Video Transcript: How do you reproduce your walk as a confident leader?

How do you reproduce your walk as a confident leader

Henry Reyenga: We're back. We've talked a lot about ministry, about calling, about opportunities for training, competence, all of these things.

Steve Elzinga: Now, we want to talk about confidence. Confidence comes when you put your calling, which we talked about in the first three sessions, and your competence, which we talked about in the next three sections into practice, and that's called leadership. 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." So, where do you start with putting your competence and your learning into practice? We've been talking about the Seven Connections for a long time. 

Steve Elzinga: In fact, if you take other courses here, you'll see this weaved into so much of our curriculum. There is a class called the connections class where you're going deep into all of this. We have been talking about this since the 1990s. 

Steve Elzinga: And it's just a way of thinking about your most important connections in life and how they're sort of interrelated to one another. So, if you are going to start leading - because that's what ministry is all about. You're leading others. You're saying I can help you down a good trail; please follow me. Just like Paul said that. You need to, first, start with yourself. I think popular speakers like Jordan Peterson, now today, he talks a lot about how people want to change the world and they have a lot to say about how the world ought to operate, but they can't even keep their own room clean. It's like maybe you should start with your own life before you start projecting how other people should do it. And that's true here too. 

So, leading yourself. First of all your walk with God. So, if you want to help other people grow close to God, how close to God are you? And if you're not daily talking to him, (that's prayer), listening to him-- that, in its simplest form, is Bible and learning and all of those things (devotions)-- if you're not doing that repeatedly, then how are you going to help other people get connected to God?

Henry Reyenga: I want to just take a little pause there. It's really about what's real. And if you're walk and faith is not real-- this is Christian Leaders-- and if the church doesn't have people connected to Christ, the witness then has to move into social causes like the social gospel. We have to find some secondary good to do. If the awesome good that we are all about is being connected to Jesus Christ and a living relationship, that's really the gospel we share. 

Steve Elzinga: So, it begins with your own walk with God. And then what comes out of a walk with God is a walk that you're actually trying to put into practice what you're learning as you walk with God - that relationship that grows through prayer and bible reading and bible study. 

Now, are you living it? You could just read the bible and pray and not do anything and then what would be the point? So, you need to lead yourself. No one is going to force you to walk with God. And then live out. It's like the living Word; it's not just reading the Word.

Henry Reyenga: Yeah, it's the gratitude life.

Steve Elzinga: Right. So, you start living the Christ-like life in your words, in your actions, and in your thoughts. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." So, that connection to God, it's the most important connection. It's the foundation for everything else. We're going to talk about marriage, we're going to talk about family, we're going to talk about church. But unless you have individuals actually walking with God, all the rest of the connections sort of fall apart. So, this is absolutely the starting place. 

Maybe you have a vision of planting a church or doing all kinds of other ministry. But what we found in our experience is people can go off and do awesome ministry, but then a lot of times it implodes at some point, because there's some moral failure or something happens because it's like a house of cards not built on the foundation. That's connection one. 

Connection two, if you happen to be married - or this might be like a partner or someone that you are really close to - leading in your marriage. And again, your marriage walk with God. So, what I think is interesting is often we marry our opposites - or there are a lot of things that we're opposite - and God gives us these hormones that we get attracted, but we have this opposite thing. And so, people have a hard time doing marriage devotions - sitting down with the bible and praying. One wants to go deep, one wants to go shallow, one wants to do it fast, one wants to take an hour.

Henry Reyenga: Learning styles

Steve Elzinga: All of those things. What's going on here? I think it can be hard; often it's hard to get started. In some ways, it's really interesting. People can be physically intimate, but then when you ask them to sit down and pray, it's like--

Henry Reyenga: "I never pray with my spouse."

Steve Elzinga: Yeah, it's too intimidating. 

Henry Reyenga: "It's even more intimate than physical intimacy. We don't go there." 

Steve Elzinga: Right. But it's really breaking the ice and trying it. We are going to show you how easy really it can be. But the reason why it's so important is this is the most important relationship you have on the planet. It's foundation to so many other things. How are you going to put God at the center of it?

Henry Reyenga: Professor Ruth, who teaches a class on sexuality in marriage, talks about the intimacy of physical but talks about that spiritual intimacy as foundational to that. A lot of people experience the physical intimacy in marriage, but the professor on great sexual experience and marriage, sex and marriage, talks about the spiritual is foundational to that. 

Steve Elzinga: If you just think about it, it makes sense. 

Henry Reyenga: It does.

Steve Elzinga: So, your marriage, again, the words that you say to each other, how you treat each other, and your marriage mission. The reason God instituted this thing called marriage is not just so we can have a partner, but we can have a partner in mission. That somehow two of you together can accomplish more than each of you individually. 

Henry Reyenga: So, when you are yoked together in the Lord, you have purpose. Just being yoked together in the Lord is a purposeful marriage. 

Steve Elzinga: And that's where the opposites attract thing is in your favor, because now you cover a lot more bases. One might be good at one thing, and that's what makes partnerships often work. 

Henry Reyenga: So, often you have to figure out how to get together in the Word, get together in prayer. But even the figuring of that out is great training for leadership. 

Steve Elzinga: Right. Because if you can get along with someone who's the opposite of you, then you can almost get along and lead others.

Henry Reyenga: Others who are very different than you. Very powerful 

Steve Elzinga: Some verses on the marriage connection. Genesis 1:28, "God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." This whole male/female thing was part of who God is. It's like his image. God is the triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - a kind of a collective almost. And now to represent that, he creates these two different things. When they come together, they reflect it.

Henry Reyenga: Just like trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Husband and wife, the two shall become one flesh. In fact, that's the next one Genesis 2:24-25. "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they became one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."

Steve Elzinga: And then Genesis 1:29, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful." It's interesting that there's a few things that God actually says to Adam and Eve. And Genesis 1, it's this be fruitful. God made things happen. And then Genesis 2, they are supposed to till the earth and be stewards of it. So, in other words, action. I want you people doing something. There's like a mission, there's like a project. You come together with this God-glorifying mission. So, what is that? And the foundation of that, again, is your devotional life together so that you are on the same page, so you do hear what God is saying to both of you. God may say something different to your spouse than he does to you, but you learn from each other. You have a unique relationship to God with each other. 

Henry Reyenga: One little side issue that's kind of fascinating is when God says for them to be stewards, that word later becomes the word deacon. 

Steve Elzinga: Right. Which is ministry.

Henry Reyenga: Which is ministry. So, he is saying to Adam and Eve, be ministers of the planet. Develop it - ministers, deacons of planetary development, be fruitful. And then later on, ministers, we are stewards and servants for God in the church.

Steve Elzinga: So, we talk about this marriage connection as a leadership issue. We're talking about putting your learning into practice, and if you can't lead yourself and you can't even lead within your own marriage, then again, how are you going to start leading in other ministries? So, it's great training. 

Henry Reyenga: Well, and we have the 35 to 40 years of ministry and leadership training to know. And we've seen, as you mentioned before, the implosion. And it starts in your own life and with your spouse, if you're married.

Steve Elzinga: We know a lot of pastors who are trying to make great things happen, but the spouse doesn't share that vision.

Henry Reyenga: Here's a good story. Remember back when we were with the Bible League and when we first discovered the connections. You were leading that campaign. We would do conferences. I was more of the marketing to people there. He was figuring how the presentations were going to go. So, our first generations of them, the spouses did not come. The ministers came alone.

Steve Elzinga: Yeah, and they were so excited what they learned. They were full of--

Henry Reyenga: Ahh, they left, "This is crazy good." And then they would come back. Part of our thing was come back for next-generation training. And a good portion of them did not make it. They failed. So, we analyzed it. What's wrong? It seems this is biblical. This is if you can't manage your own home. What's wrong? And we found a simple thing. If the leader brought their spouse, they succeeded. If they didn't, they didn't. It's almost as if the minister himself or herself would go home and maybe that minister had other things in the past that they failed on, and that spouse didn't even believe that anything was possible anymore. 

Steve Elzinga: Yeah, "You were excited about other things you didn't follow through with, so why should I believe you now?"

Henry Reyenga: So, they had buy-in and figuring out how a talking and listening relationship with God could actually be possible in the marriage. And if there was not buy in, it hurt their ability to walk with God as a married couple.

Steve Elzinga: Right. So, that hurt your ministry, but it also hurts if you have children - what your children start seeing. They're not going to follow you either.

Henry Reyenga: So, if you're not connected as a married couple, the children will see right through it. 

Steve Elzinga: Correct. So, that leads to connection three, which is leading in your family. And so, you start a family walk with God which is devotions. I grew up back in a day when families used to eat together. That was before the fast food and the microwave and how food is so easy today - at least in our western culture. And so, families don't eat together anymore. We tied our family devotions to eating together. We ate every day, so we did our devotions every day. But when that eating time habit sort of fell apart for a lot of young families so did the devotional block. And so, now families have their own music. They have their own friend. 

Henry Reyenga: And if they do sit together--

Steve Elzinga: Yeah. Sitting there with their phone. So, families don't even have the habit of being together for anything. Even sometimes when you go to church, you go to church and then the men go here, and the women go here, and the kids go here, and each have their own class. And so, the family is really struggling is what we see in our culture.

Henry Reyenga: And I think we want to say maybe find a way to reclaim a little bit of three times a week or even once a week on Sunday. Find a way to sort of bring God in the practice of walking with God into that family relationship. Even if you have a teenage child, who's like, "I don't want to do this." Well, you're still bringing them to the windy path.

Steve Elzinga: Yes, and the excuse is, well it's too difficult in our modern culture. Okay. So, then our option is to either give up and say it just can't be done, or we had just better find a way, because this is not something we can give up. 

Henry Reyenga: Right. And then also, too, is that it makes your default not technology, social media. You actually show your children that you can do something counter-cultural. But they, themselves, don't even believe it’s possible. But if they can do something counter-cultural, that skill is a great skill for life. And if you teach them that skill around the Lord and the Word of God, that's powerful stuff.

Steve Elzinga: So, your family, the words that you say to each other, how you treat each other, your family mission. The reason God places us in families is because there's something we can do as families that we couldn't do otherwise. Often, it's the kids that make you more faithful in terms of the daily prayer. If you start daily prayer with your family and then you skip, it will be your kids going, "Hey, don't we pray?" Or if you're going to church every week and then you skip, it's your kids that are going to say, "Hey, don't we go to church?" And so, in some ways, the family is the support system for your personal walk, your marriage walk. You can see how these things all tie together. You're going to try to have a family walk, but you're personally aren't walking with God, that's kind of hypocritical. Or as a husband and wife, you don't ever deal with God and talk about God? But you want your kids to show up for family devotions?

Henry Reyenga: Steve, this concept has now, after three decades of teaching us, become so powerful. And one thing I've noticed is that many times, if you start this in your family as a young family and the kids get into this pattern and you've established it, and now the kids grow up and leave home, you will find that you'll miss the accountability. My wife and I have had to be even more intentional about doing our connection to devotions, because the family structure, that glass, that habit you talked about earlier was sort of different. We've done that, but it has been one of those things that where if you get this going, it is a beautiful thing. And you add some memorization to that, and then you teach your kids how to do so many counter-cultural things. Fifteen minutes a day is all you need. And in a class further on, we'll tell you even more about this. 

Steve Elzinga: Okay. So why are these first three connections so important - your personal walk, your marriage walk, your family walk? This is such an interesting verse. 1 Timothy 3:5, it's actually in parentheses; it's sort of like on the side. "By the way, if anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?" 

Henry Reyenga: This is called Christian leaders now. If you're a Christian leader, if you will face the walls of managing a 16-year-old, a 15-year-old, to actually sit down and hear the word of God and to participate in prayer, that skill alone will make a difference in your ministry.

Steve Elzinga: Well and not only will it become a microcosm of where you learn how to actually lead - because you're learning how to lead in the context of your family - but it also becomes an incredible example to anyone that you are trying to lead. So, if you're trying to lead a church or a small group or something like that, people will look at how well you're doing in your own family. If you have a lousy marriage, why are they going to follow you in a Bible study? Or why are they going to follow you in a church plant? So, in some ways, the time you spend on your marriage and family walk is only enhancing. Some people have it, "Well I have all this ministry work to do, and then I have my family. They're competing for time, and I just don't have time for family." No! All the effort and time that you put into the family and marriage thing actually transfers into the small group or leading your church or what other ministry that you do. So they're not competing. They're actually supporting one another.

Henry Reyenga: Now here's a couple of things that must be said. A, remember, you're ultimately bringing them to the windy path. You can't guarantee that every child will own Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but they will be able to say if they're prodigal sons, "Yes, we are prodigal sons." Okay, they will go, like, we have rejected that for whatever reason. Secondly, this is not saying that if you did not do this practice in the past, you are not a failure if your children are grown up and all of that. Because essentially, this pattern was lost for a generation and a half. So, we're bringing back something that hasn't been practiced largely for 50 years.

Steve Elzinga: But even if your kids are out of the house, you can start now. 

Henry Reyenga: Yes.

Steve Elzinga: You could just call them and say, "Is there a path we can both be on, and once in a while we can call each other and talk about it?" We have the Christian Leaders planner. It's got reading tracks. It's got a verse of the day, different way of accessing the Word of God. And so, it is possible that you can be on the same track with your grown children or your grandchildren. It's never too late. 

Henry Reyenga: So, there are opportunities, no matter what the path has been, to own today and the connection with your family. It doesn't matter if you're 80 and you look back or 50 or 70 or you're a young family. It all starts by taking responsibility. And manage is not saying there's an automatic outcome. It means that you take responsibility to do your part, to walk with God, to love your family, and to give your family to the Lord. You are a minister of your family, a steward. So, it's like you're a steward of yourself, a minister of yourself, you are a steward in your marriage, and you’re a steward in your family, that is a minister. It's all about ministry, isn't it?

Steve Elzinga: Being a steward of your family is no small church. It's like a little church, because if you have two kids and your kids grow up, get married, and have two kids and that pattern goes on for 400 years, there will be a million people in your family tree - a million in your church that you're establishing right now.

Henry Reyenga: Right, so wow. How fun, how cool, and we're all involved with this.