Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, Mark Clark, podcast here. Hopefully you are doing well today. We are talking all things life and leadership. This is from a talk I gave at our thrive leadership conference this past year, seven characteristics of an effective leader. And so we talk about all seven of them. I share a little bit of my story and really just try to be as practical as possible. As we define leadership as influence, all of us are influencing the world at some level, and these are seven things that you have to have that are essential to influencing the world around you well, so hopefully you enjoy this. This is seven characteristics of an effective leader.
Mark Clark [00:00:40]:
Let's get going. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to jump into a really practical talk. Sometimes I do like a walk through the Bible deal. I thought I'd do something a little bit different this year and just jump into seven characteristics of an effective leader. We're all leaders. We're all leading something in life. Businesses, ministries, churches, pastoring, whatever you do.
Mark Clark [00:01:01]:
And so I thought I'd jump in and try to provide you. You can take notes, whatever. We're gonna try to get to seven characteristics of a leader. And here's how Henry Blackaby defines leadership. One word. If you could define leadership in one word, I don't know what word you would come up with. Henry Blackaby said this. Leadership is influence.
Mark Clark [00:01:21]:
Leadership is influence. Every single one of us influences in some way, which is very good, because the great commission, of course, is Jesus saying, I want you to go and make what disciples? And that's the greek word, math, etcetera, which means learner. I want you to make learners of everybody in the world the way they think, the way that they live. That is literally the commission on every single one of our lives. It is to influence. And so the greatest picture of this, the most practical picture of this for all of us, is parenting. You know, if you're a parent, what it means to be a leader, right? You're influencing your kids. The way they think, the way that they function, what they do with their life.
Mark Clark [00:01:59]:
Are they polite. And so I have three daughters, which means I have four mothers at home at all times. I got four women telling me how to live my life and what to do. And the thing about that is I can be a good dad at times, or I can be a bad dad at times. I'd be good influencer or bad influence. That happens in different ways every single day, though, I'm influencing the way that they think, how they live. In the midst of a culture that is also trying to disciple them, right? Trying to influence them. So if you just let your kid go, the world will tell them, like, I have daughters.
Mark Clark [00:02:34]:
This is what sexuality is, this is what womanhood is. This is how to use your body. This is what power is. All of those images are coming from the world that we live in. And it's my job to wash their minds to mathe taste that they would learn a different way to be a woman. That's our job. In the midst of the cultures that we're in at every moment, we are influencing, influencing, influencing. Or you can do a poor job at that and just let the world tell them, this is what a woman is.
Mark Clark [00:03:02]:
But it's my job. I remember when I became a Christian, people around me, I had our daughters, and I would start reading the Bible at night and people around me would say, you know what I don't like about you? The fact that you brainwash your children. And I'm like, what do you. And you know what my answer to that is every time? You're darn right I do, right? Because if I don't, then you will. Or the culture around them will, and they'll lie to them. And my job is to rewash their brain in the gospel of Jesus so that they understand what it means to be human, what it means not to live for money, what it means to actually be. And so all of these things, this is our literal job. And so the first thing I'll say is, we got to embrace the call to actually be a leader in the culture that we're in, because some of you, you're not stepping up to be a leader and you're letting it pass you by.
Mark Clark [00:03:57]:
And to me, I love living in two cultures. I'm from Canada, and canadian culture is very passive. It's like, we don't, hey, we're fine, you know, whatever. It would be very easy to take over Canada for Americans, by the way. Literally, you can walk up and be like, hey, hey, give it, give it. Right? Shout out, shut up. So it'd be very easy. Like, we don't.
Mark Clark [00:04:17]:
We have, like, canoes and little, like, we're not. If North Korea goes crazy, we're hoping you guys can help. That's the. That's the play. So, in Canada, leadership culture is vastly different. Nobody sees themselves as a leader. Like, I use it. Oh, hey, if I go into a canadian audience and I said, raise your hand if you're a leader.
Mark Clark [00:04:38]:
No, everyone's like, I'm not a leader. Are you a leader? I said, I think he's a leader, I don't know, but I come into american audiences and I go, hey, who's the leader? And every hand goes up. It's like, oh, we lead. I lead stuff. Miracle. And so I was like, I was watching doctor Phil and Kevin up here. I'm like, wow, that is. That is miracle right there.
Mark Clark [00:04:59]:
That is sweet home, Arkansas. So. But those are different cultures, right? And so what I love about american culture is I love it because it's Isaiah six. And Isaiah looks and he says, hey, send me. Here I am. And all of us in this room need to be going, here I am. Send me. I want to influence.
Mark Clark [00:05:26]:
I want to change the world. So seven characteristics to how we do that. The first is character. Notice when you get into the passage in the Bible that talk about leadership. When you read first Timothy two Timothy Titus and Paul's talk about leadership, he never just simply talks about competencies and skill sets. In fact, if you read one Timothy, chapter three, verse two to three, he starts the list. And it's all about character. It's not about competencies or skills.
Mark Clark [00:05:55]:
It's a list about they're not given to money, they're a husband of one wife. All of these kind of things. It's all about character. Cause character matters. In that passage, he lifts eleven characteristics of an overseer or a Deacon. And ten out of the eleven are character issues. So oftentimes we look for skills and we think competencies when he's actually. So you can be really good at something in life, but if you suck as a person, you're a bad leader, right? And we all know those people.
Mark Clark [00:06:25]:
Some of them work for us. And you're thinking of them right now, and you're thinking, man number one issue, character is king. Character is king. My friend Kerry Neuhoff has this phrase where he says, competencies and skills will get you in the room. Character will keep you in the room, right? And this is true even about the secular world. Like, if you think you guys remember Brian Williams, right? Did you watch the news? Anyone used to watch the news? Brian Williams, right? He was like the ABC, the newscaster. And he used to read the news. And then a few years ago, he told a story on the air where he was in some helicopter and it got shot or something, and then someone went, hunted it down, and they said that never happened, and so they fired him.
Mark Clark [00:07:10]:
Now, what is this man's job? It's to read a teleprompter that someone else wrote about events that are happening around the world has nothing to do with him, and we still couldn't take the news from him. That's how much character matters in our minds. Jr Miller says this, the only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mortars from your grave, the only thing that refuses to be buried is your character. What a man is, survives him. It can never be buried. This is why Francis Chan, years ago I read an article from him where he said, I would rather God kill me than I cheat on my wife. Because what it would mean for the reputation of the gospel. So character is the number one thing you have.
Mark Clark [00:08:03]:
Your competencies can flux, and everybody has different competencies, by the way, different levels of things that you can do, different capacities. And oftentimes like, there's like 30, you know, Jesus tells that parable, there's people gonna have results. 30, 61 hundred fold. I think one of the mistakes we make in ministry is we don't understand that different people on your staffs and your ministries and life and business, some of them are 30 fold leaders, some of them are 60 fold, some of them are 100 fold. But don't treat a 30 fold leader as if they're supposed to give you hundred fold results. Right? Why aren't you like me? Because you're better than them, right? If I project everything I am in my life and try to project on every single person, there's some people, they don't want to work 100 hours a week and lead to this. They're happy doing their thing, and I'm treating them as if they should be giving hundredfold results, and they're a 30 fold person. So it's understanding that sometimes capacity competency begins to outweigh character.
Mark Clark [00:09:04]:
And then we have to be very careful. Second one is this. Passion. Passion. Every single one of us knows people follow passion. It covers a multitude of sins and weaknesses in your life. If you're finding yourself in a place where you're like, oh, I don't know, just be more passionate. Right? So David Hume, the great scottish skeptic, years ago, was walking down the street, the story is told, and a guy yelled out his window, and he said, hey, david Hume, you know, and this guy hated Christianity.
Mark Clark [00:09:36]:
He wrote against Miracles. He was like the big philosopher. And they said, where are you going? And he said, oh, I'm going to watch George Whitefield preach, you know, the great preacher. And they said, yeah, but you don't believe anything that he says. And David Hume said, yeah, but he does, like, I want to go and watch a person who really believes this stuff. That's what people do passion covers over a multitude of things. We all know that. Like, so the first wedding I ever did in my life, I was, like, 20 years old, and no one had taught me to do a wedding.
Mark Clark [00:10:16]:
So picture, you know, go back in your minds to those early days. You got to do a wedding, and you don't know what you're doing. And I was a guy. I was a 20 year old man. So I'm like, I don't even know if I've been to a wedding, right? And if I have, I wasn't paying attention. So I'm 20 years old, and I got to do this rehearsal, and I realized when I show up to the rehearsal, I don't actually know how to do a wedding. I don't know who stands where, what's happening. So I got up, and the whole family's, like, 40 people, all the mothers and everyone's.
Mark Clark [00:10:47]:
And they're all sitting there, and I stand up, and I'm like, I don't know how to direct people. And finally I just go, okay. And I just started talking, and then finally I just started talking louder, and I'm like, hey, you over there. You go stand over there. And I'm like, oh, okay. And you go stand over there. And I totally hacked it. Like, I flipped the sides, and they're like, I don't think the bride's supposed to be.
Mark Clark [00:11:08]:
I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's a postmodern wedding. Shut up. Go this way. And I'm just. Because sometimes you just need to talk louder. Listen to this quote. Listen. You guys ever heard of Jim Jones? The guy, you know, ran a colton? Guyana, 900 people killed himself following this guy.
Mark Clark [00:11:32]:
I can almost guarantee you he didn't talk. Monotone, right? Hey, guys, I just want you to get the liquid in your hand. Now. We're going to kill ourselves. I don't know what you guys want to do today. That's what we're doing. All right, everybody good? All right, good. It's a terrible example, by the way, but I'm just.
Mark Clark [00:12:03]:
Listen. Passion, absolute identity. One writer said, with one's cause is the key to all leadership. Absolute identity. And if you have absolute identity with your cause, you're gonna have passion no matter what. Think about. And some of you, like, if you are joyous, passionate leaders, you need to tell your face. Cause honestly, guys, we're not looking happy out there.
Mark Clark [00:12:36]:
Like, we're. The Christians are not the ones representing joy right now, right? We're online. I hate the world. I hate everything's going to crap. The world's ending. Don't you see? It's an eclipse. It's a double moon. We're all dead.
Mark Clark [00:12:54]:
Shut up. No one. We're literally wrong every time, right? Let's just stop saying it. Stop it. You look miserable. Passion, joy. There are times when there'll be, like, interviews that we're doing on Zoom or something to hire someone, and I'll just walk out of the room halfway through the interview because it's like, this person's boring me. There's no passion here, right? So, you know, there's this great line.
Mark Clark [00:13:31]:
Winston Churchill, his whole. He walked into the parliament and nobody wanted to continue fighting the Nazis anymore. And Britain was losing a lot of people. We were, you know, Britain, Canada. We were actually fighting the Nazis for a while before y'all helped. We were losing a lot of people, by the way. So the parliament was losing all these people, losing all this money, and everyone was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And he went in and gave the great church hill.
Mark Clark [00:13:59]:
We will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the air. We'll never, never give up. We'll. No, he did that. And by the end of it, the entire parliament is, like, standing on their feet and clapping, and they're just, like, giving it. And one of the guys looks at the other guys and he says, how did he do that? And he says these words. He took the english language and he sent it into battle.
Mark Clark [00:14:24]:
How do you do that? That's passion. That's actually going. You don't listen. If you're a leader, people can tell whether you do this for the paycheck. They can. They can see right through you. And we got to get to a place where we actually burn for this stuff. Which is why John Maxwell, in his leadership book, talks about this.
Mark Clark [00:14:46]:
People buy into the leader, then they buy into the vision, right? People buy into the leader, and then they buy into the vision. So we spend half of our time sitting around rooms asking and figuring problems out that actually aren't the problem. So we go, hey, how do you think they're going to like these values? How do you think? Oh, good. They all start with P. It's going to be really. They're going to remember them and they're going to put them on the wall. What do you think about this budget? You think they'll like this budget? And what do you think about this and this and vision and values and ooh. E guys, most people are saying, if I buy into you and you're telling me, this is where we're going.
Mark Clark [00:15:28]:
Then I'm in, because I buy into you. So passion. Third, we are to be dependent people who don't. People who try to lead from their own strength are people who tend to make mistakes along the way. Because how many of us know that the power in leadership doesn't come from you, it comes through you. Right. When we start to understand our role in this. First Corinthians, chapter one and two, talk about the fact that God will use the moronic things of the world, right? The foolish.
Mark Clark [00:16:07]:
Literally, in the Greek, the word foolish things in the world is a word for moron. He will take. And that's not the people in your church, it's you. You are the morons that God will use in all your foolishness and all of your nonsense. If you become dependent people who go, I'm not trying to do this in my own strength and my own skill, but I'm going to try something that if God doesn't show up, it's going to fail miserably. And when you're those kind of people, there's the power. Billy Graham wanted to be an evangelist, went on tour preaching at all these churches, and he went to this one church. A story is told in one of his leadership books where he was preaching, and he preached at this church.
Mark Clark [00:16:58]:
Night one, nobody came forward when he said, do you want to receive Christ? Night two, no one received Christ. So he finally went to the pastor of the church, and he said, I really want to be a good evangelist. And he said, here's what I'll commit to. Why don't you and I go out to my house every day before you get up and preach, and we'll just pray in a room and ask God to anoint you. So they did. Day one, that he preached, no one came to Christ. Day two, no one came. And he tells this story, this fascinating story, because you don't picture this with Billy Graham.
Mark Clark [00:17:28]:
All of a sudden, the two guys in a room and they feel the spirit of God drop. And Billy Graham starts laughing. Like, you know, when you watch those, like, charismatic videos of, like, crazy people going, Billy Graham, picture that now. But now put Billy Graham's face on it. And he starts laughing and he says, oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I've got it. I've got it.
Mark Clark [00:18:01]:
He goes to the church, preaches that night, and three quarters of the way through the sermon, half of the room is at the front, giving their life to Christ. And that man, the guy who took him out to the cabin, went home to his family. He sat down for dinner, and he just looked at him and he said, the world will know the name of Billy Graham. And you're trying to do ministry in your own strength. The spirit of God can take you when you come to the end of yourself, when you just go, I got nothing. And here's why you need the spirit of God. Because when you got into ministry, you marked yourself out for a war, like a real warm, where people die. So when we planted our church in 2010 in Vancouver, we started in 2019, and we had 16 people in my house, and we met for nine months building up to the launch of that church.
Mark Clark [00:18:58]:
And in that nine months, three of our parents died. My dad and two moms, car accident, brain tumor, lung disease. And we're sitting there and people started to leave my core launch team, and I'm like, where are you going? And they're like, I just like my parents. And being on this team seems to be the guaranteed way they're gonna die. Cause here's the thing, guys. Satan would rather kill you. Every single person in this room, if you're gonna have influence. Satan would rather destroy you and your family than watch you go one more day and baptize one more person.
Mark Clark [00:19:39]:
He doesn't want to see that. He wants to kill you. And that's why you have to be dependent. Because if you don't have him, like, what do you think happens when people derail in ministry and fail and fall out of ministry because of moral failure? What is that? It's not just ministry is hard. We burn out. Satan got to that person and won. That's what happened. There is a spiritual dynamic behind all of these things.
Mark Clark [00:20:10]:
And here's the beautiful thing. This is why God constantly goes, I am with you. I am with you. I'll be with you. I'll be with you. Because in God's hands, guys, your life can do things you've never even dreamt of before. Stuff God's working on, stuff you don't even know about yet. I was telling Bayside, if you go to the church, I was telling them last weekend.
Mark Clark [00:20:30]:
So the weekend before last, my friend had invited me to come down and preach at his church called Menlo Church near San Francisco. And he said, hey, can you come and preach on gender at this church near San Francisco? I'm like, bro, can't we do, like, women in ministry or the end times or vaccines or just something other than this? And he's like, no, I gotta be gender, bro. And I'm like, all right, so I prepped this talk on gender, and I kind of got up and I said, you know, there's been work being done in psychology and all these things and the work of Doctor Luann Brizendean and how she's a psychologist and not a christian, and she talks about what it means to be a male and a female. And there's been all kinds of studies done. They'll put, like. And these general archetypes of kind of pink and blue tend to hash out and be somewhat normal for a large percentage of the population. You can put, like, they've done these studies where they put a little girl in a room and they just have fire trucks and stuff in there, and then they go and watch her, and within ten minutes, she has a fire truck wrapped in a blanket and she's rocking it to sleep. And then, like, they watch little boys in there, and they put them in there with dolls, and they're like.
Mark Clark [00:21:43]:
And that's just like. That's just like. It's just like an archetype for humankind, and it's kind of the nature of things. And for a large portion of the population, it kind of rings true. And then I made the point, like, but that doesn't. That's not always the case. And if you don't find yourself in those archetypes, there's nuance. It doesn't mean you have to, and all these kind of things.
Mark Clark [00:22:03]:
But then I said, the beautiful thing about the Bible is the Bible doesn't have, like, these closed categories of feminine and masculine. Because when you're talking about David, when is he being more masculine? Is it when he's fighting Goliath? Or is it when he's writing poetry with his guitar in a field by himself? And then I said, when is Deborah being more feminine? Is it when she's at home keeping a house? Or is it when she's leading a nation to war? What's more feminine? And so let's talk about these days. So I prep that and then to go to the front row just before the sermon, and he goes, oh, by the way, Condoleezza Rice goes to our church. What? What do you, what do you mean? The secretary of state, the genius. Brilliant. Stanford. What if I knew that, I would have worked way harder on this talk, bro. Like, what are you talking about, Conda? I'm gonna stand up in front of Condoleezza rice.
Mark Clark [00:23:01]:
I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I got up and I'm like, at archetypes and pink and the guns and the fire trucks, and then the, and then the David. And he would go, and then he's writing poetry, or. And then it hit me, this was for her. Is a woman more a woman when she's at home or when she's leading a nation? And I looked right at her, or when she's leading a nation to war. And she was like, mm hmm, mm hmm. Right? So anyway, Connie and I were talking the other day, and she told me this joke, and I'm like, no, can't say that. So here's the crazy part.
Mark Clark [00:24:01]:
That weekend that I'm preaching on this passage that cites Moses in Exodus. Who's this guy who God says, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he's like, I can't go in front of Pharaoh and the powers because I stutter. And I just saw myself in that moment because here's me growing up with Tourette's. For those of you who don't know, you're watching me on the screen, he's going, what's wrong with his face all the time? That's because I have Tourette's. I got ticks. And it happened when my parents got divorced and I got eight years old, and I had all these habits where I'd swear randomly at people, if you've ever seen people with Tourette's like, and I used to do that. And which, the one job you're never going to get in life when you throw f bombs around at people is a preacher, so it's not going to work.
Mark Clark [00:24:48]:
Welcome to thrive f. Good night. So God's never going to use me to put me on a stage to communicate to anybody. And I'm sitting there up in front of Condoleezza Rice because God says to Moses, I'm going to put you in front of the powerful people. And I don't care that you stutter, because this isn't about what you are. This is about what I am. This isn't about you being perfect. This is about me being perfect.
Mark Clark [00:25:21]:
And I will use you not because of you, but in spite of you. And the only way that happens is if you're a dependent person who says, God, use me, even though I'm at the end of myself here in my own strength. This is a gong show in your hand. This is something, the fourth thing, that your identity doesn't come from being a leader, but a follower of Jesus. If your identity comes from leading and your ministry, you will get depressed very quickly. Right? We all know this. Here's the one thing I know about pastoral ministry people are the worst. Write it down, people.
Mark Clark [00:26:02]:
This is why I never wanted to become a pastor. I was going to go into the film industry. I had pastors, people. The music was too loud. Start a singles ministry. Figure your own life out, man. I don't. You're single.
Mark Clark [00:26:19]:
Figured out how to start a ministry for you anyway, so I didn't want to be a pastor. I mean, we all know. Remember Covid? Remember what it was like to be a pastor of COVID And you got all these emails from people and it was like, hey, you need to get up and tell everybody to take the vaccine. Because if they don't take the vaccine, they hate old people. And then my next email was, you better tell our church never to take that poisonous vaccine. It's going to connect to times eclipse, red moon. And I'm like, when did you become a doctor? You didn't even finish high school. The amount of criticism, the amount of criticism we get in ministry, I remember people used to criticize us because they would say, oh, Mark.
Mark Clark [00:27:19]:
The way mark attracts all these young guys to his church is because he puts good looking, beautiful women at the connect desk so that all the guys come to the, come to the church. And I was like, that's actually a really good idea. I don't do it, but that's genius. And there was all these criticisms. Everyone criticized every, like, oh, he baptizes people wrong. Because we'd go out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, baptize people in January to be 40. The water before, and they put a wetsuit on. Oh, the water didn't touch their skin.
Mark Clark [00:27:54]:
Shut up. What are you talking. What are we talking about? We have so much time on our end. And the day someone sent that email was the same day I turned on the news and 41 christians had got their head cut off by ISIS. And I'm like, I'm not listening to this nonsense anymore. People, they do these things. They say these things are critical, critical, critical. So I remember calling one of my mentors, Larry Osborne, and saying, man, I'm getting kind of hammered and critiqued and all this stuff.
Mark Clark [00:28:25]:
And he just said, told him a story about the baptism. And his line was, you know what, Mark? I like the wrong way. You are baptizing and reaching people better than the right way that they aren't doing either. And I was like, yeah, that helped. That helped. I got like, so there's these times in our life when we do things wrong, and if your identity comes to ministry, you'll fall apart. I remember when I was in Bible college. One of our teachers got up and she was teaching through the gospel of Mark.
Mark Clark [00:29:00]:
And she got to the baptism of Jesus. And the father's voice came out and said, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And she started crying up front, and she said, do you realize that the father says he loves the son and Jesus hasn't even done anything yet? And I needed that told the church this story. But for those of you from elsewhere, I needed that. The day I made the biggest mistake in ministry and I told a woman that her husband was dead and I had the wrong guy. And as a 29 year old kid, I had gone to a hospital, saw the guy. He looked dead. He was dead.
Mark Clark [00:29:36]:
But then I went home and I said, is he dead? And she said, he's dead. Now, if you're taking notes when someone says he's dead, say who? But I didn't. I just drove back to the church and said, hey, frank's dead. And. And then Frank's wife came by the church and she was picking up something, and the secretary said, you gotta go talk to Mark. I don't. And Mark, I don't think she knows. I said, send her back.
Mark Clark [00:30:10]:
She came back and I said, hey, what's going on? She's like, I got a subway sandwich. I want to see Frank. He wanted. I was there this morning and I said, oh, well, I went there after you. Frank's dead. At which point this is totally true. She passed out into my arms and I put her on the couch, and we mourned the death of Frank for 45 minutes. And she was like, I was there this morning.
Mark Clark [00:30:38]:
I'm like, these things happen so quick these days. It's just. And I. So. So then I went out to get her a glass of water, and I heard one of the secretaries mention a different hospital. And I'm like, hey, Frank's at the hospital. This hospital. She's like, no, they moved him on Saturday.
Mark Clark [00:31:10]:
And I'm like, I want Frank on the phone now, so call it. Frank's waiting for his lunch. So I had to walk back in the room. Hey, remember that thing we were talking about? And I told her had the wrong. Frank's alive. And I'll never forget the look in her face. And she left. And I looked out the window in my office and Satan used that in my life to destroy me because he said, you should not be going in planting a church because all you're going to do is hurt everybody because you don't know what you're doing and you're pretending.
Mark Clark [00:32:13]:
And I needed people to come around me and look at me and say you were his beloved son in whom he is well pleased, even though you fumbled it. Because this ain't going to be the last time you fumble it. Every single one of us needs to hear those words, that your identity would come from that next. Number five, authenticity. Can I just challenge you? Nobody cares for you to be a perfect leader. They want to find themselves in you. And every time you're authentic and real, people see it and they say, I find myself here. So Mark Batterson spoke earlier.
Mark Clark [00:32:56]:
Authenticity is the new authority and leadership. Sharing your failures and weaknesses is crucial to letting people in and empowering you to lead. Well, this is why I share the mistakes that I make with my church. From the stage. I do it because when I fumble, you know, when you're tempted that you be the hero of the story and look really good, nobody identifies with you. You're not Jesus. When you tell the story of the Bible, right? When you're reading Jesus and the prostitutes in your devos in the morning, you're like, oh, I'm going to minister to all those prostitutes in my church. No, you're the prostitute, right? You cheat on Jesus every day and you need him to give you the mercy and grace that he showed that prostitute every morning.
Mark Clark [00:33:49]:
You read the Bible wrong when you play. This is why I tell him, my church knows. The day I asked that guy, we were 150 people. We lived in a huge asian community. I said, dude, I want you to run a chinese speaking community group. You will kill it. You'll destroy it. And he said, thank you.
Mark Clark [00:34:05]:
I would love to. I'm korean. I'm like, I know. Oh, you thought, come on. I know. Or why even. I told. I told Bayside last week.
Mark Clark [00:34:33]:
I try to do a lot of things, but remembering people's names and getting it. Sometimes you're introducing yourself. Hi, I'm John. I'm like, I don't know if this information is going to be important. Delete. That's kind of what I can't tell you how many times. So one of the first times I ever told a story about having obsessive compulsive disorder, I kind of told the church that I would think certain ways and I'd have to hit things a certain amount of times when I go a certain place and do touch things, make little noises to do this. And I remember a lady walked up to me in the park the next day, on the Monday morning bawling.
Mark Clark [00:35:12]:
And she said, mark, for 20 years, I've lived in a way where if I'm folding laundry, I have to take the one corner to touch the other corner and this corner touch. And if I don't, my kids are going to die at school or my husband's gonna die in a car crash. And I never knew another human being thought like this in the world until you shared your story and she found complete freedom. That's the thing you and I need to do for people. Give them permission. Give them permission. Because every single, every one of you is so unique, man. You got weird, wacky things about you.
Mark Clark [00:35:48]:
Just use it to make people feel comfortable so they can hear the gospel. Every one of us is unique. All the communicators in the room. Don't compare yourself to any communicator that's up here and feel bad about yourself. God has given you a story. You and your uniqueness and all your nonsense and your mistakes. He'll use every piece of it, and you're nobody else. Never compare.
Mark Clark [00:36:13]:
Never compare. First church I ever worked at, they said, we want you to preach, but we have one rule. At the beginning of the sermon, you have to tell a joke. And I'm like, that's not my style. And they're like, that's what we do. I'm like a joke. I don't tell jokes. And they're like, no, it's a joke.
Mark Clark [00:36:29]:
It lets everybody feel good about themselves. You gotta be like, hey. And then they can hear the Bible. I'm like, all right. So I got up. I said, two Jews and a hooker walk into a bar, and they're like, you know what? Don't tell the jokes. We're fine. You just be you from now on.
Mark Clark [00:36:57]:
No more. If you compare yourself to anybody else, your contentment will be destroyed. The best way to destroy contentment in your marriage is to scroll Instagram and look at other people's wives and husbands and go, why isn't my wife like that? Why isn't my husband like that? Why aren't my kids like that? It will kill you. And so you're authentic, and you're you, and God uses you in all your authenticity. Six. Really quickly, we'll hit six and seven. Good leaders deliver. They actually get stuff done.
Mark Clark [00:37:39]:
Some of you have a lot of redundant people on your staff. You got to think through people who actually can execute and not talk about executing. You realize the parable, the talents that Jesus tells. He says, you took dollar five and you turned it into ten. The point of that story, we've said, you know what? Fruitfulness doesn't matter as long as you're faithful. What? No. How about some fruit? We got to get stuff done. We can't just be faithful doing a bad job, right? If you've been running a small group for 20 years and no one has ever come, you're bad at it.
Mark Clark [00:38:29]:
So stop. I've literally interviewed people in ministry interviews and had them say things like this, hey, we're a growing church. We're multi site. What are you great at? And they say, man, I'm really good at journeying with people. What do you mean? Well, like, I journey. I journey with people. Like, I go out for coffee and we journey and get into their life, and I journey. I'm like, well, I can't pay you to be a Christian.
Mark Clark [00:39:12]:
Paul says, soldier, athlete, farmer. If you're in ministry, not one of those people sleep until noon. Not one of those people leave work at two because they got to get that soccer game. No other job is like that. There's a difference between Christianity and ministry. And when they get tied together, people get confused. Last one. Let's be hopeful.
Mark Clark [00:39:43]:
Let's be like, you know, people are attracted to positive things, not negative things. And if all we do is cast negativity, that's not the job. The job is to cast positive vision, to take your people where they haven't been, and they don't always know where they need to go. There's a great thing in leadership where we lean into people and we're like, where should we go? We gotta listen. Your ideas are awesome, and that's amazing. And sometimes leaders don't do that enough. On the flip side, there's a reason you're a leader. And sometimes a leader is meant to tell people to go where they don't want to go.
Mark Clark [00:40:18]:
Yet during COVID I did something dumb. I asked the Internet what they wanted the sermon to be. We're going to do a sermon series for five weeks. What would you like me to preach on? The Internet is full of dumb people. So you know what the sermon series was? I had to preach it. Aliens. And is it wrong to smoke weed as a Christian? Because people don't know where they need to be led to. So you, as the leader, get up and hopefully say, we're gonna go.
Mark Clark [00:41:00]:
This is the spot we're headed. So, Martin Luther King Junior, remember when he got up and gave that speech? What's his most famous speech called? I have a dream. I remember reading a tweet a couple years ago, and it said this Martin Luther King Junior got up and he gave an I have a dream speech, not I have a plan speech. Stop boring people with your plans and inspire them with your dreams. And God says, I am with you. I am with you. I am with you. Let me tell you why that's important, and I'll end with this and pray for you.
Mark Clark [00:41:44]:
So when I start to doubt any of these things, reasons to be hopeful, I'm always reminded of this. Because sometimes we just need kind of a shock absorber to wake us up out of our apathy and remind ourself that God is real. Like, we get into professional life and business and ministry. We sometimes need that moment where we go, oh, my gosh, actually, it's crazy. God's real. So this was one of those for me. I was sitting at my desk about two, three weeks after that event with that guy where I told his wife that her husband was dead. And my pastor walks into my office, and he says to me, I was praying on the way to the office today, and I think you're supposed to go and visit her at her house.
Mark Clark [00:42:34]:
And I'm like, yeah, no, I'm not. And he says, no, no, you don't understand. I was like, God told me, like you're supposed. And I said, okay, cool, I'll go, like, Tuesday. He's like, no, no, no, now. And I'm like, oh. And I said, all right. So I went to the, this was like, the directory time.
Mark Clark [00:42:56]:
Went to the secretary, give me the directory. She opens the directory. I said, okay, I gotta find this lady's house. And I went to her house, 01:00 in the afternoon, and I knocked on her door, and five minutes went by and no one answered. But I looked over and I saw her car, and I just had a feeling she was there. So I waited another five minutes, goes by, knock at the door, and finally she walks up to the door and she opens it, and she's wearing, like, pajamas at 01:00 in the afternoon. And she says, what do you want? And I'm like, well, I'm sorry, but I just wanted to come and make sure you were okay. And so she invites me, and we sit down on her couch and we start to chat.
Mark Clark [00:43:36]:
And after 3 hours, we're telling stories, and she starts showing me pictures of their wedding day. And we started talking about theology. And I said, look, I'm really sorry. I'm an. I'm an idiot. I don't really know what I'm doing here. Here. I'm 29 years old.
Mark Clark [00:43:47]:
I've never done this before. I'm terribly sorry about what I did. And after 3 hours she was laughing and I got up and she gave me a hug and I went to walk out the door and she said to me, this is totally true. She said to me, do you know why I'm in my pajamas at 01:00 in the afternoon? I said, no. She said, because the last few days of my life have been so horrific since you did this to me that I walked down the stairs today and I said, God, I'm done. I'm going to take my own life today unless you send someone to the front door to tell me you still love me. I fell asleep on the chair in the living room and woke up to the sound of you knocking on the door. If you don't believe in God, guys, but here's what I've come to realize about that story.
Mark Clark [00:44:54]:
That wasn't just God healing and saving her, he was healing and saving me. Like when Jesus looks at Peter after denying him three times and restores him because he needs him to be able to go on and do ministry for a bunch of years. That was God saying, kid, you're probably going to quit ministry. I need you to believe in me again. So get up tomorrow and let's go storm the gates of hell. That was my moment where I went, okay. God is still going to use me in spite of me, and some of us just need to be reminded of that tonight. So, lord, we really do believe that you still speak, you still heal, you still do miracles, you still ask us to walk up to people's homes and do things that are completely out of the norm.
Mark Clark [00:45:50]:
You ask us to sit with someone, send a text, make a phone call, call someone into ministry, say a thing from a stage, and our job is to obey it. That's what it means to lead. That's what it means to influence. So I pray. The capacity in this room is unbelievable, undeniable. If we would just listen and obey, empower us in Jesus great name we pray. Amen.