Video Transcript: Vision part 2 - Character Traits for a Vision

All right, vision for enterprise. Part two, character traits for a vision with  enterprise. So I want to talk about different traits that that I think are needed to  successfully carry out an enterprise. Actually, there are traits to actually to  succeed at any enterprise of any sort, whether that's a marriage or a family or  church planting and certainly business as well. First trait that I think you need to  succeed in anything is to be teachable. Teachable. Lot of people are not  teachable. They have preconceived ideas about things, and when you start  discussing something, they right away say what's wrong? Or they right away say that it can't be done. We have our my church is at the center of town. The post  office is actually inside of our building. They rent from us, and we have this  green space, pretty big green space. It's right at the center. I mean, the grocery  store, the post office, everybody has to drive by it. And I said, you know, in the  summer, why don't we have our service outside, we'll get a tent, and we'll put up the tent, and we'll have the service outside. And my leaders looked at me and  said, Well, why would we do that? And I said, why won't we do it? And they were like, they were flabbergasted. We have a perfectly good building. Why wouldn't  we just have it there. I don't know they weren't very teachable, like there might  be a reason to do something different. Are you teachable? Do you have  something in mind, and that's the way it is, or when someone disagrees with  you, or someone criticizes you, do you right away? Shut them down? Why shut  them down right away? Maybe there's something in there that of what they said  that actually may be of some use in the end, you can always disregard what  someone says, But why start that way? Be teachable. Doesn't matter how  successful you've been. There's always something that you can learn from  anybody Next, be curious. Curiosity is what leads to good ideas. Being curious  about everything. Make that your lifestyle when you're with someone, be curious about who they are. Be curious about what they do. Be curious about who they  know. You never know what's going to happen. I remember Henry was going,  we were working at the Bible league at that time, and he was on a plane to  Africa, and he was sitting next to somebody, and he started talking to this  person, and he was curious about that, that person, and they kept talking. Turns  out that this person worked for the government. Because he worked for the  government, he was interested in what Henry was going over there to do,  working for the Bible League and so on. And by the time they ended the  conversation, that guy said, You know what I'm going to do, I'm going to try to  have you meet the president of Ethiopia. And that's what happened, just by  being curious. Now, you can sit next to someone and they're not connected to  anybody. You could learn to anybody, but you could learn something from  somebody. Be curious about how things work. Be curious about every person  and what they do and their business. If you learn how they work, okay, it may  not relate to you, but down the road, it might all you have, all these connections  and all this information that you have. Watch documentaries, learn about the 

world that God has given us, all the infinite variety. Be a curious person Next, be a risk taker. The problem with taking a risk is you might fail. That's the fear. If I  do this, I may fail. If I start this business, it may not work. If I try to plant a church after a year, we may have to shut it down because it doesn't work. That's what  people are people are unwilling to take a risk because they could fail. I think as  Christians, we need the attitude that we can't fail. Ultimately, Jesus has won the  victory on the cross, Satan has been defeated. We're going to live forever in all  eternity, all of that is already done. The victory is already been won. What do we  have to lose? What what defeat are we worried about? There's no defeat for the  Christian. There's no defeat. There's setbacks. There's things that don't turn out  as we expect, but there's never defeat. We have the victory already. So let's get  out there and do stuff. You could plant a church and it could fail, although we  don't know what failure is, maybe you helped one person. That person has a  child. That child becomes something. Becomes Billy Graham, who knows you  have no idea whether your failures are really failures, or whether your failure  failures are just leading to some other success. So go out and try take a risk  really. There's no risk. There's no risk in following God, following his vision,  following what you feel like God is calling you to do. Lord, I'm going to do this. If  this isn't what you want me to do, then let me know, and you can tell me, or you  can just let me fail, and then I'll try something else. I know that you have me on  this planet for a reason. I'm not here just taking up space. You plan this world,  and you have a role for me, I'm just trying to find it be a risk taker next. Be  energetic. Be energetic. Get up and do stuff. Always have something in mind to  do you only have a few short years on this planet. Don't waste them. Get up.  Try, yeah, well, it didn't work. So what this next thing might be, the thing that  works, get up, try, be energetic. Be full of enthusiasm. In fact, the word  enthusiasm is really ethnos God, in God, because we're in God, something good can happen. Honest. Honesty is a character trait. I want to sell something,  whether it's a product or a service. That's what enterprise is all about. But I'm  going to be honest about it. I don't want to be dishonest. If I'm dishonest,  eventually you'll figure it out. If my product isn't what I said it was eventually  you'll discover that, and I will lose you as a customer. Honesty really is the best  policy. And I'm going to tell you what you know. This is what it can do. You have  a question? No, it can't do that. I don't want to. I don't want to just make the sale  once. I want to make a sale and keep a customer for life, over and over and  over again, I have to be honest. I have to be honest with my my help, my  employees, the people that I get money from. There's no sense in not being  honest, because eventually it catches up with you. I don't have to exaggerate  the truth on things. If I do exaggerate, exaggerate the truth the next time I have  to exaggerate anymore, or even more, and the next anymore. And what's the  point? I can just tell you the truth. Here we were, and here we are now. Here's  where we were. Here's where the difference is. This, if I exaggerate the truth the

first time, I have to exaggerate the truth the second time, and the distance is the  same. So just tell the truth, be honest. Disciplined. Disciplined. It's easy to come  up with ideas. It's easy to sit down on paper and think this is what I could do. It's  harder to get at it. It's hard if part of what you need to do is to contact people. If  

you're starting a business, I don't care what it is, any enterprise that you're  doing, if you're starting a house church, you have to go out and talk to people.  You have to make those initial sales. So this week, I have to talk to 20 people.  So how many people do I have to talk to today? Well, I'm going to talk to at least three people today. I got to do it today. I have to have, I don't really feel like it  today. I got this other thing that I got to do. And then my wife is doing something  and you know, I'll do six tomorrow. Then something else comes up tomorrow.  Well, I'll just do nine the next day. See, that's what happens. You have to be  disciplined about what you're going to do. You have to have goals. Then you  have to break your goals into tasks, and then you have to break your tasks into  steps, and then you have to be disciplined in following those steps. I'm going to  have this done by next week, and you got to do it in a month. I'm going to do  this. And that means every day I have this stuff to do. I can't just push it off.  Every day has its own stuff be disciplined. You know what discipline is? It's  delaying gratification. It's delaying what you want, some good thing in the future  and doing the work now. If I do the work now, the good thing will come to me  later. If I try to cheat and I try to grab onto the good thing now, it'll be a shortcut  that will end up blowing up, and I won't get anything. discipline is being willing to  go through the hard part finances we talked about in the very beginning. If you  can't get your own finances straight, you're never going to be able to start an  enterprise. You have to first be disciplined with your own money, with your own  expenses, with your own saving, with your own financial management. If you  can't do your own financial management, you're not going to be able to do a  business management, and then you won't be able to do the vision and the  grand thing that you want to do, disciplined, willing to fail, trying life is really full  of trying. You have no idea whether you're any good at something. You try. I had  no idea that I was going to be a pastor. This was not a role for me. I didn't grow  up thinking, you know, I'd really, really like to be a pastor. When I grew up, I  wasn't a very good reader. I was certainly not a speaker at all. I went to a  Christian school, and we had to read the Bible sometimes, and we all had to  take a turn reading a verse, and I would count, I would count the verses. You  know, which verse am I going to get? And that sweat is coming down. I never  was in a play. I didn't want to do I didn't want to stand up and speak. I had no  you know, that was not my thing. Then in ninth grade, grade nine, there was a  speech class, and we all had to do something and and then the best of the  people in the speech class would have to go on to this next contest with all the  other schools that were in the area. I didn't want to do any of that. There was  different categories. One of the categories was write your own speech. So the 

teacher came to me and one other guy and said, I want you guys to write your  own speech. I don't want to do that, but he made us do it. He even picked the  topic. I had to do something on pollution. This is 1971 I didn't do any of the  research. He did all the research. Got it all and brought it to me. I dragged my  feet. I finally wrote the thing, and then I had to deliver it in front of my class. I  didn't want to do that. I kept delaying and delaying and delaying. It was the day  before the big speech at the big contest with all the other schools. Finally, I had  to do it. So I got my speech, put it on the stand, and I just read it. Never once  looked up. Just read it. Just wanted it done. My teacher said that I had to go to  the big contest because my speech was twice as long as the other guys. So  now I have to go to the big contest. I was a total disaster. He knew it, so he  made me stay after school. And said, you know, we got to work on this, because you're a disaster. You got to look up once in a while. So I did. I read this thing  and I looked up once in a while. It was a disaster. Finally, he just sent me home  because he didn't know what else to do. So that night, I'm thinking, tomorrow, I  have to go to this place, and I have to deliver a speech in front of all these  people, all my peers from all these other schools, I have to do this, and I'm going to look like a total fool. So I decided if I'm going to look like a fool, I am going to  go all the way and just go for it. So that's what I did. I just let it go. I was I had so much enthusiasm. I lost my place three or four times, and I had to find it again. I  won the contest. It was like, what, this is not my thing. This is not me. This is I  won the thing. I thought it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of my entire life. It actually became one of those moments that changed my life. I had  no clue that I could do any of this, and I was forced into it, and I had to do it, and I went for it. And somehow, maybe I had the gifts. Maybe I didn't know that I did.  You don't know who you are. You don't know what your gifts are. You know what your talents are. So you can get out and do it. And the thing about a gift is you  only know what the gift is when you open it. And God gives gifts whenever he  wants, so you may not have this gift. And then all of a sudden, God decides, I'm  going to give it to you. So never sell yourself short. Be a person that's willing to  fail trying, try, try, try, fail, fail, fail. You really success is being worth? Willing to  fail many times. How? Many times have you failed? Maybe that should be the  moniker of what success is. You know, I failed seven times. So really, I failed 15  times. Fail trying humor. You can't do any enterprise without humor. Life is full of  humor and fun. I mean, God must like humor. He made you and me. Have you  ever taken a look at yourself naked in the mirror? That's humorous. I think God  is if you, if you look at two people talking together, anywhere, you go anywhere  and see two people that are talking together within 30 seconds, somebody's  laughing. Laughter is like the sugar that or the oil that sort of greases the wheels and keeps everything going. You can't do business without some fun, without  humor, without laughter. When you fail, there's usually something funny in that.  Be open, be the kind of person that is open. There's a business behind 

everything. Just driving down the road, you can see a business here. But be be  open to what people say, be open to criticism, be open to how someone can  help you be an open person, not a closed one. And finally, be full of faith. For  whatever reason, God created this existence where we have to walk by faith,  not sight. We want to see God. We want to know that he's real, but he has this.  Do all of this by faith. We want to see God, but we have to trust that he's there  by faith. There must be, there must be some reason that God likes that. I mean,  I'd rather just know, but he makes me go by faith. There's a certain energy to  faith. When people go fishing, they they hope to catch something. I think if they  caught something every single time soon, they'd quit fishing. There's something  about fishing where you don't totally know where you go in faith. I hope today is  going to be a good day, and because of that, that uncertainty, we keep doing it.  We're motivated to do it. There's something compelling about faith. Starting an  enterprise is all about faith. You have no idea whether this is going to work. You  have no idea which direction it's going to go, or what you're going to learn, or the people you connect with along the way. Be full of faith. That's what life is all  about. That's what our walk with God is all about. Be one of those who's  wondering what God is going to do. God's just around the corner, and maybe he has you going down a trail that you have no idea where it's going, and all of a  sudden it's going to open up into this beautiful place. All the movies that we love  are these movies that have the faith element, that there's some problem and  people are trying to solve it, and it looks like it's impossible, and then somehow,  miraculously, it all works out. Faith. Be full of faith. Finally, be optimistic. Be  optimistic. Is this going to work? Well, I don't know, but it might. In fact, I think it's going to I mean, when I get into an endeavor, an enterprise, something new,  something that I'm trying to do, I always feel like this is going to work. I know this is going to work and and because I know that, I get up every day and work really hard at it, and then after working really hard out of it, how hard at it, it fall falls  apart. It it doesn't work, and it's discouraging. I thought it was gonna work and it  didn't work. I'm never doing that again. That's how most people react. For me,  it's like, Okay, that didn't work. Though. The next day, idea comes around. I  always think, Well, this one's gonna work, yeah, I can see why that one didn't  work. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, I thought it was going to work, but now I  can see it's not going to work. But this new idea, boy, I'm sure that's going to  work, and then it fails, ah, but the next idea, see, there's always a next thing.  God is always moving us from one thing, maybe, maybe I spend my whole life  doing this, but I'm I'm hoping that God is leading me somewhere, and and I  failed at these things, but I needed to, I needed to learn something. God is  taking me on a journey, and I'm enjoying this journey, and I can't wait to see  where this journey goes. And maybe what I'm after, what God wants me to do, is just around the corner. Be optimistic. James, I love this text. Whatever trouble  comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, 

your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance  is fully developed, you'll be strong in character and ready for anything. I love this verse. When I came to the church that I'm currently at, it was a church that was  full of trouble. I'll tell you, trouble was coming our way. They came. They wanted  

me to change things, and when I got there, they didn't want me to do anything.  They gave me two slots here. You can do the sermon and you can do the good  morning, and welcome to our church slot. So I said, Okay, that's what I'm gonna  do. So I got up and I said, Welcome to our church. Do you think it's too much to  ask that people memorize one verse of scripture every month. Do you think we  

could do that? I just asked the crowd, what are they going to say? No. So they  said, Okay. So I said, here's the first one, Romans 12:5, we belong to each  other. Each of us needs all the others. Can you say that? So they recited it next  week. Hey, good morning. Welcome to our church. We're trying to memorize the verses of scripture every month. Our first one is Romans 12:5. Can you say it  together? Yeah, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.  Month two, I said, Hey, welcome to our church. We're trying to memorize a verse of Scripture. Last month, it was Romans 12:5. We belong to each other, each of  us needs all the others. I said, this month, our passage is James 1:1-4.  Whenever trouble comes your way, make it an opportunity for joy. For when your faith has tested your endurance as a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when  your endurance is fully developed, you'll be strong in character and ready for  anything. All right, repeat after me, and they all looked at me like, Whoa. That's  a lot longer than the first one. And I said, Yeah, guess what? You're going to  have to practice at home with your family at the table at bedtime. We're going to  have to work at this. Let's go. Let's do it. Well. People weren't quite sure about  this. There was some grumbling going on. I could hear the grumbling. What is  this? Is our church Sunday school. He's making us do all these things. Then  tragically, our treasurer died. Discovered he was embezzling, was into drugs, all  kinds of negative things, and his wife had to deal with all of that stuff, and she  wrote an email to the whole church. It was really cool. It was just a thing of God.  She wrote, you know, when Pastor Steve came here, he started making us  memorize Scripture. And I wondered about that. I wondered, you know, you  know, is this good? He's making us do this. It's like Sunday school. But then she described her circumstances with the death of her husband and all that she was  going through, and she weaved in those two verses that we had memorized into her little email, and at the end, she said, Thank God we had to memorize these  verses. Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy, for  when your faith is tested, your endurance is a chance to grow. Okay, the  challenge of this enterprise, the challenge of trying to find a ministry job, the  challenge of of doing the school work at CLI, you know, on your own, maybe you don't have the support of people around you, and every day you go and do it  and, and you don't have to, but you do and and you have people asking you, 

well, why are you doing these things? And you tell them, and they look at you  and go, really? You becoming a pastor, you starting a job, you starting  enterprise. How is that possible? We know who you are. You know. You know  whatever trouble comes your way. Make it an opportunity for joy. It's an  opportunity. It's an opportunity for when your faith is tested, when what you're  doing is being tested by all the negativity around you, your endurance has a  chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed,  you'll be strong. You'll become that person that God has in mind for you to be  alright. Hopefully this has been a good talk for you get out there and start  making things happen. Thanks.