Catalyst - Andy Stanley

The first speaker on Thursday was Andy Stanley, senior pastor at North Point Community Church here in Atlanta. What a great ministry Andy is a part of with North Point. Andy’s message was entitled Louder Than Words with a scripture reading from Nehemiah 5:6-18. The reading of Nehemiah was the bulk of the message and I though I had heard it numerous times (not too numerous though) I found it quite insightful and thought provoking. Here are my notes for Andy’s message:

List scripture from TNIV

v. 7 “pondered them in my mind” – Nehemiah took time to think about what was going on with the Israelites and the nobles before acting on what he had heard. He took a breath, thought about what he heard about how the nobles were now charging the same people that had just gotten out of debt to the Gentiles because of Nehemiah’s own gift interest on the money that had to borrow from the rich nobles of Israel.
v. 8b “they kept quiet” – The nobles/rich folks had nothing to say ‘cause they were caught. They knew they had done something wrong to their own people/nation and they knew of the character of Nehemiah.
v.12 “We will do what you say.” – Really? Why would they hear the governor give some instructions and just do exactly what he says? Andy made a parallel of today’s financial crisis in the U.S. and having Congress tell those who squandered a lot of folk’s retirements and mismanage money and Congress telling them to give it all back and make it right and they just said yes. What? But…they knew of Nehemiah’s character and what he had been doing to help the nation get back on its feet. But because he didn’t necessarily trust these guys Nehemiah had them take an oath (v. 12). Again in verse 13 it says the people did as they had promised!
v. 14 “12 years – neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.” – Nehemiah had not been taking the food from the nation to feed himself and his posse because he did not want to put such a big burden on them. This is sacrificial leadership at its finest. He explains in v. 15 that out of reverence for God he did not act that way – like the former governors. He had a vision for the people of Israel and he knew if he was selfish the work would never get done – The Wall.
v. 16 “devoted myself’ – Nehemiah himself was working with his men on the wall – not sitting back giving orders! Wow, what great leadership.
v. 16 “we did not acquire any land” – to the people of that time land was everything. If you wanted to make a name for yourself you bought land. You weren’t rich unless you owned a lot of land and at that time Nehemiah could have come in and bought up a bunch of land and charged interest to the folks working the land and made lots of money but instead he showed his love for his people by not taking advantage of them.
v. 18 “because the demands were heavy on these people” – again a reminder of who had come before Nehemiah and the sharp contrast that he was as leader of the land.

Leadership is intertwined with moral authority. Moral authority is your passion, vision, that your creed and deed align and you have integrity and good character and what you say you do. It doesn’t matter how well you can lead once those under your authority notice a discrepancy between what you say and what you do they will cease to respect you even though they may continue to work for you.

The three applications are Forgiveness, Family and Finances.
1) Forgiveness – that’s our message – the Christian message – Jesus says whatever they have done to you they have already done to me.
2) Family – take care of your family first – over work, school, wrestling, math, music, whatever – the boldest leadership decision we could make (during the conference) would be to get in our car and drive home and take care of your wife and kids – we’re not perfect nor do we expect perfection but we can do better
3) Finances – good stewardship of what we have been given – Andy’s illustration is with ten $1 bills - $1 for God, $1 for savings (future) and live on the rest ($8) – so simple but we make it more difficult because we live above our means (much of the time) here in the U.S.