Building Healthy Leaders Part 4

Building Healthy Leaders Part 4: Goal -- Introduction of the 5Cs

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this insightful video by LeaderSource SGA, the concept of building healthy leaders through the introduction of the '5Cs' is explored. The 5Cs - Christ, Community, Character, Calling, and Competency - are introduced as categories to understand and develop essential leadership qualities. The goal is to create a comprehensive model for healthy leadership that builds upon these interconnected aspects. Throughout the video, the importance of continual growth in Christ, the necessity of authentic community, character evolution through relationships, discernment of one’s calling, and competency development are emphasized. Each 'C' is presented as a vital area for leaders to engage with purposefully, fostering an environment for personal and collective growth.

Highlights

Discover the dynamic '5Cs' model for building healthy leaders 🏗.
Explore how the 'Christ' category emphasizes an ongoing spiritual journey with God ✨.
Understand 'Community' as a space for genuine connection and collaboration 🤗.
Learn about 'Character' and how personal growth arises from interpersonal challenges 🌱.
Calling is unveiled as a guiding force for one's life and leadership 🌟.
Competency ensures leaders have the skills and knowledge to fulfill their roles effectively 📚.
Each 'C' interconnects to foster personal and collective leadership growth 🔄.

Key Takeaways

Understanding the 5Cs is crucial for developing a balanced leadership style 🌟.
Healthy leadership involves growth in Christ, ensuring leaders remain spiritually connected ✝️.
Authentic community fosters open and supportive environments, crucial for leaders 👥.
Character evolution is tested and refined through relationships and challenges ❤.
Clarifying one's calling can guide leaders to serve their purpose effectively 🎯.
Mastery of competency is essential for leaders to be effective in their roles 🛠.
Healthy leaders are formed and sustained through accountability and supportive communities 🤝.

Overview

The introduction of the '5Cs' in developing healthy leaders offers a structured yet flexible framework. Each 'C' – Christ, Community, Character, Calling, and Competency – serves as a pillar in nurturing effective leadership capabilities. By focusing on these areas, leaders can ensure a balanced approach to their personal development and leadership style.

Delving into each category, the importance of ongoing spiritual growth under 'Christ' and fostering authentic relationships under 'Community' are highlighted. 'Character' is continuously refined through our interactions, while 'Calling' provides direction, and 'Competency' hones the skills necessary for impactful leadership. Each aspect is vital, reflecting a holistic model for leadership growth.

This video emphasizes that the journey to becoming a healthy leader is both individual and collective. It encourages leaders to continuously engage with these five areas, not only to enhance personal growth but also to create thriving environments for those they lead. The '5Cs' become a roadmap, offering clarity and direction in the pursuit of leadership excellence.

Chapters

00:00 - 15:00: Introduction and Goals The chapter titled 'Introduction and Goals' delves into the exploration of defining a 'healthy leader'. It encourages readers to reflect on leaders they have encountered in life and identify characteristics that exemplify healthy leadership. Readers are prompted to discuss these characteristics in groups to deepen their understanding.
15:00 - 33:00: Christ The chapter discusses organizing a large number of characteristics into manageable categories. Initially, various characteristics were brainstormed and written on sticky notes. These were then grouped into five distinct areas to avoid an overwhelming focus on too many aspects, allowing for more effective concentration and analysis.
33:00 - 59:00: Community This chapter focuses on understanding the qualities of a community through five characteristics: Christ, Community, Character, Calling, and Competency. It emphasizes sorting personal qualities into these categories and testing the model for its validity by examining whether it can incorporate various attributes. The discussion revolves around evaluating transparency and determining which of these five categories it belongs to, illustrating the process of testing and refining community models.
59:00 - 81:00: Character This chapter focuses on testing a comprehensive model aimed at evaluating and potentially shaping a healthy leader. The speaker emphasizes the importance of capturing all significant elements that contribute to constructing a valuable leadership figure. The process involves a step-by-step exploration and discussion of various columns/categories within the model to assess its effectiveness and identify any learning opportunities. It serves as a preliminary phase to ensure that the model is comprehensive and valuable.
81:00 - 96:00: Calling The chapter titled 'Calling' explores the concept of an individual's relationship with Christ. It highlights the significance of the cross in understanding this relationship, stating that it is through the cross that one can come into a relationship with God. The chapter also addresses a common misconception that once someone knows Christ or is 'saved', their relational involvement ends, emphasizing that this is not the case.
96:00 - 109:00: Competency The chapter discusses the concept of 'Competency' in the context of personal and spiritual development. It highlights a common phenomenon in Christianity where individuals experience a significant transformational event, such as 'walking the aisle' to be saved, yet fail to continuously develop their relationship with faith or maintain ongoing intimacy with their spiritual beliefs. The analogy compares it to getting married but never spending time with one's spouse thereafter, emphasizing the inconsistency and lack of sense in such scenarios. This chapter seems to underline the importance of ongoing commitment and development in one's spiritual journey.
109:00 - 123:00: Conclusion and Assignment The chapter is focused on the theme of continuous growth in Christ through intimacy and dependency. It highlights that growing in Christ requires continuous effort and understanding of being intimate and dependent. Despite spending considerable time discussing these concepts, the depth of the subject warrants even more exploration, as is done in certain educational settings where it spans over multiple days. This emphasizes the importance of continual development in one's spiritual journey.

Building Healthy Leaders Part 4: Goal -- Introduction of the 5Cs Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] before the break we were beginning to examine our goal in an attempt to define what is a healthy leader and i asked you to use leaders you have known in your life that were examples of a healthy leader and you wrote out various characteristics of those leaders you talked about them in your groups
00:30 - 01:00 and then i asked you to write down those characteristics and we put them on sticky notes up here on the board now together we worked out a way to come up with five areas to categorize these various aspects because otherwise we just have too much and we really can't focus effectively so five areas is much better we can focus on five areas if we can't focus on 50. now what i'd like to do is i'd like to
01:00 - 01:30 describe each of these five christ community character calling and competency and as you listen what i'd like you to be doing is to be sorting out the qualities that you wrote where do they belong so for example if you wrote something like transparency i want you to sort out does it belong in one of those five because we're going to test this model any model that is worthwhile is testable which means that we can throw things at
01:30 - 02:00 it to see does it work and what you're doing is you're helping me test this model to see if it's effective because what i want i want a comprehensive model if i want any mod at all i want to make sure that we're able to capture everything that's of worth that might help us build a healthy leader so first of all we're going to test this model to see if it works and we're going to see what we can learn in the process so let's go through one at a time one column at a time and let's talk about these various these various categories i want to start
02:00 - 02:30 with the first one the christ category now as you see from the image that's on the screen usually what seems to really highlight our understanding of our relationship with christ is is the cross because we know this only through the cross of christ that we can come into relationship with god and yet sometimes we also have the mis misunderstanding that once we've come to know him and for many people in their language once we get saved well then we're done with all of our relational involvement
02:30 - 03:00 and it's almost like the person who walks the aisle we talk about walking the aisle to get saved when we can walk the aisle to get married and then ever spend another day with our spouse well how much sense does that make no sense at all and so many christians for so many christians that is the reality of their life they had a day they got saved they came to the cross and yet there is not any ongoing development of that relationship there's no ongoing intimacy
03:00 - 03:30 there's no ongoing dependency because if we're going to grow in christ we need to be growing continually we spent the morning talking about what it means to be intimate and dependent and we still haven't actually plumbed the depths because we can return to that subject and spend five days on that in fact we do in some of our schools we spend five days just on this how do we grow an intimacy and dependency on christ now because we've shared already quite a
03:30 - 04:00 bit on this this morning i'm not going to to share a whole lot more but i i do want to say that this is that ongoing relationship with christ and there's two key elements the growing intimacy and growing dependency i so much love what paul has to say when he writes near the end of his life to the philippians now paul if we know anything about paul we know that he is one who knows god
04:00 - 04:30 after all he was caught up into the third heaven where he had the revelation of god and through various means he came to know god and was such a reliable witness of one who knew god that he was chosen inspired by the holy spirit to write a large portion of the new testament scriptures and yet he hears this man at the end of his life crying out in philippians what does he say i want to know
04:30 - 05:00 god he says and isn't this amazing that a man that we look to as a reliable witness of god is still crying out at the end of his life after many revelations i want to know him i want to know him and again the temptation is the greatest for the person who has walked the longest with christ to think i've got that covered and we think about knowing god as we would knowing any kind
05:00 - 05:30 of curriculum and we look at it as a checklist okay got that one covered what a disservice we do to the gospel when we think of this relationship of intimacy and dependency and think of it as just a subject to be acquired rather than a relationship to be entered to be developed and so
05:30 - 06:00 building people in christ is the work of building them in their relationship with god so that they are growing in intimacy and dependency these two key things now as we grow into christ we also come into the community of christ as you look at the image that's on the screen now tell me does that look like community to you it's a boxed community it's a gated a box community not a gated community a box community okay
06:00 - 06:30 keep looking at the picture and tell me do you see community there okay you what'd you say kathy there are holes in there where they're looking kathy's kathy's saying how do you know there aren't holes there they look like they're having fun is that possible they're kids craig's saying you know maybe so you know maybe so maybe kids can get away with something that we as adults can't get away with how many of you played with boxes when you were that age how many of you
06:30 - 07:00 were you having community with the other kids yeah i see your head shaking vigorously yes you know what i i like this picture because it it does kind of mix us up a bit we see the boxes and we think well of course they can't have community because we know as adults we're thinking backwards now we know as adults that when we put boxes on we destroy community but you know kids can do that and have the best community so in a very real way they are
07:00 - 07:30 connecting they are relating they don't have the eye to eye but they're having a lot of fun together they're building a relationship together but here is the problem when we do this as adults we destroy community when we start putting people in boxes oh one of those people don't you know oh they've never been to college you know about those people who've never been to college or you know what about those people that are from that country that
07:30 - 08:00 neighborhood you know about those people oh that's just an old person oh that's just a young person oh that's a poor that's a writ what about that person and we put people in boxes and what are we doing each time we're destroying community and because somehow we ourselves don't think we're acceptable presentable worthwhile what do we do we decide to
08:00 - 08:30 not only put our put them in boxes but we put ourselves behind a mask and we diligently prepare a false another image that we think that will be more acceptable to the community and then we become an image relating to an image a false projection of who we think we need to be relating to another false image of who
08:30 - 09:00 we think and need to be and what do we develop in the end we don't develop community we develop what i call counterfeit community and here's the real misnomer about this we tend to think that wherever we have people we have community is that true let me say categorically the presence of people should not be confused with the presence of community do not confuse the presence of people with the presence of community
09:00 - 09:30 particularly when you're in a church it's really easy to gather a crowd in the church and we have some really wonderful preachers that can gather a crowd but don't know the first thing about building community they're two completely different things just because you've gathered a crowd does not mean you've built community because what is community tell me what is community
09:30 - 10:00 a community is where there is a place to exchange lives and to do it safely and to do it openly it's a good way of describing it not just the exchanging of life but doing it safely and doing it openly so that we don't have to project a false image of who we are because we know we can be accepted as we are community is a very rare thing
10:00 - 10:30 and again i want to say that for the leader just the same way for christ for the leader community is probably one of the most difficult things the person we expect to be the most expert in this just as we expect them to be most expert in the christ category the person we expect to be the the one who facilitates community is often the most isolated from community let me explain whenever you're in a leadership position
10:30 - 11:00 you feel that you need to be able to set an example and so very gradually you begin to edit your life you begin to edit what you present to others you begin to edit out those undesirable portions of your life that you feel would be a discredit to the position of leader and so very gradually bit by bit you remove yourself first of all relationally and emotionally from others and it starts off for a good
11:00 - 11:30 reason you don't want to discredit your position of leadership or discredit the name of christ but very gradually you become more and more isolated and you become more and more target of the enemy in your isolation as a leader you feel like why should i submit to them i'm the leader after all and again you
11:30 - 12:00 take a step away from community each time you do so and increasingly you become isolated actually unrelated to the seminar i was preaching one sunday in the church that hosted the seminar and i preached about well the name of my message was alone in a crowd and what i found for many christian leaders that they can be very lonely in the christian crowd surrounded by christians but terribly alone does anyone know what
12:00 - 12:30 i'm talking about as i shared this message i think there were some people that understood what i meant and and as i mentioned it's a particularly a problem for those who are in leadership who've become more and more isolated and after the message and during the time of ministry a lady came up to me and she shared with me she said i am responsible for all the prayer ministry at this church it was a big church there's a church of about 5 000 people said i'm responsible for the prayer ministries and and she says you know
12:30 - 13:00 what she says i pray for everyone here they come to me for prayers but she said with tears in her eyes i feel like i'm invisible they come to me all the time for prayer but no one sees me she was alone in a crowd just because you have a crowd does not mean you have community and just because you have people in the room does not guarantee you have community because community is something that must be purposely developed
13:00 - 13:30 so that people can feel that they are safe to share their life and know they will not be rejected a place of interdependency a place of mutual giving and receiving a sharing of our gifts the sharing of our lives community it's interesting to me if you don't mind taking a look back at the scripture i'd like to re-examine with you again
13:30 - 14:00 that first that beginning that's first recorded in the bible the beginning of genesis do you recall how that the creation event is recorded we have the record of god's creation over the days and at various intervals it appears that god steps back and looks at what he's just done and he says something of a word of evaluation what does he say it's good he looks at his work and it doesn't happen every day but at just regular intervals he seems
14:00 - 14:30 to step back and look and as anyone who admires their work are any of you artists here or woodworkers or work with fabric you know you step back or gardeners or landscapers you look at your work and you say hmm that's beautiful and i think that's wonderful because god does the same he creates something he looks at it and says that's good it happens again and again it's good it's good it's good but there's two times that that
14:30 - 15:00 evaluation changes do you recall how does that evaluation change he looks twice two other times and he doesn't say it's good he says something different what is it you remember yeah there's one did you say it kath what did he say there's one occasion in which he says it's not good and what's that that's the record is in that's 218 is it not are you looking at it cath would you read it it's 2 18. genesis 2 18.
15:00 - 15:30 the lord god said it is not good for the man to be alone i will make a helper suitable for him excellent all right so on one occasion he looks and of course genesis 2 is the expanded version of day 6. genesis 1 is the overview but now in genesis 2 there's a telescoping in and we take a look and one day in particular the day in which humankind is created and again after god steps back again in evaluation to admire his work there's this statement evaluation it's
15:30 - 16:00 not good for the man to be alone now why is he saying that is that because god likes women more than men all right i'm glad you're smiling all right why does he say that there's something missing now i want to be bold if you don't mind me pushing a little bit can i push against your theology a little bit this morning we made a huge point of how we can do nothing apart from god
16:00 - 16:30 that he is the source of everything that is eternally good source of anything that's good and that he is not only the source but he's the end of everything that we do but what i find so utterly amazing about this particular statement is the humility of god have you ever used that description of god the absolute humility of god to look at something he's made and say hmm
16:30 - 17:00 adam you still need something this is where i'm pushing now okay let me push for just a minute and see where we go i thought if i had jesus i had everything i need isn't that what paul writes philippians i can do all things through christ who strengthens me well adam has god in fact not only does he have god but he has a perfect relationship with god unmarred by sin after all isn't this before
17:00 - 17:30 the temptation which left to their expulsion from the garden so not only does he have a relationship with god but he has one that is perfect and yet god still looks at him and says hmm there's something not quite right here [Music] and what's god's solution god's solution is to give
17:30 - 18:00 someone another human being to adam to relate to god creates the possibility of community by creating another human being and of course he creates the possibility for marriage and everything that ensues for marriage the possibility of children extended community that goes beyond a one-to-one relationship god looks at it and this is what staggers my imagination he somehow says you know what adam
18:00 - 18:30 you've got me but you need eve you've got me but you need community what i thought me and jesus that's all i need just me and jesus how many times have you heard people say that just me and jesus that's all i need well not according to god's appraisal when he looks at adam adam it's not good for you to be alone alone god i have you i'm not alone adam it's
18:30 - 19:00 not good for the man to be alone alone that's his assessment his assessment is adam's alone even though he is walking with god in the garden can i push you and it's interesting that after he makes eve and creates this possibility of marriage that there's another evaluation comes it's the second deviation from it's good it's good it's good and what's that second deviation it's very
19:00 - 19:30 good and that that assessment comes only after god has made both adam and eve returned to genesis chapter 1. again we're looking at the highlights so at the end after the creation of eve in genesis chapter 1 we read of how god looks at them now both man and woman and what does he say it's very good his evaluation
19:30 - 20:00 is now more than good very good and i think that's that's not a coincidence there's a completion that comes with the possibility of community now why is this and is this only adam am i stretching the point am i really pushing it too far think about another perfect man the second perfect man the second adam who is christ and think about him
20:00 - 20:30 on earth at the end of his life at that most critical moment when he knows he's about to go to the cross and everything everything depends on what he does will he follow god will he accept will he drink the cup god's will or his own will he knows it's going to be a battle a battle that occurs first and foremost in his mind and so as he goes to the garden the night before he refuses to go alone that's not
20:30 - 21:00 a coincidence but again he invites the twelve to come with him to the mount and after he pauses with them he invites the three to go further with him into the garden as they pray together and i believe this is why he is so disturbed when he finds them asleep he needs them it's not good for the man jesus to be alone even this man
21:00 - 21:30 jesus christ the son of god who he said is always prose the father it's not good for the man jesus to be alone he also recognized in his humility he jesus recognized his need not only for the father but his need for community and so he invites peter james and john to come aside with him so both the first adam and the second
21:30 - 22:00 adam demonstrate to us our critical need for community and i want to say again to you we're asked this question do we ever outgrow the need for community we're very aware again as babies as children well maybe not as children's babies we have no clue we need community right it's not until later that we recognize that need but as children we're the most in need of that community we're most dependent upon that community and then we go
22:00 - 22:30 through that stage where we think we don't need anybody and we cast off our relationships even with our family in some regard some of us anyway but then as we grow in maturity it's so easy then to just kind of fall into this sense especially those who are super spiritual among us who think just me and jesus and we take a step back from community we take a step back from others and all of a sudden we find ourselves alone in a crowd
22:30 - 23:00 and how the devil delights to find us there after all you know how he hunts peter wrote about that in his epistle did he not and he says the enemy hunts like a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour he loves to pounce but where does he pounce let's take a tour shall we you're
23:00 - 23:30 overhead you're flying over the african savannah and you're looking down at quite a distance at a herd of antelope as they go across the grasslands and from your great perspective they look just like little forms on the prairie and you can see the herd as they move along but out in front there's a young antelope who's very
23:30 - 24:00 brave and very curious who's ventured out ahead and then behind lagging are an older and a crippled antelope who cannot quite keep pace the lions sitting in the grassland disguised by the tall grass watches and waits for that moment to pounce and when the lion pounces where will he pounce where would you say
24:00 - 24:30 you're the lion where are you going to go the lonely one yes your target may be here the young one or the old one or the crippled one because they're alone but you do not choose to attack the herd that would be foolish to do so and so when peter writes about how the enemy attacks i think he's signaling us something about the importance of
24:30 - 25:00 community and saying that the enemy is prowling to see you isolated he's looking for the one who's isolated and again not isolated necessarily by age or by some sort of infirmity although that works too but isolated by a tendency to withdraw from others and no longer reveal our true needs our true heart even if you're alone in the crowd you're still alone
25:00 - 25:30 and you become a target of the enemy he loves to take you down and he's glad to do that it's not good for the man or the woman leader of god to be alone because the enemy prowls looking just for you community is that place of interdependency that plays a mutual
25:30 - 26:00 sharing of our lives when we don't have to pretend to be something we are not because our sufficiency is in christ community may occur in in four different kind of variations uh we can think of community as the community that occurs in our family the community that occurs and the body of christ the family of god thirdly it can be the
26:00 - 26:30 community that exists in our ministry team the people that we work with on a regular basis and fourthly this may be a little different than what i've been describing it i was i've been speaking of christ-based communities previously but there's also the community of people that we relate to in the area where we live our neighborhood our city the community what we call the community our relationship with those outside the body of christ these are four different dimensions in
26:30 - 27:00 which we can relate in community and which we can have authentic community or counterfeit community now again you might be thinking well why are we spending so much time talking about community it's pretty straightforward we just get people in the room and we ask them to share their lives how many times have you been in a small group that you knew people were not being real and yet we tolerate it we really don't know sometimes how to actually dig underneath the surface because we can't approach people with a can opener can we
27:00 - 27:30 i've tried i i want to admit this to you i had a little reputation when i was a young man in my 20s and 30s i always wanted to get underneath the surface i had no no patience for superficiality i didn't like artificial relationships and so i'd ask all these prying nosey questions you know i was going after people with a can opener that's not the way we do it there's a better way to approach community in which we invite people into relationship we invite people to be themselves and to reveal at their
27:30 - 28:00 own pace who they really are you cannot undress people for them we need to create that safety that safety of an environment that says you're loved no matter who you are or what you do you're loved don't have to pretend i want to know you not the image you present and together you pursue a relationship you pursue a community
28:00 - 28:30 where people are coming without their masks as they are so although we can talk about it although we have heard about community it is a very rare thing even in the church and i think it's also especially rare for those who lead in the church and that's why we're going to build healthy leaders we need to allow them first of all to be formed in christian community
28:30 - 29:00 healthy christian community preferably and to continue to minister out of healthy community as i mentioned before we never outgrow the need for healthy community this is a deception if we think oh i i was raised up in healthy community now i've outgrown that i don't need it anymore me and jesus lie deception
29:00 - 29:30 how many leaders have failed in their ministry to fulfill the calling on their life many of them had no accountability or they had no one to comfort them in times of need we never outgrow this need a healthy leader is both formed and continues to minister in accountable supportive caring community that's our definition of a healthy leader they are both formed and continue to live an accountable supportive caring
29:30 - 30:00 community okay that's a definition so community what does it take to be that community so some of these characteristics will be related to that building of community being a person who listens being a person who knows how to resolve conflict being a person who knows how to how to forgive to accept to love these are things that relate to community now as we grow in community a funny thing happens you know how it is when you first meet
30:00 - 30:30 someone and you find them to be interesting or attractive we have a little bit of a romance period don't we and then you get to know them a little bit more maybe you go on a trip together and you find out oh wow i didn't realize you were like this you know i mean take for example me and bill i mean first time i met him i said like wow he's a funny guy you know what i mean he he's always making jokes and he's light-hearted easy going but
30:30 - 31:00 then you go on a trip with him to africa and it's amazing you know uh he wants all the credit himself i mean you stand up and give the talk and he says yeah i i i shared that with him just yesterday and so and he's hugging all the food and you sleep with him he's snoring all night long and doesn't even care if you don't get a wink of sleep it's unbelievable you think how could i deal with this guy i really don't like hanging out with bill very much anymore you know all right who's got the problem bill or
31:00 - 31:30 me the reality is i've never in reality i've never gone to africa with bill all right so i want you to know i just made up that whole thing but i want to ask you the question who has the problem in that little scenario you can say it queen me all right why are the rest of you quiet who has
31:30 - 32:00 the problem i do because what is my problem i'm just name it what i'm judging i'm what else slandering i'm gossiping i'm judgmental i'm self-superior isn't it interesting that when we get in relationships that our character flaws start coming out and when we're so quick to see them in the other we're not
32:00 - 32:30 so aware that our dirty laundry is being aired a test of our character is relationships because in the midst of relationships we experience friction we experience stress we experience pressure and we find you know what you're not you're not so easy to love if you could only be more like me you'd be a lot better off and we find
32:30 - 33:00 you know what i don't know if i can forgive you i mean you've gone a little too far now and isn't it interesting how in that community our character is being repeatedly tested revealed and hopefully if you stay in the community refined our tendency in the midst of character is to run when we have problems in character we want to exit the scene
33:00 - 33:30 because it's unbearable but that only means we miss an opportunity to grow because it could very well be that god gave you that relationship to refine your character we know the story about the the oyster in the sand grain right how you know when that little bit of sand gets into the oyster it irritates it and so it secretes some
33:30 - 34:00 enamel in a liquid form to surround the grain of sand a light just a light coat and then it hardens and it's still an irritant so it secretes another bit of enamel another coat it hardens another coat another coat until this beautiful pearl is generated dealing with tension dealing with an irritant they produce something valuable a pearl i want to ask you who in your life is an
34:00 - 34:30 irritant have you got a relationship with someone that's just a real irritation i'm wondering if god is still in the business of making pearls not in them but in you because you learn how to love in a way that surpasses your own ability jesus taught the disciples it's recorded in luke 6 and other places also but he said oh you love one another do
34:30 - 35:00 you this is my paraphrase big deal even sinners love one another in other words that's easy jesus says even sinners can do that but i tell you what what did he say next but i tell you love those who hate you because that's not so easy to do sinners can't do that we need the one who spoke from the cross
35:00 - 35:30 and said father forgive them for they know not what they do we need christ that one who spoke that word in us if we're going to be able to speak to those who hate us and say effectively the same father forgive them for they know not what they do lord we have to admit there's nothing in me that loves that person but i know you're in me and so i pray that through you i would love the person the same way you
35:30 - 36:00 do that's what it means to live in christ to acknowledge i don't have what it takes i don't have the love for this person i don't have the ability to forgive this person and the shaping of our character occurs as we go back to christ and say give me what i need in order to give this person what i lack help me to forgive bill because on my own there's no way i'm going to do it
36:00 - 36:30 and all of a sudden i find my character being broken and being changed because god not will not just give me an artificial temporary love for bill he will give me a genuine love for bill and i will see him now through the eyes of christ and all of a sudden i am humbled in recognizing it is i who was the offender and a new humility grows within me and i begin to see people in a new light
36:30 - 37:00 and my character is shaped and formed in that furnace of relationships that's precious because we've developed this authentic community we can talk about these things that are irritating and instead of them irritating us further they can lead to the development of character and a deepening of community do you see how the three of these interrelate we go to christ for what we lack in order to give others
37:00 - 37:30 and in the process we're shaping our character and because of that our community gets ever deeper so these these are not silos we don't operate in an isolated fashion in each of these categories but they work together as god works in our life so excellent let me show you another image for a character and tell me what you see here now maybe i have to explain the culture i mean the images for those that are not from american cultures because you may use
37:30 - 38:00 different symbols but what is what does this symbol mean for those of you that are north american what does this symbol mean what is he doing he's taking an oath yes he's taking it out he's squaring something in other words he's making a pledge now what does this symbol mean i don't it mean i don't mean it it means everything you hear from my lips does not count it doesn't matter so this negates this and yet this is public and this is
38:00 - 38:30 concealed from your view so the leader stands before his people and says i pledge to lead you to build bridges and roads to build up your community to give you access to myself as a leader and all the time he says i don't mean it it doesn't count so who is that tell me who that leader is not not a name but a role
38:30 - 39:00 uh you were thinking weren't you so could who could it be just name a role for instance name a couple of roles what kind of leaders are those political leaders yeah what else did you say church leaders they're human she's saying church leaders could be all right employers
39:00 - 39:30 yeah employers those kind of business leaders yeah all right anything else come to mind the devil okay yeah yeah you're right he comes with lots of promises and says i don't mean it okay all right oh wow so you're saying this other leaders are they take after their father huh wow you know i shared this image uh in the seminar i just mentioned earlier
39:30 - 40:00 and when the pastors looked at it and the church staff looked at it they said that's a pastor i said really he said they said yeah they told me they said many parts of the country pastors have such a bad reputation that they can't even get credit to get a credit card you know the rest of the population can get credit cards but they said the pastors are not even allowed to get a credit card because they're known to go into stores and to charge things and never pay the bill
40:00 - 40:30 what does this communicate to the world that we're trying to evangelize not just christians we're talking about the leaders the the pastors and it's it was known and when the person said that all the others said yeah yeah and these were pastors in the room and yeah that's the way it is character character is not who we present ourselves to be but it's who we are when no one is
40:30 - 41:00 looking oh that's a really good observation maybe this is a marriage promise maybe he's a husband that's really interesting you saw the wedding ring we need integrity in marriage isn't that one of our categories of community family church team outside community we need integrity in the family of course just as much as we needed in
41:00 - 41:30 our interaction with others and isn't it interesting wonder why so many wives have bitterness because their husband the pastor standing up in front of the congregation preaching one thing and doing another at home i have a friend who has a worldwide ministry working in latin america and other parts of southeast asia and he does a lot of seminars on violence in the homes and in many
41:30 - 42:00 cultures where pastors have assumed and not assumed but just understand that it's okay to beat your wife because that's the way it's done not recognizing the incongruity of that kind of life but when they do see in the scripture how they're called to care for their wife as for their own body they truly are convicted and repent but incredible isn't it incredible how we can have two lives my church life and my home life
42:00 - 42:30 in public we can preach love one another serve one another but at home we become a tyrant a demanding tyrant and the world revolves around us character is who you are when no one's looking it's not again who you present yourself to be it's not the image you've cultivated it's not your reputation
42:30 - 43:00 character and as your character begins to be shaped and molded formed to be more like christ we're looking for two things here basically we're looking for the character of christ and the fruit of the spirit and some of this relates to our inner wholeness some of us are just carrying issues that have been unaddressed all through our life from childhood and we work out of a kind of a woundedness that leaves us bent in towards ourself
43:00 - 43:30 where we may very easily fall into insecurity or self-pity and then try to compensate for that insecurity out of some sort of brash boldness that is a caricature of vision we're trying to compensate for inner insecurity by doing something that we deem to be meritorious when in fact it's nothing that god has asked us to be or to do we're compensating this leads to a lot
43:30 - 44:00 of character issues so that area of character would include our character our integrity the development of our personhood to become more like the person of christ and where we exhibit more of the fruit of the spirit okay now as we move along as that character is developed it's evident that we become more responsible we would be more responsible with our calling and so then god god gives clarity about our calling in our life
44:00 - 44:30 and uh we know that he has laid out a path for us as i mentioned earlier in ephesians it says that before the foundation of the earth he called us he created us and that we know he created us with a purpose in mind that we're not here by accident some of us may feel like we are here by accident but in fact no god has a purpose for each and every one and we can teach that to children it starts with children each of these categories has a level where we begin that these
44:30 - 45:00 can be taught to children in the same way we teach them to the most advanced leader but a child needs to know you're here with a purpose god made you with a purpose you're not here by accident and then as we continue to progress in our maturity in christ you know there's increasing demands to know well exactly what is that purpose and i know for many young people that were going through college or at that age where they would be going through college or just finishing college considering questions of career or marriage the question of calling because
45:00 - 45:30 especially pertinent to them and there's a lot of uncertainty in this whole area well one thing i found is that calling doesn't just materialize out of thin air but it's something that seems to come to us very gradually over time there are some that get that mountain top experience and know that they know that they know they've heard from god but there's others and i found it was asked that come to that sense of calling and purpose much more gradually and
45:30 - 46:00 seem to get a better awareness as they put their feet in the water and test the call i know that was true in my own life learning to know where god wanted to use me what my purpose was over time as i tried various careers or tested various roles in the body of christ but if we're going to build people the point is we are going to assist them in the discernment of their purpose and their calling and that
46:00 - 46:30 means the community has a very large role i worked for 12 years in the oil business and as i began to wrestle with this question of a full-time call into ministry began to mention it to people in the community those people in the community who knew me well said oh i always knew you should have been a pastor and i'd hear that again and again i'd say and i'd say i want to turn to them and say why didn't you say something sooner [Laughter]
46:30 - 47:00 you know because you know it's a very important not only to hear an inner conviction of our calling that personal voice of god but we need the confirmation that comes from the community first of all affirming the gifts they see in operation but secondly confirming the call that we sense on our life if we are just operating out of a sense of calling well i've heard the voice of god he's told me to do this it is easy to be deceived i had one
47:00 - 47:30 woman tell me at one point that she was being called to divorce her husband because her husband was not as advanced in her faith and he was holding her back and she said i heard god tell me to vote to divorce and that's the call of god in my life was that the call of god no not at all so what i'm saying is we do need to hear from god but to protect issues of character
47:30 - 48:00 from clouding our judgment we need the confirmation of the community to helping us hear from god we can listen as a community in fact we are in a community this region of the united states is is populated by a community of faith that practices listening in community and it can be a very beautiful thing okay so that's calling i'm not going to say a lot there's more we could say about this but
48:00 - 48:30 i'm going to just keep moving to the final one which is competency now here are the images not of a someone we perceive as a christian professional this is a surgeon in the operating theater why would i use this image well because i think it does depict someone that has a high need of competency i mean do you want to go to a surgeon you want to go under the knife with someone that says well don't worry about it i've never been to medical school but i prayed and asked god give me the ability
48:30 - 49:00 now in theory we might say yes god bless you brother go for it but my question is do you want to be the one he's operating on there is a place for skills there is a place for training and this is the place we call competency okay and there are those who can serve with those gifts that we consider to be unrelated to christ who can serve christ in that sphere where they have influence so we
49:00 - 49:30 have very many leaders who are serving christ in the medical profession in the military in the business world in the arts in athletics serving christ with their competencies for the glory of god whatever you do what does the scripture say do all for the glory of god and so competencies confidence these two things competency is skill and knowledge skill and knowledge
49:30 - 50:00 the knowledge of what you have to know to pursue your calling and the skill to do it this of course includes gifting uh everything related to that personality that that relates maybe more to calling your personality or gifting but the competency the knowledge and the skill to do what you're called to do to do it effectively so that it bears fruit okay all right now these are the five c's
50:00 - 50:30 okay these are what we call the five c's and you can guess why we call them the five c's right every word if you haven't already noticed i think you have every word starts with the letter c so just in short we call them the five c's the five categories and these constitute our goal and what i'm going to do next and uh i would like to sort these out i want to
50:30 - 51:00 sort these out and we're going to make columns and every one of your tables i'd like you to be involved and look again at your master list you can use your master list and i'd like you to evaluate from the items you wrote which c do they represent so if you wrote for example something if you wrote humility which c would that be that would be character so you're just going to make a little note on your master list and then when you get done
51:00 - 51:30 you're going to rearrange these in the columns so that when you get done we'll have all of these neatly laid out and maybe a couple of rows or a couple of uh columns under each heading okay that's your assignment when we get done with that um we'll we'll we'll take a break okay so go ahead and and at your table sort out what belongs where look at your master list again whoever the secretary was drag that out and as a table
51:30 - 52:00 categorize each of the items [Music] you