Just Who Do You Think You Are Talking To?
Mark Beeson
In 1986, Mark and Shelia Beeson came to northern Indiana with a dream of planting a church. They had no congregation, no building. But they did have a vision. From its early days, when they met in a movie theater, Granger Community Church has grown to more than 6,000 under Mark’s leadership.
A dynamic speaker with more than “just a little energy” about touching hearts and reaching lives. Mark is considered one of the best storytellers in America today. And he’s not afraid to tackle issues the church considers “hands off.” If you let him, Mark will challenge you to consider how God can use you and your ministry to reach a changing culture in new and meaningful ways.
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Everyday you are moving toward or away from your goal. If you take steps you end up somewhere. You can’t take steps in an opposite direction. We need to move our feet in the direction that leads to life and the fulfillment of our destiny in Christ.
The longer we live, the longer we get to know ourselves. There are limitations on our life – there are things we cannot do. Do we know our limitations? Do we know what we can’t do?
There are lessons in life that we learn that clarify who we are and who we are not, and sometimes those lessons hurt.
Mark talked about when he was in college doing Judo and taking on a Judo master… ouch.
The more you know about yourself, the more honest and clear you can be, and the more you can relate to others. Some of us, sadly, don’t know enough to have an opinion. We need to study more and learn more to have an opinion that has value.
As we pursue innovation, we need to intentionally know who we are. When you know who you’re not, you have clarity.
We need to know and understand the value of the mission and our own limitations, and leverage our gifts for the greater good. So many people are under-challenged and are waiting to leverage their gifts to be used for something of eternal value. They long to do great thing for a great mission to serve a great God.
We have to present the mission, the vision and invite them to join us.
Linear thinking is obsolete – people think in a matrix of images and pictures. We need to use images and pictures to reach our focused audience and try to help them ‘get it.’ Creativity and innovation support our vision and help us reach who we are trying to reach. We should never innovate for the sake of innovating.
We need to collaborate as a team to create a synergy of conversation and ideas that lead to creativity.
It is amazing to see what a team can do – it’s far greater than something one individual can accomplish alone.
If our life mission is to truly reach people, we will increase effectiveness if we build a team of people around us. We are the body and we all have unique parts and unique roles to play.
As the body of Christ, each church needs to be working in harmony, playing its part, finding their shape.
We all have experiences in life, and our challenge is to leverage them in a way that God can redeem them. Our shared experiences help us see things that we couldn’t see by ourselves.
We all have different perceptions, we all see different parts, but together we can see what really needs to happen.
We are all different parts of the body and if we think we’ve gotten ahold of ‘it’, we’ve undersold and underestimated it.
When we are united in love for Jesus Christ and lift Him up, the world is on its tiptoes watching – and the more we are united, the more we understand the value of team, the better we will truly reveal the full expression of what the church is to the world.
Different people (and different churches) reach different people. We have the same message, but a different way of communicating and interacting with it. We are all called and we are also limited. We need to know who we are and who we aren’t so we can FOCUS.
You have to know who you are before you can build a team so you can reach your focused audience.
Your focused audience is….
1 – a group of people with a past.
Many people have experienced rejection in their lives and in turn are moving in a direction that seemed like a good idea at the time… but in the end are empty. We have to intrude with love and compassion and tell them that they don’t need to keep going the way they are going. We help them understand that their shame and guilt can’t hold them back. We are brining Good News – hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless.
2 – a group of people who don’t know their value.
People don’t know their value or that they have a future.
Mark used a great illustration about paper plates and china. We use paper plates when we don’t care, but we take great care of our china and only use it at special times.
Mark brought out the point that many of the people we are trying to reach have been treated like paper plates their whole lives – they’ve been used over and over again and discarded.
Our challenge is to innovate to communicate how truly valuable they really are.
Mark challenged us to look at the parables of Jesus (the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field) with the thought that we are the treasure – that we are so valuable to God that He did every thing to have us. Jesus emptied Himself of His glory and came in the flesh, fully man and fully God, was born to a peasant family and was the perfect sacrifice so we could be made new.
Jesus gave His life to have the treasure… you and me…and the people we are trying to reach.
3 – a group of people who need a translator.
The difficulty of translation is huge. It’s our job as communicators to ‘bail people out’ and translate the language in a way that they can understand.
Jesus didn’t have a halo when He was born, neither did Mary or Joseph, it’s a translation error we’ve created.
The problem oftentimes is, they we believe people actually get it and we need to understand that we live in a world that doesn’t speak “God.”
We have a translation error and we need to communicate effectively to the people we are trying to reach. Not everyone gets it, not everyone understands and we have to create and innovate so people can get it.
We need to leverage the energy of our culture and bring truth and insight.
We need to make the church a safe place for a dangerous message – a message that will change the direction and course of people’s lives.
