 Hi everyone. Welcome back. So I'd like to play a video for us as mentioned. It's on leadership and I encourage you to take notes. Yeah, sharing it right now. And I had another theme I was going to go after, but I talked to my brother last night and I said, hey man, I'm feeling a different direction to go for it. So I want to talk a little bit about leadership. And obviously this is a worship school and I think any level of worship, especially what you guys are here for, is going to have to do with teams, going to have to do with people and going to have to touch on leadership on some level. So I'd like to just talk a little bit about leadership for many reasons because I think one of the dynamics that can take place, especially in the worship world that we're talking about, it's really easy to think that the stage is the destination, is the goal, is the I've arrived, I've made it. And honestly, I tell people all the time, just give a little backdrop. I've been in full-time ministry in a church setting since I was 20, 21 years old. I'm 38 now. So will that be 17, 18 years? And so this is my life. This is what we do. And then this house is unique in many ways just because of Bepple and what we do here and what we're all about. And something that I tell people all the time, especially in school, whether it's BSSM or worship school or any other type of school setting, I said this right here, the pulpit or the stage or leading worship, it's really at least for me 10% of what you really do. It's if not less than that. And I think it's important to talk about that because sometimes if, how many have ever heard something but you didn't realize how true it was until you actually experienced it yourself. And so I want to talk about leadership on that level. One of the dynamics that happened with any type of stage ministry is it's really easy to allow the stage to separate you from people. And it allows you to have a misillusion, if I can use that, an inaccurate picture of how good of a leader you really are. It's one thing to lead on a stage, but the whole other thing to lead off the stage. And I have a pure strong conviction that leadership on the stage should really be an overflow of leadership in your life, not just on the stage. And so I want to just touch on that real briefly today a little bit just to paint a picture in mind, this is not your goal. What I do up here is not, I don't get my leadership from standing up here. I get my leadership from what I do off the stage. This is really the product of who I am off the stage. And I think it's really important, especially when you get into the supernatural realm, we start getting into worship, the prophetic and the kingdom and God and all these things. I think it's really important to remember that this is a huge piece of it, but this really is the, should be the product of what you do in your own life off the stage. And I'm sure you've heard that right now in a week and a half into this school, but it's really a big deal. Because what happens, one of the dynamics that can take place, if you don't get that ingrained into your systems, is that because the stage ministry comes with some pretty hefty responsibilities. It comes with fame, it comes with notoriety, it comes with everybody who wants to talk to you and it comes with, you start, people think you're bigger than you know you really are. And so an incredible amount of pressure comes with having a some type of stage in front of people ministry. And if you don't manage the stuff in your heart, then what will happen is that fame, that notoriety, that recognition, all those things will actually cause you to create more distance between you and the people. And remember you're leading people. And this was probably two years ago, what Brian and Jen do here, I believe it's every month, they gather the worship community and there's 75 to 150, I don't know how, every month. And this was a couple years ago before they're having it out there in their backyard. We were over in the great room and we were one of these nights and my wife and I, we're just interacting with anybody involved in the worship community. And one of the members of the community said, what are some advice, what are some things that you serve with us? And the first thing I said is do everything possible to erase the line between the stage and the people. Work extra hard with that. Because what will happen as your notoriety, as your recognition, as your authority, all those things start piling up on your life, which is very much the Lord, I believe it is, is that I know for me, this is just a gauge, if I can give you a gauge that I use personally, just with my own influence and recognition and authority here and obviously to a lot of, to the planet, is that the more anointed I am, the more I serve. It's my gauge that I use, that the more authority I get, the more recognition I get, the more anointing that increases all these things that increase in my life. I work even harder at serving more. What I mean by that is I do a lot more off the stage than I do on the stage. And so there are some things around here that, that we do and I don't think we ever really talk about it, but I thought it'd be worth the while to share with you. You know, if you come to Bethel, you know, any, any given weekend you have, you know, on Sunday morning, you know, who's first-time visitors, you know, half the room goes up. How many live in Reading? A lot of those hands go back up. What's the point? We have people from all over the world that come and one of the things that I know I do and everybody's different. So I'm not saying it looks like this. I want to show the principle, but this is how the principle manifests in my life is I work really hard to not go home after a service because I know the moment I get off the stage, there is a line of people that want to talk to me, ask my thoughts on this. Some are really broken, really needy. Some, they come to you every week. Some are what, you know, Chris Valentine calls a sheep that bite. There's all kinds of people that are waiting to talk to me and it's really easy because that group continues to grow over the course of my life. It'd be easy for me to just get out that door and go home as quick as possible. Now, I'll be honest with you, there are times I do that because I'm absolutely exhausted and that there's a difference. I know they're level-engaged on this, but the principle, I was in 99% of the time I get off the stage, I go down and I hang out in the front on purpose and I know that I will get bombarded with people from all walks of life, stages of life, but for me that keeps me, erases the line between what happened up here and who I am to people around me. And so it's really a big deal and I want to challenge you, especially when you're dealing with worship and music, there's even another level of, oh my goodness, I want to talk to that person. There's another level of notoriety and recognition that comes on that level, but I want to challenge you. You know, if you're not experiencing it yet, you probably will at some point. And just remember that I told you, do whatever you can that you've raised the line between the stage and the people. You know, if you're not leading people off the stage, you shouldn't be up here leading worship. Let me say that again. If you're not leading people in normal life, you should not be up here. I don't care what skill you have. I don't care how gifted you are. It doesn't matter to me. I will honor that, but to be honest with you, it's really important that you know how to lead people and influence people and live within community with people, because when you're up here, guess what happened? When you're leading people off the stage, guess what happens when you're on the stage? They'll follow you. And sometimes I find worship leaders are amazing worshipers. I mean, if you put them in a room, God will show up no matter what. But the question I have is, will people follow them? Let's put it this way. I'll just ask the question. How many have ever been in a setting where someone leads worship and no one's following? And God's there. Let me be honest with you, some of them have to do with the connection and the relationship with the people and the person leading. It's really important, did Daniel drink out of this? Some of you are saying yes. This is fresh. Okay. I'm a big germ guys, especially with drinks. Sorry, I processed out loud with you. Some of you are thinking the same thing though. One of the first things that you need to do as a leader is you need to assess who you are to them. Who you are to them. Now that could be from a worship leading standpoint or that could be just living life standpoint. And sometimes they're the big disparity between who you think you are and who the people, how they view you. I've seen this happen. I've seen it happen in my life. And, you know, just experience over time. You learn to do this very quickly. One of the things that I do in any setting, like right now I'm standing in this room, I have several different feelings going on. These are not bad feelings. These are just feeling the what's happening in the room. I know for some of you, you view me as a father and of the voice in your life. Why? Because you've been reaching, you've been looking at Bethel for years and you respect me as a leader of this house and the father in this house. Other of you don't have a clue who I am. And so I'm a complete stranger to you. And other of you know me through someone else. What's the point? All of you view me differently. It's not bad. It's just a reality. And I can tell by just a feeling in the room. And it's not bad, but it's something that's important as a leader because sometimes if I'm trying to be a father to a stranger, that's a really awkward relationship. And I see a lot of leaders, they think they're a father and they may be, but if the people around them see them and they're strangers, that's a really weird dynamic. So it's really important that you assess who you are to the people that you're leading. Now you may think I'm supposed to be a father. I feel like I'm supposed to be father. Okay, that's all good. But to be honest with you, relationships take time. Yeah. They just take time to build trust and relationship. And if you want to create a team of people that you either lead with or live life with, it doesn't matter, this should across the board leadership stuff here. You need to find out who you are to them and then work from there. If you're a crazy uncle to them, then all right, you're a crazy uncle to them. If you're a cousin, if you're a friend, if you're a brother, I see a lot of brothers trying to be fathers to their brothers and sisters. It doesn't work. And so it's important that you're able to assess who you are to the people that are, that you're influencing. There are, there are three levels of connection that you have with leaders, whether you realize it or not. There's a spiritual connection, especially in the, in the church setting, there's a spiritual connection, there's an emotional connection, and there's a mental connection, spiritual connection, an emotional connection, and a mental connection. What do those look like? Spiritual connection would look like this. This person is my spiritual leader. I, they can influence my spiritual life. I look to them for spiritual, spiritual thing. I'm connected to this person. It doesn't mean I have an emotional or mental connection, but spiritually I'm connected. Now I don't mean in some weird way. I mean, this is the spiritual leader in my life that, that is, that is leading me. An emotional connection is this, is that this person can influence my emotions, that I have actually allowed this person to influence my emotional life. The mental connection looks like this, is that this person can affect the way I think and the way I process. When you find a leader, and when you find a group of people following a leader at all costs, one of the reasons why they have all three connections happening at once. Like if you come to Bethel, and I can only use that as an example, one of the reasons why my father, Chris Valentin, Banny Silk, all these wonderful leaders here, one of the reasons why they have so much momentum in the life, apart from the favor of God, which I believe is all part of this, is that because people are emotionally connected to them, they're spiritually connected to them, and they're mentally connected to them. So it's important as a leader that as you're leading people, and if not something, okay, they don't have a spiritual connection, so I'm going to try to be a, no, you don't, you don't go there, just leave it there. But it helps you to assess, okay, the people, the people that I'm around right now, they view me as, as a brother, and they have an emotional connection, and that's it. So I'm not going to be an idiot and try to be a spiritual leader to them. I'm going to be a leader to them on this level, and as trust develops, then the other doors start opening. It's a natural progression of relationship, and sometimes we don't realize with leaders, there is a relational dynamic, whether you're a relationship person or not, there's all, you're always going to have to work through relationship, and it's important to realize this is a leader, because sometimes we get in situations and we get so frustrated that people are not hearing us, not following us, not doing what we ask them to do, and I want to challenge you, instead of complaining and getting frustrated, back up a little bit and go, okay, who is Johnny? How did Johnny see me? Oh, he sees me as a friend. No wonder why this isn't working, is because I think I'm a father to him, and I'm trying, I'm coming at him as the dad, and he doesn't view me as the dad. So I need to get off of that, whatever that is, and become a friend to him, and relate to him that way. Now, Candice and I, we've been, like I said, we've been in full-time church ministry for 17, 18 years, and the last three years, we are the local, the senior passage of the local church here at Bethel, and we've been here about, been not been here, we've been in that role for three years. It was about six months ago. I couldn't tell you what day it was. I know it was around a window of time, about two and a half months ago, that I realized that the church body views me as a father now. That took over 12 years of my life to pour into a church body to get that, if I could say it that way. What's the point? It takes time. It takes a lot of time to develop relationships on a level where people begin to view you as fathers and mothers in their life. Not for control, not to be, you know, not to be that. It's a relational thing. So when we talk about leadership, one of the things I want to challenge you with is that we've got, who are you to the people around you? Who are you? Figure that out real quick. Part of what we do is I travel, do conferences in schools and churches and blah, blah, blah. And every time I go in, every time, when I get in that room, I will quickly assess who I am to the environment around me. Oh, Bill's son's here. Okay. I'm Bill's son. I'm not Eric Johnson. I'm Bill Johnson's son. That's a whole other dynamic than Eric, I'm an Eric Johnson to them. That makes sense? Are you guys alive? Oh, he's from Bethel. Okay. That's how they view me. The other places I go where it's clear as day, like they view me as the spiritual father and they want me to come in as a spiritual dad on that house. Every time I meet with leadership teams around the world, whether they come here or I interact with them when I travel, I will quickly assess who am I to these leaders? Am I just a young 38-year-old guy? Or am I, you know, what am I doing? I'm assessing why, because my goal is to build bridges. My goal is to be able to serve as best as I can. And if I think I'm this and I'm not, it's a disaster. So for you as young and old leaders, seasoned and unseasoned leaders, doesn't matter what stage you're in, it's important for you to realize that it takes time to develop. And what's frustrating for leaders, they have a prophetic word that they're this, but they're not experiencing it. How many have you ever been in that position? God's called me to be a father. He's called me to be this. And so you come in with this prophetic word like it's permission to be that. Yes, it is permission, but sometimes you need to go through a process to actually see that fulfilled. So prophetic words are, in my opinion, are very rarely ever wrong. It's all about timing. So this whole thing of leadership, the big deal. So assess who you are, make an assessment. Oh, I'm a brother. I'm a friend. Semi-recently, this was on Good Friday, just this last spring before Easter. We did a Good Friday service. And what we decided, there's another local pastor in town who had a really close front of mind. He passed through the stirring church, which is right down the road here, a close front of mind. And we're brothers. We're total brothers. We're champion. We just, we champion each other for the cause of Christ here and globally. And we had in our heart to gather the whole city to a Good Friday service. And we have been doing it on a small scale the last couple of years. And when two years ago, we did another church in town and we gathered like four or five different pastors from different churches to help do the service, the Good Friday service was communion and stuff. And so that was breaking ground. Well, then after we did that one, a bunch of other pastors, Hey, we want to be involved. We want to be involved. Well, there's an interesting dynamic here for us is relationship like Bethel has some pretty strong stances on some certain themes, if I can say it that way, we have some very strong convictions when it comes to specific things about God in the kingdom. And we, we declare that unashamedly every week. And there are other pastors in the community. They don't have the same conviction. Completely respected. It's normal. I get it. And so here we are. We're going to gather, we're going to gather pastors from all over this region and to do a Good Friday service together. And so my friend and I, if we are planning and preparing, we will both kind of walk on the line of like, man, who are we to everyone else here? What, what do, what does that church think? Now, I want to be clear here. It doesn't mean that you put yourself underneath what they think of you. This is only for observation. And the reason, does that make sense? Okay. They think I'm this. Okay. Now I've got this pressure on me. No, it's not that. It's for me. It's okay. I just know how they, they see me. So I want to do a really good job to build a bridge with that person. Okay. One of the things on my life is to build bridges. That's just one of the mantles on this house is to build bridges. So oftentimes we think through those lenses. Okay. I want to build bridges. I want to build bridges with that. If even if it's a denomination or a stream of the body of Christ that's way over there, doesn't matter to me. They love Jesus. So do I. I want to find a way to build a bridge. So that's just how, that's how we think. This is how, this is just how we operate around here. And so I'm thinking in those, in those, through those lenses. And so we, you know, my, my buddy and I, we got together and we're planning on, man, we got to, so we, in the middle of this process, we're trying to get who, who, how, how did everyone see everyone? It's a really weird dynamic. If you, if you've not been in a pasturing type of ministry and working on a city level, um, this might be a little foreign to you. Some of you may have, it's just very interesting dynamics that happen when you start interacting with pastors from other churches and other beliefs and you know, different theology, especially when they're different than yours. And you're, you know, everybody's like, we've got to figure a way to work together. But how do we do this when I think this and you think this? And so one of the things that we made very clear from the onset of this thing was this, is that the only purpose for this is we're gathering around the cross. That's it. We're not going to, we're not going to deal with anything else. We all know the cross is real. It's legit. And Jesus died on it and he rose from the grave. So we just made that the whole thing. Even our, even our promotional or average banners and graphics, one city, one cross. That was our deal. We're just here together on the cross. And what that did is that helped to diffuse some of the, oh, well, you know, they, they believe that or well, with that group over there, I heard them preach that. And did you hear this guy? It just kind of alleviated all of that. It brought it down to another level, to a much more calmer, peaceful level. So we get together. We ran at the largest facility in town and we put on this Good Friday service. And it's hard to describe. It's probably one of the epic, most epic moments that we've ever had on a city level. We packed out this auditorium, this big auditorium in town twice in the same evening. And we had, I don't know how many churches represented it, but it was an absolutely beautiful moment. And I want, I'm sharing that with you for one reason, is you need to find out who you are to the people around you. Not so you live under it is so you know how to build a bridge. And it gives you perspective. It gives you wisdom. It gives you, it gives you an ability to actually begin to lead and move into places of relationship. You guys with me and come assess who you are to the people around you. And one other thing I want to touch on, we have just a couple of minutes left. Be thankful when you get insecure. Be thankful when insecurity jacks up. Why? Because it's God's unique way of exposing something that needs to be dealt with. It's part of grace. Grace brings truth where there's not truth. Grace brings life where there's death. And anytime something that is ugly, has death at its core, has sin at its core, anytime grace touches it, it will get jacked up. It will, it can't be quiet. So when you as an individual, when you start feeling insecure, you should take a moment to God, thank you for showing me this area of my life. And then be really smart and be diligent and do whatever it takes necessary to deal with that insecurity. One of the biggest insecurities in my life, this happened between 23 and 24 years old. I'm sorry, 25, 26 years old right in there. I was a youth pastor up in Weaverville, about an hour from here, a little town of 3,000 people. And my wife and I grew up there, but we went back in the married couple for six years to be youth pastors. And to be honest with you, I had no, I had no desire to preach whatsoever. It wasn't because I was scared of people. It wasn't anything to do with that. I just don't want to preach. So I would make worship go really long and win the nights. A worship leader would lead worship really long and then we go right into a ministry time. I just avoided preaching. I just didn't want to. And in this season of my life, I was beginning to realize that fear of man was pretty, with a big, big deal in my life. But it reared its head in a different way. What is fear of man? Let's talk about that. Fear of man is usually two things. One, I'm scared of you. I'm so scared of you. My fear of you controlled everything I do. There's another one that I think is more common in that is I care more about what you think than anything else. So I had that one going on. I'm scared of you, really wasn't a big deal. I've always thought fear of man was, I'm so scared of you, I can't do anything. The one that I was most familiar with was, I really care what you think more than anybody or what he thinks. I really care what you think. So when the night would go by, at least when I was learning how to preach, which was probably horrible, to be honest with you. But I would go in for it. And I would preach a message, but I would never ask someone. I would never say, hey, how did that go? I wouldn't do that. I would actually get around people after the service or maybe the next day in the office. And I would actually cut myself down in front of somebody. What did that look like? Yeah, last night didn't go really well. I just felt really, you know, I just, what was I doing? I was sabotaging myself in front of people. What was I looking for? I was looking for confirmation or encouragement. What was I doing? I was soliciting encouragement because of a fear of man. Well, to be honest with you, that went on for a while. I didn't realize I was doing that until I found out I was acting so insecure about a whole bunch of stuff. And the Lord began to push on it and said, you have an issue with fear of man. And I began to realize, I remember the moment I began to get all these images and pictures and conversations that I was having in disguise with people all around me trying to get any type of encouragement that I was doing a good job. And what was happening, I was becoming a slave to people, the opinions and thoughts and encouragements. I was waking up with the idea of like, I need someone to tell me how I'm doing because I would care more about what they thought than even what God thought. So anytime you have an insecurity arrive, take a moment and thank God for the opportunity to deal with an insecurity in your life. It's probably one of the greatest treasures God can give you is exposing your insecurities. What you'll learn when you begin to be thankful for God exposing insecurity, you'll see incredible growth very quickly in your life. You want to know why? Because the joy of the Lord is your strength. You guys are quiet. Are you guys okay? So anytime an insecurity pops up, and I may be extremely insecure. I'll take a moment and say, all right, thank you for showing me that. Now I'm going to go deal with it. Now I'm going to figure out what it is that's causing this thing to surface. But I believe joy is key to that because joy actually gives you the strength to deal with the situation and the issue and to be able to move from there. So assess who you are to people around you and become a bridge builder. The days of war, we don't live in the days of war anymore. We live in the days of Solomon and we learn how to build bridges and alliances with people that are different than you. In David's day, if you didn't agree with them, you were dead. Larry Randolph said it this way, David would kill you, Solomon would marry you. We don't live in the days of David right now. I'm telling you, it's the season of the body of Christ where we live in the days of Solomon learning to build bridges with people that are completely different than you. So assess who you are to them and learn to build bridges. Secondly, learn to erase the line between the stage and the people. Become a leader off the stage before you attempt anything on the stage. This should be an overflow, an extra outflow of what you do off the stage and do whatever you can to serve people more than you do before. I don't care how tired, exhausted you get, make sure you serve people. It's huge. Okay? And the third thing is, give thanks when God exposes in securities. It means you got a promotion coming and it can happen fast as long as you're thankful for it. It'll give you the strength to get through it. Thank you. Have a great day. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed that, Charles. I hope that was helpful for everybody. I know it was a longer video than usual, but then I wanted to have a teaching moment. I really hope that you took notes that so many things that I can take off. But that one thing that stayed with me is do everything possible to erase the line between the stage and the congregation. Because I've always felt that there is this imaginary invisible line or a divide between the stage and the congregation between the team or the person that is leading worship. What erases that line is that you building a rapport after the service, staying back, checking on people, how they are doing, being proactively interested in their lives and their well-being that begins to erase because the people that you are leading should want to follow you. So that's one thing that I've always kept it. And I hope that helps in your journey as a leader in ministry as well. Any other key points that you think stood out for you personally? Can I say something, Pastor? Yes. I said who you are to the people you lead. And I was seeing the three points, the spiritual component, the emotional component and the mental. So I was looking at it, you might be a leader spiritually when you are not affecting someone emotionally or mentally. But you can have all the three affecting them. So it was really a very good take home for me that as I am leading the people, the leader, I need to assess myself and know who I am to them. And especially, even soliciting information from them and understanding who I am to them would also help me improve. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. Thanks for sharing. Anyone else? Anybody else? There are many things, Pastor. Many things like everyone would share. But one thing that we all gather around the cross. That is the level of submission that can bring us to that place where your anointing will influence people. Because when we are around the cross, at the cross, all together submitting to one God who is worthy and he uses us all, then the outcome is going to be beautiful. This is one thing which we do not. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. I thought this video would also be in line with what we did in the first hour. So I thought, listen to this. And another line that he says or shared is the more anointed I am, the more I will serve. So that's another thing that comes to mind. Yes, Pastor. That is what I noted. So beautiful. Yes. Because we are serving the servant God, the servant king. And if he is inside of us, serving is the utmost joy for us. Yeah, absolutely. If you are not leading people off stage, you should not lead and then not people. Yeah, that was another thing that stood out to me. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah. What differentiates headship from leadership? I have honestly haven't heard that word headship before, bro. So, yeah. Elasha, were you going to say something? Yes, Pastor. I wanted to share on how, as leaders, we need to assess how the people will lead us. And I think the presentation has driven home a lot of learnings for me personally. For sometimes if you need to influence people, you really need to assess yourself with them. How do they see us? In my case, as a young man who has been ordained as an elder of the church and a church that has a lot of adults in the, you don't have to see yourself because you are an elder, you have automatically become a father or a mother to them. Yeah. To them, you are their son, you are their child. So, it helps you so that you can influence them from the, from the purpose. And I think God bless you for serving this with us. Really thank you, Louis. My pleasure. Thank you. Louis, I think, I mean, from what I understand from your question, headship and leadership. Like I mentioned, I've never heard a headship before. So, for example, I'm a leader in, I'm one of the leaders at APC and, but the headship or the head leader of APC is Pastor Ashish Raichur, isn't it? So, I'm accountable to him. I'm under his supervision and he is accountable to God. So, I think that's the key. And again, if you look at First Chronicles Chapter 25, First Chronicles Chapter 25, it says, David along with the leaders of the army set aside, set apart the sons of Asaf, Heman and Jiruddin. And Asaf's sons were under the supervision of Asaf, Heman's sons were under the supervision of Heman and Jiruddin's sons were under the supervision of Jiruddin and all of them were under the supervision of David. And so, there were leaders, there were sub-leaders, but then there was one head leader, head, you know, who was leading. So, yeah, I think that's the difference. Okay, cool. So, if there's anything else, we will wrap worship ministry course today and there will, there will not be any lectures from the following week. Okay, so just work on your assignments. You know, just go through that book and if you have any questions, again, please feel free to put it in the stream section and I'll respond to it. And I hope the assignment is pretty clear. It's pretty simple, straightforward. It's just a book summary. Your key takeaway is what you are from each chapter. So, there are four sections to that book that I've shared. And each section, from each part, you can just share a summary of I think three chapters is what I've put. I'm not sure which chapter. So, I understand it's a big book, so I didn't want you to read all the chapters. So, I'm nice that way. Okay, so that's your assignment. All right, I'll let you just stop recording. But for the note, this is the last lecture on, yeah, we will not have classes from the following week. All right, thank you. I'm just stopping recording.