Kingdom Leadership Workshop
Description
Learn how Kingdom leaders make decisions, build an aligned leadership team, and foster relationships within their business. Hear stories of failure, redemption, and unimaginable success from a Kingdom leader who didn’t start out as one.
If you’re a CEO or business owner and you’re interested in diving in deeper, check out our Kingdom Leadership Workshops: https://kingdomatwork.com/events/. Throughout three power-packed days, we will work together to discover God’s transformational plan for your leadership, your business, and your people.
[00:00:00] I know there’s a lot of high performing leaders in this room, um, not unlike my friend Vernon. That was the first time I’ve seen that video. I got to watch the transformation in that man. He, he is one of the best business leaders I’ve ever met. He runs, uh, I think over 20 successful businesses, a serial entrepreneur, and is insanely smart, like one of the smartest business people, maybe the smartest business person I’ve ever met.
And I have got to witness firsthand the transformation in that man. Uh, and God wants to invite us into that same thing. Help us make the shift from a business leader to a kingdom leader. And that’s what I’m going to talk about. Um, a kingdom leader establishes the kingdom, God’s kingdom as the highest priority for your company or church or [00:01:00] nonprofit or organization for the territory you’re responsible for.
Did you know that of the first 108 colleges established? In America, 106 of them were established as Bible colleges, 106 of 108. They were equipping people academically and biblically for life outside of school. So how many of those schools? Still have that as the highest priority today. Almost none of them, 106 of them.
And there’s almost none that would say that’s their highest priority today. So what happened? A kingdom leader or a group of leaders originally established it for that person, but then they took a step back and they sat down or they fell down and something else found its [00:02:00] way to the highest priority.
You know, what was it? Was it academics? Was it beautiful buildings? Was it tolerance or maybe trying to grow the school and attract more students? You know, the first truth of this whole kingdom leader thing is they are committed to God’s kingdom being the highest priority in the territory they have authority over.
Why does your organization exist? Why does it exist? Not, what do you do? I didn’t ask that. Why does it exist? What’s the purpose behind it? Is the purpose profit? You know, here’s how we think about profit. It’s not wrong or evil. In fact, there’s parables that Jesus tell that at least make it seem that [00:03:00] in the kingdom a return is expected.
Prophets similar to breathing, you need it to survive. If you can’t breathe, all of a sudden it’s going to become a really high priority, you know, but if your whole purpose in life is breathing, that’s a pretty bad purpose for your life. It should be bigger than that. Uh, in the kingdom. We also can’t be tribal.
Uh, God’s kingdom is bigger than our business or, or our organization. Um, the kingdom must be a higher priority than me. Yeah. My family or my business or really anything.
I’m going to tell you a couple of practical stories of how that. Played out here cause I’m a practical guy. So just a couple of years ago, we heard that Dr. Horton, uh, was planning to come to Lubbock. And if you aren’t aware, Dr. Horton is America’s builder. [00:04:00] Uh, they build over 90, 000 homes per year within the first five days of the year.
They will close more homes than we will the whole year. That’s that’s how much bigger. Uh, they’re based out of Fort Worth. They’re in like every major U. S. city, uh, companies worth over 50 billion. Um, you know, they’d come to Lubbock once before, like in the early 2000s, but, uh, then left for a little while.
But in 2021, the founder of the company, Don Horton, Came to Lubbock and said they were going to make it here. He, it was really important to him personally. Um, DR has over 6 billion in cash on hand. So if they want something to work, you know what they can make it work. We heard they were coming and that they’d even started talking to some of the developers about buying home sites.
Uh, but one day Corey Cisco, one of our senior leaders came into my office and said, Hey, I wanted to let you know, [00:05:00] Brock is resigning. Because he accepted the division president position for Dr. Horton here in Lubbock, Brock was one of our most veteran general managers, uh, of our largest operation in Lubbock.
He’d been with us for 13 years. He knew all of our secrets. He knew our cost, our pricing, our strategy. He had personal relationships with our trades and suppliers. Honestly, if your goal was to take market share from the biggest builder in the city, then recruiting Brock was probably the smartest thing they could do.
But when Corey told me, uh, Brock is going to be the new division president of DR Horton here in Lubbock, I can honestly say that in less than five seconds, I sincerely responded good for him. That’s probably a really good opportunity for him. Now I admit my first [00:06:00] thought was what, how dare he reject us?
Like, what is he doing? Now, that didn’t make it out of my mouth, because the Lord, uh, has taught me so many times over the years that I don’t have to take offense. And the goal shouldn’t be to keep everyone here. That’s not the goal either. His kingdom is bigger than Beatonville Homes. And while it might look like something’s being taken from us, and it did, it felt like that on the inside, the Lord withholds no good things from His kids.
That had been so ingrained into my thinking that within just a couple of seconds, I arrived at good for him.
You know, here’s the truth. That really was a great opportunity for Brock. In fact, come to find out later, they actually had reached out to several [00:07:00] of our senior leaders. Our old purchasing manager had gone to work for D. R. Horton, so he had all the contacts and he knew who to reach out to. Uh, Corey Sisko was actually the first one they reached out to.
About the opportunity. And he told him while he wasn’t personally interested in that, he thought he might have their guy. And it was Brock C Corey, Cisco had been leading Brock. Um, and there were some wounds from a few things here that he really struggled to get past, honestly, because we aren’t perfect and we make mistakes, including me, that some of these were my fault.
Um, and Corey was trying to help Brock healing grow. But when he heard about this opportunity, he genuinely thought it was the best thing for Brock. He could see him growing in that role more than if he stayed here. Uh, now it might not be the best thing for Beaten Bo Holmes, [00:08:00] but it was the best thing for Brock.
And if we’re really about the people and not just ourselves, and we’d want that for him, regardless of what it meant for us. So it wasn’t, uh, just me that had that thought good for him. It’s a way we’ve learned to think about it around here and think about this. Brock is a kingdom leader. He sat in dozens of workshops, been a table coach, uh, and was a practitioner of this kingdom leadership style himself.
Honestly, when he first came to us in 2008, he was a truck driver. You remember that Corey? Uh, and he was applying to be a construction superintendent for us. We helped him develop into a leader and. helped him stand up in that, but also opened his eyes to God’s kingdom and his role in calling in it. What if Brock used what he learned here about being a kingdom leader in [00:09:00] D.
- Horton and they notice his territory was more healthy and higher performing than all the other territories they had and they came to him and said, Hey, what, what, what are you doing here? And he helped them catch this vision. What could God do with that? And wouldn’t we want that? Well, if we’re about more than building our own kingdom, we would.
And you know what? They’ve been building here in Lubbock for three years now. Um, and today we’re selling more homes in Lubbock than in our 32 year history here. In fact, uh, five years ago before D. R. Horton came, we were selling about 500 homes a year in Lubbock. And today we’re closer to a thousand homes a year and they’re selling homes too.
The truth is there wasn’t scarcity. And in the kingdom, there is not scarcity. But we were worried, like we, we thought, oh no, oh no, now they, [00:10:00] oh gosh, the person who knows everything, now they’re going to take something from us. And we said, but Lord, we know you’re not taking something from us, so can you help us see it differently?
And that’s what a kingdom leader does. And you know what else? While Brock was one of our most veteran GMs and we didn’t, we legitimately didn’t know anyone who could slip into that role, uh, with his experience. The craziest thing happened. Uh, Corey Lusk became the interim GM and we started praying, Lord, help us see who’s supposed to fill this spot.
It’s now open. And we started seeing the growth in this, uh, really very task oriented, introverted construction manager. Um, honestly, I’ve never seen someone grow as fast as I have. I’ve watched him in that season grow in spiritual leadership. Um, it was supernatural and it quickly became obvious that the Lord had provided the person to step into that GM role [00:11:00] and he is amazing at it and the Lord was taking nothing for, from us.
He had something else for us, but we just hadn’t seen it yet. Now, when we heard the news, we weren’t aware of any of that. We didn’t think we had someone to replace him, but we did believe the, the Lord withholds no good things from his kids. We chose to believe that that doesn’t mean it’ll always be pleasant or exactly what you hoped it would be, but we learned to trust him and make his kingdom the highest priority.
And in the kingdom, there isn’t scarcity. We can all naturally approach the world with that mindset that there’s not enough and we better get ours. We better keep our stuff close to us. But the Lord’s inviting us to see that differently. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If this is His thing, He will provide for it.
You don’t have to fight for it. The question is this. Is this really God’s stuff or your stuff? [00:12:00] Are these God’s people or are they your people? Well, we, we use all this stuff to glorify God. You know that’s different. Is it God’s and you’re steward over it? You’re managing it on his behalf. That’s the way we have to see this.
That’s the kingdom mindset. What we’re really talking about here is spiritual leadership.
Doesn’t that sound scary? What if I told you you’ve been designated by God to be a spiritual leader in the territory you’ve been given? You know, often when we talk to other leaders and say something like that, their first reaction is, What? Me? No, not me. Uh, you know, I don’t know enough Bible or I’m still a mess myself.
Uh huh. I don’t see your point. That is true and so is you are called to be a spiritual leader. [00:13:00] They’re both true. Um, those are actually the exact kind of people God consistently picked in scripture and continues to pick today so that his power can be revealed. I want to communicate something really clearly.
You are A spiritual leader, and actually all leadership is spiritual. Watch this. Adolf Hitler was a spiritual leader. Oh, you know, he had everything he needed resources, opportunity, a aligned leadership team. The problem was he was led by evil spirits
killed millions of people. And they had their way in him.
His leadership was spiritual. Uh, sometimes when we’re leading the spirit that [00:14:00] leads us is not as evil as murder or domination, but maybe it might be greed or a lust for more or simply starting to worship our work. You know, some of us, even though we might not have ever said it out loud, might have. made work the highest priority.
Here’s a key to, uh, Rick, Rick thought about it this way. First, he didn’t do this perfectly and neither do I, and neither will you. And there’s not pressure in that. What he would say is we need to keep those seasons where we’re letting a spirit other than the spirit of God lead us short. And we help each other with that.
You know, he, he used to say, uh, Holly might come to him one time and say, I don’t know what that was, but that was not the spirit of God leading you in that moment. And we need that. And we do that for each other. Here’s a key to staying more focused [00:15:00] and allowing the Lord to fill you up. Spending time with the king.
How can we lead in his kingdom if we don’t spend time with the king? This could be the primary message God wants you to hear this week. It’s why you’re at the workshop. Could be. Maybe you’ve lost track of spending quality time with God and he’s inviting you back to that. How can you have a relationship with someone if you don’t spend any time with them?
It’s critical for every kingdom leader to find time every single day to hear from the Lord. In fact, if you’re not hearing from the Lord, whose kingdom are you building? And can I be honest with you for a second? I used to avoid this a lot because I was afraid of what he might say to me.
I [00:16:00] would just keep in motion all day long and try not to think about it. Because if I really sat in front of him and said, Lord, what do you have to say? I was afraid he was going to accuse me or tell me he was disappointed in me. That is not what God will do. If that’s your fear, if that’s keeping you from sitting in front of him and saying, Lord, what do you have for me?
What do you think about me? What do you want me to do? I promise you, that’s not what he’s going to say. That’s actually attack from the enemy. That’s what spiritual attack looks like. Satan is whispering to you, don’t do that. He’ll be mad. And he’s not mad. He’s a great dad. And he sees so much in you. And he wants to tell you about your identity, your real one, the one he created you to be.
He won’t remind you of your sin or your shortcomings. He wants to help you live a full life.
You know, there are a lot of different backgrounds [00:17:00] and traditions in this room. Uh, different feelings of religion. And I have ran from religion. I still want nothing to do with religion. Turns out a relationship with God is different than religion. Um, so let’s not get tangled up in all that other stuff.
Uh, but we, we would say, If we’re going to believe anything Jesus said, we believe He’s the King. We have to believe everything He said. Otherwise, He was just a crazy person. Um, you know, in these verses in John, uh, those two verses down at the bottom, it says the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God that is given to us to help us, to teach us, to counsel us.
If you’ve accepted Jesus, Accepted Jesus spirit of God is in you and works through you. And what we’re doing at this workshop is trying to help you better understand that how, how to stand up in that and live that out in the day to day of your [00:18:00] business. He is speaking, but often we can’t hear him because we aren’t listening for him, watching for him, but he’s speaking to you and me all the time.
But many of us might not have a hearing problem. We might have an obeying problem. You know, often we might know what God is saying, But we explain it away or we ignore it. Fundamentally, a kingdom leader listens to and obeys the king.
Okay. I got another story for you. Let me take you back to March, 2020. Do you remember what was going on then? Whole world seemed to be coming apart. And I’m not talking about, about back in COVID times. I’m, I’m saying right at the very start of it, uh, school shut down, businesses had to close, uh, and there was more uncertainty worldwide than any time in recent history.
Mayors and the president were having like daily [00:19:00] press conferences, actually multiple times a day. We were, we built in four different cities and we were trying to keep up with what all they were saying. And someone would say, Hey, did you watch the Midland press conference yesterday? I was like, yeah, yeah, I watched it.
Uh, the one in the evening, I was like, No, I did the one in the morning. They had one in the evening too. Like it was just constant. And we were like, okay, I got to go watch it. Uh, for us at Beaton Bow Homes, we also faced the same uncertainty that other businesses did. We weren’t sure if we’d be forced to shut down for months or if we’d be considered what became known as essential business.
Uh, here’s what we did know. We had record cancellations.
Many of our customers were losing their jobs or being put on furlough and could no longer qualify for a mortgage. Um, for others, the fear of the unknown, uh, simply made them want to postpone a big purchase. Most people felt like they should conserve cash or invest in toilet paper. [00:20:00] Y’all remember how strange that was?
No toilet paper. Hmm. Uh, I’ve been praying for God, God’s leading in our business for years, but those prayers became a little more intense in 2020. However, I can honestly say I never felt. anxious or worried. I had a strange sense of peace. I can remember first praying for our team. Um, I saw so much fear and worry in our team.
Um, maybe even their spouse had lost their job and now they were worried. And so I would love if I could help calm those fears. And I thought it would be the Lord’s heart to also do that. While I wanted to say that to them, tell them some kind of promise about that. I knew I shouldn’t do that without asking God first.
And so I went to the Lord and said, Lord, you see what’s going on? Could we give them some kind of reassurance that you’re going to take care of them? [00:21:00] And after praying for a couple of days, I felt like he, he confirmed that in my spirit. So I took that to her board and said, Hey, this is what I’m feeling.
And they all had peace with it as well. And so on March 30th, I sent out a video that said, Hey, even if we have to shut down and don’t have closing for six months in a row, we will continue to pay every single person. You can rest in that. If the people are the highest priority, then you would say something like that.
Now that would be terrible for profit. So what’s the higher priority we get to pick as leaders we get to pick, you know, uh, the truth is we continue to have. More cancellations and sales. The big question was this, should we continue to start homes? The largest and smartest home builders in the country had already pulled back, um, or completely stopped building homes, but we believe the Lord is the answer.
So we asked him, Lord, [00:22:00] what should we do here? And I asked my senior leaders on my team to join me in praying for that direction. I didn’t want to pull back from our own ideas, what was best or from fear. And all three of us had peace that we were supposed to continue. Now, I will say that made me feel a little crazy and maybe more than a little crazy.
Um, seriously, all, all the smartest home builders that I knew were in conserve cash mode. Um, but we felt like the Lord’s prompting was to continue starting homes even without buyers attached to them. But by the end of April, the U. S. housing starts were down at least 35%. Compared to just 60 days prior, the other homes, other builders were starting.
We’re virtually all well on their way before COVID started happening. Uh, and by the end of April, beating the homes are our spec inventory. Our available home inventory had grown to over 18 million because of all the cancellations [00:23:00] and the fact that we were continuing to start another 40 homes a week, every week.
Without buyers attached to them. Um, you know, a couple of the top 10 biggest builders in the U S it’s already stopped starting homes for a month. And I know at least one of the top 10 builders who, who continued that for three months straight, no home started. That is likely what Harvard business school would teach was the right move there.
Like I’m not being critical of them. Actually, that seemed like the right thing in my, my heart. Like Cal was like, Oh gosh, don’t just keep, blindly going into the dark, like that doesn’t make any sense. So we continue to play, pray, Lord, are you sure about this? Honestly, my prayer was more like this at times.
Lord, I heard what you said and we’re doing that, but this seems stupid. Like, and if this doesn’t work out, they’re all going [00:24:00] to turn and look at me. Not you. This could sink the ship. You’re not going to leave us out here. Are you? Are we really supposed to do this? That’s what faith looks like. Like sometimes you might think that that’s the absence of faith.
Actually, that wrestle. That’s my faith coming forward and saying, Lord, this is the way I feel, but I’m gonna, you’ve been faithful before and so I’m gonna continue to trust you. Please show up.
It felt like walking in the dark. Uh, but he continued to give us peace. We were supposed to start home homes despite what the market was saying, so that’s what we did. But that also means we continued to write checks to the trades doing work on our homes every day. Yet at the same time, cash was not coming in from closings at the same rate.
So over several weeks, we were eating our cash reserve down. In fact, it started getting below what it would take to fulfill [00:25:00] that promise to our employees. That even if we don’t close home for six months, we could continue to pay them.
So I went back to the Lord and said, um, I know I asked you about this. Remember I asked you about this. Uh, didn’t you say we could say that at this point, Lord, you know, that. We, we couldn’t fulfill that promise that we made that you told us we could make. What are we supposed to do here? And honestly, really, the only thing we felt was we were supposed to continue starting homes.
We couldn’t see how both things could be true at the same time. Um, but we chose to be obedient to the last word that we heard. Kind of like Abraham, you know, God promised Abraham descendants and then later told him descendants through Isaac. And then he told him to kill Isaac. In that order, and Abraham probably had a hard time [00:26:00] reconciling those two things, right?
But his faith led him to the mountain to do it because he believed the Lord honors his promises. Even if he can’t make sense of it in his own head. You know the thing about the Bible is it didn’t happen, it happens. This is the same story on repeat. I, I, that Abraham, that confusion, I felt that. Now, it was not my son, so very different, but I did feel, Lord, how could that be true?
You asking us to do this, I want to show you a chart of hard data, just because I want you to know this is not a preacher story. Okay. On this chart, the green area is total U. S. housing starts. Now, I overlay that black line, uh, that’s. Um, you can see we largely follow the national trend until [00:27:00] March 2020, and then we keep going on a straight line while the national starts have plummeted.
We were just hanging out there in the empty space. And while that line, it looks really short, that is 90 days, three months, that is 90 days in the desert.
You know, by the end of May, our cash reserve was extremely low. We’re a really cash intensive business. Business up to this point, we typically would have like 15 to 20 million in cash, uh, which is wise because every single week we pay out like four to 7 million in payroll, uh, to trades and, and everybody to do work on the homes.
Uh, and in may our cash balance dropped below 5 million, a few times that meant if someone, some of the homes didn’t close, they were scheduled to, we might not be able to pay people. I remember a board meeting where we talked about this. And said, if somebody doesn’t get paid this week, it will be us. We’ll be the first [00:28:00] ones to not get paid.
That’s how real this got. It was not theoretical.
You know, uh, my prayers in that season were Lord, we’ve been trying to follow your plan here. We’ve tried to be faithful to that, even though I want to remind you, it’s not what I would do. I know you’ve got a lot of things going on with this whole pandemic thing, but you haven’t forgotten about us. Have you, we don’t have a plan B and we’ve gone way too far to pull the parachute.
So we’re counting on you to show up and we need a miracle here. You know, everybody wants to see a miracle, but no one wants to be in a position to need one. And I’m not sure I would have picked that. The Lord brought us there and of course today we know the rest of that story and here’s what happened over the next couple months We entered into the largest [00:29:00] Housing boom in US history and guess who was one of the only builders in the whole country who had inventory?
It looked like we called it
in less than 12 months. Our our cash balance was over 50 million dollars Which was more than double the highest peak actually I was like what just happened Weren’t you? Uh, Corey and Gita were with me on this. Like, we were like, what just happened? It felt like we, one of the miracles you read about in the Bible and God made us feel like it made us seem to others as the smartest person in the room.
But I’ll tell you, that’s not what it felt like walking through that it felt, hon, honestly, naked most days like, Lord, did you bring us out here in the desert to die?
If we felt crazy, uh, it was like walking through a dark room blindfolded, and the Lord [00:30:00] was like guiding us one step at a time. Okay, take one step forward. Stop. Okay, take a step left. That’s what it felt like.
You know, we couldn’t have called this. It’s 100 percent a direct result of one of the biggest faith walks the Lord has asked me to take with Him to date. And I say one of because the Lord has given me a bunch of stories like that. And if you’d like to hear more, catch me at the workshop. I have more. I’m sure glad we didn’t just listen, but we chose to obey in that season, even when it was hard.
And this is what I learned. Increased trust is infinitely more valuable than a divine blueprint for what to do. Trusting God, instead of asking Him, can you just tell me where this is going? Could you give me step by step what I’m supposed to do? Saying, Lord, I trust you. What should I do next? That is the most valuable thing.[00:31:00]
Okay. There’s two things I really want to point out to you this morning. The first one is this, ask God to lead you.
You know, there are a couple of ways to ask God to lead you. The first one, which I hope everyone in this room has done is the general one. Lord, would you leave my, lead my life just in general. That’s a, that’s an important one, but the one I want to spend most of the time focused on is the second one, which is on a Thursday at 3 p.
- You know, in the middle of the everyday practical tactical decision, those game time moments where you go, Lord, What should I do here? You know, Moses was right there in this verse in Exodus. He had gone up on the mountain and some crazy stuff had happened up there. God gave him the [00:32:00] Ten Commandments, but when he came down, all of the Israelites were worshiping idols, and Moses got pretty upset, but he was not as upset as God was.
Moses went back down. Up to talk to him. And God basically said, Moses, take these people of yours and leave right now. Go. Now. I’m still gonna give you the land, I promise, because I keep my promises, but I’m not gonna go with you because I might kill you on the way. I’m not gonna go with you because I might kill you.
On the way. You know, Moses was just a shepherd. He wasn’t qualified to lead 2 million people through the desert, so he fell to his knees, and this is what he said. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you.[00:33:00]
I get emotional because that strikes a chord deep inside of me. I felt that.
Later in that same passage, Moses begs God, if his presence isn’t going to go with them, please don’t send them away.
Let me tell you another story of how this played out in a practical work day. You know, there’s a section of land just a few miles from here that I would see every time I drove back from Midland. Uh, there’s a stop sign there that I’d hit on the way back into town. I’d look over this land and how it laid, and I just thought it’d be a beautiful place to build homes.
Um, I didn’t covet it, but it kind of got close probably. The end. I could just, I could see it. And one day we were looking for our next big piece of land in Southwest Lubbock and someone had listed that property for sale. So we called them to see if we could make a deal. And honestly, we’ve worked out deals.
We we’ve talked to hundreds of landowners over the years and made deals with many of them. [00:34:00] But, uh, this one was different. Um, honestly, this guy was hard to even figure out. He’d throw something out. And even if we agreed to it, He would then come back and have another stipulation or, or change his mind. It was honestly like he was.
He didn’t want to sell it at all. And then he come back and there’d be a bunch of progress. You’re like, okay, this thing’s. And then he’d go silent for a month or two. And it’s like, Oh my gosh, even the person, the realtor who listed the land for him was confused and frustrated. Uh, finally, after more than 12 months of conversations, Rick, Dustin, and I loaded up in a truck and we drove out there and we stood on the land and we said, Lord, if this is the land you have for us, we’re Would you give it to us?
And if it’s not, would you release us from it? Because we’re tired. Guys, that was 930 in the morning. By 1130, someone had called [00:35:00] our front desk out of the blue and said they actually owned that land and they were ready to sell. And when we got back to the office and heard that, we were as confused as you.
It turned out the person that had originally listed the land that we had been talking to was not one of the owners. His wife had a very small interest in the property, but the person who owned over 50 percent of it was the one that called our front desk. So we called him back and asked him if they could meet the next day and we made a deal on the spot.
Why did it take us so long to ask?
We are not good at asking. We don’t even want to ask for directions. You know, my daughter, [00:36:00] uh, plays volleyball and after a game, I have so many good coaching tips. I mean, they could really help her here. Here’s what she has taught me. Don’t give unsolicited advice.
If you’re a new parent, write that one down. Every now and then she asks, she does ask me for feedback, I think once over the past year. And so that was my opportunity to say a couple of things. Uh, the Lord is like that. He’s a good dad and he doesn’t want to force himself on us. He wants us to ask, but if we do ask, he will help us.
I believe Moses is on his knees asking the Lord to go with him. And the Lord had mercy on a kingdom leader. The Lord replied, My presence will go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest. The burden of these [00:37:00] people will not be on you. I see you. I want to help you. That is his answer every time we stop and ask about everything.
You know, nothing is off the table. Who should we hire? Where should we go? What should we do? He wants to talk to us about all of it. Sometimes, uh, people ask us what it feels like when the Lord speaks to us. And I know we talked about that a little bit for me. Oftentimes it’s like a thought impression.
It’s a thought that came into my head that I know was not from me. I wouldn’t have thought that usually it’s like share something really vulnerable or wait, or don’t do that thing that looks obvious. So it’s, it’s like counterintuitive and it wouldn’t have been what I said. Uh, but also the Lord doesn’t always answer immediately.
He’s not like a magic eight ball that we can shake up and say, What’s your answer? Right now, literally today, I’ve been praying about something for months, literally six [00:38:00] months that I feel like the Lord has not given me an answer on yet. And I am a freaking door kicker. That’s my nature. I want to go make it happen.
And you know what? This thing that I’m talking about, I could, by the end of the week, I could make it go happen. But I’m choosing not to do it that way. Because I trust that the Lord is withholding no good things for us. And If he has not confirmed that’s what we should do, then the timing isn’t right. He knows something I don’t know.
He’s a good dad. He’s not trying to keep something from me. So it’s not up to me to go make it happen. And guys, that is hard. Waiting is hard. But being a kingdom leader says, Lord, I’m not going to get in front of you. I’m not going to, I’m not going to assume this is what you would do. I know you could make it clear right now whether I should do that or not.
And if you haven’t, I’m going to [00:39:00] sit here and wait until you do. You know, the Lord can confirm and speak to you in a variety of ways, but a big way He does that is through the team around you. And that brings us to our second key for being a kingdom leader. The first one was ask God to lead you. The second is building the line leadership team.
When I say leadership team, I just mean the group of people who make major decisions for the organization. Should you turn right or left? Some people might call it a board. Other people like an executive team for a smaller organization might just be a management team for an even smaller organization might be a husband and wife.
Uh, a leadership team can just be two people. When Rick and Ron started this, uh, home building company, it was just two people. Today, our, our board consists of four people. Uh, my leadership team in Beatonville Homes that decides if that organization goes left or right has seven. The rule, only rule is it can’t be [00:40:00] one.
You can’t do this alone and you shouldn’t. You need a team that can protect you from having to bear all the weight of it. Rick told me when God first started giving him this vision, he felt like God said, if Rick kept going the way he was, the weight of this thing was going to kill him. And God didn’t want that for him.
So it’s better to do this as a team. But the second part of this was, God told Rick if he kept doing it the way he was, he was going to kill it. This vision. Ministry that’s disguised as a home building company. Rick was going to kill it. And God couldn’t let him do that either.
Having a team will protect God’s ministry, formerly known as your business, from you. You know, having a team that’s all committed to hearing from God creates [00:41:00] safety. And if one day God’s trying to get a hold of me and I’m not picking up, maybe Chris will, and he can tell me, or Kaylee, or Gina. Or my wife, hey, the Lord said he was trying to call you, like, did you hear this?
And that’s what gives us the confidence and the boldness to take risks in our faith. You know, Corey and Gina, we were the leadership team walking through that 2020 season of starts and if they wouldn’t have also felt the same leading from God that we’re supposed to continue to start homes, I would have not had the strength to continue to do that.
But together we did. And the Lord wouldn’t want that for me. He would lead us to the same answer. That’s why it’s so important to do this as a team. If you’re leading alone, you need someone else to come alongside you to help. You know, Rick said, uh, when the Lord first started giving him this vision of leadership team, uh, [00:42:00] to help lead alongside him, uh, beyond his dad, Ron, he felt like the Lord gave him a couple of ground rules.
And here those are. Number one, the senior leader is accountable to the team. I can honestly say that my team holds me every bit, I think, more accountable than I do them. In fact, I genuinely, I genuinely believe they’ve had more corrective conversations with me than I have with them. And you know what? It was also that way with Rick.
I could go to him and tell him things that were hard for him to hear. And he would accept those things for me because it’s the right thing. You know, the more power you have, the most, the more accountable you must be. Number two, the team is invited to weigh in on all decisions. That even means the ones that are in different territories than the ones that they lead.
This will lead to more ideas and better decisions. And number three, this is [00:43:00] not a democracy. And this one is critical because this can lead to like everybody voting on what we should do. And that is not ever God’s view of this. Find, find an example in scripture where they voted on something that’s not a kingdom leader.
God has established you as a leader over a certain territory and you cannot abdicate your authority there. The way we say it is the team gets a voice but not a vote. It’s not that the most senior leader’s job to come up with all the best ideas. It’s their job to make sure all of the ideas are heard and that the best one wins.
You know, this is how it works for us often. I might bring an idea and maybe Brad brings another idea and through like open discussion where I’m trying to understand, okay, help me understand. How you see it. And he’s trying to understand how I see it. We might come up with a third option. That’s a combination of our two [00:44:00] or something completely different.
That’s what can happen. And we figure out that’s the best way. And we’re going to go that way. And then we don’t remember who came up with it because oftentimes it was all of us. It was, it was lots of people weighed in on it. We’ll, we’ll do a breakout session, uh, this morning on, on building a leadership team and give you more tips for that, including what that looked like in the early years for us.
Uh, lots of mistakes we made, lots of lessons we learned the hard way, but here is what is really critical for you to understand, you have to get to a place where you’re really submitted and accountable to the team that you lead.
It falls to me often to be submitted to the leaders on my team and those around me. But without humility, what can we do? Nothing. The Lord said He opposes the [00:45:00] proud. He opposes them. It’s not passive. He pushes them down. He can’t do anything with someone who is prideful until they choose to set that down.
And I think in the kingdom, your level of authority can never surpass your level of humility, or it’s a recipe for disaster. Here’s what we believe a kingdom leader does, which we refer to as ABCs. Ask God to lead you. Build an aligned leadership team and commit to a relational style. And I’ve talked about those first two this afternoon.
Casey’s going to talk to us about that. Third one, all of our breakout sessions, the whole conference are kind of built around these things. Uh, ask God to lead you, build an aligned leadership team and commit to a relational style.
All right, Lord, thank you for inviting us to become leaders in your kingdom. What a calling. [00:46:00] Thank you that you want to help us and that you’ll lead us. You’ll tell us exactly. What to do. Show us what to do. We ask for that. I ask that you lead every single person in this room and that you open their heart to asking you more regularly about what they should do for direction.
And I ask that for me as well. Lord, I also pray that you knit together aligned leadership teams in each of the organizations represented here and that they submit to one another and that they advance your kingdom. Lord, help us on that journey. In the name of Jesus, Amen.