Transcription
And we are making ourselves ready for that. And meetings like this, though they seem mundane, maybe monotonous, maybe a little heavy on business, or or whatever the case may be, this plays a vital role because this is where our leaders come together under the shepherd, and and our focus is given. We're we're we're trained on our mission and on our vision, and we're setting dates on our calendar to minister to people, and that we're doing it in such a way that is synergistic, Lord God. It's it's it's uh there's unity involved. We're not stepping on each other's toes. We're we're moving. We're flowing uh with with fluidity, Lord Jesus, and and allowing your Holy Spirit to flow through us. And so, I'm grateful for that.
So even these Saturday morning meetings, Lord, as as as sometimes they, you know, they may make us feel, they're important, Lord. And so I thank you for the leaders who have shown up. I thank you that they've come ready, Lord Jesus, and that they are behind this mission and vision of the church. We thank you for it. Bless this meeting that we have. Let it flow the way that you desire it to flow. And may we get some work done in here, Lord. So we just thank you. We want to give you the praise, the glory, the honor, and the worship. And it's in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.
All right. Uh just a reminder, there were some um agendas up there. I don't know if you guys grabbed one, but they're on the the pulpit. And then there's also a signup sheet. So, if you did not sign that up, if somebody could pass that around, uh make sure that you do sign it because when I call down the wrath of God on the people who did not attend, you just kidding. You don't want to be on that list. So, but uh as I always do, I want to start off with a little bit of a devotion. Um you know, we uh through the Assemblies of God, we get this amazing uh sort of periodical. It's a it's a magazine that we get. It's all about leadership. It's all about Christian leadership, leadership within the church and and especially our our Assemblies of God churches.
And so, uh today I wanted I I saw this this amazing uh kind of article in there and it talked about emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence. I don't think we understand how important emotional intelligence is, right? It is key. You cannot succeed as a leader if you are not if you do not possess emotional intelligence because you're going to be all over the place. Emotions are a gift of God. It it it they really um they connect us with who God is because all throughout the word we see our God is a God of of emotions. We see him overjoyed. We see him angry. We talk about the wrath of God, you know. Um we talk about all these different things. God was was upset with his people, and God's wrath was poured out on his people. So he has emotions, and and we have emotions like him. Why? Because we were made in his likeness and in his image. So that part of us, you don't see that within the animal kingdom. You don't see that within anything else in creation except for humankind because of the fact that we were made in God's likeness in his image. So, he has emotions. So do we. The only difference there is, and it's a really huge difference, is that God is fully in control of his emotions while we allow our emotions to control us. That's right. You know what I'm talking about. Say amen. Amen. Okay. All right. I'm I'm in good company. We We know we can sometimes get upset. You could take the holiest guy from the pulpit, put him in a car in the middle of rush hour traffic and have several people cut him off, and that holiness begins to melt like wax while you're listening to worship. While you're listening while you're listening to worship music, you're saying some choice names to your neighbor. So So it it it happens. So emotional intelligence is absolutely imperative, especially if we are called to lead. But it is definitely necessary within just just our our our our Christian experience. Um in order to be Christlike, we have to have emotional intelligence.
So what's the most important leadership skill? Some might suggest vision casting, while others would point to strategic planning, time management, or team building. These are all great by the way. These are amazing things, and these are things that we'll continue to build up within our leaders. While each of these is important, one skill that often rises to the top in leadership discussions is emotional intelligence. Author, psychologist, and emotional intelligence expert Daniel Gleman wrote this about the importance of emotional intelligence. Without it, he says, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but still won't make a good leader. Mhm. Mhm. All of those ingredients are absolutely necessary, and if you possess them, guess what? You have the potential for leadership. But if you cannot get your emotions in check and control them instead of allowing them to control you, then you are going to fail at leadership. That's that's a that's a that's hard. That's heavy, but it's absolutely true. So it's imperative that we are you know working towards that emotional intelligence.
For years emotional intelligence was largely ignored. Today it is widely recognized as a master skill for success. Not just a skill but a master skill for success. What exactly is emotional intelligence? Goldman defines it as the ability to identify, assess, and control one's emotions. Three things there, right? three things he says the ability to number one identify, number two assess, and number three control the em and so that's something that emotional intelligence allows us to do that self that self-awareness and then also it we don't just work on it in ourselves but it it helps us to control not control that but but encourage that emotional intelligence in others like another person or in a group setting as well. I still, you know, we've all grown up in and and went to school and and you know, we were in classes full of people. If you're like me, you you were you grew up or you were in school with a class full of kids, probably more than there should have been. And you knew the the teachers who were emotionally intelligent because they knew how to handle the class even at its peak, you know, misbehaving, you know what I mean? at at that part of the day, you had that one teacher who would just she would wrangle those kids, and and I I I remember seeing teachers like that, and then I remember having the opposite teachers who did not have the emotional intelligence to uh to control that classroom.
We are all leaders and we are all uh over other people. And a lot of times, you know, with kids, it's one thing because we expect them to be all over the place, emotionally all over the place behaviorally. But when you're over adults, which some of you are, and you've got some emotionally, you know, challenged people, they're not practicing self-control. It's very hard to um to encourage them to be in control when they don't have the the tools for it. You know what I mean? And if you have a a leader who is challenged in that area and emotional intelligence, how are we expected to to to see them have success in, you know, providing ministry to those who you're called to provide it to? So somebody who who has that emotional intelligence doesn't just do that for themselves but they do that for others as well.
Uh let's see. Developing emotional intelligence requires leaders to pay attention to four areas. Number one, self-awareness. We have to be in touch with who we are. You know, we have to know who we are. We have to know our strengths. We have to know our weaknesses. We have to know our triggers. All of those different things. Recognizing moods and emotional states and how they impact others. That's what self-awareness is for us. Without self-awareness, you're incapable of making changes because you don't even know a change is needed. There are sometimes when we're approaching a situation or a circumstance in a certain way, and it's the total wrong way. And if you lack self-awareness, you're not even going to know that that's that's wrong. You're just going to keep hitting up against that wall. And we wonder, why isn't this working? Why isn't this working? And and usually what we do because we lack self-awareness, we blame the other person. It's their fault. They're hard-headed. Hold on. Step back and ask God. God, is it me? I'm going to let you know this right now. It is okay for you as a leader in one of our ministries to step back and ask the Holy Spirit. Ask God, "God, am I the problem? Am I? Am I am I? Is it Is it me? because I keep hitting up against this wall. You know what? What? What is What is going on? Let me know if I'm the problem. And if I am, show me where I'm messing up. It is a good thing for us to pray for self-awareness. It is a good thing for us to know who we are, what makes us tick, and again, especially our triggers because there are certain things that you're going that that are going to trigger you. and and your job is to build um uh safeguards for those for those triggers, right? To remove yourself to to to do something, put somebody else in charge of a certain thing. If there's a trigger point for you, you're going to have to learn how to do those things. And self-awareness is the first step. So again, without self-awareness, you are incapable of making changes because you don't even know a change is needed. So that's the first area. That's the first point.
Second point, self-management. That's the fun one. Self-management. Managing yourself. This means controlling your emotions, adapting to change, and acting according to personal values. Okay. So, number one, controlling emotions. As we know, that's a difficult thing for us to do. Some of us when we get angry, we we're seen red. We're in the fog of war. Doesn't matter who it is that assaulted us, what the assault was. It could be something small, something big, something in between. It could be our wife. It could be our kid. It could be some schmo on the street. It could be anybody. And as soon as you get upset, you get to that peak point, and it's hard for you to come down because you see red, right? So, being able to control those emotions again on on the flip side of that, you know, um being sad, you know, getting in a in a in a spot where you're where you're depressed and you're in this funk and it doesn't matter what you see, who you're around. You could be in a room full of loved ones who love you and affirm you, but you still feel like you're on an island, right? Learning how to control those emotions. And the next one was adapting to change, right? So, self-management is controlling emotions, adapting to change. We know that we live in a world that is ever changing. In fact, changes happen more rapidly in our time than they've h than they've they've changed in other time periods before. You have you buy the newest cell phone, and then two weeks later it's obsolete. You know what I I mean, the computers that we were using four years ago are are are laughed at now because of the the speed and the and the memory of of of the new ones. That's not just limited to technology. That's limited to I mean, Sunshine and I were just talking about this the other day, how how my my older kids had no idea what an iPad was or a touchscreen like an iPhone, right? And then my younger one, like Micaia, I I remember seeing him. He's like 2 and a half years old. And he picks up my phone. He's going like this. Mhm. I didn't teach him that. Lorraine didn't teach him that. The kids didn't teach him. It's almost like he was born with this innate sense that, oh yeah, you're supposed to swipe the screen. You know what I'm saying? It's like things are changing and they're changing rapidly. So here's the thing. We either bury our head in the sand and give up or as the old saying goes, adapt or die. We we choose to adapt to the changing times. We don't change the message, we change the way that we present the message. That's right. Right. Uh but but again, there are some people who as soon as change starts takes place, we flip out. We lose it because I'm not good with change. That don't say that. And I mean, you may be true. You might not be good with change, but God can help you through that. And an emotionally intelligent person understands that. While I may not be good with change, my God can help me. He'll help me to adapt in this situation if I'm self-aware enough to say that it's a problem. So self-aware uh self-management, right? So adapting to change. The next part of that was acting according to personal values. You have a set of personal values. The way we manage ourselves is we need to manage ourselves by those personal values. We hold to a moral code. We hold to a code of morals, a code of ethics. Scripture is our foundation. This is how Christians are. This is how Christians act. This is how Christians talk. I need to be that. And that's that's what we hold ourselves to as far as self-management is concerned. Self-management puts you behind the steering wheel of your emotions, ensuring a more pleasant encounter for those who interact with you. I've seen people who are head of ministries that that the people who are underneath them, they love them. They adore them. And then I've seen other ministry heads, they're feared, you know, and not not a good fear. It's a it's it's a bad fear. They don't want to get on that person's bad side or or something like that. This self-management puts us behind the steering wheel and and and and allows us to control those emotions from that that standpoint. Okay.
Uh the third one, social awareness. So we have so self-awareness, self-management, social awareness. Learning how to read the room. All right. Learning how to read the room. Staying attuned to the emotions of others while demonstrating empathy and care. Okay. Staying attuned to the emotions of others while demonstrating empathy and care. What's empathy? Empathy is caring about the other person and caring about them enough to give or to hold back whatever is necessary. Right there you may have a truth that you want to speak to somebody. It's not necessarily, you know, driven by the Holy Spirit. It's just something that's true that you want to say. Read the room. Is it is it an opportunity opportune time to do that? Is it appropriate for me to share what I'm going to to share? I've heard people people just suffered a loss of a loved one. They're a Christian. Your family's grew up in church, and somebody a well-meaning brother or sister in Christ comes to them and tells them a truth about death and about life. And while it's true and it came from a place of love, it was in the wrong time. Mhm. You know, I I remember somebody was was was grieving, and their grief was especially long. They had been grieving the loss of a parent for for a while, and a well-meaning brother in in Christ came to them and said, "It's time for you to stop mourning now. You need the joy of the Lord." And they said it just like that. Well, that's true. Yes, your mourning should end, and you have the joy of the Lord. Embrace that instead of grieve. You can't tell that person when it's appropriate for them to stop grieving. And and if you want to um you know convey that message, you encourage that with your love. You do it in a certain way. So first we need to learn how to read the room. Read the emotions of others. Is this appropriate for me to say? It may be true, but is this the time to say it? I always tell, you know, people, you've heard me talk about tact a lot. Tact is saying the difficult thing in such a way that it doesn't repel somebody, it compels them. Right? You're telling them something that is important, that is truthful, but you're doing it in a certain way that it it it it encourages them to to sort of flow into that instead of just pushing away. So sometimes it's not what we say, it's how we say it. So learning how to read the emotions of others, not just of yourself, is is important as well. So again, staying in tune to the emotions of others while demonstrating empathy and care. Paying attention to emotional cues from others provides insight for responding in a healthy way. All right.
And number four, lastly, relationship management. Some of us are real good at the book work. Some of us are real good at planning and uh creating and and maybe launching, but we're not so good with the people element. We're not so good with building relationships. Programs are great. That's technical. I love putting it together. Boom, boom, boom. But the relationship aspect of it suffers. And when we're when we're heavy on the program side, the program creation, that's great cuz it's important. That's the the the the way that we're going to convey the message, but remember why and and who this message is about. We're supposed to be connecting with people. So everything we do in a t tech te tech uh technical aspect and and program aspect is for the personal aspect. is for relationships, right? Jesus had a a whole bunch of things that he taught, but he never forgot why he taught or rather who he taught it for. It was people. It's always people. So, relationship management, navigating emotions successfully, handling conflict effectively, and cultivating healthy interactions. So, you know that when you connect with people, there's going to be beauty in that. There's going to be a synergistic relationship where you're getting, they're getting, and that's how it works. But you also know that when you connect yourself with other people, it's not always going to be good. There's also some negativity that comes across. You're dealing with somebody else's negative emotions. You're dealing with somebody else's character flaws or personality traits that aren't aren't so uh aren't so positive. You are you are putting yourself in position to have issues, right? In order to have an effective relationship, both parties have to make themselves vulnerable to the other, right? And when we're vulnerable to each other, that's where real relationships are built. But also, that's where some real pain can be felt as well. When you make somebody vulnerable, you're make yourself vulnerable to somebody else, you're handing them the schematics to your life, and they're seeing what what makes you happy, but also what ticks you off. And then you're trusting them not to push that button that says explode. You know, I can only hold it back so long. At some point you press that button that says explode, I'm going to explode. So that's what relationships are. We're being vulnerable to each other. We have to learn how to manage those relationships. I love how it says navigating emotions successfully. Uh handling conflict effectively and cultivating healthy interactions. You've got to navigate through not only your own emotions but other people's emotions as well. Handling that conflict. You're going to have conflict not just with you and the other person, but sometimes you're going to have conflict within the the leaders that you are cultivating, that you're building up. They're going to they're going to bump heads sometimes. You have to learn as a leader from a from a a foundation of emotional intelligence how to handle that conflict in a biblical way, right? We have to handle those things in in in a biblical way. So, handling is is a big part of it. And again, lastly, cultivating. I love the fact that he uses the word cultivate because it gives me that idea that we are basically gardeners and we are we are uh raising up these these little shoots, you know, these these little these people who are growing like plants. And cultivating means that you're pulling weeds, you're feeding, you're watering, you're giving sunlight, you're doing everything you can, paying meticulous attention to detail in raising these these people up. So the ability to manage relationship relationship management the ability to management the sorry the ability to manage the emotional dynamics of relationships reveals leaders maturity and people skills. If you see yourself being able to do that, that's that's a mark of a great leader, right? And while all those other things that we read about are great ingredients to leadership, it has to start with emotional intelligence because that can either make or break you as a leader. Amen. Amen. The spiritual side of of emotional intelligence closely resembles the fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5:22 and 23 says, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law." The fruit of the spirit shapes every part of our lives, including interactions with others. As we grow in Christlike character, we will also grow in emotional intelligence.
Only will our personal relationships benefit, but our leadership will flourish at an entirely new level. Mhm.
And that idea of cultivating. And then you match that with Galatians 5, the fruit of the spirit. That's what God wants to see in us. The fruit of the spirit is the evidence of the Holy Spirit working in your life. And when you are allowing the Holy Spirit to lead you, you can't help but become a person of emotional intelligence. And it's those fruits that will be evident to all those that you're called to lead. They'll see that in your life. And the greatest thing is they won't just see it, but they'll want to mimic that. They'll want those fruits to grow in their life. Amen. And if you are leading from that that that that standpoint of emotional intelligence, success, that's the only way that you can go. Amen. Amen.
Any questions on that? Any thoughts or anything? How do you do that? How?
Yeah. By not doing I just want to encourage everybody you know if you don't have a buddy to uh want to publicly thank our pastor; he is my sounding board for a lot of things, and I just want to encourage everybody if you don't have a sounding board for things like this, because it these are uh things that we face uh monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, depending on where you are in in that. So, um you know, it's a a really good idea to be able to talk things out, hash things out with somebody. And I actually watched our pastor was a really good listener, in case you didn't know that. Um but I I saw him with the young man last night the entire altar time. This young man was just pouring out his heart to him and just talking with him. And our pastor sat there was you know, and said maybe three words. Um, so I just want to give him kudos. Um, watch do that. That was Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, but also just encourage everyone here that if you don't have a buddy to get a buddy, because some of these things that we're talking about are not supposed to be gone for long. Yeah. And we are made better together. Yeah. We are made. So, and nobody's nobody's Thank you, Jay. I appreciate that big time. Um, and and nobody's nobody's expecting you to be perfect in this.
That's right. Right. But what God is asking us is to be perfected for this. That's right. It's a process. We're being perfected. Emotional intelligence doesn't come just like that. You have to actively and intentionally work it out in your life. And what Jason said, it's not even part of this, but it it it it's actually works as a companion. You you don't you can't build this up alone. You got you need somebody in your life, whether that's your spouse, whether that's a a good friend, a brother or sister that you're super close with that you can trust and that you can count on, right? So, they'll be able to check you when you're not showing too much emotional intelligence and they'll be able to encourage you, bro, that was that was solid what you just did or you know, and just being able to encourage you. So, we can't do this by ourselves. Like Jason said, we're better together than we are apart. So, we need each other for that. But it's something I think that we should all be working towards.
Yeah. Um, very powerful and meaningful devotion this morning. I had three thoughts and I took some notes as well. Number one is like most things that God gives you is this parallel in the professional world. Yeah. Um, I'm some things I actually talked to about this. If if you don't have good in in the world, they call it an EQ. Mhm. If you don't have EQ, you're in big trouble. You will not promote. Your company will not sustain itself. I mean, countless hours are spent in the business realm training people on how to be emotionally intelligent. The second thing I wanted to say that just stuck out to me is know your weaknesses. You said the right word, know your triggers. There are things that I've been working on for years and I know someone starts talking about that, then my blood starts to boil and I'm like, take a step back. Like you're going to be reactive and not say the right thing. And then the third thing that I just recently learned is there's a big push right now in texting and email. Like you got you don't know who's reading your message and you should write it and like wait hours or even overnight and then say, do you really want to send that out forward to someone else? And this is where a lot of multi-million dollar deals have been lost. Someone wrote the wrong email. I've seen that first time like you got to really stop the big texting email posting on social media. Who's your audience? What's going to be interpreted? I also just wonder what Jason said is you need someone to be honest with you. Like am I being a total jerk right now? Am I happy? Am I coming too strong? And if you don't have people in your life who will tell you, yeah, bro, like you're you're you're screwing up. Yeah. If you don't have those people in your life, you need to find someone quick. That's right. So if everyone's just nodding, oh yeah, brother Dean, you're you're right. No, you're never wrong, bro. You know, that's echo chamber. That's not healthy, right? You're hitting for disaster. So, thank you for that wonderful devotion. Amen.
No, I appreciate that. And and just kind of piggybacking on on what Dean said and then we'll we'll move on from this is that that person will be able to check you when you're cuz you're allowing them. You're giving them permission. Bro, that was kind of hard. Oh, I was going to ask you if it was. Oh, that was hard, bro. You might want to soften that next time. And what when that happens, when you allow that to happen and you give that that person the freedom to to speak over your life, remember they're not hurting you. And if you do get offended by it, hey, it's a good thing because Proverbs tells us that wounds from a friend can be trusted. They weren't wounds given to hurt you. They were wounds given to to to strengthen you and to correct you. And then something happens. You start hearing that person's voice in your head. The next time that you are you're thinking, "Okay, I need I need to I need to check this." I have notes in in my notes on my phone where I've typed out the text or the email and I've sat on that for days. I've edited just what you said. I was I was getting goosebumps when you're saying this. That's what I do. I edit it. I never press send unless I'm fully sure, especially if it's that important. It can make or break a relationship or or make or break a situation. You have to check it and recheck it and ask them, "Hey, does this sound okay?" Me and my wife, we do that for each other. and and and it's important that we have somebody to do that. And again, eventually you start hearing that person in your head and you start checking yourself before you wreck yourself. Praise God, right? As the as the old adage goes, you know, but but I think well, and in today's world, it's all about text and email, right? But a lot of times people when they're reading that text or email, they just receive it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can't read emotion in it. Because you can't read emotion in it. And so someone can have be have a bad day and they're reading it and they're like, "Oh my god, why are they yelling at me?" You know, and so you put it in all caps. Oh, I'm sorry. That was an accident. Yeah, it looks nice. It looks nice in all caps. A lot of times, you know, because we do that in the office a lot of times. It's like you need to follow step up with phone call. Absolutely. No, but so that's something some some food to to kind of, you know, let digest. Um uh and it's something I think we can all even from the top down, myself included, cuz I'm a hothead naturally. So I have to really really check myself on on these things. Yeah, a lot of you don't know that about I'm I'm a hothead, man. God God has lengthened my views, but when I started, well, I was one of those that you had to light and throw because that's that's how it went. Anyways, let's go ahead and move on cuz I know we've got a busy busy day, especially uh uh our young adults. So we want to get you in and out. So, what we're going to do with the calendar today is we're going to have uh Pastor Sunshine's going to read through the dates that are coming up and and uh from from the next few months and then we're going to go around if there's any changes if there is changes to your dates or you're you're not going to have something or you you need to add something, we can do it with that. Okay. So, Pastor Sunshine, go for it. Lead us through that calendar, sir. Okay. So, uh, right now how many of those just like I have a couple drink and just on the outside yesterday you just see a lot of people engaged, excited and everything going on. It's neat to see the next wave of leadership and teaching and everything like that.