ASI 2015: Lift Him Up

Non-Profit Leadership

Cindy Tutsch

Ellen White On Leadership: Who Qualifies?

My name is Cindy Tuch, and I think it would be nice if we opened with prayer.

We're so thankful to be able to be here in this place at this time to talk about the things of the Spirit.

Thank you for each person that came, for the families they represent, the church families they represent.

We pray that the angels of God and the sweet spirit of heaven will pervade our gathering this afternoon, and that we will grow in our understanding of God's will for us and what type of leader he wants us to be so that he can use us to maximum capacity.

In the powerful name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

Well, I was born here in Spokane, so I felt like a salmon returning to their spawning grounds.

I actually live on the west side of Washington state.

And for those of you who are not from the North Pacific, which may be most of you, how many of you are not from the Pacific Northwest?

OK, most of you are not from the Pacific Northwest.

So let me tell you about my journey yesterday to get here.

I live in Tacoma, which is a very densely populated area, kind of a suburb of Seattle.

So I go from this very densely populated area up across the Cascade Mountains with stunning vistas of the mountains.

And then down into the valley of Ellensburg, very fertile valleys there, close to Yakima where all the cherries come from in the United States virtually.

And then over toward Moses Lake where it's more arid and where we see lots of wheat fields and across the Columbia River.

I mean, the whole trip was just so beautiful.

And of course, for me, it was like coming home because I lived on a ranch growing up about an hour south of here.

And then, of course, we come up towards Spokane.

And we go through all of this volcanic rock.

Now you know that this is, our Earth is the wreckage of a drowned planet.

So this volcanic rock is very interesting and there's a lot of science, creation science that can be had in this area.

And then we come into the beautiful pine trees of Spokane.

So I hope that you cancel your flight home and you just take a trip that I did.

Just, you know, rent a car and go over there to Tacoma, Seattle, look at our beautiful mountains, and then go home and fly home.

Okay, so what is your definition of a leader?

You know, I did my doctorate on leadership and my doctoral dissertation on Ellen White on leadership, but the problem with that is she never defines leadership precisely.

I mean, she doesn't say leadership is, XYZ.

We have to extrapolate that from her diaries and from her writings and from her speaking and even her letters.

So I want to start this afternoon and see how good you are at pulling out leadership qualities from a letter that she wrote to her husband.

And I passed out these little cards, and I'm going to use a lot of principles.

Remember, principles are general moral rules of conduct that never change in any culture, any geographic area.

They are always, the principles are always for always.

So in this presentation, I'm pulling out a lot of principles, and I don't always tell you where I got the principle.

That's because I'm hoping you'll buy the book, and then I get my 10 cents royalty.

Okay, so when I read today from this letter that Ellen White wrote to her husband, acknowledging her own struggle with temptation to harbor hard feelings about her fellow workers and her desire to emulate more fully the servant leadership of Jesus, I want you to write down on your card or on your piece of paper, whatever you have there, draw a line down the middle and write positive qualities or positive traits of leadership.

And on the other side, I want you to write negative qualities of leadership.

Just before coming over here, I read the letter again and I jotted down and I got, I don't know, maybe I got about 20 here.

So see how many you can come up with as I'm reading.

Just jot them down in 1 sentence or maybe a couple, not 1 sentence, 1 word describing a quality, a negative quality or a positive quality.

Let's see what we can pull out of this letter.

Husband, I feel so grateful that the Lord is of tender pity, full of mercy.

He deals with us not according to our sins, but as long suffering.

He knows our defects, our lack of faith and courage, and yet he bears with us still.

The same divine sympathy, the same patient love he shows to us who are so unworthy of his favors.

I see that I must have more of the spirit of the master.

I must not let 1 thought or 1 feeling arise in my heart against my brethren.

For they may be in the sight of God more righteous than I.

We have battles to fight with ourselves, but we should continually encourage our brethren.

We should lay no stumbling blocks in their way and should cherish only the very kindest feelings toward them.

Satan is willing and anxious to tear them down.

Yeah, fellow workers, fellow believers, fellow Christians.

God forbid that we should add 1 trial to those they already have to bear.

Now, dear husband, I would not harbor feelings that this 1 is injuring me and that 1 is hurting me.

Have confidence in your brethren and do not censor them in thought, by pen, or by word.

Let the softening, subduing influence of the spirit of God into the heart.

We have no time or power to spend in justifying ourselves.

I long for constant repose in God and not to have my mind in agitation in regard to minor matters.

I constantly feel that my work upon the earth may not last long.

While it does last, I want my thoughts and mind engaged in doing all I can to save perishing souls around me.

For those of you who just came in, we're reading a letter that Ellen White wrote to her husband.

And in this letter, I think we can pull out some qualities of leadership, either negative qualities or positive qualities.

I want my thoughts and mind engaged in doing all I can to save perishing souls around me.

I cannot and will not allow my mind to think unkindly of and misjudge my fellow laborers.

I will write out the testimonies of reproof for anyone, and then afterwards my feelings will not be exercised against them.

I will seek to make my ways in the strength of Jesus perfect before God.

And when tempted to feel unkindly or to be suspicious and to find fault, I will put this out of my heart quickly.

For the soul temple is surely being desecrated and defiled by Satan.

The love that Jesus possesses is the duty of both of us to welcome and cherish and to have that charity that thinks no evil, then our influence will be fragrant as sweet perfume.

And in this letter, we're trying to extrapolate or pull out qualities, positive ones for leadership, and negative qualities for leadership.

I've been shown that unless we make most diligent work in purifying our own souls from all unkindness and bitterness, These traits will reveal themselves at times before we are aware of it, to do great harm to the cause we love.

I was shown that it rests wholly with us, whether we leave an influence behind us that is subduing, transforming, and elevating, or to the contrary, whether we shall wound, injure, be dictatorial, overbearing, censoring, exalting, and magnifying ourselves, and it be a relief to many who love and fear God when our voice shall be silent in the grave." Don't ever say that Ellen White didn't have a sense of humor.

Otherwise, people will be glad when we're dead, when our influence will no longer be felt.

I feel deeply, I feel that we've erred and not manifest in greater love, forbearance, and pity for others.

The diseased have ye not strengthened, Ezekiel 34, 4, is the reproof given to unfaithful shepherds.

Personal Spiritual Enrichment

Ty Gibson

The Truth As It Is in Jesus

Father in heaven, you are the God of the universe and we are here right now in your presence with a sincere desire to hear your voice.

Father, we confess that we're weak, our minds don't operate as clearly and energetically as they should.

Emotionally, Lord, we have been injured and hurt and wounded and jaded, and so we have blockages in our perception of you.

I pray right now that you would intervene on our behalf, that you would take mercy on us, Lord, that you would be present right now with us.

May each 1 of us hear your voice speaking in our hearts in Jesus name amen.

I want to begin by by telling you about a little girl that means a lot to me and she communicated a very very significant level of theological clarity for me.

She didn't mean to, but she was like Ben, very curious about the big people meetings.

She was only 5 years old, and every evening she was sitting in the meetings to my left, 1 or 2 rows back, whatever she chose, night by night.

Her mom came to me a few times and said, I've tried to get her to go to the children's meetings, She absolutely refuses.

When I ask her why, she looks at me and she says, "'Mommy, because I like that man.'" So we started developing a relationship between the meetings.

And when we came to the end of this, I think it was a two-week series.

Little Megan came from the back up the middle aisle, and she had a piece of paper in 1 hand, and her other hand was raised in some kind of motion of declaration.

She was going to say something to me that she wanted me to know.

Her mom was coming from behind, coaching her along, and as she came up to me, there we were, pretty much alone, just Megan and myself, and the Lord God of Heaven looking in on Megan's heart, her mom coaching from behind.

We stood there as the lights were going off in the auditorium.

I was gathering up my things, and she looked at me and she said, Mr.

She said, I love you, The word love with many syllables.

I love you with all my, and she lost the word.

And she smiled because she felt like she accomplished her goal.

She found the word, but it wasn't the right word.

And her mom said from behind, it's your heart, sweetie.

Tai, that would be all my heart with which I love you.

And then that piece of paper, she handed it to me.

And I found myself looking at 1 of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen.

My wife Sue and I got bored silly walking through that place for days literally.

I've seen the best and most beautiful art in the world and this just, just way more significant, So beautiful.

I looked at the picture and Megan said, do you see it?

And I'm looking and it's obvious that there's some water, there's a sky, there's birds in the sky, there's sun and it's shining.

And then there are 2 people walking and she said, do you see it?

I said, yeah, now that you mention it, I can see that.

And for me, that was theology at its deepest and highest level.

That's what eternity future looks like from God's perspective on a grander scale with a lot more detail, but in substance, at the heart of the matter, the core of the thing, it's God looking at you and me and saying, listen, all of this is so that you and I can be together because we like each other.

You don't like me so much, hence the plan of redemption.

We're moving through a process And that process involves the rebuilding of relationship with you.

The Bible can be difficult to understand at times.

But what I'm suggesting to you is that the message of Scripture essentially comes down to God painting a picture of what reality could be like if we were restored in relationship with him.

God is in the process of painting a picture of what the world and the universe could be like.

We're everybody's friends and there's no insecurity And you never look into anybody's eyes and wonder where you stand with them.

And you never posture, and there's no politics, and nobody really cares who has what, or more, or less.

And everybody is in relationship with 1 another.

If you can imagine this, everybody's in a relationship with 1 another that would be like the best relationship you've ever had without all the dysfunction.

If you just picture You as your very best you.

You minus all the wounds, all the damage, all the craziness, all the insecurity, everything that's ever happened.

Imagine you with all the dysfunction removed, with all the beautiful personality traits and characters that God has invested in you when he, according to David, knit you together in your mother's womb and gave you all that latent potential that resides inside of you just waiting to shine forth, to flower forth under the influence of his love.

Just imagine you as the best possible you that you could ever be, and everybody else, the best possible them that they could ever be, and then spending eternity together.

Can you imagine everybody, millions of people redeemed for eternity and all of them you have completely clear, open-hearted relationships with them?

And then on top of that, you can look straight into the eyes of Almighty God and feel perfectly at home there.

And just kick back with Jesus under the tree of life and talk about whatever?

That's the picture that's being painted, but there's theology along the way.

And we don't need to complicate it, we can make it as simple as possible.

The Apostle Paul wrote some things that are difficult to understand.

In part 1 of our three-part series together, we're going to look at something very complex that the Apostle Paul said, that is pretty much the most important thing Paul ever said in a nutshell, and we're going to make it very, very simple.

In Galatians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul gives us the essential core of Christian theology in the plan of salvation.

In a single statement he says, we, speaking of you and me, believers in Christ, we through the Spirit, so the Holy Spirit is actively involved in nurturing and prompting something from within us.

We through the Spirit are experiencing eagerness.

That could be translated, we have anticipation.

The idea here is, as Ben said, I'm gonna be on the edge of my seat.

This isn't kicking back, leaning back, bored.

The Holy Spirit is stimulating inside of human hearts eagerness.

What is it, if we could wrap words around what it is?

Well, Paul gives us some words to contemplate here.

The Holy Spirit is actively engaged with us, stimulating desire, longing, eagerness in us so that we are waiting for the hope of, and what's that term that you're probably familiar with?

This is the only time in all of Scripture that this term as a complete term occurs in the Bible.

Now the Bible elsewhere speaks of justification by faith.

Wayne Atwood

Digital Strategy: Strengthen Your Online Presence & Advance Your Mission

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the privilege of being able to be together today.

We thank you for media that you've given to us.

We thank you for the internet that you've given.

And Lord, we just pray that you would help us today to learn How to use it to spread the gospel, how to use it to help others and to encourage and bless them.

We thank you and we pray that you would guide the whole convention and everything that's done in Jesus' name.

Okay, so how many of you are from ministries, and how many of you are from businesses?

How many of you represent ministries here today?

And how many of you represent businesses, like for profit?

We are so glad that both of you are here, because the internet is so, so important in both of these categories.

It's important for us to be able to get our message out there.

And it's important for us also to be able to see how we can use the internet in order to, you know, we can, from a business perspective, we can spend so, so, so much money on web development and internet and things like that as well.

And as ASI members or people that believe and embrace the philosophy of ASI, we want to be able to use our businesses to be able to reach out and be tools to reach out to others.

And so I think that it's just so important for us to know how we can use the resources.

Now, in a seminar, it's so difficult to be able to condense things that we could say about the internet and online, the world of websites and online and development and all this because it's just so huge and beyond that another big challenge is that it's changing so fast that there's no way that anybody can keep up with it.

I mean, you could spend just all day, every day just trying to follow what's happening, and you still would only have a little tip of what's happening.

And, you know, I'm not the youngest guy out there either, I'm not the oldest either, but already in our ministry, I'm from Better Living Ministry which is based out of Quebec, Canada, and we do media training which involves like training young people how to do video productions and audio, radio, television programming as well as website development and how to...

Everything is in the context of how to use it in ministry.

And it's just amazing to see, you know, what the young people when they come in, I mean, they know things that I don't know, even though I've been working in media and website development and things for, you know, a while now, but there's still, it's just like, It's incredible.

And so I think that what's really important for us is to really see how we can reach our goals and how we can really be focused on how we can use the internet for God's glory.

I mean, So much time, let's face it, I mean, so much time is wasted online, so much time is wasted in doing things that probably aren't that important, and not even to talk about all of the very destructive things as well that are available on the internet as well.

So it's something that we have to really be careful with.

It's something that is very important for us to learn how to manage and learn also how to be able to really harness so that we can use it for God's work.

And that's just a real burden that I have is to do everything that we can to use the tools that God has given us to be able to spread the gospel.

And you know, part of that is to be able to find efficient ways.

Part of that is to be able to find efficient ways.

Part of that is to be able to find cost-effective ways, especially for ministry, but I would say not only for ministry, for business as well because if we're running a business and we want to focus our financial resources and others into being able to spread the gospel, then we're gonna want to be able to take advantage of a cost-effective ways as well to be able to harness the internet.

So we're gonna look at a lot of different ways, simple ways, and we're also going to take time for you to share ways that you might have already used so that this can really be a networking time as well.

Because I don't have all the answers, you might have some that I've never even heard of.

And so that way we can also learn together by dedicating a little bit of time for that in our presentation too.

So for those that just came, I'm delighted that each of you are here.

And we're going to get right into the topic.

We've, in our ministry, we've been reading for the last few months, the publishing ministry by Ellen White.

It's a book that's really inspiring because, you know, in her day, of course, the internet didn't exist.

And yet, we see that the book, you know, the printed page was a way that we could use to be able to reach out to people and to be able to spread the word.

Because a person talking can only talk to so many people at 1 time, but as that multiplies and as the books are distributed and she talks a lot about call porters and just what a wonderful thing it is and she's just talking about here that the publications sent forth from printing houses are to prepare a people to meet God.

So these messages that are out there are prepared so that people can meet God, people can be ready for Christ's return.

And I don't know about you, but for me, I've been just so impressed.

And the events leading up to like the GC session and the emphasis on prayer and all of this have just so much convicted me even deeper that we are at the end of time.

There's not a lot of time left and we need to be serious about what we can do to spread the gospel.

And so we see here that they spread through our publications, we are to spread the word.

And that we can see that we can teach with a certain sound, we can have a certainty by spreading the word to those around.

And of course, that can be other forms of media as well, like it can be websites or video and so on.

And we see here that this same message is to be given in our printing houses or through any other form of media to the world today.

The message of John the Baptist, repent it's time for the Lord to come.

And of course, we know also that this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world.

There's something that's very interesting about internet, and that is that we get these viral videos or these things that suddenly become like, it's just like a wave just sweeping over the internet.

And I believe that God can use these sorts of things as well to be able to get the message out.

And we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to be used in order to do just that.

So today we're going to be looking at how we can effectively harness the power of the online world to advance our mission.

We're going to talk about a few things that can help that as well as some very practical tips because I think this seminar is a lot more practical than it is theory because that's what will help to guide us and help to know what we can do.

Now, so let's kind of jump into some of this.

Okay, for your business organization ministry.

These days, I think pretty much everybody has a website.

It's something that's very, very important.

But there's a lot of factors to consider that are important.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Ellen White On Leadership: Who Qualifies?

1h

The Truth As It Is in Jesus

1h 11m

Digital Strategy: Strengthen Your Online Presence & Advance Your Mission

1h 18m

Panel: Workplace Dilemmas & Business Ethics For the Christian

1h 20m

The Seven Deadly Relationship Sins - And Their Replacements

1h 16m

Powerful Sanctuary Secrets

1h 7m

MENA (Middle East and North Africa Union)- A Final Frontier Mission

1h 42m

Gracious

46m

What I’ve Learned About God

1h 29m

Occupy

46m

06. Biblical Missionaries: Mordecai and Esther

1h 12m

One Purpose

1h 58m

Sound Doctrine