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Addicted, Angry, and Facing 20 Years: How Pastor Juan Lopez Found a New Life

  • Writer: Ryan Franklin
    Ryan Franklin
  • 23 hours ago
  • 50 min read

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In this episode, we sit down with Juan Lopez to explore his incredible journey from incarceration to becoming an inspirational church leader. You'll hear about Juan's early life struggles and the pivotal moment that led him to embrace faith. This is important because it shows how transformation is possible for anyone. Juan shares how his mother's spiritual journey influenced his path to ministry and how his experiences with addiction and recovery shape his leadership today. Join us to discover practical ways to find hope and purpose in your own life.




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Transcript


Well, this is not fair. This is not fair. Well, if we're going to cry for fairness, then that's judgment. Yeah. The last thing that I want is a fair God. And frankly, the last thing I want is a fair congregation. Because if we're going to be fair, I don't have a platform to lead from. I've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I stand before them out of the empowerment of his spirit and his grace. Exactly. Welcome to the Christian Leader Made simple podcast. I really hope this episode helps you learn and master the skills you need to grow your leadership, effectiveness and enjoyment. Be sure to hit the subscribe button to get notified as soon as I post a new session so you don't miss a single episode. I'd also greatly appreciate any reviews, likes and shares that you can give me. It just helps me extend my reach to more people. So leaders, I know just how frustrating it can feel when you're in the weeds of work or ministry and life is chaotic. You're struggling to feel effective and you're just not enjoying leadership as much as you could be. And so to help you, after many years of leadership and executive coaching, I've developed a framework called the Christian Leader Blueprint that'll guide you to find clarity. In your life and leadership. It'll help you gain a better rhythm of life, it'll help you see yourself more clearly to leverage your strengths, and you'll produce more productive relationships. It's a step by step guide to leadership transformation and I have that in two formats now. I have a free short guide that you can find on ryanfranklin.org and I have a book, the Christian Leader Blueprint and you can find that in any format, including an audiobook or wherever you buy your books. I have a few more things on my website that you may be interested in, so just head on over to ryanfranklin.org and check it all out. And now let's get to our session. Welcome to the Christian Leader Made simple podcast. On the show today we have a tremendous guest who many of you will know from his previous episode, Dr. Clay Jackson. And let me start by sharing with you a little about Dr. Jackson. He is a Clinical Assistant professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis, Tennessee, where he also maintains a private practice in family medicine. In addition to that, he has a ton of other degrees and certifications. This man wears a lot of hats in the medical world, but also has performed a variety of roles in ministry, including missions work, but he and his wife Jana are currently planning a church in Arlington, Tennessee. So I think he's a couple of years into that. He has recently authored a brand new book. You may have seen it on social media or somewhere out in the, in the online hemispheres, but it is called the Gifted Church, which is what will be the center of our focus today. So, Dr. Clay, welcome to the show. So thankful to be with you, Ryan, and it's a privilege. You know, the people that you have on your podcast are so amazing. A lot of my heroes and just the recent lineup that you've had of people. I feel like this is a social test in terms of one of these things is not like the other. But I'm glad to wear the uniform. I recognize I'm probably batting number nine on this team, but I'm thankful to be here with you. So thanks for the opportunity to chat today. I greatly enjoyed our last visit and I'm looking forward to our conversation today. You always ask insightful questions and so I'm looking forward to speaking today. Well, thank you very much. And I enjoy having you on the, on the show as well. I know you're very much a scholar and well read and that always brings some really, to me, really exciting conversation around these topics and I appreciate that very much. In your book, you talk about the church leadership world sort of needing a reset. And you're a physician, you're a pastor, as I mentioned, you're a scholar. I mean, you've got more degrees on the wall than I can even count behind you. Can you tell us a little about how your personal journey, how that journey of being a physician, pastor, even a scholar, how that has shaped your conviction that the church needs a leadership reset and just tie that into what became the catalyst for you writing this book. I want to hear the story behind it. Well, thanks very much. It's been interesting. Once you finish a project to reflect on how it began. I think for me, we know that Maxwell says that leadership is influence. I often think of it as it's also an exercise of power. And that can be soft power, relational power. It can be coercive power. But that's part of the responsibility of leadership and why I'm very grateful for your voice and your influence in our contemporary age to speak to the need for integrity. I think the recent emphasis on servant leadership within the Christian community and even the broader corporate community is laudable. With respect to my personal journey, this book kind of began as an exploration of the use of spiritual authority for good, for ill and Not. I mean, many people have talked about church hurt and spiritual abuse, different things. But we know that no authority equals anarchy, and that doesn't work well for society either. As I began to explore that, I began to look broadly at general changes in society. We reached a point now where probably first responders, as far as firemen and firewomen probably still have an above. They're probably above water as far as 50% or greater public confidence index. But, you know, certainly congresspeople, policemen and women, teachers, nurses, many of our traditional, you know, physicians, many of our traditional professions where we've looked to have confidence in people who lead us and who help us, that public confidence has fallen away. So I began to reflect on how general society was changing with sort of this corporate cynicism and the civic polity, how it's changing with respect to authority, where the man in blue is not here to help you. So that sort of idea and how that interacts with our church culture, because obviously we want to take our cues from the Spirit and the text. We want the Word and the Spirit of the Lord to direct us and to be our guides. But we are influenced by culture, and we do have to contextualize the Gospel. We would definitely say that if we were changing geography or cultural needs or moving to a different ethnic group. And so looking at our contemporary structure and in society, how do people view authority? You know, just telling people, you need to do this, because I think it's a good idea. It may have been a suitable strategy in 1958. It doesn't work very well in 2025. So I became interested in all that probably a couple of decades ago and began to sort of write about general authority and everything. Pretty quickly I figured out that that was probably a second book, and I needed to pull out just the spiritual authority part of it and look at leadership in the New Testament. I think that it's, you know, as a one. As Pentecostal, that I'm a restorationist, I'm an originalist. You know, we're pretty famous or infamous for having the idea that we need to get back to how the New Testament disciples did things and try to recapitulate that in our contemporary era as much as possible. The challenge for that with a New Testament ministry model is there is no one New Testament ministry model. There are multiple models. And so you're talking about two to three generations of people and a very early church and then becoming a more established church. And so depending on if you're looking at, say, the Book of Jude or two Timothy, or if you're looking at the Book of Acts, maybe talking about very different time periods, you've got different ethnicities, different languages, different civic structures, such as port cities, provincial towns, et cetera. So there are a number of different leadership styles and structures that are modeled in the New Testament, and there's not just one that we can take and sort of copy and paste into our context. So that was kind of the idea behind the book. It took too long to write it. My views changed dramatically while I was writing it. So there were sort of two phases of writing the book. But finally it's finished and for good or ill, it's out there and people can take shots at it or they can throw reefs at it, but it's finally finished. And I'm thankful for that. Tremendous. Just to kind of dig into that just a little bit more. Was there any period of time, and there may not have been, but is there something that. About that, that sort of. About your personal story that sort of grabbed you and drew you to this subject that you'd care to share? I've always had great admiration for those, particularly local pastors, shepherds who sit with people when the healing service is over and if the healing hasn't occurred yet, the ones who go to the funeral homes, the ones who go to the hospitals and the. And who, you know, attend the birthday parties and sort of walk through the journey of life with people. That speaks to me as a person who sits in clinic with people, you know, and has hard conversation. Yeah. So this sort of organic living with people and shepherding a flock that you know very well, that's always been very appealing to me. In my own journey, I've had opportunity to see people who led extremely well and then people who had challenges and people who lost public confidence as part of their leadership, which really is not that unusual when you look at the scriptural story. Ministries in scripture don't last as long as we expect them to last. In Catholic culture, there are very few people in the biblical story that have a multi decade leadership role. That's the exception rather than the rule. So I think that for me, looking at what makes credible leadership that last over time was probably the core of examining this. And so, you know, that all kind. Of sort of, sort of for your own life to last. Yeah, yeah. And thinking about, thinking about the wonderful people that I've been privileged to be led by and also thinking about, you know, some of the challenges that they had and, you know, wanting to, if I could learn lessons and lead well to the extent that I was afforded any type of leadership opportunity, whether that was in a smaller space or a larger platform, to just lead, well, let God decide the platform, but to try to lead well through life, beginning at the home and then working outwards to the worship community of clinical physical community for physical healing, et cetera. So that was kind of the personal impetus. And then we kind of get into the text and what the New Testament says, and that leads to a lot of church history. And that's why the book has too many footnotes. I did notice it had quite a few. It's a scholarly book. Says PowerPoints for people who don't know what they're talking about. And I'm afraid maybe that footnotes are for people who don't know what they're writing about. So I'm not sure. But anyway, it's a good reference source. If you want to go to it and draw different conclusions. You're able to do that. Left a lot of breadcrumb trails there for everyone. Yeah. No, I love the fact that you have read so much and that you're drawing from the things that you have read. And I'm sure that you've, you know, some of that was just research versus reading books. But, you know, it's tremendous to have a sort of a web of content on this subject. And I do like that you mentioned. I'm just curious before we move on, you mentioned you hit on this a little bit, but I want to draw it out. Your concept of wanting to lead. Well, for multi decades. It's not just in the church. I mean, I would assume that this transcends into. You mentioned your home life, but also in your private practice as a physician. And I would assume it's sort of a universal stance on leadership. Not just in the church, would you say? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the common denominator is there are roles in my life where people look to me for guidance and protection and for help. That's a good way to put it. For health in my family, that's emotional health and financial health and spiritual health in our church community, that's for, you know, doctrinal integrity and practical assistance. And they obviously, they have a reasonable expectation of moral excellence and integrity. That doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes, but it should mean that I'm not living a double life. Then in the practice, there's a social contract that says that healthcare workers can be well compensated, but that we should, in a pinch, put the patient first, that we're not just trying to run people through a cattle chute and get as many people in and out of the data, to run up the numbers on the board for compensation sake, that we should put the patient first, that we're not in the pocket of big pharma, or that we don't bow down to big insurance companies, that we stand up and fight for the individual patient. It's in front of us and there is that expectation. And so to do all those things and to balance all those things, I think you had to have a North Star. You have to have a moral compass that doesn't waver. And I don't think that means that we always live in perfection. But the best I can tell from reading the Bible, spiritual empowerment comes from God. But integrity is kind of our contribution. We have to decide if we're going to try or not. We have to decide if we're going to make an effort to follow the Spirit and follow the Word in a way that we can be entrusted with. What I think is a crux of the New Testament. I mean, every apostolic is going to point to Acts 2, 38. And I know where that begins. I know that's the. The initiation of both individual salvation and the covenant people, the church. But if you want to just encapsulate it all, I think Paul gets it in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, 21, we've been transformed through Christ and we've been reconciled. Therefore, we have the Word and the ministry of reconciliation. And so it's the Word and the work. Some Christian groups are really great at the work. They build hospitals, they train teachers, and they do a lot of good work. Late 19th century, we call that social gospel. And I don't criticize any of that. I thank God for people that have a philanthropic drive and they see that as an outgrowth of Christian commitment and Pentecost. I think we're really good at the word of reconciliation. We'll get up and scream about it and get red in the face. God can deliver you and God can heal you. You know what? I believe all of it. I think it's wonderful. But I think Paul is pointing to the Word and the work, work together. It's one thing to sit in front of somebody who's hurting and say, God can help you. It's another to be there for them day after day, week after week, and walk with them through that journey. I think probably I'm speaking as a challenge of now, five years on into a pastorate of people that are just very real people who are beautiful and Lovely people that are living life. And you know, I can preach it on Sunday, but if Tuesday they're in the same circumstance again, you gotta, you gotta walk through it with people and be faithful and show up, you know, for them in various means and, you know, pray the prayer of faith. Absolutely. But also live the faithful life with them. And I think that's a challenge. And for all of us in leadership, with our various platforms, formats, whatever we have, whether it's we're leading one person or we're leading a million, making it about following godly principles and engaging with people as the Lord would do, is very simply stated. But it takes a lifetime of sanctification to master. And I think it is an ever ending challenge. If you like a challenge. Being a Christian is awesome because you'll never get bored. There's always higher to go and deeper to walk. So you've touched all around this question, but I just want to see if there's anything else here that you can add. Your book highlights the fact that there's a shift in the early church's dynamic spirit led to more institutional style of model. Why do you think the church has moved away from that original structure? And how do you think leaders can sort of, kind of begin to restore that apostolic momentum? So, you know, it turns out the Spirit of God is hard to control. He is difficult to manipulate. Music can be manipulated, art can be manipulated, lectures can be manipulated, organizational structures can be manipulated, money can be manipulated. But if you let the spirit loose, he sort of does what he wants to do. And so I think, you know, as the, as what began as a Jewish movement moved into a Gentile world and there was an integrated church, you trace this through the Book of Acts and then through the Epistles in the second century you get an influx of Greek philosophy from a Hellenistic influence and several things happen. The incarnational God who touches earth is anathema to the Greek philosophers. They need a distant God who's impassive and doesn't feel. And so you get all this Logos terminology that comes in from Philo and you get the, the Alexandrian school and different philosophic influences into the so called Apostolic Fathers or Antonio Fathers. And very quickly the Jewish conception of monotheism gets sort of diluted into a lot of discussion of personhood and hypostasis, et cetera, that happens. Then you get the so called charismatic gifts or charisma of First Corinthians 12:14 and elsewhere that fall out of favor because if someone has to be a bishop to speak in The Church, then as long as I can control who the bishops are, I can control what the Church hears. But if anybody can walk out of a slave market and be moved on by the Holy Spirit and give a word that is normative for the church community through tongues and interpretation, that's more difficult to control and manipulate. So as the institutionalized Church became proto Roman and headed toward recapitulating basically the authoritarian structures of Rome into the church polity, it was very important to squelch out the move of the Spirit and to make hierarchical structures. And so in the book, we kind of trace that what happened through the declension of apostolic giftings, be they manifestation gifts of charismata, whether they were edification gifts that were elucidated in Ephesians 4:11, apostleship, prophecy, evangelization, teaching, and shepherding. And you see sort of this decline, and everything kind of gets subsumed within the priest, which becomes a sort of a shepherd and teacher, and everything else kind of kind of falls by the by. You have some itinerant monk communities through the medieval period, which might occasionally have prophetic or evangelistic roles, but for the large part, these were kept under control by the institutionalized Church. If they got too far out of the line, they wound up on the business end of a stake or a. Or a funeral pyre, a burning. So that happens. And then you get the Reformation. And by returning to the text, various things get restored. And so we sort of know that story with a new birth experience with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, baptism, water in the name of Jesus, healings, the power of the atonement to minister to our total lives, not just our eternal destiny. And sort of bit by bit you see things restored, and we see that too in leadership structures. However, I would just say that my personal belief is we're a lot further down the road with respect to salvation and enjoying the benefits of the atonement. In terms of individual benefits, I think we're a lot further with restoration down that road than perhaps we are of leadership structures. And that may be a controversial opinion, but that's what I feel. I think the pastoral role typically predominates in most Christian movements, and I would add one is apostolic. Christians is no exception. And I think we have cheated ourselves a little bit with some of the other speaking leadership roles and giftings that could be emphasized. And frankly, it's a difficult word here, but exploited value could be extracted if we allow people to be kind of who they're created to be by the Spirit. What do you think is going to help sort of begin to restore that, I know, awareness. You know, writing books like this can be extremely helpful for that. There are a number of people who are looking at this. You know, I mean, within the oneness apostolic movement, we have people. There have been two books published before. We have two books, one each by Brother Stone King and Brother Kleinus on what they termed as a fivefold ministry. We have a whole sort of subcultural movement kind of led by Brother Gleason and some others on fivefold ministry. I purposely titled the book the Gifted Church because I wanted the focus to be on the entire church, not sort of five separate roles of people. I don't particularly. I'm not wild about the phrase fivefold ministry because Paul's. Paul's statement within the context of Ephesians 4:11, is that these are five edification gifts which enable the church to do the ministry. He doesn't frame them as five types of ministers. He frames them as five types of leaders which allow ministry within the church by sort of coaching up the body or edifying the body, if you will. So I'm not going to draw swords with people that I love over that terminology. But just for what it's worth, that's why I sort of titled the book in a little bit different way. I think one of the things we got to get rid of Ryan is there are some people that have. Whether they had good intentions or not, there's been some people in the 20th century and the 21st century that have really made some bad mistakes with this concept inside our movement and without, in broader charismatic or. Or classic Pentecostal circle. And what I'm referring to is the idea that has come. It's been popularized in what's called the new Apostolic Reformation. There's an entire chapter in the book on. I call it the not new, not apostolic, not Reformation. So we'll see what kind of feedback I get from that, from that group. But there are a lot of misguided practices that result there out of misguided beliefs. And one of those beliefs, in my opinion, is that there's some sort of rank order of ministry and that apostleship outranks other speaking leaders within the church. And therefore they have some kind of omnibus gold card to walk in any setting in any way and sort of tell other people what they should be doing. I think that is false on the face of it. I don't think there's a scriptural basis for it. And I think that, in fact, scripture's very plain. Paul says, I was an apostle to you, implying he was not an apostle to people. When you see him go to Acts 15, he submits himself within that context to the leadership of James. Paul is very clear that he has an apostolic gift, but he's also very clear that he needs to stick to his sphere. So if you look at the Greek text, you'll find that there's a sphere, basically what we would call a sphere of influence. I liken this to an analogy for our society, the jurisdiction. I may be a sheriff in my county, but that doesn't give me a right to take my gun and my badge and start arresting people in your county. I have absolutely no authority there unless I'm allowed. And I have a special attachment to the legal authority in that county. I think that's very similar. I think it's a very serious thing to walk into a group of Christians and to, without the collaboration and cooperation of local authorities that knows those people, to sort of let fly with a bunch of statements or actions or recommendations that are not in concert with those who are walking with those people on a daily basis. I think this is illustrated multiple times in the New Testament. And I think this sort of idea that there's some kind of rank order or hierarchy, frankly, is a dangerous doctrine. If you look at apostles and prophets in the New Testament, if you want to say there's a rank order, then they have to be the lowest because it says their foundation, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. So what do you do on a foundation? You put stuff on top of it. So if we're going to say there's a rank order, then apostles and prophets are the lowest in that rank order and all other Christians would be kind of walking across them or something. Do you think that this dynamic is one of the reasons that churches sort of have moved away and avoided. People have been harmed by false concepts. People have been harmed by false concepts. What are people with that? Go ahead. I talked with a pastor this week that there was a circumstance that happened within the last 500 years within a 50,000 mile radius. And this pastor said, look, you know, this guy, he did a lot of damage, et cetera, et cetera. And he talked to him and the person's defense was, well, you know, I'm an apostle, I outrank that person. There's actually, you know, so as reported to me, those are the actual words come out somebody's mouth. So, I mean, you think people wouldn't say the quiet part out loud, but apparently that's what the person Thought that's what they said. That's dangerous. We need to. Dangerous. Yeah. So, you know, if I ask you to list what are the marks of an apostle. Yeah. Paul ranks kindness actually ahead of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Spirit, and then he repeatedly, repeatedly emphasizes suffering. Well, you also have right in the middle of the gifts, chapters 12 and 14 in 1 Corinthians or yeah, you have right in the middle of it, the love chapter. I mean it's absolutely, absolutely. And that's no coincidence that he plopped love right in the middle of those gifts chapters. And this is, you know, this is an old conference sermon. Absolutely not original to me. But this is a fulfillment of Old Testament types and shadows where the hem of the garment of the Israelite priests had pomegranates and bells in alternating order. You know, there's something that gets a lot of attention and then there's fruit. And so it's the same way in Christian ministry. So the idea that, you know, prophets or apostles or evangelists or pastors or teachers are going to be at the head of some kind of multi level marketing scheme where they're rank ordered above anybody else. It's just not a CEO mentality in terms of Harvard Business Review ethics or mindsets. This is just not how the Christian church is built. It just makes as much sense as to say, because my ear is approximately 2 meters above my feet, that my ear outrank my feet, my ears outrank my feet. It's a nonsensical concept within true Christian leadership circles. But we have allowed outside forces to shape our opinions and hey, we're human prods, the foundational sin. We want to be elevated, we want to be affirmed, we want to receive, whether it's verbal affirmation, financial compensation, respect. Jesus dealt with this. You love your titles. You know, I'd say beware anybody with a business card that kind of hands it and says, I'm this type of minister. I think that's, it's kind of dangerous. I think that and it takes a. Lot to, for a person with a title to be able to accept that, to remove the barriers. The whole time you're talking here, I'm thinking of you're a physician. I don't know if you know this, but in my previous life, years ago, I was a registered nurse. There was certain physicians that I hated to call because I knew that I was going to get roasted and there would be something they would ask me that I wouldn't know and you know, I would get cussed out. Literally cussed. Out or something. And you know, but you're a physician and you're saying, I've got to lead with relationship, with love, with care, even in the medical world. And that's, that's really probably less common than the other that I would receive from those individuals that were challenging. Now, not everybody was like that, but there were a lot that were. And I'm afraid that though I think it's softened a little bit in the church because you have spirit filled people who the Lord softens and works on, you know, the character of people. I still think that there's some abrasive edges that, you know, the egotism or cynicism or, you know, a variety of other things, moodiness, a variety of other things that can be abrasive to people that, you know, pastors can work really hard at changing and softening and creating an environment of grace and truth and love. You know, I appreciate those comments and insights. And the thing is, let's take the most abrasive of the ministries in terms of the leadership structures that Paul talked about. Prophets are built to challenge existing order. So that's often uncomfortable. And we sometimes we don't like prophecy. In fact, one of the few speaking leadership roles that specifically warn for churches not to despise is prophecies. Don't despise prophesying. But why does that have to be singled out? Well, there's the predictive aspect of prophecy. And so that's always called, okay, you said this is going to happen, she said this is going to happen. Let me mark that down, see if that happens. There's that aspect of it, because the uncertainty of it. But I think more importantly is prophets exist to, as someone has famously said, afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted. So if there's established human order, the prophets come in to shake that up because they call us back to previous covenantal responses that we made to God and they challenge us to say, this is what you said you would do. And by the way, you're not living up to us. So they pull out the contract, they pull out the marriage vows between us and God as people. And they say, okay, you know, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Let's talk about that. And then prophets also pull us forward into God's preferred future. They point to where we are and they say, this is not how you started. In other words, you've lost your first love. And then they say, this is what God wants for you and this is what you can have. So there's always this restorative vision as well as a rebuking vision to prophecy. So that can be very challenging. And it sometimes angers us when we're confronted with our sliding away from covenant promises and from God's preferred future. But even with prophecy, look at 1 Kings 18, it is the most dramatic prophetic confrontation in the Bible. You have Elijah on top of a hill with 850 false prophets. There's a bullock, there's the 12 barrels of water, there's the altar and all this. But right before Elijah talks to God and calls down fire from heaven, right before he says that, he looks at the people and he says, come to me. And they all gather around the altar. It is, in my opinion there are deep truths about leadership hidden within that scene. Elijah was. He had enough distance from their cultic practices that he was true to Yahweh and he was true to covenant living and covenant principle. So he wasn't in the. He wasn't at the, you know, naked sex parties they were having. He wasn't at the fertility festivals they were having. So he was distant, but he was close enough to the people, he had enough relational power with them that when he said come forward, they all came forward. So I think that's, you know, how do we do that? How do we live with integrity with people in such a way that they recognize that when we speak, you know, we're speaking from the position, a divinely inspired authority. And yet they're sure that we are also for them as they respond to the message. We're for them, we're not for their sin, we're not for their backslidings, but we are for them, we're not against them. To me, that's true prophecy. Yeah, that's true shepherding, it's true teaching, it's true evangelism, it's true apostleship. And you know, I think it's possible through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And you know, one of your main arguments in your book is that church leadership should be team based, not hierarchy, which is what you're speaking of here. Explain that a little bit. Can you explain that a little bit deeper in that with those terms? I think, I think we have too much CEO mentality. I think we fetishize sacrifice in our movement. And listen, I. When Brother Blackshear preached on nine Bucks and a Burden, I cried just like everybody else, as we should have. I hear the stories of. I listen to. I guess it was a 40 year old recording of Sister Nona Freeman talking about the things that she and Bug turned down in order to go to Africa. And things that from the natural eye looked like, you should take them up, you know, you should accept them gifts and various things. But time had shown that those might have been a hindrance to them. And the sacrifices. Listen, I want to honor sacrifice and I want to honor ministry, but I think we gotta be really careful whether people are operating from a platform or a pedestal. And that includes me. People like and respect doctors. You know, maybe not. I talked about the institutional problem, but in general, people say, yeah, physicians are greedy, but not my doctor. He's good. You know, it's the. All preachers are liars. But not my pastor. He's a good guy. You know, people tend to the individual that they know organically. They tend to have a good deal of respect for in general. And he's the exception. Yeah, that's how people's. That's how they think. But we've got to get away from this mentality of, I go into this town, I sacrifice, do all these things. Well, now it's my time to be rewarded. It leads to entitlement. And entitlement is a poison within the Christian body. It is absolute arsenic. It just places us all on the wrong footing. Yeah, dig into that a little bit more entitlement. That's a tough one. Well, this is not fair. This is not fair. Well, if we're going to cry for fairness, then that's judgment. The last thing that I want is a fair God. And frankly, the last thing I want is a fair congregation. Because, you know, if we're going to be fair, I don't have a platform to lead from. I've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I stand before them out of the empowerment of his spirit and his grace. Exactly. So before we continue on with the podcast, this episode is brought to you by Christian Leader Community Coaches. Are you a Christian leader who is overwhelmed by the complexity of trying to figure out how to grow your team? I want to introduce to you our Christian Leader Community coaching program. We have an easy to use online platform that has a full archive of courses, supportive community live group coaching, and elements that are customizable specifically for your team. And I've personally seen the quick and enormous impact that it can have on a team of leaders who are focused together on learning and mastering the skills needed to grow their leadership, effectiveness, and enjoyment. And we want to be a part of that with you. We want to help you create and implement a plan. The community is very much affordable, but I would say that you can't afford not to have focus growing within your team. Your results heavily depend on it. So don't wait any longer. Let's do this together. Go to ryanfranklin.org and join Christian Leader Community Coaching today. I look forward to seeing you and your team inside the community. And now back to our podcast. You know, I'm BI vocational with three children under 7 years of age and one child who's in a bless you PhD program. I got two practices in the church. And, you know, when I stand up there, if the Lord and those people aren't with me, it's going to go nowhere. And we would have been better off sitting at home in our slippers. So I think that what's the. We just got to. We got to get rid of that mentality of, I've done this, therefore I deserve this. I mean, that is, that is. There's a little bit of capitalism in that. And you know that that's rooted in Horatio Alger, not Jesus Christ. You know, I work hard, therefore I get rewarded. We got to get rid of paganism in the pew, which is, you know, I gave to move the mission, therefore I know God's going to give me a new job. Well, he might. And we get blessed. And there's a lot of scripture about that. There's also a lot of scripture that just says, just give. And the Lord loves a cheerful giver. God is not Santa. It's not a slot machine. It's not a genie in the bottom. The idea that there's anything that I can do to manipulate the divine is a pagan idea. That is not Moses standing before Pharaoh. That's Pharaoh's sorcerers throwing down their rod and making it turn into a snake. So I think we have to be very careful when we say, you know, I'll do this, and this is the way it works. And it's all by him. It's all through him. It's all for him. And, man, I don't have, like, this is an issue that I. There's some things that I don't have to be necessarily spiritual to grasp, like rooting for people and loving people in general. That's just kind of my default setting. I want people to succeed. I want to see them grow. I want to see them thrive and flourish. And so, you know, I don't have to wake up and fast and pray for a week to get in front of my people and love them. That's, that's, that's not particularly hard for me. Yeah. But I do have to be spiritual, to have, to have this under the, the authority of the Lord. And, and that is, you know, certain expectations that we have. You know, that when in professional school, you know all about it through your RN training, this idea of delayed gratification. I mean you just put your nose in the books and you study and you study and you study and then there's this great reward. When I was in college in pre med, there's a, a colleague of mine in, in a pre med program and he, on his wall he had this poster and it was all these like a Ferrari and a, I don't know, a Lamborghini. It's like a garage with like five cars in it. And it was a beautiful sunset. Probably looked like the Pacific coast or something. Beautiful picture. And the, the, the tagline on the poster was the justification for higher education. And this is a very sort of, you know, it's realized the era that I grew up in, very capitalistic, mercantilistic, materialistic, superficial carrot. I, I work hard now and here's the big carrots that are in front of me. Listen, I got. If, if there are, if there are Christian leaders out there that are blessed financially and if they're, you know, if there are people that are blessed in terms of their affirmation or their notoriety or whatever. I'm not, I'm not here to, to, to try to be a socialist about everybody's got a, the same salary, all that kind of stuff. What I'm saying is that the blessing of God needs to be the blessing of God, not the expectation of man doesn't need to be. I did this, therefore I deserve this because that's a dangerous place to leave from. It leads to bitterness. I think you and I have talked before about the. So we're here to talk about my book. I'm going to promote another book. And so if you're going to buy one of the two, let me tell you by Daniel's book, Daniel Henderson. It's, it's called. Oh, the title's slipped in my mind right now. It comes a minute. But he basically the glorious finish. The glorious finish. And Daniel talks about leadership failure. This doesn't have to be ministerial. This is any kind of leadership. Leadership failure results from a failure of recognition of where power comes from. And in the Christian context, as a ministry leader, Daniel says you either worship or you're self sufficient. And basically worship leads you down the trail of gratitude and thankfulness and grace and accountability and integrity, whereas self sufficiency leads you down the path of Entitlement and compartmentalization and burnout and all these things. And, and he actually says that worship leads you to a glorious finish, whereas self sufficiency leads you to dishonorable discharge. I think it's dead right. And Daniel would know. He, you know, Daniel comes from the Baptist group of professing Christians. Daniel walked into two churches where there had been a horrific blow up and a minister lost public confidence because of revelation of private in. That was public confidence shaking what many times in our groups we call moral failure. And so he had to put back together the pieces after two high profile ministries blew apart. And after prayer and walking through those situations, he says that's how it blows up. That not worshiping, not recognizing that God's the source is one of the core problems that we have because it allows our pride and our self respect. I'll just work harder. You know, that can be good things. I can actually get in and think of, well, I'll just teach three more Bible studies this month and the church will grow. And it's great to teach three more Bible studies. I need to do that, but I need to approach it from a platform of righteousness, not self righteousness. I need to approach it from a platform of worship and compassion, not, I'm just going to work harder and we'll get better numbers because, you know, that's the way you make sandwiches, that's not the way you make Christians. And so I had to be spiritual to have that in hand because I am a hard worker, I'm diligent. But two weeks ago I preached a sermon on the downfall of diligence. And the downfall of diligent is self sufficiency. And really the stakes are too high, eternity's too long, people are too lost and we're too human to rely on our diligence. We have to rely on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, period, end of story. The way we have to rely on. I'm hearing a tension like a struggle in you from order and taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, and then sort of a free movement, you know, in the spirit of God. What have you found to be the best way to negotiate that in your life? You know, this last Sunday we had a program. We knew the songs were going to be sung, we knew who was going to lead to prayer. We knew the people that we were going to pray for. We had it all on the slide. We, you know, I, I knew when I was going to get in the pulpit, give or take so many minutes, and I had a Plan on when I was going to get out of the pulpit. But in the middle of that, as people were singing, people began to respond to the manifestation of the presence of God. And so I actually interrupted the worship set that we have and I, I went to the pulpit one song early, which my wife is a planner, if you want to know who's interested in order. Elementary school teacher. So I'm an absolute, I'm married to a principal, so I get that she thinks that. I think she'd be shocked to find out I actually have a calendar with dates in it and things. She probably would probably just blow her mind. She thinks I live from moment to moment in a van by the river. But I walked up and I interrupted that and I said, you know what, we're going to sing this song in, but if anybody wants special prayer, come forward. And this lady came forward and another came forward. Emotional responses on behalf of both of them. One lady actually became physically overwhelmed and she sank down to the ground and, and sort of lay down in the center aisle. And I told our people later, as that kind of unfolded and the service kind of went back to more of an expected order, I said, you know what, we can't ever get to the place that we don't have room for this. We can't allow the professional and the programmatic to replace the prophetic. We have to have an authentic spirit led interaction, corporately and individually, that moves beyond our planning and our understanding. And so I'm going to plan, you know, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to strategize, I'm going to, I'm going to dream, I'm going to, you know, put all those words, you know, those words on the post it stickies on the wall and have everybody brainstorm and we're going to do all that stuff. But in the end, what I found, Ryan, is it's kind of like Brother Butler told you about. You don't see God coming, but you do see him going. Like a lot of times when I find the will of God, I find it by looking backwards and I find that he did. The efforts that I had, the thinking that I had, it was not wasted. It really wasn't. He was moving in the situation, but I was playing checkers and he was playing chess. We're on the same squares. But the way that he was moving was not a lot of times it's not the ways that I thought he was. So it's not that he's keeping me in the dark. God's not an ant farmer. He doesn't just put his thumb in front of us and see which way we're going to go for fun. He's dynamically and organically working with us. He loves his people. This is not some game to him. He gave his life for it. But our ability to understand all that and to see the big picture is limited. So if he reveals it to us, then he does. And he can take it to the bank if he doesn't reveal it to us. And we're working within our own understanding and our own giftings. You know, we got scripture that we're not supposed to lean to that, but we're to trust the Lord. So I'm going to plan, I'm going to work, you know. And I'll tell you, one of the reasons why it took so long to finish the book is that incremental progress toward a big audacious goal is a challenge for me. Iterative quality management is a challenge for me. You would not want me to be the CEO of an airline. I'd be a good employee in Orville and Wilbur Wright's bike shop, I'd be very enthused. I would go out and fundraise for them and connect all the people and get all the canvas and departure for the plane. I'd be really good at putting the teams together. But if I were the CEO of Boeing, man, they'd have more problems than they got right now. I'm not great at iterative quality management, so, yeah, the reason that it looks like I'm good at playing is I'm surrounded by people who know how to do that very well in every one of my environments where I'm successful. Which, which points back to the, to the team mentality, the. Absolutely. That's kind of where you began this conversation. I didn't answer the question. I'm so sorry. We. We have, we have too much individualism. We have allowed American individual to obscure some of the truths of how leadership works within the North American church context, in my opinion. And one of those is that when I was growing up, somebody talked about team ministry or something, and the statement was, anything with two heads is a monster. Well, I don't even know what to say about that, except to say that in the New Testament Church, it seems to be pretty clear that people within one city saw themselves as members of one church that met in multiple locations. They had multiple leaders. If you look at Acts 15, it looks like that there's probably one or two people in that city. That kind of people look to as kind of being first among equals or having respective voices. But the idea that we, you know, it's my way or the highway or you can't have input or I'm the path or capital P, that's the end of story. I think it probably does more harm than good when we look at it from a hierarchical structure. So I try to make sure that we have other voices in our pulpit, within and outside the congregation. Try to make sure that I talk to my guys, our board, internal, external, try to talk to those people every week. One of my goals, Ryan, is to make discernment easy. Because if people are for me and if they love me, and if I'm going to need course correction, which I assume since I'm human, I will, I'd rather make that easy on the people that are for me than to outsource that to people that are not for me. Absolutely. Because God cares for me. That's a great word, discernment. It's such an important word in all of our lives and a needed word because we're not always right. I want people to talk to me frequently enough that if I'm funky and if I'm off, they can see it immediately. And it takes a big person to do that. Takes a big person to do that. Well, it takes a stupid person to not do it. Because God cares. And listen, I know I've been stupid. Okay? Me too. Probably still am about a lot of things. So, again, I'm married. We give you Janet's number, you figure it all out. She's got the receipts. But the thing is, God cares so much more about my soul than he does my ministry. Yeah. And he cares so much more about his kingdom than he does my ego that if I refuse to be sanctified the easy way, he'll have me sanctify the hard way. And so he and I have had a lot of conversations about that. Please, God, deal with this in our closet. I don't want to be embarrassed here. And kind of the way that I've seen that he deals with me is he corrects me with the least possible damage. And so if I get a stiff neck, it can be very embarrassing. Open rebuke is better than secret love. If he has to openly rebuke me, he'll do it. But if I'll follow the leading of the Spirit, if I'll let people in and actually be accountable and talk to people and have people say, yeah, I'm not sure about that, and not say, well, what do you know? I'm the head of the multilevel hierarchical pyramid. What are you talking about? If I'll actually allow people to speak with that, have credible voices. Yeah, you know, I'm sensitive to what Pastor Shock said. You know, we. We walk by faith, not feedback. I understand we can't always be taking the opinion poll and leading by that, but accountability and eldership is not an opinion poll. This is. These are trusted voices that are helping us to hit the target more times than not. So I want to make it really easy on those guys. You know, I had this story from my practice I think is worth meditating on. This was early. Early on in my career. I wasn't. I didn't have as much experience. I think I was actually still a resident. But I opened the door, and there's this lady that I was seeing probably every six weeks. I opened the door and I said, I'm going to call her Nancy. It's not her name. Nancy, what's the matter with you? You've lost weight. You don't look good. And we got a scan, and she actually had lung cancer, but I didn't need the scan. And she didn't look. It was subtle. She maybe lost five, eight pounds. It was subtle, but because I saw her so often when I opened the door, I diagnosed her from 20ft away or 8ft away, because an experienced clinician with proximity to the patient can make a diagnosis. They've actually done studies on pediatric patients, and you can do all the lab tests and the spinal taps and everything, but a kid with a fever, if they've got sepsis or blood poisoning, an experienced pediatrician is as good as your test from 8ft across the room because they can tell when a child is sick. I think that's true in spiritual leadership and eldership. If people are experienced with the Lord, they've walked with the Lord a while, and you allow them to have proximity to you, then the spirit will help them to know. And they can recognize when you know you're working too much, you need to rest. When's the last time you and your wife's been out of town? What's your kids like? What's going on? How's the church? How are you feeling? You know, what's your prayer life like? You know, those can be uncomfortable questions, but I'd sure rather answer them to my friends than to my enemies. Yeah, no doubt. And, you know, if all of those things are leading indicators that are going to affect the people I love the most, my family, fellow Christians in our church, people in my Practice associates, employees, if it's going to affect them, then why not be my best? This is where your leadership, the rhythms of your life and keeping the right things right in order that you can be who you need to be. At the end of the day, it's still treasures and earthen vessels. We're still, you know, we're not the gold. He's the gold. But we can mess it up. I mean, you can. We can. Yeah, you can. And let me ask you this. You know, you're tapping all around the subject of character as you're saying this story and then these other things, you know, and that's a major theme in your book, which I love, by the way. It's a major theme in my book as well. And you argue in your book that leadership effectiveness isn't about the gift itself. It's about the integrity of the person that's presenting it, the character. I'm curious, are there any major red flags that you would say that a leader would tell us that a leader is relying on gifts instead of their character? I don't mean tell us, but tell. How can I put the spotlight on my life and my character? You know, integrity is not just moral excellence, it's moral consistency. So I've heard. Integrity is defined as the same values expressed through every relationship. So my love for you will look radically different than my love for my wife. But the principles of self giving, interest and interest in your betterment and your flourishing and your thriving, that should be the same. You know, if you and my wife were to talk, neither one of you should be shocked about what you've heard or experienced in our relationship. Even though you and I don't know each other very well, she and I know each other very well. You know, you are a leader, colleague. You know, she and I have diaper duty with kids, you know, that we share. So it's a radically different relationship, but there should be the same values expressed. So I think that if we want to look at ourselves, consistency of consistency is key. That's a big deal. That is big. Do I feel radically different in different environments? And one of the things that's been very encouraging for me as I've gone through life is that I remember in med school one time, there's a guy who's dealing with certain illness, and he asked me a question about his religious experience. And I actually took off my clinical jacket and I said, I'm going to talk to you as a person, not as a medical student, because I felt like I needed to divest Myself of that professional role. In order to be honest with you, spiritually, I never had to do that anymore because I feel like my roles are much more integrated. And what I do on Sunday and what I do on Monday feel like the same thing. They feel like one is physical ministry, one is spiritual, but they blend and bleed in so much that it's kind of. We've actually had three people, two people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the clinic. So it's kind of. And then I got people asking about their blood pressure at church. So my apartment. Apparently I'm not a very good boundary setter. Just kind of the spirit leaks out everywhere. Yeah, well, but that's kind of important. And not that I'm not bringing that up to say I've mastered integrity. I'm bringing it up to say if we allow the Spirit to work on us, he'll show us how he works through us in different environments, different relationships. That's so true. And there is a common thread. You know, I'm really, really convinced that The Jesus of 12 who wowed the doctors and the Jesus who went to the wedding party and the Jesus who rode in the dirt with the lady who was taken in adultery, and the Jesus who made the fish the fire, I'm absolutely 100% convinced it was the same Jesus and that people experienced the same principles coming out of him. Their reactions were different because their motivations were different. But I think in various environments, Jesus expressed those principles. You know, I'm here to do my Father's works. I'm here to say my Father's words. I'm here to build the kingdom. I think that was pretty clear and pretty consistent out of Jesus. I think it's one of the things that makes him the greatest leader of eternity in all time. So, you know, we can stretch for that. We can reach for that as far as other people and looking for that. I tell the folks at our place, the thing that I value most for you as a team member and a leader is humility. If you have humility, the Lord and I and others and books and whatever, you know, any skill can be taught. Anything can be worked on. But if you don't have humility, we don't have a platform to work for it from because you're going to blow up at everything we say or everything, you know, I can't buy enough books to help you with communication. If you don't have humility, I can't. That's a very, very good point. Where did you get that from? From within you. Because it's uncommon for someone of your stature, your, you know, all of the hats you wear, it's uncommon to have that. So where'd you get that from? You know, Ryan, I grew up in a single wide trailer because we couldn't afford a double wide. And that's not a joke. My mom made $103 a week, and we had to get out on the side of the road and lay hands on the hood of her 79 Outer Blue Thunderbird because if it stopped, we didn't have the money to fix it. And we'd be on the side of the road praying over our car. You know, that was my life. Sometimes the Lord fixed the car, other times he didn't. But he did it often enough that it was worth getting out and trying again. So you can say we had great faith or you can say we had great desperation. Sometimes those go together. So I just. I remember all that. And then this is not a story again of somebody, you know, pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and all that. I had a lot of people who helped me. I had a lot of mentors. I had a lot of opportunities. And then I squandered some of those opportunities. I've made mistakes in life. I've been proud and I've. I've not approached every relationship in life with first and foremost seeing people as God saw them. And the spirit, you know, he's relentless. Like all those youth camp prayers you made, he remembers every one of them. And we're all excited about the prayers and the vows of the saints and God remembers and you're going to get healed. That's comforting. But when you remember that God stores up that prayer that you made at 14 and says, God, I'll give you everything, well, he remembers that stuff. And the bills come due, he will relentlessly remind you. And he is not fair. He does move the goalposts. You know, Lewis said that as a father, he's easily pleased but hardly satisfied. You know, he's happy when you're two, when you're walking and stumbling around. But when you're 20, he expects you to run. And when you're 40, he expects you to carry a load. He has greater expectations to go further. All the superheroes of faith, to me, the people that Pew Kilgore name, all the names you live with, some of them. But those guys, if I ever had a chance to be around those guys, there was something within them that, to me, they seem to have a more realization of the gap between them. And the Lord and his character and their character than the person who'd been baptized for three weeks and was still struggling putting the Marlboros out before they came into the worship service, like. And so I think about that. I meditate on that often of how people that I look to as kind of icons of spiritual experience and very developed disciples, very mature Christians, they seem to have this scent of humility, and it just permeates the atmosphere. It's very difficult to be proud and arrogant even in the presence of those people, because there's just a holiness about them. And, you know, I think holiness and humility go together. I think holiness and haughtiness are antonyms. And I want to be holy. I'm actually commanded to be. I mean, it's in the Bible. And so I claim to be possessed of the Holy Spirit. And if that's true, then I'm going to be humble. And I want to be. Because if I'm humble, God's my ally. But if I'm proud, he's my enemy. He resists me. He resists me if I'm lifted up. That's so true. You know, this is opposing. What you're talking about is opposing to many churches that have sort of become commercialized. And even their leadership, they're more focused on the outward image of their church, of their leader, than caring and developing from people within. They're worried about book deals and social media reach and performance over authenticity. Well, I came on your podcast talking about my book, so I hope this is not an altercation. No, no, no, no, no. That's not your intention. You're promoting other people's books as you're promoting yours. No, I mean, that's a good thought and even something to even consider here. I think it's. I mean, we have to promote the things that we feel passionate about and the Lord is moving us to. I mean, there's no way around that, but there's a difference in that character. There's a difference in a person's character that would lead to somebody commercializing this stuff. You know, I have to charge, for instance, for my community, for people to join my community. Just to be frank with you, I haven't made a dime off of it. I'm still in the hole. I've spent many thousands of dollars to build the community, and, you know, I've made a few thousand dollars back, but I'm still in the hole. Money doesn't mean a hill of beans to me. I want. I'm missing minded. And that's to me, that's what you're saying. I mean, in a sense, and there's a theme that I'm hearing a lot throughout your book and throughout what you've said today is we gotta get real with what our mission is and get back to what the original church focus is and really pour ourselves into that. I'm not against excellence. I'm not against planning. I am, you know, I love a great choir song as much as you do. You know, it's easier to worship when the notes are right and it's not distracting from somebody striking the wrong key. And, you know, I'm not excellent at music, so I probably exhausted my knowledge there. But, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read and I'm gonna prepare the sermon. I really am. But if I prepare a masterpiece, what does it matter? I got a guy that got baptized three weeks ago and he works as a maintenance guy in a plant here in Memphis, and his brother in law runs a pizza joint. And then I got a lady who's been walking with God for about 60 years who comes in and he's probably heard 10,000 sermons. So how do I hold those together? How do you write a sermon that ministers to both of them? You can't. You can't, or I can't. I mean, maybe you can. I can't. That's a tough one. I have to rely on the word and the Spirit now. I'm still going to study. You'd be delighted to know my sermons have footnotes. I like to source my material. I don't like to say, well, somebody said, you know, I'm going to read, I'm going to study. I want to have preparation. Because I don't find that God causes lazy people. He uses prostitutes, tea purders. He uses somebody with figs and somebody with fruits and physicians, priests. And he uses, I mean, he uses a donkey one time, but even the donkey was carrying somebody. He seems to use people who are willing to work and labor. It's true. He didn't say pray for more consumers, he said, pray for laborers. And so, you know, I want to work. I'm not against excellence. But at the end of the day, I mean, are we going to make compelling talks? I mean, are we going to outdo TED Talk? Are we better than those speakers with our presentations? You know, we're going to make a concert that outdoes Taylor Swift and her production team. Are we going to, you know, whatever. I mean, human excellence is human excellence. And I believe that the Lord works with and through that. But fundamentally, if we have all of that and we don't have the leading of the spirit and we don't have the character of the spirit. I mean, Paul says the gifts, the gifts are useless if they're not motivated by love. That's where we are. I mean, you can have anything on your business card if you're wrongly motivated. Ultimately you will be used in the kingdom of God. But I think it was Lewis again that said it makes a difference whether you're Peter or Judas. You know, everybody's used. So everybody is used by God. But I want to be used in a way that is laudable and helpful. Yeah, no doubt. So we've got to kind of land the plane here, but is there anything else before we wrap up, I've got one final question I want to ask you, but I. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell our audience to know about the. I'm going to give you a chance to talk about your book. I want to let people know where they can get it. But what about. I love it. I love it that we've been far afield. The book's available, you know, Bezos World, Amazon, it's a Walmart, I think Goodreads and Barnes and Noble. Different places. Jan and I have a website. I think it's playandjana.com or jan and clay.com. i can't remember who got to be first, but it's. We've got a website. I'm available on most. Most of social stuff that I'm on. It's my Doc Jackson. Or you can search the name and you can DM me or whatever the kids say these days, but be happy to. To mail people a copy. But the book really kind of goes into a lot of church history and kind of how we got here. And maybe nobody else is interested in that. I was. So I just wanted to learn about it. And it goes into people that have made some missteps with this concept of leadership. But the crux of the book is that when we lose the dynamic seeking leadership that is so essential to kingdom expansion, and that's chiefly apostolic and prophetic ministry. If you know and look, I'm pastor, I'm teacher, that's my home base. But we have to value those other ministries that are sometimes a little less predictable. If we don't, we become static and we lose our forward momentum, we lose our expansionist momentum. And then we start a bunch of Navel gaze and then it, you know, comparing ourselves among ourselves and you know, it just hierarchies suffer when the vector of the movement is forward. So there's a gravitational pull that will make institutions rise in terms of complexity and, you know, a fast growing company, it's actually easier to get in touch with the CEO than a 100-year-old company that's static. It's the same in the kingdom of God. And those are, those are human leadership principles that just bear themselves out. When we have missional momentum that pushes us out or pushes us forward, then we worry less about where we rank. You know, medals and shiny shoes and which bars are on the coat matter a great deal to parade ground soldiers. But in a foxhole, faithfulness and accuracy, loyalty and courage matter more than oak leaves and silver bars. That's good. I think the more that we're missional in our momentum, the less we'll worry about. His church's 2.5 people per month, bigger than mine or her book sold three more copies than mine or her. Kids look better on social media or he has more hair than I do or what all this stuff, it's just human nature. We all deal with it. But what does it matter in the context of. Jesus is coming back. He rose from the dead. And what God did in the body of Jesus Christ, he has put that resurrection and reconciling power in each of us. And we are now temples. Jesus was a place where heaven met earth, and now each of us has become a temple. There are millions of temples across this planet, places just like Jesus, where heaven and earth meet. And we are pointing back to that resurrection event. And we're pointing forward to the time when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as water covers the sea. We're pointing forward, Romans 8 says, to the time when the manifestations of the children of God will set the whole creation free. And so what God has done in Christ, the Holy Spirit, is now done in us. And we're pointing toward the day when that's going to happen for the whole world. And, you know, lying, lie down with the Lamb and we get the garden of light with the tree of life back. And the leaves heal the nations. There's a lot of great things coming. And in light of that, you know, my little tinker toys in the sandbox and all the things that I'm trying to build, they pale in comparison. God is kind. He helps me with the tinker toys, but it's really about what he's built. It's about his church, his kingdom. And if we can maintain that missional momentum, if we can truly be an apostolic. You know, apostolic means sent. Apostolos is sent one. We all, we get at our conferences and we run around and we bite the seal and then we, we modulate the key and we get the band going and we're running around and high fiving each other and you gotta bank the walls so you run around the corners. Because we're apostolic. We're apostolic. We're apostolic means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I'll tell you what it means in Greek text. It means people on mission. It claimed to be apostolic and we're not on mission. We're frauds. And we owe people an apology for truth and advertising violation. We have to be on mission. That doesn't mean, you know, Great point. For me, that doesn't mean Mozambique, that means Memphis. And for you, that may not mean Liberia, it means Louisiana. But we gotta be on mission. The mission field starts at the end of my driveway. And for some people, it's at their kitchen table because they live with those who need their Christian witness to be saved in their home. So mission starts where the kingdom ends and it's expanding and we all need to be on mission. That's what it means to be apostolic. You know, there are doctrinal components, yes, there are worship components, there are gift components. I get all that. But the core meaning of the word, the why Jesus chose it, is because it was the Roman concept of expanding the empire. People who had omnibus authority to bring others with them to establish a new implementation of the Roman government and the Roman culture and Roman lifestyle. Jesus took that concept of apostolos and he put it in place. That's the title he chose for his religious leaders, spiritual leaders so that they could recapitulate the kingdom of God in new contexts and new environments. That's the power we have as apostolic people. Everywhere we go is the kingdom of God. Everywhere we go, we bring righteousness, joy and peace. Everywhere we go, we expand his kingdom because literally, we're mobile temples. It's a. It's an exhilarating concept and it makes me, like. It just. It's intoxicating. Think about. Because, yeah, it's impossible to stop. That's why it makes the enemy so nervous. It's why he. That's why he tempts us with lesser prizes. It's why he wants us to think about our own aggrandizement. That's why he wants us to think about, you know, I don't know, money and sex and power and Anything else, You know, social approbation. Just trying to keep us off task. Because if we stay on task, this is a powerful thing. So true. And this is a good place to stop, so we'll stop here. But I'm so appreciative of you documenting your thoughts through the Gifted Church book and kind of leading the path in the way of what it takes to get back to that place, that original church where we are on mission. And that's a very important thing. And I know people are going to want to get that book. Thank you so much, Dr. Jackson, for being willing to come on and talk about that and share the wisdom and the insight that you've given us today. I greatly appreciate your time. Well, thank you. And I'm sorry for all the filibusters. Don't apologize. I'm pretty passionate about all this stuff. So you asked me a question and I kind of go off on a tangent, so forgive me for that. You ask great questions. I should have given you more time to ask. But it's always great to be with you and I appreciate what you do and I'm thankful. Thank you for your generation is just exciting with your creativity and your fidelity to the truth and how you live out those commitments in exciting ways. And it's just a great example to all of us that the Lord can use us in our vocational fields. He uses us in all kinds of ways that bring glory and honor to Him. So just pray that will continue and that your listeners take heed to the things that you're putting out there in terms of of good principles that make us all better people and better leaders. It's a worthy enterprise you're involved in. Well, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. And be sure to go out and get the Gifted Church. I will put a link in the show notes so that people can find that very easily. But thank you. Thank you again. So this concludes our show today, and my name is Ryan Franklin. Thank you so much for joining us on the Christian Leader Made simple podcast..


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