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Welcome to The Overflow—the bonus round of faith and real-life conversation with Brandon and Susan Thomas. Every week, they unpack the powerful insights, behind-the-scenes experiences, and personal reflections that didn’t quite fit into Sunday’s sermon.
This is where the conversation gets practical, honest, and a little bit unscripted. Whether it's an encouraging word, a deeper dive into Scripture, or a hilarious moment from their week, Brandon and Susan bring fresh perspective and spiritual fuel to keep you going.
It’s real talk, fresh takes, and full hearts.
These are the conversations too good to cut and too real to miss.
Welcome again to The Overflow. And today, we are gonna have a lot of fun talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I'm actually passionate about this topic. I'm actually constructing a book right now on this larger topic. So this may be a chapter in the book, who knows?
Speaker 1:But it is on the topic, here it is, Work together. K? Working together. Now I could talk about how we work together. That actually is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But working together, what I'm really talking about is in your life, in your work, how do you do work? Do you do it alone? Are you solo? Or do you work Would you get along with others?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's so a big topic.
Speaker 2:Well, you've been you've been dreaming and thinking about this for maybe a year or more now. This has been deep inside your heart. So I I know it's a message that needs to come out.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is. And it's all built on Genesis chapter one where God says, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. And then here we go.
Speaker 1:Male and female, he created them. Okay? And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion, dominion, dominion, that's the word. Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That dominion, I call it like the dominion drive. You know, like when I think of someone that has a lot of dominion, I even say that's a high d person.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1:yeah. High d, high drive.
Speaker 2:Well, and even as you read that verse, I think this conversation about working together, it's not just work, it's not just the labor, it is dominion. And dominion is a unique definition. I wanna hear your definition that you've been saying.
Speaker 1:Give me call.
Speaker 2:Let's see what it is.
Speaker 1:I have a working definition, it's in progress, but here's what I believe it is. Dominion is exercising the authority to take the ground God has given you. Okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just say that again, that's so good.
Speaker 1:Dominion is exercising the authority to take the ground that God has given you. Domination is taking the ground that you've given yourself. Dominion is taking the ground that God has given you. God has given me that acre, I'm gonna take that acre. And when I talk about working together, okay, so dominion expresses itself like work.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Dominion expresses itself like success. But dominion in this definition is also, it's not just you. It's innate in the definition and in the initial moment that we are working together.
Speaker 2:I'm having thought explosions.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, then explode away. Here we go. Blow it up.
Speaker 2:Okay. So as you were saying that the dominion is exercising the authority over the acre God has given you. I immediately went to the children of Israel and the 12 spies and how God had given them acres. God had given them the promised land.
Speaker 1:God had given them ground.
Speaker 2:Given them ground. I like
Speaker 1:that word better.
Speaker 2:And he said, I have given you this land. This is your land. I, the Lord have given you this land. But there were all these enemies in that territory. There were all these obstacles in front of them.
Speaker 2:And so the 12 spies, as as you read the story, they go and they they see the land and they scope it out and they say, here it is. And 10 of those spies out of the 12 come back saying, too hard, too scary, too many enemies. I can't do it. We can't do it. We're gonna all die.
Speaker 1:You're creating a whole another chapter of my book right No. Enemies and
Speaker 2:dominions. That is crazy. And then the two spies.
Speaker 1:This is how it happens.
Speaker 2:The two spies. Caleb, who is it?
Speaker 1:Joshua and Caleb.
Speaker 2:Right. Joshua and Caleb. They're like, no. No. But God thus saith the Lord.
Speaker 2:God gave us this land. We can go. We can we can take it.
Speaker 1:So what are the enemies to dominion? That's a whole another podcast.
Speaker 2:Enemies to dominion. Yeah. But I think what just struck me out of that is that part of working together is understanding this principle that God has given me authority over certain spaces in life, places and acres or land in life, but I have to operate in faith. Yes. Believing God.
Speaker 2:Yes. Trusting God. I'll never be able to work together if I can't trust the one who gave me the work.
Speaker 1:That's really good. And and, you know, there is this tension with work together. Work together. There's sometimes you you have an extreme corporate culture where, and it's a cold, I would call it a cold corporate culture, where you don't see people. And then on the other hand, you could have a so relational culture, and businesses have kind of teetered on both sides, and churches do this too, so relational you don't get enough done.
Speaker 1:I've seen environments that were so deeply relational, but they didn't unlock their dominion. They were so deeply relational that they just had a lid on themselves and ultimately it unraveled. But we're going to focus on the relational side of work, assuming there's a good tension there. And I wanna look at this, what I just read, here's some words. It said, Let us make in our Interesting language for God to speak of himself as, let us in our.
Speaker 1:Plural. So what that means is that when God was creating and exercising his dominion, it was the full trinity in action. This is a beautiful trinitarian passage, I'm going deep in theology here, but that's why we have the overflow. I love this
Speaker 2:stuff. If
Speaker 1:I can't talk theology on the overflow, I don't want to do the overflow. Yeah. Right? Here you have a great Trinitarian passage. Trinity, if you're not aware, God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit.
Speaker 1:The Son is not, it's three persons, one God. Okay, let's just leave it at that. Yeah. And here you have the recognition that as God is creating people, that the Trinity is creating people. And what the Trinity tells us is that God was completely God is completely self sufficient.
Speaker 1:The implication of that self sufficiency of God is that God, when he created us, he was not creating us out of a need. He was creating us out of desire and design. With that said, God is community inside of himself. And then male and female, he created them. He didn't just create Adam, he created us.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:then when God blessed them, he built, he blessed them. He didn't just bless one for dominion, he blessed both. And so I have this mental image in my mind, and that's of Adam and Eve at the gates of the Garden Of Eden. Beautiful. They're holding hands, and I'm trying not to picture them naked, okay?
Speaker 1:Let's not do that.
Speaker 2:Naked with no shame.
Speaker 1:Naked with no shame, and I'm still not gonna do it. They're holding hands. Yeah. And you have this picture, you're over their shoulder and they're looking out and the sun is setting and there's these mountains, and the birds are flying, and they're looking over the vast expanse of the mission that hand in hand, they're gonna go conquer. Hand in hand, they're gonna go create civilization.
Speaker 1:That's dominion. Yeah. But it was together. It was them. Okay?
Speaker 1:Jesus modeled this. Look at John 17. And I think this is, again, so good. Verse 20, I'm praying, this is the high priestly prayer. John 17, right before he went to the cross.
Speaker 1:I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one just as you and I are one. As you are in me, Father, and I am in you, Trinity. And may they be in us so that the world will believe that you sent me. And here Jesus is saying, number one, they've gotta be together.
Speaker 1:They cannot be alone. They cannot do life on their own. This is one of the things I have about online church. You gotta be us. You gotta be us.
Speaker 1:And then he says, God, you and I are together. They need to be together like you and I are together. And then how do they be together in a fallen world? May they be in us. And if they will, if they'll be together, and they'll be together with us, filled with the Holy Spirit, then the world will know that they mean,
Speaker 2:that's just
Speaker 1:so powerful. What does that look like? I'm gonna talk about relational leadership and I want you to weigh in on this. Okay? What does a relational leadership type look like?
Speaker 1:And I'll give you the first and then I want you to think about it. Relational leadership is I effort to see others. Okay? What does that look like? Yeah.
Speaker 1:I see you. I see people. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Oh, this is so important. I think when it comes to work, sometimes, you know, whether you're employee employee, whether you're an employer, you can just see the work. And we need to see the work. The work is part of our dominion. The work is very important.
Speaker 2:But if not careful, we'll see the work and we'll miss all the people. We won't see the people we're working with. We won't see the people we're working for. We won't see that person that is doing a job in our house that we need help with our plumbing. We don't see people.
Speaker 2:And particularly with those people that you work alongside with on a regular basis, I believe that seeing one another is seeing beyond the task at hand. How's your world? Now we don't necessarily have time for deep long conversations with everybody while we're getting our job done, but it's an attitude and posture of the heart even before it's the words out of our mouth. You could ask someone how they're doing and have a manipulative motive behind it. You could be attentive to someone and have a wrong motive as to why.
Speaker 2:I think this for me leads to the next thing, which is before I see you, do I love you? That when it comes to
Speaker 1:Do I value you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Do I value you? And each of those are different. They're united. They're they're similar.
Speaker 2:But do I do I love my neighbor as myself?
Speaker 1:That's the that's the scripture. There you go.
Speaker 2:Big command. And so I think a relational leader, to me, that's the ground zero. Before I really can see you accurately or even value you appropriately. Do I love my neighbor? Do I genuinely love people, or are people just a means to an end?
Speaker 1:I don't think you were in the meeting when one of our leaders on our staff shared this, but he shared with me, I don't think you're in there, that when he walks down the hallway and he sees anybody, he says, Whenever I see someone, even though I'm on Man on a Mission, I try to always acknowledge them. Hey, a fist bump, a wave, just never walk by somebody without seeing them. That's relational.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:And you're still on purpose, so good. Evaluate others because they're made in the image of God. You know, we have a phrase, honor up, honor down, honor all around. And that's a culture that we value at Keystone, and I believe everyone should value that everybody has dignity, everybody is doing the Lord's work. Abraham Kuiper, he said this, he said that there's, and I'm just going, I don't have it in front of me, but something to the effect of that there is no square foot on all of the world that God doesn't look at it and say, mine.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:so if you're polishing the chrome handles on bathtub or whatever, mine. If you're sweeping, mine. If you're writing a report, mine. If you're studying for a test, mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? See the dignity of their work.
Speaker 2:And that's a really big deal when understand that because whether you perceive someone's job as, quote, lesser than, you know, that changes when you see true dignity in others and you see that god it's all gods and that you you honor the person doing their work well regardless whatever their, quote, position is. They're doing their work well. And you just see people for the dignity and and who god's created them to be. That's huge. I think another element that comes to me, it's actually an example, because I think the danger of not working well together is seeing people as a means to an end, which is the definition of transactional.
Speaker 2:You know, just you're there until I don't need you anymore. You're I mean, it's just super disposable.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go there.
Speaker 2:Right. We'll go there more. But here's an example of loving your neighbor well. I'll give you an example in church. We're having this conversation recently as a team, always having these conversations.
Speaker 2:Let's take our worship department, for example, our worship area of the church. You may have somebody with a phenomenal talent, and it can be tempting because you have a role to fill. You wanna produce
Speaker 1:You got a job to fill.
Speaker 2:A job to get done. You you wanna produce an excellent experience on that weekend and and that talent that can be rare and that's a sweet gift. But as a church at Keystone Church, we care more about your soul than we do about using your gift. And that can be uncomfortable sometimes for someone because someone coming in may just want their gift to be used. And yet there's major areas in intending of the soul that come first.
Speaker 2:And as
Speaker 1:people relational.
Speaker 2:Yeah. As people and leaders who love people, we wanna we wanna disciple you. We wanna help you in these areas. We don't wanna put a weight of leadership on your shoulders that your soul is not ready to carry with Christ. Do you see the damage that can be done if people are transactional?
Speaker 2:And and in this case, for example, we put weight on someone's shoulders that is not yet able to carry that weight due to their situation or relationship with Jesus. So this is huge. It has massive impact.
Speaker 1:Relational leadership also celebrates the growth of others. It's amazing how we don't celebrate the growth of others, and I would pose for you that you are not in the right space if when someone else is winning. Let's say you even have a conflict with this person or have had a conflict in the past. If, when, they win. I mean, they have a God sized success and it's good, or even they repent, and they're walking close with the Lord, and you are kinda not rooting for them, you have this little thorn that prevents you from fully celebrating that, I'd say you have a problem.
Speaker 1:There's something messed up there.
Speaker 2:It's hard if they're evil though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm saying if they come back to the Lord.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure. Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that like, I mean, we have people in our life that still have not repented from sin that they've committed against us or against whatever people we love.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:And they still have not repented. We both agree, sometimes in faith. If they were to repent, it doesn't mean they're our best friends now.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But we would celebrate that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. What, if they repented? Yeah. Oh, 100%.
Speaker 1:We would celebrate that. I'll even say, even in their unrepentant state, there are churches that have committed sin, you know, that I'm aware of that have impacted us or people we love, and they have not repented, but they're still doing some good things for the Lord. Yeah. They really are.
Speaker 2:They celebrate the good things.
Speaker 1:I have disciplined myself through the years to celebrate, oh, look, man, I mean, they baptized some people. That's how can that not be good?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. I think another application of this principle is not even talking about the person who maybe has hurt you or harmed you. And I think everything you just said is is so so true. By the way, forgiving that person regardless if they come to you and request it or not.
Speaker 2:Releasing forgiveness is releasing that debt to the Lord fully and loving that person even if they are perceived as an enemy or behaved as an enemy. With that said, I think celebrating people that are your peers, celebrating people that maybe are even moving beyond you, just celebrating the people around you, or even if you are in a role of authority over someone who's having massive success, not feeling threatened by that, but that we as people, when we work together, we celebrate each other's wins. Are you that person? And whatever category you're in, whether it's the PTA mom and you're in this organization and you see someone excelling or whether it's in your job outside of the home or where whether it's for the moms out there, you've got a mom and she's killing it with her sourdough and you're celebrating with her rather than feeling intimidated or less than. I just I think a culture and a heart of working together is a heart that celebrates.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You know, on the other hand, you mentioned a word a second ago, and that is transactional leadership. Yeah. I think sometimes to define good working together, you have to say, okay, this is not good working together. And I wanna take a moment and talk about transactional leadership.
Speaker 1:Transactional leadership first and only asks, what's in it for me? Like, I'm relating to you, I'm getting to know you, we're working together on a project, or I've hired you for something, you're on my staff, or we're on a team together.
Speaker 2:And could I offer that maybe isn't just limited to transactional leadership, that it's just transactional relationships?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yes.
Speaker 2:In fact, that word transactional relationships makes me twitch. I just wanna say that it it makes me really sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is sad.
Speaker 2:It makes me really sad.
Speaker 1:What's in it for me? And a lot of people operate in this way. I give in order to get. I give in order to get. And, I'll do things for you, but really, what have you done for me?
Speaker 2:Well, and and the sneaky thing about this is I believe not everyone is aware that's the intention of the heart. And maybe they are. I mean, that's next level if you are cognizant and aware and you're strategically manipulating others, and that can be a real thing. But I think it reveals itself sometimes in the response when things go wrong in the relationship or where there's a rift. And rather than how brothers or how sisters work through to resolve those rifts, the relationship just ends.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Or it's no longer profiting me the way that I want that relationship to profit me, so I'm out.
Speaker 1:That's it. The relationship warmth. Yeah. Okay. This is a sign.
Speaker 1:Yeah. When the relationship warmth quickly fades when there's a conflict, quickly fades when there's a change in the work relationship, it's like, woah, where'd you go? And I've experienced that, and you've experienced that. And I pray we haven't done that, but we may be guilty of it. But that is the sign of a transactional relationship when, oh, okay, so I don't work here anymore, so I mean, is it gone?
Speaker 1:I mean, are we just, you know, Or I'm not providing a service for you. Now there's a tension here. There's Because a in the work environment, in the work environment, your relationship with someone can change. Let's just take, forget about work, let's just talk about relationships. In relationships, friendship is a gift.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think this illustrates the work.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Friendship is a gift. And you have to know your purpose for that friendship. And so when you realize you have someone that is a giving friend, I'm giving, you're giving, that's relational leadership. That's relational work. That's a wonderful place to be.
Speaker 1:And there are some relationships where you're only the giver, Right?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You're only the giver. And for those relationships, you're gonna have a different series of accessibility for that person who you're only giving.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, to that, I often think of a relationship like that. Asking God, what is my assignment with this person? And it doesn't take away the love for that person, but it's understanding that I have a special God assignment with this person in my life. And it may be for whatever the reasons are that I'm not given the gift of receiving friendship from that person.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things we could go into as to what that looks like.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the signs of that, are you the only one ever texting?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. And that and that example
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That might be because friendship is a gift, and that's not a gift God is giving
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:rather than be bitter and mad at that person for not texting you like you want, you just have to, at some point, recognize this is more of a one way relationship. And you have to ask the question, God is how have you called me to love this person well?
Speaker 1:That's the question. That's how you keep it relational. Even if there is a diminishing time together or diminishing accessibility Yeah. How can I love this person?
Speaker 2:Versus I'm out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. So good. Okay, another one is we're called to work together, but so many of us, and you've struggled with this, we love working alone. It's the lone ranger syndrome.
Speaker 1:And I like to say we out messiah the messiah.
Speaker 2:Tell me how I've struggled with
Speaker 1:this. Come on.
Speaker 2:No, I'm serious.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you want a job done well, you do it yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, all right.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's kind of the, and I'm not saying that's on you, I'm saying that's the phrase. And you have earlier in your ministry, particularly earlier in church life, you would just say, okay, I'll do it. Okay, I'll do it. Okay, I'll do it. Okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 1:And then you have 10 things you're doing. I'm running into that room. I'm running into that room. I'm running into that room. Instead of raising up people to run into that room, to run into that room, to run into that room.
Speaker 2:That's really good.
Speaker 1:That's where I say, I out. And you think only you, you but others, we all
Speaker 2:It's a mindset
Speaker 1:that a mindset care that have. I can do this.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. And I would say, it's interesting when you talk about me specifically, I love working with people in the sense of collaboration. It just ignites my creativity. It ignites my mind.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy collaboration, sometimes far more than sitting down at a computer starting from ground zero by myself. So that's that's, you know, important for some leaders, and that definitely would be me. But what you're talking about is perfectionism. And I I really believe it's perfectionism, and it's our own standard of of a win. And anything less than that is not acceptable.
Speaker 2:And so we create, you know, we create this space where, like you said, we're trying to do too many things ourselves when then the reality is, you know what? There are other people who can carry out this vision. There are other people who can nail it. We've gotta empower people. We've gotta communicate clear expectations, but that relational leader starts to loosen up and not just try to be a maverick by themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, relational leadership empowers others. Relational leadership is built on trust. And so, you you may be at 100 on a task. You really, and honestly, there may be no one else who can do it as good as you, okay? I mean, you're a licensed professional counselor, okay?
Speaker 1:And so, you're going to be better in conflict resolution. You're gonna be better in hard, deep waters where people are hurting. You're gonna be better in that room than a lot of people who haven't gone through all the training you have, the years of sitting with couples, the years of helping with marriage. That's just not fighting fair. I mean, you're going to be better.
Speaker 1:But we as a church will be better if you will take all that leadership experience and equip others to go into that room. And the way I think of it, and this may be a bad example, there may be a better one out there, but I think if you're at 100, you're not, nobody's 100, but let's say you're 100, all right? You're at 100, and this person over here, let's say they're a 50, okay? And you're sitting there going, yeah, but they're a 50, but together you're 150. You just increased your capacity, and if you could get two people, two fifties, you've doubled your capacity.
Speaker 1:If you can build a team of five fifties, you've just multiplied, and now you're exponential.
Speaker 2:Well, I say let's invest in the 50 and raise them to a 70.
Speaker 1:No, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's make
Speaker 1:them passing. Yeah, let's make them passing. I love that. No, but that's the point. Yeah, that's the point of the leader.
Speaker 1:The point of the leader is I'm going to coach you up. If my favorite football team is hiring defensive coordinator, I want to know that DC is getting the most out of the players. If the players are playing worse under the DC, I know we have a bad DC.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so, we're called to work together. It's part of the goal is building a team. Even, it's been really amazing to see, you know you have the right leaders when you hear stories like this, that there are areas of our church that you were like, but there's probably no volunteers in that area. And all of a sudden, there's like a lot of volunteers in that, we call them servant leaders, but a lot of volunteers in that area. Production.
Speaker 1:We heard recently how many servant leaders are in production and we were shocked at how many servant leaders
Speaker 2:were Our in
Speaker 1:student ministry not only has people who work the small groups, but we've created a support team. And these are people that have the gift, not necessarily of one on one with kids, but they love the young generation. And they want to go in, they roll up their sleeves and they set the rooms and they set up and tear down and they do so many Every
Speaker 2:single week.
Speaker 1:They go to camp, we have support they have such fulfillment. And we have servant leaders on our building team. I mean, think of ways for servant leaders to get involved because why? We're called to work together. Now, if I have tendencies to be transactional, if I have tendencies to be lone ranger, how do I bust through it?
Speaker 1:And I'll give you the silver bullet. Okay, the silver bullet. God, pray this prayer, God, increase my capacity for more. And that's Ephesians three twenty. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we could ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
Speaker 1:Amen. God can do in you what you think is impossible for you to do for yourself. So what does that mean? That means that if you have if it has been made known to you that you're a control freak, okay, then God help me to loosen up my hands. Go to the Lord with this.
Speaker 1:Let this be a spiritual journey. God help me to see others. If you have a trail of broken relationship, if you're constantly in conflict with coworkers, God help me to get along with people and see the dignity of others.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I would add to that that a prayer, if if on the on the side of transactional, you know, there's different things that you're you're bringing up here. But on the transactional type of relational style, I believe the prayer, first of all, is, god, show me where I'm transactional. Show me. Show me where am I this way with people.
Speaker 2:Where do I have a a view towards certain people as disposable? Do I have a view towards others? Is is that in me? Has that ever been modeled to me? Have I seen that?
Speaker 2:If you really wanna deep dive and get healthy, that's where you begin is, god, search me, know me, show me. And then the prayer of god, help me love my neighbor. Help me truly love others like you have called me to love them. Give me that kind of love. And I think look for cookie crumbs of patterns in your life.
Speaker 2:I think a pattern that I've seen with people that can sometimes be at play. I've seen this in a million different expressions, but I think transactional is one of the million, is do you have a history of bitterness? Do you have spaces? And it could be with someone completely unrelated to the people that you're working together with. But if you have a root of bitterness anywhere in your life with someone, you think it's isolated to that relationship, but the Bible is quick to say that a bitter root grows up to defile many.
Speaker 2:That bitterness will grow roots and and fruit in your life that will spoil relationships all over the map and landscape of your life.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. I've I've just seen people, their ministries just hit such a lid and even go backward because of bitterness. Yeah. That's so true, that's such a trapdoor. Okay, now I wanna move into the no duh part of this
Speaker 2:talk. Okay.
Speaker 1:Like no duh. No duh. But I wanna speak it. I wanna speak the good, the best practices for working with team, the best practices, and we'll just brainstorm right here. The best practices for working with team, the best practices that we've seen work at Keystone, and it may be the most simple thing that you're like, well, know that.
Speaker 2:And this may apply to you working with your kids at home and trying to run your household.
Speaker 1:But let's just make it no Yeah. Okay, let's just speak the most simple things. And one of the big no duhs for me is, you you're gonna be like, yeah, no, duh. But I think it needs to be said. And that is, when you're leading a team and you're getting them to do something that you are really good at, okay?
Speaker 1:You start at the very beginning. How you start a project or how you start an endeavor or how you start a behavior or a process, how you begin is everything. It's everything, how you engage. Okay, so when you start, have you set clear expectations for what you want accomplished? Have you thought about, are you just going off the fly Or did you give yourself a little time before the meeting to write out, okay, here's my expect.
Speaker 1:Did you prepare to prepare them? You know, your work is, okay, and once you've written it down, you can do it the next time. Okay? You can even improve on it the next time. But at least go in prepared and you say, okay, here's what I expect.
Speaker 1:You'd get clear expectations. And then here's what I equip.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I wanna comment on this.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 2:I wanna give an application for, don't forget all your list, For the parent listening. Because I think I believe dominion, as you said, is every acre in life that God has given you authority in that acre. And as a parent, you have authority in that home to set this example. And I think empowering your children and giving clear expectations. We used to have family meetings.
Speaker 2:Do you remember our family meetings that we would have when we were our kids were young? Yeah. They were regular.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we just learned some things over the years. For example, don't have your family meeting at dinner time. Don't use the table as the place where you take care of family business. That's a relational connection space. But we would have family meetings where we would talk about clear expectations.
Speaker 2:Here's what's going on in the family in this season. Here's what we are expecting out of each of us as family team members working together. And it's exactly what you're talking about. I think it can happen in a boardroom. It can happen in a business office.
Speaker 2:It can happen in your home. And it's that importance of working together and setting those clear expectations.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that's the beginning. And speak a little bit about equip, because that's where, you know, some people say train, we say train. My dad, you know, has a saying and I bought into it, you train a dog, you equip people. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I like training,
Speaker 1:you know. Words matter. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:I used to be a trainer. I used to train for actually a corporate institution.
Speaker 1:Alright. So whatever.
Speaker 2:But the point is
Speaker 1:But I have the mic. So The
Speaker 2:point well, I have a mic too. No. But you're what you're saying is a biblical word that's very powerful. Ephesians four twenty, God really tasks, I mean, the leaders of church.
Speaker 1:Four eleven and twelve.
Speaker 2:He tasks the leaders of church to the pastors, the preachers, the teachers, the apostles, the evangelists. He says, all of these leaders in God's design for church, he says, here's what you're to do. Equip
Speaker 1:What what what was that word?
Speaker 2:Here's what you're to do.
Speaker 1:What's the word?
Speaker 2:Here's what you're to do.
Speaker 1:Next word. Train the people. What does the bible say?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:What does the bible say?
Speaker 2:Literally equip. Equip. Yeah. Equip the people to do the ministry.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Equip the people to do the ministry. And it it is such a big word. It's it's it and I do feel like it carries weight, you know, even a little different than train. It's like train, carry out the task, equip. I am ready.
Speaker 2:I am ready to carry out that task. I have been fully prepared and empowered to carry out that task. And so that word equip is very, very important.
Speaker 1:And that that next word you said it, and that is empower. So you've engaged at the front end, and then you let them run. They'll never grow if you don't trust them to run. You gotta let them run, and then as they're running, you have some check ins, You inspect what you expect, we've been taught that by a good friend, but you jump in, okay? Little inspection points, tweak it along the way, because it's an important thing that you're interesting them with.
Speaker 1:And then, but they're really empowered, they're really doing it, and then engage at the end. Okay, right as it's go time, that's your opportunity to really get in and avoid a disaster. Okay? Hopefully you've been doing that with your check ins, but if there's a real thing, you need to engage at the end. And then the next step would be celebrate what worked and learn from what didn't work.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And if you don't have accountability at the end, you've messed the whole thing up. That's good. The lack of accountability installs the worst patterns for next time. True, a good biblical accountability removes the bad patterns so that all you're left with is the good the next time. So that's just, this is a quick no duh about working with a team.
Speaker 1:So this has been fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good.
Speaker 1:It's been fun to talk about, working with others and unlocking your dominion. God has given you ground. Operate in the authority that God has given you, but don't do it alone. Get along with others. And if you don't pray about it, let God do his work, and I believe you'll see some incredible results.
Speaker 1:It's been awesome. Thanks for coming and joining us on The Overflow.