June 9, 2026 • 30 mins
Most leadership teams know how to brainstorm. Very few know how to discern together.
After more than 40 years of leading, one of my deepest regrets isn’t moral failure. It’s how many things I led that God never actually asked us to do. We had the money. We had the momentum. We had the energy. But we were moving fast and we were missing God.
In this episode, I share what I’ve learned the hard way: adrenaline is not the Holy Spirit. And brainstorming is not discernment.
I walk through five practices that can transform how your leadership team makes decisions not out of anxiety, urgency, or ambition, but out of quiet listening, surrender, and communal hearing.
This is slow work. It’s countercultural work. But it produces what every exhausted leader is desperate for: more peace, more freedom, and more alignment with Jesus.
If your team is making big decisions right now, don’t miss this episode.
Learn more about the EH Global Leader Conference 2026: http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/conference
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hi, everyone.
My name is Pete Scuzzaro.
I want to welcome you today tothe Emotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
Our theme today is BeyondBrainstorming, leading a team
that actually hears God.
Leading a team that actuallyhears God.
I'm going to go into five keypractices of teams that actually
do hear God.
(00:22):
But hang with me for a minute asI launch into this.
Looking back now over decades ofleadership, one of my biggest
regrets is not a moral failure.
It's really how many things Idid or led that actually God
never asked me or asked us todo.
We brainstormed, we strategized,we did some introductory prayer
(00:47):
and closing prayer.
We got wise counsel.
We hired consultants.
We went through open doors.
We built teams, we mobilizedpeople, we cast vision.
But much of it was driven byanxiety, uh drivenness,
ambition, adrenaline, and oftenpressure to grow quickly.
(01:08):
And one of the great lessons ofmy life has been this: that
adrenaline does not equal theHoly Spirit.
And brainstorming is not thesame as discernment.
So much of the models ofleadership I know that I was
taught, and that still dominatestoday, is built on urgency and
expansion as quickly as possibleand speed.
(01:31):
Waiting, surrender, the idea ofcommunal discernment, quiet
listening, those aren't reallythings we talk about that much.
Yet Isaiah 30, 15 says, inrepentance and rest is your
salvation.
In quietness and trust is yourstrength.
That is a uh a formative uhtext, has been for me for a very
(01:54):
long time.
And I trust even for the EHdiscipleship movement of how we
lead our churches, andrepentance and rest is your
salvation, and quietness andtrust is your strength.
And so, because the joy ofleadership comes not from
necessarily doing more for God,but actually from discerning,
discerning God's will and thenactually doing it, doing God's
(02:16):
will according to God'stimetable and uh his way, not
our way.
And of course, and of course, inhis power, the Spirit of God,
the power that raised Jesus fromthe dead.
So the problem is that a lot ofour leadership teams and a lot
of our different ministry teamsknow how to brainstorm, but
(02:36):
aren't very good at hearing Godtogether, discernment.
And so there's so much at stake.
In fact, there's so there's agreat saying that you can't uh
you can't win a battle if youdon't even know what the battle
even is.
And by the scripture says we'rewe're battling against powers
and principalities, Ephesians 6.
And one of the core areas ofwarfare has to do with how we
(02:59):
actually make decisions asteams.
So the Western model of uhchurch decision making uh is
what I was schooled in.
Uh, we make decisions.
And and uh I was taught to makedecisions.
I'd ask the question, is itbiblical?
And once it was biblical, uh I Iwould we'd pray, ask God, okay,
bless our efforts here, show uswhat to do.
(03:20):
And and then we'd get some wisecounsel.
We'd bring in strategists, we'dsay what's possible with our
resources that we've got.
Uh, and again, we'd we'd alwayswant to get sure we got the best
counsel possible because you hadbad examples in scripture of
people like Rehoboam in first umuh Kings chapter 12, where he
(03:41):
gets bad counsel and doesn'tlisten to good counsel, and the
kingdom of Israel splits in two.
And then we look atcircumstances and what's God put
before, what's put what's beforeus, and then we do our strategic
thinking.
And again, we would go away acouple times a year, often bring
in strategic consultants and andwhat makes missional sense and
what's what's effective.
(04:02):
Um, how do we get the most bangfor our buck?
And generally it was we tookbusiness models and and built
them into the church model.
And and uh again, that's notbad.
There's a place for that, andthere's good things we can
learn.
Uh, but honestly, uh, whilethose things were not wrong,
they were not the same ashearing, actually hearing Jesus
(04:23):
together and making decisions.
Uh something was reallycritically missing.
And that critical missing piecewas we didn't understand
surrendering our will to God'swill.
We didn't have a good uh goodpractice of actually being still
and silent before the Lord andand listening and how to
actually listen, uh, how to dodiscernment.
We just didn't it wasn't part ofour training.
(04:46):
And uh so often we just simplymoved ahead because, well, we
had the money, we had theresources, we had the gifts and
talents, we had the energy, andoften we had the momentum and
excitement.
And very often uh we did thingsGod did not ask us to do, and it
resulted in a lot of chaos.
So I can think of a number ofareas when we started churches
(05:08):
uh that uh were premature uh anduh outside of God's timing
because it made missional senseand we were counseled to do it.
Uh we launched ministries beforewe were ready, before we had the
right people.
We put people in leadershipbefore they've been properly
trained, because we were in arush and we saw the opportunity.
(05:30):
The door was wide open.
Uh we did conferences, weallowed them to get too big uh
that we actually had the spacefor andor the infrastructure
for, not created a big mess.
We made staffing decisions, evenputting volunteers in position
uh because it needed to befilled now, and we were
uncomfortable with theambiguity, the the uh uh the
(05:53):
waiting, the things weren'trunning that efficiently
necessarily.
And so we would just put thisperson in position.
And uh initiatives were bornmore out of need uh or
opportunity than actualdiscernment.
And I look back now and Irealize I just I I needed a
theological, uh, a wide biblicaltransformation.
(06:17):
And my my palate, my my palate,our my understanding, our
understanding of discernment ormaking decisions together under
Jesus was very limited.
So God had to do a work in me.
And I came out of, again, I hadgreat formation on one level.
I parachurch ministry andconferences and seminary, and
(06:38):
uh, you know, my my my churchtraditions were had give me a
lot of good church plantingculture, but I did have big gaps
in my formation.
And those gaps impacted myability and my ability to form a
team that would actually make uhdiscerning decisions.
I did not know how to wait.
I did not know how to listendeeply to God.
(06:59):
I didn't know how to rest.
I didn't know how to discerntiming.
Uh, I didn't know how tosurrender outcomes and be
comfortable with that.
And so I mistook agency orurgency.
I mean, like, okay, let's God'sthis, we've got to, you know, do
God's work.
And I mistook urgency for likebold faith.
And and God had slowly, youknow, has slowly been changing
(07:23):
me now for decades.
It's been a slow journey, quitea shift.
Uh, but out of this slow journeyhas been so much joy, so much
peace of God, rest.
Uh, the easy yoke of Jesus hasbecome something actually
experiential, even while leadinga team.
Um, and I actually get it nowwhy Jeremiah, if you read
(07:46):
Jeremiah, say chapters 22, 23,24, one of the great challenges
of his ministry was discernmentversus the priests and the
prophets, the religious leadersin his time that were not doing
discernment.
And he says, he wrote this whichof them, referring to the other
religious leaders, has stood inthe counsel of the Lord to see
(08:10):
or hear his word?
Who has listened or heard hisword, the Lord's word?
And that question haunted me.
Who has been in the counsel ofthe Lord and heard him?
Because it's possible to build aministry, build a church, preach
sermons, uh, cast a vision, doall kinds of things uh uh
without actually standing in thecounsel of the Lord.
(08:32):
And uh I realized that as I lookback in my early years, uh, and
as I began to go intodiscernment, realizing uh I was
missing so much of God speakingto me and to us, kind of like um
Jacob in uh Genesis 28, 16, 28,chapter Genesis 28, where he
says, Surely the Lord was inthis place, Jacob says, but I
(08:55):
was unaware of it.
I just didn't know how todiscern what God was doing and
saying we didn't know we hadn'tbeen trained in it.
So I don't want to lead that wayanymore.
I haven't now for a very longtime, and I've really begun to
really enjoy the fruit over theyears, and I've seen so many
others come into it.
There is a different way ofdoing this.
So before I go into the fivepractices, let me just say this:
(09:16):
discernment is a culture morethan it is a technique.
Okay.
Discernment is a culture.
We build a culture ofdiscernment before it is a
method.
And uh one of the most importantthings I've learned is that you
cannot build a discerning teamor a culture without developing
discerning individuals.
(09:38):
Uh, leaderships, teams that hearGod together are built on
leadership individuals and notteams that actually hear God
personally.
So before we talk aboutdiscernment uh as a team, we've
got to talk about personalformation.
Uh, because to lead a teamactually means uh to hear, lead
a team that actually hears Godrequires individuals who have
(09:59):
slowed down enough to hear Godpersonally.
And it's a culture as a wholewhere we as a broad culture are
listening to God before makingdecisions.
I was once invited to uh uh intoa church crisis in another
state.
And uh it was it was a bigchurch crisis, and uh the lead
(10:20):
pastor had left, and now theboard was navigating this and
they had to make some decisions.
And they called me up, said,would you please come in?
And before I said, Well, beforeI come in, I've got I have to
ask you a question.
Does the board, individuals onthe board, have any experience
in actually listening to God,hearing God, discerning God's
(10:41):
will, because they really needto right now?
And the person who was invitingme in said, no, no, no, no.
The people on our board are uhwere put there because they're
excellent in business in thecorporate world.
They they understand management,decision making, uh, but on a
personal level, they they don'tthey don't work like that, like
(11:02):
thinking about what's Godsaying?
That's not how they function.
That's not the way the boardfunctions.
It runs more as a, almost like abusiness.
They're uh uh, you know, theiraccountants, financial people,
et cetera.
And uh wow, and so we had a bigdiscussion.
You can't separate individualdiscernment.
If they're not discerning God'swill in their personal life, how
are they gonna do it now for auh you know a large church?
(11:23):
Because teams are made up ofpeople.
And if the leaders in the teamare anxious and reactive and
driven and emotionally immatureand overextended or spiritually
disconnected, uh the that'sgonna shape the decision making.
It's gonna impact it.
Um so discernment is not merelya technique, it's a way of life.
(11:43):
But with that said, let me giveyou now five practices of teams
that actually hear God togetherand make good decisions.
Okay, the first is this theythey slow down before making
decisions.
Uh they slow down before makingdecisions.
So again, personally andcorporately.
So in other words, we resisturgency and pressure to move
(12:05):
now.
Uh we refuse to uh equatebusyness or activity with
fruitfulness.
Uh and we we much and becausemuch of my earlier early
leadership was was really markedby speed, uh rapid expansion,
constant movement, momentum,staying momentum being high, and
(12:26):
lots of initiatives, actually,too many initiatives.
But discernment requiresspaciousness.
And so it means I'm in on anindividual level and a corporate
level, we we know how to bestill and silent before the
Lord.
Our prayer life isn't justasking God for things, it's
actually listening.
(12:46):
We've made the deep, the bigtransition from talking to God
to actually being with God, notjust getting things from God,
but actually hearing God.
Uh that's a huge transition.
So I we've I've built, we'vebuilt spaciousness in our
personal lives and on our teamto actually be still.
Uh, and because God is rarely ina hurry.
(13:10):
I like where, you know, we wewant to make sure we're in a
place of what's called spiritualfreedom.
Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500scalled it spiritual
indifference.
What he meant by that was ifwe're going to ask God for
direction and discernment, weneed to be in a place that we've
slowed down enough that we aresurrender to the will of God.
(13:31):
We'll have to say, on a scale ofone to ten, as we come into a
decision, if if one is you'vegot your mind made up, you want
this, and ten is I'm completelyopen to whatever God wants to
do, we would ask, go around thetable and say, where are you on
a scale of one to ten on youropenness in your hands before
the Lord to do what he wants todo?
Because sometimes you're in ameeting and you're discussing it
(13:53):
and you find out, you know,three to people go, I really
want this to happen.
I this is what I this has tohappen.
And you're really not, you'rereally not seeking his will and
discerning.
You're actually navigating,you're politicking almost about
which is which to go at.
And so Meister Eckhart in the1200s wrote about this quite a
bit about the need to belovingly detached from outcomes.
(14:14):
And he wrote about to followJesus is to lose our lives for
him.
Uh, and when we lose our life,we find him.
And losing our life means thatwe let go of attachment to uh
certain out any outcomes.
We're we're just we are open towhatever God wants to do.
We don't cling to anything uh orresist anything God might want
to do.
It's like Mary, the mother ofJesus, when she was told that by
(14:36):
the angel, she's gonna givebirth to Jesus, it's gonna, you
know, to God in the flesh insideof her.
She's she's a teenager, she'snot married.
Uh it's gonna totally disrupther life.
Uh, but she simply says, I amthe Lord's servant.
May it be to me as you will, asyou have said.
So she has slowed down enough,practice one, that she is truly
(14:59):
surrendered to the will of God.
Now, Peter, the uh head of theapostles, was just the opposite.
Because as things wereunfolding, as Jesus going to the
cross and they arrest Jesus,Peter pulls out a knife and cuts
off the servant's ear becausehe's not waiting.
He's not discerning what God'sdoing.
Uh, he's got some plans, it's upand to the right, and the
(15:20):
crucifixion doesn't fit into it.
And so he's making decisions anddoing discernment uh that
totally misses it.
Uh, but a slow down spiritualitypersonally and for a team is
critical to good discernment.
Um the problem is very often wewant things to unfold a certain
way.
I love what Thomas Burtoncalled, we we need, we may have
(15:43):
goals and visions, which is allgood, but we function in a kind
of detached activism, whichmeans we hold everything
lightly.
Our goal is love and union withJesus.
We want to be with him.
But we we kind of have a dis,we're active, but we're we're
detached.
We we don't hold anythingtightly.
I like what Meister Eckhartsaid, a great German theologian
(16:04):
wrote, he goes, just as trueobedience says, Lord, I it's not
my will, but your will be done.
He says, neither should it be,Lord, I don't want this to
happen.
Because he writes this to say Idon't want certain things is a
sure poison of all obedience.
In other words, we begin with aposture of complete surrender
(16:27):
and interior freedom out of aslow-down spirituality to
whatever God wants.
That's number one.
The second key practice is weembrace the gift of limits.
We understand that a person canreceive only what's given him or
her from heaven.
A ministry can receive only whatis given to him or her from
heaven.
And so we embrace that God putslimits around us as gifts.
(16:50):
And we want to embrace themversus we're pushing through,
we're gonna grow this churchbigger, a ministry bigger, make
things happen.
Healthy discernment honorslimits.
And sometimes the most spiritualdecision we can make is not now.
Um, I remember there was a timewe were we were we were looking
(17:13):
and being, we were, we'd grownquite a bit, and uh, and people
wanted to add a Saturday nightor Sunday evening service.
And it would add a whole newaudience of people, it would
grow the church.
Uh, but as we looked at theimpact it would have on those of
us in senior leadership,especially being out every
(17:34):
Saturday night, which meansyou'd start your Saturday, your
Sabbath was gonna now be cutinto.
And then you'd probably startyour day at four o'clock on
Saturday, you're going all theway till Sunday afternoon.
It was gonna so impact thequality of leading out of our
marriages and the singles whoare on our staff in senior
leadership.
It was gonna so impact them thatour being with Jesus would no
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longer precede our doing forhim.
And we realize the gift oflimits is we don't have the
capacity, the staff to addanother service and a few more
hundred people that wouldrequire infrastructure to manage
as well.
And so uh we based we didn't, weare we honor our limits and we
didn't do it.
I think of some of my bettermoments where I waited years for
(18:18):
the right person for a positionto launch.
Oh, it was actually communitydevelopment uh ministry uh among
our community and the poor.
And we were looking for adirector and the right person
who wanted to become from thecommunity would stay there long
term.
We waited for that person almost10 years.
And then that person was amazingwhen they arrived.
One of Jerry's great lines isthis.
(18:40):
She's a good one-liner.
She said this if you don't havetime to talk about it, we don't
do it.
That that's God's, that's God'slimit saying, this is not for
you.
And because often we're, we haveideas.
We want to, we're like, oh, thisis great.
And we want, we feel like it'sGod to go do something, but we
don't have time to actually talkabout it.
She goes, 'That limit is God'sgift to say, not now.' So limits
(19:02):
are not obstacles, they'regifts.
Uh, they're often instruments ofhis guidance.
And so when I remember weactually we used to run these
amazing Christmas productions,multiple productions for the
community every year.
Uh, the problem was it there waslarge casts of people in the
play, and those many, manyfamilies then missed Christmas
(19:26):
between rehearsals andproductions and all the
exhaustion.
After a few years, everyonerealized this is the the limit
is this is hurting families uhand people's Christmas.
And it was not building andaccomplishing uh what we really
want long term, which is we leadout of the overflow of Jesus in
our lives uh and and and healthyspirituality.
(19:47):
So anyway, we postponed them andwe went a different route.
Okay, number three, third keypractice is uh we practice uh
emotionally healthy relationshipskills.
Discernment requires theability, a very mature ability
to have healthy relationships.
Uh in other words, if peoplecannot speak honestly, listen
(20:11):
deeply, uh clarify expectations,uh, address conflict in a mature
way, uh, can't be present witheach other as you're as you're
talking about challengingdiscernment nuances, um, the
team will not hear God clearlybecause people will get
defensive or you wouldn't askthe difficult questions, anxiety
(20:31):
gets buried, people may hide,uh, power dynamics maybe take
over, unspoken anxieties ortensions end up taking over the
room.
In other words, this is whydiscernment requires a
practicing, I call theemotionally healthy relationship
skills.
Listen, this is why we developeduh the emotionally healthy
(20:52):
relationships course and theemotionally healthy spirituality
course.
It all around relates todiscernment to create a culture
and a community with the skillsand the maturity to slow down,
embrace limits, and practicevery mature relationships,
unlike the world.
So a teen can actually have thekind of dialogue with each other
(21:14):
as they're listening to God andhear God through one another and
not get caught up on theirunresolved family of origin
stuff or their bad habits goingback, who knows?
And then fourthly, is this uhthe fourth key practice is we
pay attention to ourconsolations and desolations
inside.
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We pay, we pay attention towhat's happening inside of us.
We call them consolations anddesolations.
Uh, we notice what's happeninginside of us.
What's bringing us life and joyand peace as we talk about
different options?
We call that consolations.
What's bringing us death,anxiety, unrest, uh desolations,
(21:56):
we call that.
Uh in other words, we don't justWe're listening to God on the
inside of us.
We've learned how to do thatpersonally, and now we can do it
as a group.
There's two interesting texts tome in scripture.
Acts 16, where Paul speaks abouthe was prevented by the Spirit
from going to a certain region.
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And we don't know exactly whatthat was, but something was
happening internally in him thathe couldn't go down this
direction.
And then in 2 Corinthians 2, hespeaks about an open door of
ministry for him, but he had nopeace of mind to go through it.
Fascinating text.
It's remarkable, actually,because an open door is not
(22:39):
enough that it's God's will.
Even though it looked like itmay bear great fruit.
We must learn to notice what'shappening inside of us
personally and as a team.
What's happening collectively inthe room here?
What's God saying underneath thesurface?
I remember one of the greatstories or pivotal moments.
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We had a very large decision tomake about buying a building.
And the building we all felt itwas God's will for us to buy had
closed.
And another opportunity hadopened up.
It was cheaper, it was bigger,it had more parking, uh, but it
was not in the location that wewere at.
And we had a chance to buy thatbuilding, and I'll never forget
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that board meeting and uhprobably a couple of board
meetings and just discerningtogether.
And it was maybe eight of us inthe room.
And everyone's had a place ofmaturity.
We built a culture ofdiscernment, but every one of us
had a sense of desolation,dis-ease, no from the inside
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about going and moving to thatother building, that we were to
wait on the Lord for somethingto emerge where we were in our
particular community.
And we did not take it, eventhough we didn't have another
option yet.
Uh, it was such a key moment.
Let me encourage you.
We did a podcast, I did apodcast a couple of months ago
on how to find God inunexpected, on how to find God
(24:01):
in unexpected places, the examinexplained.
And I want to encourage you, golook at that.
Go, because I ignoredconsolations and desolations,
what was going on inside of mein my own discernment, and I
ignored it then as a team as wewere making decisions.
But that's a very key practiceto establish in people's lives
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and in teams as we want to hear,actually hear God together.
And then finally, the fifth ispractice.
Key practice is uh we wait forconfirmation.
We we we wait for confirmationand we're we consistently come
back and asking that questionare we still in a place of
openness and freedom, eventhough we have a tentative
(24:43):
decision.
You you make a decision and say,oh, we think this is it.
Um what is one of the mostoverlooked aspects of a
discernment practice is you havea sense of this is it, this is
the right way to go, but youwait for confirmation.
You, you, you, it's a you callit tentative.
And I'm talking about the largerdecisions.
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And you you resist prematureclosure.
The temptation, and I've donethis.
I I guess that's this is God,this is an opportunity, and
don't give it a bit more spaceto say, let's come back and talk
about this again, you know, nextweek.
Um, the Quakers call it thepresence of inner peace.
And by rushing, because I don'tlike things unresolved.
(25:25):
I want them resolved now.
I don't like the anxiety ofthings hanging out there.
And so often I'll just dopremature closure.
But this fifth practice ofwaiting for confirmation, really
key, because one of my biggestmistakes, and actually, I
actually did it uh a couple ofyears ago, and around succession
(25:46):
planning for emotionally healthydiscipleship.
I was very open.
We were kind of like we all didour process of discernment.
And then the person we felt wasshould be the uh you know
president, which was Drewactually, who is the president
now.
He wasn't, didn't want it,didn't feel it was God's timing
for him.
And so we we we just patchedtogether a plan where uh Drew
(26:08):
had a place, but since he didn'twant to be president, we we
created his other configuration,but we didn't do this step of
wait for confirmation on that umand get to a place of interior
freedom.
We just kind of thought, okay,well, let's let's make it.
And we made a decision tooquick.
And boy, oh boy, did I learnthis fifth practice.
I knew it, but boy, did I learnit afresh about it's important.
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And uh it, it, you know, workedout.
And we found out very quickly itwasn't the right way to go, and
God worked it all out.
But the principle is this thelarger the decision, the more
time discernment requires.
Again, the larger the decision,the more time discernment
requires.
Because discernment oftenincludes a process of groaning.
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It's like the birthing of achild.
Uh, there's waiting, there'suncertainty.
It sometimes can be a bit bloodytoo, you know.
And if you want immediateclarity, like I often do, uh, we
have to remember God forms us inthe waiting.
And so listen, here's my finalinvitation to you.
Imagine a leadership team, yourministry team.
Imagine a church culture wherenobody's rushing.
(27:13):
Everyone's people are listeningdeeply to Jesus.
Marriages and families matter.
People's being with Jesusmatters.
People are emotionally honest,able to have healthy
relationships, anxiety isnoticed, limits are honored,
leaders we're surrenderingoutcomes.
We're gonna have a sense ofpeace of, we just want to follow
the good shepherd Jesus.
(27:33):
And we wait on teams wait on Godtogether.
Imagine a church culture formedby not strategy, but
discernment.
Uh, this is the kind ofleadership teams we're committed
to building an emotionallyhealthy discipleship.
And honestly, this is my lifework.
That's why we've been developingmaterials for the last 30 years,
(27:54):
um, because this is notsomething mastered quickly.
It's slow.
And because every step towardsdiscernment, it creates more
peace, more freedom, morefruitfulness, greater missional
uh effectiveness, more alignmentwith Jesus, greater joy in the
culture.
So if this resonates with you,and I pray it does, um,
remember, discernment is aculture more than it is a
(28:17):
method.
And that's why we've created theemotionally healthy spirituality
course and the emotionallyhealthy discipleship course.
And so I want to encourage you,go to emotionallyhealthy.org
slash uh course.
That's emotionallyhealthy.orgslash course, and just check out
this culture, which provides theframework for creating teams
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that actually hear God.
And you'll learn about thingslike limits and waiting and
silence and stillness andrhythms and uh first things
first, being before doing.
And it provides that culturewhere you actually can create a
culture which actually discernsGod.
So again, uh I want to you candownload a free, it's all free,
you can download a free uhsample of what this looks like.
(29:03):
And I want to encourage you todo it with your team.
Don't bring it to your wholeministry, just do it with your
team first and begin to build inthese kinds of habits.
So take one step because thegoal is not simply building
successful churches, whateverthat means to you.
The goal is actually becomingmen and women who actually hear
and follow God's leading.
(29:24):
That's what we want to do.
And we can trust our goodshepherd Jesus that he'll guide
us, each one of us, he'll guideour teams, he'll guide our
churches to good pastures, tofruitfulness to impact the world
for him.
Listen, in closing, this theonly thing you can be sure, I
can be sure about in thespiritual journey is what I
think is going to happen is not.
God surprises me all the time.
(29:44):
And um, one of the greatestmature things we can do uh is to
surrender to God and whereverhe's taking us, even though we
don't know exactly where it'sall going.
And that's the beauty and thefreedom of trusting.
My sheep hear my voice, I knowthem, and they follow me, says
Jesus.
So we can trust him in that.
(30:04):
So may the Lord bless you.
May He keep you, may His faceshine on you, and may God fill
you with His Spirit.
And may your ears be so tuned toJesus' voice, because he says,
My sheep hear my voice, I knowthem, and they follow me.
And so may you not just followhim, but may you now be able to
lead those who are looking toyou for leadership.
(30:25):
May you lead them and may youhear God together.
Blessings, everybody.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Pete Scuzzaro.
I want to welcome you today tothe Emotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
Our theme today is BeyondBrainstorming, leading a team
that actually hears God.
Leading a team that actuallyhears God.
I'm going to go into five keypractices of teams that actually
do hear God.
(00:22):
But hang with me for a minute asI launch into this.
Looking back now over decades ofleadership, one of my biggest
regrets is not a moral failure.
It's really how many things Idid or led that actually God
never asked me or asked us todo.
We brainstormed, we strategized,we did some introductory prayer
(00:47):
and closing prayer.
We got wise counsel.
We hired consultants.
We went through open doors.
We built teams, we mobilizedpeople, we cast vision.
But much of it was driven byanxiety, uh drivenness,
ambition, adrenaline, and oftenpressure to grow quickly.
(01:08):
And one of the great lessons ofmy life has been this: that
adrenaline does not equal theHoly Spirit.
And brainstorming is not thesame as discernment.
So much of the models ofleadership I know that I was
taught, and that still dominatestoday, is built on urgency and
expansion as quickly as possibleand speed.
(01:31):
Waiting, surrender, the idea ofcommunal discernment, quiet
listening, those aren't reallythings we talk about that much.
Yet Isaiah 30, 15 says, inrepentance and rest is your
salvation.
In quietness and trust is yourstrength.
That is a uh a formative uhtext, has been for me for a very
(01:54):
long time.
And I trust even for the EHdiscipleship movement of how we
lead our churches, andrepentance and rest is your
salvation, and quietness andtrust is your strength.
And so, because the joy ofleadership comes not from
necessarily doing more for God,but actually from discerning,
discerning God's will and thenactually doing it, doing God's
(02:16):
will according to God'stimetable and uh his way, not
our way.
And of course, and of course, inhis power, the Spirit of God,
the power that raised Jesus fromthe dead.
So the problem is that a lot ofour leadership teams and a lot
of our different ministry teamsknow how to brainstorm, but
(02:36):
aren't very good at hearing Godtogether, discernment.
And so there's so much at stake.
In fact, there's so there's agreat saying that you can't uh
you can't win a battle if youdon't even know what the battle
even is.
And by the scripture says we'rewe're battling against powers
and principalities, Ephesians 6.
And one of the core areas ofwarfare has to do with how we
(02:59):
actually make decisions asteams.
So the Western model of uhchurch decision making uh is
what I was schooled in.
Uh, we make decisions.
And and uh I was taught to makedecisions.
I'd ask the question, is itbiblical?
And once it was biblical, uh I Iwould we'd pray, ask God, okay,
bless our efforts here, show uswhat to do.
(03:20):
And and then we'd get some wisecounsel.
We'd bring in strategists, we'dsay what's possible with our
resources that we've got.
Uh, and again, we'd we'd alwayswant to get sure we got the best
counsel possible because you hadbad examples in scripture of
people like Rehoboam in first umuh Kings chapter 12, where he
(03:41):
gets bad counsel and doesn'tlisten to good counsel, and the
kingdom of Israel splits in two.
And then we look atcircumstances and what's God put
before, what's put what's beforeus, and then we do our strategic
thinking.
And again, we would go away acouple times a year, often bring
in strategic consultants and andwhat makes missional sense and
what's what's effective.
(04:02):
Um, how do we get the most bangfor our buck?
And generally it was we tookbusiness models and and built
them into the church model.
And and uh again, that's notbad.
There's a place for that, andthere's good things we can
learn.
Uh, but honestly, uh, whilethose things were not wrong,
they were not the same ashearing, actually hearing Jesus
(04:23):
together and making decisions.
Uh something was reallycritically missing.
And that critical missing piecewas we didn't understand
surrendering our will to God'swill.
We didn't have a good uh goodpractice of actually being still
and silent before the Lord andand listening and how to
actually listen, uh, how to dodiscernment.
We just didn't it wasn't part ofour training.
(04:46):
And uh so often we just simplymoved ahead because, well, we
had the money, we had theresources, we had the gifts and
talents, we had the energy, andoften we had the momentum and
excitement.
And very often uh we did thingsGod did not ask us to do, and it
resulted in a lot of chaos.
So I can think of a number ofareas when we started churches
(05:08):
uh that uh were premature uh anduh outside of God's timing
because it made missional senseand we were counseled to do it.
Uh we launched ministries beforewe were ready, before we had the
right people.
We put people in leadershipbefore they've been properly
trained, because we were in arush and we saw the opportunity.
(05:30):
The door was wide open.
Uh we did conferences, weallowed them to get too big uh
that we actually had the spacefor andor the infrastructure
for, not created a big mess.
We made staffing decisions, evenputting volunteers in position
uh because it needed to befilled now, and we were
uncomfortable with theambiguity, the the uh uh the
(05:53):
waiting, the things weren'trunning that efficiently
necessarily.
And so we would just put thisperson in position.
And uh initiatives were bornmore out of need uh or
opportunity than actualdiscernment.
And I look back now and Irealize I just I I needed a
theological, uh, a wide biblicaltransformation.
(06:17):
And my my palate, my my palate,our my understanding, our
understanding of discernment ormaking decisions together under
Jesus was very limited.
So God had to do a work in me.
And I came out of, again, I hadgreat formation on one level.
I parachurch ministry andconferences and seminary, and
(06:38):
uh, you know, my my my churchtraditions were had give me a
lot of good church plantingculture, but I did have big gaps
in my formation.
And those gaps impacted myability and my ability to form a
team that would actually make uhdiscerning decisions.
I did not know how to wait.
I did not know how to listendeeply to God.
(06:59):
I didn't know how to rest.
I didn't know how to discerntiming.
Uh, I didn't know how tosurrender outcomes and be
comfortable with that.
And so I mistook agency orurgency.
I mean, like, okay, let's God'sthis, we've got to, you know, do
God's work.
And I mistook urgency for likebold faith.
And and God had slowly, youknow, has slowly been changing
(07:23):
me now for decades.
It's been a slow journey, quitea shift.
Uh, but out of this slow journeyhas been so much joy, so much
peace of God, rest.
Uh, the easy yoke of Jesus hasbecome something actually
experiential, even while leadinga team.
Um, and I actually get it nowwhy Jeremiah, if you read
(07:46):
Jeremiah, say chapters 22, 23,24, one of the great challenges
of his ministry was discernmentversus the priests and the
prophets, the religious leadersin his time that were not doing
discernment.
And he says, he wrote this whichof them, referring to the other
religious leaders, has stood inthe counsel of the Lord to see
(08:10):
or hear his word?
Who has listened or heard hisword, the Lord's word?
And that question haunted me.
Who has been in the counsel ofthe Lord and heard him?
Because it's possible to build aministry, build a church, preach
sermons, uh, cast a vision, doall kinds of things uh uh
without actually standing in thecounsel of the Lord.
(08:32):
And uh I realized that as I lookback in my early years, uh, and
as I began to go intodiscernment, realizing uh I was
missing so much of God speakingto me and to us, kind of like um
Jacob in uh Genesis 28, 16, 28,chapter Genesis 28, where he
says, Surely the Lord was inthis place, Jacob says, but I
(08:55):
was unaware of it.
I just didn't know how todiscern what God was doing and
saying we didn't know we hadn'tbeen trained in it.
So I don't want to lead that wayanymore.
I haven't now for a very longtime, and I've really begun to
really enjoy the fruit over theyears, and I've seen so many
others come into it.
There is a different way ofdoing this.
So before I go into the fivepractices, let me just say this:
(09:16):
discernment is a culture morethan it is a technique.
Okay.
Discernment is a culture.
We build a culture ofdiscernment before it is a
method.
And uh one of the most importantthings I've learned is that you
cannot build a discerning teamor a culture without developing
discerning individuals.
(09:38):
Uh, leaderships, teams that hearGod together are built on
leadership individuals and notteams that actually hear God
personally.
So before we talk aboutdiscernment uh as a team, we've
got to talk about personalformation.
Uh, because to lead a teamactually means uh to hear, lead
a team that actually hears Godrequires individuals who have
(09:59):
slowed down enough to hear Godpersonally.
And it's a culture as a wholewhere we as a broad culture are
listening to God before makingdecisions.
I was once invited to uh uh intoa church crisis in another
state.
And uh it was it was a bigchurch crisis, and uh the lead
(10:20):
pastor had left, and now theboard was navigating this and
they had to make some decisions.
And they called me up, said,would you please come in?
And before I said, Well, beforeI come in, I've got I have to
ask you a question.
Does the board, individuals onthe board, have any experience
in actually listening to God,hearing God, discerning God's
(10:41):
will, because they really needto right now?
And the person who was invitingme in said, no, no, no, no.
The people on our board are uhwere put there because they're
excellent in business in thecorporate world.
They they understand management,decision making, uh, but on a
personal level, they they don'tthey don't work like that, like
(11:02):
thinking about what's Godsaying?
That's not how they function.
That's not the way the boardfunctions.
It runs more as a, almost like abusiness.
They're uh uh, you know, theiraccountants, financial people,
et cetera.
And uh wow, and so we had a bigdiscussion.
You can't separate individualdiscernment.
If they're not discerning God'swill in their personal life, how
are they gonna do it now for auh you know a large church?
(11:23):
Because teams are made up ofpeople.
And if the leaders in the teamare anxious and reactive and
driven and emotionally immatureand overextended or spiritually
disconnected, uh the that'sgonna shape the decision making.
It's gonna impact it.
Um so discernment is not merelya technique, it's a way of life.
(11:43):
But with that said, let me giveyou now five practices of teams
that actually hear God togetherand make good decisions.
Okay, the first is this theythey slow down before making
decisions.
Uh they slow down before makingdecisions.
So again, personally andcorporately.
So in other words, we resisturgency and pressure to move
(12:05):
now.
Uh we refuse to uh equatebusyness or activity with
fruitfulness.
Uh and we we much and becausemuch of my earlier early
leadership was was really markedby speed, uh rapid expansion,
constant movement, momentum,staying momentum being high, and
(12:26):
lots of initiatives, actually,too many initiatives.
But discernment requiresspaciousness.
And so it means I'm in on anindividual level and a corporate
level, we we know how to bestill and silent before the
Lord.
Our prayer life isn't justasking God for things, it's
actually listening.
(12:46):
We've made the deep, the bigtransition from talking to God
to actually being with God, notjust getting things from God,
but actually hearing God.
Uh that's a huge transition.
So I we've I've built, we'vebuilt spaciousness in our
personal lives and on our teamto actually be still.
Uh, and because God is rarely ina hurry.
(13:10):
I like where, you know, we wewant to make sure we're in a
place of what's called spiritualfreedom.
Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500scalled it spiritual
indifference.
What he meant by that was ifwe're going to ask God for
direction and discernment, weneed to be in a place that we've
slowed down enough that we aresurrender to the will of God.
(13:31):
We'll have to say, on a scale ofone to ten, as we come into a
decision, if if one is you'vegot your mind made up, you want
this, and ten is I'm completelyopen to whatever God wants to
do, we would ask, go around thetable and say, where are you on
a scale of one to ten on youropenness in your hands before
the Lord to do what he wants todo?
Because sometimes you're in ameeting and you're discussing it
(13:53):
and you find out, you know,three to people go, I really
want this to happen.
I this is what I this has tohappen.
And you're really not, you'rereally not seeking his will and
discerning.
You're actually navigating,you're politicking almost about
which is which to go at.
And so Meister Eckhart in the1200s wrote about this quite a
bit about the need to belovingly detached from outcomes.
(14:14):
And he wrote about to followJesus is to lose our lives for
him.
Uh, and when we lose our life,we find him.
And losing our life means thatwe let go of attachment to uh
certain out any outcomes.
We're we're just we are open towhatever God wants to do.
We don't cling to anything uh orresist anything God might want
to do.
It's like Mary, the mother ofJesus, when she was told that by
(14:36):
the angel, she's gonna givebirth to Jesus, it's gonna, you
know, to God in the flesh insideof her.
She's she's a teenager, she'snot married.
Uh it's gonna totally disrupther life.
Uh, but she simply says, I amthe Lord's servant.
May it be to me as you will, asyou have said.
So she has slowed down enough,practice one, that she is truly
(14:59):
surrendered to the will of God.
Now, Peter, the uh head of theapostles, was just the opposite.
Because as things wereunfolding, as Jesus going to the
cross and they arrest Jesus,Peter pulls out a knife and cuts
off the servant's ear becausehe's not waiting.
He's not discerning what God'sdoing.
Uh, he's got some plans, it's upand to the right, and the
(15:20):
crucifixion doesn't fit into it.
And so he's making decisions anddoing discernment uh that
totally misses it.
Uh, but a slow down spiritualitypersonally and for a team is
critical to good discernment.
Um the problem is very often wewant things to unfold a certain
way.
I love what Thomas Burtoncalled, we we need, we may have
(15:43):
goals and visions, which is allgood, but we function in a kind
of detached activism, whichmeans we hold everything
lightly.
Our goal is love and union withJesus.
We want to be with him.
But we we kind of have a dis,we're active, but we're we're
detached.
We we don't hold anythingtightly.
I like what Meister Eckhartsaid, a great German theologian
(16:04):
wrote, he goes, just as trueobedience says, Lord, I it's not
my will, but your will be done.
He says, neither should it be,Lord, I don't want this to
happen.
Because he writes this to say Idon't want certain things is a
sure poison of all obedience.
In other words, we begin with aposture of complete surrender
(16:27):
and interior freedom out of aslow-down spirituality to
whatever God wants.
That's number one.
The second key practice is weembrace the gift of limits.
We understand that a person canreceive only what's given him or
her from heaven.
A ministry can receive only whatis given to him or her from
heaven.
And so we embrace that God putslimits around us as gifts.
(16:50):
And we want to embrace themversus we're pushing through,
we're gonna grow this churchbigger, a ministry bigger, make
things happen.
Healthy discernment honorslimits.
And sometimes the most spiritualdecision we can make is not now.
Um, I remember there was a timewe were we were we were looking
(17:13):
and being, we were, we'd grownquite a bit, and uh, and people
wanted to add a Saturday nightor Sunday evening service.
And it would add a whole newaudience of people, it would
grow the church.
Uh, but as we looked at theimpact it would have on those of
us in senior leadership,especially being out every
(17:34):
Saturday night, which meansyou'd start your Saturday, your
Sabbath was gonna now be cutinto.
And then you'd probably startyour day at four o'clock on
Saturday, you're going all theway till Sunday afternoon.
It was gonna so impact thequality of leading out of our
marriages and the singles whoare on our staff in senior
leadership.
It was gonna so impact them thatour being with Jesus would no
(17:55):
longer precede our doing forhim.
And we realize the gift oflimits is we don't have the
capacity, the staff to addanother service and a few more
hundred people that wouldrequire infrastructure to manage
as well.
And so uh we based we didn't, weare we honor our limits and we
didn't do it.
I think of some of my bettermoments where I waited years for
(18:18):
the right person for a positionto launch.
Oh, it was actually communitydevelopment uh ministry uh among
our community and the poor.
And we were looking for adirector and the right person
who wanted to become from thecommunity would stay there long
term.
We waited for that person almost10 years.
And then that person was amazingwhen they arrived.
One of Jerry's great lines isthis.
(18:40):
She's a good one-liner.
She said this if you don't havetime to talk about it, we don't
do it.
That that's God's, that's God'slimit saying, this is not for
you.
And because often we're, we haveideas.
We want to, we're like, oh, thisis great.
And we want, we feel like it'sGod to go do something, but we
don't have time to actually talkabout it.
She goes, 'That limit is God'sgift to say, not now.' So limits
(19:02):
are not obstacles, they'regifts.
Uh, they're often instruments ofhis guidance.
And so when I remember weactually we used to run these
amazing Christmas productions,multiple productions for the
community every year.
Uh, the problem was it there waslarge casts of people in the
play, and those many, manyfamilies then missed Christmas
(19:26):
between rehearsals andproductions and all the
exhaustion.
After a few years, everyonerealized this is the the limit
is this is hurting families uhand people's Christmas.
And it was not building andaccomplishing uh what we really
want long term, which is we leadout of the overflow of Jesus in
our lives uh and and and healthyspirituality.
(19:47):
So anyway, we postponed them andwe went a different route.
Okay, number three, third keypractice is uh we practice uh
emotionally healthy relationshipskills.
Discernment requires theability, a very mature ability
to have healthy relationships.
Uh in other words, if peoplecannot speak honestly, listen
(20:11):
deeply, uh clarify expectations,uh, address conflict in a mature
way, uh, can't be present witheach other as you're as you're
talking about challengingdiscernment nuances, um, the
team will not hear God clearlybecause people will get
defensive or you wouldn't askthe difficult questions, anxiety
(20:31):
gets buried, people may hide,uh, power dynamics maybe take
over, unspoken anxieties ortensions end up taking over the
room.
In other words, this is whydiscernment requires a
practicing, I call theemotionally healthy relationship
skills.
Listen, this is why we developeduh the emotionally healthy
(20:52):
relationships course and theemotionally healthy spirituality
course.
It all around relates todiscernment to create a culture
and a community with the skillsand the maturity to slow down,
embrace limits, and practicevery mature relationships,
unlike the world.
So a teen can actually have thekind of dialogue with each other
(21:14):
as they're listening to God andhear God through one another and
not get caught up on theirunresolved family of origin
stuff or their bad habits goingback, who knows?
And then fourthly, is this uhthe fourth key practice is we
pay attention to ourconsolations and desolations
inside.
(21:34):
We pay, we pay attention towhat's happening inside of us.
We call them consolations anddesolations.
Uh, we notice what's happeninginside of us.
What's bringing us life and joyand peace as we talk about
different options?
We call that consolations.
What's bringing us death,anxiety, unrest, uh desolations,
(21:56):
we call that.
Uh in other words, we don't justWe're listening to God on the
inside of us.
We've learned how to do thatpersonally, and now we can do it
as a group.
There's two interesting texts tome in scripture.
Acts 16, where Paul speaks abouthe was prevented by the Spirit
from going to a certain region.
(22:18):
And we don't know exactly whatthat was, but something was
happening internally in him thathe couldn't go down this
direction.
And then in 2 Corinthians 2, hespeaks about an open door of
ministry for him, but he had nopeace of mind to go through it.
Fascinating text.
It's remarkable, actually,because an open door is not
(22:39):
enough that it's God's will.
Even though it looked like itmay bear great fruit.
We must learn to notice what'shappening inside of us
personally and as a team.
What's happening collectively inthe room here?
What's God saying underneath thesurface?
I remember one of the greatstories or pivotal moments.
(23:00):
We had a very large decision tomake about buying a building.
And the building we all felt itwas God's will for us to buy had
closed.
And another opportunity hadopened up.
It was cheaper, it was bigger,it had more parking, uh, but it
was not in the location that wewere at.
And we had a chance to buy thatbuilding, and I'll never forget
(23:20):
that board meeting and uhprobably a couple of board
meetings and just discerningtogether.
And it was maybe eight of us inthe room.
And everyone's had a place ofmaturity.
We built a culture ofdiscernment, but every one of us
had a sense of desolation,dis-ease, no from the inside
(23:41):
about going and moving to thatother building, that we were to
wait on the Lord for somethingto emerge where we were in our
particular community.
And we did not take it, eventhough we didn't have another
option yet.
Uh, it was such a key moment.
Let me encourage you.
We did a podcast, I did apodcast a couple of months ago
on how to find God inunexpected, on how to find God
(24:01):
in unexpected places, the examinexplained.
And I want to encourage you, golook at that.
Go, because I ignoredconsolations and desolations,
what was going on inside of mein my own discernment, and I
ignored it then as a team as wewere making decisions.
But that's a very key practiceto establish in people's lives
(24:22):
and in teams as we want to hear,actually hear God together.
And then finally, the fifth ispractice.
Key practice is uh we wait forconfirmation.
We we we wait for confirmationand we're we consistently come
back and asking that questionare we still in a place of
openness and freedom, eventhough we have a tentative
(24:43):
decision.
You you make a decision and say,oh, we think this is it.
Um what is one of the mostoverlooked aspects of a
discernment practice is you havea sense of this is it, this is
the right way to go, but youwait for confirmation.
You, you, you, it's a you callit tentative.
And I'm talking about the largerdecisions.
(25:03):
And you you resist prematureclosure.
The temptation, and I've donethis.
I I guess that's this is God,this is an opportunity, and
don't give it a bit more spaceto say, let's come back and talk
about this again, you know, nextweek.
Um, the Quakers call it thepresence of inner peace.
And by rushing, because I don'tlike things unresolved.
(25:25):
I want them resolved now.
I don't like the anxiety ofthings hanging out there.
And so often I'll just dopremature closure.
But this fifth practice ofwaiting for confirmation, really
key, because one of my biggestmistakes, and actually, I
actually did it uh a couple ofyears ago, and around succession
(25:46):
planning for emotionally healthydiscipleship.
I was very open.
We were kind of like we all didour process of discernment.
And then the person we felt wasshould be the uh you know
president, which was Drewactually, who is the president
now.
He wasn't, didn't want it,didn't feel it was God's timing
for him.
And so we we we just patchedtogether a plan where uh Drew
(26:08):
had a place, but since he didn'twant to be president, we we
created his other configuration,but we didn't do this step of
wait for confirmation on that umand get to a place of interior
freedom.
We just kind of thought, okay,well, let's let's make it.
And we made a decision tooquick.
And boy, oh boy, did I learnthis fifth practice.
I knew it, but boy, did I learnit afresh about it's important.
(26:30):
And uh it, it, you know, workedout.
And we found out very quickly itwasn't the right way to go, and
God worked it all out.
But the principle is this thelarger the decision, the more
time discernment requires.
Again, the larger the decision,the more time discernment
requires.
Because discernment oftenincludes a process of groaning.
(26:51):
It's like the birthing of achild.
Uh, there's waiting, there'suncertainty.
It sometimes can be a bit bloodytoo, you know.
And if you want immediateclarity, like I often do, uh, we
have to remember God forms us inthe waiting.
And so listen, here's my finalinvitation to you.
Imagine a leadership team, yourministry team.
Imagine a church culture wherenobody's rushing.
(27:13):
Everyone's people are listeningdeeply to Jesus.
Marriages and families matter.
People's being with Jesusmatters.
People are emotionally honest,able to have healthy
relationships, anxiety isnoticed, limits are honored,
leaders we're surrenderingoutcomes.
We're gonna have a sense ofpeace of, we just want to follow
the good shepherd Jesus.
(27:33):
And we wait on teams wait on Godtogether.
Imagine a church culture formedby not strategy, but
discernment.
Uh, this is the kind ofleadership teams we're committed
to building an emotionallyhealthy discipleship.
And honestly, this is my lifework.
That's why we've been developingmaterials for the last 30 years,
(27:54):
um, because this is notsomething mastered quickly.
It's slow.
And because every step towardsdiscernment, it creates more
peace, more freedom, morefruitfulness, greater missional
uh effectiveness, more alignmentwith Jesus, greater joy in the
culture.
So if this resonates with you,and I pray it does, um,
remember, discernment is aculture more than it is a
(28:17):
method.
And that's why we've created theemotionally healthy spirituality
course and the emotionallyhealthy discipleship course.
And so I want to encourage you,go to emotionallyhealthy.org
slash uh course.
That's emotionallyhealthy.orgslash course, and just check out
this culture, which provides theframework for creating teams
(28:39):
that actually hear God.
And you'll learn about thingslike limits and waiting and
silence and stillness andrhythms and uh first things
first, being before doing.
And it provides that culturewhere you actually can create a
culture which actually discernsGod.
So again, uh I want to you candownload a free, it's all free,
you can download a free uhsample of what this looks like.
(29:03):
And I want to encourage you todo it with your team.
Don't bring it to your wholeministry, just do it with your
team first and begin to build inthese kinds of habits.
So take one step because thegoal is not simply building
successful churches, whateverthat means to you.
The goal is actually becomingmen and women who actually hear
and follow God's leading.
(29:24):
That's what we want to do.
And we can trust our goodshepherd Jesus that he'll guide
us, each one of us, he'll guideour teams, he'll guide our
churches to good pastures, tofruitfulness to impact the world
for him.
Listen, in closing, this theonly thing you can be sure, I
can be sure about in thespiritual journey is what I
think is going to happen is not.
God surprises me all the time.
(29:44):
And um, one of the greatestmature things we can do uh is to
surrender to God and whereverhe's taking us, even though we
don't know exactly where it'sall going.
And that's the beauty and thefreedom of trusting.
My sheep hear my voice, I knowthem, and they follow me, says
Jesus.
So we can trust him in that.
(30:04):
So may the Lord bless you.
May He keep you, may His faceshine on you, and may God fill
you with His Spirit.
And may your ears be so tuned toJesus' voice, because he says,
My sheep hear my voice, I knowthem, and they follow me.
And so may you not just followhim, but may you now be able to
lead those who are looking toyou for leadership.
(30:25):
May you lead them and may youhear God together.
Blessings, everybody.
Have a wonderful, wonderful day.
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