The Worship and Leadership Podcast
Real conversations on worship, leadership, and living a faith-filled life beyond the platform. Hosted by leaders from LifePoint Church, this podcast is here to inspire, equip, and challenge you—whether you’re leading in ministry, in the marketplace, or just learning to lead yourself well.
The Worship and Leadership Podcast
Stewarding God’s Church Through Vision, Growth, And Discipleship
What happens when a church treats vision like stewardship, not ownership? We invited our lead team—Pastors Mike and Stephanie Burnette with Dr. Tim Hager—to pull back the curtain on a year defined by increased anointing, movement, multiplication, and focused ministry to men. From testimonies of healing to a five-day overhaul of service times, we trace how prayerful clarity turns into bold action without losing the heart of discipleship.
The conversation gets practical and personal: the difference between second-chair critique and first-chair responsibility, the discipline of humble confidence, guarding your heart in ministry, and keeping family discipleship strong while the pace quickens.
If this conversation encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who leads, and leave a review to help more listeners find it.
Hey, what's going on, everyone, and welcome to the Worship and Leadership Podcast. My name is Elmer Cunningham Jr., and like always, thank you for spending this time with us on the podcast. Today is a very special episode, and I'm excited because joining me on the podcast today is our lead team here at Life Point Church. So here on the sofa on the couch, you see the one and only Tim Hager. Dr. Tim, we're glad that you're on the podcast. And uh it's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_04:It's gonna be good.
SPEAKER_03:It's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, sir. And then we also have our lead pastors. We have Pastor Mike Burnett. What up, what up? What's up? And Pastor Stephanie Burnett. What's up, everybody? And so it's gonna be a great conversation. Yeah, and uh thank you guys for being here today. It's good to see you, sir.
SPEAKER_02:Pastor Tim, man, it's great to have you co-hosting with Pastor Elmer. That's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_04:Usually Willie's usually in this show.
SPEAKER_02:I was just gonna tell you, I was gonna tell you, you gotta use very academic big words and alliterations would be helpful.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, did I ask for a phone book? I could sit on here. Yeah, sit a little higher, but anyway. I got what I got. That's funny.
SPEAKER_03:I got what I got. Today we want we want to talk about vision and alignment. You know, throughout the year as a lead team, we make a lot of decisions, and we it's decisions that a lot of our church members don't don't know that we're making and and thing, a lot of things, a lot of weight that we carry. As lead pastors, you guys carry a lot of weight, and you know, and there's a lot that the Lord speaks to you guys at the beginning or at the end of every year leading into the next. And it it's one of the things that when when you think about church, you don't think or church organizations, you don't think about what makes church happen every year. If you're part of the dream team, you you're like, all right, the serving, the services, all that. But there's vision that is required. You know, uh the Bible says without vision, the people perish, and we can talk about more, you know, talk more about that in depth. But I there's a lot that we get to sit around a table and discuss that, you know, I I'd love to unpack some of it and what is what has this year looked like? What is next year gonna look like? And yeah, that's that's kind of what the discussion is gonna be. It's gonna it's a little different today.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. Yeah, yeah, I love it. You know, this is our world, it's our enterprise, if you will, or the business that we're in. We don't sell cars, we're not into medicine. We do ministry and we do local church ministry. We're not missionaries to a foreign land, we do local church ministry to a community. And with that, we we don't own this business, right? We don't own this organization. So we actually are, by virtue of our role, we've been assigned by God to be stewards of his church. And that means his mission, his vision is the most important, always the thing that we're trying our hardest to accomplish, or to lead in as an organization. But there's so many layers to what we do in the church world. I had a meeting with someone here recently, and he was asking, like, what do we do throughout the week? Because he thought all of our job was just Sundays. Like, do you have another job?
SPEAKER_00:It is, didn't you know that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We only work on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02:And what's interesting is I had a hard time coming up with an answer for him because like intuitively, I know we work all the time, we do all kinds of stuff. And he said, Well, but like, what are you doing? I said, Well, I mean, we're counseling, we're leading teams, we're dealing with crises, we're helping with budgets and facility issues. I mean, we're all all the time like doing all the things that keep this thing running. Yeah, and but it, you know, at the at the base level, it's the Lord's church. He's building a church. He said, I will build my church, the gates of hell will not prevail against her. So we are working, always trying to be in step with what the Lord wants forever and what the Lord wants for us, right? So there's that tension. What's always true? Well, the gospel is true, Jesus is the king of this thing, and we want to leave as many people as possible to be devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Well, what does that look like in our context in Clarksville in the year 2025? What does that look like here? So we contextualize this forever timeless mission and truth. God's always had a mission for people, and so the mission of the church has to be about people. It's not about buildings, names, brands, or personalities on platforms. It's about the people in the seats and the people that are moving through the vision. So it's it's this constant tension between an historic organization with an eternal mission and objective in a locally contextualized way. And then we've got the personality of leaders at the table with our own histories, backgrounds, trainings. You know, we've got various levels of academics in this table. We've got various histories. You're from West Coast, I'm from the South, she's from the frozen tundra north, as like Tim. He's from Iowa. I mean, we've got all of our history and our education backgrounds and our preferences. So there's a lot working to kind of answer that question. Actually, it was my nephew. I'm remembering who asked me that. It was your nephew, our nephew. He was like, What do you do all weekend?
SPEAKER_00:He's in middle school. Yeah. And he said, We're on Uncle Mike. He said, Uncle Mike.
SPEAKER_02:We're on a trip together with my father-in-law. But anyway, so it's that's okay, so that's a very broad, general, like high view of the reality of what we do. But at the base level, like we're trying to build a church that the Lord would be pleased with. I I've challenged pastors. I wrote about this in a book I wrote once. I said, if Jesus were to come to the church you're a part of, would he fit in? Would he feel like he's in charge of this thing? Would he feel like he gets a voice in the meetings? Would his spirit emanate in the place? Would the culture feel like he's the boss? And so we want that here. We talk about it, you know. What was what does the Lord want? And so we started our, I haven't done this for every year, but this year in particular, we started the year. Uh, we always start with 21 days of fasting, but I never start the year going, Lord, I need a word for this year. I don't do that. It's just never been my style. But this year, man, overwhelmingly, we felt like the Lord said this would be a year of increased anointing, increased um movement and multiplication, and a year of increased ministry to men. And so we've just given additional attention to those four areas, and we've seen that bear fruit all of this year in 2025. Increased anointing. We've had miracles, we've had crazy miracles. Blind lady, her eyes were open. We've had a couple cancers healed spontaneously. We had a a boy, seven-month-old baby that was declared dead. I mean, he was dead and raised back to life and with no complications and healed. I mean, just anointing for miracles, marriages restored, people called into ministry. I mean, it's just been a great year for that. Multiplication and movement. We're adding a campus. We're all changing seats. We've changed services once with we changed all of our service times with five days' notice. That was awesome.
SPEAKER_03:Five days' notice, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just did like a blitz campaign on email, social media, and everything. But that's because we had a year with an anticipation of movement, right? And then increased ministry to man. I mean, that's just been fantastic. But that's that's been a very contextualized reality for this year, for this church and this community. We're not gonna write books about like this is the thing that every church needs to do. Yeah, but that's that was something the Lord spoke to me more more than anybody else, you know, in in a time of fasting and prayer. And then the risk is to tell the team and go, this is what we're doing, and then I hope it works out, you know, like I hope I heard from God. So now at the end of the year, we're all like, he hears from God. And it worked and it was right.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, I love how you said build the church, like foundationally, that's what we're all trying to accomplish. And and I hope everyone on our staff, you know, we share that same heart. But let's just clarify for people listening like when we say build the church, it's not life point church. The church is a people, right? It's it's the people that come here, the families, the moms, the dads, the children, the single, whoever's here, that's who we want to build. And ultimately, our our our mission statement is that we want to lead people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus. And so while it feels simple, like that's a very simple goal to build people to towards the Lord, to point them to Jesus. That's what I feel like if someone has to ask, like, what do you do? Well, we gather people. I love when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming, he said, Look, there he is. There's a son of God. I must decrease. He must increase. So look, there he is. It's like we get out of the way. We love to gather people to say, There he is. And and but in that, it's there's so many layers, so many different things that you can do as a church to build people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus. And that's where it's like, yeah, what do you do during the week? What don't we do during the week? That's the way I want to answer that question sometimes. So yeah, but the church is a people. I just want to remind everybody, you are the church. If you're listening and you're a follower of Jesus, you are the church, and that's our hope that you will grow in the things of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And a lot of what we get to do is work with people and and help them on their journey with the Lord and their discipleship. And so I was actually speaking with someone just a few hours ago, and they were asking about what does it mean to guard your heart in ministry. And and I I kind of went off, probably spoke for like good five, 10 minutes. I'm like, this is what it is in my context of guarding your heart. And a lot of what we do is we're making decisions for for the sake of the person that's coming to church, to the building to hear the gospel, and then decisions that are gonna help them in their discipleship journey with the Lord. And so sometimes they're gonna be it's gonna be things that again, like Pastor Mike said earlier, it's not about our preference, but it's about what's gonna be best for them. What does the Bible say? How do we lead them? What do we need for them? And so we do have to guard our hearts because easily we could all want to do something different. We can be easily led to want to do something out of emotion or react. But this is this is we're we take it serious because we know that there's people's lives at stake. And you know, just like someone that works at a hospital, you know, they they take it serious because there's lives at stake, they got to take care of them, and we know their souls at stake here, and we want to make our the best decisions for people that attend our church and people that are within our reach for, you know, so I I was just at our new location at Tiny Town and I was rushing across town to get over here.
SPEAKER_00:And I was thinking as I left, you know, that the the carpets in, they're putting the seats in, just final touches in all the rooms, and it's just coming to life, you know. The the people haven't gathered there officially yet, but we're preparing a place for the people to come. And I thought, of all the places in our city, of all the buildings in our city, like this is where we invite God's presence into people's lives. It's just different than any other organization here. It's and and I don't want to say, you know, working in a church is better than any other industry because God anoints people to do all kinds of things, but what a blessing that the church can gather and point people to Jesus. And that's what we're building, another location. And that's it's not just about that location, it's it's all the people in all the locations. But I just thought it just struck me like how special that we get to do this actually for a living. I mean, I feel really honored every day. I go, I can't believe we get to do this, you know? So Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You you mentioned vision earlier and how you don't do this all the time. Like, what do you what do you think was different going into 2025 that it was like a real specific, like these are the the four things that you're gonna have to focus on and lead the team through. What was different about going into this year?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we had started a a new construction project, and not knowing when that was gonna be finished, I knew that uh I was praying about preparing our church for that next iteration, you know, adding a we didn't just add a mobile venue in a middle school. We we broke ground, built permanent facility structure designated as a church, not multi-purpose. And I knew that it would grow our church, but we had already gr outgrown our other facilities, right? So I knew that there was growth coming and I wanted to really, I was praying about how to prepare the hearts of people to be a growing church again. Because we've grown every year that we've been here, but this was gonna be just an unusual year of growth, especially once we opened it. We were planning, hoping that the building, the new building would have been opened in August, you know, end of summer. I'm still holding out for that too, by the way. But uh here we are in December. If you're not watching this, I'm smiling. But yeah, I just I just was praying in anticipation, thinking if a couple thousand people are added to our congregation because of the opening of the new facility, are we prepared for that? You always have to prepare ahead of growth. You know, some sometimes you grow so fast you you're chasing growth, and that's just really stressful and hard and crazy. So this was just trying to be prepared on the front end and saying, Lord, how do you want us to prepare our hearts and be ready for that? And I think with the growth of a congregation, I don't I don't want more numbers, I want more lives changed. We want more people that are experiencing the presence of God, which means more anointing. And that that requires our leaders to be in a in a heart posture to facilitate God's presence, God's anointing, which means in our own lives we have to be devoted to Jesus and having a prayer life and walking with Him daily and walking in humility and repentance, all that stuff. And then to have a season of movement and multiplication, knowing that we were going to be adding services, we didn't just want to add a new campus. We asked our Austin P campus to grow into two services, which they did. I'm very proud of them for that. We uh are praying for our New York campus to multiply into two services. We're revitalizing a church there in New York, which is that's just hard work anytime. And in the Northeast, which is very post-Christian and antagonistic towards some of the stuff we're probab that that we're probably doing, it's just taking a long time to get there. But in again, just in preparation, you know, multiplication, praying for movement and multiplication there. And then uh at this campus, at our our Rossview campus opening Tiny Town, we're going from four services in one place to six in two places. That's multiplication. Well, you gotta be ready spiritually for that. Otherwise it'll it'll get old quick, it'll become frustrating fast, you know, that kind of stuff. And the ministry to men, we just I'm I'm constantly wanting to see men lead better in their homes and families and church and wherever else. And so I've I've said for years we wanted to be a church that's specifically not we don't want to be obnoxiously masculine, but we're specifically not feminine in our expression and how we do ministry. But we just upped the game on that and said we just want more and more discipleship of men. Because as you reach and lead men, men lead their homes and families and businesses better in the name of Jesus. And so this was the year that we really gave a lot of focus to that. And about 600 men went through our strong men's discipleship over the course of a year, which was great. And uh we're gonna do it again next year. So that'll become something more regular. But that was, I don't know, this year in particular, knowing we were gonna be adding a location and potentially growing by a couple thousand, we had to be doing some serious prep work spiritually for that. And that's where that that's how I was praying. Lord, how do you want to prepare us for that? And then that was the reason why to get us ready. That's cool.
SPEAKER_03:So then you you literally took down the vision and you wrote it down. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's cool. Well, yeah, that's I mean, uh I I have a terrible memory of ideas that I come up with. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't always remember the stuff that I think is brilliant in a moment. I don't know why y'all are laughing at me because I I I am an idea I was gonna say you're an idea generator. Some people say idea fairy, and I love ideas in other people's places. You know, like some guys will have me come in to coach their church, coach their team, like give us some ideas. I'm like, all right, sweet. So we get a whiteboard out and we chip chip chop chap chop. Sometimes with our team, the challenge is I I can speak an idea with authority as if that's actually gonna happen. And one of my mentors said, Pastor Chris actually, I'll just said, the problem is when you ideate in front of your team and they think that a plan's coming out of that, and you have to be very clear. No, I'm just throwing out ideas. I'm not even ready to decide on this yet. So I've had to learn that discipline because I've stressed out this room or others on our team.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no. We're good.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I love change and I love creating, you know, new opportunities for people to engage and grow. And so I just like change and new and it's fun to me. But sometimes it can stress folks out when they think, oh, we're gonna have to do seven new jobs. I don't know. You're have you experienced the stress of idea, Mike, or what I mean, just in general, though, like we're constantly trying to re-innovate and change and grow and get better.
SPEAKER_04:And that's part of the rhythm, I think, and and learning your team or the people that you're on. The ideation portion is really important to clarify vision and where we're going. And sometimes it just helps to say this is the phase we're in right now. We're gonna ideate, we're gonna see what the Lord is speaking, and then now we're gonna move in to get some clarity, yeah, you know, and just kind of work it through.
SPEAKER_02:That's one of the things you're very good at, is those steps of those processes because sometimes visionaries are great at create casting vision, creating an idea, and then saying, Y'all go figure that out. Because I'm gonna be in my idea closet again, you know. But uh, you're really good at the sequence of events of how to where'd you learn that? How did you even learn how to do that? Or is that intuitive to you?
SPEAKER_04:Uh it's a bit intuitive. It's kind of a a gift portion because I've always been called alongside leaders to help execute. And you can never, particularly if we're walking with the Lord and we see a preferred future or what he may have out there, is we typically can't tackle all of it. So what what do we need to do and how do we need to step that forward?
SPEAKER_02:That's a real discipline to be able to say, okay, and here's the steps. We can't do it all at once because guys like me are like, what are you talking about? We can't do it. Why are you telling me no?
SPEAKER_00:Dr. Tim, you're a gift. You are and that and that is such a great gift set. And we're we love having you on the team.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Love being here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, you've made comments before about how much more fun it is to be in a place trying to chart new courses versus like we're stuck trying to bail water out of the boat, you know. Like I'd rather be finding new islands than trying to just you didn't you didn't say it this way, but like I'd rather so thankful we're in a position where we're trying to take new ground and figuring out ways to do that as opposed to how to get us out of the problems that we've created or how to just survive. Yeah. Which unfortunately, and I'm not throwing churches under the bus, but that's the situation a lot of churches are facing, which is why I love that we want to help churches, why we want to help leaders. I had a business owner email me yesterday having some major problems with their team and culture and all that. And I said, Hey, if you want to grab coffee and sit down and talk about it, I'll glad to help you. And he was like, Man, you must be praying or something, because this is exactly what I want to talk with somebody about that can help me. But I would rather be in that position where we're going, what's next? What's God have ahead of us? You know, here we are coming into a new building. And I think I told our team, I said, I'm already thinking of like, what God, what's next? How do we move into the and we haven't even opened it yet? Yeah, but I would much rather be in a situation like that. God, what's next? We're praying about downtown Clarksville, we're praying about if God has us to do another campus, maybe in Hawkinsville, or what's the timing of that? As opposed to how do we survive, how do we bail out of the last problem?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And everyone really finds their themselves personally in life in different sorts of situations like that. But in in the coming up on two years anniversary here, welcome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was my best birthday present that year. He started on my birthday. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But it there's a special thing going on here at Life Point that uh people that come in the community, they may or may not appreciate the dynamic when you have baptisms every single month, which are symptomatic of the spirit working in powerful ways in people's lives. And what I've appreciated about our team, really, and and Ural's leadership, it's just the commitment to to the one, to the thing that's closest to God's heart, and that is the that people accept his son. Yeah. And they walk in discipleship with him. And the the blessing of God on us to see that in fruitful sort of a ways is that we really it's and it is work and it is a spiritual discipline to uh stay focused on that. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_03:So I I think the challenge there when you're saying focused, and and and that's something that at this table, it's it's a little different because like say, for example, because I also work with our worship and creative teams, and like there's there's a specific focus in that area, you know, just getting getting songs ready for the upcoming year. You know, we're about to start a Spanish service at our Tiny Town campus, which I'm really excited about. Yeah, yeah. And so praise the Lord. There's a there's a real specific focus on all right, how are we gonna communicate through music at all of our campuses? You know, what are songs that are gonna speak to our church? That what again, I'm I'm always specific on like what lyrics are we putting in the mouths of the people that attend. You know, we just we don't just want them to read words off of a screen, their deck declarations, worship. We want to teach that. And so there's that specific focus. But at this table, it's not just worship, it's it's it's what's happening in worship. How are people being discipled? How many people are going to growth track? What's happening in Kid Point, what's happening with our students, what's happening with even the maintaining of our facilities, what's happening with the city that can impact what's happening in our church, you know. So there's it's such a broad scope. So when you say vision, there's it's it's a very broad focus. And so, and what I want the those of you that are watching or listening to understand is that there is a lot that happens, there is a lot of decisions, and there is a lot of weight. And so I'm always encouraging people always to pray for our pastors, you know, to be praying for our lead pastors, our lead team, because there is a lot that that comes across the table. I think one of the things I enjoy doing is really leading our team, our staff, and and helping them because they're they're making decisions as well in their areas, you know, and we want to empower our leaders, we want to empower our directors and and see them walk out the the calling that that God has for them, right? Because I don't I don't think all decisions we were, you know, we're not here to make every decision, but to lead and guide. And and so it's exciting to see as we're expanding as a church that as God's bringing more leaders to the church, we're able to empower and develop. One of the things we did this last Sunday was with fresh faces, fresh voices, sorry, fresh voices, and and we saw multiple communicators at all our campuses, and they didn't just walk up on the platform and preach. Like there was a lot of work that happened behind the scenes and and a lot of time that you invested and the team invested in preparing them. And that's what happens week to week around here, just a lot of investment into people so they can be empowered into their gifts and their calling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That reminds me of the verse, I think it's Ephesians. It says that the job of the pastors is to, well, the fivefold ministry is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. So it's that's hard to define sometimes, but the equipping of saints, you know, that's the equipping of attenders and people that are coming in are believers and they want to grow in their walk. I mean, we're constantly that's that's something that's never finished until we take our last breath to go to be with Jesus, you know, that we can always grow in our faith. So that is another, just going back to your question at the beginning. What do we do all week? Well, we equip the saints. What does that even mean? You know, there's a lot to that. But I love how you lead our team, Pastor Elmer and Dr. Tim, how you guys pour into and invest. That is a lot of what you guys do, also. Also, you I mean, you oversee the things you're that you're responsible for, but you're pouring into people all the time at the end of the day. So thank you for all that you guys do to pour into our team and make it better. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Amen. The conversation I had earlier today, I told the individual that that's my greatest privilege in this season is to really protect our team and and to guard the heart of our pastors. I'm talking about you guys. And and I I think it's we're an organization, but it's easy to get caught up with just the mission and vision alone without the heartbeat of our leaders. And again, like we were talking earlier, the Lord spoke to you. And had the Lord not given you that directive for the year, there's a lot that as a church we could have missed out on without that intentionality. And had we not rallied around that and guarded that that word from the Lord, you know, God only knows what we would have missed. And so for me, it's always like it's mission, vision, and then heart, like or what's where's the heart of our pastors? What are they communicating? What are they saying? And how do we echo that as we're leading in other spaces?
SPEAKER_02:I appreciate that about you. You've always both of you guys have always done a great job with that. And Stephanie and I are super grateful. You know, the Lord speaks through his word, he speaks by spirit, he'll he'll he'll speak through people, you know. I think the voice of the Holy Spirit often sounds like Stephanie to me.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_02:But it is true. I mean, God, God is a speaking God, and we're thankful for that. One of the unique responsibilities that I carry more than anybody else in this church is the responsibility to hear from God specifically about the whole organization and the future where we're going. And I don't take that lightly and I don't want to flippantly say God spoke to me. I mean, you've you've been here the longest. I don't use that language very often at all that I feel like the Lord said. That's why I said every year I don't start the year with that kind of thing. But, you know, God has been building his church for 2,000 years. And in the last 15 years, Stephanie and I have had the privilege to be a part of him building this church here. And there's a day coming where we won't be in this seat, but the Lord will still be building this church. So we we take it very seriously that we are the stewards assigned at this season, and we're gonna do everything we can to steward it well with integrity and character and with focus and vision unto God. I I did a leadership teaching once about the different hats that pastors wear in this role. We may have even talked about it on a podcast before, but my first job is Shepherd, and and then I'm a preacher, teacher, I'm a theologian, I'm a referee for marriages, you know, I'm a counselor and I'm a 501c3 CEO, which I never trained for that in seminary. I have two seminary degrees and every class on how to be a CEO of a 501c3. So there's the corporate side of it, the business, the functional side. We have office hours and HR policies and all of those things for our staff. We want to be generous and give good benefits and all those kind of things. So there's just a lot of layers. And in my seat in particular, I'm the one responsible, even if I don't execute the actual decisions, I'm the most responsible for the oversight of the whole thing. And the word for overseer or for like the presbyter, the elder, is to oversee everything. And I probably feel it more pressuredly than any with more pressure than anyone else, how all the things are interconnected and how they all flow together. It's like, it's like a really, really good family meal, right? Like, think about we just had Thanksgiving and think of all the elements of a meal. The location, the time. Did I get all the elements in my shopping cart? Did I thaw the turkey out on time to get it cooked? Like, like, you know, the people who put together really fancy holiday meals, it's a masterful thing to actually put all that stuff together and have it all. You ever have one where that all lands on the table hot? That's genius. You know what I'm saying? Like a work of art. And that that's part of the gift of that kind of leadership, you know, to put even just a big fancy family meal together. Everyone's showing up at this time, and we're gonna eat it this time, and then da da da. And then we got a game and we're gonna do everybody to say what you're thankful for. So I think in my role, especially, just the responsibility to oversee it all with again a stewardship heart, not an ownership heart, and a management and like a desire to please the Lord. And again, that question if Jesus came to the building today and said, Hey, this is my church, would he feel welcome here? Would he feel like it felt like he was in charge? Would he be proud of the work that we're doing as a team? And it's how we treat people, it's how we discipline. Man, we've had to bring correction and discipline. That's tough. Yeah, you know, and so everything has to feel connected to the heart of the Lord, to the mission and vision of the church and the the Bible, and and then to carry that and steward that when you talk about the heart of the leaders, I think that's probably the biggest heart that we carry is we really want to please the Lord more than anything. I don't know everything, I just know that I want to please God. Yeah. And so, anyway, that being said, like we have a mission from the Lord. It's not ours. No pastor should ever create a mission of the church that doesn't look like the mission of God, which is to reach everybody on the planet for the gospel of Jesus. We are fully ascribed to the doctrines that God wants to reach everybody, and no one comes to salvation but through Jesus. And the mission of the church says I want to save people and I want to make them disciples, right? So lost people getting saved, saved people becoming disciples, and disciples becoming a part of this church that we're building. Yeah. And so that is our mission. Yeah. We said it in one statement to lead people to be fully devoted followers of Christ. That means newly devoted, more devoted, fully devoted, right? Like it's a pro it's a progression, and that's our goal. And then how we do it is through our our services, our weekend services, our small groups, getting people assimilated into the church through our growth track and then teaching them to serve like Christ serves through dream team first. And then honestly, we want you to serve your city, serve your neighborhood. The goal is not to just have a bunch of servants in the church, the goal is to teach people to have a servant attitude and to serve like if you want to be more like Jesus, serve people. And so it's interesting. Every industry should have a product or a vision or a process that does good for others. Like if you sell shoes, you don't wear the shoes you sold. The people who bought them wear them. So you want to sell them shoes that are good for them. If you serve food in a restaurant, you're not eating the food they're ordering. You're you're serving food to them that they would be full and satisfied and enjoy their experience. So this life of serving others, leadership is servants, service, right? So the church is not about us at this table. We have just decided like we're gonna give all of our efforts to make a great experience and a great connection for people in their walk with Jesus. So anyway, it's a lot. It's a lot to think about and a lot to carry. And but I I would say that one statement, like we really want to please the Lord. And I hope that one day he looks back and says, Great job, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well done, good and faithful servant. I I love that you said that leadership is is service. I know there's that definition leadership is influence, and that's been taken on because leaders do influence other people, and that's been taken on as a as a statement that has defined so many leadership spaces, including the church. But I think we easily miss or what we easily separate the two, serve serving people and influence. And then so it becomes about power. And you just said that you know it's not about control, it's about stewarding. I think that's one of the things I love about you guys and the leadership that you guys carry, and and the way that you carry it for our church and and and even beyond our church, the way that you guys interact with our city, that it's not about we want control, we want to do things the way we want, this is how we're gonna do it. No, it it's always been, and you guys use the word a lot, stewardship, and we're stewarding what God has given us. And for me, it's real refresh, refreshing. You don't hear lead lead pastors say that a lot. It's a lot, you know, unfortunately, but you you'll you'll have a lot of we're building a brand, but here it's not about building your brand. You said it earlier, it's about the kingdom, it's about the capital C church, and you guys have modeled that really great, and uh, and I'm grateful and thankful for that. Pastor Tim, any thoughts on on how we stored our responsibilities that the Lord's given to us?
SPEAKER_04:Um, I I as I was just thinking about the way the the church has grown and and how God is is blessing, it's really about people have also taken this idea of stewardship here at Life Point. And it has also created a community that's inviting, that has allowed the I'm thinking here of the number of men that started coming out, Pastor Mike, this last year. They're they're stepping up into leadership. They're wanting to be men that are are able to lead, that they're able to influence, or able to serve. And I I think that's been a really good case study, in one sense, to put it that way, of the community that God is helping to build right here. And we're just we're stewarding that, the community that's here and how it's expressing itself. Because it's as we've joked a few times, as as we see an impact from a service or a weekend or initiative, or we see what's happening in the growth of some areas, we look at each other and say, we're working hard, but we're not this good. I mean, it's God, it's God doing this this additional thing. And I think that becomes part of the the stewardship mindset that we have, that um we are a portion of of what the shepherd is doing to try to bring people back into the kingdom of God. And that that's a stewardship mentality that people can take home into their own neighborhoods. How can we be Christ's extension here and steward what he has given us in our spiritual gifts, our talents, and even our location where we've found ourselves here and stuff. So I think that's what's on the top of my head.
SPEAKER_00:Just thinking of stewardship, I I I think one of the ways I really learn more about what it means to be steward is in the area of finances. I mean, we learned this from Dave Ramsey years ago when when he would talk about, you know, the scripture, like we are stewards, not owners, stewards, not owners, stewards, not owners. And that was the first time I really like, yeah, this money I have, if I have ten dollars in my hands, it's actually God's. Yes. Everything we have is God's.
SPEAKER_02:All$10.
SPEAKER_00:All 10 bucks. It's the Lord's. And so Dave would would talk about keeping an open hand, and he would say, he would say, if you close your hand like you're controlling it or you own it, then God can't put any more in, he can't move any out.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. But you have it.
SPEAKER_00:It's mine. I have that 10 bucks, but it's only going to be 10 and that's it forever. And just I think this idea of stewardship, as it we're talking about, the church, that's that's where I learn. Like, obviously, if you've taken financial peace, you understand that like it just frees you up to know, like, I don't have to be in charge of all the the dollars, not mine anyway. So, God, you move in whatever you want, you move out whatever you want. And that creates a heart of generosity when you're able to release what's in your hand and you go, oh, I thought that was mine, but God's asking me to give that. You're like, okay. But then you do it, and there's a freedom that comes with that because it wasn't mine in the first place. And so then, you know, years of of walking out financial peace personally, and obviously as a church, we live on the same principles that we want to be generous. It's like, it's not ours. God can can move in and move out. And so, in the same way, we steward people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:These people are not our people. Like people say, Oh, it's your church, Pastor, that's your church. And we're like, that's not our church, it's the Lord's church. And we are honored to love and shepherd the people that God gives us for whatever season, whatever year we're in, you know, God moves people in and out, and we're in a military town, so it moves twice as fast, you know? But whoever God gives us, we're gonna do the best of our ability and not hold on tight. And I learned that the hard way because we had been here just a couple years. And I remember we came up upon one of our first big PCS seasons, and I looked at Mike, I don't know if you remember this, and I said, Mike, we we were, it was late night talk one night. We were just laying in bed, and I said, Aren't you so bummed that I probably could count 20 families, like just off the top of my head that were about to move in PCS? And I said, Aren't you so bummed that they're moving, that they're leaving? We just poured into them. We just invested in them, we just got them trained up and they're ready to serve and they're you know, growing in the Lord. And do you remember what you said to me? You looked at me. Well, you don't remember.
SPEAKER_02:It was something pretty brilliant.
SPEAKER_00:He looked at me and said, Yeah, Steph, but ever for every family that's leaving, God's gonna bring two more.
SPEAKER_02:Two more coming, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm like, of course you would say that. And I learned at that moment, they're not our people, they're God's people. So God can bring in whoever he wants. He can PCS, and now I like to think of it as we're we're deploying them for the Lord. I know they go all over the world and all over the states, but God can use them. And again, that's just a reminder. We just we're honored to steward the people that God brings, and it's not ours. We don't own it. Yes, we don't own any of this. It's all the Lord's. I don't want to own it. That's too much pressure, anyways. Oh, for sure.
unknown:You know?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's a uh thank you for that reminder. Yes, I do remember that, but it's because I was upset, I was bothered.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Like, man, we did all this, we poured into these people, you know, we invested.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and and we feel the same way when somebody goes south in their theology or they get upset or offended, and cause you know, you go, ah man, these people have been in my home. We've spent so much time. Yeah, God deploys his people as he wants. That's uh language that I've heard recently. I I've been reading this book, Worship Among the uh Warioto. You got it for me at the Customs House Museum. And it's a history of the church in Clarksville.
SPEAKER_00:Churches, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the Capital C church, yeah, the big church. And it's kind of the start stories of all these churches, probably 150 churches mentioned in this book. And some of these are still very much in existence. In fact, I was reading today about uh McAdoo Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It's one of the oldest churches, 1802. It was established in Clarksville in a brush arbor. Do you know what a brush arbor is? No. Yeah, right. Nobody in this room knows what it is.
SPEAKER_04:Wait, Dr. Tim knows. Yeah, kind of the bush, you know, they make it up and then they get in there.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's where you store like it's basically a janky shed. I mean, it's I think that's right. Anyway, um the it started in a brush arbor, and then they bought property, and then they got donated a piece of property, then they built a church, and then they called their first pastor who was a traveling. Listen to the story. He was a traveling minister from another presbytery, and he comes on a horse in the early 1800s, and he I he found his host, like the house he was, it was raining, and he's crying. He comes on the front porch. He's like, Are you the guy that's supposed to be hosting me? And he says, Yes, sir, I've been waiting for you. He's like, I thought I would never find you. He's crying, he goes, I thought God led me to the wilderness to die. He said I was gonna sleep with the wolves tonight. But he said, I'm I'm called of God to come here and preach. And he founded that church. But 220 years later, the church exists, and that dude's been in a graveyard for years. And I just I don't know if this is morbid or healthy or what, but I just have this really clear understanding that we are just a moment, we're a vapor. And the church was in this town way before Life Point, it'll be here, and more churches and bigger churches will happen one day. I mean, I I'm totally fine with that. That's why stewardship is such a reality for us because we're very aware of that. In that that book, it'll tell the history of these churches, these 200-year-old churches in our town, and it'll name all the pastors that have pastored. And it ends with the current pastor is this is 1995. None of those guys are even still here either.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And I know somebody else that's pastoring all these churches now in our town. I'm talking Spring Creek Baptist, First Baptist, first Christian downtown, McAdoo, Life Point. You know, we got in after that book was published. But I'm the second pastor.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And the the pyramids have taught us that you can't take anything with you. Those pyramids are being discovered with all kinds of toys and stuff that these dead Egyptians thought they could play with in the afterlife. They've never moved. Whenever I do funerals, I watch people lose their theology at funerals, right? They say all this kind of crazy stuff. And they do weird things in this kind of weird thing that we do of like kind of memorializing people, or we'll put things in their casket, like a note in their pocket. They're never gonna read that note. Or we put a special book or a I want them to be buried with that. And I just have this really clear theology of stewardship that comes from the fact that life is very fragile. We're here for a moment, and then we're gonna be with the Lord for the to be absent from this spot. I don't want to be reading a note in a cr a coffin forever, I want to be with Jesus. And so I want to live in a way that I can hand this life off and and hear well done from the Lord. I want to please God, and that this thing continues beyond us, too. I mean, if I got hit by a bus today and survived, first of all. But you know, this church can go on without me for sure. I hope. Golly, I hope so.
SPEAKER_00:The church is the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_02:But I'm saying this local expression.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's because we want to build it as stewards, not owners. I heard recently, just two days ago, about a ministry, a well-known national ministry, that will close when it's founder, which the ministry is named after that person. When that person retires, they'll just close it. And I just thought I want a lasting work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus said, I want you to have fruit that abounds and fruit that fruit that survives. How did he say it? Fruit, that your fruit remain. It remains. And so we want to have fruitful ministry that remains. Well, then let's steward in a way that it does better when we're gone. That's that's part of the theology of that, I guess. As a long but that book has been messing with me because all these churches, oldest churches, strongest churches, biggest churches in town, 15 pastors later, they're still running, you know. But the one, and by the way, the ones that have kept the Bible's true, Jesus is the only way to heaven, we're calling people out of darkness into light, kept that as a center point, they're still thriving. Yes. That's okay. The ones that gave that up are in slow death decline, by the way. Which is part of our job as stewards to keep again, Christ is the Lord of this thing. So his heart, his word, his will, his way, his mission. We gotta keep yep, gotta keep that at the center thing. And if we let culture creep or preferences of our table creep, then the Lord's like, wait a minute, am I still the Lord of this thing or not? And if he ain't the Lord of it, the He has no obligation to grow it. That's a whole other message. I could talk about that for you.
SPEAKER_04:Candlestick, candlestick out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Revelation chapter two and three. You said, I'll remove my lampstand, I'm out.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:So I I love I love the heart for stewardship. But along with stewardship comes again, the decisions that are made, the conversations that are had. Which we have a lot of them. A lot, and they're expensive decisions and they're they're big, real lives, bold. Yeah. And so there's an authority that you you walk with, and that in making decisions, there's a weight that comes with it. Would you guys mind just sharing maybe what some of that weight might feel like? That the authority, the confidence to move in it, because it again, we know we're doing this for people, and we're making decisions that are that will impact you know multiple hundreds of people at times. And we're making these decisions with the confidence. Yeah. And I'll just say real quick, like a lot of times we don't know who it's gonna impact, but we're making these decisions with a bold confidence in Christ, you know, trusting in the Lord. And so what what does it look like for you guys?
SPEAKER_00:Well, going back to that story I shared earlier, when I thought those people are ours and it was our work, I learned right then that it's it's not. And so for me, the weight, I think that's early on in this role as lead pastors. I just had to give that up because I can't carry that weight at that level. Now, I know you're gonna talk about a different weight and it's it's a pressure, it's a real life, like it's a good thing to have a little bit of like, oh wow, that there's gravity here. Like that these decisions matter because they impact people. But I guess as far as like the spiritual weight, I'm like, we just have to give this up to the Lord, you know, when people go in crisis or there's major things that happen in families that are really hard to deal with. I I tell people as we, you know, mentor other pastors and leaders, I'm like, you can't carry that the rest of your day. You meet with them, you you encourage them in scripture, you pray with them, and then instantly you go, Lord, now I give this to you. Because if I if I carry every weight of every family situation in our church or leadership situation or something that didn't turn out right or a financial thing, man, I'm just gonna be crushed and can't go about my day. So I constantly am giving that weight to the Lord. This is just my thought on it, but I I I don't want to carry the weight. I've got other things, and then we haven't even talked about like, because this focus of the podcast really is more church and all that. But then you've got your your family life, the weight there. And we've got four kids right now that are teenagers, pretty much almost. We have a sixth grader and three teenagers. That's a whole different weight. You know what I mean? And I'm like, Lord, pastoring people in the church, like we love it. And then, you know, you've got kids at home, and I'm like, that's a different weight where I'm like, Lord, I really need your wisdom here. So, anyways, that's just real life, honest where we are, even in our leadership. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, coming here, I was 30 and for 10 years I I was pastoring. She was home with our girls and she was pastoring from the house, you know, because we never did anything without agreement and prayer and all that stuff together. But but I came here from a staff role where I was not in a healthy place, if I'm being very honest. I w I wasn't in a healthy environment, but then I personally wasn't in a healthy place spiritually and as a leader, and I had to repent from some just bad mindsets, probably arrogance and overconfidence. And coming out of seminary, you know, seminarians are notorious for knowing everything with no experience and doing those things, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Is that right, Pastor Tim?
SPEAKER_02:Tim was Tim was the president of our city for a while. He was a leader. And I'm saying it as a as an academic person. I mean, I just know it's one of the dangers of education is you you actually depend too much on what you've learned instead of the experiences that should teach you as well. They need to teach you together. So I was a I was in youth ministry for in music for four years before seminary. So I had a lot of experience in the church four years on staff, and then I went to seminary and I would process it through real life experiences with people that we had worked with. Then I got out of school and I'm working at a at a church that was again, I'm very thankful for the opportunity. It taught me a lot, but it wasn't a healthy place. So I just, man, I when things aren't healthy, my natural orientation is to fix them. And if I don't have the authority to fix it, I'll just criticize it and I'll critique it and I'll think those things. The problem is at that point in my life, in my arrogance, I said what I thought all the time. And that so I created storms of my own and I'd complain about storms that I caused. That's what I meant by I had to repent of some things and I wasn't very healthy. But I remember thinking I could do that guy's job until I got that job. And that was one of the things that broke me as a leader is the difference was not my job title change, the weight of that job title was different. And being a second chair at any level, whether you're the executive pastor or you know, a staff member, for whoever's on the team is in a second seat to my leadership. But the the ordained assignment on the first chair, when what you say can elevate or crush people, if it's misinterpreted, if it's not said correctly, when decisions you make for the organization have real life implications on families' lives, the weight of that is very different. And it was easy to criticize that from a second chair that was comfortable and taken care of by the guy I was criticizing, which I also had to repent for. But when you sit in that seat and no one's there to be your parachute to protect you when you make a dumb decision, I think I was here like six months and I had a mild panic attack over what the finances of this place and how we were gonna get that fixed and the debt that I inherited. And so I I I do know there's a different weight in the first chair of any organization as a husband. You know, all these young kids are like, I want to get married. It's like, okay, do you know what it's like to be the spiritual head of your home? Do you know what it's like to have kids one day and care for that and like to provide insurance benefits for your wife? My father-in-law told me when we got married, he's like, her cell phone bill and insurance bill are yours now, son. Have fun. So you carry all this responsibility in a leadership role. And in a church, it's not just my family, it's it's y'all's families, it's a lot of families, and then decisions I make, the city can be blessed. I want to be a blessing to the city, you know what I'm saying? So, anyway, those first couple of years, I think there was a lot more insecurity about some of that. You're talking about confidence. Uh, my personality is confident, but I I want to be level with the Lord. So I didn't have a lot, I was kind of un insecure about some of those things. And and you know, I followed a difficult transition here, whereas some that were left from the previous church were questioning my decisions and my abilities, and I was young, and it was about three or four years where I started really praying about this marriage of humility and confidence, and I started using the phrase like I want to have a humble confidence to be the leader here. And what I mean by that is I'm so humbled God has called me to do this job, and I'm confident that he's called me to do this job. And so I'm so confident that God's called me, I'm gonna humble myself and seek him and do it his way, and then confidently make decisions that should please him. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I'm humbled that he's called me to do this. Can't believe it. And I'm confident that he's called me to do this, and nobody else gets to get that the seat that I sit in. And it humbles me and it builds a confidence in me. And walking that out, I don't think you resolve that. You just live with that tension, right? And ultimately what motivates me the most is I want to please the Lord in between those two things. So we've made bold decisions, we've built millions of dollars of buildings with no money and no congregations in the in the building, like our newest Tiny Town campus. We don't even have a church waiting on us. We gotta go build that next. Yeah. But confident I heard from God on it, and I'm humbled that He's letting us do it. And it's been cool to follow the miracles and watch God show up every time we just take a step. You know, faith is faith is scary. Walking by faith. It's great to talk about. It's fun to tell stories when you got it right. But doing it from the front end, it's it's scary. Yeah, we're gonna do the same. Are you sure? Yep. How do you know? Heard from God. How do you know? Just confident I heard from God. Those around me agree. So then that's you know, you need wisdom in a multitude of counsels, maybe to assure you or to have a group to fall on when you blew it. Well, my whole board said yes, so it's their fault. No, I'm kidding. But I don't know if I'm answering your question. I I think leadership is a whatever you're leading, if you're leading the HOA of your neighborhood, you know, you need to have a confidence to do that thing and a humility to do that thing. Yeah. I think humble confidence is something that needs more attention, honestly, for leaders.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Dr. Tim, you have a real and we mentioned it earlier. There's there's a grace and a pace that you operate in. And since you've been on our team, I think we've all learned from you and you've set a tone, you know, as we're implementing new things, new policies, new ways of doing things in how we're rolling things out. We're not just putting it out there because it's a great idea. Like you you're very thoughtful. What does that confidence look like for you in in the grace and pace that you you operate in?
SPEAKER_04:I think I think it's good. I think part of that goes back to really weighing our lives and fruit bearing and moving forward at a pace that we feel like where God wants us to go. And and I say that from a on the pace side because we really take a lot of time to talk about our spiritual walks with the Lord and the times that we've got to make sure we're aligned in heart before we're going out, and then we're advancing our projects, advancing where the church is going and and those sorts of things. But sometimes it it our our sense of vision is that we've got to move quickly. Like when I I came on and all the prep that was done for Tiny Town, say for instance, uh it was funny when you came down and you gave me that big round, all those, all those blueprints were right on my shoulder. You know, I thought I'm carrying the weight of Tiny Town Church here as we go forward. But as I as I as I start seeing what the assignment is out there, I I started reflecting quite a little bit about what we're gonna need to do from a staff standpoint. And a year ago, we had had a whole fall and and or summer and fall training on how do you keep up with a growing church. Because part of it, you know, we're projecting ahead is what we're gonna have to do for the number of volunteers we had to have. We were already we're having some pinch points or or having to run very fast to keep up with in our kid point areas, or we had a lot of processes that we're looking at. I thought, boy, we need these are gonna need to be matured out. Well, breaking that down to how can we do this in bite-sized pieces? How fast can we, how fast can the team move? What's it gonna cost us, both financially and in time? And weighing those things. And sometimes we have to in our leadership just say, as I have to in my own life, sometimes like time to lay that down. We got to go to the next iteration because we got to keep up with where the Lord wants us to land here at this point in time. So part of that spiritual discernment, part of that is what's gonna be required of us when we think into the words of Jesus before you build, you better count the cost. So all the different things are gonna have to be in here so that when we land over here and we start doing the the erecting of the new structure, we've got the costs in place, we've got the workers in there, we've got our permits, we've got all that laid in there, but also go into war and we're gonna take new ground, we better start doing some thinking on that. So Jesus talks about it in that. So it I think where I end up climbing into is just in responding to what God's speaking here, you know, with our leads and and and we're staying focused on the mission of God. What are the what's the next leverage thing that we need to do that will help us be as prepared as possible to be where God, where the puck's moving from the kingdom standpoint? So the those are the things where my mind starts working. Yeah. And some people they they don't think in those terms. That's where my mind goes.
SPEAKER_03:So it's like you're anticipating where the Lord's leading our lead pastors, yes. And you're just kind of kind of navigating that space that they're operating in. Yeah. That's so cool.
SPEAKER_04:Which was very interesting because we had spent, you know, the summer before and then in the fall in preparation for when we came in and we actually did the the series with uh growth track with the entire congregation. I tell you, the hundreds and hundreds of people that now were assimilated in were actually we had months of preparation on the staff side ready to receive those in there. And they had the tools that they needed. So that that energizes me. You know, trying to conserve harvest and not have wasted.
SPEAKER_02:If I can say, I think part of the brilliance of what you're saying, and and it's something that I try to help. If it if there's a pastor or a leader listening to this, just let me let me settle something for you. If you want to see growth or forward movement, you can't force people to want what you have, right? You can't force anybody to come to church, you can't force anybody to buy your product, you can't force anybody to want what you have, but you can prepare for them to receive what you have, right? So I was thinking about Jesus, even as you're talking about all that prep work that we did doing growth track five months before we launched a new building, yeah, was a very like it was preparatory decision to get our church ready for that next season of growth. Praying for anointing, movement, momentum, multiplication, all that stuff, and men, ministry to men, that was in preparation for what's ahead of us. I think one of the greatest things a leader can do is be in preparation mode. Like you just gotta be thinking ahead and prepping. Pastor Chris talks about stacking the dominoes, right? Like, how does this thing prepare for something three months from now? But preparation, Jesus even said, I'm gonna go prepare a place for you. Just imagine the day of move into heaven, right? When the when the return of the Lord and He comes to take his church away, we all got to go move into heaven. I don't I don't even know how the process of that would be. Can you imagine like move in on campus like with our daughter? Like there's a group of folks in the lobby going, Okay, what's your last name? Okay, you're in suite 205B. Like just move into heaven. He said, I'm going to prepare a place for you, which means he's planning on a big old massive family reunion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And leaders, I just want to encourage you. Sometimes leadership can get very discouraging because you want people to want what you're putting out there, right? Whatever it is. And I talked to a lot of pastors like, man, I think we're on the breakthrough of something great. If I can just figure out a couple of things, we'll see growth. You can't make growth, but you can prepare for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so uh, whatever it takes to prepare for growth, you know, and and very often the greatest thing you can do to prepare for growth is develop your leadership and become a better leader, fine-tune your leadership skills and develop more leaders. Sam Chan talked about this a few years ago in the church world. It used to be if you want to go grow a great sized church, just have a great front door, like the Sunday experience, the website. But now it's really have a great team of volunteers and leaders. The more people you get plugged into serving, they actually shape the culture, which is what makes people want to come and hear about it and see it. Like you look on our social media, it's not photos of me on our church social media, it's people serving and smiling. So we we've created a great culture that people want to come to. I just read today in our prayer meeting, there's a lady said I came to Life Point for my first time, and I instantly felt at home from the parking lot. That's because we prepared that for her. That there's a team out there at the driveway anticipating a new guest coming in with private parking and a concierge kind of hosted service for her. We've prepared, so develop your leadership, develop your processes that makes room for people to come and experience what you are putting out there as a church and as a leader.
SPEAKER_03:Back in the day, it was it was a lot harder to have that front door where that Sunday experience was excellent. So you did you had the few churches here and there that had the talent, had the technology, but now technology is more accessible. With tracks in church, worship teams sound great, they sound amazing. They all sound the same because they have the same tracks. And you know, LED walls are getting cheaper. So you have mobile churches that are popping up LED walls, lights, all of that experience is real similar. But like you said, the culture's the thing that you have to invest into and prepare for, right? Which is the people and the invite.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so good. Yeah, developing leaders and preparing your leadership. Yes. We've told our church for years, God wants to grow his church. I I never, never will believe and be convinced that God doesn't want to grow a local church. I'll never believe that because it's the reason he came to see he can save the lost. And where the lost people need to go, the church. God always wants to grow his church. You ain't even got to pray about it. The question is, are we stewarding the church in a way that we can receive his growth?
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So can the Lord trust lost people to your church, to this organization? That's something we've fought hard for. Like we want to be a church where lost people can come and meet the Lord.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and beyond the lights, beyond the tech and all the things, it's we could do it all discipleship with a bullhorn and a stool. Yes. I mean leading people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus. We are pointing people to Jesus. And so I always just hear the heartbeat of a growing church is actually discipleship. So when you're talking about pouring into leaders, pouring into leaders, pouring into leaders, that's what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:He had his 12, and those 12 went and changed the world. I mean, he could have poured into 300, 500. I mean, he preached to all of them, but man, did he pour into and disciple and teach him the ways of the kingdom? It's like that is how we grow, church. That is what it's all about. Discipleship and figuring out who Jesus is. I think that's been just something really neat with a lot of our leaders. If I can just highlight some of the growth that we've seen, is Just the theological classes we've been offering to our LLA, which is our uh leadership academy. And we've also got, you know, we offer a master's degree in connection with Evangelion University. Like that, we want people, yes, read your Bible and then let's let's take some coursework on. We live in a day and age where we have access to these things. Let's get off our phone and quit scrolling and like take a theological course. So if you're listening, you're like, what does God have for me next in 2026? I know we're starting to talk about like this year and then where we're headed next year. Even personally, ask God now in December. What is it that God wants you to do for next year? And I I guarantee you for many of you, it's well, all of us, it's growing in this book right here. We're gonna grow in the word. And for some of you, you felt a nudge to do something even beyond this, read commentaries, take a theological course, get a mentor that loves the word and knows the word way better than you, and sit with them and ask questions. And that's great. I was I was listening to somebody, I don't even know who it was here recently, and they were saying, most of us as Christians, we read the passages and we read the scriptures that we like because they're our favorites. Who is in your world teaching you something you don't know about scripture or the passages that are hard to interpret or that you don't understand? That's why we need leaders. You know, I just think of Jesus pouring into a leader, you know, anyways, Jesus is the greatest leader of all. So study, you know, everything he taught his disciples and then Pauline epistles and Peter and all the things that are amazing in here. But personally, what is this is how you go to the church? It's person to person for the one, but disciple the one. Yes, disciple the one. The the people standing on the stage at your church on Sunday, it's not really their job to disciple you. They can point us to Jesus, but who in your world do you have access to to get on the phone when you're having a bad day and you call? Are they pointing you to Jesus? So, anyways, discipleship for me is like the heartbeat of that's great. Yeah, how a church grows at the end of the day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So good. So good. I want to close with this one question, and it's more a personal question. What's what's one thing that you wish or are still working on as we're closing out the year, like you said, in 2025 in your leadership or your own disciplines, what's one thing that you're you're wanting to get better at and better disciplined at? We'll start with uh Dr. Tim.
SPEAKER_04:I think as for me, I'm I'm continuing to work off something I'm doing this year, which has been I've gone to over to audio playing of this of the scripture text in there, and sometimes I'm getting through half a book and then I'm I'm having peripheral engagement with it. But part of what's happening when I I shut everything else out and I I have the scriptures going back, sometimes I'm I'm I'm reading while the the oral is going on. And I wanna I want to take that up another level this year from the standpoint of being able to apply numbers of things for knowledge, but I mean I'm j just getting glimpses. I think it's like Rhema words that are coming off of the page for me. And I I want to take that to another level and see what the Lord wants to do in 2026. Yeah. For just communion time, his word in there, it being read to me, me actually sometimes also reading while it's being read in there, but just quiet without other things going on, and let the spirit guide, convict, and then go into my prayer time. So I'm just gonna keep working on those things. Keeps me sharp for when I come in and have to hear his strong his his whisper in the midst of a meeting or something, uh to have have the voice of the spirit in that that time before I get in. So that's where I'm going with that. That's awesome. Pastor Mike.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's a really good answer, Pastor T. Yeah, everything he said, I agree with. Uh of course, I always wanted to grow closer to the Lord. This year, Stephanie and I was gonna say our Bible reading together. First time actually in 25 years. Finally got her to read the Bible. It's been great. We've uh no, but we did it together.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, or clearly.
SPEAKER_02:We've never done a Bible reading together. That's been great. And you guys finish the entire Bible yet or not yet? No, it's 365 days. So it's it'll go till the end of the year, but we're in 1 Corinthians, uh might be in 2 Corinthians today, actually.
SPEAKER_00:I I told him I wanted to go left to right, not chronological, and not, you know, when you do a year in a Bible a lot of times, it's four different pieces, you know, Old Testament, New Testament, a Psalm, a proverb, whatever. I said, I I just want to go left to right as it's written.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And man, it takes forever to get to the New Testament. Like, wow, Jesus, I really want to hear about you in January, very, very much. April, May, June, July, August, September. This fall.
SPEAKER_02:You say no, it took forever to get to Jesus. October was waiting.
SPEAKER_00:I'm serious. Advent reading the scripture that way was a whole new paradigm for me. Like I want to know about Jesus, get to the like the Messiah. I know he's coming. You've talked about it for hundreds and thousands of years in here. Anyways, so that was really exciting. I didn't mean to steal your your your point. We're talking about how we went left to right and we're almost done. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's been fun. Of course, spiritual growth always am after that. I was a Christian before I was a pastor, so I I want to stay fresh in my Christianity.
SPEAKER_04:Amen.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm gonna be a Christian after I'm a pastor, so it's true. But personally, I don't pace myself very well. I I go till I crash or I get to a place where I get foggy and tired. So I I'd like a better pace, I think, next year, just personally. The difficulty is you know, the pace of our lives with the ministry is often in tandem with the pace of our family. But that's a whole different part of our assignment that doesn't have the luxury of starts and stops like ministry. Like I can take a two-week vacation, not for my kids. So there's it's just a season with still kids in home, and uh pace is just tough. It's always been hard for me. And then I've got some physical goals of kind of like I think getting through this building, I'm about to get real obsessed about fitness again. I was doing really well until COVID, and then I got out of the rhythm, and then I started building. We had to rebuild the church from zero. You know, we were multiple thousands, and uh I was pretty active in the gym. Those were good days.
SPEAKER_00:Honey, it's been five years.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, so you know, now that she's told my business.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you said COVID.
SPEAKER_02:I haven't really been focused on that since COVID. Yeah, because I've been focused on rebuilding the church. Then we had a lot of team transition, then we built a new bought a campus and built a new building. So I'm ready to get some focus there again. And but you know, there's a lot of things that I feel like Stephanie and I have just settled on, you know, in terms of our generosity rhythms, our values, our theology, what we've called, you know, feel assigned to the Lord to just serve we serve at his pleasure, whether that's here or anywhere else. We're we're committed to those things, but there's some personal disciplines. I think pace and physical fitness, I'm ready to get back. I'm gonna push the ice cream away. And man, that's so good.
SPEAKER_00:Ice cream in the winter should be pushed away anyways. No, it's the greatest comfort. It's the ice cream in the winter is awesome by the fireplace.
SPEAKER_04:Right by the fireplace. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02:So anyway.
SPEAKER_00:I know there's more cooking cake people out there listening.
SPEAKER_02:And there's a part of me too that toying with getting getting away from coffee in the next year.
SPEAKER_00:I think you just cussed.
SPEAKER_02:No, actually, I mean, you know, I've I've slowly gotten away from everything but coffee and water, and I think I just want to get maybe either get really decreased or but you know, I also asked for an espresso machine for Christmas, so we'll see what happens. Maybe by the end of the year, I don't know. I'm thinking about it. I'm not real committed to that idea yet.
SPEAKER_00:You're ideating.
SPEAKER_02:You're ideating. That's right. Not every idea I have becomes a plan. There we go. There we go.
SPEAKER_00:If I could just add one little thing, of course, like you said, growing close to the Lord. It's probably my favorite thing. I think one thing I have to challenge myself with after I read scripture or listen to it, I need to pause and marinate on it. Sometimes it's easy to go, all right, I did it, you know. And then I'm like, but Lord, what it goes from here, from my head to my heart, right? And so I I think just always pacing that out after reading the word, because there's a lot of people that know the Bible, but they're not there, it's not in their heart. So I would encourage all of us as we read. Yes, I'm challenging myself here, you know, let it marinate in your heart and bring some action steps and correction. And anyways, and then the other thing I think has been kind of a different pace for me personally this last half of the year. Our oldest daughter moved away to college. So I think just knowing like the people that are in front of you, the people in your home are the most precious people we have, you know. And we we love our church and our staff, but you know, they're if you have kids in the house, they're only in the house for so long. So I think it's it's brought a new paradigm to me when I'm home. Just turn this little thing off that we love to scroll on all the time and just just look in their eyes and and be. So I think that's been a challenge. And for the first time ever, we have no kids playing a sport in the winter. I think in a decade. And so like our holidays already. I feel like we've made cookies at home, like we've, you know, the things you're like during the holidays, we're gonna watch a movie and da-da-da.
SPEAKER_02:We started playing chess in our house, which has been fun.
SPEAKER_00:So I think just being with our girl, I I don't know, just a a new thing. I'm I'm grateful for you were talking about pace. That's rich. And because I I want the strongest discipleship to be in our home before the thousands, you know. And we're not perfect at it, but we are always relying on the Lord to help us in our growth personally and with our family. And I I pray that our ministry, that what God allows us to do here, is an overflow of what happens in our heart and our home first.
SPEAKER_03:So good, so good for me. For me, let's see. This year I've I've learned I've I've always studied the the Bible using commentaries since I was young. My mom my mom had all those big strong common, you know, the concordances and all that. And now with logos, Bible software, and all that stuff, I've always used that. Now with AI, it's it's made even studying the Bible a lot more interesting. Like you'll get a more historical facts a lot faster than having to go into an actual book. And so it sped up a lot more information for me. And so now the challenge for me this this last half of the year has been utilizing those tools well and not not not where they determine what truth is for me, you know, but using technology properly and the best, but then but then stopping and just what does the Holy Spirit say? And so I've I've always been after in pursuit my whole life of like what do you say, what are what are you saying, God? And and I think with technology and all these other voices that speak into you know your development a lot faster, you know, because now there's apps and notifications for all you read your Bible, do this and that. So even technology, as as positive as it is, can also kind of stifle the voice of the Holy Spirit, right? And so for me, living such a fast-paced life with so many things happening with kids, and you know, our our oldest is a senior, and he's getting ready for college and all the conversations, and so so much is happening in this year. I I'm trying not to depend on technology, and so it's been something that I've been putting away slowly, more and more, and just I'll study the Bible, but then I'll have moments where I'm intentionally marinating and just listening to the Holy Spirit. Like, so it I've had to separate it. It used to be one and one in the one thing at the same time. Now I've had to actually separate. I have a time where I study and a time where I'm just listening to to God and and what what are you what are you saying? And so, and it's it's been such a great blessing to me because regardless of what I study, I I see so much more in scripture just by just staring at the Bible and just letting the Holy Spirit reveal things. So, because you can only learn so much, but when you let the Holy Spirit reveal things, you know, stories that you probably have seen or heard or read so many times, he brings like a different light to things. And so that's been that's been awesome uh this year for me. Uh that I I also need to work on the ice cream, you know, hasn't been that bad, but it's still a thing, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Don't ever give in to Sherbert. Oh what? This stuff's so gross.
SPEAKER_03:I I've had to, I've had to don't give in sorbet. I've had to because of it.
SPEAKER_02:Even worse. Just do less ice cream, don't feel switching.
SPEAKER_00:Smoothie, right?
SPEAKER_02:Sorbet or yogurt, no way.
SPEAKER_03:Mango sorbet is like the best. Mango. But that uh what else? Yeah, and then spending time with family, that's that's always a thing. Like we guard that, and then a season where where things have changed. Our our youngest is now in kindergarten. So so my wife and I have gained some time back, and so just you know, dating my wife more and spending time with her, and so that's you know, protecting, fighting for a marriage. It's been one of those things that we've really intentionally been investing more time into. And so it's great. It's been false, fun.
SPEAKER_00:I just want to share one final thought. I know we're wrapping up here. I had written this down earlier, but we're as we talk about 2026 is upon us, and you know, you're you're thinking of goals organizationally for your home, for your company, for our church. But just personally, I just wrote down get in God's presence. There's lots of great ideas and goals out there. Instagram, you're talking about technology, all the different things. And all the people we have to keep up with their goals, but that doesn't mean that those are God goals for you, even if they sound good for that person. So get in his presence because God has a word for you specifically. So I just want to encourage you, get in his presence because he's the one that will give you a word for your life. Even though it sounds great for other people and what you're seeing, like, oh, I should do that, I should do that. Listen, you're gonna be overwhelmed with what everybody else is doing that you should do, and you end up doing nothing. So even if it's one or two things that God puts in your heart, listen to what he's saying and get a God goal for yourself. And he he wants to do great things in all of us as we allow him. So let's get our listening ears on and the Lord wants to speak. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:I love the simplicity, the callback to simplicity, and all of us are saying deeper devotion to the Lord and uh just to throw back that book one more time. I mean, those guys laid all the foundation stones of the church in this county with nothing but a Bible and a prayer life.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:You know, there's something old school about it, which is great. So I I applaud that. I think it's great. Get back to the basics. Commentaries are basically what people have written down, they felt the Holy Spirit spoke to them. And so the same Holy Spirit will speak to you. Dr. O'S, our good friend, would say read a bunch of books, but don't read any book more than the Bible, because that's the one inspired by the Lord. And so, time in his presence, man, get a get a word from God, directly from God, and unfiltered from commentaries, unfiltered from culture and preaching. Don't don't get snaps of somebody's sermon. Get in God's word, hear from God, and lean into it.
SPEAKER_03:Amen. Hey, well, thank you guys for being on the podcast today. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. And thank you guys for joining us today. And until next week, peace out. Peace out.
SPEAKER_00:Peace out.
SPEAKER_03:Peace out. Peace out.
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