Video Transcript: Your Mission - Understanding God's personal call

This is lecture number five and learning to lead. We've been talking about the lead person,  the leader, as somebody who's key in that process of leadership. Now, today, we're going to  be talking about your mission, understanding God's personal call for you, that will help you as a leader. Now, I promise I won't do this every session. But here's the process the model, you  should be able to identify leader culture, vision, and prayer and planning and actions to follow to be able to understand that and we've been using this definition for these sessions as well.  And again, I won't show that every time Well, today, what I want to talk about is your personal mission. Last time we looked at what goes into making you who you are, well, there's also a  sense of personal calling that can come your personal mission that may be different than  those around you. And understanding what God has called you to what he's equipped you to  do, will help you as you look for those places where you're going to lead and where God has  called you to lead. And so today, I'm just going to outline a process by which you can expand  on that story that you wrote, if you did it in the last session, in order to define what is your life mission? What, what particular thing does God want you to do in his kingdom? How does that  start? Well, it starts where most of us start with the Bible. There are a variety of places that  you can look, that will help you meditate on what it means to be somebody who's called to be a leader in the kingdom of God. Jeremiah 1:5, that's where Jeremiah says, you know, our God  says to Jeremiah, before you were born, I knew you, I loved you. And I called you to be a  prophet, reflect on that, in some time alone. What does it mean for you to know that God  knew you, he loved you before you were born, and he began to plant plan out your days, you  know, Psalm 139, says, all your days were written in God's book before one of them came to  be to reflect on that. And as you have looked at your life experiences and your life story,  where has, God's been moving you toward that purpose that he had for you. Acts 13:36, just  just a short story about David there. And it says that David, when he had Fulfilled God's  purpose in his generation, fell asleep. He died. Now, think about the story of David, what was  God's mission for him? What was his purpose for being on on the earth, and when that  purpose was fulfilled, he died. Now, sometimes, you know, I have a mother in law's 92 years  old at this point, and thankfully, she's in good health, but she's had some health scares. And  sometimes she came out of them and would say, Well, I guess God has a purpose for me yet  in my life. I was according to that passage and say, that's probably true. But what would  people say about you? And I, if you were to die today? What would people say? That's what  God called them to do. I think I know what they would talk to me about in that regard, are say  about me in that regard. But what's that like, for you? Meditate on Ephesians 2:10. We are  God's workmanship, you are God's workmanship, the word could could be translated as  masterpiece or work of art, your God's work of art created in Christ Jesus to do good works,  which he planned beforehand that we should walk in them. Meditate on that, that God looks  at you as a masterpiece, but he's created these good works that he's setting in front of you.  He's created this plan for your life. Where do you see that plan? As you look back? Where do  you see him working and others of these passages are, are going to be helpful to you as you  think about what God's mission is in the big sense about, you know, go and make disciples of  all nations, baptizing them the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching  them to observe everything I've commanded you. Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of  the age. You know, that's part of God's mission. How does that mission that great commission  impact you or John 13? Are were called to serve one another. I've called you to serve not to be like the people around them, Gentiles, lord it over one another, but to be servants, what does  that mean for you? What does the story of Matthew 25 of the judgment mean for you? And  when those who are put on God's right hand are the ones who have given a cold cup of water  who have clothed the naked? What are these things mean for you? Look through the Scripture passage and I begin these passages as well as others. And sometimes God will just enliven  one. I'm at the stage where now I don't have to go to the office every single day. And so as I  was like working on this material, I just started to think of what? What is God's call in my life  right now. Now, it hasn't changed greatly. It's changed position. But but one of the things that  struck me this morning, as I was, in my own personal devotions was in the book of Philippians, Paul writes to the Philippians, about being in jail, he was in jail as he was writing. But he said,  I'm hopeful that by your prayers, I will be delivered, this will all work out. And it just struck me

how important my prayers are at the stage of my life at any stage, certainly. But right now,  one of the things God's called me to do is pray for some people who are significant leaders in  the church, various places in the world. And so I'm taking that on, but it came out of reflecting on Scripture. So here are some passages you might think of others, but begin to reflect on  what God has called you to. Second thing to consider is values that you have, in other words,  what's important to you, there are a variety of things that can become important. Further on  in this class, I'm going to just give you a seven step way of identifying the values in an  organization and then your own personal values. And so we'll look at this more closely then.  But right now, note what it says here, values are those things that we believe are important  as you think and pray about how God has wired you lists for values that are vitally important  to you and shape your decisions. Now, here's a list of some things that you might say are very important to you, health is important to you. Maybe it's financial security, and so you're  taking care of yourself financially, maybe it's your possessions are important to you, or free  time, your family, friends, frugality, generosity, etc, etc, etc. What's important to you will  affect your life mission. And it's very interesting, if you're married, that sometimes you'll  marry people who have a value that is different from yours. When I look at generosity, I found after we got married, my wife and I dated for six and a half years and then got married. And it was after we got married, that I found out she had the gift of giving. And I did not. And so she  was ready with various organizations to give freely and generously, she had to teach me to be generous, and it became a value for me. But it wasn't originally. But now when I look at my  values, when I want to write my life mission, there has to be a generosity component to it.  This is something of what God has called me to be with the resources that he has given me.  There's a new one that has become something important to me. And that involves people that you admire. Think about two people you've come to admire, the more specific you can be the  better. So write their names down. This is a combination in some senses of values. And the  people. A person who joined our staff in the last church, I served with somebody who had  been a high powered executive in a very large, multi national company. And he came to work  for us. He was semi retired, and he wanted to keep on working 20 hours a week. And so he  took the job of our operations director. And so here's this high power man, but I noticed  something about him. And one of the things that was just noticeable about him was that  anytime there was some event, he would take up servant role. Now he may have been  involved in the conversations that created a program. But when it came to clean up, for  instance, who's out there vacuuming or cleaning dishes, or mopping the floor or picking up?  This guy was doing it? And I remember talking to him once. So you know, I really appreciate  the way see this advice. I'll tell you what he said, I said I, for many, many years, told people  what to do. He said, I realized in this stage of my life, so I had to make a change. And so I'm  choosing to be a servant. Wherever God puts me, I'm going to serve people. Now that  became a value. And I talked about that with him. I began thinking about that and how that's  got to be part of who I am. And part of my life mission is to be a servant serving God,  certainly, but serving his people. And how do I do that? What What kind of heart do I do that?  What kind of motivation do I do that? And so, you know, as you think about the values, you're  some of them. Connect them to people you admire. Who do you admire? And how does that  affect your way of looking at yourself, and how God may be wiring you. So we look at the  Bible study. We look at our values, what's really important to us. We look at people that we  admire, and look at our person Your strengths and gifts, your gifts and talents, no spiritual  giftedness, certainly, but talents enable you to make a unique contribution to the key  kingdom from the list below or add your own choose up to six personal strengths. Six things  that you say I do this well then ask some people who know you well to describe your gifts.  Now, here's all listing that you can add to you know, are you a communicator? Do you do  that? Well? Are you articulate? Are you confident? Are you artistic, diplomatic, and you can  read the list? Are you these things? What are those things that you say, yeah, that that's me.  That's part of my mission in life. I am called to be this, and then go to some people and ask  them to do that. Now, this is very helpful in a variety of ways. I was out of ministry for a year  in 2006, and was debating whether to go back into ministry. I had some contact from  churches, including the last one I served. And I remember thinking about this, and a friend 

invited me to preach in his church, I hadn't preached for seven months. And I was preaching  that evening. And it was an obscure passage that he assigned me to preach on. But as I was  preaching, I heard the voice of God as clearly as I've ever heard. And he says, This is what I've created you to do, go and do it. And so part of my personal mission before that, but since  then, certainly has been that God has called me to preach. And so I'm going to seek those  opportunities that allow me to present the Word of God in a compelling way for people to the  power of the Holy Spirit and come to faith or grow in their faith. On the other side, I've  mentored a man years ago, who thought he was a great communicator. And so we created a  group as he was going to be finished with his time at our church, to just help him evaluate,  where should he be thinking about his next step in his life, he was with us for a year and was  going to be launched into some other ministry, what ministry should he be launched into. And so we got a group together to help him evaluate that and talk about that. And basically, he  said to him, he says, you know, you're not that good to communicate. Where you are really  good is when, you know, he's working in our education department, where you're really good  as helping people get together and get the resources that they need. And you'll be inspired in  that way that they that they can do their job in our education department. And so that  became part of what went into him becoming who he was called to be his own personal  mission. And then another thing is a God given vision. Vision is the ability to see a preferable  future. It's the heartbeat of a personal mission statement. Vision involves your passion, the  following statements will help you get up the vision God has given you for your life. Now, here are the statements, the qualities I'd most admire and would like God to work in my life are. So one of those qualities, you say this, this is what I want God to develop in me. People who  know me, well believe I'm most used by God, when I'm involved in what and why the  activities of my life that most contribute to the kingdom of God are and why. And when I hear  about passion, the thing that immediately comes to mind is what? And why. And if I knew I  could not fail in my lifetime, I'd like to do the following for the glory of God, what would that  look like? Now, these questions are intended again, just to help you begin to think about what is your personal mission? What is God called you to? There are variety ways to get this done.  A few years ago, I had all the staff in the church go through a process of assessment, whether it was a consultant that we hire, and he had us do most of these things, he had us sit down  and say, you know, when have I felt God's blessing, and just write down those events where I  can say, Yep, this is when I knew the presence of God that I was being used by God in a  powerful way. And then we each had to get 25 People who had to speak in into the process by answering these questions. You know, what would you say is so and so's purpose and mission  in life? What would you say? Are their strengths? What would you say are their weaknesses?  What would you say to encourage them in the work that they're doing? And that went into the process of helping us all begin to assess, you know, are we serving optimally, where we are?  What activities are, are contributing to the kingdom of God? And then that idea of passion,  there's some times that God will just create a passion in you for something. Yeah, there. There are people like Mother Teresa, which mentioned her before as a great leader. She was a leader who is somebody who lead by example, she goes into India to Calcutta and begins caring for  those who are dying on the streets all alone. This was her passion. It was something that  drove her it was something that helped her under overcome obstacles along the way. Her  Bishop didn't want her to do this, and so refuse to let her go. And so you can read her  thoughts, her diary in her letters as she struggled through this, but the fist was her passion.  And she had to do this. I worked with a man for a year and a half on a staff at a church. And  his passion was to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ. And so he began to connect with  people all around the were all around in the community where we were living, and go in their  living rooms, and I would go out with him, I'd be astounded because I we all have a  responsibility to lead people to faith in Jesus Christ, we often know our story, as God tells us  and and Peter's letter, we have to know our story and be ready to share it, there's a reason  for the hope that is within us. But this man would be in a room for 30 minutes, and the two  people that we'd be talking to would be on their knees praying to receive Jesus Christ in their  life. And I just sat in awe of this. And I realized that part of my purpose in being in that staff  with that person was to use my gifts so that they could use theirs more effectively. In fact, 

when I retired, his good friend came and spoke at my retirement party, and just said, you  know, one of the things I've always appreciated that you because you are going to be leading, because you're going to be out front, you made space, so that I could do my job. And that  became part of my mission statement. I'm here to help others, be free to find their God  calling. So all these kinds of things are what go into it. So the personal mission statement, you can say, by God's grace, this is what I am. Put whatever you want, and what we looked at  these two sessions in there, this is what I am, I am this kind of person, I have this kind of  personality, he has called me to become what is one of those things that God is pulling me  toward, and he has called me to serve his kingdom by what does that look like for you?  Knowing these things, and having that mission statement will have you will help you as you  evaluate how you're going to lead but also where you're going to lead? Is it consistent with  God's mission in your life? Now, the mission may change at various times God could call  differently, but today, he's got a calling for you. Something he's put maybe in your heart. He's given you a passion to see something happen in the kingdom. What does that look like?  Where is it going to be expressed? Knowing this will help you be an effective leader in the  kingdom as you learn to lead