GRAHAM COOKE & DIONNE VAN ZYL / RELATIONAL THEOLOGY
In this engaging conversation, Graham Cooke shares his journey from being an introvert to an ambivert, emphasizing the importance of humor and kindness in understanding God’s character. He discusses the transformative power of personal encounters with God and discusses the concept of relational theology, highlighting how these experiences shape our spiritual growth.
Graham and Dionne Van Zyl explore the significance of breakthroughs in our lives, emphasizing that a true breakthrough is about who we are becoming, rather than just the resolution of our circumstances. The guys also discuss themes of leadership and the transformative journey of faith.
The dialogue emphasizes finding peace amidst chaos, the significance of hiddenness and manifestation in one’s relationship with God, and the essence of faith in navigating disappointments. Graham talks about how asking the right questions can lead to deeper understanding and relationship with God, and how a movement is being built to equip people in their spiritual journeys.
Which leads to BRILLIANT PLUS
A movement discovering a simple relational way of being with God.
Join Brilliant with Graham Cooke and become a member of the global movement experiencing God’s love every day. With an exclusive app, gatherings, and global small groups, you’ll unlock keys to a way with God that’s simple and relational.
JOIN HERE http://brilliantmovement.com/JasonClark1187
For more on Graham Cooke & Dionne Van Zyl
Website: http://brilliantmovement.com/JasonClark1187
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Podcast intro and outro music by Wilde Assembly
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Learning To Live From Above
I’m still in this process of learning how to navigate the reality of this “tree of life union” while living in a good versus evil world paradigm.
I know the experience, the tangible experience of his love and peace flowing through every fiber of my body as I enter into this rest daily!
So how am I to deal with the good versus evil paradigm of the world that I still live in? Do I call it out? Do I expose, judge, and accuse those with opposing views and opinions? How do I involve myself in the fray without becoming frayed?
I know I am a son of God! I’m learning to walk in that authority! That is my true north, my identity!
I also know that we are All from above! That we are All born from above. And Christ in each and every one of us is our true identity; He is the only source of life! The kingdom of God is within us all!
I follow the news of the day. The political news, and the commentator’s viewpoints; all of the chaos and political ramifications of good versus evil that surrounds us…the noise. I can’t avoid it. I still live in this world chaos paradigm. And I believe that we should be involved in the politics of the day. That we have something to say and that we hold influence.
I grieve sometimes as my Christian brothers and sisters become embroiled in and a part of the hate. And I’ve joined them too many times…
And I am learning to navigate it, from above, seated with Christ in heavenly places…
Jesus navigated it…
Living “in” and not “of” is our greatest joy when our source of identity is from above. In Christ, our very presence, in the midst of chaos, changes the atmosphere around us. “The tree of Life” is so much more contagious than a judging, cynical, and critical good versus evil mindset.
Seeing not only myself, but everyone around me from our heavenly Father’s perspective, I’m becoming convinced, is the only way to live abundantly in the midst of the chaos. It is what we get to offer our family, friends, and neighbors of all persuasions.
The Kingdom within! It’s our true north. It is what makes us salt and light!
Truth sees everyone, and everything in the light of original design and value, beyond the more obvious good and evil!
So, as I say, I’m still in this process. Learning to navigate from above.
And I’m loving the learning!
Developing A Strong Team
by Doug Cowburn
On Leadership
To Develop a Strong Team, Work on This!
Any team that wants to grow stronger over time needs to do a few things right. Teams are full of people, personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and a myriad of other complications. To develop a healthy, strong team I have found a few principles that have created great team dynamics in the organizations I have worked in.
Have Fun
Start here. I am intentionally not putting this one last! The enjoyment factor on your team is a ‘make it or break it’ principle. As a leader, you have to enjoy what you are doing, you have to WANT to be there with the people you are leading. If these two things are not true, how will your team members ever be able to enjoy the work they are doing. This principle is even more true for a volunteer team!
Performance vs. Learning
Performance-based teams are run on success/failure metrics and accountability. They thrive on pressure from the leader or pressure from the other team members to be successful. The danger of performance-based teams is that often consequences end up being the motivating factor to do better. A learning team culture celebrates loss and wins with the same amount of passion. Wins are amplified and built on and losses are diagnosed and discussed in an open forum with no threat of consequences to the person who was leading the objective. Seth Godin says, “If failure is not an option, then neither is success.” On my teams, we welcome, covet, and learn from failures. This is what it means to have a “learning team.”
Develop Reliable Lanes of Communication
My staff team at EGC has experienced great successes when it comes to internal communication. We have been using an application called Slack. We don’t rely on email for conversation and decisions. Email was too slow. Having a chat-based communication system we can engage other members of the team quickly. Why did email fail us? Our team was slow to respond to email, but Slack worked great. How did we figure this out? Because we failed and were able to talk about how to get better at communication (see the point above).
Measure
Everything your team does needs to have a measurement attached to it, and your team needs to review that metric regularly. Does your kids’ team know the average attendance of pre-schoolers? Is that growing or shrinking? Do we disciple adults? How many have we discipled? Are we growing? If your team is meeting and not “doing” anything, I would ask, why are you meeting? Meetings need to produce activity and action. If you take an action, there should be a measure of success. Otherwise, how will you determine wins or losses and learn from them!
Have Productive and Designed Meetings
Lastly, as I alluded to above, meetings are important, and they need to be productive. To accomplish this, your team meetings need to have an agenda. An agenda says that you have prepared for the meeting and are being a good steward of the time each person is investing in the team. No agenda? No meeting! Here are a few recommendations that every meeting agenda should include:
- A record of past action items with a due date and an owner.
- A meeting agenda that lists who is running the topic, how long the discussion should take, and what the purpose of the discussion is (update, troubleshoot, etc).
- A facilitator. Every meeting needs someone to push the agenda, to get off rabbit trails, and keep the meeting efficient.
Rest Well
Any team needs to appreciate the need for rest. For many teams who work together every day, rest can end up being ignored due to other urgent needs. Here are some ideas to add good boundaries for rest.
- Do we check to make sure that we honor our team members’ family time in the evenings and on weekends?
- Do we make sure people are using their vacation time? (For Paid Staff)
- Do we offer sabbatical rest? (Do elders get a break, do pastors and ministry team members get another day off to honor their sabbath rest)?
- Do my team members have permission to ask for additional time off if needed?
Follow up questions: What do you need to focus on to make your team stronger? Are you having fun? How can you run meetings with your team that honors their time investment?
Doug Cowburn is the Executive Pastor at Elim Gospel Church in Rochester, NY, and works with Intentional Churches to help churches pursue the Great Commission. Doug is passionate about helping leaders and churches take bold steps toward health and growth.