Communicating Clear — Pastors Assembly

[Music] Hey friends and family. I'm Pastor Minishka and I'm excited to welcome you to this practical workshop from Pastors Assembly 2025 called Communicating Clear. I had an opportunity to sit down with three phenomenal communicators: Pastor L. Phillips, Dan Watson, and Russell Johnson. The three of them had so much helpful insight that's going to help you learn how to communicate not just on stage but offstage. How can you communicate clear?

But before we dive in today, I want to encourage you: grab a notebook, tell somebody, share this link. But we have so many workshops just like this one that are available at Vukon 2025. It's happening in Miami, Florida in June, and we want you to be a part of it. I'm excited to dive into this conversation. Let's lean in [Music] together today.

I've got some incredible people that we're going to be hosting this conversation with. I'm so excited. Um, because the thing about communication, I think um, it was Pastor Jabin who said it best. It's that the way that God uses different expressions of communication is so special. And that's who our God is. He is so unique. He is so creative that you can have five different communicators preaching the same message but a different way, and it'll touch people differently. And so as we're here, it's to learn about how to communicate in your unique gifting. How to clearly communicate the way that God has called you to communicate. And so if you're in this room, maybe you are a communicator, maybe you're aspiring communicator. I'm believing that what we learn today is going to help us grow in our God-given gift and he's going to place you on the path in the lane that you need to be on. I'm believing that.

And so, um, I hear some other breakouts. And so, we're going to just fight for focus over here with the overlap of the things, but let me introduce our incredible speakers today. We've got Pastor Loud Phillips all the way from Legacy in Nashville. So grateful to have so many different people here to share. We've got Russell, Pastor Russell with us. Can you make some noise for Russell Johnson? Hey, pastor of Pursuit Church. And then we've got Dan Watson in the building. Come on, pastoring over at Passion in Trilith. Is that how you pronounce it? Trilith. Yes. Trilith. You in Atlanta? Atlanta. You from Atlanta? No, I'm from London. Tell them. I love that.

Well, we're so thankful. This conversation is about communicating clear and maybe you've been in different workshops specifically about communication and I I want to talk about preaching and I want to talk about how we can be better communicators on stage. But I do think that it is important for us to not only know how to be great communicators on stage but also offstage. That as pastors, as communicators, when I'm in a conversation with someone, do they grasp the vision? Can they hear what I'm saying or do I have to say it 15 different times and they just come back and like, "What did you say again?" or "What did you mean again?" And I think it's important because I found myself in leadership where I'm like, "I've said this so many times," and it's not that there's anything wrong with repeating yourself, but I have to find the right way to say it so that people can actually grab a hold of what I'm trying to say. And so maybe the question I I wanted to open up with before we talk about preaching is just maybe communicating, communicating vision, communicating heart, communicating passion. Just ask pastors, uh, what are some of the effective ways that you have found to communicate, whether it's to your staff, whether it is to the volunteers? Like, in what ways have you benefited and learned how to properly communicate in that space? I'm going to open up the question to whoever wants to take it first.

All right, man. Hey everyone, I'm Dan. Good to meet you. Um, I think for me is uh, is just being really clear in my own head what I'm trying to say. You know what I'm saying? Whether that's one-on-one with someone or whether that's team. And if I was to ask myself the three questions: Do I know what I want people to know? Uh, do I know how I want them to feel? And do I know what I want them to do? And if I can ask those three questions and they can answer them or if they can repeat back to me what I'm trying to say, then I know that we're on the same page. I remember when I was uh, we used to serve at Hillsong London, pastor Hillsong London for 10 years. Wow. And uh, Pastor Gary, who is an OG leader by the way. Um, he would, he would talk about the same thing for like six months. Like in our staff meetings, I'd be talking about the same thing for six months. I remember I said, "Gary, you've already talked about that." He said, "I know, and I'm going to stop talking about it when you start doing it." I'm like, "Okay, okay." And so we understood, all right, we need to, we want them to know what they need to know, how they need to feel, and what they need to do. And if that's clear, then we can move forward from there.

Beautiful. Genius. Genius. Anybody else want to weigh in?

Bishop. Um, yeah. I'm Russ. I'm from Seattle. Um, you know, I think, uh, you know, for me, you know, recognizing that 80% of communication is non-verbal. And so long after people forget what you say, they'll remember how you made them feel. That's right. And, you know, communication is an avenue to, it's a journey towards the center of the heart. It's engaging people with where they're at and then the invitation into um, an interior dialogue. And so I often tell our church, I say, "When I preach, I'm not so much preaching at you as I am preaching at me. I'm hosting an interior conversation that I'm inviting you into to gaze upon." And um, I think it's important for um, you know, leaders to determine um, that which is the core message of the heart. I think every great preacher has one central sermon that they'll preach a thousand different ways. And um, when everything, uh, is um, when everything is important, nothing is important. When everything is revival, nothing's revival. When everything is the best thing you've ever heard, then nothing is the best thing that you've ever heard. And so I think, you know, for me, it's taken 10 years of preaching full-time for me to even be able to stand the sound of my own voice. You know, the last 10 years has been like a journey in insecurity and brokenness and trying to run from the call of God, but every time I tried to run, he ran faster. So like in the first five years of our church plan, I tried to resign three times and the board just refused to let me do that. Probably because we were in so much debt, you know, and they said, "This is your fault." And so you preach your way into this and you're going to preach your way out of this. But, you know, it's like when the woman with the issue of blood presses through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment, before she ever touches the hem of his garment, the Bible says this: "If I may just touch his hem, I will be made well." And so for me, like preaching is the art of inviting people in to the interior dialogue of your life. "Hey, here's what I've been thinking about. I have thought to myself, if I could just get to Jesus. I've thought to myself, hey, if I could just improve in these areas, if I could just consider God in this way." And I think my concern with um, maybe the state of communication from the pulpits in America today is that our stages have grown, but our altars have shrunk. And influence without authority is the noose around the neck of the American church. And so like, it's not so much about just becoming a more polished communicator, but actually having something worthwhile to say. So if faith comes by hearing and and hearing by the word, then the interior conversation that I'm hosting on a stage in Seattle or Atlanta or London or Nashville or Miami, you're you're inviting people to reach into you and pull out of the well that you've developed. So I I think about it in this way: When Jesus raises from the dead and then he walks through the wall and the disciples are in this room and they're scared and they're huddled and there's a bunch of them who believe, but there's one who doesn't. And and it's Peter. And and Jesus says to him, um, "Place your hand in my side." And when Jesus invites Peter to reach into his wound, Peter pulls out healing. He He reaches out in unbelief, but by the time he draws his hand back, he believes. Right. Right. And so for me, it's like, not that we try to be necessarily like overly emotional on stage, but I think like the age of um communication from the place of perfection. "If you could just impose these three principles in your life, you could have a hot wife and really obedient kids and a really big house and a successful marriage and a nice car and if you could just be like me. Uh, if you could just get on my level." And I think today that that has been a method that has been weighed and found wanting. That actually the universal experience is not success, it's pain because everybody has it and nobody knows where to park it. And the cross doesn't exist to eliminate my pain, but instead to give purpose to it. And so if you have a theological construct or a communication construct that doesn't incorporate the element of pain, not that you make that the focus, but I have a wound too. And I'm inviting you on this Sunday morning to reach into the wound of my life, to reach into the wound of my sexual abuse, to reach into the wound of my brokenness, to reach into the wound of my un to reach into the wound of my insecurity. And I believe that together now we're on this journey, not necessarily me standing in front of you, but standing alongside you. We're walking towards healing. And and the last thing I would say on this that I think is so important is it's not just learning to listen to God's voice. Because here's the reality: people can't follow your voice until you find your voice. And maybe one of the greatest crimes that you could commit against a creative God is starting off as a voice, but dying as an echo. So like ChatGPT may be able to write your sermons, but it doesn't have the ability to break the heavy yoke. Gifting will give you goosebumps, but anointing breaks the yoke. And so for me, it's like anointing doesn't come from the green room. It comes from the prayer room. And so until you have an encounter with God and your heart is moving. Very good. You know, I tell people this like when it pertains to like giving and generosity, like, "Well, how much should I tithe?" Well, 10%, that's what tithe means. But how much should I give in the offering? I go, "I don't know." Um, but until it moves your heart, it won't move God's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Until preaching moves your heart, it won't move the people that you're communicating to. So, I don't just want a message to come from me. I want a message to be birthed through me. And so this is why I tell people, pay attention to your tears because they they point you in the direction of your destiny. You got to pay attention to your brokenness. Not that you magnify it, but it's like, "No, the wounds that I've encountered over the journey of my life have uniquely prepared me to bring healing to a city." And I can't invite people into my perfection because that's not the common human experience. I've got to invite people into my pain. And when we do that, we become these like transparent leaders who go, "Yeah, I got a hole in my side here, too." And this hole is healed, but it won't ever close up. The reason it doesn't close up is cuz I'm inviting you to reach into it. And when you do, you're pulling out healing for the wounds in your life as well.

That's great. Hey, we're done. That's great. That was a good uh breakout. Come on. Bless. Yeah. I think everything you're saying is so powerful and such a message to the modern-day communicator. We have such a great weight and responsibility and we have to feel that not as a burden, but I have a weight and a responsibility to communicate something that will change and transform somebody's life. Not because what I'm saying is going to change and transform you, but because the word does it. There's just been moments where I'm opening up God's word and and weeping over stories. I remember it happened to me and I was like, "God, I always want to be at this place. I I want to read the story of the woman with the issue of blood and weep at the compassion of God. I want to think about the the the mad man who had all these demons and God had this compassion to stop and to pause. These are the things that I want to break my heart in my communication and I want to be able to do away with. If I step into a space and I'm like, "Okay, God's moving a different direction." I'm like, "All right, I'm going to go wherever God's going in my communication." And I think that it comes from an overflow of the secret place. Like in the beginning of the year, I felt the Lord tell me so clearly, "This is the year of the secret place." That what takes place in the secret place is what is going to pour out in the public spaces. Come on. So if you do not have a secret place, if you do not pray, if you do not intercede on behalf of others, you won't have a burden to actually preach something that is effective. And so it is this is this the key of intercessory prayer and the key of seeking God. I love what Pastor Jon was saying. It's like, "If you don't pray for your people, right, you're not a pastor." If you don't, if you're not praying and and thinking about the people that God has given you, then am I really a pastor? I had to come to that realization where I was like, "I'm praying for a lot of things, but I'm like, am I praying for that family member that isn't saved? Am I praying for?" Cuz it's like we see these people every day and I'm just like, "God knows, right?" But but I've created time in my morning where I'm like, "I'm going down a list of people that I'm praying for." Come on. And this is what keeps me broken before the Lord cuz I'm like, "Oh, yeah. No, my my family still needs Jesus." And so for me, it's like I can I'm like, "Thank God that I get to preach and and do all of that, but I'm like, "My cousin's not saved." And so now I need to be thinking about how do I communicate on a personal evangelism level? Because if I can preach here and people raise their hand and get saved and I don't even know who they are, but I have friends and family that I can't even talk to about Jesus, then I I think there's a gap that I have to fill. And I think that's where I'm at with communication where I'm like, "I I want to get better at preaching. I want to be a better preacher, but I want to make sure that I'm able to communicate the truth of the gospel, even if I was in a one-on-one conversation." And I found that believers sometimes have a hard time to do that. Where if we had to maybe communicate the fullness of the gospel to somebody in a one-on-one conversation, we I don't know if we would know what to say. And I'm not speaking for everyone, but just for for some people that I've encountered where they're like, "Oh, yeah. I actually don't know what this is." And that gives me the burden. All right. I want to help people to learn how to communicate the gospel. Not just as communicators on a platform, but just everyday communication, just one-on-one like. Yes. And this is what the world needs. This is this is how the gospel spreads. This is how the gospel spread in the book of Acts. They heard Paul and it was like, "Cool, Paul said that. I'm going to say that to somebody else." That's right. And that's how people were meeting Jesus. Yes. And um, I think that what we're talking about gets to the heart of communication. I don't know if there's anything that you want to add um as it pertains to some of that stuff.

Wow. Sure. I mean, you guys have said a lot of really wonderful things. I think I'll keep it real fundamental. Uh, you know, when I'm thinking about communication, what I'm thinking about first is connecting. Uh, I want to connect with you. You know, you're not my audience. You are a real person with a story that God loves. And I don't want to see you like a testimony on two legs. I want to see you like a real person that I have the privilege of talking to and connecting with. And uh, I think that whenever I first got into ministry, I saw the room as the people that would come and watch me do my calling. You know, it's like, "I'm anointed. I'm God's man of power for the hour. Give me the microphone because I got a word." And uh, I think over time, you know, I've now understood what you were saying, uh, what what everyone has said. I think is that I need to be broken for the people that I'm communicating to so that I have a drive to connect with them and not just preach at them. Because what we preach, we give people the grace to live. And so I'm not just looking at the at, you know, the people who are a part of our church or any church that I'm going to preach in is just, "Hey, there, this is my amen corner." You know, this is where I'm affirmed in my obedience to what God has asked me to do with my life. Uh, but this is my opportunity uh to be a mouthpiece for him to speak truth and and prophesy and declare grace, which gives people greater opportunity uh for their own life. So I think handling it uh with that degree of severity and preciousness, but recognizing as well at the end of the day, um, I'm here to connect with you and love you through this medium of communication.

That's beautiful. And what are some personal um habits or disciplines that you all take in your study in your prep time? Just something that you know that you you have to do when you're preparing to communicate.

Man, I think for me, like I just go back to this like even in Ephesians 3 where Paul's talking and he says, "This is this is my life's work: helping people understand and respond to the gospel. It came as a as a shock, as a gift, and not because of anything that I've done, but because of everything that he has done and he's he's equipped me for this." And so for me, it's like one of the first things I have to do in my personal discipline is remove myself, remove my doubts, my insecurities. It has to be a lifestyle. It's not just when I'm going to preach on a Sunday, that's when I'm getting into the scripture and I'm preparing for a word. It's got to be a just a way of life. Even in in Titus, it says, "Be devoted and faithful to the word, to the doctrine." So that when you speak it, it exalts and people hear it and do stuff with it. Exhorts me to be able to encourage. And so I I myself want to be able to be a deep well. And so for me, the discipline is even if I wasn't communicating on the stage ever again, I'm still in this word. Yes. This is still changing and transforming my life. blood we've been talking about. I'm still a broken, messed up, jacked up person who needs Jesus and his blood every single day. Like, I need that. And so, that needs to be real in my life. And then as it overflows, uh, it it's just an it's an overflow, right? It's just that. That's right. But your your personal life, your study, and then the way you prepare, like again, we're all different. And so, I know we're all going to have different study methods, different ways we do that. I know the pastors that I work with all have different ways of doing that, but I got to find my way. But it's it's an overflow and there's practices there. And just as Paul said, "This is my life's work. This is not my job. Come on. This is not my vocation. This is not because you've asked me to do it, but this is my life's work." And even if that means sitting in a coffee shop and talking to the person sitting opposite me, it's my life's work to be able to share the gospel. It's my last work for it for it to be able to be displayed. And so even as Russell said before, it's like the percentage of communication that is nonverbal. People are going to see it on you before they hear it from you. That's right. That's right. And so I want it to be seen in me. How do I respond to this stuff going on in my life? How do I respond to criticism and persecution? How do I respond when we're having arguments in our marriage? How do I respond when my kids, I got four kids, when they're going awol and it's it's crazy. How do I respond when my staff aren't doing what they're meant to be doing? How do I respond? This is my life's work. And so it's it's it's daily disciplines and going, "I need this transforming word. Yes. More than anyone. More than anyone." Yeah. And so if I understand that, then I can demonstrate that and show that in my world. Yeah.

I think um for me um when I'm looking at a text or or um considering like either the hermeneutic or the homalytic of you know textual exegesis in preparation for a Sunday. Um I think when I reflect upon my preaching, especially in the early days, um often I would present God as useful, but not God as beautiful. And David says, "One thing have I sought, that which I have desired: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon his beauty." Yeah. Yeah. And so um, Paul never says he explains the mystery. He says he stewards the mystery. That's good. That's good. And I I think sometimes in an effort to, you know, be the communication guru or the leadership guru, people step into that like sage on the stage, right, type persona, where it's like, "Hey, let me explain to you how this all works." I I know less today than I did when we started. You know, like I'm more confident in in who Christ is, but I know less today about how this all works. And um, I was in France a few years ago preaching and I had a day to go to the Louvre and um, I'm like walking through this art museum and I'm like finding myself moved to tears like looking at all these like incredible paintings and um, you go into these rooms with these magnificent paintings and they have a little sign on the wall um with um somebody doing this and it says, "No explaining inside" because they want to preserve the beauty of that environment. And so I think sometimes we overexplain and we underdemonstrate. And so it's like, "Hey, well, this is what it means in the original Hebrew." And it's like, "Well, if great preaching could have saved America, we've done already been saved." That's right. We got the best preachers in the world, you know? And so for me, it's like I I don't want I don't want to reduce God into some sort of quantitative quadrant by which we have figured out how to apply the right formula to produce the right result because then God becomes a vending machine. "Take your 25-cent prayer and take your 21-day prayers and fast and then put it into the machine and out pops the miracle." And I'm like, "If it were only that easy, we wouldn't need relationship with the divine." And so God invites me in to a relationship. And it's like being married. It's like the more I'm married, the more I know my wife, but the less I know my wife. It's an invitation into mystery. And so like Paul says, like, "I behold the mystery of the hypostatic God-man, Jesus Christ, fully divine, fully human, the invisible God made visible." And he's like writing the Colossians church, the church in Colossian Colossians 1. And like by the time Colossians 1 is over, you're like, "I don't even know what he's saying." But what he's doing is he's he's upholding the mystery of God. And the reality is is that our people and us, we become what we behold. That's right. So if you behold formulas, which are shortcuts to intimacy, right? So it's Friday and I know if I bring flowers home to my wife on Friday, I get to have sex Friday night. So now I have a formula for how it works. It's a shortcut to intimacy. And so like for for me, it's like every time I feel like I've figured out how to preach, you show up on a Sunday and you preach the world's worst sermon. You're like, "I don't even know if I'm born again, right?" And and then there'll be Sundays you get up there and preach and you're like, "This is terrible. I wouldn't even attend this church." And people like, "Gosh, that was so, that was the best thing I've ever heard." And you're like, "I have no idea what I'm doing is is really this." But, you know, for me, like I want people to walk away from my communication and go, "Is that the best sermon I've ever heard? Maybe not. Is he the best communicator? No, I'm I'm uncomfortable on stage and I I won't even like look you in the eyes when I talk. I I probably need to be attending this. Like, I'm not I'm not like me too, bro." I think what people walk away with when I finish communicating is like, "That's a dude who's been with God. Yeah. That's a dude who's still really impressed with God. Yeah. He's still really enamored by the beauty of God." And I don't want to take that which is sacred and reduce it to that which is secular. Jesus turns water into wine. And sometimes when we preach, we turn wine into water. Right. Right. We take what is beautiful and we make it ordinary. We take what is sacred and we make it secular. And it's like, you know, do we still have that thing that David had when he dances before the ark and his kingly robe falls off? And you know when we grew up in Sunday school, they always say David danced down to his underwear, but it wasn't his underwear. It was his linen ephod. And when he dances down to his linen ephod, that's the clothing of the priests. And as he dancing, his wife is, "Oh, you looking fool." He said, "I'll be even more undignified. Yeah, you ain't seen nothing yet." Right. And then the Lord closes her womb because, you know, the only thing that you get in return for judging somebody else's worship is barrenness. Right. And so, but he's dancing before the Lord and his kingly robe falls off and it just reveals him and his linen ephod, which was the the the clothing of the Levitical priesthood. And what he's demonstrating to a nation is, "You've known me as a king, but I've always been a priest." Yeah. "You've known me as a preacher, but I've always been a priest." That's right. "You've known me as a communicator, a personality, an author. But what I've always been was a kid writing songs, taking care of my dad's sheep, when I thought nobody else would ever read the stuff I wrote or hear the words that I say, and it still moves me." And this is what I say to our staff on Monday mornings during staff chapel: "Does this still move you? Does this Jesus still move you? Is he still the most beautiful thing that you have ever beheld in your entire life?" Because if he is useful and not beautiful, then we've developed a transactional relationship with an intimate God. And so it's like, "No, this is who we You show up on a Sunday and you're like, "Oh, Russell's a great preacher in Seattle and he's got Judah's old building and this and that." And people have all these narratives and it's like, I'm trying to figure out a way to constantly reveal the ephod that's underneath. "No, this No, let me tell you why I can't move on from this verse. Let me tell you why I weep when I read this before you this morning. It's because it still moves me. I'm still moved by this God." And when that begins to take root in an environment, then it's not just the quality of the preaching, but it's the authority and the anointing. And it even says of Jesus in the Gospels of Luke when Jesus preaches his first sermon in the synagogue, which he totally rips off from somebody else. All he does is quote Isaiah. Right. All he does is quote his favorite preacher. Yeah. Exactly. And then he sits down and he goes, "Today it's fulfilled in your midst." And the and and the Bible says that they respond, "Who is this guy who teaches with such authority?" Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And because he starts out by saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me." You know, so I think anointing is the introduction into authority. And if you don't use your authority, the devil will. And so for me, it's like I want to become a steward of these things that I can't quite control or understand or quantify or qualify, but I I I know they live inside of me. And ultimately, I I want people to walk away on a Sunday morning feeling like Timothy must have felt when Paul wrote him one of his final letters and he said, "I saw faith in your grandmother, Lois, and I saw faith in your mother, Eunice. And even though I'm in a prison and you're leading a church in Ephesus, I am convinced it lives in you." And and and and I think when we make I think when we resist the temptation to fall into the pathology of our generation, which is main character syndrome, you got to read yourself into the story cuz you've got to see yourself as the woman with the issue of blood. You're not the hero of the story. You're not Jesus. You're Judas. You're not Jesus. You're the woman with the issue of blood who is desperately in need of a touch. And I think when you can read yourself into the story appropriately without becoming the main character, it ingratiates you to an audience that says, "That's what I feel like. I need Jesus like he needs [Music] [Applause] Jesus."

Very good. Beautiful. That was powerful. And I believe what the Lord is doing. He's having he has us in this room for a reason. and we're going to pray at the end of this, but I believe that God is getting ready to ignite fire on somebody's altar again that you felt dry. You're like, "I don't know if I could do this. I don't have another sermon for another week." God's getting ready to ignite a fire in you that is going to burn that your entire church will feel. And they're going to feel it in such a way that they're going to get in their word on their own. Let's go. Cuz we're not trying to develop codependent Christians. That's right. That's right. And so, you've got to eat for yourself. Yes. And so I'm believing that we're going to teach people how to have the fire, how to eat. That's right. What a what a powerful powerful word and I think a sobering word for us of this generation to take the call seriously. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. To seek God for the oil. The story with the the 10 virgins, they all had oil. Five of them didn't have enough oil. So, you can have oil, but do you have enough oil for what God's getting ready to do in this next generation? Do I know what the Lord's going to do in the next 10 years for the church? Do Do I have enough oil for longevity? That's good. That's good. God's given oil. I just sense that that he's just releasing oil. He's releasing oil. Fresh oil. Fresh oil. Psalm 92:10 talks about it. Fresh oil. Yes. Some of you need fresh oil. Seek him for it. Yes. The oil is going to flow. It's coming. I'm believing that. Thank you, Jesus. This is better. So much better. Yeah. You're here for a reason. That's right. That's right. You're here for a reason. God's doing something. That's right. That's right. I can feel it. Can you feel it? It's so good. It's so much better.

Let me say something. I don't want to go after y'all. I'm I'm be honest. You guys are preaching. This is good. Um, I was just thinking about that passage where it talks about the elders uh being worthy of double honor that labor in the preaching and the teaching of the word. And uh, I've been a part of three births. Uh, my wife is right here and we have three kids. And so I've experienced labor very intensely on three occasions. And uh, somebody once said that preaching every single Sunday is like giving birth every single weekend and then finding out you're pregnant on Monday morning. Like, I don't know how often everybody in the room preaches, but the measure of anxiety that I get hit with when I'm getting ready to start my sermon prep, I'm thinking, "God, please speak to me." It doesn't matter if I preach for 20 years, like I'm coming up on two decades of full-time vocational preaching ministry now, and I probably have thousands of sermon notes in my Google Drive. But it does not matter. Every single time I start my sermon prep, I'm starting with open hands and I'm saying, "God, I don't want a good word. I want a God word. I don't want a TED talk. I want a Bible message because I know that if I can share what it is that you're speaking, then transformation becomes possible. I don't want to just give people my opinion. Nobody is transformed by my opinion. They're transformed by the word of God." And so, I just want to acknowledge like what we do, y'all, is crazy. It's absolutely nuts. It's like anybody who comes to me and says, "I'm called to be a preacher." I try to talk them out of it. I'm like, "You don't want this life. I promise." What you see is 44 minutes on stage on a Sunday morning or people hitting you up on Instagram like Russell was just saying, "Oh, what a great word when I thought I did terrible." You know, but that's what preaching is. It's it's it's sharing with the congregation on that particular day the oil that has come from what has broken you. And it's like, "Here you go. I'm sharing with you what God has shared with me." And so I think just you mentioned study habits and I thought of this like, I make it my habit to ensure that I sweat in study so that I don't sweat on stage. I find that like impostor syndrome is usually just a lack of preparation. So if I don't want to be nervous, man, and I have preached in some places where I have been so nervous that my face was just burning the whole time and I have no clue what I said. The first time I preached for Robert Moo, I just kept thinking, "That's Robert Moo." Like, the whole time I have no idea what I preached. I was texting his staff a week later like, "Make sure that I preached well. Ask Pastor Robert if the word was good." But whether the word is good or not is irrelevant by comparison to whether or not the preacher was obedient. If I just say what God told me to say and I exhaust it with every bit of my ability and study, then I can step, as you said, out of the secret place into the public space, declare the word of God, and let him take care of how he wants to water and grow the seed. So, those are some thoughts I think that I would add to what you've already shared.

So, well, you guys, I think, let me just add one thing. One thing I've learned as well, and I'm and I'm keep learning, is the waiting upon the Lord. Yeah. Come on, man. Not upon my own intellect or things that are coming inside, but waiting upon the Lord. You know, like in Acts one where Jesus is about to ascend to heaven and he says, he says, "Wait here." Yeah. Come on. Because I'm giving you a gift. A gift is coming, but you need to remain. You need to wait. Don't rush. Sometimes we can get so busy trying to rush our study or rush our prep or think, "I got to do this." It's like, "No, no, just just sit down for a second, bro, and wait upon the Lord because you can't do this in your own strength. You need some power, something greater than you." And so they waited. The day of Pentecost comes and what? Acts two, it's the Holy Spirit comes upon them. And it wasn't anything that they did. It was the Holy Spirit that was upon them. Yes. That made people stop, stare, ask questions, and 3,000 were added that day. Yes. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. And if we don't preach without the Holy Spirit, if we don't prepare without waiting upon the Lord, then we are just a TED talk. That's right. We are just motivational speakers. We are just clever orators. And I don't want none of that. I want I want the Holy Spirit. Because let me tell you this, I am dumb as anything. I feel that. Thank you, bro. You saying that about me or you? Okay, cool. I'm a I'm a redneck from West Kentucky, a village of 600 people with no formal education. I don't know a lot, but I'm hoping when people hear me preach, they're like, "You are unlearned." But I see you have been with Jesus. Yes. I'm an uneducated fool with money on my mind. God, that's uneducated fool. But from East London, I I find myself in Atlanta in in what could be classed as a a Bible belt. And I'm like, I need the Holy Spirit. Yes. I need the Holy Spirit. Don't want to do this. Cannot do this without the Holy Spirit being active in my life and speaking. Yes, sir.

You know, one of the things that Paul tells Timothy about preaching is he says, "Timothy, in preaching, you will save yourself." And um, sometimes when people ask me like, "Do you do series?" We do sometimes. "How do you figure out what you're supposed to preach on on Sunday?" I go, "Um, it's just whatever message Russell needs to hear most." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the temptation early on in ministry is that things that you're struggling with, you hide and you don't preach on them because when you do, you feel like a fraud. Right. Right. Right. But if in preaching I'll save myself. That's true. Then if I'm struggling in my marriage, I'm going to preach the hell out of marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm struggling in my finances, I'm going to preach the mammon out of my finances. If I'm struggling with faith, I'm going to preach the doubt out of my faith. Do you see what I'm saying? Because in preaching, you will save yourself. And you know, on Sunday mornings, we do seven services. And I I preach five of them live. And it's not what I would recommend. It's just we don't have the facility right now to. So, we're trying to, you know, figure some of that stuff out. But then people say, "Well, it's you're preaching a lot and then you're on the road and you're preaching and you know, um, how you know, man, don't don't work too hard. We don't want you to get burnt out." And sometimes as preachers, we can feel burnt out. Like you said, it was a great analogy. You give birth on a Sunday and then Monday, surprise, you know, you're expecting, you know, and it's like, but I think what's important to remember as communicators, they they did a study once, it was either like Harvard or Princeton, but they they hooked up a bunch of like heart meters and different folks to people who were preaching for 45 minutes straight. And they said the amount of energy expended in 45 minutes of preaching equals 8 hours of physical labor. And so, you do that enough, you know, you can feel those things. But I think what's important to remember about burnout is that burnout doesn't come from working too hard. It comes from working in the wrong spirit. So like as a communicator, you got to be aware of your you got to be aware of your spirit. And so it's like if I'm preaching at our 8:30 service in the morning, but like I'm fighting with my wife before, like I need to. That's why scripture says, "Leave your gift at the altar because you don't know what spirit you're operating in." Remember when the disciples are pissed at the Samaritans, they're like, "We're going to call down fire." And Jesus rebukes him. He says, "You know not what manner of spirit you are in." And so like when you're unaware of the manner of spirit that you're operating in, you'll give things away to people that aren't helpful. You know, because like think about Peter in the book of Acts. Um, the Bible says he's walking and his shadow heals people. Because your shadow releases whatever overshadows you. Yes. Yes. So if you got unresolved conflict, you got things that you know, I'm not saying you got to be perfect, but that aren't appropriately at least in the process or whatever. And I think sometimes one of the mistakes that I've learned early on in preaching is that like sometimes instead of going to therapy, I would use Sunday mornings as therapy. Wow. And so that there's a fine line between being honest, but then also like not using the pulpit to satiate your own need for therapeutic help. And so like it doesn't mean that you can't be vulnerable and you can't be true and you can't be you know, all those types of things. But it's like um, I don't want to bleed on people who didn't cut me. Right. Right. Because I'm not in the process of healing from from the wounds. You know, you're upset at that person who left. So now you're preaching real hard that next Sunday about all these fake people and this is the season of God removing fake people and it's like, "You better be careful before you pray for God to remove all your problems because you might disappear." You know, it's like, "You're the you know, no, you're the problem. No, you take you with you wherever you go, you know." And so, you know, for me, it's like, "Okay, I I got to be, you know, like last night I'm walking into service, I get a text from the team and they say, um, we need to buy all new video gear for Sunday." I say, "No, no, we don't." Cuz I just bought all new video gear six months ago, you know. And they said, "Well, somebody somebody broke into the church and stole all the video gear." And I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm not even going to church to preach. I'm not even doing anything." But I still got to be in the right mind to receive. I'm here. I flew from Seattle for a reason. I'm here to receive. I'm here to drink out of a well. And so I don't want nothing to block that by having unprocessed anxiety overshadow me. And so I've got to be able to appropriately compartmentalize so that I can posture myself to receive because it's not just in my preaching that I'll save myself, but in other people's preaching, the word comes alive in me and and faith is released. And so I just think like it's important, you know, cuz like sometimes we find ourselves complaining about the prayers that God answered. "God, grow my church." And then you have to add another service and you're like, "I preach every Sunday." And you're like, "Yeah, you idiot, you prayed for this." That's right. You know, and so it's like, you know, it's like people pray for revival and then it shows up, but it looks different than the last one. So they they kill that which God has b. And that's the thing you got to be aware of. The spirit of religion is the same as the spirit of suicide. They're both trying to kill what God loves. And so like, when you don't understand the manner of spirit you're operating under, you'll find yourself complaining about the prayers that you prayed that God answered in this season. You'll find yourself, you know, making yourself the main character or the victim of the story. Uh, and I I just I just feel like I want to be really aware of whose shadow I'm under because that is what I will release either intentionally, unintentionally, consciously, subconsciously. And that's what I mean when when people will leave un remembering how you made them feel. It's not about an emotion you're trying, but I'm saying that that we use that language in the carnal to describe something that's real in the spiritual. That's why Paul says, "Don't lay hands on men too quickly cuz you go impart something into their life." You got to be careful with what you impart. You ought to be careful with what you give away. And so, you know, for me, it's like, "All right, what what shadow am I up? Well, this is my fifth sermon and I lost my voice and these dang people and somebody stole our video gear." And it's like, "Okay, no, I still got to invite people into like the healed facet of my fractured heart in this moment." and then like, you know, walk them through that because, you know, I want to preach every sermon like my kid is sitting on the back row giving God one more chance. We've got to hold that close to our heart because, you know, people only ever leave your church five minutes before you get on stage. You only ever get that one star Google review notification on your phone three minutes before somebody hands you. It always happens there. Why? Cuz the enemy hates the harvest. He always attacks at harvest time. That's what the Midianites did to Gideon at harvest time, they came to seal the crops. And so, you know, for me, it's like I got to protect that space cuz I'm my shadow is going to loose something on these people who gather on Sunday morning. And I want to be really aware of that which overshadows me. Come on.

Very good. That was amazing. [Music] Thank you so much for watching. I hope this workshop sparked new ideas and strategies for you to take back to your church, your team, and your ministry. If it was helpful, you'll find even more resources in our friends and family network. We're committed to equipping leaders like you to do the work that God has called you to do. And don't forget, VidCon 2025 happening June 19th to the 21st in Miami, Florida. Register, be a part. It's going to be incredible. See you there. [Music]