Transcription
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[Music] Would you help me welcome to the stage my friend, Pastor Lou Giglio, and Pastor Chad V? Come on, make some noise! I know we're not in the arena, but come on, make some noise, guys. I am, uh, I'm so excited. Thank you for, for joining me. Those of you who are unfamiliar with who's up on the stage, Pastor Lou Giglio, really, I think, a general in the faith, leads pastor City Church, and, uh, all the Passion Conferences. I was just kidding with him and Shell in the back because, you know, they do their conference at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, 75,000 people. I said, "Man, I finally get what you feel like." He's like, "This ain't the same, bro. This ain't the same. This ain't the same." But, uh, we just, we honor both of these guys, their life, their leadership. Lou's been someone in my life from a young age, from afar, that really impacted me. And in the last maybe five years or so, getting to be up close and personal with him, the closer I get to him, the more impacted I am by him. And, uh, he's just the real deal, and he's really, really special, and it's an honor. He's going to be preaching, uh, tomorrow night. I can't wait. And then Chad V, one of my dearest friends in the ministry, Pastor Zoe Church, author, leader, leadership leaning. I think, are you doing that today or is that tomorrow? Today. This afternoon. That's super cool. I think there's like 300 some people going to your leadership lean in. But both these guys are just excellent preachers of the Gospel, great men of God, great husbands, but excellent leaders. And so, um, I just wanted to welcome you guys. And I, I kind of want to hijack the intro because one of my favorite parts of the intro is, you know, Rich travels both nationally and internationally. I just love the international part. So, just wanted to add that in there. It's one of my favorite parts. He's international, by the way, if you don't know. It's like everybody's like, "Oh, Andy does international." We're going to listen now. Canada and Mexico. We know he goes to Canada. Let's listen. Yeah, I did a meeting with him in Toronto once. Rich is better off stage than he is on stage. That's one of my favorite lines as well. Everybody's like, "What's he like?" You know, we see stage. Chad really loves to like, you know, kind of mess with a meeting and the dynamics of it. We were, he had an event just a couple weeks ago, and it was four pastors and leaders, and he came up on the stage and he was like, "You know, I just love all these people always talking about the capital C Church, the capital C Church." I'm like, "Bro, I say that all the time. Like, that's really true." He's like, "Oh yeah, I, you, the capital C." I'm like, "I, I never understood the bit. Why were you making fun of people called the capital C Church?" I just wanted to acknowledge some of your good lines. I was, I was acknowledging you. I was saying he's so good on the stage and off the stage. Anyways, okay, we're going to come back to it now. Um, Lou, we're, we're happy to have you back. It's been a little while since you've been at Vuon. I think you were back maybe last time at the Fillmore preaching. Um, maybe just talk, if you can, just from some of the things that you're even just sensing and witnessing. Like, you've been putting on gatherings for a long time, large ones, big ones. I just think everyone in this room leading is doing some form of gathering people. I, I just, I just like you putting a little bit of weight on why moments like this are even important for the leader.
Yeah, thanks for, for letting me be a part. Shell, I love you guys. We love you. And Don, your mom and dad are over here, who, if you're having a leadership lunch, you got to recognize these guys who are true leaders in the place right now. Rich and Robin, and so many amazing leaders in here. Rich, I'm looking around, I'm like, "Dang, there's Chan right there." I mean, hello, one of the best church builders on planet Earth in, in this whole room. There's so many incredible leaders. You know, last night, uh, just was proof that there is something irreplaceable about the great assembly. And, I do love the home church movement that's happened over the last few years. I love, uh, living room worship gatherings that have happened over the last few years. But the scripture talks about the great assembly. Wow. And this is where we're headed. And it's part of our DNA as people. And so we can't let the culture minimize the importance of the gathering of people. And, uh, we don't play the Super Bowl at a high school football stadium and then say, you know what, it's really not about the crowd, it's really about just coming together and having a nice moment of community around this thing. Now, we find the largest venue on the planet and say it's going to be in there. Why? Because it is the Super Bowl. And so this is what we're a part of. So it doesn't minimize discipleship, small groups, uh, crews, serving. It doesn't minimize any of that. But God is about the great assembly. And if we forget that and let the culture somehow make us feel gunshy, 31 absolute best every single moment right now. But it ain't dying, right? Um, there are other people like me who still want to follow Jesus. Not one, not two, not six, but a whole lot of people like me want to follow Jesus. And you provided that by, um, a lot of blocking and tackling and faith and risk, as much as we can risk with God. And I just think it's irreplaceable in the economy of what God is doing in the world. And that's why we are giving our lives to the great assembly. It's not all we do, but for some reason, God put that in our mix. I don't, I didn't ask for that. We don't know how to do that. We are not experts at gathering people. It is not as easy as it looks, trust me. The pillow of responsibility does not often give you a great night's sleep. But, um, it's worth it.
Yes, it's beautiful. I just always love getting Lou talking about the great assembly because it's not just a theory for him, but it's something that he lives out and has shown forth. Chad, he's talking a little bit about just culture. And I think as church leaders, there's a lot happening in culture. Tomorrow, uh, on the main stage, I'm going to talk with Alan T. and, and Tim Ross a little bit around just signs of the time and what do we think's going good in the church, where's areas that we need to kind of shore up and get better at. You in LA, kind of, uh, one of the, uh, cultural hubs of the world that's constantly leading and putting things out there. What's it been like for you the last couple years as a church leader dealing with all of the different cultural issues? And we could go through all those if we want to name all those things, but many of those things are really evident about what we're dealing with. There's a lot of deception, but in all that, there's a lot of pain and hurt. Uh, church hurt's a real thing. People have been hurt by the church. And there's kind of a distrust in pastors and leaders, sort of a distrust, it feels like, in church. There's documentaries being made, there's stories being told. What are some of the things for you, maybe particularly in the last couple, last two years, of just how you continue to find yourself being encouraged? Like, I think when people see you, we see you on social media, and isn't Chad just have the best smile ever? You know, but like, he doesn't just do that on stage. Oh, no. Away from stage, off the stage. But there is like this, I was thinking about last night, that mature, the best smile in the big C church. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, but that mature, me, positive under pressure. Maybe just talk a little bit about that, just on the cultural pressure that people are facing, what some of the ways that you've been stayed grounded.
Well, thank you. I think, by the way, I thought Rich preached so brilliantly last night. I think we should clap. And I love that. I was taking notes. I was sitting behind Lou, and I, I was watching both of us just really receive that. The mature me. And I think, you know what got exposed the last few years is the immature me. You know, I always think you, uh, there's some pressure points that you face in life, you're like, "Oh, that's still there. That's still lurking." And that's fine. I like that you refer to James, you know, the testing of our faith. I think it's been a real test. I, I think, I, I'll never forget, and I've used this story before, but, uh, I forget where, why I was in Atlanta, but we got to go to dinner with Lou and Shell, and we were leaving the restaurant, and Lou kind of grabs my arm as we're leaving, and it's like, "Hey," he's like, "You know, with everything going on, he's like, I, I, I really want you to go low." And, um, you know, if Lou says that to you, you know, what are you going to say? I was like, "Yeah, 100%. Go low." Yeah. Then like six months later, I'm in Atlanta, and we go to breakfast, and we're leaving, and he grabs my arm again, and he's like, "Hey, just want you, everything going on, I want you to go low." And I'm like, "I haven't gone low yet." Yes, it's just kind of, you know, Lou just has this way of sitting in a moment. We just, we blow by stuff. He's just like, "Let's go low." And, and, and I was thinking, you know, after those two encounters, those two exchanges, I don't know if you remember, but it marked me. It really did. And something that Shell, uh, said really stood out to me in this last few years of, "Let's just keep living our genuine, authentic life." And with everything going on in life, what can I do? I can, I can love the thought of leadership. I can only control my input and my attitude. Wow. How hard I work, and the attitude. I heard it said years ago, but the greatest decision you'll ever make in the history of your life is the decision to serve Jesus. And the second most important decision you'll ever make in the history of your life is the attitude in which you choose to serve Jesus. So I think I've just had to have a good attitude and choose humility and, and going low. What was he trying to say? Hey, we, we might not need, uh, all the the glitz and the glamour and stuff that you thought you needed before. What you're going to need moving forward is humility. Humility says, "I'm sorry." Humility admits, "Hey, a few years ago, I, you know, lost my temper, or a few years ago, we were doing stuff that maybe I look back and go, 'Man, I regret that. That wasn't wise.' Maybe I was young and naive and just inexperienced, and I got to go back and be like, you know what, I missed that there." So I think for me, I get encouraged because the Bible says that God gives grace to the humble. So why will he, why will he grace his church if we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God? God says, "I'll exalt those. I'll use those." And by the way, let's just go love opposite. If we exalt ourselves, unfortunately, God is forced to because he's not a man that he would lie. He will humble us. So maybe some of the things that have gone on is we needed to be humbled. And I don't think there's anything bad with that. I don't think God is mad at us when he humbles us. I think he's got a greater plan. It's like the whole thought, last thing I'll was saying is, is, um, I find rest knowing that he disciplines the ones that he loves. So he doesn't discipline the one that he's mad at. He dis, he loves me enough to go like, "No, we're going low." I'm like, "Yes, sir."
I think it's, you know, can I jump in just for a sec? Um, that's so, so great that, uh, we had lunch and breakfast. I love that. Um, I heard this story. Um, I was just at the HTB Leadership Conference in Royal Albert Hall in London a few weeks ago. I went there just to go there, and it didn't work out as good as I hoped. Um, and by about the second day, they were like, "Hey, can you do X, Y, and Z?" And I was like, "Uh," and it really got tense at a moment. And I think, I think I disappointed some people, but I said, "No, I really just came here just to sit in a seat and, uh, to be among the brotherhood." Yes. Of church builders. And for me, it's important to sit in the seat with the brotherhood. Yeah. And to even resist that. And I know it wasn't a bad thing, but it's like, I don't need to be on the stage at this thing, even though it's the one thing in the world, Chad, that I've never been asked to speak at. And that it was kind of on my, "Gosh, if there were one thing I wanted to really speak at, it's in Royal Albert Hall at this thing." And, uh, this is my chance. Uh, but I heard a story about it, Rich, and it has marked me, and you've heard me talk about this many times, but Matt Redmond told me that one time he was playing there, and this is in the heyday of this thing. The Prime Minister of England had just been interviewed by Nicky Gumbel. Nicky Gumbel is an amazing church builder, leader, if you don't know who he is. Uh, kind of started Alpha. And he was interviewing him. Session ends. Well, Matt Redmond, in the middle of it, has a migraine. And so he has left the session. That's an inside joke if you know Matt. Gone around the block to the pharmacy, gotten some medicine for his migraine. Now he's coming back up the other way to Royal Albert Hall. Session ends, and it's a who's who green room. It is just imagine, Prime Minister is up there, and everybody but me that's been invited to speak there is up there. Chad is probably up there. Um, Travis Greene, I'm sure, is in there. You know, it's just the thing. And he said, out the side door comes Nicky Gumbel. He puts a little strap on his pant leg, puts on his bike helmet, unlocks his bike from the little rack, gets on his bike, and rides home. He lives about 10 minutes from there. And I just thought, "Who leaves the session and goes out the side door and gets on his bike and rides to his house during the break because they can?" I said, "That is the secret." And so I've been looking, and I'm not great at it, for the side door. Just get in your car and go home. That's kind of what, you know, trying to stay low. And it's not about not being confident, right? I mean, that's not what we're saying. I mean, God puts you on a corner, you got to own that corner. You got to go stand on that corner and know that you are God's person for this moment on that corner. You've got to have incredible confidence standing there. But it's confident humility that God is, is looking for.
That's beautiful. I love you talking, uh, about the story. Um, I love this picture of going low. I think is Jen Chavez in here? I don't know. Oh, hey. I saw Jabin preaching the other day. I might mess up your message, but I thought it was a really profound picture. He was preaching, he was laying down on the stage, face down. Goes, "You know, you know how you don't fall? Stay low. Hard to fall when you're living this low." And it's just such a beautiful image. And I told him about it, um, of, I just think for all of us, like, of of going low, choosing humility. I like how you just said right there, like, I don't think correction from God should be something that we go, "I'm in trouble," but rather it's a mark of his love. I was preaching this weekend the story of Samuel, and, uh, when he's mourning over Saul, Saul had fallen, and God comes to Samuel and says, "How long are you going to mourn over what I rejected?" Which is just a word itself. Some of us are mourning over things God's rejected. Wow. You think they rejected you? God rejected it. That's great. But one of the things there is when he goes to the house of Jesse, and he sees David. We've all kind of quoted it, but sometimes we quote things in the Bible, we're like, "Where, where's that story at?" Remember that part? We all quoted it. It's like, "God doesn't look at the outward appearance, he looks at the heart." That story comes from the prophet of God, maybe the greatest prophet, I guess, Elijah. Samuel's up there. Samuel sees the oldest son first. He goes, "Certainly, this is the one that the Lord has picked." And what does God do? God corrects the man of God. Wow. You don't see Sam go, "Oh, why, why are you telling me I'm wrong?" Like anyone who's taken on the title of being a pastor or a prophet or a leader, the moment you stop being able to be corrected by God is the moment you stop being effective for God. So Samuel, being the man of God in Israel, is corrected by God. Why was he corrected? Because he was looking at the outside. It wasn't some like worldly person, it was the man of God that was looking. That's got to be the one. Look how tall he is. Look how handsome he is. Look what he looks like on the outside. God said, "No, no, no. I choose people and I pick people different from how you pick people. I look at the heart." And I just love this, this tension of of of walking through that because I think there is a great conversation leadership around humility and confidence because it takes a lot of boldness. It takes a lot of confidence to try to step up and do something, to fill the Mercedes-Benz. That's crazy. Like, who's, is Beyonce going to be there? No, no, no, no. We're going to have a couple preachers. And, like, we're like, we're going to sing. Well, Travis will be there. Travis. Yeah. But it's just, this is, that takes immense boldness. But you have to do so in this paradoxical way of humility of going, "I know where my strength comes from." In the last two or three years, just in your leadership, it's, maybe it's a vulnerable question, but can you maybe pick out something where you feel like God has corrected you a little bit or readjusted some of your framework that you're comfortable sharing, just in the last three years, either one of you that comes to mind?
He's probably corrected you more than he's corrected me. So you, I'm not going to ask. I don't want to ask Lou about being corrected by God. Hold on. Let me ask you this way to Lou. Why would you say, why did you sense that in your spirit right there to say that to Chad? Go low. No, but why not for him? I'm saying, because that was a word that came upon you. What, what was it you were seeing? I'm not saying it was in you, but you're seeing something in the body of Christ as, I think, an elder statesman. What is it that was, what's the concern? What's that thing jumping up? It's, I'm not asking. This has been a, you know, it's a tightrope for all of us. But I think in the last 10 years, there's been an enormous, uh, opportunity for us to have influence in culture. And the two of you are a part of that. And it's just, you know, it's God. I don't know. I mean, your mom told you when you were a kid, people were going to be attracted to you. And, but it's not you, it's God in you. And they are. And so you're doing the weddings of people that are very well known, you're doing the funeral of people who are very well known. You are floating in an orbit that, uh, I don't know who floats in that orbit except Chad. And, uh, that is an incredible opportunity. And an incredible, it's an incredible opportunity to have influence or to be influenced. And to be influenced not by, you know, the culture, but to be influenced by what every one of us is, I think, innately drawn to in our flesh, which is delight of people, affirming and applauding and promoting. And so it's important if you have that kind of stewardship that you take the side door a lot. Because, you know, some of those people that you're around and that you influence, uh, do take the side door, but they've already tipped off the people that they're going out the side door. So the right people can be at the side door to take a photograph of them going out the side door. And you're with them going out the side door, getting into the thing, and everybody saw that, "Oh, you were there with them at that moment." Um, so then you have to find your own side door to at some point get in your car and just go home. And the story isn't where we were, who we were with, the moment you let that be who you were with in the moment. And just, if I can say one more thing, you know, fortunately, the enemy has upped his game. Yes. Not upped his game, but, you know, when I was growing up, you had to play the records backwards to hear the satanic references. They don't know about that, man. They don't. They don't know. They're some Gen Z leaders, they don't know. They don't know how hard it was to get. It's, and that's possessed, that's not a conspiracy, that's real. You play some of the records backwards and you'd be, "Oh my gosh, are they saying I love Satan?" Well, now you just play the records forward to hear them say, "I love Satan." And so with that, I think maybe we, maybe we're still a step or two behind going, "I don't want to lead with, you know, Jesus. I want to build, you know, an opportunity." And I'm like, "Why not? The devil's leading with the devil." And I just think that right now is the time to say, "I'm going to just lead with Jesus." Because this is kind of the way things have shifted. And I'm not saying we're watching the world to see what we do, but when you, you know, see, uh, what's happening right on prime stages, and you're like, "Oh, okay, then we should have that same sense of, uh, boldness." So there's, that's all I was trying to say in those spaces. It, for all of us, we should be leaning toward humility. Humility is not a character trait, by the way. Um, like, "I'm going to work on my patience." Well, you can do that. Uh, humility is not something that you work on. It's not a character trait that you work on. It's the byproduct of being with Jesus. It's the byproduct of being with God. No people who walk with God are going to be proud. So when you're proud, you're just kind of, you know, telling the world, "Haven't really been with God." Because when you're with God, you go, "Oh, it's all about you." And then you, you walk that [Applause] out.
What do you think about that whole thing that I just said? You, I'm serious. Yeah, I really think, yeah, it, uh, it struck me. You know, I think that you have a, a big voice in his life and mine and a generation, of course. So when you say something twice, uh, with the depth and the sincerity that you say it, it really made me think about my own life in areas of pride. The thing about pride is, it's the only disease that makes everybody else sick besides the person that has it. Wow. And so it's like, I can see arrogant people, I'm like, "Oh, they suck." And then it's like, "Yeah, but you're that guy. You're, you're, you're making moves that make people go, 'They, that guy disgusts me.'" So I think it was just like a, a season of getting closer to Jesus. I love the way you phrased that. I think that that's the desire, right? When you talk about correction, it makes me think of 2 Timothy 3:16. "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful." And I always, whenever I read the word "useful," I use, uh, there's a golf commentator that's British. He always says, "Useful." It, God's word is useful for what? Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So the man of God may be fully equipped to do every good work. God's word, when I'm with God, and I'm in the word of God, he is constantly rebuking me about my attitude, about my intentions, about my relationships. That's what that mirror does. It tells me what you, what you're wearing today. You're not clothed in humility. So let's put that on because that is attractive. Um, so that's what I think about that. I think that it was just a real, I started to study it, I started to really understand that and try and find maybe areas of my life or seasons of my life where when you're winning, you're just, it, it hides so many problems. Then you lose, and you're like, "What are the, oh, there's one of the problems. Pride. Wow. Arrogance. How about that forwardness? That self-assurance." I love that lyric that you guys wrote that something about being self-reliant. "Where would I be without God's grace?" Humility is going like, "I don't got nothing without you." I like last year, Judas said something so good when he was up preaching. He said, towards the end of his message, something like, "You're the magic, Jesus. When you come to the meeting, you're the magic." And I think sometimes talented people are like, "I'm the magic. My gift is the magic." Humility is depending on God. If you don't show up in the meeting, if you don't anoint my message, if you don't build my church, if you don't grace my life, I don't got a shot. Because I, I got little moves, you know, I got little things that we all do. But like, if there's no oil on it, there's no grace on it, which God is drawn to humility. Like he partners with it. So that's what I think. I think like it was a good wakeup call for me to go like, "Hey, buddy, like, you got to focus on this." I preached on Sunday, "Don't Take My Oil." And it's that, it's David, you know, after he's sinned, and he's not saying, "God, don't take my kingdom." Yes. "God, don't take my wealth." And don't take my victories. He says, "Don't take your Spirit from my life." I think it's important for all of us to remember that you're not the gift. I'm not a gift. I'm a tool. Wow. So, like, we already know, bro. Like, what do you mean? Like, you just took, it took you 39 years to just, yeah. It took me 39 years. I'm, I'm a tool. I'm a tool. Hands of God, like to be used, to be used by God. And, um, I think for me, on this idea of correction, and I just like the space because I just, I don't know what they're doing with all these video cameras. We should probably be careful. But just like, I think where I've been corrected the most is just the recognizing how much fear I have in man versus God. And fear of God is what brings wisdom. And if I'm going to lead, I said, "Lord, give me wisdom." Not for me, not so I'm wise. Why does he ask for wisdom? He asked for wisdom to lead God's people. In fact, one of the ways to God's heart is always God's people. You start praying, don't pray for resources to have resources. Pray for resources that you could lead God's people. Don't pray for good sermons so you can have good sermons. God, give me a good sermon so I can lead your people. And I want wisdom. I want discernment. I think at 39, having three kids later on, and now leading the church, I think there was so much stuff I did as a young leader that I'm grateful for his grace. I'm grateful for his mercy. I just had no idea that many times we were walking on water. And now I think when we walk on water, I'm go, "Oh my God, we just walked on water." And there was a level of immaturity, yeah, that just was like, "Oh, this is just easy." And there's nothing easy about it. There's a total dependency upon Jesus. And if I'm more concerned with the people and their opinion of me than I am of God's, I'm doomed. And it's dangerous and foolish. And I look back, and there's not some area of sin. It's areas of immaturity and foolishness that I'm, I'm only here by the grace of God. But at 39, I'm just going, "God, form in me the right heart and the right spirit. I want to go the distance." My goal, I think I told you last year, my goal is not to be big. My goal is not to be known. My goal, you can hear it loud and clear, and you'll know if I get there, is if I last. Yeah. I'm just playing the long game. Like, I want to last. I want to stand for truth. I want to do so with grace. I want to preach the Bible. I want to believe the whole Bible. I believe the whole Bible. Yeah. So we want to get all the cultural stuff. I just believe the Bible, the whole thing. I want to deliver that at the right time to the right audience with truth and with grace. I need the Spirit of God leading me in all that. And, um, I talked yesterday at friends and family lunch. I'm sorry I'm referencing all this stuff about just leading through disappointment. And I'm just learning in, like, leadership, like we all carry vision and expectation. Disappointment is the result of unmet expectations. So we're all of us are carrying some disappointment right now, and we're trying to lead through it. We're carrying it, sort of, I got one hand, I got expectation of faith. The other hand, I got plenty of disappointment. Like, that person left. That person said they'd be there. That person saying this about me. I've also learned that I'm a representative of God, but I'm not God. So guess what? I do constantly disappoint people. Some of you need to get okay with forgiving yourself because people, when they see you represent God, they keep thinking that you are God. And you know you're not God. But sometimes their praises make you start to believe, "Maybe I am God." But before you know that, if you are God, but you're not God, all you can ever do is disappoint people because you can't be their expectations. So I live constantly disappointing people. But how do I continue to stay fueled up on the journey? How do I lead through that? And I just think, Lou, like, I'm not trying to put you on front street, but you've had massive, massive wins, but you've also dealt with massive rejection and criticism. You've dealt with media canceling you. You, you've dealt with so many different things. I just suppose as we're kind of coming to the tail end here, because we do have another meeting, maybe for both of you, but we start with Lou. It's like, why haven't you quit?
Well, the truth of the matter is, uh, we have quit a lot. Can I get an amen? Last night for me, but I came back this morning. Well, I mean, it's true. Uh, you know, I think that there's bad quitting and there's good quitting. And the gospel story really is about good quitting. Um, it's not a story that says, "Hey, just hang on to the end of the rope." That is not the gospel story. The gospel story is, if you let go of the end of the rope, the grace of God will catch you. If you say to God, "I can't hold on to the end of the rope anymore. I'm going to have to let go," you will hear the applause of heaven, not the, uh, sort of like, Jim Box Fitness voice of heaven. You'll hear the applause of heaven saying, "Let go. We, we right here." And so, just not to get too real, uh, some folks that go to my church are here, don't want them to get too nervous about their pastor, uh, but there were a couple times in 2020, 2021, uh, and some other times in our lives where Shell and I literally just at the dinner table, we're like, "We're out." You know, I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I'm 65 in a few days. I'm getting Medicaid or something coming. I'm like, "Right there." So, uh, thank you. I appreciate that. And so we quit. And I don't mean like we're like, you know what, we're just going to quit. I mean, like we thought it through, had some plans, you know, really, like put a lot of effort into it, and seriously. And, um, but then when you, when you're walking with God, Rich, you have a way, then you, you go to sleep. And every night when we sleep, we should quit anyway. Because days don't start in the morning with God, they always start in the evening. It was evening and morning, the first day. Evening, morning, the second day. So the day doesn't start when you wake up. The day starts when you go to sleep. So if you know when you wake up, you're joining something God's already halfway into, then that's a whole different kind of quitting right there. But we went to sleep, and when we woke up, we realized we were halfway into God's day. And in the halfway part of the day, he had already been working in us. And we woke up and went to work. But dang, we had quit the night before, and it felt good. And we didn't go to work and do an announcement, send an email, "Hey, we're back." Uh, we, but we were back. Yeah. You know, and bad quitting is when you just bottle it all up until you realize, "I can't do this anymore." And I'm not even in close enough contact with God to let him know how, how, where I am. And then you just, you really do quit. And that's, uh, that's bad quitting. And there's a lot of, of bad quitting going on right now. So I just think we need to learn how to quit good, um, quit often, um, and then get up and get after it the next day with a fresh new sense of what God can do. So good. So good.
I really don't like following you. Um, you know, I think that, I think for me personally, the temptation has not been quitting on, like, showing up at work. It's more quitting on people. Wow. Quitting on, um, dreams. Just, you know, just quitting on, like, I just grew up seeing so many guys. I always had this thought, like, "Wow, they just are such a shell of themselves." Maybe once they used to be full of love and compliments and so much life, and now they're more full of like, just like criticism and sharpness and hurt. Hurt, right? And I just, I think that's more my temptation. Like, don't quit on, like, having people to the house, hosting. I think people being around you. There's this girl I keep referring to from TikTok. She's a pastor's wife and a pastor's daughter. She's so good. I don't know her name. And she said something. She's, uh, also teaches at a Christian school. And she said, um, "I was trying, I handed out to my class, uh, pastor appreciation cards, and I wanted all my students to write their pastor a thank you note." And so she goes, "I'm uniquely suited to speak on the life of a pastor." And so I was explaining to my classroom how difficult it is to be a pastor. And she said, "One of the challenges about being a pastor is that the average person will face seven major relational transitions in their lifetime, and the average pastor will face seven this year." And when she said that, I said, "Oh, damn. You're preaching now." And I think that's the temptation, right? It's going like, "I got hurt. I got burnt. I got used. I got whatever." Fill in the blank. He's just going like, "I'm not quitting on the dream. I'm not quitting." Joseph last night, that was so brilliant. I loved your message. I'm not quitting on what God put on me and in me. I'm not quitting on showing up and showing up with life. I always think faithfulness is not an attendance issue. Faithfulness is a heart issue. Wow. So I think sometimes people show up, they're like, "I was faithful." No, no, no, no. You quit six months ago. We all found out six months later, but you quit a long time ago. But it's all about heart. Everything you do, Colossians 3:23, "Everything you do, do it wholeheartedly as unto the Lord." All of my work is not for anybody but Jesus. And so I think, just how do you stay in the game with EQ? How do you stay that with, with spiritual vitality? I think, you know, James Clear, I love James Clear so much. Atomic Habits. He says, "We don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems." So for us, in our line of work, I would, let's remove the word systems and let's replace it with spiritual disciplines. Because it's not about my dreams, it's about my disciplines. I've placed solitude, fasting, meditation, journaling, reflection. Do I have these things in order? Because if not, I will have dreams, but I won't get there. I'll quit when it gets hard. I'll be in a pit, and I'll quit. Get to Piper's house, I'm quitting. Get into prison, I'm quitting. You got to just to stay the long game. I think you, it's a cocktail of bad decisions that will get you into a mess. It's a cocktail of great decisions that will get you into strength. So I got to make a lot of really little good decisions to get me strong, right? To where when some Delilah says they're at the door, I'm like, "I know who I am." And my strength hasn't left me because of little compromises. So I think I'm just trying to not quit. It's [Applause] beautiful.
I want to, I want to say to all the pastors in the room. You know, I don't know what your world looks like, and I don't know what your church looks like. I'm one of the most blessed pastors you'll ever meet. We have the most brilliant people around us. I feel very encouraged and celebrated a lot. But I know that my story is quite unique and quite different. And I just want to say to all the pastors in this room that are here, that are still going, that showed up, that are amongst the brethren, got a lot of great, by the way, just amazing leaders and preachers and teachers of the word. Jam's one of my favorite preachers. He's preaching our church this summer. Bianca's over here, she preaches all over the world. So we're literally watching in front of us, men and women, just model what Lou was saying. But I just, just want to say to all the pastors in this room, you are appreciated. And if no one's told you thank you this year, thank you. You're making a massive, massive difference. Massive difference. Massive difference. And we celebrate you. Yes, you matter. We need you. I even just want to say it this way, like, I don't like forever type language. When people tell me forever, I'm like, "You're scaring me." But I, I want to challenge some of you, like, maybe you are on the verge of quitting. Give it one more year. Yeah. Like, I don't know if something's going to inspire. I don't know if you're ever going to stand and clap at one of the sermons. I don't know if it's ever going to be a big inspiration. But maybe the moment was just this moment right here. I'm not going to quit this year. I'm going to stick it out one more year and see what God could do. See if God would mature me and who I could be one year from now. Maybe, maybe the wind that you're waiting on is just six months away. I just, I just sense in my heart, don't, don't, don't quit. Just stay in it. Stay in it. We love you. We appreciate you. Can we thank these guys for coming? I mean, I don't, this, I already got more than I was expecting.