Building Healthy Leaders Part 6 - The 5C's -- Sessions 02

Summary

In "Building Healthy Leaders Part 6 - The 5C's," the focus is on understanding the dangers of counterfeits in Christian leadership. The session highlights the five C's: character, community, calling, competence, and counterfeits—emphasizing that counterfeit qualities can often masquerade as genuine, which poses greater risks than opposites. Participants are encouraged to identify these counterfeits rather than the opposites of these virtues, as they pose a significant threat to genuine community and leadership within the church. The session involves active participation where groups identify and differentiate between true qualities and counterfeits, with a call to challenge systems producing such counterfeits in an effort to foster genuine growth and leadership.

Highlights

• Every 'C' has a counterfeit; these counterfeits are more subtle and dangerous than direct opposites. 🎭
• Reputation is a common counterfeit for genuine character, as it focuses on external perception. 👤
• Superficial communities, like overly scheduled church activities, can destroy families while pretending to build community. ⏰
• Morality for its sake, without the context of grace, can turn into strict legalism—proving harmful. ⚖️
• Spiritual charisma is often mistaken for spiritual maturity, posing risks within church leadership. 🌟
• Career aspirations or parental expectations can imitate a divine calling without genuine spiritual grounding. 🎯
• Titles and degrees are often mistaken for competencies; true skills go beyond academic credentials. 📚
• Participants are encouraged to think about when they underwent significant personal change and what brought it about. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Counterfeits in leadership are more dangerous than opposites because they masquerade as genuine qualities. 🕵️‍♂️
• Reputation can be a counterfeit of character; it's about perception rather than substance. 👀
• Counterfeit community can manifest in superficial small groups or over-scheduled church activities. ⏰
• Morality without a foundation in Christianity can lead to legalism, which is a counterfeit of true Christian character. 📜
• Charisma and spiritual gifts, like prophecy, are often mistaken for maturity, misleading many in the church. ✨
• Natural abilities, when relied upon alone, can masquerade as a divine calling. 🎭
• Title or position can be confused with genuine competency—authentic skills require more than just credentials. 🎓
• Leaders are called to reject counterfeits by pursuing authentic, character-rich leadership within the church. 🚫

Overview

In this engaging session, the speaker delves into the concept of counterfeits in Christian leadership, emphasizing that while opposites of virtues are recognizable, counterfeits pose a significant threat by appearing genuine. Through interactive group exercises, participants explore the subtle nature of counterfeits, such as reputation masquerading as character, or superficial community activities giving a false sense of belonging.

The speaker challenges participants to look beyond the superficial and examine their motives and the constructs of community and leadership within the church. The session outlines specific examples of counterfeits, such as legalism posing as morality or charisma being mistaken for true spiritual maturity, and encourages leaders to pursue authenticity in their callings and competencies.

As the session wraps up, the speaker highlights the importance of recognizing and rejecting counterfeit leadership qualities to foster genuine growth and community in the church. Encouraging participants to reflect on personal experiences of change, the session calls for self-examination and active efforts to root out superficial practices, steering toward deep, transformative leadership.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:30: Introduction to Counterfeits The chapter 'Introduction to Counterfeits' begins with a reflective statement emphasizing that every concept or value, referred to as 'c's, has a counterfeit form rather than an opposite. This distinction is explored to highlight that counterfeits are not necessarily direct contradictions, but rather misleading or false representations of the original concept. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper investigation into the nature of counterfeits, encouraging careful consideration and understanding of how deceptive imitations can manifest in various aspects of life.
• 02:31 - 09:00: Identifying Counterfeits in Community and Character The chapter delves into the concept of identifying counterfeits in both community and character. It discusses examples of opposites in character, such as maturity versus immaturity and morality versus immorality. Similarly, it explores the opposite of community, suggesting that isolation or aloneness are contrary to the concept of community. The chapter aims to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit attributes in these areas.
• 09:01 - 21:30: Counterfeits of Calling and Competencies The chapter "Counterfeits of Calling and Competencies" discusses the concept of counterfeits, particularly in the context of the Christian community. It starts with the analogy of counterfeit money, which must closely resemble real currency to be accepted. The discussion then shifts to how this idea of counterfeits applies to callings and competencies, emphasizing that these counterfeits are more dangerous than opposites, as they can deceive people into accepting something false as true.
• 21:31 - 28:00: Distinguishing Authentic and Counterfeit Attributes The chapter focuses on distinguishing between authentic and counterfeit attributes within the church. It discusses how individuals often train themselves to detect opposites when, in fact, they should be more attuned to identifying counterfeits. These counterfeits are considered more dangerous because they resemble genuine attributes or values but are not genuine themselves, yet they are often mistakenly accepted as authentic within the community. The chapter emphasizes the importance of being able to identify and differentiate these counterfeits to protect the integrity of the church.
• 28:01 - 35:00: Homework and Closing Thoughts In this chapter, the concept of 'currency' within the context of Christianity and community is discussed. The notion is that reputation is a counterfeit of the community, not its opposite. Although reputation might appear positive and moral, it is simply a management of perception, not an actual cultivation of character. The chapter highlights the differences between genuine community-building and just maintaining appearances.

Building Healthy Leaders Part 6 - The 5C's -- Sessions 02 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] okay let me say this let me say this uh and we'll look at this very carefully every one of these c's has a counterfeit and a counterfeit is different than an opposite okay so for example what would be the opposite of character an opposite of character
• 00:30 - 01:00 give me an example of an opposite of character immaturity is one example another might be immorality okay would be an opposite what would be an opposite of community isolation or aloneness if that's a word a counterfeit is different than an
• 01:00 - 01:30 opposite a counterfeit is something that looks like the genuine but takes its place think about money what makes a successful counterfeit it's got to look like the real thing it has to be something that looks like currency otherwise we won't accept it and this is the issue for us that's more dangerous than the opposites particularly in the christian community
• 01:30 - 02:00 we've got our radar set to detect opposites and so we tend to look but what i'd like to do is i'd like to turn up the radar to identify counterfeits because i believe that they end up being much more of a danger to the church because they look like the genuine article but are not and so we pass them as the currency
• 02:00 - 02:30 of christianity we pass them as the currency of community we pass them as the currency of character but they're not so my example was that reputation is a counterfeit of community not an opposite because it looks good the opposite immorality but the counterfeit is reputation we try to manage our the way people see us and it's not the same as building character it's working on this arm while keeping
• 02:30 - 03:00 this one here okay so what i'd like you to do i'd like you to do is i'd like you to think about counterfeits [Music] and i'm going to give each of the tables one of the c's okay and maybe i can ask the group in the back to be a table would that be all right then we'll have five would you mind so here's what you're going to do you're going to take one c and you're
• 03:00 - 03:30 going to identify the counterfeit of that c and i'd like you to come up with more than one possibility because there can be more than one counterfeit to each genuine article now you notice what carol was talking about she talked about community she talked about authentic community well authentic is the opposite of counterfeit so you're looking for the counterfeits not the opposites be very clear on that i'm not looking for isolation as a counterfeit isolation is not a
• 03:30 - 04:00 counterfeit it's an opposite so look for what poses as the real thing so what counterfeits do we find in pursuing christ what counterfeits get in the way just knowing his word and not really not really knowing who he is knowing his word and and not not knowing the the word made flesh okay
• 04:00 - 04:30 no not knowing him i'll put it down okay good and then we have um legalism in other words so it's an attempt to to be in christ but we do it by the law rather than by grace okay pharisaicalism right good okay so a pursuit of religion and opposition to versus relationship
• 04:30 - 05:00 good and then all right good let's go to the next column what functions as a counterfeit to community and because we get going on that path we miss the real thing community authentic community what'd you come up with
• 05:00 - 05:30 mardi gras what do you mean by mardi gras okay so you're using the mardi gras as an example of people who appear to be in some sort of community together but you're saying that in the midst of this celebration there's they will be able to kill each other still with no repercussions okay now mardi gras is not set out to be a church a real church of course they're not stating that they're christian anyway
• 05:30 - 06:00 but it did come out of a celebration related to the season of lent and just before there was this big celebration but that's just a footnote okay all right what would be related to that in the church give us some a counterfeit that we might find in the church church committees okay so maybe maybe committees of some type where okay because i'm serving on a board with you um i'm i'm in community with you
• 06:00 - 06:30 okay good another we had quite a discussion here like um there are some cult type okay situations where you're living together you're sharing everything that it's yeah there are certain religious cults that cultivate community but it really is a bondage rather than a
• 06:30 - 07:00 liberation and the issue is is it for the good of the members or is it for the good of the one who's leading yeah and that helps us to discern if it's really healthy community or not is it benefit for the for everyone is it safe are people allowed to grow is there freedom or is there a bondage and people do people exist for the one the who is the proclaimed leader so that's a sign of a cult okay it looks like and there are there are certain very well-known cults christian pseudo-christian cults
• 07:00 - 07:30 where community is celebrated they're known as being loving and yet what is what is the purpose in the end okay good all right are there any other counterfeits you want to share okay denomination could function as a counterfeit for the community okay good what else small group yeah a small group can give the appearance so maybe again small group could be a
• 07:30 - 08:00 very potentially strong community so we're not saying always but we're saying sometimes it doesn't function at the level it can be superficial as carol was pointing out so can i put that little descriptor just so that we understand because i don't want to put down all small groups but when we have superficial small groups say that again i'm sorry i didn't hear you how interesting
• 08:00 - 08:30 a full schedule and so many churches do this we have we have three meetings on sunday morning and we have meetings sunday night then we have daily meetings on tuesday and of course two meetings on wednesday and special meetings special prayer meetings special fellowship times special action committees and we fill people's schedules so far they don't have and you better beat everyone and they don't have time to
• 08:30 - 09:00 spend with your family and in the name of community building christian community we're destroying the family how much sense does that make because we want everyone to be involved and we measure their level of commitment commitment by their participation in all the meetings and if they don't come to the meetings we somehow deem them as less mature or less committed and all the time they're crying out for time with their spouse and their children
• 09:00 - 09:30 real community do you know do you know how the people recognize the people of their church tell me do you see what he's doing did you catch what he was doing when you sit in the church you sit in rows like this so only thing you see is the back of their head and so he turns to the back and says oh i recognize you miguel that's beautiful
• 09:30 - 10:00 that is such an insightful insightful illustration what a great great example of counterfeit community wow that's an eiffel isn't it good all right he's helping you isn't he so i'm going to capture his by writing this down the crowd because you know what you can't fit a crowd in the room if you don't put them in rows because
• 10:00 - 10:30 they don't fit face to face you've got to put them in rows so all they see is the back of the head of the person in front of them that's not authentic community but it's when we can become face to face that we be have the chance to become community do you notice we're not sitting in rows here it's not an accident okay all right counterfeits of character
• 10:30 - 11:00 okay now is morality a counterfeit how is morality a counterfeit connected to christ it can become an effort yeah yeah where it leads people to to a kind of legalism morality itself is good right but the issue is what is it based in christianity okay can i can i give a descriptor to it so because morality itself is good
• 11:00 - 11:30 so what what can i call it hume uh human uh can i call it as is a human human and human morality can i call it that maybe i'm trying to figure out a way to set it apart because morality humanistic let's call that humanistic morality where morality is the end in itself that's what turns out to be the counterfeit great thanks for help what else did you find
• 11:30 - 12:00 religiosity okay you're giving us some things that can fit over here pretty well aren't you okay so hone in on character okay oops we tend to see someone with influence and think that they're a person of character interesting isn't it and how often is humility counterfeited oh it was nothing
• 12:00 - 12:30 we are really good at pretending to be humble all the time we're saying say more say more say more okay let's put philanthropy okay yeah again maybe it's philanthropy with the goal
• 12:30 - 13:00 to improve my reputation okay so can i can i give another descriptor to this to make it we don't want to say that all phil and that philanthropy is mis misaligned but maybe say self-centered philanthropy can i put that self-centered or self-serving thank you bill self-serving philanthropy good all right that's great you did a good job there
• 13:00 - 13:30 now let's turn to um you know one can i add one here or it might be here sometimes when we see person with with charisma and and here i'm not referring to this to the spiritual charisma i'm referring to someone who sparkles who has that sparkling personality when we see someone who has that kind of charisma we think wow that's a person of character and then over here i can use charisma the other way and saying when i see someone whoops
• 13:30 - 14:00 when i see someone who has spiritual gifting now understand i'm using the words very differently here i'm talking about charisma the way we refer to it as sparkle personality here i'm referring to it as gifting charisma where we have spiritual endowment and there are many people who see a person with spiritual endowment and think wow that's a real mature person can you think of an example what gift in particular is confused what spiritual gift is confused with maturity
• 14:00 - 14:30 and real connection with christ which gift prophecy is a prime example there's another gift that's like what is also confused with a relationship with christ what the might that be healing yeah we see someone perform healing miracles we say wow they must be close to god they prophesy they heal wow and but what did jesus say about that kind of person in matthew 7.
• 14:30 - 15:00 do you remember the scripture where he says you know you you prophesy my name you cast out demons in my name go away from me i don't know you what's this category again knowing christ and jesus is saying i don't care how spiritually gifted you are what charismas you have i don't know you and so this is a real common counterfeit we tend to think because i have this spiritual proudness the spiritual
• 15:00 - 15:30 ability i have a connection with god and we don't realize that we've fooled ourselves and others are fooled along with us this is a real problem real problem in the church i see this all the time where people who have great charismatic gifts are allowed to function in the church in leadership with glaring problems of character all right we've done a good job with
• 15:30 - 16:00 these so far let's look at calling now what do we find masquerading in place of a godly calling great um natural abilities let's say on their own alone because there there's a place for natural ability but let's say when natural abilities function alone shall we because they are important god gives us natural endowments those they're important too go ahead
• 16:00 - 16:30 ambition and i'm going to put a modifier human ambition because the scripture talks about having godly ambition good what else dreams okay let's just maybe say personal dreams okay because god does give okay personal dreams let's let's think of the dreams is idle can we talk about idol wishing maybe but you know what i mean
• 16:30 - 17:00 by that we have people that daydream and that can be positive but we can also lead to passivity where people don't do anything so let's talk about idle idle kind of dreaming so you're talking about selfish okay selfish kind of whoops kind of dreaming okay okay good what else career now that's an interesting thing what do you mean by that how does career
• 17:00 - 17:30 function as a counterfeit like that or studies or is placed but it doesn't really have ah very good so someone has the position they have the training they have the position as a missionary but really they have no calling they just put themselves in that position i met some pastors once or i should say some i i know of this happening in one particular group
• 17:30 - 18:00 of denominations where many people became pastors because their fathers were pastors there was no calling but generation after generation there was always a pastor and so it fell upon maybe one of the one of the next generation to become a pastor but there was no calling at all so the position good the career can be confused with the calling so i'll add you already put position down didn't you i think you had position so that
• 18:00 - 18:30 is another counterfeit to the calling okay what else obligations okay great obligation good pressure pressure pure pressure oh peer pressure oh okay peer pressure interesting so we respond to the peer pressure rather than responding to god how interesting well that's an interesting
• 18:30 - 19:00 list you've come up with can i give you another one there oh no i'll save that i'll save that for later okay great how about their final category the last column competencies what did you come up with that functions in place of true competencies that have value in our growth as leaders
• 19:00 - 19:30 great okay do you spell busyness this way is business spell with a y i know okay nominally greatly really they have the titles but not the qualifications wow that's
• 19:30 - 20:00 interesting can i put titles down and you you said overly title i'll just write titles okay great i was kind of thinking along the lines of bravado perhaps okay explain that for all of us that may not know what that word means and and help spell it for people who don't know how to spell it oh yes of course it would be a b yeah
• 20:00 - 20:30 okay okay explain that matter okay over confidence self-confident okay good all right what else did we find that masquerades in place of the genuine opposite okay okay i put knowledge not linked to skills but maybe i should just say knowledge without skill would that be a good way to put it
• 20:30 - 21:00 knowledge without skill let me put that okay good what else matters
• 21:00 - 21:30 showboating grandiosity charisma okay so again let's put charisma down here and in this case it's both it's both the the greek the word that we use for spiritual gifts and it is the sparkle of personality coming together and this kind of charisma the convergence of both that i mentioned earlier give the impression of real competency oh it's just so convincing it's so
• 21:30 - 22:00 convincing excellent list do did you have some more you won okay really good list i'm going to add one that's related to titles we could put degrees because you have the degree you must have the competency absolutely clear isn't it okay char is asking do i think that competencies that one c of the of the
• 22:00 - 22:30 five is most prone to can i put it that way or has the most serious counterfeits can i throw well what's interesting again let's go back to what we originally concluded when we tend to train where do we put most of our emphasis this is our go-to this is our default and so for that reason alone i think this tends to be rife
• 22:30 - 23:00 with counterfeits there's lots of counterfeits here we have to ask ourselves rigorous questions i find i do because you know what i deceive myself more often than the devil does i think sometimes he doesn't need to do any work because i do it for him and in my pursuit of studies why why did i want to do well in my seminary was it because that would lead to greater proficiency or was i
• 23:00 - 23:30 trying to bolster my self-identity what was the reason you see what i mean this issue of being a healthy leader requires that we call into question our motives because our motives have a lot to do with whether we're being healthy or not did you notice how much there is about motivation here do you notice self-serving philanthropy what's the motivation behind it
• 23:30 - 24:00 you already brought this to bear you already brought this to the point that it comes down to what is motivating you and so that carol i believe is part of the answer is what is really motivating not the surface answer okay i buy that we need to have an advanced degree to get into this culture do you hear what i'm saying my friends i think it's time for us to be fed up with counterfeits because far too long we've accepted the
• 24:00 - 24:30 counterfeit in the place of the real and we're wondering why do we continue to produce leaders that ultimately fail prematurely why do we have a 70 failure rate is that tolerable can i shake you up a little bit maybe maybe you're saying well it's not up to me i'm not running the seminars i'm not running the bible schools no you're not but we can start at home in our own local churches and our own families and say
• 24:30 - 25:00 let's not settle for counterfeits when we talk about what it is to be a healthy christian a healthy disciple we're all involved in discipleship in some place or another and where we have responsibilities right let's challenge the system that produces counterfeits it's unacceptable and i think if anything railed jesus there was a system that produced counterfeits amen where we see his ire raised more than
• 25:00 - 25:30 anywhere else it's when he dealt with the counterfeit christian leader otherwise known as aka the pharisee as i think there's a place for us to be disturbed and i think it's time for us in the christian church to be disturbed enough to change do you know that you don't change until you're uncomfortable if you're comfortable you won't change
• 25:30 - 26:00 so you know what i i am trying to disturb you i am i want you to leave here today disturbed ooh that's the goal of training oh we need to list that as one of the five c's oh we're getting to the ds now disturbed no [Music] bill you were going to say something and i'm sorry you shook you've shaken it up and the hope lies in the holistic
• 26:00 - 26:30 approach because if you're in christ and you're walking in accountable community there can be a discernment of your calling and affirmation and counsel and discussion and so forth to determine whether you need to go get that degree or not or what other competencies you need to have to fulfill the calling since i was so disturbed he bill had to bring sanity to our training thank you
• 26:30 - 27:00 this is what we're hopefully pointing you to i think we have to look at what's happening around us again we won't automatically adopt this model if we are satisfied with what we have and i think we will accept what we have if we don't recognize that it's this is a counterfeit this is a counterfeit this is a counterfeit and until we expose it as a counterfeit
• 27:00 - 27:30 we pass it as currency and no one asks any questions it's common currency and what i found is that all these things that we've written in green are far too common currency in the church and what we want is we want a new day a red letter day we want a day where we are building people in authentic relationship with christ an
• 27:30 - 28:00 authentic reliance on him we want to build people in authentic interdependence with one another where they are formed and supported formed and living in supportive accountable community we want people to grow in the fruit of the spirit to know their personal purpose and where they fit in the body of christ and we want people to have the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill that calling for their life that we believe is shooting at the
• 28:00 - 28:30 target not just letting arrows fly amen i'd like you to see just how dangerous this is as we close but i'd also like you to see that christ himself built the twelve in those five seas and he used a process that helped bring the disciples to that goal and tomorrow what i'd like to do with
• 28:30 - 29:00 you is look at that process how did jesus build healthy disciples how did he do it so we're going to look at jesus approach to making disciples and building leaders and then we're going to compare that to your own life so i'd like to give you a little bit of homework just just something to think about i'd like you to think about a time in your life it doesn't matter if it's before christ or after christ any time in your life where you felt like you were radically changed
• 29:00 - 29:30 just think of a time where you were radically changed and what i'd like you to do is look a little bit further at that whatever it was and sort out what was the change agent what brought about the change okay and we're going to examine that we're going to use that as a case study to examine process and what is the what are the dynamics of change what brings about transformation okay so again let me review that homework
• 29:30 - 30:00 assignment think about a time where you were changed profoundly changed in some way in your attitude in your actions and your beliefs it doesn't matter and then look at what factored into that change what brought about the change it could be anything it might be who knows it might be a person in your life it might be an experience in your life it may be in a teaching in your life or something you read or something someone said it may be the intervention of god through a miracle or
• 30:00 - 30:30 his presence made manifest in some way or may have been an act of discipline on your part whereby you know just your own sense of discipline and coming before god daily just changed you who knows it could be anything all right so that's what i want you to think about and tomorrow we're going to share some of our experiences and just as we did today looking at an exemplary leader we're going to look at what has changed our lives and see if we can pool together the various dynamics that bring about change and then harness those
• 30:30 - 31:00 to see if we can use them now in a focused way to build people up okay so let's let's close with that and uh i'd like to ask if anyone would be willing you know what miguel would you pray for us in spanish would you all right brother uh and then um carol if you or michelle if you would you like to translate for us okay all right so let's pray
• 31:00 - 31:30 we call you we call to you right now to give you um uh thanks for your word that you've given us today we want to come before you so that you
• 31:30 - 32:00 will be the one who cleans us from our bad intentions purify our hearts and our thoughts [Music] [Music] to give fruit to have the character the last competencies and the competencies
• 32:00 - 32:30 and the relationships the intimacy that's appropriate lord uh so that together we can all create a
• 32:30 - 33:00 healthy church that gives testimony to your power that has transformed us during the rest of the evening and the the night and that you would continue to use robert
• 33:00 - 33:30 and all of the teams that are at the tables so that we could continue to examine ourselves and to continue this conversation identifying our strengths and our weaknesses and
• 33:30 - 34:00 so that we can leave now um lord with your peace in the name of jesus you