Video Transcript: Just Do It Part 2

Just do it! Part 2

We looked at the 7 Connections, the spiritual dream and how that relates to enterprise. Now I want to talk about the God of enterprise. You start thinking that this enterprise thing is your thing. It's actually God's thing. We're just stewards. In this life, we don't own anything. We're passing through. God gives us talents, gifts, connections, abilities, all these things to accomplish something while we're here. We're just stewards of all of this. We don't own our own bodies, we don't own time, we don't own the money. It's all God's. Once you understand that, it's so freeing. It's up to God what's going to happen, not us.

I want to talk about my own story. Just a few things, things that have happened to me, and hopefully as I'm talking about my story, these things will help you start to think about your story, how God shows up in all these endeavors. It's God's business, not ours. We work at it, we do all these things, but all of a sudden God is the one that shows up.

I want to start back when I was young. I went to school late. My birthday's in November. So my parents could either hold me back and I would start later my first year at school or I could be one of the youngest kids in my class and start early. Well, my parents held me back, so I was one of the oldest kids in my class. When I went to school - Kindergarten, first and second grade - I struggled with the whole reading thing. I couldn't read very well. I would read something, and I would have no clue what I just read. The comprehension was just not there. For whatever reason, I didn't get it. I couldn't spell at all.

In third grade, my parents had a little conference with the teacher. I heard this from my parents later. But the teacher said to my parents, "You probably should teach your son a trade because he'll never go to college." I don't know what my parents thought about that. I do know what my dad thought about it. The teacher said it, but he didn't believe it. So my dad researched some things and he found these workbooks, and he made my brother who is 14 months younger than I, he made my brother and I do these workbooks. He paid us $1.00 for every workbook. At the time, my dad was working at a fire department and he would go there in the morning. It was close to our school, so we had to go with him. It was real early in the morning, and we would sit at the firehouse and do our little workbooks. When we got done with one, we had to do the next one. And we got $1.00 for doing that book.

I don't know if that helped me do the reading better.  I don't know if that's the thing that changed for me. I know that in eighth grade, spelling was finally dropped. I remember in the spelling class, I remember in eighth grade, that was the last time I had spelling. And our teacher was a really old teacher. My dad had that same teacher when he was a kid. She would have the spelling, and she would always do the spelling on a certain piece of paper that was free. You could go up and get this paper any time. She would always do them in order. She always did the spelling words in order. So what I did, is I just wrote them all ahead of time, and I just turned it in. So I finally did well at spelling, but spelling was finally dropped. All of a sudden, my grades got better. Instead of Cs and Ds, I was getting As and Bs.

I don't know if it was those books that changed my abilities, but I'll tell you, I know for a fact that my dad's attitude about me helped me in terms of what I thought I could do. My dad's attitude was, "Someone says this about you, but that doesn't make it true."

"Your son will never go on to college." That's what the teacher said, but my dad's attitude was, "Oh, really? Well, we'll see about that."

I did eventually go to college. I did college in three years instead of four years. I finally made up for that year since my parents started me late. Then I went on to grad school. As far as reading and spelling, those kinds of things, you don't have to know how to spell anymore. The computer spells for you. So now I write books, and bible studies, and courses like this. I was pigeon-holed into something and God had something else in mind. It was a rough start. I don't know why I started out that way. Who knows?

Maybe you started out slow in certain areas of your life, but that doesn't mean that's who you are. Never pigeon hole yourself into a slot, because God is the one in charge. God is going to make happen what he wants to make happen. Maybe he's going to have you start out slow and then become this fast runner at the end. I don't know. Never underestimate what God can do in your life.

Speaking

I was never a speaker. I told this story in an earlier video of how the teacher made me do the speech, and I didn't want to do the speech. That was not my thing. I actually won the contest. I still have the little trophy, and I keep it as a symbol of, "This is who I thought I was, but God had other things in mind." Why I won, I don't know. Maybe it was just the enthusiasm. Maybe technically I wasn't the best speaker, but they saw something in there. Who knows what is inside of you? Never underestimate what it is that God can do through you.

Seminary

I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was pre-med at first. Then I was thinking of psychiatry. I had no clue what I would do. I finished my four-year college in three years. Actually, it was three years and I had two classes to go. So my fourth year of college, I was staying in dorms at that time. I decided I'd just start seminary. I've got nothing else to do. So I started seminary. Then I bumped into somebody at seminary who said, "Hey, I went on this program that takes you down to Mexico and Central America for the summer. It was a really good experience." So I signed up. I ended up going there. I ended up giving my first sermon. I had some experiences in the church down in Central America. I ended up in Nicaragua where we were taught how to teach people how to read. We got dropped off in some little village and the missionaries picked us up six weeks later. All those experiences made me have a sense of what I was supposed to do. So the next year, I went full time at the seminary. I sort of fell into it. I had ideas of doing this or going there or teaching or something like that.

 Through weird experiences, meeting someone, all of a sudden getting directed to go to Central America, all these things God put me on a different track. I'm just going out there. I'm experiencing life. I think I should go over here, but God is the one moving things about.

So you plan enterprise, you plan what you're going to do, but be open to the God of enterprise. He has something in mind.

My spouse

I was going to Calvin College. I was interested in this one girl. It was a skating party and I said, "Are you going tonight?"

She said, "No."

Then I said, "You've got to go." So she was going.

Then I was playing a racquetball game. I signed up for a court, and I met (one day that she would be my wife) I met her and said, "Hey, do you want to play racquetball?" So we ended up playing racquetball. We had so much fun together that I missed the skating party. Because of that one little decision, that one little racquetball game, I ended up with the wife that I have who's the perfect match, perfect ministry partner, all these years. It was because of racquetball, one little thing that changed everything.

God is behind the scenes making things happen in your life, the things that make the ultimate difference. I didn't think that the choice of a racquetball court was going to change the total direction of my life, but it did.

Church planting

My first church, I went to the Philippines and I taught there. I came back. I thought, "I have to get some experience in a church before I go back on the mission field. Who am I to go and tell other people how to they ought to live and what they ought to do in a country that's not my own? I thought I'd better take a church first. So I took a church. It was an old, established church. So I went to that church and I'm doing my thing in this church and the church is growing. It turns out that this church was the mother church of a church that got planted in a city about 60 miles away. So they really had nothing to do with this church, but they happened to be the church that somehow got it started, or the denomination needed a church somehow connected to it. So that was the church. I had nothing to do with this.

Well, this church that was 60 miles away, this new church plant got big enough to where it got organized. And the church that sort of got it going, their pastor is supposed to be the one that sort of does the service that sort of officially recognizes this thing as a church. So I was the guy, I went over there, I led the service, we did some things to make this an organized church, and all the denominational leaders were there of the church planting people that I was not connected to. I didn't know these people at all. That was the first time that I met them and the first time that they met me doing something.

They saw something in me. About a half a year later, they give me a call and say, "Hey, we would like you to go to Vancouver, British Columbia and start a church there because we connected with you at that event." So because this church that I happened to go to happened to get this church going - it had nothing to do with me. I happened to be there when that church got organized, I happened to do that service. Because of that, I ended up going to Vancouver, British Columbia to plant a church. While I was there, we planted the church and then we daughtered two churches out of that church.

In all these circumstances that are outside of my control, all happened. The God of enterprise, the God of this universe is making things happen. Now, I'm planting, I'm going to school, I'm studying hard, I'm doing what's in front of me. But all I'm saying is you can work hard, you can do all these things. You can try to build your business, but just remember God is behind all these things that make things happen.

My house

I didn't own a house. I went to Vancouver. We were supposed to rent. I tried to rent a place. This was 1988 in Vancouver, British Columbia. You couldn't find a place to rent. By the time we went to a place, there were 10 people already there. It was so frustrating. So then there was somebody on Vancouver Island, which is an hour boat away, their house was going to be empty for a month. So we went over to Vancouver Island, a different church. We helped out there for a month. We lived there for a month. But I was supposed to plant a church in Vancouver. So there were some people that wanted to help us start this church. One of them was an insurance guy and the other was a builder. So the insurance guy bought a lot. He had money so he bought the lot, and he had the builder build the house. Then they said, "Here, we're going to rent it to you."

So all of a sudden, I had a house. So we could start the church. We're going to plant this church. After three months, the insurance guy and the builder said, "We don't want to rent this house to you. Why don't you just buy it?" We weren't supposed to buy it, but because of the circumstances, we ended up buying it. We bought it at probably below market level. At that time, it was like $114,000. That's what it was, so we bought it for $114,000. Nine years later, we left and it was $260,000. From there, we bought the next house and the next house and the next house. People wonder how I can live how I live, but it was because the first house happened, which was totally, absolutely out of my control. I had nothing to do with it. It was circumstances beyond my control that just sort of, "There it is." I didn't have a master plan of how this is going to go. It just happened. That's what God does.

I remember my first church. My first church was a country church and they paid me $15,000 a year. That was my salary, $15,000 a year. And they gave me a parsonage, a free house to live in. They paid for my phone, my heat, things like that, utilities. So $15,000 plus a house. After the first year, the deacons came to me and said, "How are you getting by on your $15,000?"

I said, "Fine. We have no complaints at all."

So they decided not to give us a raise the next year. "Okay. Whatever. That's how it is."

Some of them in the church saw that didn't think that was right, and anonymously sent us $2,000. I've never had to complain about money. I've never had to ask for a salary increase. I've always just taken what is and miraculously somehow God always provides. God is the God behind the scenes.

 

Henry

The president of the Christian Leaders Institute. Henry planted a church in Chicago in 1988. I planted one in Vancouver. We didn't know each other. Three years later, we went to an assessment place. They wanted church planters in our denomination to assess new church planters, so they took people who were in the middle of doing it and flew us to Grand Rapids, Michigan and we were to assess people, and that's the first time I met Henry. I remember the first day, we're talking about our churches and we were up until 3:00 in the morning talking about what we could do and how we could do it. From then on, we'd formed this partnership for the next 20 years. For 20 years, we've been talking about these things and dreaming and starting our own ministry and joining the Bible League together, CLI, all these things. All because our denomination did something we happened to come to the same place and meet. I wasn't behind that. I didn't know he existed. I didn't know that he had planted a church in Chicago. God is the one orchestrating these things behind the scenes.

I came to Chicago. Henry and I, after we'd done our church planting, we'd stayed connected to each other. We had a vision for church planting that was different than we thought was out there, so we decided to form our own non-profit - LifeNet21. We moved to Chicago. We talked to Rich DeVos and said, "Would you support us?"

He said, "I'll support you." So we moved. We have no money, we have no non-profit status. We had to do all that stuff. We had no idea what was going to happen, so we did it. We came to Chicago. I remember writing a Christmas letter. My wife always wrote a Christmas letter and sent it to all the people that we knew. One of the people that we knew was someone who I had worked for when I was a student. I spent a year in the Philippines. This guy was my supervisor, and we had a great experience in the Philippines. So ever since then, my wife would always do this newsletter at Christmastime.

So we're living in Chicago now and she does this newsletter to this guy who used to be my supervisor many years before in the Philippines. He gets the newsletter and he sees that it's coming from Chicago. That's where he is leading a non-profit called The Bible League. So he calls up and says, "Hey. What are you doing here in Chicago?"

I tell him all about what Henry and I were trying to do. And he says, "That's exactly what we're looking for at The Bible League. We're looking for a North American thing of what we do at The Bible League. Would you consider joining us?"

So we did. We joined The Bible League. From that Bible League experience, we got connected to all over the world. Why? Because I was in the Philippines once. That was my supervisor. Now he's running this non-profit. We happened to move there, call, Christmas letter, all these things. You can't plan these things. You're living your life, you're doing your thing, you're making your plans, you're working hard, you're being disciplined, but then God is behind the scenes making things happen.

 

 

The Bible League

Okay, I'm working at The Bible League. I'm doing that. I got to be the director of Malaysia, so I'm going to Asia five or six times a year. I'm doing all these things. Then we got a new president. They decided they didn't want to do anything with North America. Before that, I was being challenged. My brother was in a little mission church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That's where I'm from. They asked me to do a marriage retreat, so I did the marriage retreat. I talked about the vision of the 7 Connections, all of that stuff. The people really liked it. They were without a minister so they wanted to call me from The Bible League to be the pastor of this church.

I said, "I don't want to leave The Bible League. So it's not going to work."

Finally, they kept going. Six months later, they're still asking me to come. Finally, I sat down and I prayed about it. I said, "Okay, the only way I'm coming is if I can keep working at The Bible League and on the weekends do this church. So I'll move to Grand Rapids, I'll drive to Chicago every day - a three-hour drive - and I'll be there during the week and then I'll do the thing at the church."

Well, they thought that was ridiculous. I thought it was ridiculous too. Six months later, they call and say, "Okay, let's do it."

"Really?"

So I moved to Grand Rapids. On Mondays, I would drive all the way to Chicago. I would stay there, work for three days and then drive on the weekend back and do the church. I did that for 2 1/2 years. After 2 1/2 years, The Bible League got a new president. They decided they don't want to do anything in the United States anymore and my whole department is let go. Well, I moved over full-time to the church. Who could write this stuff? I didn't plan all this. It just happened. God is behind the scenes making these things happen.

OnYourGates.com, that's the bible thing that I do: personalized bibles and the sampler bible and all these things, the Jesus bible.

How did I get into that? I got into that because at The Bible League, we did these personalized New Testaments. When they decided to give up the North American thing, I said, "Okay. That's fine. Then I'm going to take all the ministry that we were doing at The Bible League and bring it along." So I did.

When I brought it along, I thought, "Really, we need different products." So one thing led to another. I didn't have this grand vision of doing all these things. It just sort of followed me. It just sort of happened. I couldn't have written this stuff. I'm not saying that we don't plan. I'm not saying that you don't work towards a goal. But always be looking for how God shows up. God shows up in different ways that you cannot plan. God is the God of enterprise.

 

 

CLI

While working in The Bible League, finally Henry started planting a church, doing things differently, and he left The Bible League, he started this little church, and then somehow, he got onto this whole thing of Christian Leaders Institute. He started it and he had like six students. I remember when you had to come to Chicago for a couple of days at the very end of your class. People would come. We had six students. The next year, we had like 12 students. All this work for 12 students? Some of the students weren't very good. They weren't like you. Then there was, how is this going to go?

Well, now, there are thousands upon thousands of students. Who could've guessed?

What's your story? What challenges have you had to overcome? If you're taking this class, you've overcome challenges already. So who knows what God is going to do? Make your plans. Work hard, but look for God. What mentors have you had in your life? Who are the people that have come from nowhere to try to help you? Some of the teachers that you have at Christian Leaders Institute, learn from them, grow from them. What did failure lead you to do something good? How have you fallen forward? Failure can be some of the most instructive things that could ever happen to you in your life.

How did you get to CLI? Did someone tell you about CLI? Did you discover it? We hear story after story people were distraught, they go on the Internet, they're trying to look for things and all of a sudden, they bump into CLI and they wonder, "Is it really free? What's the catch?" You've taken some courses and you're amazed about the whole thing.

What led you to this class? Why do you want to study enterprise? What caught you about this whole thing? What has God already planted inside of you? What experiences have led to this moment?

Your future

Where do you think God is leading you? Are you open to God taking you on a few rides, unexpected rides? What do you think you should do next?

I want to leave you with one blessing. You've taken this class. We're kind of getting towards the end of it and hopefully, you've learned a lot of things. Hopefully, you've been challenged in all kinds of things. Where do you think it's going? Maybe you're overwhelmed with all this stuff. I don't know what it is that I can do. So I want to leave you with a blessing. It's a blessing that I was given many years when I first became ordained as a minister. An elder got up at the end of the service, and he said, "I want to give you this blessing."

At the time, I didn't know how powerful it was, but it's been one of the most powerful verses in my life. So I want to give you Deuteronomy 31:8. Deuteronomy is a book where Moses is now talking to the people of Israel. They're about to go into the Promised Land and he doesn't get to go in with them. Remember, he hit the rock when he should have spoken to the rock. He does not get to go into the Promised Land. So Deuteronomy, Moses is recapping the whole history, because he doesn't get to go. He's saying, "Alright. I know you guys are going to be going into the Promised Land. You've got to remember this. Don't forget this. Remember this. Remember how God did this." And he tells the story, and he gives them encouragement because he's not going to be there. It's like a person on their death bed giving the last hurrah to you people. "Come on." This is towards the end of the book. He says this. And I want to say these words to you. “The Lord himself goes before you. And he will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged." Go out into God's world with that blessing.