GYC Europe 2012: The Hour Has Come

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Leadership

Amy Sheppard

Men and Women of the Hour: Empowering Youth for This Time- Part 1

This message was presented through a partnership between GYC and GYC Europe at the 2012 conference in Linz, Austria.

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

It seems like people are still trickling in a little bit, but we'll go ahead and get started.

Just to draw your attention to the programming booklet, you may be confused.

Just in case there is a little confusion, my name is not Justin McNeilis.

If you look in the programming booklet on page 18, it talks about our seminar.

It says, Men and Women of the Hour, Empowering Youth for This time, session 1, 2, and 3.

And then it says Justin McNeilis, Amy Shepherd, and Pastor Martin.

We decided as we came on site here in Lins and we're talking about what we would present that the order of the information may go better.

If I went first, Pastor Martin went second, and Justin goes tomorrow.

So just in case there's any confusion about what's in the booklet, these first 2 hours I'll be presenting, the next 2 will be Pastor Martin.

Then tomorrow, Justin will be presenting, and at the very end of it, we'll have a question and answer session where the 3 of us will be here to answer your questions about leadership.

Hopefully we'll know answers and if not we can point you to people who probably do.

So, you know, the programming booklet has a nice description of what the seminar is supposed to be.

It says, The very first work of Jesus after his anointing of the Holy Spirit was to call disciples who would be leaders of his church when he would leave this earth.

As with the early church in the Reformation centuries ago, leaders today are necessary to carry forward the work.

Come explore the practical and biblical principles of leadership itself as well as developing it in others to ensure the longevity of a movement until the completion of its mission.

But We're hoping that if this is what you're looking for in this seminar, that this is what you'll find.

And as I said yesterday, I'll be talking some a little bit about those spiritual aspects of leadership, about the character development of becoming a leader.

And Pastor Martin, when he comes up, he'll be talking more about the practice of it, talking about how to be an effective leader in terms of managing your time and dealing with other people, things like this.

Then Justin's is a surprise, not because it's a surprise, but because I don't remember what he told me He's gonna talk about at first and then we'll talk about the questions and answers.

So just in terms of our seminar, so this is men and women of the hour And the part that I'm talking about is great and noble leaders.

And what does it mean to be a great and noble leader?

Cuz this is a term that Ellen White uses over and over and over again in the spirit of prophecy.

But before we begin, why don't we have a word of prayer and then we'll dive right in.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for waking us up this morning, again, giving us the breath of life and giving us this opportunity to come together to study your word, to reflect on the writings of your prophet and to have a better understanding of what it means to be men and women of God, ones who reflect your character in such a way that it brings you glory and brings other people closer to you.

Father, we just pray that your Spirit may be with us now, that He may open our minds, and that we will just learn the things that you have for us this morning.

We thank you so much and we ask these things in Jesus' name and for his sake.

For those who may not know me, because I've come from a far way away, I am the general vice president for GYC in North America.

And what that means is, we have a bunch of other vice presidents, 1 who's in charge of evangelism, 1 who's in charge of missions, 1 who's in charge of logistics, 1 who's in charge of programming.

They do all kinds of different things to make GYC in North America run.

My job is to make sure that those vice presidents keep running.

So my job is to make sure that they're staying on task with all of their tasks and make sure the president's staying on task with his tasks and you know make sure that the machine is going smoothly and everything's working out okay and it's definitely a very fun job I think.

I think it's the best 1 because I really get to watch everyone else do what they're doing and then if they're not doing that's the only time I have to do something.

So before that I was the executive secretary for GYC.

So I was in charge of taking minutes in meetings and making sure people were places on time.

That was a much harder job making sure people get to places on time, especially for Americans.

So those have been my experiences in terms of leadership with GYC.

I've had other experiences in terms of being a counselor at a children's camp, of being a teacher in different situations.

But to this day, I still don't always feel like I'm a leader.

When they said, will you do a leadership seminar at GYC in Europe, I was thinking, I'm still young enough that I should be receiving instruction on what it means to be a leader.

But Then I realized, and this is something we're going to talk a lot this morning about, that being a leader isn't about the position.

It doesn't matter that I've never been the President of the United States or I've never been a CEO of a company, that The position is not what makes a leader, it's your personal experience that makes a leader.

And in order for us to be men and women of the hour, we have to have certain experiences leading up to that hour, that moment of crisis or that moment of need in order for us to be effective leaders.

And that's what we'll be talking about today.

So the first question I want us to answer is what type of leader does God call?

Just so you kind of understand what's going on with the slides, I didn't put, I'm gonna be using a lot of quotations, I didn't put the actual quotes on this slide, but I put the bullet points that I hope will get out of each quote on the slide.

At the end of my presentation, if you would like a copy of all of those quotes, I can either email it to you or you can bring me a USB drive and I can give you a copy of the full quotes, I can give you a copy of the slides, I can give you a copy of my notes.

There's no copyright on the gospel, and I'm a lawyer, so I know that now.

The first question is, what type of leader does God call?

And we see something that Ellen White writes in Testimonies for the Church, volume 3, page 21.

She says this, The cause of present truth is suffering for men who are loyal to a sense of right and duty, whose moral integrity is firm and whose energy is equal to the opening providence of God.

Such qualifications as these are of more value than untold wealth invested in the work and cause of God.

Energy, moral integrity, and strong purpose for the right are qualities that cannot be supplied with any amount of gold.

Men possessing these qualifications will have influence everywhere.

Their lives will be more powerful than lofty eloquence.

God calls for men of heart, men of mind, men of moral integrity, whom he can make the depositories of his truth, and who will correctly represent its sacred principles in their daily life.

This quote, when I read it, it kind of grabbed me because her very first words is, the cause of present truth is suffering for men who are loyal.

You see, leadership is something that's missing in our cause.

We're suffering for people who are willing to be loyal and strong.

And as we go on, the reason on the slide I have dedication in parentheses, we're going to talk a little bit about an example where the word they use instead of loyalty or strong purpose is dedication.

Our cause is calling for people who are dedicated.

But in order for us to be dedicated, we really need to understand what are we dedicated to.

Oftentimes, we don't even understand that.

We get excited about becoming a part of something and we don't realize what it is we're becoming a part of.

We need to understand what it truly means to be a Seventh-day Adventist and to be dedicated to that in order for our leadership to be truly effective.

I think 1 of the reasons why character is so important for leaders is we hold leaders to a higher standard.

And I used to think that that wasn't such a fair thing.

Before I was preparing for the seminar, we'll see in the world politicians or business leaders or other people who may have some sort of fall, moral fall, or the banks, they lose all of our money or someone cheats on their wife and we become very disappointed in them because we were holding them to a higher standard.

I used to think, well, they're humans like me, many of them aren't even Christians, so should I be holding them to this higher standard.

But as we continue to study that, study throughout today, we see our character has everything to do with what people are willing to follow.

And if our character is not 1 of a sterling quality, it causes people to have doubt in the very cause that we're a part of in this leadership.

Because they question the leadership of the movement, they begin to question the movement itself.

So that's why moral integrity is just as important as well.

I used to consider myself a very energetic person.

I don't consider myself to be that energetic, but over and over and over again in the writings of Ellen White, she talks about the importance of energy.

So we can't just work and be like, oh, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to, you know, we need to bring a certain amount of energy and excitedness and happiness to what we're doing in order for it to be effective.

There's a couple other things in this quote, and I just love the way that she writes this, that we need men of heart, men of mind, and men of moral integrity.

You see, what's necessary for us to have the character of a leader, it's not just being smart.

It's a combination of all of these things.

You know, we need to believe it in our heart.

We need to have a compassion for other people in our heart.

We need to intellectually understand what's going on, but we also need to have that integrity not to bend when the winds are trying to blow us this way and that.

Martin Ryszewski

Men and Women of the Hour – Empowering Youth for This Time- Part 2

I love it to have this activity all the time.

So because first of all, now you know the other better.

We are not so acquainted with each other here, and now you know the guy next to you and that he is impatient to put this stick down.

So, who of you felt comfortable while doing this activity?

I was counting on 3 so that we would do this on time.

Communication was an issue of communication.

So your group was unbalanced 1 way or the other?

Well, cooperation needs something more than just coming together and doing something.

So someone had to control the whole process, huh?

Okay, who of you who are naturally born leaders were struggling with this activity?

Struggling I mean that you could not take the leadership position you used to have.

Where someone, yeah, Saying, I know how this works, but I cannot because these guys will not follow me.

I thought about telling them what to do because I have experience, but I didn't do it because I wanted to see how they thought.

I have the experience, but I don't tell you.

They're going around all the time, saying, oh man, there's a leader.

So, we had a situation at church and someone who was a naturally born leader, he stood beside someone else and he said something in German.

I cannot translate it, but it was, Dumpfpacke.

So it's something, hey, you didn't understand what to do.

And he sat down, he said, he said, don't bug it to me.

So because he never expected that this very calm guy would say, don't bug it, something, okay.

So, I love this because it's a real challenge.

And I've seen there have been some natural leaders.

I want to see you as a leader for God's cause.

Yesterday we heard some stories about spiritual leadership.

I just want to repeat what you have heard.

Have you heard the story of the GYC yesterday?

So, something that was on the mind of 4 or 5 people, and they started a whole movement, a worldwide movement.

Or you heard the story about Abram LaRue, the 1 who went to China without support of the church?

Did it by himself at the age of 65 or 66 something?

Chris Berger

Men and Women of the Hour: Moving the Movers

I'm a German, but I had the privilege to work in Italy.

Because for a German, for a leadership, in the area of leadership, it's very important to go to Italy.

Because German people have some strengths, but also some weaknesses.

And in my limited experience, it is good to get to know other cultural environments, to get to know the church on a worldwide level, we can learn from each other.

I hope my heart is a little bit more outside now than before.

And the last years we spent in Thailand at our university, Asia Pacific International.

And since nearly 1 year now we are at Bogenhofen College.

This is the school here in Austria, not so far from Linz, 1 hour drive.

So therefore, leadership for me is an important task, was since I started my ministry as pastor around 20 years ago.

And you discussed already several things about leadership, So I'm eager to learn.

I attended only the last session here, the question and answer session, and still I also want to add something.

But maybe you can give me a short overview.

This is the best way for you to memorize what you learned.

If you could express it in 1 sentence, something you learned.

Now in the 3 workshops on leadership, based on leadership, thank you so much, based on leadership.

Leadership is more a relationship, not a position.

Or it doesn't depend on your talents, but on your relationship to Christ.

Leadership is more a relationship to Christ, not so much a position.

It's not so easy to make short sentences.

Dedication is of primary importance over talent or skill.

Dedication, much more than talent or skill.

Yeah, I heard this also in the last session in the morning time.

I mean, imagine you have a leader and you ask, my youth leader, my pastor, my conference director, and he says, no, no, no, no, yes.

I mean, this would be the application what Joel is saying, say more no than yes.

Sometimes we are unhappy with leaders because we experience this.

They have no time, they don't say yes, they say no.

But sometimes they say no because you shouldn't do it or something, not just because you're asking about something.

I mean like sometimes leaders have to say no to somebody because they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Not always when they're asking to get to do something.

No, 3 times or 4 times, and maybe then 1 time, yes.

Being responsible how to organize your time, your schedule time.

So we heard it's about relationship, specifically Benny emphasized to Jesus.

Benny said maybe this is closely linked, it's more in being, not doing.

Jolt told us, you have to say more no than yes.

My Mexican sister, can you give me your name?

I think it's also about to inspire someone.

This morning there was a question from someone sitting here.

He asked, so if I come to my local church and I want to implement something, and they say no, How can I motivate them?

Series

Leadership

Men and Women of the Hour: Empowering Youth for This Time- Part 1

Transcript

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