#68 Discipline of Pausing, Pt 4 | Opportunity Survey

Healthy leaders don’t commit fast; they pause long enough to see what’s opportunity and what’s a trap.

In this episode, Mark and Erica walk through Question #4 in the Discipline of Pausing: What are the greatest opportunities for the coming year? They talk about why leaders feel pressure to do “all the things,” how to list possibilities without committing, and how to avoid “bad opportunities” that drain your mission. You’ll also hear practical discernment cues—prayer, counsel, team buy-in, and learning to slow down enough to actually see.

📋 Key Takeaways

• List opportunities without committing: get it all on the whiteboard first—then evaluate.
• Not every opportunity is a God-opportunity: Joshua’s Gibeonite moment is the warning label—some “open doors” are traps (Joshua 9).
• Discernment is communal: bring opportunities to staff, elders, and trusted outside leaders for perspective.
• Your mission matters: opportunities should move the core forward—not clutter the garage with someone else’s “great idea.”
• Speed kills perspective: pausing (especially in prayer “away from it”) helps you see clearly and lead without burning out your people.

💬 Quotes

• “Because it’s an opportunity doesn’t mean it’s a smart opportunity.”
• “The anointing is a holy ease—it’s still hard, but God’s lubricating it.”
• “Don’t live in a state of always trying to do the most—you’ll miss the stillness Jesus has for you.”

🕐 Timestamps

00:00–01:24 — Series setup + why this question matters

01:24–03:20 — “Restaurant choices” analogy: list options first

03:20–05:05 — Bad opportunities: Joshua & the Gibeonites (discernment fail)

05:05–07:45 — God opportunity vs distraction: Spirit, confirmation, counsel, push/pull

07:45–10:30 — Mission focus + “only do what only you can do”

10:30–14:20 — Filters: anointing, passion, price tag, buy-in

14:20–18:15 — Why prayer + outside counsel clarifies timing and complexity

18:15–22:55 — Danger of chasing too many opportunities + call to die to self

📖 Scripture Tie-Ins

• Colossians 4:5 — “Make the most of every opportunity.” 
• Joshua 9 — The deception of the Gibeonites (a “bad opportunity”). 
• Proverbs 15:22 — Plans succeed with many advisers.
• Mark 1:35 / Luke 5:16 — Jesus withdraws to pray (the “pause” rhythm).

🛠️ Next Steps
The “Opportunities Inventory” (20–30 minutes):

1. Dump the list: leadership, family, ministry, personal growth—everything you could pursue this year.
2. Circle 3–5 that feel most weighty (not just most exciting).
3. Pray it out: “Lord, show me what’s You, and what’s just noise.”
4. Get one layer of counsel: staff/elder/pastor friend—someone who will tell you the truth.
5. Pick one micro-step (not the whole project): schedule a meeting, research, or write a one-page plan.

Journaling prompts

• “What opportunities am I attracted to… but they don’t actually fit my assignment?”
• “Where am I confusing availability with calling?”
• “What would future-me thank me for starting now?”

📚 Resource mentioned

• Whatever the Cost (David & Jason Benham) 

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Transcript

Mark Carter (00:06):

What up guys? Welcome back to the Bible Leadership Podcast. I want to connect your Bible to your leadership and your leadership to your Bible.

(00:12)
Hey, what we've been doing is we're in this series on the Discipline of Pausing. And all that means is we take a little bit of time during the year and we pan out and we just look at the things we've done and the things that maybe we've got coming up and we say, "What are the wisest ways I could make changes to be more effective in the coming year?" Today we're going on to question three, which is as I look at the horizon, what are the opportunities that are coming up? I think you're going to enjoy it. And if you do, do me a favor and share it or comment or do any of those things. Let's go.

(00:43)
Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back again to the [BLP]. We're in a series on the Discipline of Pausing. We've done a few questions. Erica, what's the next question?

Erica Adkins (00:52):

Today we're going to jump into question number four, which is what are the greatest opportunities for the coming year?

Mark Carter (00:58):

Yeah. This is a really important question because I think sometimes leadery people or maybe just anybody, you get in your head, you have all these ideas and you're like, "I need to find a way to do all of these."

Mark Carter (01:09):

All of them.

Mark Carter (01:10):

And so this question, what are our greatest opportunities coming up this year is really about what could you do? Just don't commit to do anything yet. Just think through, and this is where maybe feedback is helpful. What are all the things that are on people's minds?

(01:24)
A way to think about it is when you're going to go out to a restaurant, what restaurants could you go to? Some are too far away. Some are out of your price point, but there's some that are in the right circle and they're the right price. What are those ones that you could possibly do in terms of your leadership, in terms of your family, in terms of whatever you're going to do this year? What are all the things that you could do? You're just not committing to it yet. So Colossians 4:5 says, "Make the most of every opportunity." But that means first, know what the opportunities are and pick which ones you want to do.

Erica Adkins (01:53):

Lay It all out.

Mark Carter (01:53):

Yeah, this has to do with there's a lot we could do. Let's take the time, the mental work and say, "It's not smart to do all these Things, But here's all the things that I might do. " Because then you might see different combinations of things that you might do that just make more sense.

Erica Adkins (02:09):

Yeah. From an admin perspective, I feel like I'll do this, I'll kind of whiteboard everything, but then I scrap it all because I'm like, well, "subservient" isn't the best term for it. But you know what I'm saying? I'm coming up under other leadership and so my job isn't ... There are some of my own things that I need to get down the ball, but mostly I'm like, "Okay, well, I'll just wait and see." But I think this is an internal step of, okay, "you're not just waiting and seeing, you're laying it all out."

Mark Carter (02:41):

And that's the power of this pause, is that you're getting away from it. It's just really hard to think when you're in the labyrinth. When you're going, everything's coming at you and it's not that you can't make decisions, but they're not necessarily the smartest decisions because you don't have perspective.

(02:55)
So we did this at the staff advance. This Is Where we had all of our key staff people go through. Okay, go through your first quarter of the next year or maybe this first half, I don't know, but talk about the big projects that you want to get done. And in that, we weren't committing that they were going to get that done. We were just kind of going around the table. Here's all the things that as a church are important someday that we could think about doing. So that's what this one is. So for us, this year, we're focusing right now on pushing "digital" forward. We didn't need to do that. That was a decision we made last year. Hey, this is part of our 15 year vision. There's nothing urgent that makes us have to do this right now, but future us wants us to have started this now. So that's one of the things we're doing.

Erica Adkins (03:37):

Now.

Mark Carter (03:39):

We could also, we're thinking about updating our curriculum in our kids' ministry. Well, we don't have to do that, but we think it's a very good idea compared to all the other things that we could do. It's becoming more urgent, but it's one of the options we could do and we're just deciding that that's probably one of the ones we're going to do.

(03:56)
There's bad opportunities. Okay. So think about the Gibeonites. That's an opportunity. Oh, what night? The Gibeon nights. They show up to Joshua and they're like, "We came from far away. We have this old bread." And they're like, "Will you promise not to kill us?" And they're tricking him. They're very close and they're part of the people that the Lord commanded them to drive out. And that's in one sense, that's an opportunity for Joshua, like, "Oh, this opportunity showed up," but it's a bad opportunity. That's really not a smart thing to do. "

(04:24)
And so often because it is an opportunity, we're like, "Well, maybe that's what the Lord wants us to do. " But there's just too many times when... we've done this, we've just taken the opportunity because it was there And that really sucked a lot of power away from other things.

Erica Adkins (04:38):

From The best thing.

Mark Carter (04:39):

Yeah. That's one of the reasons we do this is to think about it more non-committally and weigh them against each other.

Erica Adkins (04:45):

Yeah. Make your pro and con list. Really, "what makes the most sense here? What are we doing here? Well, why is this important?" Asking some of those questions, that's good.

Mark Carter (04:54):

And what do I need to know about this that I don't currently know, which is what Joshua should have asked.. "What could go wrong with this that I'm just not" ... They're not presenting this, but this is what it is.

Erica Adkins (05:04):

Yeah. I love that. I love that in the series that we're on, the discipline of pausing, it really is doing the thing that Jesus often did, which is getting away to a secret place to spend time with the Lord, with his father to ask, "What should I do next?" And as you're slowing down to ask those questions, you get better revelation and maybe you had planned to go this way and God's like, "Nope, I need you to go this way all together. Don't go down that path." And so this gives you an opportunity to lay it all before the Lord, ask him, "What do you want to do with this?

Mark Carter (05:37):

And I think this particular question slows down the heart and says, "Bro, sister, you don't have to do necessarily..." We're going to get to the question where you have to do this, but there's a ton of stuff you don't have to do. So just calm down and choose the best ones and that's what we'll get to in a while.

Erica Adkins (05:54):

That's really good. All right, Mark, how would you distinguish between a God opportunity and a distraction? As something comes at you, how are you like, "Okay, no, the Holy Spirit's in this. We got to go, " versus the Gibeonites, what are you thinking?

Mark Carter (06:09):

So I think this comes with just ... It's a combination of biblical value stuff. So it's listening to the Holy Spirit. It's looking for confirmation from the people around you. And do you guys think we can pull this off? And you got to have people that want to take a big swing at stuff, but you also just want the collective wisdom of the people.

(06:28)
One of the things I really liked, it's from a book called Whatever the Cost, and we can link to that book in the show notes, but the authors said, "One of the ways you can tell something as God is there's not just a push," meaning you can push there, you want to push there. "There's a pull." There's something about that thing that is almost drawing you to it. And that can be a sign from the Lord of like, "Hey, it's not just that you could do it. I'm asking you to do ... I'm giving you a pain point there or I'm making it more..." And we've had this where, okay, we need to do this now because if we don't do this, the organization gets in trouble somewhere. So We're being both pushed and pulled, that's another one that you could ask.

Mark Carter (07:14):

I think sometimes it depends on the personality, but there can just be like, "can we possibly do this?" And I think you need a better answer than just, "we could possibly do it." It needs to be, "can we keep our core mission and our hedgehog concept, can we do this in a way that this folds in Naturally, And our people can handle it, and it is moving stuff, this opportunity would move our stuff forward," but it moves us forward Instead Of it's just something else.

(07:42)
It's kind of like when somebody brings over some piece of crap and they want you to put it in your garage. They're like, "Hey, you want this? " And it's like, "No, I mean, I'm just going to put it in the basement or whatever." I think there's opportunities to come along that, and this is so hard, man, because as a Christian ministry, you want to do everything that might help somebody. And I just think over the years we've just learned that's just not great discernment if you're doing that.

Erica Adkins (08:06):

Yeah. I think we'll get random people like, "Hey, we should start a food pantry or, hey, we should start a homeless mission or we should do ... " And all of those are great shoulds, but there's also really great churches in our region who are already doing that, like go do that with them.

Mark Carter (08:24):

Excellent example.

Erica Adkins (08:25):

You can still be here, but we have to keep the one thing that we're good at, the one thing that we're good at and not be divided in mind and goal, honestly, when we're potentially picking all these things up, which is when you lay it all out, you begin to see, oh, that doesn't ultimately keep going with our mission as a whole.

Mark Carter (08:44):

Right. And here's where feedback totally comes in. So that example you use, like a food pantry, We did this In our 15 year vision, like we fasted a bunch and then we surveyed our people and we just said, "Here's all the things that we could do. " And one of them was like a food pantry. Now I'm the kind of guy like, "Let's just go do it. Let's just conquer, whatever. We'll do whatever. We're tough." But our people were the ones that told me, "Dude, please don't do this. " And they recognize that it's a godly thing to do, but they're Like, "This is a whole thing that you don't understand." And we just don't have the margin at our size and where we're at, we just can't do that right now. And so that was another way that the Lord ... Sure, we could do it, but the Lord is through our people telling us, "This is not your smartest play, dude. Rethink this. "

Erica Adkins (09:30):

Yeah. And I think that comes back to, we talked about this a long time ago, but "only do what only you can do." And when you lay these things out, you begin to go, "My heart doesn't resonate with that. That's cool. That's good. But the Lord hasn't positioned and fashioned me for that."

Mark Carter (09:48):

Exactly. I think another one is, "how long..." If it's really the Lord, like the Lord is himself pushing it, "how long has this been on your heart?" So in other words, is it week three? Because if it's only week three, you might just want it ... Unless the Lord is like, "Okay, dude, do it now or you're in trouble." Which has only happened to me once or twice in my whole life. Most of the time it's, I'm just going to sit on this.

Erica Adkins (10:10):

Put that thing on simmer.

Mark Carter (10:11):

And see if the Lord, month after month is like, "This is still a thing, dude, this is still a thing." Well, Then it probably is, okay, you need to find a way to do that.

Erica Adkins (10:18):

Yeah, that's good. I like that. All right, let's start to think a little more practically. What are some filters that you might use to decide if it's worth pursuing. As you're looking and you're like, "No, no, no."

Mark Carter (10:31):

Yeah, this is one that I don't want to spook anybody out, but for many years, I've had the practice of just writing down prophetic things I feel like people have spoken to me or that I've just gotten in prayer. And so there's a pretty, (how would I say it?) It's a rich depth to how much I feel like God has spoken about certain things. And so one of the things we should go back to is, "what has God said about this? Has there been any clue that God wants us to do something like this?" Because I often find there are clues. It's been coming for a long time and he's said little things about it. So that's really helpful, is just looking back, and that doesn't mean that there has to be, but it's super encouraging when there is.

(11:13)
So when we started the church in a movie theater, it's hard to say that we were good at it. So if you were only going on like, "Were they good at that? " The answer would've been, "Well, that's pretty relative." But there was definitely an anointing on it, meaning it worked, people came for some reason, They liked it. "And so that's where that confirmation of the anointing says, keep walking in this direction, even though you're not great at it yet, I'm making it work for you." is kind of like what the Lord is saying. So that's an example where the anointing is on something.

Erica Adkins (11:46):

The anointing oil just makes it flow easy. It's hard work maybe, but it feels like, "Oh, this is good." It's a refreshing-

Mark Carter (11:55):

Right. I heard somebody say once, "The anointing is a holy ease." It's not that it's not hard, it's that the Lord is just lubricating that thing and making that thing work well. And we've seen this in other places. So for me, it's, "okay, we tried that and it went okay, but it still feels like the Lord blessed it though." As a critic of it, I'm not liking it. I wanted to see it better, but it's still like the Lord seems to use it, so let's keep walking and refining it and making it better and better and better. So that's the anointing. That would be one.

Erica Adkins (12:25):

That's Good.

Mark Carter (12:25):

I think another really important one is passion level. And sometimes you can just tell when this isn't there more than anything else. So when you think about this thing and your people think about this thing, how many people are really excited about that thing happening? And how many people are like, "Dude, that's dead in my spirit. I will do it, but nobody likes this. " Or three people like it. But for the most part, there's no sense that the Lord is like, "Yes, go." He's just kind of quiet about it. "I don't want to confirm to you at all that that thing is a thing."

(13:01)
Price tag is another one. I think churches, we've done this, you got to be full of faith and you got to take big steps and we still take big steps of like, "Okay, we're going to trust God that this is going to work." But I think when something that is way outside your price point, like what you guys can really do and not wreck the church or wreck the organization, you just want to be wise about that. You really want to know God is calling you to do something. So I know that there's ... I've talked to pastors and I know it even works sometimes, but I've heard of pastors that they launched a church on a credit card. They spent tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card to launch a church. And I think that's awesome when it works, but I wonder how many ... The ones who did that and it totally fell apart, they don't brag about it so that that doesn't come up.

(13:50)
You know What I'm saying? I give God praise that he will do that, but I think that had more to do with the gifts of the people that were there than their big faith to spend on a credit card. I just think that's ... Most folks don't have ... If you don't really have the money, you need to be patient and wait on the Lord and get the money so that you can do that kind of thing.

Erica Adkins (14:12):

Slow down and raise it first.

Mark Carter (14:14):

Right. So that's a filter.

Erica Adkins (14:16):

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I really like that. Tagging back on your group, I think what's the buy-in of your staff, that kind of an idea of buy-in. Are they really for this? Because that might be a really good ... Again, people you surround yourself.

Mark Carter (14:34):

Yeah. And it could be that you were just horrible at casting the vision for it. So they're not going to buy into that. They're like, oh, this sounds really dumb, man. Because you didn't explain it well, you didn't help them understand the problem. So you got to do your job and make sure that all happens. But if there's still like a ... And I think you just got to give your people space to say that. They just have to be able to tell you.

Erica Adkins (14:57):

Okay. All right. So those are some things to clue in, to filter, to decide what's good. But sometimes there's things hidden in the clefts, right? It's not as easy to discern, "okay, that would take a good amount of work. How do we do that?" So why do good opportunities often hide behind inconvenience or resistance and things like that?

Mark Carter (15:23):

Yeah. I don't know if I have a great answer to that other than, and this is just going to sound like a broken record for me. I think oftentimes we're just not going slow enough in prayer To really ... You think about all that ministry people do and how much they're trying to get done, how many prayer times are cut short because, well, I got to start on this project now, or I got to follow up with so- and-so. And I know that's the reality of ministry.

Erica Adkins (15:47):

Absolutely.

Mark Carter (15:47):

But I think a lot of times opportunities are missed or some are tried, but if there was more waiting in prayer and there's more God like, "What do you want us to do next?" So I'll get before the Lord. I'll be like, "God, here's all the things." I really do this. "Here's all the things that we could do. Would you just give me a spiritual heat on the ones that you think should happen next?" You might do all of them someday, but "in my next six months, what are the things that you want me to prioritize?" Exactly. And I think that's okay to have all those before the Lord, that's the opportunities. This is all the things I could do, but what is God asking us to do?

Erica Adkins (16:29):

Yeah. And they don't always come with ease because then we'd absolutely just be able to do it in our own strength and not in the dependence of the Lord.

Mark Carter (16:38):

Yeah.

Erica Adkins (16:38):

So, okay.

Mark Carter (16:40):

And Then sometimes the opportunity is real. You just need counsel on how to proceed or when to proceed. So in addition to staff, just like our elder board, just bring it before them like, "What are you guys discerning about this? " And they'll bring up something really smart that I never would have Thought Of and "okay, we're going to shift how we're thinking about that and when we're going to do that or whatever."

Erica Adkins (16:59):

Yeah. And do you ever put any of those before your other pastor buddies?

Mark Carter (17:04):

Yes.

Erica Adkins (17:04):

Okay.

Mark Carter (17:05):

Yeah. Especially when something's weighty on my mind. So I'll meet pretty regularly with ... I've got just friends in the area, maybe some of you are listening right now. Hey, What's up? Who are just so valuable. We'll bring each other our stuff Like, "Hey, what would you guys do with this? And I got this thing going on. We're thinking about this. You might have done something like that. What do you think?" And that is just super helpful to just walk into things with your eyes open A Little bit more.

Erica Adkins (17:31):

And so I'm not a pastor, I'm not leading an entire organization, but I'll do that in different jobs that I've had. I will call someone at a different company who has a similar job and go, "Hey, this is something I'm considering. How has that gone well for you? Tell me all the things that went wrong when you tried that." So that I have good information as I'm trying to move forward and make my decisions with these things Because There's other people out there that are just smarter than me and I'm not foolish enough to go fool-hardy forward without asking somebody else what they think.

Mark Carter (18:02):

And sometimes council is a great way to turn an opportunity into a non-portunity. So you learn, "this is way more complex than you're thinking, dude, you do not have the margin for this. This is just not a thing you should do right now."

Erica Adkins (18:13):

Yeah. What is the danger of maybe chasing too many opportunities at once, Mark?

Mark Carter (18:17):

Oh my gosh. I think it's panicked leadership. It is a staff or a team that just never knows what to expect. And you're not still, you're trying to do everything. People are burning out, but if you're trying to do too many things, dude, you're just not still. Or, I mean, and we've seen this, I'm not dissing anybody, but there's certainly our cultures that you'll hear about where the team is being treated with a whip. It's like, "Go, go, go. " And I just think if you have to do that in the kingdom, I don't know, man, just the way I read the Bible, I think you might be doing it wrong.

(19:01)
Jesus, he wasn't using a whip on disciples, you know what I'm saying? He wasn't like, "Get up, Peter, come on, let's go. We got to get over to this other town." So too many opportunities that you don't wisely say no to. And I think you got to live a little bit beyond about what you can do. You got to challenge your faith, you got to push your people to grow strong, but when you have too many, everyone is just confused and there's a little bit of chaos going on and you're going to just bleed your people out.

Erica Adkins (19:27):

Yeah. Well, you never actually get anything done well because you're trying to go in too many different places. There's a meme that's circulating right now of this lady, she's in her kitchen and she goes to this direction and then, oh no, I forgot that and she's turning and she's this hairied, crazy mind. And you can tell, sweet girl's never going to get anything done because there's just too many things. I think a leader who's constantly shooting from the hip, you can't plan well, you can't do that well. And if you're doing too many things, yeah, you only have 100%. If you Divide that, you're never doing anything excellently.

Mark Carter (20:06):

And we'll get into this in a couple questions. That's really good. If you're always doing everything, what you don't have is you don't have perspective because you don't have time.

Speaker 4 (20:14):

Yeah.

Mark Carter (20:15):

You know What I'm saying? You're trying to do everything. And so you can't pan out and be like, "This actually would go better if we did it in this three month span than keeping it over here. And I can put these two things under this person because they're great at that thing." You just don't have that. You're just always going and you just can't see.

Erica Adkins (20:32):

Yeah, that's really good.

Mark Carter (20:33):

And I know you could say you could pray. Dude, you can, but it's not the same thing as when you're praying away from it. That's just different.

Erica Adkins (20:41):

Flesh that out for a second. How do you feel like your perspective shifts between those two? Between the twenty-second, "God, help me," prayer, versus the, "I'm getting away."

Mark Carter (20:50):

I think it's really easy to have confidence in the flesh when we're going and just assume grace to do stuff. When you get out, you get off the drug. So there is a drug of going too fast. We're all on a drug. It's kind of like, when you binge on carbs, you have to completely get off. You got to get off carbs if you want to avoid that for a while. And then you get off and you're like, "Oh, it's not really so bad." I think it's the same way with aggressive push in the kingdom. You can just be, you're drunk on it and that's Not-

Erica Adkins (21:22):

There's a dopamine hit for it.

Mark Carter (21:23):

Yeah.

Erica Adkins (21:23):

Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Carter (21:24):

And so you're still wise, but you don't have the perspective of this. You're not up on the mountain with the Lord looking at all the people, you're down among them. So it's just different.

Erica Adkins (21:34):

I think that's really good. I think this question really is, "God, let's get up on the mountain together. Let's survey the land. Where do you want me to go?"

Mark Carter (21:43):

Yes.

Erica Adkins (21:44):

Yeah. All right. Any last thoughts on question number four? What are the greatest opportunities for this coming year?

Mark Carter (21:49):

I don't know everybody's context and I know everybody's context is different. I think I would tell myself earlier in life, "Bro, just slow down and aim at the stuff that is really, really God and only do what you truly have the capacity to do." And don't live in a state of always trying to do the most in every area because you're going to miss the stillness that Jesus has for you. You're going to miss a lot of the counsel that he has about what you're doing. And really, you're going to miss the spiritual discipline of growing, of dying to self. Yeah, you have a whim that you want to do something really exciting. Die. Get over that thing, dude. Allow the Lord to be the commander and tell you what to do rather than you just choose everything. And I'm not trying to go against leadership instinct, of course, all that stuff is still true, but we're talking about spiritual leadership and there's got to be a component of, "I've got to die to self. I can't just always do anything I want to do." That's good. That's what I'd say.

Erica Adkins (22:52):

I love it. All right, y'all. We're done with question number four. We're going to jump back in. We still got four more questions to go. Come back with us soon.

Mark Carter (23:01):

All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Hey, if this was helpful, would you consider liking and sharing, putting it places where other people who need this kind of content are going to find it? Also, you may know that we have a lot of other places you can find our stuff, TikTok, Instagram, all the things. So go ahead and check those out in places where you're going to be anyway, and don't forget to lead strong today.