Andy Stanley new - That's a Great Question

I want to talk, the, the name of this talk. If, if you want to title it, is I call it—that’s a great question. That’s a great question. And um, I want to talk for about 10 minutes about questions in general, and then I want to talk about one specific question. And I’ll tell you why when we get to that specific question. But great leaders always ask great questions. And great leaders aren’t afraid to surround themselves with people who ask great questions and who aren’t afraid to, to ask hard questions. Um, there’s a difference between somebody asking you a question and questioning you. And the more secure you are, the less inclined you will be to hear a question as someone who’s questioning you, as opposed to somebody who just has a good question. But as a leader, if you bristle every single time somebody asks you a question because you feel like they’re questioning you, chances are you’re not going to surround yourself with people who ask great questions. You can actually lead and change a department, or a division, or an organization, or a church, just through the questions you ask. In fact, you can lead people who don’t report to you. In fact, you can lead people who you report to through the questions you ask, if you’ll become strategic in how you ask the questions.

But if you do not surround yourself with people who have the permission, and have permission to ask you important questions and tough questions, and questions that may, you know, on the surface cause you to bristle just a little bit and get a little bit defensive—if you don’t have those people around you, then you don’t have the right people around you. Because, as I said yesterday, you’re not the smartest person in your organization, or I sure hope you’re not; you’re just the leader, and that’s okay. And the goal of leadership is to surround ourselves with people who have different kinds of insight and better insight into things, to, you know, areas perhaps where we won’t have no insight. But if you won’t listen, if you won’t listen—I said this yesterday—leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people; they’ll be eventually surrounded by people who have nothing to say or nothing helpful to say. And you don’t want to find yourself in that spot, which means you have to learn to swallow your pride, keep eye contact, don’t cross your arms, remain wide open, and allow those difficult questions to come rolling in. Because on the back end of a difficult question, often times is the breakthrough insight you need for your church or for your organization.

Questions do three things. I’ll hit these real quick, then I want to talk about one specific question. Questions reveal values. You should, you should know this as a parent, even if you don’t want to apply this as a leader. Questions reveal values. The, the questions that you ask over and over and over reveal what’s most important to you. The questions that you ask over and over and over and over reveal to the people around you what’s most important to you. So parents, if you say to your son and daughter, you know, “honey, I just want you to do your best,” I just want you to do your best, but you only ask about their test scores and their grades, what you’ve said with your question is, even though I said I just want you to do your best, what’s really most important to me is what did you make on the test and what are your grades? Because if you really want your kids to do their best, then what questions should you ask? Did you do your best, right? The questions that you ask—so here’s the crazy thing—you have in your mind and your, you know, heart perhaps what’s most important to you, or what you want people to think is most important in your organization. But if your questions—questions you’re not even aware of—and if you’re not strategic with your questions, you can send the people who report to you and who listen to you off in a completely different direction than the mission and vision that you’re casting, because your questions will trump your mission and vision every time, because questions are instructive. If you ask me the same question over and over and over, I begin to anticipate that question, and I begin to allow my behavior to be shaped by being ready to have a good answer to your question. So you know, if, if your big thing is we, you know, our church, we just want to lead people to Christ and we want to make disciples and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you never ask questions related to those two things, it’s always about the numbers and how many people were here and what was the offering—over time, everybody that reports to you is going to believe that what’s most important to you is what’s connected to your questions. So this should scare you a little bit if you’re tracking with me. Not only are you listening, you’re thinking, “Oh my goodness, what, what do I ask?” Let me ask you this: What’s the first question you ask on Monday morning when you’re with your staff, or Tuesday morning with your, when you’re with your staff? What’s the first question that you ask? That first question tells them something about what’s in your heart, because questions always reveal values. What questions do you ask most often to your volunteers?

The second thing: questions reinforce values. And this is the, this is the goal, this is the magic, this is the leverage point. Just as questions reveal what’s in there, you can harness and use and be strategic and intentional with questions in order to actually reinforce the values you have, or what you want to have as values in your organization. So when you think about your organizational values, your mission and vision, one of the best exercises you could do, one of the best exercises you can do as you look at your mission of your organization or your church or your department, your vision, your student ministry, you know, whatever—student ministry—whatever. Did I say stupid ministry? Student ministry. There’s no such thing as a stupid ministry. Amen. I got an amen; that’s the only amen I’ve gotten so far. It’s great. Anyway, as you think about, you know, mission and vision again—if you’re a pastor, if you’re wherever you are in the organization—one of the smartest things you can do, one of the best exercises you can work through is to ask yourself this question: What questions, if asked repeatedly, would point people in the direction of what I want them to do? What questions, if I ask—if this is what we want to accomplish—what are the questions I should intentionally hang on to or connect to the vision and mission, whatever it is that we want people to accomplish? Because your questions not only reveal values, your questions will reinforce value. So um, I begin—I’ve done this from the very beginning, and maybe you’ve heard me say this before—every meeting I have where there’s, you know, less than 50 people, you know, staff meetings or leadership team meetings or management team meetings, I begin every meeting with this question. If T—if you ask Tyler to come up here, he worked with me for 10 years, he’d tell you what it is—I begin every, every meeting with this question on purpose, because this is what’s ultimately most important for our local church. I ask the question, “What happened this weekend?” And the people in my organization know what’s behind that question. What’s behind that question is: Tell me the stories of life change; tell me the stories that you heard; tell me what happened. We’re going to get to the numbers; we have a very sophisticated dashboard; you got to count things, you know, you got to count people because people count, you know, I mean, there’s all that stuff, but that’s not the most important thing. What’s most important is: Are we making disciples? So I begin every question, “What happened this weekend?” We begin every single meeting telling stories because I want to make sure that the people that report to me understand that we’re not on a mission to build something that’s big; we’re on a mission to do something that’s significant. And at the end of the day, when Jesus left this Earth, he gave us our marching orders; we don’t get to choose those. He said, “I want you to make disciples; I want you to make new followers of me.” So regardless of how big it is, if we’re not making new disciples of Jesus, we get an F. So why not take a question that points the people who are in the, in the process of doing what it is that you feel like God has called you to do? Why not hang a question underneath or onto your mission and vision? Stories and questions are actually the two best ways to reinforce organizational values. I mean, it’s great to have them written down somewhere, written on the wall or written in the hall, but the stories that you tell and the questions that you ask, those are the best ways to reinforce organizational values.

The third thing a question does—then I’m going to tell you the one question I want to talk about—is that questions reinforce behaviors. If you will decide what you want the people who report to you to do, if you will decide how you want the people in your organization to behave, and then you attach a question to each one of those behaviors and you ask that question over and over and over, you will never have to tell them how to behave, because your questions will set the expectation for how you want people to behave in your organization. So years ago, um, probably 5 years ago now, um, with our leadership team—there’s about 14 people on our leadership team; it’s a little bit large, but that’s my meeting, and so I can do it the way I want to—but anyway, our leadership team—our leadership team is the group that makes all the decisions. I have a management team that’s smaller, but our leadership teams—our lead pastors in the city of Atlanta—are the, the folks that oversee middle school, high school children; it’s, you know, it’s a big group. And so some years ago, I said, you know, “let’s have a discussion about how, how do we want our staff to behave?” And I don’t mean morally and how they treat each other in marriage and all that. I mean, if what are the behaviors that if all of our staff did the following behaviors, it would move the ball down the field; it would move us toward what we feel like God has called us to do. So we had about a four-month discussion. We went home at night—I know a four-month discussion, meaning that every Tuesday when I would meet with a leadership team, we spent about 45 minutes discussing this. This is how I manage, this is how I lead; we just do not rush. So we finally came up with six behaviors. If, if all of our staff would do the following six things consistently, it would move us and it would help us and everything that we’ve been called to do. And then we didn’t stop there, because questions reinforce behaviors. So once we got those six things—I’ll give you an example in just a minute—we attached a question to each one of those. So one of our staff behaviors—one of our staff behaviors is: Make it better. Make it better. We want everybody to do everything they can, even cross-divisionally and cross-campus-wise, to make it better. And every once in a while, you know, I’ll catch somebody making it better, or my assistant, who’s here, Diane Grant, will get an email from somebody bragging on somebody because they made it better, and we’ll take that, that, and I’ll circle it and I’ll say, “Thanks for making it better,” put my name on it, send it to them, “Hey, we caught you making it better,” and then that’s, that’s a good practice. But we attached a question to this value, and the question is: What am I doing personally, what am I doing personally to help us improve organizationally? What am I doing personally to help us improve organizationally? Make it better—I mean, that’s a little bit static, but I know the answer to the question. If there’s a good answer to the question, “What am I doing, or am I doing anything personally to help us organizationally?” So once you know what it is you want your volunteers to do—this works with volunteers—once you know what you want your direct reports to do, or if you’re a pastor, if you’re over several layers of staff, once you realize, you know, “what, here are the things that if we would just block and tackle, block and tackle, block and tackle, block and tackle, we’ll win games,” then you attach a question, and instead of simply teaching values and instead of teaching simply teaching behaviors, you begin to ask strategic questions. And if you ask the right question—questions the right things—often times will happen. But it means as a leader you have to be willing to surround yourself with people who will ask difficult questions as well.

Now, for the rest of our time, of 26 minutes and 39 seconds, I want to talk about one specific question, and I want to tell you about the question before I, I tell you the question. Um, Bill Hybels is going to be here this afternoon; I’m going to interview him—superhero of mine for lots, lots of reasons; we’ll talk about when he gets here—but I’ve had two occasions to have meals with Bill Hybels, not like we hang out; he lives in Chicago; we see each other at events occasionally, and he—I just love Bill Hybels. And so the second time I ever had a meal with him was about four years ago, and he was eating sushi, um, with chopsticks. I was pretty intimidated, you know, I wouldn’t even share how to order sushi back then; I still don’t order it very much. Um, anyway, so we’re having this, this meal, and you know, when you meet with somebody that you have a lot of respect for, you should show up prepared. So I showed up prepared; I had my phone; I had four questions I wanted to ask him, and my first question was, “Bill, tell me about how you make decisions; what’s, what’s your decision-making grid? You know, how, what, what, you know, it’s a kind of an odd question, but you know, how do you, you know, what’s the G—how, what’s the process you use, if there isn’t, if there even, even is one that you can, you know, talk about it when it comes to making decisions.” Without even looking up, he said, “I always ask myself, ‘What would a great leader do?’ What would a great leader do? What would a great leader do?” That’s all I remember from the conversation; I took some more notes, but I just thought that pretty much—that’s pretty much it—“What would a great leader do?” In fact, I want us to all say this together out loud, because you’ve never asked this question perhaps together. Ready? What? Yeah, “What would a great leader do?” So my goal for the next few minutes is I want to convince you as much as I can to set this question somewhere close by and keep it close by always, because this question is an extraordinarily instructive question, an extraordinarily powerful question, an extraordinary—in fact, it’s an irritatingly clarifying question—“What would a great leader do?” In fact, I, um, I got back and I started taking notes around this question, and I sat down about two years ago with our whole staff—our about, you know, three, 350 people—and taught, “What would a great leader do?” And the other day I walked into one of our offices in Buckhead, and I went to the area where all the cubes are, and they’re painted on the wall, in huge letters, “What would a great leader do?” So I’ve tried to take this question and just force it down into the cracks and crevices of our organization, because I think it’s so powerful. So after I taught on it a couple times, I ran into Bill somewhere, and I said, “Bill, you know, remember we had dinner and you said, ‘What would a great leader do?’ I said, ‘I’m telling you that question has just wrecked me; it’s like every time I’m making a decision, it’s like, okay, Andy, what would a great leader do?’” I said, “Have you ever taught on that?” He said, “Well, I thought about it, but I couldn’t get any traction with it.” I said, “Well, I want you to know I teach on it all the time, and sometimes I give you credit.” Okay, I, it’s, it’s just, just such an incredible, inedible question. So since he’s going to be here this afternoon, I thought I would talk a little bit about it. Let me tell you why I think this is maybe the premier question that leaders should ask.

First of all, it provides instant clarity. It provides instant clarity. It enables you and enables me to see beyond our circumstances. Because when you, as a leader, when you’re making a decision, you’re making a decision within a small context; you’re making a decision within a very specific, specific and small context. And there are no emotionally neutral decision-making environments; zero. Every decision you make as a leader, if you have to make it, there is emotion involved, and whenever there’s emotion involved, there’s a fog, and it’s difficult to know what to do. This question will lift you above the fog and above the mist, because whether or not you are a great leader and whether or not you ever become a great leader, you are smart enough to know that if you were a great leader, you know what a great leader would probably do in the circumstances in which you find yourself. And this is what makes this question not only clarifying but terrifying. It’s always easy to get caught up in the emotion of the moment, because many of the decisions we make in ministry deal with people and relationships. Again, there are no emotionally neutral leadership environments. So here’s another question to go with the question: How would you feel as you’re thinking about what would a great leader do? How would you feel on the other side of doing what a great leader would do? How would you feel if you had the courage to step into that role? If you had the courage to confront that person? If you had the courage to think bigger and broader and fearlessly and courageously, how would you feel on the other side of making a decision that would mirror what a great leader would do? And often times, I know for me, and I think for you as well, just the clarity of knowing what a great leader would do, were I a great leader, is enough sometimes to push us beyond the barriers and beyond the resistance to step into that place that God has called us, and because he’s called all of us to be great leaders. Here’s the other thing it does: This question unmasks motives. This is terrifying as well. It unmasks motives, because let me put it up here on the screen eventually—eventually, no matter where you are in ministry, eventually corporate mission will eventually conflict with personal ambition; it just will. You’ve, you’ve seen this. In fact, some of you work for lead pastors, and this is what’s going on right now—that eventually, eventually corporate mission, mission and vision—in other words, what’s best for the organization—won’t be best for the leader of the organization, whether it’s business or ministry. Eventually, what’s best for the organization is going to conflict or collide with what’s best for the leader in the organization. And when you find yourself in that situation, if you are courageous enough to pause and ask, “Okay, I know what I’m inclined to do; I know what my husband, husband would like for me to do; I know what would benefit my family the most; I know what would benefit the staff the most, but what would a great leader do?” And in that moment you will be unmasked, and in that moment you will know who you are really in this for. Now let me tell you why this is so important: The sharp people around you, they already know. The people who are dialed in to you and your leadership and your organization, they already know. And if the sharp people catch you sacrificing the organization for something that benefits you personally, they are eventually going to leave, and you will be left with people who aren’t sharp enough to know what you’re doing. That may be your goal; I hope not. But all of us have seen, unfortunately, especially in ministry, men primarily who leverage a church, leverage a nonprofit for personal benefit. And again, I’m telling you, it’s so easy to camouflage what benefits me personally for the sake of mission and vision, because you give a compelling, you know, persuasive person one of these, or one of these in their hand, and I mean, they can convince you of all kinds of stuff. But if you will stop in the midst of all that and say, “Okay, okay, before I get all caught up in that, and yeah, it would benefit me if we went left, but I think it’s better for the organization if we went right. Okay, okay, in this moment, with what’s at stake, what would a great leader do?” And it will unmask you. And for those of us who’ve been called to move people in the direction of the Great Commission, we need to be unmasked, because there’s too much at stake. I wrote in my notes: Leaders are good at camouflaging personal agendas with the language of mission and vision. Powerful, charismatic leaders are expert at camouflaging personal ambition with the language of mission and vision. And you will avoid that trap if you pause in the midst and say, “Okay, what, but what, but what would a great, a selfless, an organization-first leader do in this situation?”

One of the things that just gets on my nerves, and um, I don’t want to get off on this, but it, it sort of intersects with this issue, and I touched on a little bit yesterday, um, again, when people say, you know, “What are you concerned about the church? You know, what’s, what’s the thing going on in the church that concerns you most?” It’s the honor of the senior pastor culture. I just, I just can’t stand that. And the SE—and if you’re a senior pastor, I’m sorry for just a minute—and if you work for one, which many of you do, I’m just, you know, ignore this if you don’t think this is, this is right—but the thing that I see growing, especially sometimes with young leaders, is this: I don’t know where you got this; you didn’t get it in the New Testament; you got it out of the Old Testament. But that’s the Old Testament; that’s the obsolete Testament; it’s the replaced—you’ve been there, done that; doesn’t exist anymore—Covenant, and the New Covenant; there’s not, you know, “I’m like the honored, anointed senior pastor, and everybody else is here to do my bidding because God speaks to me and I speak to you.” That is not the New Testament model. The New Testament model is: We’re a body. Right along with this crazy, yucky culture—I hope that’s not a part of your church—is the word loyalty. Let me just give you a clue about loyalty: It didn’t even make it as a fruit of the spirit. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and people want to sit in rows and listen to me talk all day long, but I don’t have the fruit of the spirit, I’m just annoyed boys. So this whole idea that somehow we have to commit to loyalty to one another—no, no, you earn loyalty, and you learn—you earn loyalty by having the fruit of the spirit and finding your lane in the body and staying there, so that all the other body parts can do what God has called them to do. And you—and if you have a—I know you want to clap; that just means ‘cause you’re like, “Please, I wish my pastor was here.” Oh God, I hope that’s not what you mean. Okay, okay. But it just, it just, it just grieves me. And unfortunately, it’s in that loyalty to the senior pastor culture that the senior pastor gets surrounded with people who don’t ask the hard questions, and consequently camouflage personal ambition with the language of mission and vision, and we don’t have time for that, and there’s no need to do that in our church. I don’t even require our staff to attend our church. And when I tell other pastors that, they’re like, “What?” I’m like, “Wait, wait, wait; if our church sucks, they shouldn’t attend our church. And if our church is awesome, they should want to attend our church.” So if there are staff members who don’t want to attend the church they work at, I’m not upset with them; I want them to tell me what I need to do to make it so good they want to come. But to tell them you have to be here—and then there’s the churches that like withdraw money out of your checking account so that you tithe—shame on you if you do that. Good grief, how cheerful can you—

Be when you don't even have a decision to make. Right? God loves the automatic withdrawal giver. I don't know. I don't know how any of that works. Okay, sorry, not really. [Applause] Um, one last thing on this. Okay, this is for all of us. Okay, I'm not picking on lead pastors. I mean, it's me, you know. Um, and entitlement always begins somewhere. Entitlement always begins, and then it escalates. I'm entitled to this. Well, I'm kind of used to that, so I think I'm entitled to this, and I'm kind of used to that; that's just normal, and you take it away, and entitlement people feel like they're taking, you know, you know how that works. So as a lead pastor, as a senior pastor, and I know I shouldn't say this because you have staff sitting here, but I just want you to think about this. I want you to ask yourself the question: for senior pastors, where does entitlement begin? And I know I'm going to give you the answer, but just think for a second: where, if I don't want to be the entitled person, and I get more and more—now they're giving me gifts, and they're doing all this, and you know, my—I become the center of attention—if that's to be resisted, and it should be resisted at all costs. I mean, Jesus could not have been clearer. They're on the way to Jerusalem; the guys are behind him; they're arguing about, "Hey, we're going to Jerusalem. I think this is when Jesus throws off his rabic robe, and he has a giant M on his shirt, Messiah, and you, we're going to throw out the Romans, and he's going to be seated, and the, you know, go the holy of holies, and it's all just going to be awesome," and they're behind him going, "Hey, when we get there, hey, if he's not number one, we can't be number one, but I like to be number two, and I like to be number three." And Jesus hears them, and he pulls them over and sits them down under the sycamore tree—made that part up—and he says, "Okay, guys, before we get to Jerusalem, couple things first: you don't know what you're talking about, okay, because when we get there and you see what's going to happen to me, you're not going to be one, to be number two, number three. Peter, you're going to say you don't even know who I am. Okay, so first of all, you don't understand what's about to happen." But then he says this, "Guys, do you know how in the Gentile World they have like the people who were at the top of the heap, and they lorded it over everybody else, like they're in charge, and everybody has to do their bidding?" And the disciples are going, "Yeah, we know how it works. Duh, that's why we want to be number two and number three. We want to be right up there in the Pyramid of power." And then Jesus said something to them that I think he says to me every day, and he says to all of us every day. He says, "Not so with you." Now let's go to Jerusalem. And you know what's amazing? This is—I love this—connecting a couple of dots in the book of Acts. The biggest problem—this is so amazing—think of this: the guys, the disciples, they got this, and then they went to Jerusalem, and he washed their feet, and he said, "Okay, I've washed your feet, now you have to wash each other's feet. When you start thinking you're a big shot, you just wash more feet, 'cause I washed your feet, took away all your excuses." Then he died for them. It's like, "Oh, game over." It's like, "Okay, we got it. We got it. We're racing to the bottom." You get to the book of Acts—this is amazing—do you know what caused the first real conflict in the book of Acts? They couldn't get Jesus' disciples to stop waiting tables and taking care of widows. It's like, "John, really John? Okay, John, we get somebody else to do that. John, you spent time with Jesus, would you please come over?" And John's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not a big shot. I don't want to be a big shot. He died for me; he washed my feet. I don't mind taking care of widows and orphans. I don't mind waiting tables. I'm not a big shot." Like, "Okay, John, we get that, but really? Okay, you're get—we need—would you just come over?" It's like they had to pry that lowly service and that lowly servant spirit and that lowly, you know, servant task away from the apostles because they got it. "Not so with you." We got it. We got it. The question is: do we got it? CU what was true of them and for them, it's true of me. So I think that entitlement for lead pastors begins with a reserve park [Applause] spot. I think we should give the reserve parking spot to the children's [Applause] director. I mean, come on, they're doing all the work, right? They're there before you are. When I get to church, there are hundreds of empty parking spots. Why would I need a reserve parking spot? SP Okay, move on. All right. The other thing that this question does is it reveals weakness. It creates attention that deserves our attention. Here's what I mean by that: if you are a conflict avoider and you're a leader, at some point you got to stop avoiding conflict. And when you got to turn, you know, you get that phone call, they leave that voicemail, or you know, get two staff, and they're going, "Okay, there's really an issue, pastor. We really need you. I mean, you know, you're the student pastor; you've got to—you're—you're in charge of the whole Middle School deal; you've got to talk to these parents. I mean, there it is," and everything in you is like, "Okay, who else can I send? I'm going to send somebody else. You know, I'm really busy. I got to pick up the cleaning, or you know, I, you know," and then you stop and you say, "Wait a minute, I hate conflict. I dread this, but what would a great leader do?" They would step into the conflict. But if you're on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you're the person who loves to power up, you love conflict, you like it because you like to win, and you hear about a conflict and you're like, "Oh, that's an easy one. I can win. I can't wait. Bring them in. In fact, I'll go to their [Music] house [Music] [Music]," and then you stop and say, "Okay, wait a minute, what would a great leader do?" And a great leader doesn't avoid conflict, and a great leader doesn't leave a wake of emotionally distraught people behind. A great leader solves problems and keeps people intact and connected to the body of Christ. This question will reveal—oops, you went too quick there—you go—this question—that was my fault; I gave you the cue, so it's totally my fault—this question will reveal the weakness in your personality and the weaknesses in your leadership style. It'll force you—I wrote in my notes—to face your insecurities because once you know what you should do, you have to face up to the fact that you don't want to do it. Once you know what would a great leader do—I know what a great leader would do—I don't want to do it. What's wrong with me? Where do I have room to grow? What do I need to read? Who do I need to talk to? How do I deal with this so I don't drag this around for the rest of my leadership career? And the last thing is this: this question will inspire you to reach beyond the limits of your personality and style. All of us have said, in some leadership capacity, "You know, that's just not me. That's just not me. That's just not who I am." Every once in a while in leadership, you have to be who is not you, and you have to be who you are not. And when you ask the question, "What would a great leader do?" and you become—you zero in on what you know a great leader would do, then you say, "Heavenly Father, in this particular environment, this particular case, with this particular decision, I've got to step up, and I've got to be someone I'm not, but someone who you are and someone you've called me to be." Because this question clears away all the clutter; it'll give you a glimpse—I love this—of what could be and should be for you as a leader. When people say, "Hey, what's your leadership development plan?" Now you have an answer. Do people ever ask you—ask me—and that, "What's your leadership development plan?" I go, "Here's my leadership development plan: every day I ask, 'What would a great leader do?' And I go, 'Ah, I got work to do.' That's my plan." This lead—this question will give you a glimpse of what could be and should be for you as a leader. You need to ask it, whether you plan to follow through or not. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the people around you to know. So all together, let's ask—ask it. Ready? What would a great leader do? One more time: What would a great leader—now I want you to think about for a minute that thing that's going on at work, that thing that's going on with the children's deal, or trying to—it's a hiring thing, or it's a budget thing, or Here Comes Sunday, and what would a great leader do? How would a great leader handle that? How would—what would a great—what would a great leader do? Just do that, because the best way to become a great leader—I mean, this is rocket science right here. This is like—I'm going to go over it two or three times; it's so deep—the best way to become a great leader is to do what a great leader would do, and once you know, you become accountable, and that's why this is both a clarifying and a terrifying question. Quick example from scripture: you know this story; you've taught this story; it's one of my favorite Old Testament narratives. 1 Samuel chapter 24, the text says this: after Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told that David is in the desert of inti. So Saul took 3,000 able young men from all of Israel, and they set out to look for David and his men and the cags of the wild goats. Here's a picture I actually took a few years ago when I was in uh, the Holy Land. We went to Mada, and you go right by the Dead Sea, and this—this is the desert of edti. If you've ever been to Mada, if you've ever been to the Dead Sea, this is where this event took place, and I mean, it's just hill after mountain and mountain and mountains. You can see it would be so easy for an army to hide. And so Saul and his army, they're looking for David. Verse three says he came—Saul—he came to the sheep pins along the way, and a cave was there, and Saul suddenly had to go to the bathroom. This is like the best Middle School Story of All stories, 'cause this is one of the only times this is even mentioned in scripture. He came to the sheep pins along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. And you know the story, and of—I mean, there's a thousand caves; there's a thousand places that Saul could have had to relieve himself. Clearly he had to go number two, not number one. CU You don't look for a cave anyway. So Saul is looking for a private place. He stops; there are three men with him. Okay, this is a long caravan of horses and mules and wagons; they all stop; they all have to pretend like they don't know what's going on. Saul makes his way, makes his way, makes his way, climbs up, you know, you know, 50, 60 ft, goes into this cave and disappears, and they're all waiting. And David and his men were far back in the cave. David scouts until David—David—Saul is behind us. And David said to his men, "Scatter, hide in the hills; they'll pass through this area; we will reather and go the other way." Now, what are the odds of this, right? I mean, the stars are aligned. Not only are the stars aligned, God had promised David that one day he would be king. And late at night around the campfire, because he was surrounded by his, you know, his merry men, they were all outlaws, they were all fugitives, they all had a price on their head, and night after night they would gather around campfires, and David would say to his men, especially his lieutenants, "Look, just stick with me, stick—I know it's hard; I know we can't go home; I know we have no home—but stick with me. God has promised that one day I will be king, and if you stick with me when I'm king, then you'll be my closest lieutenants. Just stick with me. Trust me, trust me, trust me. The day is coming; God's going to be faithful; he's promised me." So he and some of his closest men are in the back of the cave, and there's a silhouette because their eyes have adjusted, and there's King Saul in the most vulnerable position possible. Verse four, and the men said this—this is the day—this is the day that the Lord—you know, they whispered it—though the men said, "This is the day the Lord spoke—" I mean, David, remember how you've been telling us what God's going to do? Whoa, you were right. This is the day the Lord spoke when he said, "I'm going to give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish." David's like, "Yeah, I mean, what could be more obvious," right? The text says that David crept up unnoticed, and somewhere between where he was hiding and where King Saul was squatting—excuse me—something dawned on David. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm about to—to murder a king. I'm about to murder the king. I'm about to slit the throat of my father-in-law. I'm about to write a part of my story that I'm not going to want anyone to know about. 'Granddaddy, tell us how you became king.' Well, there I was hiding in the cave; your brave grandfather snuck up behind King Saul when he was using the bathroom, and I slit his throat. 'Oh, you're so brave.' Is that the story that you want to tell? God anointed me, but I appointed me. Is that really the story you want to tell?" David turned back around, crept back over to his men, and of course they're like, "What? Wait, wait, wait. What? Can we do it? If you don't—can we do it?" David said to his men, he said to his men, "The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master." Okay, he's your master, but he's trying to kill you. "The Lord's anointed. I know he's the Lord's anointed, but see, once you kill him, you're the Lord's anointed, or lay my hand on him, for he is the anointed of the Lord. I cannot replace what God has put in place. I will not become king by murdering a king." Justified, yes. Is it what everybody expects? Yes. Is it what a great leader would do? No. God's called you to be a leader; our great God has called you to be a leader; why not be a great leader? I love the way this story ends because David was like us; he had a little ego; he had a little pride; had a little Hollywood—this is like Hollywood—what happens next? Seriously, Saul, you know, pulls up his brites, he gets his robe back on, and sonor's on back out, gets on his mule. David waits to the perfect time; everybody's about to leave; David steps out. Now think of the drama of this: Saul went in; it could have been even more dramatic. Saul goes in; David comes out; he would have been king—no, you know, bloodless coup, right? Saul goes in; Saul comes out; suddenly David—"YooHoo, YooHoo"—hey, everybody looks, and everybody recognizes David. Then David went out of the cave and called to Saul. He said, "This day the Lord—this day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave, and some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, 'I will not lay my hand on my Lord, because he is the Lord's anointed.' May the—this is so powerful—may the Lord judge between you and me. I'm not the judge. Great leaders know we're not the judge. May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge the wrongs you've done to me. My hand will not touch you. May the Lord be our judge and decide between us." And everybody in that caravan, in that entire army, read between the lines: David basically said, "I'm a great leader, and you're not, because I know what you would have done to me if the roles were reversed." So folks, at every juncture, beginning today, here's the question one more time, out loud, all of us. Ready? What would a great leader do? I'll tell you—tell you where you can start: you can start at home. What would a great father do? What would a great mother do? What would a great husband do? You know, you finish that orange juice, and you walk into the kitchen, and you pop open the dishwasher, and it's full of clean dishes. What do great husbands do? Why don't—why don't we just do this, ladies: what does a great wife—wife do? And I've been doing this long enough to know I should not attempt to answer that question. Hey, thank you very much. I'll see you this afternoon with Bill. [Applause] hibl