Video Transcript: "How to be a Christ-Centered Manager"

In this video, we're going to dive more tactically and practically into what are the  biblical standards for becoming a Christ centered manager. The first standard is  that you need to invite the presence and will of God into your business to truly  be a Christ centered manager. In other words, the voice of Jesus, Christ,  through the Holy Spirit, must be of paramount importance regarding the vision,  mission, strategy and tactics of your company. And I love the example in Luke  5:1-11 of when Jesus's disciples had been out fishing all night. And then these  these fishermen who thought they knew it all, you know, they had been  instructed to drop their nets on the opposite side of the boat, where just kind of  defied their logic, where they had been doing the same thing over and over,  expecting a different result. And Jesus tells them, just simply put your net on the  other side of the boat. And that's the kind of attentiveness that we must have as  Christ centered managers to the voice of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.  Because here on Earth, the Holy Spirit, as one of my mentors and friends. Jack  Taylor has said that the Holy Spirit is the only God on the planet today, and my  dad loves to quote that as well. But that's how we hear the voice of Jesus is  through His Word, through the Holy Spirit revealed into our hearts, and that is  the level of partnership that God offers to us and the business world, where it is  so granular, it is so specific, that God will tell you, don't put your nets on this side of the boat. Put your nets on this side of the boat. And if we will just listen, we  will hear the Lord speaking to us in such personal ways. So how can this  become a part of your company's culture? How can it become a part of your  personal culture? Here's some expressions of this. When this is happening in  the business, there are regular and ongoing personal prayer times. So certainly  pray continually, constantly, stay in tune. I just walked into a very important  business meeting yesterday. I'll tell you. I was walking into that building. I'd  never been in there with some with the CEO and the president of the company  pitching something, and I was praying in tongues all the way into that meeting  room, a Bible study, a worship on the part of the company, when in my office,  there's worship music going all day long, and there's Bible study that happens in the morning. And these disciplines will prepare the company's Christian leaders.  You know, maybe you have in your company leaders from other faith  backgrounds, maybe they're not Christians, but at least for those Christian  leaders, it will prepare them to hear from and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit at  a moment's notice. And of course, the Holy Spirit is passionate. The Holy Spirit  is interested in revealing Jesus and making Jesus just look great here on Earth.  And that's what discipleship is all about. Is Imitate me as I imitate Christ, as Paul said. Paul wasn't specifically walking side by side with Jesus, incarnate Jesus in  the flesh. He's talking about the Holy Spirit and staying in tune. When you're in  tune with the Holy Spirit, you're in tune with Jesus. You know what the will of  God, what the will of Jesus is. And the second criteria for a standard of what it is to be a Christ centered manager in the business world is to use the right fuel for 

your God given ability. And this gets back to something that we talked about in  an earlier unit, on using your spiritual gifts in the business world, not just relying  on your own natural fleshly ability weed from your spiritual gifts. And the Greek  word that Paul uses is charismata. So, so you're, you can either default to your  natural ability. Case in point is there some of you who are, who are going  through this course right now, you have an ability to administrate. I mean, you  can, you can bring order out of chaos. You can, and many of the richest, most  successful leaders, administrators in the world have a very strong gift of  administration, but you can have a natural ability of administration. But. Not  have the spiritual gift. And that gets back to our definition of what a spiritual gift  is, because Paul lists administration in his list of spiritual gifts, but it's a special  ability given by the Holy Spirit through, through the Holy Spirit, through the the  believer to the church for the purpose of spreading the awareness of the glory of God. So it's giving to the people of God the church, not not just the local church,  but that includes the extended church in the marketplace, but but we're called to  use those gifts in the business world, but not rely just on our fleshly natural  abilities. And one of the other key differences there is that spiritual gifts, a  spiritual gift of administration, using this example, is fueled by the fruit of the  Spirit, and because you can fuel it with selfish ambition, you can fuel it with all  sorts of things. You can fuel with pride, with ego. This is just kind of the way that  I've always done it. You could fuel it with complacency, but the spiritual gift, in  order to truly operate, even in the life of a believer, must be fueled by the fruit of  the Spirit. Otherwise, we are walking by the flesh. Otherwise we are relying on  our own just kind of natural ability which is corrupt, But the fruit of the Spirit is  corrupt. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,  goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. You can read those in  Galatians 5:22-23 that is what it takes to truly operate, and your spiritual gift of  administration versus your natural ability of administration, or your spiritual gift of leadership. That's another gift that Paul lists versus a natural ability of  leadership, which many successful, very wealthy, influential business leaders  operate in. But there are other gifts as well. There are the gifts of service, there's a gift of compassion, prophecy. All of these gifts, the only way they can truly  operate as spiritual gifts is when they are fueled by the fruit of the Spirit. So  that's a good way to think about how do the gifts and the fruit kind of, kind of  interface with each other? The fruit is the fuel for the gift. Otherwise, you are  operating in the flesh. And Paul says, Don't walk by according to the flesh, but  walk according to the Spirit. The next criteria that we have as a standard for  what it is to be a Christian, a Christ centered manager, is to maximize and  expand the capacity of whatever it is that that you've had entrusted to you,  maybe it's a department. Maybe it's an entire factory, whatever it is, but first of  all, no matter what size it is, Do not despise the day of small beginnings,  because again, as we talked about in the previous video, faithful stewardship 

results in greater responsibilities with more more responsibility, maybe  financially, maybe of other types of resources. But in Zechariah 4:10, we read,  who despises the day of small beginnings. If you look in the context there, it  says that the old men of Israel wept when they saw the site of the new temple  that had been built, because it was so it just seemed so insignificant. It was so  underwhelming. It was so small compared to the the temple that they had seen  that Solomon built. And so after the exile, when the people of God had been  restored to their land and the new temple had been built, the it says that they  actually wept. And the Prophet says, who despises the day of small beginnings? This was a new beginning for the people of God. But the principle is that just  because something looks small today, don't underestimate because ultimately,  the temple that God had in mind was even much bigger than anything made out  of brick and mortar. It would have been built as the body of Jesus Christ and all  of the different parts of. The Body of Christ that was the temple the people of  God. Was the temple that God had in mind that you and I get to play a part in. It  says in the parable of the talents there, in Matthew 2523 his master said to him,  Well done, good and faithful slave, you were faithful with a few things. I will put  you in charge of many things Enter into the joy of your master. So he was  faithful with the limited capacity that he had. And then the master said, You know what? I'm going to expand your capacity. So fulfill your capacity, and then begin  to expand capacity. Don't wish you had more when you haven't yet been faithful  with everything that you currently have and Truett Cathy, going back to the  founder of Chick fil A, there was a moment in a board meeting when there was  there was some fear of among the board members about what was happening  with one of the the competitors of Chick fil A, and how they seem to be on this,  this aggressive expansion strategy. And they were, they were the other board  members were saying, you know, we just need to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and multiplying and opening more stores and more aggressively and  Truett Cathy famously slammed his fist down on the table and said, gentlemen, I am tired of hearing you talk about how we need to get bigger. If we get better at  what we do, our customers will demand that we get bigger, because Truett  Cathy understood this principle of maximizing and then expanding capacity, if  you will, just be faithful with what God has given you today and just get better at  stewarding what you have today. God will then enable you to get bigger and  entrust you with a greater capacity. The next criteria, a standard for Christ  centered management, is to divide the labor and delegate. And there are so  many amazing examples of this in the Bible, and there's four that I'm going to  point out right here. The first point here is where God delegated the garden  responsibilities to Adam. So if delegation is good enough for God is good  enough for us. I mean, if you feel like you're you've got the superhero complex  where nothing can happen in your business unless you're the one that's that's  steering the ship, unless you're the one that's actually hands on in the weeds 

with what's happening, then you're not truly reflecting the way that God  operated. Really operates among humanity, because in this moment, evidently  God saw fit to delegate to me, to give me this opportunity, to be able to present  this course, because he likes to delegate responsibilities, and that's what he  does in the business world. He loves to delegate and give opportunities and  ideas and everything that we have at our disposal, that he has created for us in  order to bring that and and to produce that into some into value in the  marketplace. Another great example is when Moses father in law, Jethro, and  this is known famously as the Jethro principle admonished him to delegate in  order to avoid burnout and And so Moses thought that he was the only, I mean,  he had been the one that had been given the law. It just made sense that he  knew he needed to be, at least in his own mind. Then he needed to be the one  in order to be the have the judiciary responsibility for the entire nation of Israel,  and to make sure that all of the cases were presided over in a way that was  honoring to God, according to the law that had been given to him On behalf of  the nation of Israel, and his father in law comes along and says, You know what, Moses, you're gonna burn out. If you don't start delegating these responsibilities  to others in the in the nation, then you're gonna burn out. And so that's exactly  what Moses did he start to appoint judges. And so in your business, there are  areas where you can appoint, and this isn't just sort of the grunt work. I mean,  this is the stuff that is the hardest stuff for leaders to delegate, is this kind of, you know, we're not just talking about kind of outsourcing of. A quick task here and  there. We're talking about outsourcing judiciary responsibilities, where could be  potentially matters of life and death that were delegated in many of those  instances, I love where Jesus delegated to his disciples. You can see that in  Luke 10:1- 23 where Jesus sent His disciples out into the he sent them out into  the cities and the towns where he himself was about to go. And John 4:2, we  read about where Jesus had his disciples doing the baptisms where Jesus  wasn't the one that was physically doing the baptizing. It was still getting done,  but it was getting done through his disciples. Stephen was tasked to feed the  widows so the apostles could focus on their individual callings there in Acts 6:3,  so we have ancient wisdom here from the Bible about the imperative and the  importance of dividing the labor and delegating, because it is not faithful  stewardship to assume that you Need you're the only one qualified that you just  simply don't have the time. In many cases, you don't have the expertise,  because people can do it better than you. They might be able to they might not  be able to do it better than you today, but you give them a few weeks, a few  months, a few years in the job, and they certainly will be able to do the job better than you, and that's also going to free you up to be able to then do the things  that God has called you specifically and uniquely to do, so that you can be a  faithful steward with the things that God truly has entrusted to you. And I want to say as a caveat here, because I can totally relate with those of you who are 

solopreneurs, maybe the only person in your business right now, and you're just  tired of hearing you know you need to delegate and outsource and and all of  that. And you're you're wondering, because where's the I'm gonna give up the  revenue? Like that just doesn't make all that much sense. Certainly, there is a  season where you need to be doing things that maybe aren't the ideal scenario.  Maybe it's not totally in your gift mix in your wheelhouse, and whatever you want to call it and and so maybe you've felt a lot of pressure that you need to be  outsourcing things you're going to I think you're going to know when the time is  right, but chances are the time is sooner than you think. Typically it's earlier than you think. To start delegating. Here's what I found out, that if you can, if you can  delegate and outsource tasks that you are doing and get those off of your plate.  You're even if you make half the money, but you double your output, and you are at the same time lowering your personal output, but you're still able to double  the output of your organization. You haven't lost anything financially. In fact, you  can actually begin to scale that. And that was the revelation that I had. I mean,  in a service based business, this is a little bit easier, I think, to understand  enough in a product based business where it's just a matter of, let's, let's just  make as many, sell as many products as we can, you know, and then we just  reinvest that. I mean that that's all a little more straightforward in a service based business. It's a little bit more tricky. It's a little bit more difficult to wrap your mind  around, but when you understand that, if you will just, if you will delegate, let's  say that you're able, like I said, if you're able to delegate a task that doubles  your output, but then frees up half your time, and then you can now take that  time and invest it into actually growing the business, working on the business,  instead of in the business. That's when you're really making the shift from a self  employed person to business owner, where you own a system. And by the way,  we're going to talk about that a little later, the idea of going from self employed to a business owner. The next thing is to implement systems. This is another  criteria of what it is to be a Christ centered manager, because this is example  that. God set in creation. And the creation event where he used batching,  because, and when I say batch, I mean, you don't just sort of do things here and there. You do things very systematically and intentionally where these things are getting done during this time, these things are getting done. During this time and during creation, God had a specific plan for each day of the week. I mean, on  one day he was creating this, on the next day he was creating this. It was very  methodical, and that's the kind of example that God has set for us in our  business. So maybe, how does that translate to your business? It may mean  that you have theme days. A lot of people, as an example, have an  administration day on Mondays. So they're coming in after the weekend. They're not ready to start taking meetings and, you know, doing a lot of other things. But  Monday is kind of a day to just kind of get things in order, which is what  administration is all about. Is bringing order out of chaos, and that way you go 

into Tuesday and the rest of the week with all of that stuff done and in order, and now you're ready to take your business to the next level. So God had a specific  plan for each day of the week, and we would be wise to do the same, and that,  like I said, that may mean having themes for each day of the week, such as an  administrative day on Mondays, automate wherever possible, to eliminate  waste. And I know people that are very strong on a theology of work and how,  you know, every every job matters to God, and how outsourcing and automation might be a threat to somebody's livelihood. You know, I would say, certainly  automation is decreasing the amount of people that need to that are needed in  order to do a certain job, but at the same time, a lot of these automation  innovations are still developed and maintained by hard working people and and  so we need to appreciate the fact that there are people that are working hard to  keep these systems online, if it's a web based tool or or maybe it is a offline tool  that's being used to help with the automation, but, but we certainly do need to  automate wherever possible to eliminate waste. And this brings up another,  another issue of automation and AI and all you know, all of those things that are  happening currently and that are on the rise that we really don't have time to get  into in this particular in the scope of this course, maybe that would be another  course. But, but automate wherever possible to eliminate waste. Because if  there is a tool out there, I mean, for example, you know, social media scheduling is one of the, one of the aspects of my business that I'm able to automate, and  you can only automate it to a point. I mean, it's social. It has to be personal on  some level. And and you have, and you can recycle some content, but, but, and  there's, there are systems that will allow you to recycle that content, to schedule  that content, but still, you need to be interacting with people personally, so that  it's not doesn't you know they're not just interacting with the automaton. But  there are systems like that that will allow you to automate certain aspects of  your business to where I don't have to physically scheduled. I don't have to  physically put out every post at the exact time that I wanted to go out at one time each week. I can schedule the post or even one time each month, however you  want to do it. I can schedule all those posts, and they will go out at regular  intervals that I schedule throughout the month and the final criteria here for a  Christ centered business, and there are, I'm sure, many more criteria that we  could talk about, but one of the most critical is this aspect of providing rest for  yourself and providing Rest for your people. One of the most powerful  revelations that I've ever gotten a hold of in my personal life and my professional life was in Psalm 46:10, where God says, Cease striving and know that I am  God. Cease striving and. Know that I am God. At that particular time my life, I  was doing a lot of striving. I was trying to make things happen, and I was losing  sight of my and just kind of losing that connectivity with my relationship with  God. And things were getting very impersonal and and I would justify it and say,  Well, God, I'm trying to make things happen for you. And here's the second part 

of that verse, I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.  So God's going to do the exalting of himself, and yes, he's going to use us. But  we need to stop striving. We need to know that He is God, that we are not the  disruptors, the the leaders, the you know, whatever the kind of high and mighty  term we want, it is that we want to think of ourselves as we are, the managers  we are simply called to rest in what He has called us to do and what he has  entrusted to us for today, and not stress out about the things that we can't  control and the things that we really don't have the authority over. And Truett  Cathy, again, we're going to go back to Truett Cathy, one of the most successful  businesses in history and certainly, I mean, in the fast food industry, he says I  was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my  principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision  to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring  God and of directing our attention to things that matter more than our business.  So Truett Cathy actually said that closing on the Sabbath, which in the  restaurant industry is one of the busiest, most lucrative days of the week. He  said closing on the Sabbath is a top five reason for the success of his company,  which is just astounding. Why is the Sabbath rest so valuable, not only for us,  but for our people? Number one? And again, it doesn't necessarily mean that's  on Sunday, hey, maybe it's Monday. Hey, maybe it's Tuesday. I know that some  Christian traditions are more dogmatic about certain days of the week being the  Sabbath, but whatever the case is, I mean, if your Sabbath is your Sunday, I  mean your pastor's working on Sabbath, believe me, that's the busiest day of  the week for many pastors. So there are different there are different days of the  week that could be considered your Sabbath. The key is that you're taking one  day a week that you are resting, that you are I mean, it's like a tithe principle. I  mean, it just really brings a blessing on your time. It restores you. When you  take a Sabbath, when you take a Sabbath, day of rest, one day out of the week,  to just say, I'm not going to be in business mode, I'm going to be in family mode.  I'm going to be in resting mode. It restores you. I mean, it's like, you know, it's  like a computer when it's defragmenting, it just kind of goes into that mode  where it's untangling the different files that are that are just a little bit tangled up.  Number two, is it in improves us. So you might think that it's a little bit counter intuitive to take a Sabbath day of rest each week, because, hey, I'm losing a day of productivity. And yet, when you take one day out of the week in order to just  rest, it's amazing how much more focused and how much more improved and  effective you are, and the other six days of the week, number three, it calms us,  because it just reminds us that God is on the throne, that God is the one who  will be exalted among the nation he'll do the exalting. We just need to know that  He is God, and that it centers us. It centers us back into that personal one on  one relationship, that partnership, that colaboring, that intimacy with Him, which  really is what eternity is going to be all about anyway. And why not let it begin 

right there, in your personal life, in your business life, your professional life,