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C3 Leadership Podcast with Ed Young — Where creativity, church, and culture collide. Join Ed Young and guests for ideas and stories that will help you lead stronger and think sharper.
Why am I here?
To sin?
No, I'm here to
take as many people as possible with
me to heaven.
One of the biggest things for me,
Dave, that drives me crazy in the
Christian culture is the Christian
Culture.
The Christian Culture inward.
Completely and totally inward.
If it ain't broke, break it.
If it aint broke, break it, do
something different.
Sometimes just break it
even when it doesn't need to be
broken.
There's the old adage, you can be so
heavenly minded you know earthly
good.
You need to laugh at yourself.
Sometimes, you know,
you're an idiot.
Just say it.
Everyone else knows it.
Own it.
Hey, thanks for tuning in to the C3
Leadership Podcast with Ed
Young. We're so glad that you chose
to tune in today.
Tell your friends, help us spread
the word.
C3 is all about leadership in
culture, leadership in the church,
and leadership in creativity.
And creativity is actually what
we're gonna be talking about today
with Pastor Ed Young, so let's
jump right in.
For those that maybe don't know
about C3, don't about you,
give a quick bio.
Well, C3 you can call.
A lot of things, but just the
creative church conference.
So, you could say culture or
you could say the creative
community.
Everyone, Dave, is
creative and it's a
shocker when people hear that
sometimes because everyone
is an innovative genius.
Explain that how does that apply?
I'm saying we're all made
in the image.
I say this all the time, we're made
in our image of our
creative creator.
So God, the first
thing we know about God is
he was creative.
In the beginning God created.
He created you and me
and everyone who's listening
and we're unique,
we are one of a kind. And he didn't
make any copies, so
for some reason.
We have the creativity beat
out of us in our culture.
I think our educational system does
it.
I think just the humdrum of life
does it, I think even
the church, not to jam the church.
The church can do it, but not so
much.
What would you say to someone that
says, I'm not creative?
That's a lie.
That's that's a lie from the pit of
hell. You are creative.
Yeah, you are and it could be
creativity is not Painting
this is early. It's not doing
sculpture. It' s not fly tying.
It can be building something.
It could be
Designing something in the
world of technology.
It would be Looking
at your yard and going.
Oh, I'm gonna put a plant there
and I'm going to take that plant
away And I'm Gonna plant that
type of grass.
So it could be in
bastion, it could anything, but
for some reason a lot of Christians
are like, oh man, creativity
sounds ungodly, just the
opposite. Creativity is
godly.
A lot of people don't think of
creativity and leadership going
hand in hand.
No, they don't.
How do you see creativity and
leadership blending together?
Well, obviously as a leader,
you have to have systems and you
have to have
absolutes, you know,
you have to have certainties.
But within that, it takes
creativity and innovation to
communicate those things and
to carry those things out and
to be anti-boring.
What would you say to some I'm
limited because I don't have
that budget or I have what they have
finances or a budget
can limit
creativity, but it shouldn't.
The lack of
money, the lack of
funding should accentuate
creativity.
You might be asking, why Ed.
I think back to Fellowship Church,
Dave, you know, we began Fellowship
Church with 30 families,
just like, you, know, some were
listening and you started a business
and we had absolutely
nothing.
Let me say that again, nothing.
We had to create to
do church, to have church,
and we had to create when
we found some property
that we were able to
purchase. We had be creative
financially.
So we had be created corporately,
creative relationally, and creative
financially, that's why
you have to surf on the crest
of creativity constantly.
And I heard a there was a book that
was written years ago, if it ain't
broke, break it.
If it ain't broke, break it.
And too many leaders just go with
the same stuff over and over
and over again, and the
humdrum of life can absolutely wear
you out.
Do something different.
Sometimes just break it
even when it doesn't need to be
broken.
I mean, I know there's times here at
Fellowship Church, as we've done
different programs or whatever, one
of the worst things that we can come
and Ed will ask us, well, why did we
do it that way?
And oftentimes we'll say, well,
that's the way we did it last year,
or that's a way we didn't before.
Off the top of my head, we've had
these massive children's events.
Numerically, if you look at the
metrics, they're
awesome.
However, you have
to ask yourself, did this particular
event move needle?
If it did, great.
If it didn't, not so great.
Sometimes if it even moves the
needle, we'll cancel it because
that'll make us come up with
something unique.
So when it comes to creativity, I
think comedy and conflict
are the two things that really
accentuate it.
When we're in conflict,
this kind of fight or flight is
like, ah, we're gonna think
of solutions.
And then comedy, telling stories,
laughing.
Making fun of yourself and making
fun of others, that's
huge. And if you have a culture as a
leader and you can't
make fun of others and they can't
makes fun of you, then you're in the
wrong culture.
Some, to many people are
hypersensitive.
So many people, one
of the reasons they're not creative
is because they take themselves so
seriously.
If you're gonna be creative, you can
take yourself seriously.
We don't take ourselves seriously
and we don't God serious enough.
If we took God serious enought,
we would be flat out CRE-A-TIVE.
What would you say to someone that
uses creativity as an excuse
to be disorganized, sloppy?
No, God's the God of order,
the creation.
Think about the order in creation.
Just take a look.
I think you have order,
and then from order, you have
creativity.
You don't create your way into
order. You have order and
then you have.
Quitting points,
so many people, so many leaders
today, maybe even.
Quitting?
Yeah, just people that
are in stages of life and they're
just wanting to throw in the towel.
How can creativity play a
role in
breaking through, crashing
through.
Crashing through quitting points,
Dave. Creative thoughts come from
conflict and comedy, but also too,
it comes from pressure.
It comes from I have to produce.
How can I
do something that communicates
the same point in a
memorable and unique
way? Too many people
are just boring.
I think along life's journey, we
trade in dreaming for
dogma, the
artistic for the
analytical and we have this
collective creative
cramp, which God wants
to massage and
he wants us to stretch out
and get rid of that.
And they're just a
number of avenues that
accentuates creativity.
For some people it could be drawing,
doodling, for others it could take
a walk around a lake.
So you need to find those things.
Accentuate.
Your creativity.
What do you do in your
in your personal life to
find creative space?
What do do you to stretch that
creative muscle? How do you stay
sharp creatively?
You know, I paint some, draw
some.
I enjoy fashion a lot, so all
those things, when I start thinking
about those things or doing those
things when I'm preparing for a
sermon or a talk or whatever,
it helps that.
If you're not doing something
like that, it tends to stifle
your creativity.
So I would say, if you're bored with
life, you're no walking with the
Lord. If you are bored.
Yeah, I know you'll go through times
of, you know, there's a monotony
about life. There's.
There's, you know, you gotta grind
in all that, as we like to say.
Drive, when you go into work, take a
different route.
Wear a different shirt.
Different soap.
You talked about you talk about
pressure with creativity and
you know oftentimes pressure can
drive new creative ideas, new
creative thoughts.
Yes, one of the great things about
pressure
is pressure,
if you do any studies on the brain,
causes you to really focus,
to really think.
And even today, I was reading this
morning about an upcoming series
of talks I'm doing on the book of
Romans. Well, when I first started
studying Romans several months ago,
I thought, yeah, I'm casual.
Now, because it's
happening very soon, boom!
I'm like locked in.
And that's the beauty of
pressure.
And one of the beautiful things too
about being funny is some
of our best ideas come
from humor, from laughter,
not logic.
And you have to have some
sort of logic, but you
need to be able to laugh at
yourself.
Too many people, I'll say it again,
cannot laugh at themselves.
And the people that can't laugh at
themself are saying right now, Oh,
I can. I can't.
No, you can't need to laugh
at yourself.
Laugh at yourself,
don't be the hero in every story.
Sometimes, you know,
it's just you're an idiot and
just say it.
Everyone else knows it.
Own it.
All right, what would you say to a
leader who is waiting
to feel ready?
You're never ready to lead.
You're never prepared.
I'm never prepared for the weekend,
even though I try to spend at least
20 hours a week.
I'm ever prepared.
So, you're ever ready for it.
You have to push someone in the pool
and watch them either
swim or drown.
If you start drowning, you rescue
them and show them how to
swim. But I think people,
I think sometimes we overly train
people. And we
overly analyze situations and
we, we do, we go through ABC one,
two, three, and then, okay,
you can lead.
Well, you need to give people
some parameters and things.
And, and, and I'm not saying you
don't check out the resumes and
everything else, but there
comes a time when you got to push
them into the pool.
And in our culture,
some people that I
think, for example, that couldn't
really lead, we give them
opportunities and they're all star
leaders. On the other hand,
we've hired other people that you
think, oh my goodness, they're gonna
be, you know, they're going to be
Nick Saban, and they're not.
So you have to push them in the
pool. I mean, you're never totally
and completely ready to do what
you're supposed to do.
I was not ready to start
Fellowship Church when I was in my
20s.
I mean no one even talked about
church planning for the most part
back then, and we just,
I mean it has some experience, we
just went for it.
Where do you see the church
reacting to maybe the
culture instead of setting the trend
in the culture when it comes to
creativity?
Here's a situation on creativity.
Everyone is a creative genius.
We're made in the image of God.
Thus, we should create.
So if I'm against creativity
in the church, I'm again Jesus
because everything Jesus
did was about
creativity.
So you have these people lobbying
this
anti-seeker movement,
like oh, the worst thing
that ever happened to the church.
Was being seeker friendly or seeker
focused.
My friend, you are advertising
your stupidity by saying
that.
That's on so many levels of dumb.
You don't understand church history
and you don't know understand the
seeker movement.
The seeker moment was never in
its inception about watering down
the gospel, never.
And the secret movement holds
scripture at a high authority, which
we always have a fellowship church
for 35 years.
Yet, when you start
walking in creativity, you're
always gonna have the haters because
creativity is too
dang hard.
It's too dang, hard.
It's to hard to be a church
that's attractional.
So what happens is we mail it
in and we have church for
the frozen chosen.
The already fed.
And it goes back to the metaphor,
I think the best metaphor for
the church is the table.
The table is mentioned throughout
scripture.
Jesus obviously talked about
it and ultimately will
be at the table in heaven.
But at Fellowship Church, we have a
table at the head of the table
is the dude with the food, the
pastor.
And hey, pastors, you gotta own it.
You're the franchise player.
Yeah, I'm one of the pastors, I'm on
of the elders. No
You're the pastor.
You gotta have accountability, but
you're the master.
You're chef, you're dude with the
food.
Chair one is the person who doesn't
know the Lord.
They don't know Jesus Christ.
If the pastor is not spending time
with people who don't the Lord,
you're not gonna get it.
You'll end up preaching to
the choir or to
the praise team.
You'll be end up being missional
instead of attractional, and you
think that's deep.
No, it's not deep.
That's not deeper.
That's super, super shallow.
Because last time I checked, the
reason we're here is to bring as
many people to heaven as possible.
So if that is true, which it is,
then okay, I gotta think about chair
one.
I've gotta think that person that
I know who is questioning
God. I gotta thing about that person
that I knew who lost a loved one
and is going, why God?
I've got to think about that person
who's going, why is there suffering
in the world? I've gonna think about
that person struggling with
homosexuality.
How do I make this
environment applicable
and receptive to
them?
Well, you just preach the gospel.
No, no, no.
It's more than that.
Don't jam me.
The gospel is the gospel.
It's the power of God.
But how do you present it?
Think about how Jesus presented
the gospel, 69%
of His words were words of
application,
not information.
And people love informational
churches. You know why?
There's no challenge.
No challenge, that's right.
Here's how I do this recipe.
ABC 123.
Great. Even Paul says I become all
things to all people, or I may win
some, right?
So the pastor is
at the head of the table.
First chair is the person who
doesn't know the Lord.
Cocaine, snorting, held, bound,
skirt-chasing guy.
Because women are easier to reach
than guys. Hope you know that.
Guys, we're the dumb ones.
We're the hard-headed ones.
Yeah, for sure. So chair one should
be the person who's far away from
God. Chair two is the the person
who's become a believer.
There's your system.
So you have to have systems in place
to move from Chair 1 to
Chair 2.
You've got to.
Cure two, you're a believer, you
are growing.
You have to grow through the
motions.
Just like physically, and the Bible
parallels this all the time.
Just like, physically, you've got
birth, you've have got infancy,
you have got preschool, you know,
blah, blah blah blah.
Same is true as we grow
in Christ.
Some people are
playpen whining, nap timing,
Gerber dining babies.
And I don't expect a baby to act
like someone who's mature until they
mature and go and grow
through the motions.
Most people have arrested
development.
And the pastor spends the lunch here
of his time talking and
placating the
high chair people.
You need to go and growth through
that against systems from
a brand new believer as you grow
into.
The other chair, which is
the full court follower of Christ, a
disciple of Christ.
That's someone who sows, that means
cash money, that means they're
giving.
Really, we're not giving, we are
returning 10%
as a minimum worship requirement.
So we're sowing. Number two, we
share our faith.
And when you share your faith and
when you bring people to church who
don't know Christ, you see church
like you've never seen it before.
And then, number...
Three, you're serving.
You're not swerving, you are
serving. You're actively involved in
the church.
There are 2,400 churches just in
Dallas County.
I meet people all the time and
I go, hey,
where do you go to church?
Yes, it's church.
Oh, but I'm a Christian.
I've got it.
If you are a believer.
If you know the Lord,
you're going to have those things
operative as you as
you grow.
Those who would take potshots at the
Seeker Movement or even take
pot shots at Fellowship Church.
Let me stop, from the beginning of
the church, Acts chapter
2, you
have seekers involved because
3,000 seekers
became a part of
the Church.
So to try to parse
seeker and say it was just something
that happened in the 70s
and 80s was Robert Shuler and Bill
Hybels, heck to the
no. It goes back to Acts chapter
2. Do your
homework, understand church
history.
One of the biggest things for me,
David, drives me crazy in the
Christian culture is the Christian
Culture.
The Christian Culture.
Inward.
Completely
and totally inward. Yeah.
It's looking at the lint in your
belly button and then comparing it
to the lent in your neighbor's belly
button. It's the stained glass
fortress crowd.
And I'm telling you,
the leaders- Do not
spend time with people far away from
God. And I understand why we don't.
You're in a leadership position.
It's easy for me
just to hang out with Christians.
And when I have a
problem with my
bathroom, I'll call a Christian
plumber.
I'm serious.
And that's cool.
Our best friends have to be
believers.
But we've got to be salt, light,
leaven, out there with people that
don't know the Lord.
And here's what's so funny,
I know some pastors and leaders who
go out and they have
friends who don't
know the Lord, but then you come
to their church, they're using the
language of Zion, they're talking
about things, they go, what?
So you've got
to know people well
enough where you speak
to where they are
with examples.
Obviously, the Scripture is the
We're under the authority of
the Word of God.
There's the old adage, you can be so
heavenly minded, you know, earthly
good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, you're so focused on
the Christian culture and
Christian friends.
And you get insulated.
Maybe you go to a Christian school
or you're part of a Christian small
group. And next thing you know it's
like, man, all my closest friends
are believers, which is in
itself is great.
But it's also, man.
I'm so detached from what's
happening in culture.
I have no way to witness to my
neighbor or no way to share the
gospel with someone that is
far away from Christ.
And Dave, for me,
how do I do this in
my own life?
I'll ask myself this question a
number of ways, but one of the
ways is just coming up to
people, asking them questions, which
a lot of people need to
really improve on.
Also too, I fish in
tournaments, I love fishing,
in fly fishing tournaments in the
Florida Keys,
and 99% of the people there
are gonna bust hell wide open.
So because of my interaction
and friendship with these guys,
I'm saying to myself, man, if
I'm not careful, I'm talking about
something that they're not dealing
with.
They're asking these questions,
and yet pastors and churches
are asking questions that no one
else is asking except
the
old timey Christians.
So we have to have this
balance. I know a pastor,
this is so interesting.
He is phenomenal,
phenomenal with unchurched
people, with people who don't know
the Lord, phenomenal.
But when you hear him preach,
it's like you're going back to the
1940s and 50s.
Isn't that interesting? It's
interesting.
What happened was the seminary
beat the creativity.
Yeah, it's interesting
He's a young guy.
I you know, it's it's just it's
just it just interesting to me, so.
But in order to reach people who are
far away from Christ, you have to
engage your creativity
in how you're going to effectively
communicate to them, how you are
going to compel them
to come in.
That's what Jesus is did. I mean,
when Jesus was preaching,
for example, the Sermon on the
Mount, all those people weren't
believers, were they, Dave?
No,
no.
So when
Peter preached his
message in Acts chapter 2,
all those people were not believers.
That's right.
Why am I here?
To sin?
No, I'm here to
take as many people as possible with
me to heaven.
That's right.
So
evangelism, see, is not sexy.
Oh, the Christian culture, we love
to talk about worship, the worship
movement.
We love to about revival and all
those things are great.
We love the talk about deeper life.
Evangelism. You start talking about
evangelism, crickets,
you start talking, about evangelism,
where's everyone at church?
We kind of hope evangelism is
a by-product of these other things.
That's the deal!
That's the deal.
Evangelism is the
deal. I'll say it again.
Reaching people, that's the deal,
but typical Christians,
we're off here, there, and
yonder. We're talking about
eschatology and soteriology
and all the other ologies, and
you've got to know those things,
but how about the
real world.
You look at the bookends of Jesus
ministry, you talked about this.
What did he say? Come follow me and
I'll make you fishers of men.
Yeah.
What we're called to do.
And before he left, he said, go,
be there for in all the world and
make disciples.
Yeah.
So there it is.
That's it. That's it.
What are we doing?
So I gotta ask you as
a Christian, as a leader, as
a homemaker, as pastor,
what are you doing with
this whole thing called evangelism?
What are you with your one and only
life? Because you know people
that I will never know, I know
people you'll never know.
So the reason that
you know these people,
you have this influence in your life
is to.
Is to share with them.
But I'm telling you, man, that's a
scary thing. You start talking to
people one-on-one.
You get to know them.
And you begin to ask those hard
questions.
One time I asked a guy that I fished
with. I've been fishing with him for
a long time.
And I started asking him and talking
to him about Christianity.
He stopped me. He goes.
I fished with Christians before,
and I fish with pastors before.
You're the only one
who's ever asked me
about my faith in Christ.
That's a sad statement.
Drop the mic.
The biggest fear that
pastors have is negativity.
We are
so insecure, and
social media scares
more pastors.
Than any entity ever.
What I would say to you as a pastor,
don't look at social
media.
It'll wear you out.
When I've looked at it before,
I am a zero or a hero,
zero hero.
And I don't want to go up and
down by the
number of views or likes or
whatever. I can't time my
self-esteem into it because it's
too fragile and it affects
me and influences me too much.
If I'm on social media,
it can make me envious,
jealous, all sorts of
things that are...
Oh, look at the stats of what it
even does to young people.
Yeah, that don't. So I would tell,
if I could talk to every
pastor and
every leader and every Christian,
I would say, where is
your evangelism?
That's what I would.
Not your worship.
No, no, no.
Not, you know, it's revival.
That's great.
Where is
your evangelism?
Because most Christians, when you
ask them, who is the last person you
shared the Lord with, most of
them, including pastors, will drop
their heads and go.
I don't know.
Now, I know you wanna reach people.
Everyone wants to reach people, but
here's the kicker, until you start
reaching people.
You missed that.
Everyone wants reach people until
you started reaching people because
when you start reach people
you've got to be attractional,
you've gotta be innovative.
One of the things that we've done
here at Fellowship Church is try to
teach people how to evangelize,
how to share their story, how to
share the gospel.
It's shocking when you talk to
Christians how many of them can't
articulate their story or
their testimony or share the Gospel.
There's something that I would want
everyone to get.
I want everyone to go
online and watch the series we
did called Hooked, H-O-O
K-E-D.
Why did we call it Hooked?
Because Jesus said, become
a Fisher.
So good.
Hey, some takeaways from today's
talk.
One, identify where you're stuck.
Maybe you're in your creativity.
You talked about, hey,
maybe it's change the way you drive
to work. Change your routine up.
Change what you're doing.
Just look for areas that you can
bring creativity into
what you do.
Man, crash through those quitting
points. Maybe you are at a place
where pressure is turned up.
How can I engage creativity into,
what's happening?
How can engage creativity in my
work? Into my family, into my daily
life, what can I do?
Don't play it safe, get bold,
you know? If you're not quite
sure, but if you have 51%.
Go for it!
Go for, man, jump in.
All you can do is make a mistake
and you learn, you learn
more by making mistakes
than when you're riding high.
But leverage your God-given
creativity that God has imparted
in you, He's placed in you and lean
into Him each and every day.
But man, thank you so much for
tuning in and joining us for the
C3 Leadership Podcast.
We love you guys. Thank you so for
tuning and tell your friends about
it. And we'll see you back soon.