Ephesians 4:1 …I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called… AMP
Ephesians 4 was not written to pastors. This was written to the church!
Ephesians 4:8 (God) gave gifts to his people… ESV
You’re called! You’re gifted! We believe in decentralization without deconstruction. If we can learn to decentralize, we can learn to mobilize.
When we come to church our lives are enriched. When we become the church our world is enriched.
Sheep give birth to sheep, not shepherds.
Ephesians 4:12 equipping the saints for the work of ministry 13 (experiencing)…the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ ESV
All of us should be working to selflessly inspire, empower and celebrate others in the faith.
Exodus 17:8-13 The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites. 9 Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.” 10 So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. NIV
Joshua went to fight and the appearance was that Moses went to watch. Your role will be misunderstood at times but keep holding your arms up on behalf of others.
Exodus 17:11-12 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it…
Moses arms grew tired. Joshua is in the valley fighting the battle, swinging his sword and holding a shield – and the Bible talks about Moses’ arms.
Exodus 17:12 …Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. NIV
“Joshua overcame the Amalekite army”, but the chapter spent more time talking about Moses' arms than Joshua's sword.
Joshua’s victory came because Moses was able to hold his hands up because he’d developed relationships with people who were there to help.
Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Joshua’s victory was dependent on Moses’ arms, but Joshua get the credit. THE SIGN OF A HUMBLE LEADER IS THE LEADER WHO CAN EMPOWER SOMEONE FOR VICTORY AND NOT CHASE THE CREDIT FOR THAT VICTORY.
Moses muscles are sore in his arms but he still claps and celebrates your victory without longing for the praise himself.
Celebrate others and just be true to you. Not “the you” others want you to be. Not even the you that you might think you should be. I’m talking about the you God designed you to be. In this season we want to really work at providing thoughts and ideas that each person can take before the Lord in places of prayer to discover more of what God’s design in their life truly is.
I’m aware that when I introduced 'AI' prompt two weeks ago it perhaps caused some people to raise their guard a little. That's a healthy instinct — hold onto it.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test everything; hold fast what is good. ESV
The reason I’ve been working for the past 6 months with our elders, staff and other leaders in the church to navigate into this is because it is important for the church to have a response rather than a reaction to the A.I. inundation of almost every area of life.
We really do need to be ahead of this and not behind the curve.
Three out of four teens report having an A.I. companion. Approximately 50% of teens today have never even had a conversation with their parents about AI safety at all.
This isn’t going away. Part of our goal in all of this is to help stimulate conversation within your homes about how to navigate into what’s ahead with an open dialogue around your table.
Determine the boundaries that are right for your family. In our Community Group Leader discussion this past Sunday night we talked about the importance of talking this through together in our groups.
What we are providing today is simply a guided set of questions that focus on:
That’s the focus. Your responses to the questions will be interpreted data for you to consider about how you tend to interact in a crowd most effectively, what kind of problems you tend to be good at solving, what typical reasons do people tend to come to you for help. As you take time to pray about these things before the Lord, think about them both critically and constructively, realize this is just a tool.
This will not diagnose you or tell you who you are. Only God can do that. GOD CREATED YOU ON PURPOSE. Remember first we pray, then we think and then we explore supplemental information.
Put your name and the church's name into the first paragraph and then copy and paste everything below this line into an AI Platform like Claude, Chat GPT, etc:
My name is [YOUR NAME]. I'm a member of [YOUR CHURCH]. I want to understand how God has uniquely wired me — not to change who I am, but to celebrate it and deploy it in service to the people closest to me (my "five-foot circle": family, friends, coworkers, neighbors).
Here's what I need from you:
Ask me the following 8 questions, one at a time. Wait for my answer before asking the next one. Listen for patterns.
After my 8 answers, give me:
Then ask me:
Start with question 1 now.
