Worship and Leadership by LifePoint Creative
This podcast was intended to resource our Dream Teamers at LifePoint Church, with biblical fundamentals on worship, life and a variety of leadership principles.
Worship and Leadership by LifePoint Creative
SUNDAY REWIND: Using Your Spiritual Gifts
Join us for a lively discussion as Pastor Mike Burnette and I, Emily Himes, explore the intriguing world of spiritual gifts with a humorous twist. We share the vibrant energy of our early Sunday service, reflecting on the joy and enthusiasm in our military town. Our conversation challenges the conventional notions of spiritual gifts, as we highlight the diverse talents individuals contribute to their faith communities, drawing from scriptural references and personal experiences.
From preaching vs. teaching to what it means for gifts to evolve, this episode covers it all. We delve into the different roles within church leadership, shedding light on accountability and honor, while sharing the transformative journey of spiritual growth, including Emily's own ministry path. Plus, enjoy a light-hearted moment as we chat about the comforts of a blanket in a chilly studio and reminisce about past episodes. Join us as we embrace the joy and connection this podcast brings to us and our listeners.
What's up everybody. Welcome back to the Sunday Rewind.
Speaker 2:So good to be here.
Speaker 1:We did it, guys, and so, once again, my name is Emily Himes and I am so glad to be here, and I'm here with Pastor Mike Burnett Exciting day.
Speaker 2:Yay, exciting day, long day, a big day too. We had a lot of folks here. Yes, bunch of people baptized Bunch of people go through growth track.
Speaker 1:Yes, all of the things. Everybody got an extra hour of sleep. So I did notice that the 730 service was packed Full room. Anyways, you know it's funny people.
Speaker 2:A lot of pastor friends are surprised when I tell them we have a 730 service and I think part of it's military town Military town. Plus we're pretty far east on the time zone, so it's bright at 730. But it has almost filled to capacity, which is really exciting Praise. God, I love that service. I mean it's it's the first run through the sermon. I've practiced it and rehearsed it and whatever, but first run through the sermon worship's always really strong and um a lot of folks yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2:Um, and they're gracious to me to get that first sermon out. Sometimes I'll not say things I wanted to say or I need to go tweak stuff. There's always feedback after the first service, especially if things I need to add or take away or change, but that room is so great. Anyway, I love all four services but they are totally different temperaments and personalities. It's like multiple kids, right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They're all different. Yes, they're all different. Yes, and it's true, with multiple services. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:That's okay. Well, kind of. Kind of Kind of in a way, because we are talking about spiritual gifts and obviously getting up and teaching is one of your gifts.
Speaker 2:That is a masterful segue.
Speaker 1:Do you like that? That was pretty good, did you like?
Speaker 2:that at the? What's that game where you connect two random things that don't belong, like rabbits and fighter jets? Yes, Did you ever play that? So that's what you just did. You just segued from. It is a talent of mine Service personalities yes, Should that be a spiritual gift?
Speaker 1:I don't know. So icebreaker for you A segue. What is not a spiritual gift but you think should be a spiritual gift?
Speaker 2:Oh well, sarcasm. I've joked before that I have a spiritual gift to sarcasm. There it is. Well, I guess humor is. It's not listed in the Bible as a spiritual gift, but you know, some of the things that we, some of the groups or the teams that we have, are not biblically listed, like camera operator or guitar player, you know whatever but it's, it's part of administration or helps or worship or teaching or whatever. But yeah, I've always joked. I have a spiritual gift to sarcasm, which isn't real. I think food tasting is a spiritual gift for me. Anyway, I'm a huge food fan, foodie.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it. How about you?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh oh gosh um put you right back on the spot yep, see, I'm supposed to ask you the questions okay, like that's it, we'll rewind there, there you go.
Speaker 1:How about, uh, what did you say? The the whole like segue thing?
Speaker 2:yeah, my, my spiritual gift is uh segue is getting people back on track to what we're supposed to be talking about which was part of your job getting people back on track in their lives.
Speaker 1:It is. That's hilarious. Well, I love spiritual gifts. I love talking about it because I think so many people have a very huge misconception about spiritual gifts. What are those? What do people now kind of view spiritual gifts as? Because you can kind of feel the tense whenever you start to bring it up and it's like, no, we're not handling snakes, so yeah it's interesting.
Speaker 2:So there's a couple ways of viewing a church's teaching on spiritual gifts. So for one view and I kind of set it up that I'm not teaching this way today but there's the teaching on the listed gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, romans 12, ephesians 4. So Ephesians 4 talks about the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about word of knowledge, word of wisdom, word of prophecy, faith, miracles, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. There's nine gifts there. Five of them are vocal, four of them are non-vocal gifts. And then Romans 12 talks about leadership, acts of service, administration, helps, generosity, this other set of gifts. And so sometimes in the church world we put a lot of mystery around those gifts and then we spend more time defining what they are or are not, instead of the approach we took today. There's a whole lot of gifts. I don't even think those are exhaustive lists. They're exhaustive biblical lists but, for example, like we talked about earlier, like the gift of sarcasm right, I know I'm being facetious, but the truth is we have somebody right now producing this video. I mean, I guess you can call that the gift of administration or helps, but it's his gift, is in media and technology and all these things that I don't even know how they all work, necessarily, but Jacob is using his gifts from the Lord and he feels refreshed and he feels fulfilled and the wind of the spirit.
Speaker 2:So I think there's a couple of approaches. One is we get real academic, we get real practical in this, and this is what speaking in tongues is. And then the defense of the gifts right. Or this is what healing is, miracles and word of prophecy. What's the difference in prophecy, knowledge, wisdom and I actually love that side of teaching on spiritual gifts. I think you know this about me. You've been around our church long enough to know like I nerd out on that stuff. I love the nuance, I love debunking what people think certain gifts are or should be, or how it should work and function.
Speaker 2:I love the nuts and bolts of teaching on the actual lists of the spiritual gifts, but today was more about the reality that God has gifts for you and if you take it from a place not of understanding what they are and then picking which one you're comfortable with, which is what a lot of people do but you say, okay, I'm open to whatever God wants to do with me and there's a grace instead of just a gift from these lists. Let's think in terms of God has a grace on my life for something. And you ever see the movie Chariots of Fire? It's from back in the day. It's where the you know the music. I think so. Oh my gosh, you know the music right.
Speaker 1:I think so.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Anyway, it's the. I was making sure I was really quiet to where Jacob could get that into the recording. Anyway, let's just put that music, lay it over here. We'll play it subtly right now. Anyway, that song that's called Chariots of Fire. I think it was written by who's the guy that's married to Catherine McPhee. Anyway, david, I totally blanked on his name.
Speaker 1:I'm over here a lot.
Speaker 2:The producer. He discovered Josh Groban Il Divo. He's a throwback.
Speaker 1:Zero for zero over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, David Foster. Anyway, that song or that story is about a runner who was an Olympic runner and a believer and he said I feel God put me on this earth to run and he used his running as a platform to preach the gospel lead all kinds of people to Christ. And he said this statement he goes. I feel when I run, I experience the wind of God. Like I feel the wind of God and I think that's the idea that we were trying to teach today Like there are things that God will grace you to do, that you feel his divine power, the spark of God, the wind of God. It's life giving for you, it's energizing you, love it. It may totally deplete you and exhaust you, but in the right way, yes, Because you got. I totally spit myself doing something for God. I think about Sherry with the APAC.
Speaker 2:You can't slow that woman down when it comes to touching the lives of the hungry, the poor, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the abused, the victims. Now, if you ask her to do the administration part, it's kind of like me. Like, tell me about the admin side. She's like, oh, she'll go. Oh, pastor Mike, I don't know. You know I've got people for that, but you get her around a homeless encampment she could spend 24 hours straight without taking a bathroom break and that's. There's a gift on her for that, there's a grace on her for that. And I think about what I do and what you do in ministry. There's a grace, your husband, I mean. There's a grace on you everybody to do something for God. And the message was about that truth. And then how do we find it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well the grace. It's an undeserved gift to do something for God and others, as Jesus decides to do, right? So why is it so hard for people to accept these free gifts, and I mean we can talk about, I mean, just the simple point of salvation at this point? But when talking about spiritual gifts, why do you think it's so hard for people to accept the fact that, hey, I think people want it and I think they can go through growth track and all of the things, but why is it so hard for somebody to actually step into it and go for it?
Speaker 2:my answer may be a little offensive, it's okay, um, okay, I think it's nuanced. I've pastored long enough to think I I may have a handle on some of the reasons why I think one of them is fear. We're afraid of what God might do with us or what he might expose of us in the process of getting close to others. So I think fear is one reason. I think ignorance, like we just don't know what that means, which is why that teaching was so important. Today we're not clear, and so I hope today's message brought clarity to that.
Speaker 2:So fear or ignorance, but the one that might, and so I hope today's message brought clarity to that. So fear or ignorance, but the one that's going to hurt your feelings is I think we're selfish and my gifts are for me. My talents are to build my kingdom, my life, my world, my family, my money, my bank accounts.
Speaker 1:And I'm not going to give that away to anybody.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've literally had people tell me in the church world, even, like you know, I I worked really hard for whatever I'm not doing that for just anybody, or for nothing, or like I don't want to give away my talent for free. I mean one thing that surprises people. And I have other pastors god you know they can't figure out how this works, but uh, we don't pay our band members and we have incredibly talented musicians at our church.
Speaker 2:I mean unbelievable record recording quality. In fact, many of them have been in recording studios a lot, but they find a place to serve. We bless them, we honor them, we use them in appropriate ways and like we're not trying to take advantage of people, but they find it as a way to give their gift back to the Lord. We've had musicians that come up and say, well, I charge for this stuff and I'm not going to do this for free, and we say, okay, no problem. But I think there is something about or like we'll have teachers, for example, who are teachers, like that's their job, they're elementary school teachers and they'll say I'm not doing that on Sunday too. I do that Monday through Friday at school. I'm not doing that on Sunday. It's my day off. Okay, no problem.
Speaker 2:But at the root of that is and maybe they need to do something else, maybe, but oftentimes I've just heard that and I thought, well, there's some self-preservation there, there's some, maybe some, selfishness there, maybe it's fatigue, I don't know, but you know, when you're doing it in the gift of God, it's life-giving. We've had people work 70-hour weeks and come here to open doors or serve coffee or run a growth track class and they go. This is the best part of my whole week because they feel the wind of God. So anyway, back to your question. I think it could be fear, it could be ignorance, it could be selfishness and in some churches it's a lack of opportunity. Some churches don't have that culture and Some churches don't have that culture. And I'm on the other end of a lot of phone calls with pastors trying to coach them into setting this kind of culture in their church and some guys are just really uncomfortable with that because they don't want to give away leadership, they don't want to give away decision-making power. And you have to do that yes.
Speaker 2:And then you train them and you just you develop folks and you say, hey, I would do it a little different, can we try this? And you just kind of coach people along the way. I remember I mean you've been here long enough. I remember we, we try stuff in the early days and it was weird or awkward or didn't go right or it was an obvious attempt at something grander than where we were in resources, you know, and so we just pull it back and and evaluate it and we're not, you know, putting anybody in jail over it. But you have to create an environment in the church world and maybe this is for people in ministry. You have to give opportunity for people to try the gift that God's put on their lives. So it could be a number of things, but ultimately we hopefully can work through those things and help people discover their gift and use it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are gifts in this church that we've not even heard of yet because people haven't, we just haven't found them. So do you believe that people can obtain multiple gifts?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And how do they develop the multiple gifts? Oh, yeah, for sure. And how do they develop the multiple gifts? How do they figure like is there, is there, is there a better one? Is there, is there a weightier one? Is there one that needs to be used more? And do you see where?
Speaker 2:I'm kind of going with this. Where's this? So can you be using more than one gift? Of course God can. If you believe it's the Lord who gives, then it's up to him how many he gives. Some people have more gifts, some people are more gifted, and I think part of that comes with being faithful in the gifts. Where you're at now, I mean, think about you as a 19-year-old Christian versus however old you are now.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Don't tell her age. She's very old, younger than you. Yeah, you are. So at 45 almost. I'll be 45 in January. My gifts have evolved and changed and I still have gifts that maybe have been dormant, but I can still use them. But yeah, I think you can definitely be using more than one. I actually reject the idea.
Speaker 2:There's a Christian teaching that you have one gift and you need to find that one gift. Well, that's also a little overwhelming. It's kind of like there's a Christian teaching that you have one gift and you need to find that one gift. Well, that's also a little overwhelming. It's kind of like there's one human being on the planet for you and you need to go hunt the world to find that person. I think I don't necessarily like that worldview on marriage. I think there's one person but it's not. I mean, you get a part of that, you get to have preferences, whatever. So I think God gives the way Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 12, the Lord gives each gift as he decides.
Speaker 2:So there've been times God's used me in the gift of healing and I've prayed for a number of people to be healed, and then there's times where he didn't heal the person I prayed for. God's used Stephanie and me both a lot of times in praying for people who had trouble conceiving and we pray and I always pray kind of a similar prayer that God opened their womb and and God, you do the miraculous and, and we've had a number of people get pregnant. I always say, oh, now you go do your part, couple, you know, to the married couple, but then they get married or, excuse me, they get pregnant. And then there's other times I've prayed for people to be healed and they die. So it's all about your openness to be used in the gifts and God deciding cause really I mean, think about it the gifts are to make his kingdom better. Yeah, so if you're open and available and the Lord says, okay, I can work with that.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to use you this week to teach a podcast. Have you ever done a podcast for your church before? Well, here you are trying a new gift, right, and God's graced you to do it, and so it's a different gift than what you do. You're very administrative, you're very visionary, you're incredibly good with people. You make everybody feel comfortable and seen. Those are the grace gifts that God has on you, and now here you are trying something else. So, yes, you can be used in different gifts and are some more weightier than others.
Speaker 1:I think was your second question yes, yes, are some weightier. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I think some uh well, I just I reflect on scripture that some carry more um responsibility for the sake of accountability, like teaching and preaching. The Bible clearly states that there's an extra measure of responsibility and honor to that gift, but particularly those who are in preaching and teaching and church leadership administration pastors they're held to a higher standard. So, like all of our staff has been walking through this over the last year, that there are standards that God is holding us to as we've grown and gotten more influential and bigger staff, that, yeah, there's different standards that are maybe held to certain gifts, but the answer, you know. The other answer to that question that you asked is are are, are any of them more important than the other? I think is maybe the wrong question, but do they have more um honor or visibility?
Speaker 2:So Paul actually answered that in first Corinthians 12, when he said is everybody an ear? Does every? Is every member of the body an ear or a shoulder or whatever? I'm paraphrasing. And he said in some parts of the body you cover, you show it more honor by covering it. Think about our bookkeeper at our church, right, our finance team. Most people in our church would never even know that we had those people on our team, but they keep us they pay for everything.
Speaker 2:They. They pay all the teams. They pay all the bills on the buildings. They keep the air conditioner running. Oh yes, and the coffee beans purchased every month. We love them. That bookkeeping payroll role is covered. It's pretty unseen.
Speaker 1:Protected.
Speaker 2:And it's very guarded for confidentiality and all that kind of stuff. So I think there are different gifts that have different levels of honor protection cover. None are better or worse. It's like is your pinky toe less valuable than your nose? Well, I don't see your pinky toe right now. I can see your nose, but if I cut that pinky toe off, your whole body is going to feel that. So when that part is missing or hurting or wounded, we all feel it. So better or worse may not be the right question, but more visible, more weighty responsibility and more held to a higher standard, for sure these are great questions by the way, thank you, with the teacher preacher held to a higher standard.
Speaker 2:Preacher is actually not a gift. Sorry, no, no, no, I'm throwing that out because I mentioned it in the sermon. I didn't say that as a correction to you, but preacher is actually not. We're all preachers.
Speaker 2:Actually the time that the word preach is used. It's very rare in the scripture, but one of them is to all Christians, where it says how will anybody call on him whom they never heard? How will anybody hear about him if no one preaches to them? And then how will anyone preach unless they're sent? So it's this message to all Christians and Romans that we're all sent to preach. So we're all messengers of this gospel, but it's not one of the leadership gifts of the church.
Speaker 1:So what is the difference between teaching and preaching to preach? Sure, what is the difference there? Preaching to preach, what is the difference there? Because I don't want anybody to think, well, I need to go teach this person, the gospel. Do you see where I'm? Going with this, because I don't want anybody to carry the weight of a gift that was very clearly said hey, this is going to be a little bit weightier. I don't want anybody to think, well, oh, I can't do that because that is way dear.
Speaker 2:I don't want anybody to think, well, oh, I can't do that because that is I'm not a quote unquote teacher. So in Ephesians 4, you've got the teaching gift and it's mentioned as well in, I think, romans 12, the teaching gift, but it's really connected to the shepherd gift, the pastor gift, and scholarship is kind of it's probably 70, 30 divide. I'm maybe speculating here a little bit, but it's not 50, 50. Most scholarship. On the passage in Ephesians four that I've read anyway, okay, I'm giving a ton of qualifiers.
Speaker 2:God has given some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is the way it says in the English. It doesn't say apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. It's apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, with no comma, which indicates that those two gifts are often together. So somebody with a really strong teaching gift is often in a shepherding role too Not always, but often and, like you, can be apostolic without a preaching gift. I have a great friend, our friend Josh Hanna. He's very apostolic. He's not in a pastoral role or teaching role right now but he has a network of 35 churches and 50 hope centers. Very apostolic, very evangelistic. There are people that evangelize but don't shepherd and they teach some, but they do more preaching.
Speaker 2:In the evangelistic world, which preaching is more exhortation and preaching is more prophecy. So it's going to be Okay. So I read an amazing book in graduate school by a guy named Walter Brueggemann who talked about the prophetic witness is consistently calling sinners to repentance and saying here, okay, this is sin, here's God's plan and let me lead you and instruct you how to get there. That's what preaching is a lot of. It's calling people to God and out of their sin and preaching prophetically for them to change their life. That's very evangelistic as well, and some pastors are great preachers, exhorters. It's kind of a lot of challenging and pushing.
Speaker 2:I tend to lean more towards the shepherd long haul. I'm here for 52 Sundays. I'm going to be teaching something over a long time and I don't think every sermon has to go to. Now let's have the gospel presentation, because I'm weaving that into all my teaching and we're doing this recurring. I'm all in prayer and I'm confessing my life to Christ again and again, and again. So anyway, I think preaching is more prophetic and exhorting and challenging and calling people forward, and I like that in my sermons. But my sermons typically are more teaching, like I can nerd out with a whiteboard and a marker and like I like to unpack stuff and knuckle into the word.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I can get a little heady and nerdy in my preaching, but more of a teaching gift is the explaining. That's one of the things that people like about LifePoint is there's a lot of explaining, like I doing right now, like I'm explaining the nuanced differences of these things. It's because I want people to have clarity. You know, when jesus leads as a shepherd, he leads with clarity, he leads with um, without minefields on either side of what he's saying, like we're going over there, we're going to do this thing, I'm empowering you. He's very clear and I think that's the shepherd and teaching gift. I don't even know if I answered your question, to be honest with you, because I kind of got on this nerdy ramble about the difference of preaching and teaching because they are different.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean they are different, but everybody's got.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. Everybody has an expectation from Jesus to teach other people about Christ discipleship. So you don't have to be a pastor to be a teacher, which is part of the question you asked. No, you don't have to be a pastor of a church to tell somebody about Jesus. You can tell your children about Christ, your coworker. This is where I started in ministry.
Speaker 2:I've been saved like six months going to college, at UT, maybe eight months, and I just started meeting with new friends that I was meeting and I would go to. I didn't know anybody at UT. I mean, I had a very few friends there and I would just meet with people on campus for 30 minutes for lunch, or hey, you want to grab coffee or whatever. And then I'd say I would ask these kinds of questions Like you know, if you're a faith person, what, what's the Lord teaching you? And then I'd listen and learn and then I'd go well, let me tell you what God's teaching me. And then I just show them what I was reading in my Bible. Go, I didn't know this, this is crazy. And that's my, that's the first year of my Christianity, so it's all brand new to me. And I'd be like can you believe God says this about us, you know. And so just teaching. Just teach somebody what God's teaching you. That's the most base level of duplicating your discipleship.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Every Christian has to do that, gets to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's what we are called to do. And expected to do yeah, and expected to do.
Speaker 2:And we get to do yeah, now go.
Speaker 1:So, somebody did it for you right. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we get to do it for the next person.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Oh, see I actually saw.
Speaker 2:I really need to show this to the church. It's a pyramid, it's the ultimate pyramid scheme. If every Christian discipled three people, and that's it Like not three for a year and then a new three and then a new three every year, but like if you journeyed with three people for the rest of their lives and you were their like spiritual mother, if every Christian did that one person to three, then those three have nine. This is why it's a pyramid scheme, right, okay, whatever, at 20 levels down, everyone's still only discipling three people.
Speaker 2:It's like a fourth of the world's population. That's crazy At 20 levels down. So I'm discipling three and they're discipling three and they're each discipling three. So one to three to nine to whatever, 27 to 90.
Speaker 1:Stick to teaching yeah to 80, 81.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do this all the way to 20 layers by 20 layers down. It's like 2 point something billion people. The 22nd row, I think, is 2 point something billion and everyone just disciples three. So if we literally just followed the Great Commission, Correct, we'd reach the world, which is what God wants.
Speaker 1:I was just about to say you would think I know it's what God wants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just about to say you would think I know it's what God wants. Yeah, but going back to your question about why don't we do it, yeah fear, ignorance, selfishness. Yes, we don't have conducive environments for that. I think the clergy-laity split that I talked about in my sermon has had more damaging repercussions than we give it enough credit for it's been very damaging.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, well so, but going back to the ignorance, though, and this I mean and I guess this could be because of the split, because of the people just don't understand that they are, that they're ministers, everyone. You know you have the power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you. Now go and tell somebody about it.
Speaker 2:I could feel the angst when I had everybody in the room say say, after me, I am, I am a minister, a minister, you know. Like you could feel them. Yeah, and I said some of you never said that in your whole life, but it's true.
Speaker 1:But it's so true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But. But it's so true. And going back to the ignorance and the fear with it too, is we're going through the teaching and all of this kind of stuff You're reading. If it's still kind of muddy to me that you're just like. I don't really I'm not, I don't really jive with that. How can we really dive into figuring out what God's gift is?
Speaker 2:So so we built our church around our belief that this is actually really important. Your Sunday service, go through growth track, get in a small group and I asked a ton of questions in small groups about gifts and ministry and all that stuff. And I still do Like I'm still in small groups where I'm trying to figure out my gifts with other pastors and other leaders. But just keep trying, Keep showing up and keep trying and get frustrated and let your frustration push you to the next opportunity. I think our growth track does a pretty good job. It's not like perfect Jesus is perfect and everything else isn't.
Speaker 2:But growth track is not a perfect solution, but it is a great director and we've had people in year one of them that have tried different things over the years and you go well, this is great. But, man, then it opens up an opportunity for something else. Or then you meet somebody that redirects you to something totally different. You're like I never knew. I love introducing people to sherry. I keep bringing her up, but she like her story what yay pack has become, and think of how many people serve yay pack.
Speaker 2:You're down there, I mean yeah, I go dozens and dozens of dozens of, probably hundreds of people that serve there that would never have had that opportunity to serve if she didn't jump out and take that opportunity to start something and try it. And I remember the early days of YAPAC it was in her trunk and then all of YAPAC was in her garage and then she was borrowing other women's garages and then it was in a 6,000 square feet borrowed space that we helped her find. I mean it's, but then it's consistently given people room to try their gift of ministry. So just keep an open hand and go. I'm going to keep trying and I'm 45.
Speaker 2:I've been in ministry professionally ministry like on staff, in church and training for 24 years and I'm still trying to experience new graces on my life. Like I feel like God wants me to write more books and I write every week like a 15-page, 18-page paper for a sermon. But I feel like God wants me to write more books. I feel like the Lord wants me to do more in leadership and areas of like compassion work. And you know we're doing this Feed the World thing that we're doing in January. We're trying it and we're going to just go for it and do it, because why?
Speaker 2:not yeah, why not the the? The worst that could happen is 500,000 kids get food, man, and we're going to do that. How dare you, I know? And that's that's the other side of it. It's like what's the harm in trying to serve God in your church? What's the harm? The disciples didn't get it right every time. No, no, they didn't, and they kept coming back to Jesus and they'd report and he'd tweak and fix and help them and they got better.
Speaker 1:I know I don't, I don't get it right every time you don't get it right, I wanted to talk to you about that. Actually, you know what, now that we have this on recording, you know what people don't realize.
Speaker 2:So Emily, emily and I have a very uh long running history. You guys have been in our church since really before I came, but it's always been a lot of banter back and forth. But I've watched you journey through a lot of your life as an adult and great careers and ministry and and that I remember. When you were exposed to ministry the first time I mean your parents and I they told me they were like, can you believe this is what God's opened up for, emily? And how proud they were of you and excited. But I knew the job you were getting into. Oh yeah, but I knew the job you were getting into.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I was like, well, she's going to get like like fire hose exposure to ministry yes. And now you're part of our team. Like it's just evolved and you've just stayed open handed and stayed flexible. It opened the door for you to meet your husband. Now you guys are serving in ministry and going through training together, which is also cool to watch.
Speaker 1:I know it's so cool Cause I could just skip the first half of it and do this podcast with you.
Speaker 2:The class right now.
Speaker 1:I am not a classroom learner.
Speaker 2:So if you were to look back at all those risks you took, what's been the harm? Yeah, cause you're a person that had to decide to step out and try it.
Speaker 1:Yes, what was the harm? Yeah, I got closer to Christ. That's, honestly, is the worst.
Speaker 2:And then how?
Speaker 1:many, so I did lose a lot of friends.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Stepping out and trusting God with my life. I was holding on to the last little bit of, I guess, rebellion.
Speaker 1:I guess you'd say and I did lose friends stepping into the giftings that God called me, but there wasn't room for both. And I think that was the biggest thing for me is to understand is there was not room for God's gifts and His grace and still holding on to the people who were speaking against it. So that's interesting. Yeah, it was, but in all actuality it wasn't a loss, it was way more of a gain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and would these have been God-fearing, Christ-oriented people?
Speaker 1:saying that to you? Definitely not, yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, what's the risk?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then those people.
Speaker 2:It's not like they're your enemies. They're on your prayer list and they're people that you would love to see come to know the Christ that you serve. A couple of them have through it.
Speaker 1:So, praise God, praise God. But because of that, because of there there is this navigation, there's this journey, hey there it is.
Speaker 2:There's another segue. Did y'all catch this? Back to the series title.
Speaker 1:I got this, but can your gifts change?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, Because God's not done with you yet, and how boring would it be for him to give you one gift when you just started discovering that and then he never does anything else with you? Yeah, Of course they. I think change um is maybe a better word is can they? Can they evolve?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Bible says he takes us from glory to glory, to glory, to glory to glory. So what he did with me at 18 and verses 22 and 30 and 40, now 45. Yeah, I hope it changes yeah. And then you got to be open to it. This is a risky prayer, god, what else do you want to do with me?
Speaker 1:That's a risky prayer.
Speaker 2:It's one thing to say God, what do you want to do with me? And then go. What else do you want to? Do Some of you have never given a $10,000 check yet. Maybe that's the next thing God wants you to do. It's a gift of generosity, right?
Speaker 1:Some of you have never preached a sermon before.
Speaker 2:Have you done?
Speaker 1:that I have not.
Speaker 2:Could you?
Speaker 1:I will never say no, but I am learning. So that was Stephanie.
Speaker 2:Cut and we're done. I'm not going to make you promise on this podcast. Stephanie was behind the scenes. She's administrative, she's musical, got all these piano degrees and loves accompanying, not performing out front, yeah, well, when we took this church, when we became pastors, she said don't ever ask me to speak in front of anybody. I'm not on staff, I'm not a pastor, I'm your wife, I support you and I'll pray for you and I'm going to be a fan of the church. So in the early days she wasn't like I'm never going to. She just said I don't need to. That's not who I am. But now she preaches a couple of times a year, I mean, and our church loves it. She's obviously gifted. She's grown into that, um. So, yes, yes, I think your gifts absolutely can evolve, because the God who never changes, is always up to something new.
Speaker 1:You should like trademark that or something Like I'm something well, I've said it for so long. That should be like the opening all of the books you're writing. That should just be the opening to every single one of them. Just start it out with that and just rock and roll with it.
Speaker 2:My last one, the only book I've written, parable. Church starts with Jesus never told us how to do church, and I meant to be provocative with that statement.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Especially because I wrote it for the church and everybody has their idea of how we do it how many songs, what style, what my preacher has to do or whatever Jesus never even told us how to do it. What time to meet, what day of the week? Nothing, he said just but that's what a lot of people focus on, so I like those provocative statements.
Speaker 1:Yes, those are fun.
Speaker 2:The God who never changes is always up to something new.
Speaker 1:There's your book idea.
Speaker 2:Don't tell God you won't write another book.
Speaker 1:Here I am. It's like a. You know, you did write the parable church, so it's like the parable church, but like Proverbs. Yeah, like just write like a whole book of Proverbs, but like.
Speaker 2:Once again, that was a clever segue. That's good. I'm just saying this is how you'll open your sermon too.
Speaker 1:There, it is Just no.
Speaker 2:Don't ever tell God, you'll never preach a sermon.
Speaker 1:I will never tell God no, but I will tell you no quick, Like okay, I'm fast and in a hurry, All right. Oh, what does it say about submitting to authority? So question, last question, and then we're going to rock and roll and we're going to go home. So we have already gone through growth track. We are digging into our gifts. We're really loving this life. God's revealing more and more and more to us. Do you have anything that we could read, we could listen to? Any good books, podcasts, anything that would help us develop our gifts? Do you have anything, any resources that?
Speaker 2:you may know of. That would really open our eyes to who we are. Yeah, Well, the growth track material is actually very good. It's well-written, it's well done. The disc profile, the spiritual gifts inventory, is what we use.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I'm a big fan of the Bible and I think the New Testament is a great place to land for a long time, Especially if you're new to faith. A lot of young Christians want to start in their Bible on the left and they get stuck. But the spiritually gifted part of your Bible is the new Testament, right, so the gospels in the new Testament. There's a website called grow leadercom which we reference a lot. We use a lot of the resources. It's all free. You just sign up with your email to get an account and then you can pull all kinds of resources from them. Chris Hodges has a podcast connected to that called the Grow Leader Podcast, which is fantastic. I highly recommend. Gerald Brooks' podcast is great. He's one of my good friends. Craig Rochelle podcast. Actually, the LifePoint Creative Podcast has got some really great content. Pastor Elmer, Pastor Willie, they do a tremendous job on the LifePoint Creative Podcast.
Speaker 2:Of course I mean, if you're going to ask me about books, it depends on what direction you want to go, but I'm a big fan of reading the Bible, reading the Scripture. There are books out there on spiritual formation, I think, books by old—one friend of mine said when it comes to spiritual formation they want to read books by dead people. So, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, guys that are just old, classic, longstanding theological truths. So, Brother Lawrence, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Celebration of Disciplines I can't remember the guy's name who wrote that. Those are just great classic books by people who Tim Keller's works, I mean are tremendous.
Speaker 2:Henry Nowen there's some great authors out there that are no longer living. That's what he meant. But when it comes to developing your spiritual gifts, I would just say check Amazon, your Christian bookstore. We actually have a curated list somewhere on our website of books that we recommend for various different topics counseling, spiritual gifts, parenting, financial, all that kind of stuff and if it's not on there, we'll find it. We have that list curated, I know, but there is great stuff out there, a lot of podcasts out there and then talk to your small group leader, your pastor, your group leader.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I hope I answered that question well enough, you did.
Speaker 1:The stuff's out there, you just got to find it, you did, yeah. And just as unique as we are with our gifts I mean there's tons of unique resources to actually just make. Just if I could. If I could shepherd our people back it up with scripture. Don't go finding things on Amazon and having that take the place of the Bible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've had. People want to use their gift of hustle to gamble.
Speaker 1:No joke.
Speaker 2:We had one guy actually ask about taking church money and could we use it at a casino because he was really good at it, and I'm like, nah, man, we're not going to do that. But you know, some people think they're anointed for that stuff. I don't think so. But yes, make sure it's scripturally backed and well-supported.
Speaker 1:How did you, did you pick? What did your face do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was whatever. I'm like. Nah, I'm just, you know, I'm not surprised by much anymore, but I think I was just kind of like we're not going to do that. I mean, these are donated funds by single moms and soldiers and people on fixed incomes. I'm not giving that to somebody to play on blackjack I mean. The truth is, if you run red on roulette, your 50-50 chance to double it or lose it all.
Speaker 1:There's your next book and we're back One more segue.
Speaker 2:And we're back. Well, and we're back.
Speaker 1:One more segue and we're back. Well, Pastor Mike, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It's always fun to hang with you. You're doing a great job.
Speaker 1:Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. We have so much fun doing this.
Speaker 2:Is this a blanket? You're rocking. It is a blankie. Are you cold in here?
Speaker 1:I was freezing coming in here I was. I was just it's a, it's a snuggie, it's not a snuggie. I wish it was. Anyways, Thank you guys. We love you so much. Do not forget to come back next week for uh three weeks left. Yeah, three weeks left.
Speaker 2:I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I missed y'all last week. I mean, I had an.
