It’s Essential You Depend Upon the Holy Spirit
Insights from the “Lead2Serve” Podcast
Season 5. Episode 4
The Transformative Power of the Holy Spirit in Leadership and Ministry
Our podcast’s mission has always been to build meaningful relationships with you, our listeners, and to serve and minister to you in impactful ways. I want to encourage each of you to stay strong in the grace of God. Reach out if you need help or just someone to pray with you. We’re here to help you grow as you seek to serve Jesus in and through your life.
The Holy Spirit in Family Life
Bob brought a fresh perspective to our conversation, emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit within the family. As parents, we must guide our children in the ways of the Spirit and live a life that reflects our dependence on His guidance within our homes.
Aligning with Biblical Teachings
Naturally, our discussion moved to the idea of depending on the Holy Spirit, where we stressed the need to align with Biblical teachings and the fruit of the Spirit. We warned against the temptation to rely solely on emotions or personal experiences and accomplishments, highlighting the importance of testing all desires against the standard of God’s Word.
Practical Steps to Dependence
We also discussed practical ways to foster this dependence, such as daily Bible reading and prayer and being open to the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of life and ministry. We addressed the tendency to seek knowledge and advice from external sources, emphasizing the importance of yielding to the Holy Spirit’s guidance over human wisdom.
The Transformative Power of the Spirit
Throughout our podcast, Bob and I highlighted the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in helping us live out the principles of servant leadership and glorify God in everything we do. We discussed the need for self-control and discernment, using the fruit of the Spirit as a guide to evaluate the authenticity of the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our lives.
Encouraging Deep Dependence
In wrapping up, we encouraged you, our listeners, to cultivate a deep dependence on the Holy Spirit, recognizing the empowerment that comes from yielding to His guidance. We challenged you to prioritize your relationship with the Holy Spirit in your leadership and ministry efforts.
The Dangers of Going It Alone
We touched on the dangers of “phoning it in” and the potential pitfalls of relying solely on our own efforts and abilities. We emphasized the need for pastors and leaders to foster a culture of dependence on the Holy Spirit within their teams and organizations.
Continual Reliance and Growth
We stressed the importance of continual reliance on the Holy Spirit, highlighting the potential for growth and strength from aligning with His guidance. We shared practical examples of how this dependence can lead to unexpected blessings and opportunities, like seeking God’s direction in financial decisions and being open to His leading in uncertain times.
Avoiding Complacency
We also discussed the risks of complacency and the importance of maintaining a posture of surrender and dependence on the Holy Spirit, no matter where you are in your ministry or leadership journey.
The conversation with Bob was a powerful reminder of the vital role of the Holy Spirit in ministry and leadership. I hope this blog post has inspired you to seek a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and to experience the growth and impact that comes from yielding to His guidance and direction.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Intro VO:
Calvary Church presents, Lead2Serve, a leadership podcast with Ed Taylor.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Welcome again to another episode of the Lead2Serve podcast. We’re Episode 4 in Season 5. My name is Ed Taylor. I’m the pastor here at Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado. I have the privilege of pastoring. I’ve written a couple books or a few books. We have this podcast. God has allowed us to be a part of many things. And one of the reasons why we produce this podcast is for you. It’s for us. We get to talk things out and we get to learn, but it’s also for you. We want to develop a relationship with you. We want to serve you. We want to make ourselves available to you. So remember, you can text me directly, 720-608-0012, whether it’s me or the team here, we’re here to serve you, to minister to you, to help you in your leadership, to help you as a pastor, maybe an elder. You’re serving in your church, Lead2Serve. You know, our goal is to help you grow in your servant leadership, just like Jesus said. Pastor Bob in an earlier episode mentioned Mark 10:45, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” And we want to keep that as the target. That’s where our eyes are on. Our eyes are fixed upon Jesus and his example in servant leadership. As we follow His example, we’ll glorify God in everything that we do. The better servant you are, the better leader you’ll become, and the better leader you become, the better servant you are. And the breadth of your servanthood will only grow as we set aside this time to discuss important topics. It’s not just for the church world, although that’s our perspective. And by the way, I’m not in studio alone. You know, in this season and previous seasons, I have Pastor Bob Claycamp with me. Welcome again, Bob.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Great, good to be here.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Having our conversations about ministry, talking out loud, stumbled along the way, stumped a little bit as we’re forced to think through. We’ve got this new thing that we’ve added. I mean, we didn’t make it up, but this Lightning Round, if there’s something to really think about, we’re gonna bounce it back off of one another. Just like, you know, I was talking to Bob after the last episode, and I was thinking, this is what we want. I desire for you, when the podcast is over, for you to do something, that there’s a movement in your life, it’s not gaining just information. I spent a lot of my early years as a follower of Christ, really into information, when I should have really been into the Lord and what he wants to do in my life. Remember what Paul said? I think it’s 1 Corinthians 8, he said, “Knowledge puffs up, but it’s love that edifies.” It’s love that moves us forward. It’s love that leads us in action. And we want you to listen to the podcast and do something and be something and change something and thank God for something. And like, even if you can listen, because I know a lot of these topics are pretty typical, but maybe you’ll listen and go, “man, I never thought of it that way before.” Or “hey, he said this, I wonder what this is?” And you can ask a question and we’re always open to your feedback. All positive feedback – send to me. All negative feedback – send to Bob. He loves reading all the negative feedback. He has way more experience than I do. No, in all seriousness, any of the feedback, send it to us. I share everything with Bob. You can email me at ed@edtaylor.org. Remember, it has to be “dot org.” Edtaylor.org. Why? Because there’s a professional Santa Claus – his name is Ed Taylor and he owns the other domain, the most popular domain, and if you send it to him, he’s tired of receiving it. He doesn’t forward them to me anymore. In the beginning he used to forward me emails, but he doesn’t. He must be too busy in the North Pole. Whatever. But, but COVID made the guy like, a millionaire. He’s, like, doing Zoom calls as Santa Claus and making big bucks. Makes me want to grow out a beard and do a little side hustle as Santa Claus. But I digress. Sorry about that. But we do that sometimes. Ed@edtaylor.org. The topic today is…you want to be more effective in ministry… which is kind of theme, ou want to be more usable? “Depend upon the Holy Spirit.” Depend upon the Holy Spirit. So we’re kind of building a theme here. Give out as much as you take in. And we also talked about taking in much more than you give out. Then went from there to look for things to do and do them. Then we talked about that hard one, do things you don’t want to do. And we all have those things we don’t want to do. And now today we want to talk about depending upon the Holy Spirit. So that’s such a broad topic, Bob, where are we going to start?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Well, I think we have to start with the family because that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where you live. That’s your first responsibility – is your family. And depending on the Holy Spirit, you have to develop that. You have to have communication with your spouse and even with your kids, because you’re part of your responsibility as a parent is to train your children in the way that they should go and teaching them about what it looks like to depend on the Holy Spirit. Maybe you don’t even know yourself, but you have a responsibility as part of your discipleship with your children. And so this is something that is important because God places his Holy Spirit within you when you believe on the Lord Jesus and He lives there, that Jesus said that “He will be with you forever.” And so this is something that, if the Holy Spirit of God lives within you, there is counsel. There is leading. There is intercession that the Holy Spirit does and has a purpose for you. And learning to…I’m not talking about being flippant or mystical. I’m just talking about practical ways to discern when the Holy Spirit is prompting you in different ways. And I think the first and best “practice field,” is your family.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
The word “depend,” as I was looking it up while you were sharing. The word “depend” in the English just means “to be controlled by, or determined by.” And I’m thinking that again, we put these topics together a while ago and we jotted them down. You put some notes together as you see a theme develop, though, this theme developing of things, where we start, this is how we started. I think everyone starts with these. Like, we’re taking in. Taking in and giving out. We find ourselves “looking for things to do, and then we’re doing them.” “Doing the hard things.” Now, “depending on the Holy Spirit.” This is how we started, but over time, for some reason, we get “smarter than God,” or we get “smarter than the Bible,” and we take things into our own hands and we wonder why it’s so hard now. Or, why, because we already have the…when you’re serving God at work, you’re serving God at church, you’re serving God at home, you already have the difficult things you have no control over. You have problems with kids at school, you have arguments with your wife, you have temptations as a single, you have church issues and challenges, you have all the things. You have tiredness. You know, I think of the person listening right now that’s just so tired. It’s just one of those seasons. They’re just so tired. You already have those things. But these things that we’re talking about, you can’t depend on them. You have to pay attention to them. You have to choose. Are you going to yield to the Holy Spirit, or are you going to yield to your own understanding? That’s your choice. The Spirit of God’s ready to be leading you. The Spirit of God is leading you. The question is, “are you following His lead,” or are you “leaning on your own understanding?” Of course, you know the verse that we memorized, I memorized early on in, Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6, “to trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he’ll direct your paths.” I mean, how would I ever know? Memorizing that verse…that would be one of my biggest problems the rest of my life. That is my problem – trusting in the Lord with all my heart. I trust him with a little of my heart, most of the time. I could even say, I trust him with a little of my heart all the time. But do I trust him with all my heart, all the time? No. No, I don’t. Do I lean on my own understanding? Way too much. Because I have been doing this for a while, and I have had experience and I have failed, and I have learned from my mistakes. But that has a subtlety of deceiving us, as if we think we know what we need to know. And the Bible says we don’t know what we need to know yet, “as we ought to know” (1 Cor 8:2). Like, there’s coming a day where we’re going to have full knowledge, but it’s not today. So when I think of depending on the Holy Spirit, I do think of what Paul would tell the church in Ephesians, to Ephesus’ church, he said, “be not drunk with wine, but be filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit” (Eph 5:18). And I know a lot of debate goes on whether it’s okay to drink or not. This is always frustrating me. People argue about things that are debatable but miss the point of the verse. The point of the verse is just like, you can be “under the control” of alcohol and be completely consumed by it. That is what God wants for you with the Holy Spirit. He wants us “completely consumed,” with the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah. And the Word of God is so essential in discerning when the Holy Spirit is prompting your heart, because the Holy Spirit operates within the counsels and the boundaries of the word of God. And this is where sometimes people start taking their feeling or their sense of experience to be the “validator,” on whether something is the Holy Spirit or not. But if you think the Holy Spirit is directing you to do things contrary to the Word of God, it’s not the Holy Spirit at all. It’s your own flesh. It’s your own spirit. Could even be the enemy, speaking into your mind and creating a buzz. And you all of a sudden, every time I get that buzz, it must be the Holy Spirit. And you can’t do that. You have to go and have the boundaries of the word of God to keep yourself accountable.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
It’s a simple path to depending upon the Holy Spirit. You’re reading your Bible and praying every day. You’re receiving and talking and interacting with God as He ministers through the Holy Spirit in your life. I’m reminded of Jesus when He was teaching us in John 16,
“but now I go away to Him who sent me. And none of you asked Me, where are You going? But because I’ve said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I don’t go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He’ll convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because they don’t believe me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more. And of judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged” (John 16:5-11).
With all the benefits of the Holy Spirit, it’s very important for us to grasp that the Spirit of God gives us an advantage. This is “an advantage,” Jesus said. Jesus said, “I’m leaving,” and “I’m leaving…it’s going to be for your advantage because you’re going to get something far greater for the future, the indwelling of God inside of you.” The Holy Spirit will take up residence in you, and in that relationship with the Holy Spirit, you also can be empowered with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Remember what He said in Acts, chapter 1, “Wait in Jerusalem, because the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. You’re going to be baptized. Don’t leave until you receive this power,” because this is the power you’re going to need for the future (Acts 1:4, 1:8). And for some reason, and maybe we could talk about this a little bit, we leave the power of the Holy Spirit. And I guess the question on the table is “why?” Why do we do that?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
I think part of the reason is because we like things that are more real. Like…I can read. I can learn my knowledge base. I’ll rely upon that. But there are times when the Holy Spirit gives you a prompting to do things that are hard, like we talked about in the last session. And you can’t make your knowledge or the circumstances the ultimate validator. You have to test it, even in prophecy. In Thessalonians, Paul says, “don’t despise prophecies, but test all things” (1 Thess 5:20-21). And so how do you test them? You have to have a standard outside of yourself to test it, not just your feeling or your sense of right and wrong. You have to have something outside of yourself to be the standard to test things. And so when, let’s say, you have a golden ruler and then you have a balsa wood ruler, well, it doesn’t matter what they’re made of. There has to be a standard that they match for it to be accurate. And, so, the Word of God is that standard that you measure if something is of the Lord or not. You start with that validator.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
It’s not merely an emotional work. Sometimes people today relegate the work of the Holy Spirit just to the realm of emotion and hypersensitivity and waving of flags and dancing and just this hyped up relationship with the Holy Spirit. While we definitely have emotional responses, really what the Holy Spirit is doing is taking us back to Jesus. The Holy Spirit is pointing us to him. We know the Spirit of God is leading us when Jesus is being glorified. We know that the Holy Spirit is leading us when He’s “bringing to our remembrance the things that we’ve been taught” (John 14:26). He’s bringing us back to the standard of God’s Word. For example, if somebody said, “you know, I feel like the Lord is calling me to go to a hotel room and have sex with my girlfriend.” Yeah, the Holy Spirit’s not telling you that, bro. I promise you that. The Holy Spirit is telling you the exact opposite, but your heart is so hard that he is not…and that’s a real example. I just didn’t make that up. I had a brother share that with me. That’s a real example after a church service. “Where are you going?” “I’m going to go to a hotel with my girlfriend.” No, you know, you can’t do that. And that was the counsel I gave him right at the…you cannot do that. “You cannot go and commit fornication. That is not from the Lord. It’s very clear, and it’s wrecking you.” I mean, it was right after a brother shared a scripture with me. Like, he had a scripture and it was a great insight. And then he says, “I’m heading out.” “Where are you going?” He’s giving me those stories, being honest with him. And the Holy Spirit prompted me to say, “what you’re about to do is sin. It is not approved. God does not approve of it. It’s wrecking your life.” And the Spirit of God is always going to bring us back to the truth. And in our ministry, and in our serving, we have to depend upon the Holy Spirit, because the Bible is our standard. We can’t depend…this is where the world of podcasting is dangerous, Bob. The world of podcasting is a world of knowledge, where we get to be in people’s conversations, we get to hear their wisdom. Some guys are like super-polished, super-leadership-guru-type people. So they’ve got the phrases and the particulars, and they’re going to polish…especially in the church world, they’re going to polish up everything about your church and it’s going to make you the most polished…and there’s an attraction to that because I want to be the best I can be. However, the only way I’m going to get there is not by somebody’s advice. The only way I’m going to get there is by my dependence and yielding to the Holy Spirit. And it’s His church, I’m His vessel, and I need to be controlled by the Spirit of God, not some guy’s advice, right?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Right. And like the boundary of the Word of God, like in Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is there to help us understand what the Holy Spirit looks like in action. We have there in Galatians 5:22, “but the fruit of the Spirit is love,” and then the expressions of “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.” This is what the Holy Spirit looks like in action – in the character, and lived out. And so if you’re saying the Holy Spirit is leading you to do something that’s outside of these boundaries, it’s not the Holy Spirit. And it’s fascinating that the very last one is self control, which is different than willpower, because the whole root of it is not self. The root of it is the Holy Spirit giving you self control when everything in you wants to retaliate. I mean, that’s depending on the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
It’s interesting, Bob, the kind of unity that the Spirit of God’s doing on this podcast. While you were talking in the previous answer, I opened up to Galatians 5. And thinking, this is the measurement of the Spirit of God in our life. I’ll read it now from the NLT as you had the New King James. In the NLT it says, “the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. There’s no law against these things” (Gal 5:22-23). Those who belong to Christ Jesus, which also is the bedrock of our podcast, learning how to serve well, where the Holy Spirit would take a simple episode like this and call you back to Himself, not to the frustrations, not to the difficulties, not to the hardships, not to all the battles we’re fighting in the spiritual warfare, but to Himself. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross, and crucified them there” (Gal. 5:24). And I love that. He says, “since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited and provoke one another or be jealous of one another” (Gal 5:25-26). And planning is not wrong. Preparing is not wrong.” You had mentioned earlier in an earlier episode this season about administrative, you know, administrators, not administrative, it’s people. And that’s true, however, not to the neglect of administration, because if we don’t get our administration right, then we aren’t going to have time. We’ll be so chaotic and disorganized that. And here’s another, this could be another episode, but I met people and I’ve served with people that they’re so messed up and disorganized and they call that “the Holy Spirit,” but the Holy Spirit is self control. So there’s order. There’s some people on the scale, you know, on a scale one to ten, I’m probably a ten on order. What do you think you are on order?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
I think I’m like a six.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
So I’ve served with people that are “ones,” and they call that the Holy Spirit. And I don’t necessarily mean “ten,” is the Holy Spirit, but like disorganization doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re following the Lord. Just like organization doesn’t necessarily mean…
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
I mean the “Feeding of the 5000…”
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Yeah.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Jesus gave the disciples administrative duties in order to facilitate the miracle that was going to take place and they had no idea why. They were just told what to do. And it was like…and just putting yourself in the middle of that. 5000 men, plus women, and children, and hungry kids, and trying to get them to sit down in groups of 50. I mean, how long did that take?
Pastor Ed Taylor:
And it’s loud, and it’s chaotic, and it’s like…the scene is not how we would typically read it in the quiet of a room.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Oh no.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
There’s some activity. And what I like to say with administration, because I, you know, depending on the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean that you don’t plan, it doesn’t mean you don’t look ahead. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t in order. But what it does mean is that we are yielded. We’re purposely yielded to the Holy Spirit. It’s on our minds that His way is better than my way. That I’m not leaning on my own understanding. And I don’t need necessarily a checklist for this. I just need to look for the fruit. Does this lead to love and joy? Am I self controlled? Am I gentle right now? Is there faithfulness flowing from my life? Because that’s what’s going to make your service so much more fulfilling. Serving in the flesh, and the strength of our flesh, is miserable. It makes a man miserable.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
You know, an example of depending on the Holy Spirit can be…I know that it’s tax season right now, and maybe when you’re listening to this, tax season is over, but you’re extending it or whatever else, but just because you’re getting a refund doesn’t give you the right to say, “I’m going to spend it however I want to.” There are times when God puts resources in your hands for different reasons than you think. Okay, you have it all planned. You’re going to do this. You’re going to do that. You’re going to do this. Stop it. Wait a second. Just say, “Lord, everything I have is yours and this is coming to me, but I want to put it before you to see if you have another idea.” That happened to me with this whole issue of going to England. And when I found out that all of a sudden the whole bottom dropped out of it and I had tickets already purchased, I had even travel insurance to cancel everything. But there was the sense that, “wait a minute, don’t just do knee jerk things…stop and see what the Lord wants to do in the middle of this when you have no idea.” And so it was during my reading, I’m reading about Jesus feeding the 4000, and there was one verse where He says, “how many loaves do you have?” And they said, “seven,” which was their dinner. And He required them to bring those loaves to Him. And as I read this, I had this sense from the Holy Spirit that God was saying, “OK, take what you have and bring it to Me and let Me fill it out.” And then I knew I wasn’t to cancel it, but I had no idea what was next because all I saw were blanks on six weeks of time. And that’s…and then step by step, He put it all together. But there are just those times where you don’t go just supposing God, “You bless me.” No, I want to bless You.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Right.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
And so whatever You put in my hand, I want You to be honored; You to be glorified; You to be blessed.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
“Depending upon the Holy Spirit.” We start there. We want to continue there. We want to end there. This is the key to Christian service. It is not the latest book, or the latest methodology, or for some pastors, the latest church growth model. We want to do God’s way….we want to do things God’s way by His will. We want to accomplish “His will, His way.” And we can assure that, we’ll, get as close to that as possible if we depend upon the Holy Spirit. One of the hallmark verses, and I wonder how early it was that you heard this verse within the house ministry that you ran, and even Calvary Chapel for that matter. But how early it was…because this was a hallmark…it’s probably, I don’t know, with Pastor Chuck Smith…I don’t know…I never got to ask him this question, but if it was the number one verse is go to verse or not. But, it certainly comes up over and over again. And that is “not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.” (Zech. 4:6). I mean that…we say it. We think it. The question is, “do we live it?” Because we can, you know, I think there’s another thing, and we just got a few minutes because the episode’s almost over. But I’ve been in ministry here 24 years. You were in Arizona 29 years. Okay, so you were in North Phoenix…planted that church or did you take it?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah, I planted it.
Pastored it for 29 years. The Lord gave me the privilege to plant this church. Now I’ve been here for almost 25 years. There comes a point where the infrastructure and the establishment of the church and everything there comes a point, and I’m sure you experienced it…I certainly have. Where you could, if you wanted to be “in the flesh,” as a pastor, just “phone it in.” Everything’s every…you’ve got a team, whether it’s volunteer or staff taking care of things. It relatively can be the same thing over and over again. This is going to lead into our next episode as well, where you don’t need to take steps of faith anymore. You’ve built the building, you’ve secured the lease, you, whatever, and you phone it in. And I have people in mind. I won’t in any way name them, but I have met and have served alongside people, even in our family of churches that “phoned it in,” and paid a high price because they just stopped depending upon the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
It’s a slippery slope.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
They just arrived. I don’t know. I mean, I never did get to talk. One brother passed away. I didn’t get to talk to him where. What happened? What happened? Because I want to avoid that, not because I want to condemn it or be upset….I just don’t…I don’t want that in my life. I don’t want to phone it in. I don’t want to just show up. But I also have this tension, Bob. I don’t want problems either. Yeah, I don’t want difficulties. I don’t want hardship. I don’t want people mad at me or I don’t want the things that I don’t want to die to myself, I guess. And so there’s a tension and it doesn’t have to be, I’m a pastor. That’s my role. But it could be in any role. This is why people get divorced, because they phone it in. This is why singles have sexual sin, because they stop waiting. This is how Sunday School teachers just don’t really care about the kids anymore. But it’s not how you started. And it’s like God’s bringing us back to how we’re starting. Any final thoughts on that?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Well, I think that if you’re a pastor listening in, I think that you have to develop, not just yourself, to be a person who regularly, particularly depends on the Holy Spirit. You have to raise up people in your board, people in your staff that also depend on the Holy Spirit because there are times when they need your back and you need their back. And that is a culture, not that you do things flippantly or “change for the sake of change,” but just to develop a culture of “depending on the Holy Spirit and being sensitive to Him,” because that’s where the adventure is in the whole thing.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
And we’ll get to the adventure in our next episode on “walking by faith,” which is pretty exciting. But, be careful. I think that’s a word from the Lord just in this episode today, that…”be careful.” Because it can be all your hard work and all your effort and all your energy in developing and building and establishing can be completely blessed by the Lord. It can just be exactly where God was leading you. You got there. You started by yielding to the Holy Spirit, and in the Word. You got there and arrived there by the principles of the Word of God. And now that you’re there, God has more for you, from glory to glory and strength to strength. And it’s not His will for you to stop depending upon the Holy Spirit, to stop being controlled by yielded to, “don’t be drunk with wine which is an excess, but be ye continually filled with the Holy Spirit” (Eph 5:18). Submit yourself to him, surrender to him. And that’s the key. So we come to an end of another episode. Good season. So far, so fruitful. We want to hear your feedback. Email me – ed@edtaylor.org. Ed@edtaylor.org. You can text me directly, 720-608-0012, that comes directly to me, as do my emails. I love to hear your feedback. You have show ideas. You want help? Maybe you’re a pastor or a leader? Elder? You want help? We’d love to help you. Bob is certainly available in many ways, and resources of our church are available to you. We have a team of pastors here with a lot of different giftings, a lot of different perspectives that we work together as a team. We’d love to serve you. We love to recommend resources to you. As a matter of fact, if you’re looking for recommended books right now, I have a book list that’s free of charge. All you need to do is email me and I will respond. Say, “send me that list of recommended books.” And believe me, it doesn’t take any time to do this. So just email me and say, “I want that list of books,” and we’ll send it to you. It’s actually almost the entirety of our inventory in our store. You can go to calvarystore.com, and all the books are there. And why would I recommend our website? Because all the proceeds, net proceeds, from our books here on Calvary Store go to our missionaries. And we wrote an extra check this year for our missionaries, $1,575 on top of their support, which is just an added blessing. Whenever you buy a cup of coffee here at our church or you buy a book, the net proceeds go to our missionaries. So you know, Starbucks doesn’t do that. What’s the name of that new one with the windmill?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Dutch Brothers.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Dutch brothers doesn’t do that. You know, Barnes and Noble doesn’t do that, but Calvary Church does. So we zero out our books for the bookstore and our coffee house at the end of the year anyway. CalvaryStore.com, all kinds of recommended lists to help you be a better leader and this concludes another episode. Until next time on Lead2Serve here with Pastor Bob, we are grateful to be a very small part of the huge work that God is doing in your life. And, tune in, make sure you tell somebody about the podcast, forward it, share it on social media, and we’ll be back next week, Lord willing, with another episode of Lead2Serve.
Outro VO:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lead2Serve with Pastor Ed Taylor, a leadership podcast from Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado. If you have a leadership question you want to hear answered on a future Lead2Serve podcast, please email it to pastored@calvaryco.church
And if you like our podcast, please subscribe, rate or review us on iTunes and share us with your friends on social media. Thanks again for joining us and we’ll see you next time right here on the Lead2Serve podcast.
