The Myth of Neutrality

0:00We'll get a folks welcome to the Awakened Network podcast. I'm John Tyson lead pastor Church of the City in New York and I'm joined by Sam Gibson who leads Prey NYC in New York City. Thanks for joining us in this podcast we're going to be talking about prayer, revival, awakening and what it looks like to seek God for another move of the Holy Spirit in our time. It's great to have you with us. My name is Zach I'm a new friend of Awakened Network, Zach Mirkrieves and and we're just going to have a conversation now that's been heavy on our hearts. And I think John you carry this uniquely. So tell us the problem that we're going to tackle. So one of the things I think we see sort of coming out a lot is we don't need leadership and you know leadership is an old paradigm and everybody's talking about getting rid of leaders and I just want to say this that that's not right. It's not biblical but it's it falls into this sort

1:02of mythology about there about there being a kind of neutral zone on earth. There is no neutral. There's no neutral in your home. There's no neutral in your workplace. There's no neutral in your neighborhood. Somebody is going to lead in your environment. So the whole idea of like hey we just we're all going to just collaborate together. Nobody needs to be in charge here. Hey God has given the gift of leadership Romans 128 says if you have the gift of leadership lead with all diligence. When you read about leadership in Titus one and in one Timothy three. Same thing. It's like the people that lead it requires some ambition. It says those that desire. It's a strong Greek word. The office of an overseer desire a neutral task. So there's there's a vision and an aspiration that you should want to exert godly influence in the

2:04community that you're a part of. I remember when the first elder we ever installed at church here in New York. Great guy. He had come from a background. First person in his family got a college. First person in his family to finish graduate school ended up becoming a doctor. So you want to talk about breaking through every generation or barrier you can think of. But when he was installed as an elder he said this is the greatest honor of my life because my highest ambition is that I would have a walk with Jesus a character and a competence that a community of faith would say we want to be under your care. I was like it was it was aspiration to exert leadership. So I often think that people get manipulated by people. Whoever's telling you we don't need leadership is the person manipulating you and leading you. Quite often a somebody is going to lead. So I want to just get it out of our minds as sort of myth of neutrality. Second thing I want to say part of a leader's job is to fight for the frame. Somebody is going to interpret reality

3:10for you. You're rather going to be discipled by secular media news headlines. Secular media doesn't tell you what to think as much as it tells you what to think about. Dallas Willard always said that the goal of walking with God and the goal of spiritual formation was managing our consciousness which means paying attention to what we're paying attention to and the world by default will make sure you focus on brokenness whatever sells the most fear division hostility and secular dynamics. And so it's the leaders job to give people and sometimes it's important to analyze those and pay attention to those. But the leader has a different lens. It's the lens of Jesus and it's the lens of the kingdom of God. It's the leaders job to help you say you are caught up in a fight with flesh and blood and the Bible tells you not to. We do not battle against flesh and blood. So it's the leaders job to help define reality, help people see what's actually happening in the culture. It's the leaders job to have an aspiration

4:13to exert influence towards that. And it's the leaders job to to be careful about bad leadership. Yeah. It says in the book of Titus, warn a divisive person once, warn them a second time, and after that have nothing to do with them. Uh, Jesus warned against the Pharisees. What does he say? Seven was. What do you teach us the law and Pharisees? So Jesus is warning against false shepherds in Acts chapter 20. What is Paul's side of the Ephesian elders? He says, pay careful attention to the whole flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you want to oversee. Careful attention. And he says, from among your own number, savage wolves will appear not sparing the flock, seeking to draw people after themselves. So he's warning against people who have a desire for ungodly leadership to use people. I mean, we could just go through the entire New Testament. All the stores, the Old Testament. But again, like we mentioned in the

5:15introductory episode, the idea that you don't need leadership is a myth. Yes. What you need is a godly, functional character and competency in leadership. Yeah. John just said, you know, one of the frames I like to think about that often it's just the way I, you know, processed things as a leader in practice is in no neutral as, you know, the nation of Israel going into the promised land. And they send out the company of 12 spies. Yeah. And basically, 10 come back with a bad report to have a good report. There was no neutral. It's, it is, it is very clear, and right now I think among leaders, we're basically just trying to lead people with a bad report. Like that, it feels like that's what's happening. I feel like one of these is like, no one would be a spy of good report. God has promises this land. Like I believe that what were like the promises we read about in scripture are still true today. I think God is just as willing. Like this is what we want to get into. But I just think it's so important. It's like it wasn't, you know, four of them thought, I were not sure. And what's important in my mind around awakening

6:17is, you know, if you guys know the story, it's basically the crowd is swayed by the bad report. Yep. And they're like, no, we're not going to do this. Well, then they change their mind later and God's going, no, you've missed the window. You know, I mean, I legitimately think there are times and seasons. That's how like, you know, God works in times of seasons, the enemy works in cycles. And we often, if we're not careful, we're operating on our agenda using God's stuff versus using our leadership influence to operate inland with God's agenda. Like he's basically, there's a window open, you know, one of the languages, John, I love this definition. You have for this point, your definition for leadership. Oh, it's just about the study you said. Why do you tell them what that definition of leadership? Don't ask him. He doesn't know. Godly influence towards God's agenda. Say that again. Godly influence towards God's agenda. Now, that is the role of Christian leadership. So good. Yeah. Now, I mean, I think it's so important to say both of those things because a lot of people will take Godly influence and use it for their agenda. Or they'll have their agenda and try to like, you know, you just, it's both of those things. It's what is heaven's agenda?

7:19And how do I lead in a way that it starts influence in that way? You know, it's so significant. It's like, how have you seen this leadership principle play on your life? Yeah. I don't know if I've seen it in my life, but I think I love that definition because Godly influence puts a responsibility on the leader to in the secret place, in their lives, to the ecosystem, where you're continually being corrected on your ungodliness. Yes. That the problem is, is we've been confronted by poor leadership, a lack of godliness. And we could respond and be like, then we don't do it. That's ridiculous. That's silly. It reminds me of the other day. Eden is in third grade. She's my nine year old. She's in in third grade. And she was frustrated about her math homework. She was frustrated to the point and so frustrated and overwhelmed to the point. She's like, I'm

8:20just not going to do it. Well, just because she decided not to do her homework doesn't mean that homework is no longer due. Doesn't mean that she doesn't have to do it or someone has to do it. I can't do it because I'm her dad. It's not my job. What my job is as a father is to teach her how to push through her math homework. So as leaders, we can't just get frustrated and disappointed to the point and be like, now we're out. We got to do the work. Put ourselves before the Lord over and over again to say, help me do this work the right way. And then when you do that, part of godliness is just, I don't do anything before I see his face and hear his voice. Part of godly leadership, godly influence is like, it ain't mine. So I'm going to wait to see his face, hear his voice and discern his agenda and then go for it. And that what I've seen is leaders

9:21who have regular rhythms, community that holds them accountable to that, to put themselves before the Lord be confronted over and over again. That's our job as leaders. As we're talking about the interior life this season, it's our job to put ourselves, our interior life before the Lord and say, search us, know us, test us. Okay, all the yucky just revealed. I give it to you, lead me in the way of everlasting. That's godly agenda, lead me in the way of our lasting. And godliness is, it's not perfection. It's being just having a short list and being regularly confronted in Confessie. One thing that I think's fascinating about that passage connected to that, you're talking about the battered port versus the good report. When chaos that's Caleb who leads in that environment, Caleb, love Caleb, man of a different spirit. Yeah, it says Caleb had a different

10:21spirit. It was like Caleb was marked out by God and God, you got a whole generation trying to go on the promised land. And he's like, because my servant Caleb followed me wholeheartedly and had a different spirit. When I read that passage, I have one question. You know what it is? What was different about Caleb's spirit than everybody else's spirit? Here's a few things I think we see in calisperate. Number one, it was fight for the frame. How do you interpret the data? Everybody's like, Hey, let's all agree. There's a land of milk and honey. And it's better than we we anticipate. And the walls are fortified. Yeah. And then I know that. And they're like, yeah, man, we've got large giants here. This is a lot of problems that we're dealing with here. And cows like, do you guys not see what God just did when we got out of Egypt? Like, what are you paying attention to? The obstacle is in front of you or the God who promises to be with us. He says, yes, they are. But with God's help, we can surely do it. So first thing is how he interprets the data, same experience, but he wants to exert godly influence, which is a spirit of faith instead of a spirit of

11:24doubt. And he wants God's agenda. This is our inheritance. We haven't made this up. We need to go into it. Number two, he seeks to influence the people. And there's a little moment here. I think this is Moses. Another one of Moses has a couple of leadership failures. Caleb silences the people and Moses falls down before the people. In all the other accounts, Moses falls down before the Lord in the intercession for the people. Now he's pleading with the people. Come on. So he stops trying to exert authority with God to shift the hearts of the people. He starts directly appealing to the people. And I think that idea of exerting Godly influence is he silences the crowd and he speaks over their complaints, a reaffirming word. I think that's massively important. So I think in every environment, you want to define reality. Yes, walls, yes, generation to decline. Yes, challenges, yes, political division, yes, brokenness, yes, total confusion. Yes, the world's

12:26falling apart. Yes, there's a thousand things that are wrong. It's not toxic positivity. But it's also going, have you heard about the God of history that we serve? Have you heard about what God has done? Are you? It's called the hall of faith. Got all of these examples to look up to about, what it means to actually follow God. So I think making sure that we're putting the right thing in front of us, it takes time there. And I want to say an important principle here. If why you have to lead because your leadership is connected to the response of your people. Yeah. He still has to do 40 years in the wilderness, even though he was marked out by God and given a promise of fruitfulness. So again, your leadership and your ability to lead is tied up with the people that God has given you wind, flow and so forth. For better and often in many, many ways, almost always, for better, I am tied up with the destiny of the leadership of our church. My leadership credibility is connected to our church here in New York. And I am grateful to pastor a faithful church,

13:30visionary church, church that's hungry for discipleship, church that cares about the poor. It's an amazing church. But it doesn't matter how amazing my personal walk with God is. My leadership is tied up to the responsiveness of the people. So if our church went on a period where they were like, we hate, revive, or we want nothing to do with it, my life is still connected to that. My simple point is that's why you've got to try and lead with all your might because your destiny is tied up with its people. Yeah. Jesus' destiny was tied up with his disciples. Yeah. What I'm saying, my favorite verses around leadership is in Debra Psalm, where it says, when the leaders lead, people offer themselves freely. This whole new trial, I think it's Proverbs 28 that says, when a land transgresses, it has many rulers. You know, basically like, right now it feels like, you know, social media is leading. I mean, people are being led by a multitude of rulers. Yeah. And it's what we really are contending for is the leadership of Jesus being felt, but it turns out he leads through people. You know, it talks about the Psalmist is like,

14:31he led your people by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Like there is a significant, like partnership God has with people in this space. And John, to your point, because again, I think the just don't want anyone to be able to opt out of this conversation, when we're talking about godly influence, anyone can have influence with God. Yeah. I mean, you talk about Moses fell down before the people. He did not fall down before the Lord. And I think one of the primary ways of the adversary working people's lives is he'll frustrate you with people or frustrate you that let lack of change and you'll surrender your influence you have before God. Yeah. Because you're frustrated with either the people you're called to lead or the people that are leading you. The biggest shifting moment of my life and I kind of have a point back to history for this was when I stopped trying to exert influence so much on people and I started in exerting influence upon heaven. You know, one of my rules of life statement is I want to exchange whispers with God that create wakes in the world because I was disciples of an environment that was like, hey, if God's not moving, make, move, I mean, I feel like I have the spiritual gift of leadership. It's been

15:33something that's been affirmed in my life all the times. But I want to make sure that's like, hey, I want to the highest place of authority I have is when I'm in the throne room of heaven, whispering people's names before the throne. It was a famous story. In the greatest honor of a leader. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the, you know, I believe it's Eugene Peterson's definition of a pastor. What does it mean to be a pastor stand before God with the people in your heart? And, you know, I think there's, we've lost sight of this, but man in revival history in the Hebrides, there's a young intercessor on my, my heroes of the faith, young Donald. And get saved in revival, marked with this, I mean, wild, wild stories about his prayer life. And there's the store that often Duncan Campbell, the preacher of the, this revival movement would call for young Donald, you know, sin for the prairie men of Barvis and also bring young Donald. You know, this, this kid can crack the skies when the stores are unbelievable. But one of my favorite stories is Duncan Campbell goes to get young Donald. He wants to take him on a ministry assignment with him. And this is like the celebrity pastor of the day. You know, I don't want to know. But like, this is the who's who's coming at to your house. And he's trying to summon young Donald to come

16:35with him. And young Donald, Andrews the door says, I'm sorry, Mr. Campbell, I have an audience with the king right now. You'll have to wait. Closes the door and just goes back to see. He's 16 at the time. He's 16 years old. And he understands I've got influence right now with the king of kings. And so you're like, I'll get to you. And I just think continuing to this that contending in the secret place is where true authority comes from. I mean, like often we just think it's, it's not just a moment of Godliness. I think most leaders with these abuses we see is like, they had a season of Godliness in their life. But then they started exerting that influence and almost we stopped that. And I just think no matter what sphere of influence you have in the world, whether it's just with your family, your neighborhood, a church is understanding when you, when it clicks in your mind of way, I have an audience with the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And in this place, I can bring myself, my people like the fullness of who I am before the Lord. I mean, SD Gordon talks about that as the purpose of prayer is exerting heaven's influence upon the will of man. And I'm not praying at people. I'm praying for people, you know, but just to your point there, we've got to get

17:39like the understanding of not surrendering Godly influence there is so significant, so, so significant because ultimately start trying to exert God's agenda. And then we actually lose the influence we have with heaven in a bill. Yeah. And going back to this concept, there's no neutrality. It reminds me of the proverb of, you know, a lot of people have read without vision, people perish. One of those translations is without leadership, people are unrestrained. And you get this vision of like, well, that leadership people will just go wherever they want. And that's dangerous. And it's our job to offer vision and restraint through our leadership to that service the people, not service our own thing. And I just was, as I was listening to Sam, I wonder two things. The second one sounds real spiritual, but I think it's important. And we have spiritual people. So we do love things that sound. We'll see. The spiritual thing is, I wonder if there's like a young Donald listening that you could pray for. Like, not even as we end this thing.

18:44Like, this is not, this is like, stop here. There's a young Donald who has been laughed at or feel like they're missing out because they didn't take the opportunity, but they really have a mark on their lives to pursue the audience of the king. And you carry that. You carry that in a tremendous way. This church carries that. I'm now a friend of this church. And there's, there's janitors, finance people that when they have an audience of the king, they're not worrying about spreadsheets or trash cans or whatever. They have an audience of the king. You carry that in a tremendous way. So I would love for you to pray for young Donald's before we move on. The second thing is coming out of that prayer, talk to the person who has been leading in neutral. Maybe successfully, the church was growing people, you know, or negatively. And how do you like practically help your church get out of neutral without thrashing them without giving them whiplash? So first,

19:45let's send some love to young Donald's. And then let's get practical on how do you not give your entire church whiplash for the sake of revival or whatever, but actually invite them to keep going because Caleb needed reminders. I know Matt. He's still human. So you remember like it's Caleb and Joshua, right? Like I imagine a couple times in that season, they looked at each other like, hey, can we just grab coffee or whatever? Were we nuts? Did I really see that? You know, and they probably needed to prod the people along, but couldn't thrash them about or shame them or guilt them. We have no desire to give you weapons to shame your church for the sake of what we're talking about. So help pastress, coach us. But first, yeah, I'll pray for the young Donald and then John, I'd love for you to give it because you obviously been leading and navigating a church year, maybe we can tie a team there. But if you are on this call and here's how I just want to give you two quick identifiers, you have a vision for what could be like God breaking into a region

20:46in your perpetually in a place of frustration. The life of an intercession is a place of frustration. You will always be frustrated because you stand on the wall between what is and what could be. And so if that is you, which is probably a lot of people who think God is trying to mark a lot of folks in this way, just, you know, don't close your eyes if you're driving a car. Keep all the safety little caveats here. But just open your heart, open your hands and Father, we just pray right now. Lord, I pray a divine marking from heaven. Lord, I just pray you would break the deception off of eyes, ears, hearts and minds that we can only exert influence when we are in a public pulpit platform or whatever. Lord, I just pray for a divine sense of awareness of the authority we have when we are whispering before the throne. Hosea uses this term. I believe Hosea 6 is so the wind reaped the hurricane. And Lord, I just pray that you would raise up people that can whisper with you that create wakes out in the world. Lord, I just pray for those that can shift their high schools, middle schools. Lord, I pray for people that can shift their neighborhoods

21:46and workplaces through a simple whisper before their throne. Lord, I pray that all the frustration and agitation Lord, that you would teach them and train them to take that to the place of intercession. Lord, I would take that to the place to wrestle with you, not at people, not like frustrated and praying, but Lord, like praying four people, four regions, four places, Lord, will like that they would wrestle through and get your heart, your mind and your agenda and would actually see the like fruit of their whispers before the throne that never even mentioned before man coming to fruition. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. And to land the plan, give a golden nugget. Each one of you, golden nugget, golden nugget. I like nuggets. Nuggets. How do we coach? How do we move our staff teams, whoever we're entrusted with, without giving them whiplash out of neutral? That's a whole opposite counter that in the nugget. I wanted this to a cool story. Here's a cool story. I'm being mocked, being mocked in the spirit of prayer. I shared this with our church last Sunday. So if people hear the podcast, they've probably heard that.

22:50But when I was a teenager, I would listen, anything on revival, I just devoured it. But what I loved was Bible teaching about revival, like all the passages, the great revivals of the Bible. And there was this, this preacher I loved named Stephen Alfred and he would, he would, he would roll his ass. So I was like, Revival spiritual. Revival. And I remember driving to work at the butcher shop one day, driving down a road in Elizabeth. And he's just preaching on like ready for revival for Acts 1 and 2 and how God gets his people ready. And you get, you know, I remember just the presence of God came down in my car and I'm like, you got to use me. I'm ready. I'm in a meat factory like I'm a high school dropout. I'm a teenager. But God, I don't know if you can just do anything with my life. Hear this cry on the side of the road. I want to get ready for revival. Oh, I come so into it. I was in the prayer in two weeks ago in the morning. And I was just, every Monday I pray for revival. It doesn't

23:54matter what the, the, the set is. It's in my spirit. Like I just preached. I'm talking every day, John's praying for a while. Just wake up out church. You know, love, love that. And I just, I just was thinking I was actually analyzing like, when did this get in my spirit? And I realized, now I'm a kid listening to a sermon on revival. But then I had this revelation, the guy preaching it was, was a pastor in America. He's also a pastor in New York City. And he preached that in 1960 on 57th Street in Manhattan. And 30 years later, I am leading a church with a prayer room on 57th Street in Manhattan. That's the heritage. My simple point is, if you heard that invitation to receive a spiritual deposit from this prayer and God marked you, ask God for every single thing possible from that deposit. Because 30 years later, I am the fruit of someone preaching in this city decades ago. The seed hit me in Australia, brought me back to the very street where it was

24:55preached. I say that to build your faith, you'd never know what God will do if something resonates in your spirit. And you stood the seed you were saying. So good. Yeah. Just to give a, I do agree, we're priving the whole season this because I never ate one chicken. I got my whole life. I'm a, I'm a 12 pack kind of guy. I would just say this, the best advice I was ever given. And I think this works in, you know, Godly influence towards God's engine is just live the life people are longing for. And eventually they'll start asking questions. Here's the myth in the lie. No great a lot in human history. They are so, uh, was it was it so heavily minded? They're no earthly good. That's not ever happened in human history. It's happened one time in human history. Jesus turned out to be a lot of good for humanity. I have found like, you know, I lead a team and often it's, you know, I have an idea. And guess what? It wasn't my idea. I spent hours laboring in prayer and also now I get insight from God. Like turns out seeking God is a practical thing for your leadership. Like it actually helps. And when people start realizing, wait, the fruit of your prayer life

25:56is producing practical results for my life. I mean, this is why the disciples asked Jesus documented. I mean, I'm sure there was more asked, but when they say we want you to teach us one thing is we want your prayer life. Because we see what you do by yourself is overflowing into every area of your life. Like we're not how to preach, how to do miracles. I mean, none of that. It is we see your life. And if you know the, you know, kind of arc of this, they don't ask that question until two and a half years into his ministry. He's got three years with him. And he's not over there to say and demanding they pray. He basically is just like doing his thing. And eventually they're like, hey, guys, I think like we've seen the water to one, we've seen the five light. We've seen some wild stuff. I think it's when he goes and he's with us, whatever he's doing over there, we get in front what that is. And so I just say very privately, it's just live the life people are longing for and invite them invitationally into the journey. Don't be demanding those kind of things, but just live the life people are longing to see them like walk with God, how you think is actually possible. And then people start asking you questions that space. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the communities,

27:00your pasturing leading are neutral because you're neutral. And it's not a heavy word. That's not trying to put shame. But if you get out of neutral faithfully with the character of Christ, right? Not thrashing people about it, not flexing on people. But if you get out of neutral, maybe your church, your prayer room, your people, your family will get out of neutral. So great conversation. We're going to continue to have this conversation. And we pray that it's encouraging to you John, will you close us and pray? Yeah. Father, we just want to thank you for the people who are listening to this Lord. You know, every heart. You know where they are, what they're wrestling with, you know, who is against their leadership. You know where those are struggling with fear or they're reluctant or they're intimidated or they got baggage or they've been hurt or they're spending all of their time trying to figure out who they don't want to be or what they're against rather than what they're for. I just pray, meet them now with divine confidence.

28:01Lord, I just pray, may they love the people they serve more than preserving their own reputation. Would you just feel them with love, love for you, love for others, love for the world that draws out of them their gifts to serve and direct their character towards what it is you want to happen in their sphere. So thanks for this time. Use this seed. May it bear for it for your kingdom in Jesus' name, Amen. Hey, y'all, I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Waking Network. We just want to welcome you to this community. If you want to know more about a Waking Network, you can go to awakennetwork.com. We have a membership. We would love for you to explore and we also are offering these leadership one-days that stay tuned and join us for one of those. Thanks for listening.