Faithbase

Hey everybody, this is the Full Vantage Podcast. My name is Trevor Lovingood and this is my attempt to share the lessons I've learned over the past decade of building and creating community from scratch because relationships really do matter and I'm in a new city right now and I'm starting over again. So how can you begin wherever you are and build those types of communities, cultures, and relationships? Here we go, let's have some conversations. Hey everybody, so today this is a really interesting thought conversation, it's probably gonna be shorter on the length end, but I think it won't be any less impactful because this is a nuance of building culture and community. If you have massive vision, if you have massive goals, if you have aspirations, if you wanna go somewhere, if you wanna accomplish something, if you wanna do something that you've never done before and you need people to help you, how much do you share from the start? This is big because if we share too much, people may get fearful or afraid or feel overwhelmed or may not wanna be a part and we know that we need them and want them to be a part because if we are building community and we are building culture and we have these goals and aspirations, we know that we can accomplish more together than we ever can by ourselves. So you're gonna need a team, we're gonna need a team, I need a team, we've got to bring people together and find cohesion, find direction, find unity, find something to stack our hands on to say hey, we agree, we're going this direction with you. So with that being said, how much is too much? How little is too little? So I wanna talk about this and I wanna give some, really four or five things that I think we don't do very well from the start. Okay, let's say you sit down with somebody, you want them to be a part of your team. You've got an aspiration, a goal, you're trying to build community to accomplish the thing. How much is too much from the start? What do they need to know? Well, I'm gonna say this. They actually don't need to know anything until you know them. Don't tell them anything about what you're trying to accomplish, don't have an invitation, don't invite them to like hey, I want you to be in this leadership position, I want you to be in this position of the organization or community. You cannot give them any of that until you actually get to know them. There's this huge thing in John chapter one as we look at the Bible and there's John the Baptist sees Jesus and he's able to say who Jesus is to everyone else and what Jesus is all about and it's really cool because he's able to shout it out and like identify Jesus for who he is. But John couldn't do that until he was able to see Jesus for who he is. You're not able to say how that person is going to be a part of your community or how they're gonna be able to fit in until you see them. So don't say anything until you see them. We gotta see them for who they are, know their skill sets, know their dreams and aspirations, care for them more than we care about what we wanna tell them and I just like, it's a big deal because as we go down this journey, you actually have to authentically, clearly understand that you just caring for them is going to clearly help you understand how the Lord or how these opportunities or how the circumstances have come together for them to be a part of what you're doing because you need to give yourself away and I've got to see these guys that I was spending time with this morning, all of them are in different parts of their journey and they do not need me to say, hey, we're going to see the world change in this way, in this city and in this category and because I'm going to overwhelm them with vision or I'm going to underwhelm them with vision if I don't see them for who they are. That's huge and then the second thing is this, let's not be in a rush, the entrepreneur, the person that's trying to accomplish big things, we are trying to expedite that thing so fast. We want teams, we want leaders, the way that we go fast is not rushing who's in front of us. Do not try to rush your conversations, your aspirations, your goals and actually sit in the conversation. So as you see them and as you hear them for who they are, you cannot rush it, you can't rush it and if you take your time with them and you see them and you don't rush, you will not try to force a conversation, it will actually happen naturally and here's how it will happen naturally. The third thing is you will say things and do things and be things that are genuine and real in reality because your vision is so far in non-reality, like your vision is so far in the future, you cannot live there. So you've got these goals, you've got these aspirations and you want to rush them but you can't rush them, you've got to sit in it and you've got to take the most valuable thing you have, which you would all say is, we would all say is time and you've got to realize the second most valuable thing that we all have is our attention and we've got to spend the time and we've got to give our attention because our attention is a gift. So this seeing, this hearing, this not being in a rush leads us into actually being real. Here's what this means. It means when you sit down with somebody and you ask real questions, you get real answers but then you also, in your being real, you reveal your own needs. And as we reveal our own needs, as we reveal some of our ones and as we reveal how we see God actually moving in our life today, then we can invite those people in to where we really are and be consistent with them. And as we see them, as we are actually in this moment together and we're spending time and we're being real, we have to be very careful not to add too many people too quick but then also add a level of leadership and allow them to realize how they matter to you right now. You're alone, you're in a city, you're in a position that you've never been before. The one thing that I wanna encourage you to do to help you be real is to do this. Help the person across the table from you realize how important they are to you and they're important to you because they're important to Jesus, because they're important to the Lord, because we as humans actually last forever. And so if they can recognize that they, who they are right now in this moment really do matter and that you actually wanna walk with them, guess what's gonna happen? You're going to take real steps. You're going to take steps and they're going to be real ones in the direction that you want to go. And as you pray and as you see these steps being taken, guess what you can also do? Reveal what God has put on your heart for this goal, for the vision, for the city, for the world and they will receive it because you are not just faking. Because everyone thinks that we're coming in or that people that come into life just want to use them and get something from them. But in reality, if your vision is true, it's moral, it's a big deal, it's going to make a lasting impact, then you're gonna be able to see in them that you want more for them than they want for themselves and they'll be ready to receive it. Their heart will be open. Because it's the truth through line, we've got to build some trust and we've got to be careful on who we invite to that table. Because who we invite to that table could ruin it. Because if we're not seeing the people across the table from us, we won't know who else needs to be there. So it's being prayerful, seeing them for who they are and actually taking steps that are slow, but if you can take a slow step daily, guess how many steps you've taken every year? You've taken 365 of them if you've taken them every year. And how you can be careful and let them in on you're being careful on who you've brought to the table and say like, hey, I would love to bring some others in but I want to be really careful because I care about my relationship with you. So let's be really prayerful for it. And if you recognize and actually out loud reveal the care that you're trying to bring into the relationship, if you share that, guess what's going to happen? They're going to feel cared for. So what I believe happens so much in leadership and in my own life is I want to rush it. I want to get to the vision. I want to see how we can formulate and build. People are not equations. So A plus B does not equal C because C equals C, you know, and Z, we can see people. And so if we see them for who they are and how important they are, then all of those things will begin to take care of themselves as we allow our words to come out of our mouth and reveal what's actually happening in our heart. Let's be real people actually caring for the person across the table from us and recognizing that the steps that we need to take and desire to take, they can take them with us. And when we hear how the Lord has made them and what they want for their life, we can then see how we need to take those steps with them and invite them to take those steps with us. This is an amazing thing that I think is so revealing, but how much is too much? Let me say this, how little is too little? And flip the script. Because if there are little steps we can take together, then we can carefully be obvious and take those very small steps that will change for our forever, that will actually make a lasting impact, that will actually invite realness into the conversation. And we will build community and we will build culture and it will be built off of actually seeing people, being real and going together and seeing lives change. So this is something that I'm noticing. This is something I've noticed this morning. And you can actually expedite others. It's just the expediting comes in when we get to know who they are. And so we can actually skip steps and see people and hear them based off of where they are and where they are on their own journey, really with the Lord and understanding what community and culture is all about. So let's take these steps. Let's build culture. Let's build community. And let's start. So have a great day. Thank you for going with me today. Full vantage.