Latest / Jess Ask / Balancing Business and Ministry Through God’s Grace | FT Omar Eltakrori | EP121

Transcript

Balancing Business and Ministry Through God’s Grace | FT Omar Eltakrori | EP121 · Jess Ask

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Yo, it's your girl Jessica and Smith and you already
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: know that you've entered the safe space for influencers to decompress, have.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Fun and just ask God for another day? Do you
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: already know what it is?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And then you know it's about thee So be sure
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to show your girl the love and like coming and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: subscribe God.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: For another day. Hey, hey, I know we could be
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: another way.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: What's up gall y'all know where y'all landed.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: You've landed in this safe space where influencers can decompress,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: half one fun and guess what, Just as listen y'all,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: my girl Deserreate is not on the other side of me,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: but who I have on the other side of me.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait to introduce. But you know what we
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: have to do first? We have to do community highlight time,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the whole community highlight time to get a song for
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that desk. We're gonna have to get a song because
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I feel it in my shudole the community has been
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: asking for.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But I know what song they like. Desert Desert does a.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: RAI we have songs. We have it's we have fun here.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, looking like, what's going on? What did we
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: come to Jennifer Hudson.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So or no did I go down the walking line?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: But no want to shout out desertate does raised behind
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the camera today? You see this set up. It's different
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: for drinking coffee. We're about to have fun. We have
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to have good communication. But I want to shout out
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to everyone that it attended the podcast summit. Man. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: got so much love at the party because something. I
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: met so many creators and I want to give you
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: permission to create. Creators create, Okay, And so I'm really
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: excited about what is happening in this season for us
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: as creators. People are more so encouraging each other, pushing
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you and not only just to create, but to give
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: your give you you la la lah, give you and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: your family an opportunity to build not only community but wealth.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And so I'm super excited because the person I have
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: next to me is the content to Cash King.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Okay. He is very well endowed.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You might know him from Think Media, but he definitely
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: has his own platform in the video department, and I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I learned so much from it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: But also my favorite part of him is that he's
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a believer in Jesus Christ and so I introduce and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: present none other than the Great Omar Elcati.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: How you doing it? Thank you? What's my song?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Omar oh mar us go omar Omar Omar Omar, Omar
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Omar go omar go omar.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It's your birthday, No it's not.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: It's weeks ago Arts birthday a couple of weeks ago.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Well, we celebrated Happy Blake Birthday, our Happy Blair birthday,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: when we super excited.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Why we can make this happen.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we can make this happen.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So fun fact, I met Omar at the first podcast
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I'm at in twenty twenty three.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I think that was twenty.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Three, Miami, Florida.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Oh that was a that was a.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Flight, that was a fight. It was Miami, Florida. And
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't know who he was. Everybody was just like
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: so excited to see you, and I had no idea
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: who you were. And after you you said these words,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: you was like, oh, yeah, when i'm when I when
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I pastor or something like that. That's all I heard.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh, he's given this
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: this amazing dialogue and teaching so well, and he's a pastor,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like how are we merging business and church?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And that was what was going on in my mind.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So I was appreciative that you go you felt led to,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: or you have gone beyond the pool pit for those
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that are having struggle going to be on the pulpit,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: like you've been able to what would be your encouragement
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: for them? Because I know that sometimes we try to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: separate the church from everything.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well that's I think that that action trying to
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: separate is just simply an external thing of what's happening internally,
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: and that is that you compartmentalize your spiritual walk and
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: your day to day life, when your spiritual walk and
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: your faith should influence the mundane things in life.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: And there is something I mean, I've been a.
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: Church builder for over a decade and I think since
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: twenty twelve, and something I notice, and it's not even
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: like an obvious thing or it's not even a secret thing,
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  Speaker 5: is that ninety nine point ninety nine percent of the
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: population and even of population that attends church and has
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: a walk with the Lord, they're not in ministry, they.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Don't work at a church. Yeah, And so.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: If that is like a true, if that's true, then
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  Speaker 5: I should act as if that's true. And uh, and
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: so the the over spiritualizing or the compartmentalizing a lot
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: of times gets in the way of just being effective.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And I find that something that I live by is
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: the goal isn't to be right, The goal is to
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: be effective. And so many times people want to be
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: right with politically right, theologically right, right right right right?
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: When what does effective look like? What does connecting look like?
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: Because I believe Jesus was effective.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Bear muscle, yeah, fear muscle.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: When you were talking, it made me think about Now,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know address is a word. And I get
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Peter and Paul missed up every day, but I'm one
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of them saying that he's learned how basically to adapt
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to what he needs to be. Is how have you
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: learned in that space how to adapt what you need
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  Speaker 1: to be where you need to be?
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really good.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: So if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, I got the same
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Bible Dick Slexia, Like I believe Paul says to the Gentiles,
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: I become gentiles. To the Jews, I become Jews. Or
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: and so that I don't think everyone can do it.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: I want to say easyly easily because there are people
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: who are early in their walk and they are spiritually immature,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: and they are they become what is called a product
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: of their environment. So they can't go into a space
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: and influence the space. Rather the space influences them. Now,
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: Romans twelve two says, don't be conformed to the patterns
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: of this world. Don't be influenced from the outside in,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: so that's like inside out. So your ability to go
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: inside an environment and then influence or encourage or empower
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: I think that comes with knowing who you are and
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: knowing what you believe, and and and I just see
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: too many people in my space thought leaders and things
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: like that. They're literally saying what they want to say,
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: whether it's true or not. And I figured, I know
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: the truth and it's in me. It's like, literally, I'm
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: a man of God's word. I'm actually I think something
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: I want to make very clear is I'm not trying
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: to merge anything. I'm not trying to include scripture when
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: I talk. I didn't have notes yesterday. It's and I
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: actually believe what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: will remind you of all truth, is what Jesus told
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: the disciples. And so I just focus on consuming the
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: word of God, and at the right time, the Holy
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: Spirit will remind me of all truth. And so even
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: even memorizing scripture isn't like a that's that's literally saying
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: I'm going to do the job of God, like you know,
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: people want to, you know, put the sticky notes and
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: put it everywhere. And I mean, anyway, that's that's.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: An I'm so glad you because sometimes we can like
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: make loving God so hard, like goodness, we make.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: It, we make it hard. There, God does nothing to
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: make it hard. He actually did everything to make it easy.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: So he called up, No, there was a bar. You
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: gotta repeat that.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: You gotta repeat that. Do you remember what you just said.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: I said, God doesn't make anything hard. He's done everything
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: to make it easy.
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  Speaker 1: He's done everything to make it easy because because it
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: basically tells him like we don't believe what happened on
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the cross. No, I'm sorry, I'm just I'm just so
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: amazed because sometimes when we simplify, when we simplify the thing,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: we also at the same time realize how much we've
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: dramatized certain certain messages.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Of the Bible.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there there is a train of thought
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  Speaker 5: and that is like hard is holy?
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  Speaker 1: M m.
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  Speaker 5: So if I'm struggling financially, I'm holy. If I'm you know,
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  Speaker 5: if I'm going through it from in a valley holy
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: when no, like, is there times where God will call
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: you into a season of sacrifice or into something where
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: you have to rely on Him more than another.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, However, it is just very clear in scripture.
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  Speaker 5: Even Jesus literally told the people in Matthew eleven. He said,
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: come to me, all who are weary and heavy burden.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Come to me, all who are experiencing hardship, like going
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: through it feel like they're going against the grain. Yeah,
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: and come to me and I will give you rest.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Does rest sound hard? A rest for your soul? Does
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: that sound hard? And then he says, for my yoke
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: is easy and my burden is light. Does this sound
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: This is why it's so important in the church that
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: you leave on Sunday not feeling heavy.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: You should leave feeling lighter.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Because revelation literally, I mean that's a double line, Tandra,
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: But the revelation really means light and when you become
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: aware of something, and you get in perspective and you
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: get insight, you should feel lighter.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: And yeah, it's funny because because I try to.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: There's something Myron has taught me is like you get
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: to choose what you believe is hard, you really do. Like,
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: if you believe scaling your business is a hard thing,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: then then your approach to it will be like it's hard.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: But if you know it's like, it's possible. They've done it,
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: They've done it, they've done it. What in me is
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: making me not see or you know? And so just
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: let me do what I have to do to become
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: more aware so that it's it appears more easy.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: But I one of my biggest pet peeves is when
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: people say marriage is hard, why.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Does you make marriage look fun?
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: I will say that, well, because it is fun.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: Like now, I personally don't believe that any gift from
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: God is hard. So if marriage is a gift from
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: God to us, are we making it hard? Have we
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: told ourselves that marriage is hard? Why would God give
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: us a gift and put hard something hard on us? No,
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: marriage is a blessing. Marriage is to refine me. Does
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: marriage take work?
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: Yes? Of course it's human and human.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I literally, me and Art had a little
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: pow wow in the car and I wish we didn't,
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: but we we did because we're human.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: And I had to apologize. Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: You know, I didn't have my first cup of coffee yet,
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: you know. And and and the reality is that I
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: see it, Like, the reason why I believe marriage is
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: so easy is because I married somebody number one that
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: I trusted the Holy Spirit in them. So I knew
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: if I couldn't change Amanda and I and I can't,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: that God can. And Amanda know she can't change me,
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: but she believes God can because I have the whole spirit.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: And so and so I get to have spend every
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: day with my best friend. I get to process my dreams,
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: she gets to process her dreams. We get to work
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: through together things and journey through life like all this stuff.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you know what sounds hard doing it alone?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: I think singleness is hard?
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Can we pray for me a man? Okay? Omar?
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Like no, while you're talking, Omar, all I can hear
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: is like what I've heard in church, right, what I've heard,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, you're a signed you're signed made
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: or you're a sign. But then when you think about assignments,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: you think you go directly to hart you. So I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: think that the language that we use because you're like, oh,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: this is my blessing, you know, like my family's my business,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: my wife is my blessing.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I think is it is?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But let me let me this is what's coming up
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: for me right now. Omar the idea I think it was.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I think it was Paul where he was talking about
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: like being single in the word and how like it
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: was a blessing to be single, but you just said
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: that the opposite of it is. So I think that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I find that very interesting because I hear so many
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: married people say, oh.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I don't get to do this, so I won't get
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: to do this.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Like what do you say two married couples that say
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: they use it language that.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: They don't get to do certain things.
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that might be true, right, Like I don't get
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: to go to the bar at night.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: And hang out for until past twelve. Neither do I
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: want to.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: But like sure, but yeah, something that you're bringing up,
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: based on what Paul said, is that you get to decide.
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: You get to decide what you believe about the season
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: you're in, and the season you're in could be a
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: blessing or it could feel like a curse. And I
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: use the words feel like a curse, you know, And
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: oftentimes when we don't live in obedience to God, then
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: life does feel like a It's not that God's cursing you,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: but there's a direct correlation between obedience and blessing. We
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: don't obey for the blessing, but as a byproduct of obedience,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: God does bless us.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: And if we are just.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Being obedient and doing what He says and trusting him,
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: then then the season you're in will always be a blessing.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Omar, I think you're in my brain because one thing
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I admire about you is your faith, and like you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: exude that you trust God like you just you just
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: live like you just trust God. And have you always
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: been like that? And if you haven't, what was your
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: pivot point?
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: So good?
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: Yes, I mean I was actually raised Catholic because my
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: mom's Filipino, so that's like a whole thing. Like Catholics
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: and Mexicans have a different form of Catholicism. It's like
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: marries the goat, not Jesus.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: She deserved. Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: So something I learned the growing up because church was
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: a priority was a reverence for God, a fear for God.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: Now it maybe in some sense could have been unhealthy
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: because because it was so connected to tradition and obligation
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: and stuff like that. But I see the extreme of
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: other people who believe in Jesus and then they by
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: you know, they have because of grace, they have the
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: license to live the life they want to live. So
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: but I'm grateful that growing up, Yes, I built a
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: reverence for God. And then when I got saved in
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: twenty eleven, and when I say saved, I mean you know,
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: there was a moment of decision where I said, I
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: trust you Lord with my life. Yeah, And I think
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: many times that's so many people will come to that
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: place and they'll experience a moment, the moment of salvation,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: but they don't step into sanctification and that's its own process.
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: And so I think the reason why maybe I exude
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: that I so trust God is because when I started
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: studying scripture, and I was discipled in studying scripture by
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: the way, like I actually think if you just open
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: up the Bible and you like, you know, you go.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Like that, and God speak to me and then you
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: read it that's very dangerous.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And when I learned how to study scripture and
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: interpret the Bible, you realize that theologically God's created himself,
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: you know, as the Trinity, God, the Father, God, the
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: Son God, the Holy Spirit. And I initially put too
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: much emphasis on on Jesus, where it's everything's about Jesus.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: God's not jealous of either one of those because he
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: is three and one. But theologically and in my mind,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: I was thinking about my relationship with Jesus, when theologically
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: we shoul be thinking about our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Jesus said, it's better that I go.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: That's so good.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So it was actually around so save twenty eleven.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: I want to say around twenty fourteen fifteen is when
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: the revelation of focusing for the rest of my life
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: on my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I think that's
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: what changed.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to tape for granted, because we have
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the algorithm goes with YouTube and sometimes you're
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: watching something and you don't know what it is, So
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: how would you explain the Holy Spirit? And then afterwards,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: how do you gain relationship.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: With Holy Spirit. Yeah, well don't I won't say what
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: the Holy Spirit is.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: What I think the Holy Spirit in the Scripture is
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: a comforter, helper, and the Holy Spirit.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Is God with us in us.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: And so we have this blessing on this side of
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: eternity at this moment in time that we have God
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: with us, like we do realize the people in the
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Bible that we read about, they didn't have the Holy Spirit,
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: like they couldn't walk in the spirit. And so the
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: Holy Spirit is God with us. Now, how do you
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: grow in the Holy Spirit. You grow in the Holy
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: Spirit by learning more about God. When you learn about
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: the characteristics of God, and you do that by reading
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: the Gospels, and you do that by filling yourself in
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: with the with the Word. Then, because you know more
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: of God than you can recognize his voice. And so
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: God's not going to tell you anything that he wouldn't
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: that wouldn't align with his character. But you wouldn't know
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: that unless you knew the Word. And the more time
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: you spend in the Word, the more you get to
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: know God. And it's not like God becomes more, No,
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: our awareness of God becomes more.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: And so that's how I mean.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: They hit me just right.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: He says, it's not like God becomes more, our awareness
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: of God becomes more because God is already like it
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: is what it is, like he is where he is.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Like, that's so good.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Earlier you were talking about you brought up a good word, grace.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Recently we've been doing a stewardship challenge and in the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: community we've been meeting every Monday, and our last meeting
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: we talked about our relationship with grace and what came
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: up through Holy Spirit was our relationship with Grace is
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: not good because our relationship with our weakness is not good.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Based upon taking Corinthians twelve, if I'm not mistaken where
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: he says, Paul says, my.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: Grace is sufficient, and in time of weakness, my strength
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: is made perfect. So I boast all the more in
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: my weakness.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: How what I'm curious to know, what how did you
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: learn to boast in your weakness?
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And what is your weakness? Because I can't tell?
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the beautification of the scripture because
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it says my power is perfected in your weakness. Can
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you explain, like what has been your what people would
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: deem that you're strong in but you're really weakened.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: And you lean on God for yeah.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, well, I think first let's go back to
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: just grace in and of itself. Like if we understand
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: what grace is, grace is it's it becomes more helpful.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: But grace is the unmerited favor of God. Also, grace
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: is getting what we don't deserve. And I even like
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: something I do, is I even like to give it?
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: Make it even more simple. Grace is God's yes. So
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: when you realize that God's already given you the yes,
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: the approval, the affirmation, this is my beloved son or
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: daughter and whom I'm will please. When you Realize's given
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: you that yes, when you realize God's put on skin
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: and bone and lived a similess life so that we
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: can experience salvation as a gift for my for it
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: is by grace we've been saved. For it's by my
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: my yes, my heavy lifting, my going first. When you
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: realize that, then then it's just the concept that God
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: comes first in anything. And when it comes to boasting
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: in my weakness. I mean, I would say, because like
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: Corinthians was a it was a correctional letter. So I
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: mean contextually, I'm sure Paul is just encouraging the Corinthian
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Church in the fact that we actually also we have strengths. Yeah,
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: and when when you boast about your weakness, here's what's
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: beautiful about that is is it just acknowledges that God
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: could fill it for his perfect maser. So, so a
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: weakness in my wife's life was she didn't have a
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: good dad. But if you, if if you're not boastful
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: about the voids in your life and the things you
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: need God to you know, show up in, then you
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: might try to do it yourself and your own strength.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: And you think about in every area of life, that's marriage,
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: you think about in business. If you boast about your weakness,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: then you can fire higher help that is helps you
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: become strong.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So how does the us your wife?
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I always going to say, well, what's cool is
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: then God puts God puts spiritual fathers in my wife's
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: life when she was at when we were at a
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: different church a handfull of years ago, and and those
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: men walked her down the aisle, and that pastor Henry
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: he married us. And it was just really cool. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: so when I when I think about that, that's the
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: grace of God. The grace of God is a mandon.
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: We none of us deserve what we There's nothing we deserve, right. Yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: we may feel like we deserve to all have a
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: loving father and a father that's present, and a father
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: that provides and all those things. And I'm trying to
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: be those things. But even me trying to be those
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: things that I come short, you know, but God.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Fulfills those voids.
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And so I think I think in many cases
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: it's it's really important to be so self aware about
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: what you're weak in so that God could feel it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: And all God is saying is saying just acknowledge that
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: you don't have it right, and it's okay. There's there's
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: something beautiful about acknowledging weakness. You know, when somebody and
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: I actually felt I actually feel away. Now I'm not offended,
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: but I feel a way when you say I have
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: no weakness, because like, I am far my goodness, I
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: am so far from everything that I feel like, whether
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: I'm what I'm trying to accomplish, whatever God's doing in
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: me and still pruning from me, I'm so far. I genuinely,
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: in my mind, I feel so far from it.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Because you're with you every day. That's something Marvel say,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, Myron said, and he was talking about just
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: how we hold ourselves back because we know what lies
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: we've told ourselves. But he was like, you're with you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: every day, but when I see you, it's I think
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: why I made that statement was mostly because the way
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you've framed and you've embraced your weakness, it does it
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: does not look like a weakness you've leaned into to God.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: And I think that's an art. I think that's a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: there's time's well spent with the Lord. I think there's
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: time where you've just fully released yourself and somebody that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: personally deals with control because I've lost a lot of things.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: It's like I want to get there, but it's a
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: fear there. It's like, Okay, if I release all control,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: what does it look like? But it looks like what
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: your life looks like.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And so I think for me, it's a reverence thing
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of you being able to walk through your weakness and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: still try like you trust God period like real bad.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I guess something.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: There are things I don't talk about because they are
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: so they are so familiar to me, and some of
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: the things that I do that are very boring and
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: very familiar.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: Is wake up early and read the Bible.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, like when I say you need to know
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: the Word of God, I've learned to know God through
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: fifteen minutes a day in the scriptures. But you just
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: I actually I'm teaching how to read the Bible at
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: our church. And I was telling him, like, a great
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: place to start and a great place to stay is
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: just read a proverb of the day. There's thirty one Proverbs.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: It's the Book of Wisdom. It's super practical. It might
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: take you five or seven minutes.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Start there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: If it's the eighth, then go to Proverbs eight and
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: then read Proverbs eight. Okay, then go to the New Testament,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: maybe read a couple chapters or whatever you know. And
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: then I said, yeah, so I've been doing that since
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: twenty eleven or twenty twelve. And then I was like,
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: what's that math, and like, because that's just like an
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: easy thing to do. Everyone like what they did was
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: they did thirty one times twelve times twelve and it
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: was actually the wrong number because I felt like the
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: math wasn't mathing. And then someone in the church, actually
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: he's like, hey, I nerd it out. I went home
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: and I actually did the math and he said he
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: said every he said everyone was I think the number
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: was like three hundred and thirty six or something like
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: three hundred and sixty six. But he said, no, you've
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: read each proverb. You've read total proverbs read forty three
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: hundred times in the last twelve years. But that which
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: is like, it was just crazy that he like used sheets.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: It just shows how people's brains work.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and why you're so needed because one of the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: things I've found myself is is like, oh my gosh,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I have to think like that and it's like no,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: That's why she started with you, telling you like this
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is different, just because different, and I've had to learn
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: how to embrace it. I don't want to get too
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: far by past.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: This last thing.
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: I want to say that's boring because I want people
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: to know it's no. It's boring is waking up fifteen
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: minutes and having a cup of coffee and reading and
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: reading like that's that's boring.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: When I say that that's boring, that's not a viral clip.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: What's also not a viral clip is being in church
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: every Sunday What's also not a viral clip is submitting
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: the spiritual authority. What's also not a viral clip is
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: knowing that my wife is part you're partnering with the
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Holy Spirit. That's a that's not a viral clip. Like
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: if I do something and my wife doesn't feel good about.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: It, she's right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: So those are all things that I think when I
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: talk about game and strategy and content, it's coming from
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: that foundation, which not many people are willing to accept
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: or live in.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: And so so yeah, let's get into the.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Tactics a viral clip by saying that no, so omar,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I got so many questions for you right.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Now, Okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go in the order.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: How about let's forget the algorithm. Let's act like the
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: algorithm don't matter.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So let's go. Let's go with church. This is a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: personal question, like very personal with you just saying I
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: submit to authority. I'm going to church every Sunday, X,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Y and Z.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a PK. All right, I've been to
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: church all my.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Life, and uh, this stage of my life, I'm finding
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: it challenge challenging because there is a demand that's being
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: put on me to go after the entrepreneurship, be a
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: content creator, have the podcast, and it's me and Desiree right,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, how am I balancing all this?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I'm used to serving. I have no problem with serving,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm struggling finding that balance, especially because I'm called to.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: A build up like my church will Hope with Church Birmingham.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I love y'all.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I have great pastors, I have a great community, but
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: we just don't have the numbers yet. And I know
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that you've been with your church or have been with
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a church that you started building, right, how did you
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: find that balance of being an entrepreneur and still actively
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: serving your church without letting it fall, Because I feel
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: like I'm feeling in there.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: First, I feel like I have an encouragement that will
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: potentially set you free. And that's just based on the
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: handful of conversations we've had in the last couple of days.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: I've heard you say I'm a PK and I know
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: what you're doing by just letting me know that. But
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: I think when you say it, deep down, you're creating
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: an identity that almost I should I should assume a
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: million things when you say that right, and I can.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: I can helpfully because I get where're coming from. I'm
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: a PK, which means I've been in church my whole life,
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: which means I have a way of thinking, which means
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: I have a pressure, which means like, but I want,
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I want to free you and let you know that
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: the like, yes, you're a PK, you're a pastor's kid,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: but your future doesn't have to look like how most
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: future pastor kids futures look like. God's so much bigger
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: than tradition. And when you say I walk in, I
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: blend it so well. Honestly, the challenge I had early
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: on was I didn't have There wasn't any example of
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: somebody walking the way I walked.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: And it was a friend of mine.
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: Her name is Heather, who used to work at Think Media,
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: and really the revelation that God used her to set
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: me free, and it was like, for you, Omar, it's
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: to do both. And so if you know you're supposed
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: to do both, God's giving you the grace to do both.
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: And sometimes people think it needs to be one way,
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: and it's like no, God's given you grace specifically you
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: to do both things. So just know that God's given
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: you that, and walk in that. Don't be ashamed when
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: you're leaning more ministry for a season, You're leaning more
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: business for a season because God's giving you the grace
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: to do that. And and so I found that, like
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: what I was looking for is I was looking and
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: I was keeping my my, my my spirit in a
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: traditional mindset, like it must look traditional that I can't.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: I can't make content on YouTube that has nothing to
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: do with religion and spirituality and be a pastor Like
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: that makes no, I haven't, I don't haven't seen that before.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: But but God is so bigger, so much bigger than tradition.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: And so I just want to encourage you, like I
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: almost wanted, I almost want to tell you to every
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: time you feel like you're gonna say I'm a peak,
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: I almost want you to remove it from your vocabulary.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: You could say I've been in church my whole life,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: but you being a PK means nothing about your future.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: I can do that because God's bigger than your than
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: that idea that we've created, that we created in our mind,
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: you know. And so the question was you feel this
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: pressure to help build the church, and then you have
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: this thing in your heart, which if you love the Lord,
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: that's not you. That's the Lord putting the desire in
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: your heart. The Bible says in Psalms, delight in the Lord,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Well,
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: we'll get the desires because we delighted in him. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: so it's actually God's desires in us.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: The shame or guilt you feel because it has to
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: be you is actually not a God thought because because
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: Jesus is building his church now he uses us to
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: build the church. But building church is so much bigger
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: than us, so much bigger than me. And so if
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: I ever feel like this, it has to be me
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: or I can't. Like Number one, this is where we
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: most Christians, I believe, need to grow in in emotional
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: intelligence to have a healthy conversation. And it might be
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: with leadership and say, hey, I'm starting to feel like
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: it's a lot and and I'm and I'm trying to
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: also build this thing over here. Is it cool if
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: I step back? Is it cool if for a season?
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: Is it cool if if I if I let this
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: person do part of what I'm entrusted with, is it
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: like having these conversations and doing them up when you
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: feel it is I would I would say most pastors
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: want to be invited into the process of what's happening
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: in your mind, because what tends to happens people are like, Oh,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: we feel culled to move and we're going to be
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: moving over there, and thank you so much for everything,
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: and they're like, what, I would have loved to process
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: that with you, you know, but but just know it's
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: so much bigger. So so there's been seasons where it
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: was heavy demand on me and I never had a
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: desire to be in back in full time ministry and
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: collect a check like I now I do have a
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: desire to give a lot, be present, like not just
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: be just you know, blessed to church financially. No, I
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: want to be blessed to church with my presence and
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: with my mind and with my voice. But when things
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: got beyond my ability to oversee, I had conversations with
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: my pastors, and specifically one I remember was the small
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: group ministry. It was just crazy, like I mean, we
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: started the church with it and then created systems and
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: did trainings. Me and my wife led this ministry, and
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: it got to a point where I said administratively, I
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: can't lead this and do what I'm doing at the
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: same time. So can we either add it to somebody's
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: plate that is on the team or hire somebody This
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: is important ministry.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And then I'm so glad that we made that happen.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: I'm no longer a part of the small group industry
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: just years after that conversation because God so much bigger
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: than me being the one building that ministry. Now I'm
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: in a different role than I'm learning as a legacy pastor,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: which which coincides and helps with I don't know, it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: like a blessing, like this wasn't a role that our
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: church ever had, but it's like this is you know,
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: it's on It's on Omar to lead people who trust
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: God financially and believe in the vision of the church,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: you know. And so I think just having a heart
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: like these conversations and I don't even want to call them
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: hard conversations. They're just conversations about the future yea, and
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: things you feel. But I never I like, I just
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: want you to I want to encourage you that, like
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: God's not putting that pressure on you now, man can
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: be and and and I think this is where we
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: can fall into like you know, the demand, hey where
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: are you?
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: Where have you been?
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: You know, and like feeling like you're living a sinful life.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: It's like, no, I'm actually I'm actually influencing and helping
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: and encouraging people, which is a beautiful thing, you know.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: So because I find myself like I just go hard
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: whatever I'm going hard at, and because I do love
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the church and I do love my church specifically, I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: don't want it to feel and I appreciate you reminding
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: me that it's not on me, like that's what I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: heard out of everything you said is not on me.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: It is on God, and God has created other people
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: to do that. I also it's almost like like I
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: know what where we're at right now. And I'm also
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: trying to make sure it's not my flesh that wants
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to give it into thinking that I can't balance both.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And so I admire not only you, but I watch
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: it there as a ray do it with her church,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and like every Sunday, Like sometimes I was like I
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: want a Sunday off because I'm driving an hour and
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: a half to my church right now. And so it's
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: just like a lot of investment that I'm doing and
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not ashamed of or I'm not complaining.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I'm just being really.
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: So something that's really key that's helped me is like,
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: is the word rhythm over balance, So rhythm is just
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: understanding seasons. There are some seasons where I'm like all
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: in in church and yeah, well we're chipping away, you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: a podcast a week. But like I'm really just like
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: they need me for something for a season, let's let's
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: be here. But I think all that stuff comes from
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: a place of just knowing if this is God, you know,
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: because in all honesty, like I don't miss Sundays. I've
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: probably left millions of dollars on the table, not even probably,
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: I have left money on the table because I've been
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: invited to do things that get in the way of Sunday.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: But God knows that cost that I'm paying that nobody
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: will know about, right, and by cost I'm paying, I'm like,
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: in comparison, what are we even talking about? You know, God,
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: God's bigger than me thinking that one opportunity on Sunday
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: can lead to this and that and the other. So
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: I think it's very important, but I will I will
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: also be very honest in that.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Need.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: I need to get some of that religious bag out,
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: because sometimes they do. I feel like I have to
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: And anytime you have that moment I have to do this,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: then then the joy of whatever we're doing is out
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: of it, right, you know. And so like I've never
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: shared this, but like my dad passed away on Easter
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: Sunday unexpectedly, and obviously I'm at church and we had
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: four services that Sunday or.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Five, and.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: My mom texts us and let us know that my
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: dad collapse. And then she's like, don't do anything yet,
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: just you know, be at church. And then it wasn't
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: until the second service, mid service I get the text
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: and she's like the doctor says, you guys should come now,
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: and like a pastor's preaching.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: I actually, I think I could use the word hate.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: I hate that I was trying to find a perfect
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: moment to leave during the sermon. Now I sit front row,
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: and we believe in like leading from the front, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: we want to create a response to the word and stuff.
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: But I'm like looking at my phone and I took
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: my friend, one of the pastors on staff.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: He's like.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm just like waiting for a moment and
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: and like it was like a crazy like thing that
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: happened where I'm like, why do I feel guilty for
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: standing up right now?
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: And so like I've been dealing with like getting that
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: out of me.
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: That is not I don't blame anybody for making me
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: feel that way other than me carrying something that I'm
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: not intended to carry, you know. And that comes from Yeah,
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: I mean being all in at the church. That's not
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: for everybody. That's why I said, it's like it's for
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: the one percent. It really is, like it's a supernatural
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: call to be a church builder, and no pastor should
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: put the pressure because you're building the church. If you
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: connect the kingdom to what it is you're doing outside
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: of the church, so you're still a church builder.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: It just looks different.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean I think I think as people
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: called to ministry, it looks different for a lot of us.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: But yeah, we gotta we gotta understand that there is
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: a cost to full time or there is a cost
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: of building God's Church, and that cost is being physically
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: present and being a voice, being a leader, spending time.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: Dude.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: Literally, I got a text yesterday, Hey, pastor and work,
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: can we have a call.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: I'm like, should I take this?
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: Should I call him before I talk and potentially mess
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: up my yeah, or should I call him? End up
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: calling him last night and he just let me know
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: after him he's been at church at City Light for
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: like five years, he got a role. He got a
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: job at another church in town full time. Such a
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: good setup. That's the call I had, was just like
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: releasing him and blessing him and thanking him, and then
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: voice memoing the person that was over him to say,
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: can we budget something so we could send him a
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: gift because like he faithfully served.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I want to be good at that stuff.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: And I don't know, nobody knows that I'm having those
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: decisions to make or those calls to be made. Had
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: after I had such a high at the conference in
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: speaking and everybody want to take selfie. Now I have
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: to have this pastoral moment and that's just part of
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: that's that's the call.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Oh you just blessed me so good for one. When
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I watch this again, I'm going to take notes because
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I think that it's something to be said, to be
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: able to acknowledge, Hey, it's okay to be in a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: season where you just can't also, and it's okay to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: have the heart to build and you just got to
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: ask guy where that is. I also appreciate the example
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: you use with your father, because I did want to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: bring him up first of all my condolences. I've watched
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: you narrate give us this entry to that part of you,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and I found it very interesting that I felt so close,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: even though I know there were more intimate moments that
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: you didn't share. How did what made you decide to
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: open up so eloquently regarding the process of your father's passing.
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I think, I think naturally, because I'm a teacher. There's
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: there's that how how that just happens naturally? And then
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: the other part of it is a selfish reason, uh,
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: And that selfish reason comes from a servant mentality, and
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: that is I want to be so good at journeying
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: with people in their grief, and I didn't. I haven't
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: I haven't experienced grief at this level, and and I
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: just want to be great for other people who go
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: through this season. And so part of that was just
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: me acknowledging what I'm experiencing emotionally spiritually in my mind
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: as a as family, What was a blessing to me
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: in the season, what was unexpected in the season of grieving?
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: And and so that was probably the biggest reason why.
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: It's just like a selfish reason for me to and
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: the way I guess my brain works to kind of
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: come up with a way that I could be a
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: blessing when somebody's going through a season like that, because
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: I think we think we know what to do in
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: those seasons. Yeah, here's what we think we know to do. Hey,
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: I'm so sorry about your father. Let me know if
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: you need anything. What do you want you want me
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: to process on top of me processing grief, something I
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: need and then build up the courage to ask you
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: to go do it by it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Get it. No, No, I'm not gonna do that.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: That sounds like very Maybe that's very.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Oh that's real. No, that's real. Like that's a weird question.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Like I can't even think right now, and you want
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: me to think about what I need?
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I already have a million things I got
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: to think about, like especially now, like being I feel
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: like I'm the man of our family again, you know,
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: like you know when the father leaves for a work
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: trip and they're like, hey son, you're the man of
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: the house. Okay, take care of the house. I feel that.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: I feel that, like kind of wait, now, what is
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: a blessing. A blessing is to act without asking for permission,
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: like when somebody's going through a grieve a grieving season.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: Don't think about doing it literally, just do it without
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: asking permission. And what I mean by that is make
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: the phone call. Hey man, I have no words. I
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: just want to say I'm sorry and praying for you.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: When people did that, like when Myron call me, He's like,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: I'm calling you because you're my friend and I want
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: to offer my condolences and bro, just let you know
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: I love you and if there's anything you need, and
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm like Myron, anything I need, you know,
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: Like he's like, no, if there is anything you need, please?
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: You know, did I ask.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Him for anything?
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: No?
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: But to hear his voice, yeah, so helpful. When the
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: night or the day my dad passed away, my best
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: friend brought some fried rice and some sparkling water to
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: my mom's house. While you know, me and my siblings
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: and we're all together. It was like nine at night
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: and we weren't hungry, but we ate the rice because
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: it was just.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Because it was just there.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: One of my best friends had a tragic loss of
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: his His son was born and then thirty minutes later
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: passed away, like literally after his wife delivered his son.
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: And when they were going through that season where they
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: were just home and they had two girls at the time,
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: a friend came picked up the girls and took them
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: on a date day.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Didn't ask for permission. Hey, I'm on my way, I'm
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: picking up the girls.
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: We're gonna I'm gonna take them to the movies and
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: the park and we're gonna feed them. So you guys
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: could just didn't ask for permission. And he was telling
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: me and I'll never forget it. He was like, that
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: was the biggest blessing in this season. Yeah, because we
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: were thinking about what are we going to cook today,
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: what are we going to get?
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: You just removed more processing in mind.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: So when we actually say let me know if there's
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: anything I can do for you in text form or whatever, well,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: you know, it actually is putting on more Yeah, you know.
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: So just I mean, I think to answer your question,
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: I think it's just me wanting to be very helpful
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: and know what to do in those seasons for and
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: I know everyone grieves differently, and so yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that. I feel like I can talk
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: to you all day. I'm sitting here like just.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Appreciating the wisdom, appreciating the transparency that you just walk
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: in and it's very encouraging to somebody like me.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for these.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Last two episodes, Like it's been fulfilling, and I really
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: appreciate your wisdom on everything that we've been able to
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: talk about.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Beautiful.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me honored, and I'm excited for
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: all y'all who got a little some sum Thank you
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: so much.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Since you've made it this far, you might as well
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: connect with us on all social media platforms at d
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Jessica S.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: Smith.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I know I won't see you back until next week,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but until then, remember to love always yourself and always say.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: Thank God for one another day. Hey, Hey, I know
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: we could be another way. Hey, pray thank God for
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: another day. Hey Hey, I'm just thankfu for another day.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Hey Hey another day? Oh, another day wise, another day
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: to get it right, another day to rise up, another
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: day living another day. We love ones. I always remember
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: hold it down for a ball one.
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: Yuh