 Well, good afternoon. We are gonna get started with this breakout called embracing the tension. So it's post lunch So if you fall asleep, it's okay. It happens to all of us at some point. Hey, but We're gonna cover I'm gonna try to cover three of the main tensions. I believe leaders face right now in culture We may just get to the one which is the word in spirit So you should have a handout in front of you. I talk really really fast So you're gonna need that to keep up But I want to pray and just that God will saturate your heart and kind of leave you here with something as you walk out Well, we just thank you for this conference within a pastor Lee and his heart just to see healthy praying strong word and spirit churches And I pray for this next few moments that you just imparted in us a desire to embrace the tension between the word and the spirit Which on our current reality in the future reality, but also unity and truth Thank you for wisdom and discernment and anointing in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So Quick short story. I'm the pastor at Christchapel. I've been there for almost eight years My wife Toya is here with me went there in 2014 It was an existing church that we would call a spirit church we've spent the last eight years trying to Bridge that to be a word in spirit church with failures with successes with mistakes But with a lot of a lot of lessons that have been learned So a lot of this is from some of those lessons in Ezekiel 22. It says this I Look for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap On behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found No one Standing in this gap is so gap is a hole between two different places So there's two extreme extremes or opposites or two things that are there And what I found is the kingdom of heaven the truths of the kingdom of heaven are found in the tensions between two things And so when you see some of these things You'll see this Some of the tensions are grace and truth they seem like opposites But when you can embrace the tension between the two you grab ahold of the tension and the truth of the kingdom of heaven Justice and mercy seem like polar opposites But when you embrace the two you get the truth of the kingdom of heaven God's sovereignty and human Responsibility when you embrace the tension you get the truth of salvation you keep going on and on the natural and supernatural word and spirit Come and see and go until faith and works the kingdom now and the kingdom later Evangelism and discipleship they seem like opposites, but when you can embrace the two together You get the truth of the kingdom of heaven and the sad thing about the majority of church world is we don't embrace the tension We just grab ahold of one and then we fight the other And so when you do that you actually lose the truth because the truth is actually held in tension and in the scripture in Ezekiel 22 He says I look for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in The gap the gap is where the tension is between the two things So whether it's the word and spirit whether that's evangelism discipleship and what I found is it's much easier To just go one way or the other than to hold that tension and stand in the gap But the scripture saying God is looking for people He's looking for leaders who are willing to grab ahold of both sides and bridge the difference Grab ahold of the tension and stand in the gap so God can build the churches He's wanting to build and so that tension is difficult that tension is painful because the reality is the tension hurts And so God is looking for leaders right now Right now that could embrace the tensions the kingdom of heaven Whether that's human responsibility in God's sovereignty. We've seen people choose camps whether they're Reformed or Armenian they're choosing but God is both God uses both for salvation whether that's faith in works the word and spirit He's looking for leaders that are willing to hold on to the tension and the tension is where the pain is Her pastor Lee shares some of the stats that he was going through just the pain that that pastors feel that is the tension And so the easy way to explain it if I have Steve and if I have you I just want you to stretch this stretch Armstrong So if it bust though, it's on you So if he was wearing skinny jeans and Jordans that would be a pastor But if he just hold it So if if this is the word side and this is the spirit side people on both sides are fighting each other If you look at political divides, they're fighting each other If you look at sovereignty and human responsibility, they're fighting each other and pastors who are trying to stay in the gap feel the tension And so the tension that we feel many times the discouragement the pain the frustration the doubt the stress the anxiety Is because we are the stretch Armstrong in the church the leader Carries the tension of the church trying to bring them closer together and you never actually Release the tension you just find ways to embrace it In order to do it God has called you to do you can set that down before you break it And so a few quote same chance and you'll only grow to the threshold of your pain So meaning the amount of pain you as a leader can embrace and can hold Determines the level of the or the size of the growth of the church that you can accomplish and trying to bridge that gap He also says when you want to when God wants to make a difference. He raises up a leader Every time in the Bible we may pray God we want you to move God want you to do this Every time God moves in the Bible He raises up men and women of God to use to move something forward And those are people that stand in the gap and begin to bridge that gap to bring those two sides closer The leader is the one who embraces the tension the church the church doesn't embrace the tension They may feel the tension. They may feel the pain. They may feel the frustration But the leader is the one who holds that tension and that's why pastors are stressed out That's why pastors give up because they they see the tension But they feel the tension and they hold the tension and it's expressed through anxiety It's expressed through doubt and discouragement stress all the things we see and one of my Philosophies of leadership is leadership is frustrating people at a rate they can handle So if you have people on the word side people on the spirit side I'm trying to frustrate both of them at a rate they can handle to get where we're trying to go When you're trying to move people from Egypt to the wilderness the promised land You can only lead them at a rate that they can actually hold on to and accomplish And so you're always frustrating people but you're frustrating them at a rate They can handle because frustration is a sign you're moving them out of their comfort zone And so when you're embracing the tension you have to know people will be frustrated Which has caused the tension with me, but it's actually moving our church and our movement forward And so the three major tension areas I think is first and foremost the word and the spirit So if we're gonna be the churches God has called us to be Leaders have to be people who embrace the tension between the word and the spirit This is extremely vital you heard it this morning people aren't just looking for a good message They're not just looking for a good teaching. They're looking to be encountered by the presence of the living God So if you're just a word God, you're you're Determining your people from an encounter with the presence of God But if you're just a presence person, they're missing the foundational truths to actually grant them freedom and the boundaries and the truth of God's word One of my mentors RT Kindle said it this way He said there has been a silent divorce in the church speaking generally between the word and the spirit when there's a divorce Sometimes children stay with the mother sometimes with the father But in this divorce there are those on the word side emphasizing sound doctrine Especially Romans and those in the spirit side emphasize in the Holy Spirit, especially the book of Acts Sadly it seems to be one or the other almost everywhere I go in the world the need is for both I believe the simultaneous combination will result in a spontaneous combustion the word and the spirit coming together We'll bring about the great next move of God of the Holy Spirit It's so we all know we can identify most churches based off their if there are word church or spirit church Word churches are usually reformed churches, maybe Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches They have great doctrine, great theology, great teaching, great preaching But they lack the presence and the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit Then you have churches on the other side that are so spirit driven They never break open the Bible Everything's a word from God Everything's they give the spirit everything's an altar call and they lose the foundations of the faith that have been around for 2000 plus years and so when the two come together It'll bring about this move of God But the only way it comes together is for leaders who can embrace the tension and actually start bringing the two back together Again, and so that tensions what we're going to be talking about right here So we need both the word and spirit to be the church is Jesus is looking for in his return So Jesus not just looking for a church He's looking for a specific type of church a church It's without blemish without spot that is pure that is blameless And I believe it takes the word and the spirit both to be that type of Church the problem like we said is people choose one of the other in Steve Morell founder of the every nation movement He says it's the two ditches One is the ditch of weird and the others the ditch of dead Meaning we've got burned by the things of the Holy Spirit, so we don't want any the Holy Spirit So then you end up in the ditch of dead Or you're so into things of the spirit that now you're over in the weird stuff and we first cut the chapel There was there were in a huge prophetic church, and we had a kid in the youth ministry a prepubescent 15-year-old I asked him what are you reading your Bible? He tells the pastor. I don't read my Bible I'm prophetic if God wants to tell me something. He'll tell me And so everything was like that and so what happened they got into the ditch of weird Now the temptation of a leader in order not to embrace that tension is it just overcompensate thinking of the ditch of dead and I did that for a season where I was so burnt out by the prophetic So burnt out by the gifts being manipulated and used for for pride and ego and selfish ambition that I sort of Oversteering I actually went to a prayer meeting in Nashville and had hey There's a prophetic guy there and that night before they said hey Jim critchers here. He's got some words In season he's gonna give out and I was like I don't want any of I'd rather leave I don't want to deal with anything prophetic like I've gone to a hell in a hand basket in the prophetic and they told me Hey, we don't do that here. Here's our protocol for the prophetic If somebody has a word we record that word so we want to judge that word and hold on to that word It's the next morning we go and you know when you're the new guy in a prophetic meeting You're always gonna get the word so I was already nervous anyway, and at the time my wife had been sick She's actually in a wheelchair. We're going through all this chaos in this church transition and this prophetic I just reads my mail It is one of the most encouraging words. I've ever had in my entire life Then a few weeks later By the church it's still just chaos of the church. She's still sick we got four young kids and This this lady calls the church said hey my cousin's a minister and she wants to come by and talk to you When the South Everybody's cousins minister and what they're saying is they want to come over and ask for money and I was they look tell them I'm busy. I'm tired. I'm stressed out just tell she said what she's already here She comes in is this large African-American lady who's unkept I'm just judging mom. I'm just waiting for her to ask for the money and she begins to prophesy And she's because of prophesy. I got told me said I brought this lady all the way from Chicago, Illinois To encourage you just shut up and listen And she read my mail she encouraged me a few weeks later. I found out she's Donnie McClearkin's intercessor She's BB and CC Wyden's intercessor and like I had no idea she was she just got brought her there and got awakened Me to not oversteer back in the dead but to embrace the things of the spirit again in a safe way And so what happens is we all have the temptation to move towards our default If we're word people want to oversteer the word if we're spirit people try to over steer to the spirit But you have to embrace the tension is what keeps you going straight down the road when you get loose You default to one way or the other and what happens is when you have the word minus the spirit your church become legalistic or fundamental church You see that with with tons of denominations that are now there's super fundamentalist if it's not this way There's no grace. There's no no love no mercy no power no presence because they've lost the spirit Then you have spirit minus word equals liberalism So we kind of had we're at where it's all about how I feel and and what I need and in my emotions and a lot of Emotionism, but there's no anchor for the faith then you have no spirit plus no word is just carnal Christianity Meaning it's about my carnality my flesh There's nothing to suppress that at all, but word plus spirit equals New Testament Christianity Which is I believe what pastor Lee was talking about today where it's presence driven Center around the presence of God Proclaiming the gospel living out the gospel in becoming the people of God to minister the world around you We're no longer in an attractional season where people come to us We have to carry the presence of God with us wherever we go And so God is looking for these type of people and mark chapter 12 It says this says Jesus said to them is this not the reason you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures Nor the power of God So he's talking to the Pharisees. He's saying this is why you're wrong. You don't know the scriptures Nor the power of God so not only do you not know the spirit But you don't know the the word of God either and he's saying these two things should be the same They shouldn't be tied together and so what happens is that word era means to wander off track or astray So what he's telling them is you had the word and you had the spirit, but at some point you wandered off Track and he was trying to get them back off back on track to be word and spiritual when you're ignorant of the scriptures Here's what happens our faith is weak and limited because faith comes by the hearing of the word of God When we're ignorant of the scriptures We cannot walk in true freedom because freedom comes by abiding in God's word When you lack the knowledge of the scriptures We have no boundaries to and we live according to our own ways because all scriptures given for reproof and correction and rebuke And so when you're ignorant of the scriptures, you have no boundaries to live from but when you're ignorant of the Holy Spirit and the power of God We have no power to live the lives. God has called us to live We have no real victory over sin. We experience limited and circumstantial peace We experience no lasting joy because joy comes through the Holy Spirit We have no spiritual gifts to advance the mission our prayer lives are weak and powerless We experience no spiritual growth or progress and sanctification and we don't have an assurance of salvation So when you're ignorant of one of those two you end up with those limitations one with the other But the question we need to ask ourselves is this We must ask ourselves how well do I and my church know the scriptures Right, so Jesus says the two sides of air is going to be not knowing the scriptures being ignorant of the scriptures We're bringing ignorant of the power of God. So how well does my church know the scriptures? Then secondly, how well does my church know the Dunamis, which is the same word Jesus used or the power of God? So just thinking to yourself if Jesus is telling you how well do you know the scriptures? How what is your church know the scriptures? Yeah, they know you're preaching. Yeah, they know your service How well do they know the scriptures and secondly? How well do they know the power of God not a good worship service? But how well do they know the presence and power of God because we tend to stray towards one or the other and To get where we need to be it says as the first that's the ones one Says for we know brothers love by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word But also in power and the Holy Spirit with full of conviction We have to come to a place where we realize we can't have one without the other That our ministry is only truly authentic when it contains both the word and the spirit in Equal respect so we have to get to a place where you respect both the word and the spirit That means one of things I've had to do is realize that just because a church isn't a spirit field church Doesn't mean I can't respect them as being a word church and just because the church is a spirit Field chaotic mess doesn't mean I can't respect them for honoring and respecting the things of the spirit So when I respect at least that side of it I can start building bridges to embrace the tension to bring us all closer together one of the first things I did Going through our chaos is there's a reform church in town that is like the John McArthur all the gifts of spirit passed away He's the fundamentalist. I scheduled lunch with him a Scheduled lunch with him because he was really the only church in town that was still a word-centered church And I knew that if we're gonna be a word-in-spear church We had to build some connections with word churches and spirit churches So I scheduled lunch with him his first words were what do you want? Charismatics don't invite me to lunch. I was like, well, this is not going well So we go through I said man, I just want to say thank you for keeping the word centered in our community Like you the word church and I just want to say thank you for for being that anchor point here in our community And it just set him free. He was like really I never had charismatic like inviting lunch before like usually they're condemning me and all this stuff And so we start talking about the gifts of the spirit And when I would describe Prophecy he was like, I think I agree with that. I described tongues He said I think I agree with that and it was like one more and I said, you know what? You're about to be a charismatic and he said don't you ever see that a kid But on the same way it was with the spirit field people I had to build bridges what happens is until you respect both You don't get either one and we live in a day and age. We're so busy trying to build our camps There's the scripture in Mark and in Luke where the disciples come to Jesus and they say to Jesus Hey, hey, they're baptizing people in your name And Jesus says who cares now the context of that is Jesus only chose 12 disciples and they were with them They're the ones complaining so these other disciples that are bad to our rogue disciples and Jesus still says I don't care If they're baptizing people in my name, they're not against us and we have to come to a place We're gonna be word and spirit people That we need to acknowledge if there are word church. Thank God They're getting the word out if their spirit churches. Thank God They're empowering people the power and the gifts the present Holy Spirit But we're gonna be people that respect both and achieve both And so we want to be the book of acts in balance Paul is the word guy and the spirit guy when you see in the book Okay, he's literally he writes two-thirds of the Bible But yet he writes the Bible and tells us what the gifts the Holy Spirit should be and how they should operate He is the word and spirit guy if you want to be a word and spirit church just look at Paul and do whatever Paul does And so we maintain the traditions of both the scriptures and the New Testament teaching while also Moving when the spirit moves so one things we tell our people they'll say well, are we a word church? Are we like a charismatic church? I'm like we're a word and spirit church When we do prophetic presbytery people ask will we a prophetic? No, we're not a prophetic church So we don't want to be identified by a gift We won't be identified by the presence of God So we are a spirit church and so you have to fight because most people have never seen a word and spirit church before They've seen their Baptist church. They grew up in are they saying TB hen and Charismania And so they don't understand and so we have to be better at communicating why we are there So you experience seasons where the pendulum swings between being a word church and the spirit church So it's not like a perfect balance of 5050 or this Sunday where 50% were and we're 50% spirit You're never going to obtain that what you will obtain is catching the rhythms of the wind of the Holy Spirit Where the winds of revival will swing swing through and moving to the things of the Spirit And then that'll die down to get you grounded back in the Word of God again So there are these rhythms and so you have to learn as the leader to embrace that rhythm and that swing of the pendulum In order to embrace that tension and be the word and spirit church and so some application For you to create a word and spirit church is this create language to explain and relieve the tension of the people in your church So they don't know how to explain the tension. They'll feel the tension That's what they'll say, you know, are we we a charismatic church or we put a castle church You have to create language saying listen, we fully Fully respect the word of God and through just traditions of the Nicene cream the Apostles Creed We completely embrace that in revere God's word But we believe when we look at God's word and we dig deeper in God's word It always points us to the things of the Spirit And then when the Holy Spirit comes and I go your charismatic church Yes, but the Holy Spirit should always point us back to the word of God And so we actually on Easter Sunday and the pastor of the remote will understand is on Easter Sunday We had a tongue and interpretation, which is the last day of the year. You want to have a tongue and interpretation? Like my first thought was God why and so we were we debriefed it And so the way we handle that that doesn't happen often when it happens Maybe once a year and this happens on Easter Sunday That when that happens we want to go right back to 1st Corinthians 12 13 and 14 So we don't want to make it a spirit. They want to make this is a word thing, right? So if we can connect the two together it moves as closer to being a word and spirit church But if we're just like praise God you hear that God is moving and you just get into the spiritual side You missed the word and so where that came important to me is that I think it was our first or second year There in Florence that we had a tongue interpretation on Sunday morning again It only happens like once or twice a year this guy's a visitor African American guy. He schedules a meeting He says hey, well, I'm a Sunday school director this little small black church and he goes to this whole story He says do you might have fun come to the church here? That's my new come to church anywhere You want to we'd love to have you and he says hey that tongue thing So most pastors know that means he's ready to debate. He's already said I'm Baptist I'm a Sunday school teacher like I'm ready to debate. I'm getting all my scriptures ready I'm getting ready. He just says that was beautiful I'm like, but no, we got a debate like you we got a we got a we got a arch you like and he said no That was beautiful. And then that's when I realized many times we come from Pentecostal movements or charismatic movements We're actually embarrassed of the things that are actually beautiful And because we've never seen them done in a way where hey when the spirit moves Let's go back to the word So we're always tying the two together and so three things you can do to bring the things together and be closer than that tension is one emphasize the word Artie Kindles when I mentors he tells me if you have to hang your trousers because he's British If you have to hang your trousers on something hang them on the word of God Right. So if something has to give lean into the word of God And so some things you can do is make the Bible your resource That means for your governance that means for your decision-making that means for your staffing That means for everything make the Bible your resource not church growth movements Not even radiant not anybody else, you know, not your mentors make the Bible your resource If it's not in the Bible, don't do it if it isn't the Bible do it make it your resource But to find a time to just preach through a book or a chapter of the Bible So if you're in on the Spirit side, this is gonna help move you the other direction whether that's a chapter you take Hebrews 11 or you take Philippians 4 you take John 3 you just say hey We're gonna dig in God's word and what it does it communicates to your people that we're not just a spirit church We're a word church and the deeper you go in the word the more room the Holy Spirit has to move And then choose a Bible reading plan and get your church to use it and talk about it We push at the beginning of the year. This is our Bible reading plan This is our Bible reading plan. This is a Bible reading plan. We want our people to know we are a Bible first church But we are gonna center our church around the presence of God So you have to emphasize the word then to you got to emphasize the Holy Spirit So if the Bible is your main resource make the Holy Spirit your main source different thing resource gives you knowledge a source gives you power and so the Holy Spirit has to be your Source not your spiritual gifting not your own preaching ability not your marketing The Holy Spirit has to be your source for everything in your church to get your team and your church praying So we've talked about that Pastor Lee is saying that we have to be praying Churches the problem with that is most of us have never been in a praying church before and so we don't really have a model That's what's beautiful about this here this weekend is that we have a model that you can take with you But one of the things we tell our churches we're not gonna do anything on Sunday morning We don't do as a staff throughout the week. So our staff meeting we worship. We pray Just like it's Sunday morning Why because that's what's filling us up for Sunday morning and you have to get your church praying however That may be when's it a prayer meeting daily prayer meetings Sunday morning intercessory prayer one of the things I do that I'm the most proud of I think of our churches every Sunday morning we take time to have intercessory prayer Over prayer component. We're getting our people to pray and then we pray for a local church by name and the pastor by name And reason for that is why we're trying to build these bridges between the word and the spirit Most churches are fighting over the word or the spirit So we're trying to stand in that gap to him to build those bridges But to it communicates to our people that we're not we're not a competitor with these churches We're trying to help each other churches and we've watched God move in incredible ways Through that go back to an altar call in some way that lay hands on each other and pray for people especially for the sick That's the easiest way to communicate. There were spirit filled church. We believe in healing We believe on the laying on the hands when people see that it changes their perspective from this being a service This being an experience Prophetic Presbytery is one of the greatest things we've done at Chapel. I never heard a prophetic presbytery until I came Radiant four years ago. I told you the story prophetic chaos is where we were at like it was just out of order out of balance There's no word. I'd read about prophetic presbytery. I came to radiant and I saw one I think it was Wayne drain Tom Lane and Tom's daughter was here I think and I was blown away and I was debriefing a pastor Lee Said what do you think and I said I almost felt like an outsider I felt like this was a family meeting and God the father's coming sitting in the meeting to encourage the family And I'm not part of the family I felt like a stranger watching like his family meeting going on and I said it was one of those beautiful things I've ever seen And so I said we have to do this We have to do this to get our church back in that balance between the word and the spirit And so we did prophetic presbytery the most healing thing I've ever seen done in our church Now our elders so we are kind of our process As we have people in our church our staff that nominate people they think need prophetic ministry going through a transition Maybe promotion and ministry or leadership gone through a difficult season And so we nominated those people the elders then confirm those that list We send that list with no names just candidate one candidate two to the presbyters They come to prophetic ministry after they leave and after it's all over the elders sit down with each and every one of those Candidates and we go through that word. So one it's judging the word To it's given accountability to the prophetic presbyters But three our elders are actually walking in an eldership Walking these people through a spiritual gifting and it was just a such a pastoral moment that it brought one It brought pastoral care back through our eldership But two it brought the power of the prophetic into our church in a way that's aligned with the word of God and then school the spirit or any type of of Education or teaching or discipleship that empowers people in the gifts of the spirit like I know pastor Lisa That we're at this place now where as your church grows at some point You can't just keep preaching the Holy Spirit every single month or every single quarter at some point Continual consistent way to get people connected and embracing the gifts and the power in the presence of the Holy Spirit Because one of my fears is that well at some point have more people who are not spirit field than we do that are and when that happens We're no longer a spirit field church. And so you have to find some way to do that. We got time I'm gonna keep on going The second tension is this leaders must embrace the tension between now and next What that means is everyone in your church is just thinking about right now They're just thinking about this Sunday their moment their week, but leaders think about now, but also next And that causes attention between what you currently expect currently your current reality But also what you're dreaming about what your vision is and that tension drives stress And so leaders have to do both of so every pastor is a visionary every pastor is a dreamer every pastor Is want to see things move forward into that promised land But the stress happens when you're in the wilderness Trying to get to the promised land the people are stressed out you're stressed out and you're the one holding the tension between The two and this is the principle that that I live by is it's called organization organizational gap And what that is is you always have to maintain a gap between where you are and your personal growth and the growth of your church your organization Because whenever that gap closes up between your growth and organizations growth once the organization outgrows you you are no longer the leader Once your spiritual growth is capped out now you no longer have the spiritual influence in your church somebody else does and So you have to constantly intentionally outgrow your church So you're not just called to lead your church You're called to outgrow your church You're called to think ahead of your church and the easiest way to see this is Moses We think of Moses this great leader who leads the people of the Hebrews out of Egypt into the wilderness in the promised land But where did where did Moses come from when he came back to Egypt? He came from the wilderness So he left Egypt he spent 40 years in the back side of the desert the wilderness that God was using that wilderness season For him to learn the land to navigate the land. So when he came back to Egypt He's leading them not into a place unknown to a place. He spent 40 years. It's what happens is you can't lead people to a place You've never been before The reason Moses couldn't go into the promised land. He'd never been to the promised land before but Joshua had So there's a principle there that until you go somewhere you can't expect anybody else to follow you there Whether that's in spiritual gifting whether that's in knowledge whether that's in leadership And so for you to hold that tension you have to make sure that you are Purposely out praying out learning and out growing everyone else in your church That is your calling as a leader to make that happen So some of the tips is one schedule regular next thinking and your in your weekly schedule schedule time This is what I'm thinking about what's next but also schedule your personal growth. What is your Bible reading plan? What is your book reading plan for the year is there a conference like a rise shine or another conference? You can go to because once you stop growing the church stops growing Once you stop growing you actually stop leading because your growth is what is leading people forward? Find people that you can connect with your Bible reading plan books to read people to connect with Courses to take one of my favorite biographies is George Washington Carver His aunt said this learn everything you can and come back and give it to your people Learn everything you can then come back and give it to your people as a pastor or leader learn Everything you can about God Encounter God daily and then come back and give it to your people every single Sunday And then last but not least leaders must embrace the tension between unity and diversity Now this one is is complicated in our culture today because everything's divided everything's polarized We want unity there's a blessing on unity, but it's hard to get unity But at the same time diversity is a core value of most people So you have these two things that are conflicting Diversity and unity and the problem is we think of unity as conformity Instead of diversity actually union diversity are the same exact thing Galatians 328 says there is neither Jew nor Greek There's neither slave nor free. There's no male or female for you're all one in Christ Jesus Now the problem that is diversity is a gift to the church But it's also a curse to the leader Right. We all want diversity we want diversity of giftings But you know what's gonna happen that prophetic person's mad because you're not giving them priority over all the other gifts Or the person with the tongue interpretation is upset because you're not giving them priority over the person with prophecy And so the gifts are diversified, but everybody thinks their gift is the most important gift Also when you have different ethnicities or races or generations Everyone thinks their perspective is the most important perspective When in reality you need all perspectives to actually get the right perspective And so it's a blessing because the more diversified you are the more gifts you have available to advance the kingdom But at the same time is the curse because the leader has to hold attention between all those different diversities It makes it hard. It makes it complicated in this day and age with our church being a diverse church every political cycle is hell in the church and It is not even an ethnicity thing and now it's everyone's and partially talked about this in our last zoom form on a book called The Liturgy of Politics is that people now get their spirituality from the politics instead of getting their politics from the spirituality So as a leader you have to help people one deconstruct their fake idolatry and Help them rebuild a theology of the kingdom and so the way you do that is you have to destroy the idols that are interculture the idol of Race the idol of Ginger whatever the new term is that people are identifying their own genders based off of the identity of the idol of politics The idol of Fox News the idol CNN the idol of whatever the next conspiracy theory is all these idols You have to tear them down because you could only build the kingdom up as you tear down the idols and so My goal and we've had man. We've had What's the place of st. Louis the first major Ferguson? We had the Ferguson thing and and so we're diverse church So I have to hit it head on then you have the election cycle then you have black lives matter But we have all these things that keep happening and so every time I can't shy away from them I have to hit them dead on Because there's idols all the way around us and we're here to advance the kingdom not politics We're at advanced the kingdom not race We're here to advance the kingdom not genders and in the kingdom in order to do that you have to offend both sides And so my goal is to grow sometimes ungrace but gracefully offend The left and the right because the kingdom is not on either side And so if I want to have unity I don't point to one way the other to get conformity I point to the kingdom What does Jesus want? What is Jesus's church about? What is the kingdom about? What is this and so if I want that unity where the gift and the blessing is commended by God? At I as a leader of the one that carries the tension whether that's in Gender like we are very we believe in women in ministry. We empower women in ministry and we have to fight for that We have to fight to maintain that Because we live in the South people see that they think it's wrong the whole Beth more thing people blew up our social media When the black and white thing we're diverse. We're not a black church. We're not a white church We're a kingdom church and you have to keep fighting those tensions It becomes more and more stressful stressful, but the blessing is you get the unity on the other side Unity is not given its fault for and as a leader you can do they some tips to help you do that one is this Be proactive not reactive If you wait till the news cycle happens and you react to whatever happened You're already behind you got to be ahead of the curve and be prophetic in preaching Ahead of time so when the stuff does happen, you've already got there that you're cutting them off at the past to Celebrate diversity. It's a gift. It's a gift to the church Paul literally said there's a diversity a variety of gifts There's a variety of perspectives. It's a gift to the church celebrate it Celebrate we have women in ministry of minimus. We have teenagers in ministry We have black people white people Hispanic. We do a unit of diversity every every year in February One year will focus on African-American history the next year will focus on all the different Ethnities or nations that are represented in our church while we're trying to show our church We're special like God is doing something special about bringing people from all across the nation to worship Jesus here Jesus is the centerpiece in our church, but then you reward unity So the way we do that That diversity Sunday is in the south. It's either black church or white church And so the people that are black give up a lot more to come be a part of chapel than the people who are white They're giving up a style of preaching They're giving up a style of worship and they're giving up relationships because the black family the black community is Filtered through the black church. So many of them will actually get dismissed from their family by being part of our church So we try to reward them with that diversity Sunday to show them. Hey, we value you We thank you for your sacrifice for what God is doing here So you want to you want to reward that you want to seek understanding and not conformity? I mean, I'm not gonna Sacrifice my values, but I do want to understand your perspective and so that's conversations we we had I Get the political cycle. There's one of our lay pastors who's an African-American guy His wife was posting crazy stuff on social media Like if you're supporting Trump, you're a racist you're this you're this you're this and I'm like man I've been fighting way too hard. I had to call him and say hey listen I don't care what what your political belief is that is not okay in the kingdom of heaven And you have to fight those things and maintain those values my values not political My value is kingdom and you have to communicate that over and over again then seek a diversity of gifts perspectives and generations Make sure you're not building your own kingdom, but you're building God's kingdom And you know you're building your own kingdom when everyone sounds like you looks like you dresses like you and acts like you But you know it looks like God's kingdom when everyone looks different with different giftings It takes I'm not the most prophetic people, but there's people my staff that are much more prophetic than I am There's people my church that are more prophetic than I am. I'm a Bible teacher But there's people that that have a greater understanding of theology around me You want people that have different gifts around you because it makes the church better But it seems like we want people look like us because it makes us feel better One it relieves the tension, but two it kind of boosts up our ego because we have a bunch of mini-me's running around And the last but not least don't try to be something you're not one of our frustrations is when churches because the Church growth because cliche is we need to be more diverse and you start trying to be diverse For marketing purposes rather than being diverse because God has called you to be diverse And it one I think it's I think it's arrogant to think we can just we can just put more African-Americans on our Instagram and and it'll draw more African-Americans to our church It's not about drawing. It's about empowering It's about empowering people. It's not about even women in ministry It's not about just having women's mission about empowering women for ministry in the church at large It's not just about teenagers but empowering teenagers to do what God has called them to do now Like everything's about empowerment not about attraction and when you get that part of it The unity comes and God begins to move in incredible ways, but you as a leader you carry the tension of all of it And in this day and age it is harder and harder and harder to manage the stress and the tension of leadership I'm telling you Ezekiel 22. God is looking for someone who can stand in the gap and Bridge the gap and embrace the tension to see two things come together to create something more beautiful We say to our church. We're better together But it's hard when you're the leader trying to bring those things together and I believe this week is God is Ordaining and anointing people to go back To bridge the gap between the word and the spirit to see God moving in a super natural way I told you that that prophecy that that Dr. Kindle had about the divorce from the word in the spirit He gave that in I think early 2000s Somebody came and said, do you know who Smith Wilklesworth is he said yeah Now he's in London and he gave this word at this conference. They said, you know who he is He said yeah, he said he gave the same word in the 1940s As I went back and literally verbatim the exact same thing was said by Smith Wilklesworth in the 40s Dr. Kindle said in the early 2000s about the silent divorce But when the two come together, it's gonna be the most incredible move of God the world's ever seen and got his calling leaders that are willing to Embrace the tension and can handle the tension to be those people that God can move in and through their churches with So we have a couple minutes for Q&A any questions on Specifically tension between the word and spirit in a church The question was do you offend the word and the spirit side to bring them back to the middle? I think I have the gift of being offensive myself I try to respect both sides, but at the same time I'm trying to make them think through what they're missing That makes sense. So so with the word people So did it dealt with this last frantic presbytery? So we had a couple that we had actually nominated for candidacy Which is is a huge honor and it's a great benefit to receive prophetic ministry at presbytery And so I talked to the husband. He said, I think it's cool within the wife was like no We don't want to do that and they actually left the church like they're in candidates for Presbytery and they ended up leaving the church because they didn't want to receive prophetic ministry And so what the kind of context was her family goes to a very Sensationless church and so they were involved in her life and so it would have put tension on her and da da da And so toy actually was able to sit down with her and walk her through the scriptures This is not just a spiritual gift thing This is a word thing And we are a word church and this and this but if you're a word church I don't believe you can be a word person and not embrace the gifts and the presence the power of the Holy Spirit So I always try to go back to that. So you say you're a word person But you want your word your word your word you you have to take out a whole lot of scriptures In order to validate the fact you don't believe in things of the spirit In the same way if you if you're way on the spirit side and like well, you know, I just Like we need more of this we need more of that. I'm like, yeah, but you know The Holy Spirit's greatest gift that he wrote this bible For us to learn for us to grow and I believe the the wider and deeper you go in the word of God The more the rivers the Holy Spirit can flow and so that's kind of how I we try to offend them With whatever their preference is we use that to bring them to the other side anybody else So we have green light and red light. We don't have yellow light yet green light is like pastor marissa She's a highly prophetic. She has a green light pastor anthony. I don't know if he is anthony in here He has a green light There's a few people I have a green light and so they can come Use the economy first pastor brown has a green light They'll come to me and they can give that word pretty much whenever they want to On sunday mornings, we don't let people publicly come to the microphone But on prayer meetings, we're kind of open that we'll say in a prayer meeting Hey, this is a chance if you have a word you thank us for everybody the mic is open Now we do try to get them to give it to me first Before we release that Now we have tatans or it's just we haven't done that But we don't do that on a sunday morning the tongue interpretation thing because it doesn't happen very often We're we have to we're redoing our protocol for that because it's kind of spontaneous and we're trying to get that where it's more Bittily sound Yes Yes, yep That's a good question And james river has a really good process james river assembly god in springfield, missouri They have a host mic Uh, it's mostly for prayer meetings and whoever the host Pastor is of that service who's running that service. He has that microphone And people if they have a word they can come to him But the only people they can come to him are people that have gone through their spiritual gift training and are submitted To that they've like they have a spiritual gift pastor there And so the people that are submitted to him are the only ones that can come and give a word So they they have a strong protocol. Actually, I like that a lot anybody else Yes Yep, so the question is what do we kind of identify ourselves with non-denominational word and spirit We say word and spirit church a lot a whole lot And and we probably over say it because we want people we want that to get familiar because one you have to create language That relieves the tension And so when they realize we're word and spirit church, we'll continually redefine that especially i'm always during After prophetic presbytery since that's the big swing towards a spirit I went right after that into a message on we are word and spirit church to say, hey, we're gonna have some Really wide spiritual moments. We're also gonna have some really wide and deep word moments And so that's the term we use because so many people Try to fit everything in the box. We don't fit the box Because we're gonna move wherever the word tells us to go and wherever the spirit tells us to go Yeah, so I'll use some context So context that doesn't happen very often it is very rare, but what was your first Easter parker So a couple Easter's ago. We're doing three services. I've done two. I'm tired. Dylan's new He's he's sitting up there with me Before sir sir, this is guys like shirts unbuttoned down to his belly button. It's Easter Sunday He's up for instance. Let's do this. And I was like, oh my gosh. So I'd go down I talked to him So my discernment is touch if I can if I can touch someone I kind of get my discernment that way I was a man. I think he's good. So go down worship starts. I'm worshiping. I got my eyes closed Dylan just hits me I look up and this dude is on the platform We got security guys have been trained by swat like And this guy's on the platform like he belongs And he's just worshiping and I'm like, oh no So I just walk I'm like we got security. I just walk on the platform. I'm six three. This dude's like maybe five three So I'm like, buddy, come on. You can't be up here He says Yeah, because I didn't want to pick him up and drag it But he said he said this he says if we don't worship Jesus, he dies I'm like, bro. It's Easter Sunday. He's literally resurrected It's so like escort him down. He's still having to conversation. So Easter for us is not always the best day of the year So this Easter It wasn't anything. It was actually a beautiful word So Anthony's in the transition. Anthony's hosting It's kind of a transition moment. The church is packed out. You can't really hear music still going I hear the tongue way back behind me So our protocol we want is Hear the tongue Then ask them to come down to the microphone with interpretation. That's what we want to do But he goes from the tongue writing to the interpretation And the interpretation was you are forgiven people worship like you're forgiven Right, so it's a beautiful word for Easter Sunday So the way we want to handle that is After that, hey, that's a word from God That's one of the gifts of the spirit that God gives the church to to magnify his name to glorify him and to want to empower and edify us So it's in 1st Corinthians 12 13 14 you can read because we want to point people to the word It's in the word of God read it for yourself. You'll see it. It was happening in Corinth It's happening in all the New Testament churches and if you have any questions you can call us or email us or just ask one of the pastors That's how we want to handle it anything. He couldn't quite hear it So he heard it. He just dismissed it So on Easter that could be good or bad So then by the time I get up it's almost passed away So you don't want to bring it back up because it's Easter and thinking well, I didn't hear that thing This church is crazy when you don't have to think we're crazy So that was kind of the it was just don't come to chat on Easter Anything else or anybody else Anybody else some good books Let me go back. I did leave so emphasize the word in the spirit also emphasize the the priests of the believer Passionate kind of hit on it I believe the the more you become a word in spirit church the more the priesthood of the believer is is empowered That you start closing the gap between the the platform and the pew And the way you do that is give ministry away our staff will tell you every step of it Give it away. Give it away. Give it away and some resources for you are some of these books Leadership pain by sam chan is all about just the pain a leader It feels it experiences Quest for the radical middle by bill jackson is a book It's kind of the history of the vineyard movement And it's their desire to be kind of that word in spirit church. It's a great read school of spirit by pastor lee The word in power church is a great book word spirit power It's probably these best book to give people who come from a baptist background, but are hungry for the things of the spirit All three of those guys are baptist guys who write the book. So the word part is written by arty kindle the spirit part by Charles corn or jack taylor power part by jack Charles corn So they both walk through their process of being filled and experience the power of the holy spirit Word spirit by dr. Kindle is great. Everyone gets to play by john wimber Really brings that priest or the believer in in the focus and growing in prayer A growing prayer by mike bigwood is the best book for church prayer that you'll find by any means So let me pray for you and we'll get out of trouble. We thank you Uh just for your bride for your church We thank you for her beauty We thank you for the honor that it is to just be a part of her and to to walk in her and to lead her and to pastor her So I thank you for every single leader every single pastor here in this room I just pray your blessings upon them father those experience in the tension right now of leadership whether it's the tension of just Polarization the tension of divisions the tension of stress the tensions of their current reality And their dreams and their visions or even the tension between the word and the spirit I just pray that you give them the physical endurance the spiritual endurance and the spiritual Power to embrace the tension to bring the two things together to see revival happen in their church So I pray for for peace in their minds and peace their spirits I pray for people around them that lift up their arms and encourage them and strengthen them Father I pray for revelation of the holy spirit I pray for the wisdom of the holy spirit to help them navigate and lead better than they've ever led before And above all father I pray these next two days that you feel them with your holy spirit Set their hearts on fire feel their minds with your word and let them leave here on fire and in love with your church In jesus name amen