 The year 2000 our first service in here was January 2000 Half the church is left by then and we have 300 people left No matter how creative you are with seats. It looks bad And it was the beginning of ground zero of a new Church that we built inside The older church here these screens are amazing aren't they? So as you've been coming here for years Like you've come today or more recently you will come in here and notice these upgrades these new Cutting-edge technology screens look fantastic sexy exciting Wish you had them in your church, but you're also walking on new carpet that you did not notice And he's sitting on new chairs that perhaps you didn't notice And there in lies the problem with the church around the world We think it's all about this and these quantum leap flashy scene bolted on to old Really unchanging belief systems that make us kind of look like we're relevant and trendy But often leadership is more to do with the carpet that you don't see that you came in and walked on Because that's not sexy and that's ordinary and normal and who looks down and examines the carpet And I think as I travel around the world is kind of the tale of two churches It's the churches that think it's all about Staying relevant is all about bolting things on that are noticeable but when I first got my first iPad years ago, and I plugged it into my Laptop it didn't work. So I called my technical support son-in-law wasn't Steve at that time probably would be now because he's a Technological whiskey now, but I called mark my son-in-law. I said I don't know what's happening I've got this new iPad plug it into the laptop nothing's happening So he came by and there it is sat on the table these two products plugged into each other nothing happening So he said to me how old is your laptop which I was offended by because it was a MacBook Air It was thin and posh and stuff So to ask me how old it is seemed to me like an insulting question because you can see it's modern and new and flashy And I said well, it's about four years old what he said, you know That's probably be old. I'm like dude. It's a MacBook Air. I tell people I don't use it, but I tell people I have one He said well the problem is you've plugged it into this brand new iPad And he said let me ask you a question said when you've been using the laptop over the years and it pops up on screen saying new software update available and it gives you two options Download now or not now. What do you do? I said I always click not now. I Think I don't need it. It's gonna shut down while I'm doing it So I I don't need it. So I click now now. So he said if you've been clicking not now for four years Your laptop is so far behind the curve that it doesn't know what just happened to it And the and then I mean I'm into what I call capture then in seeing something in this picture that became a metaphor for Transition and for growth because these are two Apple products. They're from the same creator They're joined by a cable from the same creator, but they cannot speak to each other because one of them has been clicking not now for years and I want you to know That today is not about quantum leaps and leadership is not about quantum leaps. It's about the carpet it's about Just keep clicking download now something today Just a little thought a throwaway comment something you see that you didn't come to see something you observe a Line of thought a concept an idea. We're not here to challenge your doctrine or change your theology Though that is desperately needed sometimes for us, but that is not how we grow and change growth is thousands of small Incremental steps many of which you would not want to be caught calling growth Because some of those are backward steps some of them are failures some of them are mistakes And so you don't kind of see them as progressive But all of these things become progressive and what makes our leadership progressive is that we don't look for where? Can we do these things? But we look for where can we click download now on something that is not sexy and not dramatic But we think if we do that Every day on something That we will stay relevant because around the world the progressive churches have leaders that do that every day and The churches that are lagging behind that once were progressive is Because they're led by leaders that have stopped clicking download now and have parked up on an old download And have built a belief system around it and built a church around it and it's 20 years out of date And we can't afford to do that in Europe We're 98% of our population are still not in church. We can't afford those of us that are the church We can't afford to park up on the good old days And so been in this building that's 17 years old and seeing these upgrades is a metaphor to take away with you today For where you need to just maybe click download now today Even if it kind of proves to be no good to you just download it and just see if it helps and changes Don't be defensive and protective. Just I'll have a look at that. I'll read that book I'll give some thought to that Well, I'm gonna reach you from judges chapter 3 Versus 12 to 30 where we Gonna step into this fascinating to me story. The book of judges is a fascinating book If judges was a movie It would be a Hollywood blockbuster action high body count movie Because the book of judges is just carnage I know we kind of disinfect it when we read it and flick the page But if you just put yourself on pause and try to put yourself in real time or what you just read It's pretty horrendous But I find it fascinating who God chose to be Judges and I want you to know today that The reason God calls you is not just to do with getting a job done The reason God calls you is because God Finds something in you that he placed you in you from birth that makes you distinctly useful and uniquely fascinating and interesting to him and I believe that God Appointed these judges not just to right wrongs or to bring the nation of Israel back from its errant ways But I think he chose these characters like the one we're gonna read about now Because God had placed in them from the beginning this dormant latent genius That the world never saw us that takes Samson for instance. We have been very unkind to Samson We've been unkind to Thomas. We call him doubting Thomas the Bible doesn't call him that we've called him that But Jesus deliberately chose a doubter to be in his team to say to us I'm not threatened by doubt. It's part of the journey. You shouldn't be either We've been unkind to Martha and we've been very kind to Mary As if she was the sort of sister that didn't get it because she had the oil You know pouring on Jesus feet and wiping his feet, but she did it in the house of of Martha who was using a different oil in the kitchen to cook meals and Churches that are all Mary and no Martha are the ones that forget to pick you at the airport Just that that at Jesus's feet and churches that are all Martha are not Mary are too corporate and very organized And there's no heart in it. There's no Jesus in it so we got to Figure out that all these people bring something to the table and Samson from birth was commissioned by God to pick a fight with the Philistines I do a teaching on him called Samson God's magnificent irritation because that's what he was and from birth He was chosen to pick a fight with the Philistines Because for 40 years they've been under Philistine oppression and nobody's crying out to God for intervention which suggests they got comfortable It's called the Stockholm syndrome Where these relics are got comfortable we've been ruled by others I've been told what to do and they enjoyed Something about that and they didn't cry out to God so God had to do his own crying out so it raises up this guy called Samson and When he wants to get away from the Philistines and his parents say you got to do that. That's not right He was unreasonable and stubborn We think that's something that was a weakness in him It was a strength because the Bible says God was trying to pick a fight through him with the Philistines by him insisting I want one of those women for my wives not a Hebrew And if you've never if you've never experienced God making you do something If you've never experienced a destiny on your life that you can't shake off If you've never experienced something that will not leave you alone when you want to leave it alone You'll never understand Samson So this guy today is fascinating to me and we're gonna read here Judges 312 again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord because they did this evil the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over them notice God gave Eglon power over them and They took possession of the city of palms these relics were subject to Eglon for 18 years Again these relics cried out to the Lord and he gave them a deliverer a hood a left-handed man He is he is his genius coming up here a left-handed man The son of Gerard the Benjaminite these relics sent him with a tribute to Eglon king of Moab Now I heard had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long maybe a couple of feet long Which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab who was a very fat man After I heard had presented the tribute he sent on Their way those who had carried it but on reaching the stone images near Gilgal He himself turned back to Eglon and said your majesty. I have a secret message for you The king said to his attendants leave us and they all left A hood then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said I have a message from God for you As the king rose from his seat a hood reached with his left hand And drew his sword from his right thigh something nobody ever ever did And plunged it into the king's belly even the handles sank in after the blade I told you it was one of those movies and His bowels discharged A hood did not pull the sword out and the fat closed in over it Then a hood went out to the porch He shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them After he had gone the servants came and found the doors locked. They said he must be relieving himself He was but not in the way that they thought In the inner room they waited to the point of embarrassment. I don't know what that would be half an hour an hour I don't know But when he did not open the doors of the room they took a key unlocked it and they saw their Lord fall into the floor dead While they'd waited a hood got away. He passed by the stone images and escaped to Sira When he arrived there he blew a trumpet in the hill country the frame and the Israelites went down from the hills with their hood Leading them follow me He ordered for the Lord has given Moab your enemy into your hands So they followed him down and took possession of the Fords of the Jordan that led to Moab They allowed no one to cross over at that time. They struck down about 10,000 Moabites all vigorous and strong Not one escaped That day Moab was made subject to Israel and the land had peace for 80 years By the way, that was the longest season of peace Israel had ever had in this season of their history 80 years now Want to speak to you about what I'm calling left-handed leadership in a right-handed world Left-handed leadership in a right-handed world. How many of you are left-handed? Keep your hands up. Well, you're gonna be heroes by the time I've done People gonna be wanting your autographs and that's about proportion actually to the ratio in the world Do you realize did you know that 90% of the world are right-handed? 90% of the world are right-handed Primarily they reckon it's because the brain is cross-wired as you may or may not know the brain is cross-wired and the right side of the body is controlled by the left brain and the left side of the body is controlled by the right brain and Right-handers are left brain dominant and the left brain dominance is to do with communication and language and Analysis and logic and reason things that have been vital I suppose to the evolution of our species Hence, I understand why right-handedness and left-brain dominance has been essential to bring us to where we have come as Mankind because the skills of the left brain are of course vital to the thriving of any civilization but left-handed people are Right brain dominant and right brain dominance is more to do with creativity and Empathy and emotion and spatial ability. That's why a lot of architects are left-handers by the way a spatial awareness a spatial ability face recognition the awareness of context and tone an intuition and lateral thought comes from the Right brain things that actually are not as vital to the success and the thriving of civilization as what the left brain has to offer So today I'm going to touch on a few things and we won't have time for these all But it'll wet your appetite if I can't get through them all for you to maybe go beyond today and give some thought To this I want to first of all use a hoods left-handedness as a metaphor For a rare kind of leadership that I believe the world And especially the church perhaps is crying out for When I say metaphor by the way metaphor is not appreciated by left-brain people When you are a sort of logic analytical systems mr. Spock Left-brain kind of person metaphor is lost on you I posted something on Instagram a while back and I was trolled must have been by a left brain didn't understand metaphor person and I love and use metaphor a lot and His life a hoods life and his left-handedness I find Fascinating if I have time. I want to speak to you about how Unkind the world has been To left-handers and still is We 90% right-handers don't know what it's like to be in Left-handed in a right-handed world There's a website called anything left-handed comm because tools Sports equipment golf clubs Computers tin openers pencil sharpeners blades on knives are all made for right-handed people You left is you left is in here can shout in any time you want because this may help your cause that we get a Protest going today we go and march on Parliament for more for more rights for left-handed people that have all historically been a persecuted minority seriously children that had a tendency to be left-handed were Made to use their right hand by their parents so much so that years gone by and still in societies today Their left hand was tied behind the back to force them into right-handedness Because it is a right-handed world and you are seen to be disadvantaged Let alone odd and weird and peculiar to be left-handed The word in Latin for left is the word synestra from which we get the English word sinister because the left-hand side of the body has always been regarded as sinister associations in in medieval Plays the assassin the criminal was always left-handed If you were left-handed you were considered to be perhaps involved in the dark arts if you were suspected of witchcraft And it was discovered that you also were left-handed This was the final confirming evidence that you must be involved in witchcraft seriously if you were left-handed you were you were seen as a person to be suspicious of you were seen to be dodgy In in different parts of the world right now the left hand is used for the bathroom And the right hand is for social interaction And so even in many belief systems around the world still the left hand is regarded as unclean even in the Bible The goats go on the left and The sheep go on the right so so the right-handed dominant world even used the Bible to make the lefties feel somehow there's something wrong with you and Somehow you need fixing so history is not being kind to left-handed people But what but what no one sees coming is that all that persecution and All that unfairness and all that injustice and all that stereotyping that boxes left-handed people in with suspicion and Mistrust and negativity produces something in them like it does in any minority It produces something in left-handed people who by the way have had a massive disproportionate effect on history Did you know that Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and Napoleon were all left-handers Did you know that the reason in Europe they drive on the right and not the left is because Napoleon made it that way Because he was left-handed And in the feudal system when you traveled along the road in a right-handed world if you traveled on the left You traveled on the left because your weapon arm Was free to defend yourself Against the other passing right-handers So Napoleon changed it to favor himself and he changed the travel system to travel on the right So that when you travel on the right his left hand his fighting arm was free To defend himself and to fight so he changed the whole movement of transportation He made his arm is much on the right and not on the left so so Impactive so massive has been the impact and significance lefty South paws have had on History disproportionate to their 10% the contribution has been Amazing because there's something in them. There's something in a hood. There's something That's produced in them. It seems this spatial awareness that lefties have is What produces brilliant generals? Because he was said Napoleon could look at a battlefield could look at a piece of land and in his mind He could instantly see where the troops should be best placed for advantage. He didn't need drawings They became drawings But it was it was mapping what was in his head because he had this right brain dominance of spatial awareness That was attached to his left-handedness that triggered this right brain genius that gave him this Massive ability to figure out battlefields and because right brainness is to do with empathy and connection his soldiers loved him Because he was so devoted to them. He wasn't this detached, you know behind the scenes general He loved them this right brain empathy and connection and compassion meant that his armies would do anything for him So these lefties through history have had these traits none of us knew and have taken time to study never mind their impact on art and architecture and culture The entire 15th century Italian Renaissance was led by Southpaw's Michael Angelo was a lefty Leonardo da Vinci not the Caprio. I know you know him, but I mean the other one Leonardo da Vinci was a left-hander It was said that when they discovered Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and sketches What we'd have to call them today were drawings and sketches of helicopters tanks Aeroplanes and all kinds of technology that wouldn't come for hundreds of years later in his mind He was seeing them and drawing in his own way what he felt the future looked like and the entire Italian Renaissance Was led by these lefties if you go to the Sistine Chapel At the Vatican and look up it is Michael Angelo's painting of Adam reaching out in his creation to God and Adam's reaching out with his left hand Which was seen to be so audacious and so ridiculous and so Nonconformist and so so wrong, but it was his way of saying up yours to a right-handed world Google it. It's a fascinating picture. It's Adam reaching to God with his left fingertip and God reaching to him with his right hand as if he was saying these left-handers that have been demonized for generations are Carrying a certain kind of exclusive rare genius like airhood did and to break this 20-year oppression of Israel God raises up this Left-hander I think airhood and left-handed leadership in a right-handed world to me represents Leadership you don't see coming It's leadership that is outside the box. It is Surprising it is unpredictable It is unconventional it is uncommon it is unpopular it is even underdog which by the way all of that we desperately need to Reach our country Reach our world business as usual usual churches are constantly falling into increasing levels of Irrelevance, and so I see something in airhoods left-handedness that God found Extremely useful to break a 20-year oppression because all the right-handed approaches to breaking it as it were were not working So this left-handed leadership steps up and his right-brain creative genius enables him to create a best spoke solution Because there were no off-the-shelf options available. So he he forges a best spoke weapon His right-brain genius enables him to think of a way around this that the right-handed leadership I suppose more mainstream 90% Leadership wouldn't come up with because he's coming from a different part of his creative ability and he creates this best spoke weapon and He hides it under his Garments on the right side of his body. So when he approaches King Egg Long's secret service They don't even consider him a threat because He has no weapon on his left side So to look at him would just would be to say he is unarmed. He's not a threat They probably didn't even pat him down because the other reason they didn't see him coming is because did you see that? He's a Benjamin Benjamin means son of my right hand So he's from a right-handed tribe He's from a right-handed Family a right-handed belief system. He's from right-handed people. So he's a lefty in a right-handed tribe He's the son of the right hand, but he's a left-hander. So they don't see him coming at all He is a complete shock and awe surprise talk about stealth talk about No one's seeing him come in and I I think he represents what I would call leadership that blends in Which we have no theology and we need to find some Because I gotta tell you The success of the church in our country is gonna be far less about shouting and far more about blending in We see blending in as a fail because I grew up with well with salt and where light and what a city set on a hill and we've We've made it on that expression Every single one of those things also has a much more subdued subtle blending in expression Salt doesn't have to be so pronounced that it ruins your meal and that's all you taste and light doesn't need to dazzle We Christians we Christians we Because light can be subtle Light can be beautiful light can be just there but not dazzling you we've dazzled people with our Evangelistic presentations for years and the world our wise to it and if you know what's happening around the world you know that Leadership that is blending in movements that blend in like terrorists You don't know about the bomber till the bombs gone off. I hope to God we've got blending in people in North Korea Hope to God there's people on the ground there that know stuff that we don't know that are feeding intelligence back to their political leaders because Success and progress in all walks of life It seems to me owes far more to Blending in than standing out and this occurred to me recently in Europe when I went to the we got the door breakers building here in Holland, some of you may have been to that building look at it It's it's be on cue. It's Ikea When I went to speak there last year And And the driver took me and we got there I said to him well, where's the church building? I don't know what I was thinking about in my head, but I said where's the church building? He said it's there. I said you kidding me. It's like a furniture warehouse Or some kind of DIY place or or offices or something. It's a corporate looking building, isn't it? And what that word means on the right the language on the right means it's Middle Holland Conference Center It's called Middle Holland Middle Netherlands Middle Holland Conference Center that there's no church name There's no church logo. There's nothing about that's the safe church this building blends in To the landscape they built this as a conference center With the church permitted to use it They built it in conjunction and collaboration with a business guy in the church that put up his Millions and they're put in theirs and he has a third of the building and they have two-thirds, but it's run as a conference center It's a money-making machine And the church have an option to use it every Sunday for what they do and He runs the whole thing all year round and when he wants to use their part He pays a fee to them when they want to use his part. They pay a fee to him. It's genius. I Built this we built this as a church Then went half the church left and we and I realized all the money went out the door I started some businesses one of which was I turned this into a conference center to rent out to corporates because I realized This is sat empty all week and so we we started different to these guys We started building something for church the moment you put carpet down and ceiling tiles in it feels like a church These buildings are rustic and industrial some of them are called steampunk. I Know I had to Google that one when I walked around a steampunk design building in South Africa But they're contemporary and they blend in and nothing shouts church And I think sometimes we're obsessed with having our name on the building having our logo on the building And I came from that background because we're overlooking the city here So this is a place to emblazon abundant life church We put center on the building because I didn't want the word church to scare off Barium abundant life center. Oh, they probably sell koi carp or people came for life insurance abundant life center Or they came to use the gymnasium last thing they thought was that it was a Church I want you to think about What you are doing and I want you to think about Where your leadership is too shouty think about where you need to be more aware of subtle and blending in and taking your community and Leading your church with some surprises with some as it were left-handed genius. We We focus don't we because we don't know anything else other than to focus on the three years of Jesus's life But he spent 30 years blending in so want to be like Jesus, but we don't mean that bit And even in his three years in public ministry as you know He spent a lot of his time trying to avoid people Escape from the crowds Go up to the feast of Jerusalem on his own schedule even his own family said, you know You want to be a public figure you should be going to Jerusalem right now? And he said no no any time for you is good any time for me is not good I am on a different schedule to you and Jesus Spent much of his life trying to blend in he heals a blind man, then you can't find him We'd have BBC there because he understood the you understood the beauty he understood the impact of of Understated of subtle of not shouting of not Publicizing everything, you know, Joshi will learn from Moses's mistake Moses sent out the spies High profile so their return was high profile Joshi was sent out his spies in secret and told no one because if they came out a negative report It would only be Joshi would have heard it The nation wouldn't hear it then he's managing all of that and so we learned from the mistakes of Moses I believe in the way that he spied out the land When it was his turn to possess it we notice Moses don't we but we forget about his mother That blended in into The Egyptian palace as his mother and she was paid to be his mom And she was his mom we we look at Moses's leadership, but we forget in the formative years of his life His mother was right there Embedding into him the Hebrew belief system and when he was old as we know he didn't depart from it He started poorly then he had years in that middle In that twilight zone, but his mother was right there and begin We notice we notice Elisha and Neyman and the great miracle But we don't notice this the slave girl that was human trafficked into Syria And was a servant in Neyman's household would ever know a name, but she was the one that set that emotion She was the one that said to Neyman's wife. There's a guy in Israel that I think could help My master and he's called Elisha and She's in the background. She's blending in as did Esther as did Daniel Infiltrating from the inside out nothing like a man a woman a person on the inside And we notice them after they appear as Leaders we notice them once they become prominent and from there we take our leadership lessons And from there we do our teaching and preaching But I want you to think about Looking at their lives before they came as it were on the radar because it's easy to spot their leadership then But there is this understated behind the scenes more blended in leadership that I Believe we've lost the art of that in all walks of life not just often in the church But in all walks that is this value in this understanding That we're gonna get further our cause will get further We'll have we'll have less resistance than we need to have we we don't need to pick a fight up front By being too shouty and too up front Let's just work this thing quietly and carefully are more behind the scenes and below the radar And this was the problem with our church because we were too shouty and Then in the late 90s when we reinvented and crossed the church over I realized that our gift to this city was not to be shouty And to be doing this But to go and serve them to go and help them to go and Spend more time in their shoes than ask them to spend time in ours to go to find them instead of asking them to find us to To not to not put out a voice that says, you know You should join us or where the good guys or or God loves you and died on the cross for you And we preach from a distance and we were in this building Distance from them, but our theology made us feel like we're really helping them So in the lyrics of our songs and the and the and the words of our prayers We were we were loving them and reaching them, but in reality they weren't here We have to go and find them and we didn't go to them with with preaching or with evangelistic crusades We just went to help them to blend in to become one of them to not go and say we're doing this in Jesus name You know and I don't that little bit take my hand pray this prayer before I step away We just for years settled down to becoming part of this city to becoming a help To to making kindness and love mainstream from our church into our community and in that way we did our own version I think of Blending in and we still are because we're here generationally We don't need some big event where all the city turns to Jesus. Those those mentalities are What we should have kept pressing? Download now and you thinking about years ago But our local churches are the greatest move of God our cities will ever see because we're the only Generational idea God has and Toronto and Pensacola and all these things will come and go But we'll still be here when they've come and gone because the church is God's only generational answer to the world But we have to settle down generationally and we have to settle down for long term, so we don't need surprise We don't need here. We are we don't need To be shouty all the time. We need to discover the mastery the genius of this Blending in to know the value of subtle and understated and This left-handed right-brain Genius to give greater expression to our creativity the church has not been known as you know Historically for our creativity. We were the first to demonize TV We were the first to say this is of the devil and so the world took it instead and the church caught up later But often with with new things that is happening around the world with the first to be threatened by it as I mentioned earlier with changes and upgrades and We therefore cease to continue to be Progressive, but this right-brain dominance and by the way the millennial generation are a right-brain dominant We started didn't we eons ago with the agricultural age for thousands of years, and then we stepped into The industrial age and then we stepped into the information age, which is where all this Technology in the Bill Gates came from but that information age that we've been in now for two or three generations is fading And that the information age was built on left-brain logic But all those people that stick their lives and their careers and their Financial futures on left-brain logic pursuits Now all their jobs have gone to Asia and because they have not developed any right-brain skills They find themselves in mid-life Without a job because people will do their jobs a fraction of the price in India these call centers These different businesses the financial world the law world the technological world All that stuff's been farmed out to Asia and so the people that just developed left-brain are stranded in midlife because they haven't developed these other empathy and compassion and connection and meaning and significance Skills that the millennials have and so we're gonna even have to change how we do church to reach a millennial Generation and this is why the church is struggling in our country because the church has been led by left-brain dominant people And if you look at some of the primary leaderships in our church over the years, they have been academically brilliant academically Intelligent, but I've had poor people skills about poor empathy skills. I've not been creative I've not had connection with us as we listened to them Some of our former archbishops were Brilliant in their own left-brain logic analysis Genius but lacked connection and empathy, which is what the world are looking for from the church And so to build lives and churches that are right brain free and dominant because to break this 20-year status quo God had to find something someone somewhere that represented Difference something new something no one saw coming and I believe we still require that in This very changing world in this World that I mentioned just now has gone through these seasons and what we call the next one My name for it is within the age of human flourishing Some call it the conceptual age, but we're in a different ball game the information age is not What we're in anymore. It's not that left-brain skills don't matter they do but they're just not enough anymore They're just not enough on their own we have to We have to get this right brain Left-handed leadership right brain as it were thing working Intentionally more than ever and the point leaders and the point people and do ministries and do things that our right brain dominant What left brain dominant things that are driven by creativity and love and connection and compassion and empathy And then our churches will flourish because that's what The world and especially the Millennials who are our future are looking for As I age As you age it's not your job to keep coming up with new ideas Though that's not a bad thing as you age don't be threatened by the iPad generation as it were As you age your job is to make room for those That are coming up. It's to make room for the air hoods is to make room for the unusual and the Unquantifiable and the different don't be threatened by it as Steve said earlier about our celebrating difference in the body of Christ difference in the world Our job as we age is not to say it's my idea my way or no way I've been in those churches around the world and they're dying But it's not my job to be original it's your job to be original you come up with something My job is to create a culture that your genius thrives that I'm not threatened by your left-handedness that I didn't see coming It's different to mine because it's unusual. It's a minority. It's small It's 10% but there's something distinctive about it that God chose you for and it is a huge gift to the to the team To the church to what to our cause is to spot these distinctive geniuses and to make room for them That's my job as I age not to insist like so that you wear my armor It's my way on no way You know soul saying where my armor don't you was not about him helping David at all It was knowing and hoping he would die But being seen to have been helping him as he died and the older generation often do that trick. I hope you fail but You know, let me be seen to be contributing a bit so I look like I was hoping that you wouldn't and That's what Saul was really doing and I don't Want us to have that gap generation around the world which I see in many churches around the world where the Order to get stuck and parked up and a threatened by the emerging generation Because all around the world we have to deal with this as Steve said this Generational transitional Hand over and I don't want to and you don't want to be present preventing progress by appearing to be open to it But really you're not and you can buy a lot of time by seeming open, but really not being And delayed change is as bad as no change Because all change has a sell-by date on it has to be done in a certain sphere a certain window Come on. Let's stand together times go father. We stand here today so Grateful and if we're honest continually surprised At your inclusion of us That you would even look in our direction let alone call us and use us let alone see something Genius and brilliant in us And I pray for every church represented here every town Every city every piece of ground in this country every troubled community All the complexities that some of you Represent in the communities you come from All the pain all the suffering all the three steps forward to back all the difficult days More than you should have had more than it seems proportionate to others I pray that in the midst of all this you will find this Spark of genius that God saw in you from the beginning That you will become intentional about developing it that you will figure out and find your left-handed genius That you would become all across this country modern-day versions of airhood leadership That the world And the locked up towns and cities never see coming because business as usual is not changing it And here comes you and here comes your leadership with an out-of-the-box approach to all things With the best spoke ideas and best spoke weaponry That breaks lockups And breaks stalemates and breaks business as usual and challenges the status quo And becomes revolutionary in its nature in our communities And I pray you discover the absolute genius of blending in In this next 10 20 years That you will infiltrate politically and corporately And in the social life of the city And in the financial world And in the church world Then all the worlds where you set your foot you will discover the genius of understated And the genius of being less shouty God help us to Give this kind of gift to our country and to our cities I pray for the emergence of left-handed leadership In a right-handed world in jesus name. Amen. Love you guys. Thank you for listening this morning