your body gets tired and that limits your ability to connect with god am i sounding like i'm not spiritual enough for you it's probably true i'm not spiritual enough for most of you
11:00 - 11:30 but this is what i learned is that god wants us to care for ourselves and that means caring for your bodies because this is the temple of the holy spirit so what does it mean to rest that's the question and what kind of rest are you observing do you have a cycle you have a rhythm of resting so that you can turn back to god there should be some sort of rest daily weekly monthly annually
11:30 - 12:00 what's your schedule that's what sabbath is sabbath is not just a day and a week sabbath is a time during the day sabbath is a time during the the month during the year when you draw apart to especially rest in god to rest your body to rest your soul to reconnect with what is life giving to abide and instead of being prose production you're pros
12:00 - 12:30 god so i'm going to ask you this question this is it's nice to teach theories but until we're getting this into our heart it's really of no value my question to you is what are you pros i was during our romance i was pros my dear wife but then i found as i became captivated by my work i was pros my work
12:30 - 13:00 and even in ministry might be it was being prose ministry that took me away from god so i had to pray god renew my first love my love of you so here's the question for you if you dare dare to say what do you prose second question where are you finding rest i'd like you to reflect on those questions just for a moment
13:00 - 13:30 what are you pros in other words can we rephrase what prose means again what are you fixated on what do you what absorbs your attention what are you looking at what are you listening to what occupies your mind your thoughts your attention what do you prose second of all where do you find rest where can you be still and know that he is god okay again the teaching is of no value
13:30 - 14:00 unless we are able to apply it to our own lives and again i know as a leader that even though we learn it once there is something about there i think i think sin has kind of a gravity to it it just keeps pulling us down doesn't it you know what i mean and it's not the gravity of the moon i think it's it's a strong gravity and so even though we're experienced walk a long time we can get dragged down again and forget
14:00 - 14:30 these basic teachings so reflection first and then as much as you care to i'm gonna ask you to find one person in the room and you can move you don't have to share with someone at your table i'm asking you to find one person in the room just to share as little or much as you care to share about those two questions and your answer to them okay so reflection first and then after you reflect for a moment i'll ask you to find a person in the room to share with could be someone you're you're related
14:30 - 15:00 to already or someone new sometimes it's easier to share with a stranger but i'm going to ask you to share a little bit of your reflection with them whatever you're comfortable and you decide how much you're comfortable sharing okay so reflection two questions what are you pros secondly where do you find rest well thank you for sharing personally in your groups and i hope that you found some sense of support in sharing with another and receiving some prayer the reason that i wanted to do this is
15:00 - 15:30 because i recognize it's not enough just to listen to this and make a mental decision i want to do things differently we actually need the support of others and we need the support that comes through prayer if we're going to be different people and as you know there's no condemnation at all because we we all get off track in various ways and so there's no condemnation about this this session is to help us to reorient ourselves back to god to to get pros him again
15:30 - 16:00 and we'll need that reminder again so we don't need to be shocked or dismayed or shamed but recognize okay oh i got off track all right come back to god in my life and in my leadership all right now what i'd like to do is i'd like to just change our angle and look at leadership from another perspective again earlier we looked at jesus the ultimate example of a leader and i want to do another case study with you but this time looking at
16:00 - 16:30 leaders that you have known in your life i'd like you to recollect someone that you admire as a great christian leader someone that you esteem as an exemplary leader and i'd like you to think of this as a person a real person again not a a concept so a concrete example rather than a concept of what a leader should look like and not a biblical person so i want to think of someone who's a contemporary of
16:30 - 17:00 yours someone that you have knowledge of first hand so when you have thought of a person i'm not going to ask you to name the name you have to name it to me or anyone else but once you've thought of someone would you just raise your hand because i want to just gauge to make sure everyone has someone you don't have to raise it high but keep it up so when i when i see a majority or most or everybody's hand up then i'll know we're ready to go to the next step again i won't ask you to report or just signal me that you're thinking of someone all right you can put your hands down
17:00 - 17:30 here's what i'd like you to do on your paper i'd like you to to re first of all reflect on the person's life and recall their the qualities the characteristics of their life that made them an exemplary christian leader so make a list of those characteristics on your paper what i'd like you to do now is if you've developed a master list
17:30 - 18:00 you're going to transfer the qualities that you have on this paper to these papers so you can take a stack of sticky notes and you'll put one quality on one paper use the sticky note part don't write on the sticky side right on the other side because then we're going to put them up here okay and only hear this on for some reason people don't hear this don't transfer your list to one piece of paper transfer one quality to one piece of
18:00 - 18:30 paper so if you have ten things on your list you'll have ten sticky notes okay if you have five things on your list you'll have five sticky notes now for this exercise let me mention that we're using page 17 in your workbook and we already did the first part but uh what i'd like to do is just look at this for a moment and let me explain what i'm doing we're drawing on our experience with
18:30 - 19:00 christian leaders to develop a profile of what a christian leader looks like that's what we're doing and what i hope to do is now that we've collected all of your descriptions or characteristics is to use them as a composite picture of a great leader and because we've started with each of you with one leader in mind and then you combine them those characteristics with others at your table now we're combining those characteristics with everyone in the class and so if we could build a person in all
19:00 - 19:30 these qualities we would be building a real great leader would we not almost a super leader uh and i think we'd be honing in on something that would be valuable for us but of course it can be a little bit unwieldy or maybe a little overwhelming just to look at all these characteristics and more coming i think if you're still writing by the way while i'm talking just keep bringing them up it can be a little bit overwhelming and maybe unwieldy to look at all these characteristics and say oh i've got a if this is the target i don't feel very focused
19:30 - 20:00 so let's see if we can somehow organize these characteristics in a way that there is a sense of focus and for this i'm going to refer to the scripture and again i want to look at another example of a leader this time a biblical leader and we'll look at king david so if you have your bibles turn with me to psalm 78 and we'll look at the last three verses of psalm 78
20:00 - 20:30 beginning at verse 70. psalm 78 verses 70 71 and 72 and i'd like to read that for you in case you don't have your bible here he chose david his servant and took him from the sheep pens from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people jacob of israel his inheritance and david shepherded them with integrity of heart with skillful hands he led them isn't it a beautiful passage within
20:30 - 21:00 these three verses we see some descriptions of leadership qualities and i'd like to ask you what do you see of leadership qualities in these three verses the passage was psalm 78 70 to 72. okay so what leadership qualities do you see exemplified here in king david
21:00 - 21:30 integrity of heart integrity stands out very clearly doesn't it and so i want to use that as one of our categories and i'm going to write that but i'm going to use a different word i'm going to use the word character and i'll put that right here character david was a was chosen or he shepherded them with integrity of heart with character okay good what else do you see that relates to leadership skillful hands there's another one
21:30 - 22:00 same verse verse 72 he not only led shepherded them with integrity of heart but with skillful hands he led them so he didn't just muddle his way through there was some skill involved in his leadership skill is an aspect of leadership but i'm going to capture that by using another word and the word is competency okay good so now we've got two two categories that capture some of the
22:00 - 22:30 qualities that we may have suggested what is another that you see here in these verses any other michelle was chosen acts act absolutely verse 70 he god chose david his servant so this is very important um if we elect ourselves not much good comes of that but when not only when we are chosen but when we recognize how we're chosen
22:30 - 23:00 and for what purpose we're chosen then we do our best work and we become the best leader we can be so let's capture this idea of being chosen by using another word calling okay all right now you did a great job of finding the i think there are other elements of leadership here we could say shepard but that's a skill we learn so i think shepherding is included as a competency perhaps so there are other things you could pull
23:00 - 23:30 out of the passage but these three in particular capture what i believe we can learn about david in this passage kath one more one more okay okay okay now what kind of relationship is servant are we talking about master slave not entirely clear but there is a relationship you're absolutely right there is some sort of relationship but you mind me raising the question mark and just saying what kind of
23:30 - 24:00 relationship is it servant master would be very different than son father but we need to explore this so you're giving us you're tipping our hand you're you're tipping us off to the fact that we're missing something because these categories are not enough are they they're clearly not enough if we only if we only find character calling and competency in a person what's missing in terms of their ability to be good christian leaders what's missing something related to what
24:00 - 24:30 kath is saying is we need a relationship with christ so let's add that category to capture everything we talked about this morning we certainly need something to capture that idea of being prose so let's use the word christ we need to have that leader needs to have intimacy and dependency on christ to be an effective leader is there anything missing still
24:30 - 25:00 a work to do in other words what is their work okay go ahead to shepherd them okay so what is the work to do this may come up in calling where we're directed to a particular work okay your work is teaching your work is evangelism your work is caring what is the particular call and purpose on your life what is your role in the body of christ okay so that may be picked up there all right what are we missing still bob
25:00 - 25:30 jacob and his people okay so bob is helping us to hear he was shepherding the youth but he was called to shepherd the people okay good so again a further a further alignment of his calling calling all right any other israel how interesting he brought he was tending the sheep he
25:30 - 26:00 brought david from tending the sheep he brought him that would be david to be the shepherd of his people bob that's what you're getting at right his people jacob of israel his who's god's inheritance so there's something to do with people here okay so let's let's add another category and let's call it community all right actually you you did very well uh hopefully we didn't do too much disservice to the scripture
26:00 - 26:30 but you did pull out what we believe to be five fundamental categories that capture what it means to be a leader and help us define this goal of a healthy leader if if we only come up with these three character calling competency we do have these two categories coming up very strongly when we recall the command of jesus when he was asked what is the greatest commandment how did he answer to love the lord your god and
26:30 - 27:00 love your neighbor as yourself love the lord your god is captured here love your neighbor is captured here in community so here we have these five christ community character calling and competency and we believe that these five capture all of the characteristics that are essential for healthy christian leadership and what i'd like to do
27:00 - 27:30 is describe them to you in as much detail as i can and then i'm going to have you do an exercise with me i'm going to ask you to reorganize these pieces of paper and put them in the column where they belong and so you have to pay attention to your master list and what you wrote down because you're going to be responsible for what you wrote after i describe them i'm going to ask you to return to the board
27:30 - 28:00 and put them each one in the column where it belongs that will give you a chance to think through what is the category and what is the quality that you wrote and where does it where does it belong okay now before i do that though we're going to take a break because it's high noon i think it's and it's time for us to take a break for lunch and you're going to need energy for this activity
28:00 - 28:30 because again you're gonna be walking again you're gonna be thinking again all right so um if you can let it rest for a moment we'll come back to this after lunch and that'll give us a good activity because we'll be we'll be thinking and we'll be walking and you'll be awake all right let's pray though i'd like to close this morning with prayer and i'd like to go back to the prayer that jesus exhorted his disciples to pray we've
28:30 - 29:00 been talking this morning about healthy leaders and we recalled how jesus pointed to his disciples pointed out to his disciples that the harvest is great but the workers are few that interchange for me is fascinating it shows us that jesus was aware of a tremendous opportunity that the fields are indeed white there's tremendous opportunity there's no shortage of people waiting to come into the kingdom but yet
29:00 - 29:30 jesus attention is particularly drawn and the need that he's particularly exercises his mind is the need for workers so he sees both opportunity and need the opportunity is the harvest the need is more workers for that harvest so i'd like to close this morning session since we've been talking about that talking about building up healthy healthy workers healthy leaders i'd like to just pray as jesus commanded us to pray that he would raise up workers and i'd like you to join me because each of you
29:30 - 30:00 represents different countries whether you live in another country or whether god has put that country on your heart i'd like you to join with me and let's just name the countries or the people groups wherever you are and let's ask god to raise up workers among them shall we so let's go to god now heavenly father we thank you lord that you are so present in our lives and we thank you that you have given us your son jesus christ to be a leader in our life we desire o lord to follow you just as your
30:00 - 30:30 disciples did so open our eyes to see you open our ears to hear you open our mind oh lord to receive you we want to walk in accordance with your will we want the wisdom of god so that we can be one with you one mind with you so we can speak your words and do your work lord jesus it's clear that there's opportunities all along all around us the harvest is indeed rich but we recognize our own limitations limitations of time
30:30 - 31:00 limitations of energy limitations of understanding and we ask that as you compelled us as you urged us we ask that you'd raise up workers for the harvest and so we lord as we see the harvest fields we want to name those harvest fields before you and ask that you'd raise up workers to go into each and every one and so hear us lord as we name these areas of need lord raise up workers for
31:00 - 31:30 and just speak out lord we and we know that not any worker will do and so we pray lord for healthy workers we're praying particularly for those who are in place not just that are going to be added to our number but we pray oh lord that you'd bring a new revival a new desire for righteousness a new desire to be one with you in christ to be part of the community in a healthy way not lording it over but being submitted mutually submitted to one another raise up workers o lord that have character that have integrity of heart
31:30 - 32:00 just as david did raise up workers who know their calling know their purpose know their destiny and raise up workers who have the skills the knowledge the gifting that's needed to fulfill that destiny for their life among your people lord we give ourselves for that as well and we ask me too me too lord i want to be that kind of leader and so i pray o lord that you raise us up to be the leaders you've called us to be
32:00 - 32:30 and we pray this in jesus name [Music] amen you