Propel Conversation Series: Passion Video 1

[Music] welcome to the first session of our propelled series on passion there is no doubt that as a Greek woman I'm passionate about pretty much everything I speak with passion I talk with my hands I eat with passion I leave my team with passion and I inject passion into our household my husband would probably say far too early but I still do it passion is an intense enthusiasm for something some of us think that enthusiasm is a personality type but it's not the word passion is taken from two greek words and which means in and Theo's which means God therefore if you are in God you have enthusiasm in you and enthusiasm that should flow from you wherever you go when you lead from a place of passion you take your life your job your ministry your family from and I have two attitude to a I get two attitude what I mean by that is you do what you want from passion but you do what you have to when it's an obligation let me exemplify this when Nick and I met were in Bible School and I was a teacher for a relief lecture and Nick was a student now in our Bible College we had a rule that students couldn't date one another but there was no rule at the time for students and teachers and so my husband thought it was on a good thing that he was going to try to get a date with the evangelism teacher he found out from my best friend that I swam every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning at our local swimming pool now I have been doing this for an entire year I had never seen him at the pool and then all of a sudden I would go to the pool at 6 a.m. and there was already a guy doing laps I've got out a week we've bumped into each other at the pool and I said hi Nick you know what are you doing here and he got that kind of male defensive what do you mean what am I doing here Christine I love swimming at 6 o'clock in the morning I come to the pool every morning at 6 o'clock and swim now I've been married to that same man for almost 20 years and I have to tell you in 20 years that man has never once gone to the local pool to swim at 6 o'clock in the morning so my point is you do what you want from passion no one has to get you up at 6 o'clock in the morning to go swimming no one has to get you to read your Bible no one has to get you to pray no one has to get you to be in love with your family or work because you do what you want from passion but you do what you have to when it's just a boring obligation so passion will enable you to do what you never thought you could do passion will enable you to keep going when you want to give up passion will enable you to inspire everyone to come along on the journey with you have you ever experienced anything more demotivating than walking into an organization a home or a boardroom that lacks passion vision and direction passion is the fuel that helps us to take normal mundane ordinary tasks and turn them into a kingdom adventure as we infuse them with kingdom purpose we are all filled with the Holy Spirit of the Living God we ought to be the most passionate people on earth but we're not all passionate about the same things and that is because God has gifted us all differently so that his will is worked out through us on the earth the ultimate object of all our passion is the Lord Jesus Christ himself but each of us is uniquely created in the image of God and uniquely gifted to do the thing that he has called us to do you will find that there is most often a direct correlation between your passion and your purpose God did not give you certain gifts and talents in order to frustrate you but rather so that you can serve Him on this planet with those gifts and talents scripture says God in His grace has given us different gifts for doing certain things well so if God has given you the ability to prophesy speak out with as much faith as God has given you if your gift is serving others serve them well if you are a teacher teach them well if your gift is to encourage others be encouraging if it is giving give generously if God has given you leadership ability take the responsibility seriously and if you have a gift for showing kindness to others do it gladly that's from Romans 12 verses 6 to 8 we each have our own gifts our own desires our own passions in life when we discover and begin to work out our passion then we begin to see God miraculously at work through us in the world around us Colossians 3:23 says to work willingly I love that word willingly at whatever you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people see sometimes we are doing tasks that are not our passion but God says I want you to do it with passion and to do it willingly passion is the fuel in the engine-room of our everyday life it is a stance an attitude and a disposition that we carry with us we're not always passionate about everything we do but we can do everything from a place of passion for Jesus and his call upon our lives I'm so excited that today I'm joined by some of the most passionate women that I know on the planet these girls are great friends of mine all excelling in the thing that God has called them to do they are filled with passion and I know that every one of you on the other side of the screen I'm so glad that you've joined us for just our first week of this passion series in this brand-new curriculum and we are so mindful that we're basically dropping into your chapter today it's not that you're dropping into our conversation we're dropping into you because that we're propel is wherever you are and so I've invited this great group of friends I thought I might introduce them to you because I know so many of you this is your very first time with us and I've got a bunch of chicks that are great talkers that's so passionate you think my hands go pretty fast you've got nothing on how fast these girls heads go so I want you to meet them goes what you tell us a little bit about yourselves thanks Chris my name is mercy local uu - I am originally from Nigeria my wife I'm a mom to two kids I'm a nurse educator actually work on a campus and as well as I teach the Bible I'm Allie Worthington I'm the CEO of propel mall so a serial entrepreneur my husband and I live outside of Nashville with our five sons unless your heart another mr. way obviously has this passion thing yes my name is Bianca wotty soul Toph I hail from Aires they say they don't agree because people who aren't pension should think that's all just one long and I do my love brought us and during the German oh my goddess old Huff and I am chief storyteller for the h21 campaign we're a global anti-human trafficking organization as well as creative director for propel women awesome my name is Lisa Harper from Nashville Tennessee so there's nothing that exotic about that interceptor sweet T is killer I write books speak at women's conferences estrogen festivals and have directed a large nonprofit administration worked on to church staff so a jack-of-all-trades for a long time and I think the greatest thing that you do you know it's hard for me I just became a mom 14 months ago to the smartest most beautiful patient you've ever seen y'all I love it I she's got no attitude no none very shy introvert like Lisa talk to us a little bit about passion well I love that you said you gave us the Greek that it's that it's in pious it has to be rooted in God's love for us but to give you kind of the nashville version I would say weighted the we say that is to be all-in to being fully present completely engaged for me what that looks like of course I have to come back to Missy but now that I've just been her mama for 14 months process took two years but I mean I love this kid she's a little dynamo and we have a wall we had a little outdoor kitchen I live out in the country and so there's this little it's not real rock it looks like rock there's really the lick and stick rock but it still looks cool this little rock wall and missing will get on that wall and jump to me and at first she was hesitant at first couple times she did and I was like maybe I will catch you I'll catch you I'm right here and she's found wow this is a cool sensation to hurl myself off this wall into well now I have to be so careful any time we're outside because she trusts me so much that I won't be close enough and I'll hear my and she's just leaping I have to hold hamstring to give to her when she does that I go that's how I want to live the second half I want to be all in not worrying about whether somebody's gonna catch me God has always caught me I look back over my life he's always faithful so I have nothing to lose you're fully invested safety and convenience are not commodities yeah that's right that's passion that's so true Lisa yeah and I think you're so right because if we understand who are passionate about it helps to be passionate what we're doing that's right so if I'm if I'm passionate about the Lord and then no matter what I'm doing I'm gonna fuel myself activate myself with that passion and my verse for passion is that God can do exceedingly abundantly and above anything I can ask think or even dare to imagine right and if I serve such a good father he won't let me fail that's right so if he gives me a passion for something I can go all-in I can launch off the wall knowing he's gonna catch me that's right cuz he's a good father he's not gonna let me fall that's right that's what I think passion is it's a beautiful picture yeah I love what you say about that it's like yes launch it off the wall I want to bring it back to to our work the passion we bring to our work we love Jesus we are on fire for Jesus how do we love other people how do we let God work through us through our work it's through solving problems it's there going in every day and going in how am I gonna help people how am I gonna fill in this gap how am I gonna be the hands and feet in the workplace that's what keeps me passionate and that's what I wake up every day and go okay show me the problem what are we gonna dive into I love that that makes me feel alive in the workplace it's it's very similar to just come up like every day life but we have a bifurcate this is my ministry life yeah work life this is my home life but to kind of pull it into context sometimes our passion is birthed out of compassion yeah and to kind of have a pulse on that so you might be in a workplace and there's a new passion that's formed because something breaks you heart so Chris is Greek and she's gonna bring us the the Greek word but I'm also a word nerd and my roots are Latin and so the word compassion is a conjunction to words it's gone Bastian so with passion but if you take a look at that word passion in the Latin it can be even better translated a broken heart that's all we get movies like The Passion of the Christ right it's a broken heart that he went to the cross and so what is breaking our hearts and sometimes our passion is birth out of compassion for other people right obligation is what we have to do but passion is what we want to do that's right what are those things that God wants us to do where we don't have to feel obliged to do it but it's something that's natural that comes out I think I love that and our goal as Christians actually is to make God's happy hour happy right a lot of times we'll go well I'm just not passionate about that and I have no compassion for that but you know when I think of this story of the a21 campaign I was you know 40 years old I had just popped out my second child which I thought I was deserving a vacation on a Greek island I'm not starting a nanny trafficking organization and so I was just at an airport in Greece saw posters of young kids and of course when you're just a new mom you are just a high alert when you see children anywhere went on to find these with the alleged victims of human trafficking well at that point I didn't even know trafficking existed on the earth not it's certainly not in the numbers that it did I don't realize it was that kind of problem and I'd probably never prayed one prayer and prior to that about that so it's not like since I was a little girl I had a passion a human trait right it was there was a need and as my heart over 20 years at that time of serving Jesus had begun to beat for what his heart beats for hopefully time in the word and begins to transition you you start off I think a lot of times there's a lot of selfish motives and selfishness in there it's like I want to do this for God which really means I want to do this for myself and um you start off on a track and I think God could work with anything and he'd rather direkt are moving a ship than something that's stuck in a dock and so you just go out there and then I remember that I was reading the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 15 and as I was reading through because I was going to teach on it the next day the conference and what happens to I think any teacher worth their salt when you're reading the text thinking you are going to bring your divine revelation to everybody else because they need to be changed by God then God speaks to you through the text and says I I tricked you I brought you thought for everyone else but it was for you sometimes he gives me hives and he went through and I was reading the story getting ready and here I was and just it through the text I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me and say well Christine you think you are the Samaritan because you travel and teach and you help people and you're here in Greece to do a conference you're here to help people but you know no in fact you're not the Samaritan you are more like the Levite and the priests breath which is not what you want to hear when you're about to teach they too were good people they weren't evil they were good religious people on their way to their next Christian conference and had their next Christian meeting they have been if it's Christian thing to do and they saw the man but they saw that man as an interruption to their ministry rather than the object of their ministry and so they start walking oftentimes even in our workplace whether you're a stay-at-home mother or whether you're in ministry it really doesn't matter so often every day we're actually on assignment because we don't get this day as a do-over like this is it for in ours vapor on this earth God says I've sent you on assignment into the world you may be a doctor you may be a lawyer you may be a homeschooling mother it doesn't mean what you do your task is secondary to your primary passion of being a follower of Christ and leading other people to him right and so I put people in your path for you to actually minister to them we've all been given the Ministry of reconciliation right it's not just the preacher on a Sunday that's all of us doctors lawyers nurses students we've all been given according to Romans the Ministry of reconciliation that's what we're here for and so he said the Samaritan was also on his way somewhere just like everybody else but he saw the man scripture says and had compassion on him there's that word and then the scripture says and these were the game-changer for me and so he went to him yeah and I felt the Lord say well a lot of my church thinks they're compassionate they get very emotional over a sad video over some issue that's happening on the other side of the world that's very disconnected to them but that is emotion compassion is never compassion until you're willing to roll up your sleeves across the street and get involved in the trenches yourself and so I think then now anyone that meets me would think my underlying greatest passion of my whole life has always been helping to stop the victims of human trafficking but I think it comes right back to your point I saw a need the compassion of Christ world up in my strat and then I did find a need and made it really that's about as complicated as it gets whether it's at home in the workplace or in our life and I think if Jesus is the ultimate passion that we have the Holy Spirit in us is the source of our passion that means even if the current task were involved in we're not passionate about we can still bring passion absolu spirit in a circumstance that's right that's right it's so active Orry and I love that we've gone over the Mac map with Greek and Latin when it says Jesus was moved with compassion and the Gospels in Mark's Gospel y'all probably remember the story this guy is really sick and he says if you wanted to you could heal me and it says Jesus was moved with compassion word there in the Greek what she would pronounce better than I do since I have a Nashville accent is slug net so my means from the guts of Christ so it was not emotional it was visceral and he did something so if compassion is really Christ and her compassion there will always be feet to it so to me passion as the outgrowth of the compassion God puts in us and that means you aren't just passionate about the things you like or work you go home and you you fix dinner or you everything we do there should be some level of passion in it because that's in us that's knit in us to be anything other than passionate about every place we are every age and stage of life to me is to be disingenuous with what we're preaching well totally because the fact is even if you're standing in a supermarket an act of kindness is to acknowledge that the person that's scanning your items is even being so this you know and if you're in the corporate sector or in singing management then we still are called to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit of God if there was not a circumstance where you had to choose kindness why would you need the fruit that's what gentleness obviously you know I keep saying to people I'm aiming to bring back the fruit of the Spirit as the coolest leadership traits that yes nation because it's almost like we say to be a cool leader you put that aside and Jesus is saying quote the contrary so then what we have is this sappy kind of a nice little image of rap being great leader is and then we look down especially if it's associated to women like be passionate but not too strong be passionate but not too bold be passionate but not too courageous be passionate but not too whatever that may and then in the same breath we go be the fullness of who God's created you to be but not too much yeah sort of kind of not really whereas imagine if the outflow was love joy peace kindness goodness long-suffering self-control and then we led with that because out of us are flowing the rivers of living water on the Spirit of God we would transform the world around us and then we wouldn't be looking at each other and going well that's just Chris and Bianca they're just passionate because I like you know she's Puerto Rican and she's Greek is there somehow passion is a either a personality type like you know well that's just not where a few don't that's not my strength finder and I'm like excuse me when do we write Christian books to excuse Christians from being Christians just for us I might understand a disposition doesn't mean that's why I am exempt from everything else there is ultimately only one love language it's called die to self that's very our passion is for Jesus therefore it's not like I've got an excuse to not bring all of me to work because I don't like what I do that's right and my boss is just really horrible that's why I don't really like my husband or you know what God didn't bring me a partner so I just I'm not gonna stay morally pure because I gave like really you've got about as much passion for some to get some things going in in your marriage as much as you've gotta have a passion about Christ to say as a single woman I'm using two keys okay so you need passion oh right your passion that Jesus has to be stronger than your natural passions to hate to do what any single woman that's right that is healthy and your health right and so at the end of the day I'm saying that we need to bring back that word passion and and have it under the overarching theme of our greatest passion is for a purpose right the boys liked fishing but Jesus said drop your nets and follow me so I could like what you do and Jesus goes up but you gotta like me more okay and what I've called you to which means you might not like every task that I've called you to right don't you love me so much let's do every task with the passion I've put on the inside scream that's great that's great so good that's good so I love that I think that's great that you know we're kind of establishing that ground as passion and not and I am sure our greater discussions are going to be birthed around more what do you think the passions God has put on the inside of you but let's remember in all of our questions all of our conversations that we are birthing all of that in the soil that Jesus the pursuit of Jesus himself he is our passion he is the prize he has a goal it's Christ in us the hope of glory is our greatest passion that's right [Music] you know I could talk about passion with passion forever but maybe I need a break and I want to get some questions from you guys and I'm sure this has stimulated a lot of thought within you so I'd love to take some questions from the floor one right here hi so i'm sonia iike i'm 42 and i'm in a life transition so i don't have a title or a vocation but you're talking about passionate a lot and so a lot of my passion was tied to what i did so how does that work now and I don't have a title I love that you ask that question I have a kind of a lot of passion about that particular question because our culture tends to we've hijacked what passion is we tend to equate passion with vocation passion is not about what you do passion is about who you are in whatever you do I work a lot with women who are in rehab from drug and alcohol addiction and one of the rules the program I work with is the girls that they don't have to have a job have to go on job go look for jobs going job interviews every day they have to prove that well most of the girls go on one interview a day just to stay in the program because that that is is the limit that's the low bar of what they have to do stay in the program one of my girls recently went on a hundred and seventeen job interviews they've all got felonies on their record so it's tough to get employed 117 job interviews in one week she walked all over Nashville she pounded the pavement she rode the bus she walked in the rain and she got her job on her hundred and eighteenth job interview that's passion but it wasn't defined by a job description it's its character it's what's in you what's in us it's reiden established by God so I have a feeling you're probably gonna run a mountain biking company but in the meantime almost because you don't have a job job description does not mean your passion is deluded it's not what you do it's who you are let's do whatever you did yeah no so Sam is there any other questions while we're going here actually yes now it kind of bounces off of that my name is Shari and I know that it's really easy to get caught up in your vocation not even at just your passion but also your self-worth so how do you bring the passion of Christ into your workplace and know that your self-worth is embedded in him as opposed to what your title is or how much money you make or you know what you do for a living that's such a great question and it all comes down to you can't lose who you are in Christ but you can lose your job you can lose your house poof I mean we live in a very unsteady world I don't know who here has ever gone through loss or job change we need when you weren't expecting it it's awful and so when we have our identity wrapped up in that everything crumbles I was I was a stay home mom for ten years before I became an entrepreneur I was I was in will call it inspired I was inspired to become an entrepreneur because my husband had a very high-risk job we ended up losing everything when one of my son's was five weeks old we lost our home we lost everything except what fit into a couple storage units and my husband and I were like oh actually all that debt and all that wealth we were accumulating kind of lost that in a minute we went okay actually our identities in you we're gonna start living for you what does that look like now and turned everything around because it's so easy in this world to get caught into the the lie of money the lie of acceptance and titles hey you know I also think what you do first when you come upon against those obstacles matters because yeah when an order is restored that's when we really see the blessing of God so when you come up against obstacles and they want to thwart your passion what do you do first what do you turn to first I turn to food or other people or Instagram we have these things we turn to but if we will go to God first yeah I just say how do you know what what do you have for me what is yeah what does your words say about me and going to God first is not the natural reaction those Krispy Kremes are of the Lord or shopping I mean yep you know it so what we do first where our heart turns first really matters it really does so yeah there's a template when you're struggling with losing your passion in a song Solomon of all places it's like Danielle Steel in the Old Testament when this girl loses her passion for her husband her identity is is wobbly it's just to me it's so profound even the simplistic and application she recounts her blessings she basically describes what she fell in love with in the first place I don't think it is so so important for us when we feel like is my passion in the right place to go back to the Lord and go let me tell you all the things I love about you who you are and when we just go back to him but it's intentional you have to speak it and I do that all the time when I find myself getting whiny or feeling like gosh I don't even know if I want to do this can I go let me go back to the basics go back Lord and recount my blessings there's an Oldham counter blessings name them one by one and I'll literally go okay stop and give me ten and I'll stop and do ten things and it just you know it kind of reorient my passion and my perspective and sometimes you don't even know how much of course you've gotten until you don't get what you want at work or you don't get the attention you want from someone else and that just shows you it might take you a while to get there that whoa why is that so important to me why do I feel less than because either someone else got the promotion I didn't get the title and you start with them I deserve I should and then the lord goes let's do some business here so i've always used no matter where i've worked that as my litmus test of where am I at and I think lots of times we can use Christianese but actually the fact is that our heart has strayed a has strayed from our first love and I think it's very important that again you can take your normal everyday life that's the only place that our Christian character has ever forged is in our normal everyday life so if that involves work that's working if that stay-at-home mum that stay-at-home mom it's not you are exempt from being a Christian unless you are in full-time Christian ministry so I think we look at God uses all the circumstances of our life to forge his character and nature in us if we let him and then the absence of getting things that we want or being in relationship with people that we want or getting the affirmation the accolades the applause the approval that we want often is the thing that reveals most to us that other things have taken the place of God in our life so think maybe we've got time for one more is there any yes ma'am hey so one of the things that I'm struggling with is reconciling my passion with God's passion now I know God's passion is truly what drives us it's the Holy Spirit as you said inside us that drives our passion but sometimes living in a secular world we lose that and maybe I get a little angry with God when I don't get my passion met or I'm doing something and I'm not quite passionate about it and finding that God passion is a little bit difficult sometimes it's great I think earlier you'd mentioned that was a paradigm shift I think you're so right it has to start in our minds doesn't that yes of us deconstructing what we thought our passion was and saying god I want you to start with an open page you show me what breaks your heart you show me what you want me to do at my job when I go to school to teach my students at the University I literally pray the same prayer I do when I teach the Bible God show me your heart for my students today I want your passion for them to become my passion it breaks my heart when he shows me that stuff and so I teach from that place and I did have to shift my paradigm because my tendency is to separate those two right this is what I want to do that's what what God wants to do I won't do this can you boss it because that's why I don't mind we don't know anything about yeah and I think paradigm shift if you start with little and you that's that's a biblical and it's a great leadership template but if you're faithful little you'll get more happens at work it's a it's actually all all truth is God's truth Augustine says and so every great thing that you go that works in business I'm like yeah actually was here first but you start with little things I have a lot of ways since I brought my little girl home from Haiti because we've been eating a lot at chick-fil-a and I was gonna feed her organic and that lasted about two days but anyway I the other day was just like dad gummit you know I'm back in my stretchy pants and this is it you know it's just all bugged about it and I looked down at my legs I'm 50 years old but I'm strong I've always been an athlete not necessarily a good athlete but always like and I thought you know what these legs are great legs these legs have propelled the money up some really steep hills I'm strong I can throw my daughter up in the air I can jump waves and I thought I need to appreciate my thighs even though there's no gap and even though if I run too fast I could start a fire these are the good legs and so I think as soon as that is as women you talked about how one thought can take you all the way it's so started that one five in the morning today is gonna be a good come on I'm gonna have a cruddy boss or a boss who's oppressive or I'm gonna have a job that you know it's not my favorite thing to do but I'm gonna bring everything I have to bear in this situation because that's gonna lead to something else everything is in ellipses it's gonna lead to another day a new day the Sun always comes up until Christ returns and I don't mean to sound like Pollyanna I just I think sometimes we navel gaze for so long about is this God's pasture my passion it's like just walk toward Jesus and and he's gonna purify the motors of your heart as you move toward him that's why you call this propeller hello very much so because and that's why we stay in the word every day that's why we stay in community in our local churches that's why we have worship because the goal is that you know we are being sanctified through and through as we go through so the issue of you know am I at work perhaps am I in the corporate sector or management and my own entrepreneur and I'm just doing this because it's so hard like this what I want at the end of the day the root of that selfishness pride greed that's inherent in everything being whether you're aside her mother's right whether you're a president of a fortune 500 or whether you're in full-time ministry there is that constant we fight a good fight of faith and then those internal attitudes and motives which only God really knows it is our responsibility to allow the word to read us like a mirror every day I might have more pious language than someone in a corporate sector and more religious language to put around things but I'm not fooling God so he's like you know Christine are you really doing this for me or you because I asked you or because you know I know you love that because I put that love for that in you yeah and I will trust you with it but you know God is God you know the Bible says humble yourself in the sight of the Lord says no one else's job to humble you it's your own job to Humble you right but God will go we'll if you need a bit of help so it is awesome and and that that's our ongoing spiritual journey is to allow this word and allow God to sanctify us through and through and so I think we don't it's not something that is distinct to someone that's in marketplace I was gonna say marketplace ministry because I think we're all in ministry no matter what it is but it's humanity it's a human issue so then you guys are inspiring and I love love love this talk and so it's our hope that after this conversation and the conversation you're about to have with the women in that chapter right where you are that you understand more about what passion really is what it looks like and what the Word of God has to say about passion our prayer is that you live your life on mission on purpose and fuelled with incredible passion we'll see you next week [Music]

Channel: Kate Baldwin

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Length: 33min 56sec (2036 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019