Right, now here’s what you’re going to need. The most important thing you’re going to need before you can start your ministry. So important that Jesus could not start his ministry without it.
Anybody know what it was? A team. A team. You cannot minister alone.
If you think you’re going to make it as a loner, you will fail. Well, you might succeed quite a lot. You might actually accomplish more than most people, but you will not reach very far by yourself.
There has to be a means of multiplication. It’s kind of like selling. You know, if you could earn a very large salary and if you could become so qualified that you could charge $1,000 an hour for your time, I think that’s a pretty good salary, don’t you think? Imagine if you could charge $1,000 an hour for your salary and if you could work eight hours every day and have work every hour of the day and be charging that $8,000, you’d be earning $8,000 a day.
For a five-day week, that makes $40,000 a week. And if you multiply that by four, that’s about $160,000 a month that you’d be earning. Now my maths is going 12 times 160.
Let’s round it right up to 200,000. You’d be earning $2.4 million a year. Would that be correct? Something like that.
That’s not a bad salary. If you could attain $1,000 an hour and work and have somebody who is going to employ you every time, every hour of the day, continuously, that’s the maximum you could ever earn. You know what? You’ll never become a billionaire.
Never. And you know, it’s the same in ministry. I remember a little story that I heard way back where they were trying to illustrate the concept of each person wanting just one other person.
Teaching a person just to win one other person to the Lord and then to just repeat that. To teach that person to go and win one other person. And they did the mathematics for us and they took two people and the one guy said, you know, I’m just going to preach to the crowds and I’m going to believe God to save a thousand people in my meetings every day.
And so the two end up. The one guy, his job was just to win one person for the Lord and the other guy was going to win a thousand souls for the Lord. And so after the first period of time, the one guy had won a thousand to the Lord, the other guy had won one person to the Lord.
And then the other guy had won two thousand and the other guy had won two. And then those each won a new one. And so now he had four.
And by that time, the other guy had had four thousand. I mean, it just looked like you’d never catch him up. But if you do the maths, you find out that the guy who was doing a thousand souls at a time actually eventually got left behind because as it multiplied, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
Simple mathematics. That’s exactly the same in ministry. I don’t care how effective you become.
I don’t care how many people you can even draw in the crowds in public ministry. And Jesus could draw the crowds, man. But Jesus knew himself that the most important part of his ministry was not preaching to the crowds.
It was to take a handful of people and pour into them everything that he had and then to send them out to do the same that he had done. That’s why he said, as the father sent me, so I’m sending you. And just as I’ve done now, instead of building this great big GMRN by holding great big public campaigns and meetings and seminars, and we could have done that, we could have held great big teaching meetings and advertised and made our name known and drawn in the crowds.
But you know what? There wouldn’t have been one person amongst those crowds that I could rely on because those crowds that flocked after Jesus, they came to you and preach for the same ones who shouted crucify him. And when Jesus hung on the cross, there was nobody there except the handful of men that he trained. That’s all that he had to leave it to.
That’s all that he had to rely on. And he had faith that he’d put enough into them and that they were committed enough to him that when he had to leave, they would take what he’d given them and they’d go and do the same. If you want to expand your ministry, I don’t care how good you got, you’re going to have to get a group of people.
You’re going to have to pour into them everything. And you know what? It’s going to go slow. Like the poor guy, one in one soul and teaching him to win one and you keep winning one and gets one, two, four, eight, 16.
But you know, eventually becomes unstoppable. That’s the way we worked in GMRN. That is the GMRN way.
It’s also Jesus way. So he did it. We will have our times with the crowds.
There will be great meetings. We will be big seminars and conferences. Up until now, that has not been our emphasis.
Every conference that we’ve had has had about 20 to 30 people. In fact, the last conference we had was probably the biggest one we’ve ever had. They’ve all been small, all been a group of handpicked people.
And even the last one really was handpicked. People were invited specifically to come to that conference to be offered an opportunity to rise up and to take everything that we had to offer. So the first and most important thing is that without a team, your ministry will never succeed.
It will never get out there. And the best you could ever hope to accomplish to be a little pastor of a church. I don’t care if you become a little pastor of a big church of 20,000 people, you are still limited in how far you’re going to reach.
There’s only one way that you’re going to reach out and that’s to pour into somebody else, to form a team and to send that team out and multiply yourself immediately. And I started out in this ministry, I could only do so much. I was trying to design the webpages, trying to make the graphics, trying to get it all done.
I couldn’t put it all together. I said, Desiree, you’re going to have to learn graphics. So Desiree began to learn graphics.
She’d never done graphics before. She didn’t even know how to open PaintShop Pro. I said, go and try it, play around with it.
I’ll help you. Eventually I got to the place where I knew I could rely on her that if I wanted to design a webpage and we started to work as a team, I get in there and I throw all the stuff together. I have it functioning.
We’ve got our website up. Everything you need to know is there. And she’d take one look and say, man, it looks horrible.
It’s just a woman thing, you know, you guys, you just, you just, you just got no taste. You just got no culture. You just do it rough and ready while it was working.
So that’s the man thing. Now you make it functional and let the women come and make it pretty. But we were a team, you see, and as God began to add to the team, he began to add different abilities to each one.
Those who could edit those who could do the typing, those who could make the products. And eventually amongst just six of us, we were accomplishing more than a large company could do because each one of us were experts in our field. And you know what, you know, we started it.
You see, you see, I started it. I started playing around with the graphics. I told Desiree to take it over.
I made the first book and then handed it over to Craig for a while. Eventually we had handed it over to Desiree because she was such a perfectionist. She got it perfect.
Got to make it pretty, but eventually, you see, but we each one began to take a turn in learning different things. And eventually it got to the stage where, where each of us could almost do what the other ones were doing as well. So it wasn’t only just a matter of, of saying, well, you got that job and you got that job and you got that job, which starts switching around.
It’s like, it’s like the Lord would get us to switch roles. Now, that’s very important because I want you to realize that each one of you, you mustn’t get this idea. Well, I got this part of Les’s mandate and you got that part and you got that part.
And so what I’ve been doing complete as one person now is now shared between the 12 of you. Forget it. May start out that way.
May start out with each one of you doing a part of what I’ve started to do, but it must eventually get to the place where every one of you is taking the fullness of what I’ve done. Every one of you must become me. And that’s the pattern Jesus gave to his disciples.
And yes, there’s somebody that he was closer to and he spent more time with. It was Peter, James and John who had the greatest potential. They had the greatest potential because they had the greatest commitment for the greatest desire to follow him closely.
I mean, John was just, just so hung up on being close to Jesus. He was like lying on his chest the whole time there, you know, trying to have a meal and Jesus just got a guy lying on his chest while he’s trying to eat. You know, you got a guy lying on your chest all the time.
You end up just giving him things to do. I want to impress this on you because you are the pattern. What I’m going to share with you today, you are the fruit of what was done.
I want you to see how it came about. I want to see how you came to be where you are right now. And I want you to see that the same pattern is being followed as what Jesus did with his disciples.
So I’m going to look today at, at how to get together your team. We’re going to look at firstly, where to find your team. And we’re going to consider how to choose your team.
And then we’re going to look at how to train your team. See, I always like three main points. Keeps me short enough so that I don’t go over one and a half hours.
Somebody asked me last night, so that’s great. Where do I find, where do we find our team? We don’t have a local ministry like in Switzerland. It’s like the person that came to us and said, it’s right for you.
You’ve got an outlet. I mean, we’re only stuck in Mexico where we couldn’t even minister to anybody anyway. Couldn’t even speak the language.
So where are you going to find your team? Same place we find them, out there. And right now, all you have that’s available to you is the internet. Stop there.
When I started out, the Lord wouldn’t even let me use the internet. So I started in the spirit. I started visualizing and seeing in the spirit and speaking forth and calling to the nations and telling them to come.
That’s why you, yes, some of you guys, I called you way back there already in the spirit. I didn’t know how it was going to happen. The Lord said, I’ll bring you people from all over the world.
You will train them. You’ll send them out, but you will not go out and you’re not allowed to advertise. So, uh, how do they find out I’m here a lot? So that’s my problem, not yours.
Then he finally gave me permission to go on the internet. That was the starting point. I mean, I had visions of people coming down here into Mexico and we’ll hold big meetings and conferences.
It’s happened. It’s happened. And people have come from all over the world.
Who would have believed it? How could that be possible? Don’t look, don’t look in the little, the little place where you’re living. Don’t look in the little environment that you’re in and say, oh, we’re going to start a ministry here in Mexico. I don’t even speak Spanish.
We haven’t yet. We haven’t yet started a ministry in Mexico. Where are you going to find your team? Okay.
Firstly, you’ll find your team amongst those who come to you. So the first thing you do about finding your team is nothing. You wait for them to come to you.
You say, but Jesus didn’t do that. Oh yes, he did. I’m going to show you how Jesus chose his disciples.
And it’s not going to be the way you thought it was. That’s the new revelation. Do you know who the very first disciples were that came to Jesus? There were John’s disciples.
And I heard John standing up and say, there’s the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And they said, that sounds like a guy we need to go and get to know better. The two of them ran up to Jesus and said, hey, where are you staying? Jesus said, come and see.
Come over for lunch. Come spend the day. And they did.
Spend the rest of the day with Jesus. Eating with him, chatting with him, finding out about him, getting impressed with him. Jesus didn’t go advertising.
Not at all. They came to him. And of those two men that came to him, one of them was the disciple Andrew.
He was Peter’s brother. He was one of the first to ever get to meet Jesus, Andrew. Other guy, who knows where he was.
He obviously didn’t become part of the Twelve. That’s why they never mentioned him. But Andrew, after he’d spent that day with Jesus, he went running home.
Hey, Simon, I met an awesome guy today. Oh, I reckon he’s probably the Messiah. You really need to come and meet this guy.
He’s amazing. Amazing. Jesus didn’t advertise.
Other people did the advertising for him. John advertised him publicly. People came to him.
And those who came to him went and advertised him some more. And so Andrew went off and he told Peter. And Peter told somebody else.
And somebody else told somebody else. And before you know it, there was a whole pile of people coming to Jesus. And as they came to Jesus, Jesus gave revelation.
He spoke to them. He invited them to follow him. He did not invite them to become part of his team.
I want you to get this very loud and clear. He did not invite them to become part of his team. He invited them to follow him, to be his disciples, to come and spend time with him and learn.
It’s the only invitation he gave them. Don’t you dare look out and say, I wonder if that’s one of my team. Grab him, put him in.
I just want you to know, I believe that you’re going to be one of my team. When did you guys become the team? Think about it. Yeah, apart from the new ones that came in, that was a little bit different.
But again, that’s part of what I’m going to share. But when I first appointed the 12, how did it happen? Did I sit down and say, okay, I need 12. Now who’s there? I didn’t do that.
It actually just happened amongst all those that already come that had been committed to this ministry and followed us. They came together and suddenly a team was born. It wasn’t even in my mind.
I didn’t even understand the concept. And only after we counted them, did we find out there was 12. When Jesus started out, Jesus was not looking for the 12.
He was simply gathering followers. That’s all. Okay.
There were those that came to him and then there are those that he came across while he was doing his ministry. And so there’ll be those that you’ll come across. There’ll be people who will come to receive ministry from you.
And as they come and are ministered to by you, they will want to come and be part of this. Not everybody. Some people will come to receive and say bye-bye.
Jesus had that all the time. The 10 lepers that came and only one came back to say thank you. They just came to get and off they went.
They come and go. You know, I have an old address book that contains every person that I’ve ever written to an email to from this ministry. People that we were involved with, people that came into this ministry and received from us and became involved with us in some way.
It’s a very big address book. You won’t believe how many names are there. And amongst them, all I have is 12.
A few more are still hanging around that are not part of the family. But the vast majority of people that have come to this ministry and received from us are no longer with us. Most of the people we saw the other night in the video at the very first conference, most of them are gone.
We’ll probably never see them again. Some of those that are gone were people that we had great hope for and even offered an opportunity to be part of this ministry and to rise up in leadership. They could have been where you are right now, but they’re not.
I’m trying to build a concept in you here and I’ll emphasize that as we go on. There’ll be those that you come across along the way who will eventually become part of your team. Sometimes you never know who they’re going to be.
Sometimes you suspect who they might be, but it takes a while for it to come together. So don’t think you’re going to go out there now after the seminar, sit down, get revelation from the Lord, thinking, who do I know? Okay, that he could be my team, my team. Yeah, okay.
And then give the world an email and say, listen guys, I believe that God’s called you to be part of my team. It’s not going to happen that way. Okay.
So if you had those fantasies, let them die. There’ll be people who will come to offer help in the ministry. They will offer their services.
There’ll be people, some of them, who will be very reliable that you can depend on and that you can rely on in the ministry. People that you can count on, you know, it might be somebody who’s just prepared to arrange the chairs or just do something very simple and mundane. Yeah, come to your garden for you.
People you can rely on. These are some of the people that could eventually rise up and be your team. Now, how do you choose your team? You’re going to find them because they’re going to come to you and you’re going to come across them.
You don’t have to go looking for them. It’ll happen. All you need to do is continue in the work of the ministry.
Just continue faithfully doing what God’s called you to do and people will start to come to you and you will start to meet people and it will begin to build automatically. But if you don’t have a ministry in the first place, what do you want a team for? You say, well, as soon as I get my team, then I’ll think about doing the ministry. No, no, no, no.
You got the call first. You get out there and you begin to work and you begin to prepare yourself for it and the team will come together. People will come to you that will, some of them be your team.
Some of them will never be your team, but people will begin to come to you. Now, amongst those that come to you, certain ones will rise up that will eventually come to take the place of the members of your team. How are you going to choose them? Well, you know, we got all called there.
He’s had a bit of experience in ministry. He’s got a lot of money. I think he’d make a really good team member.
Yeah, we’ll choose him. The old man all there, well, yeah, he’s quite clued up on the computer side. I think we could use him.
You know, and we got Fernando there. He’s been running his own business and he’s pretty clued up. Yeah, yeah.
One of these days he may be wealthy. He may be able to pour some money into the ministry. I think we’ll choose him.
Don’t you dare think that way. What did Jesus do before he chose his 12 disciples? He prayed about it. Jesus prayed about it.
I mean, did Jesus need to pray about it? I mean, surely he could have just had, he had the wisdom. He knew, he knew what was in the heart of him and he could look right through you. What did Jesus need to pray about it for? Because he didn’t want to make any mistakes.
You think Jesus was not capable of making mistakes? He was totally capable of making mistakes. The fact that he was sinless did not mean that he could not make errors in judgment. He was human.
And you will make errors in judgment if you’ve not waited on the Lord and prayed and asked him for wisdom on this. Don’t you dare even hint at somebody becoming your team member until you have prayed it through. And don’t ever rush into it.
Don’t ever rush into it. You know how long Jesus prayed before he chose his 12? He prayed all night. All night.
He wanted to get it right. Be very careful. Be very careful about whom you choose.
So who are you going to choose? Now that you’ve prayed through, who are you going to choose? Firstly, you’re going to choose those who have proved faithful. Those who have been faithful. They’ve been with you.
They’ve committed themselves faithfully. You can rely on them. They’ve always been there.
Those who have been with you through the hard times, when the ministry took a dive, when the whole world was condemning you and calling you a heretic, when people out there were making posts against you on the message boards and sending emails out, when those who didn’t like the way you disciplined them went off and gathered their own little crowd out there, the walking wounded, they called themselves, all suffered at the hands of this tyrant. When times are tight, when the ministry is not being recognized, when you’re going against the status quo, when people are saying, you’re a rebel, who do you think you are? You don’t want to toe the line. You don’t want to do what the rest of us are doing.
You don’t want to have anything to do with us. Who is it that stood by your side and said, we’ll follow you. We’ll stick it through with you.
I don’t care what they say. We’re going it through. Those are the kind of people you’re going to have in your team.
Here’s a mistake we make. I’ve got this guy who’s really just got such potential, but he’s kind of sitting on the fence here. He has such a need and desire to rise up in ministry, and he’s got such potential for ministry, but he’s waiting around for the opportunity.
Now, we need to keep this guy. He’s very valuable to us. So let’s offer him a chance for promotion.
Let’s offer him an opportunity to rise up in leadership in the ministry and eventually come up and be one of the leaders. And perhaps if we offer that to him, he may commit himself fully and come in and be faithful and stick around. No, you won’t.
Don’t ever offer it to somebody who’s sitting on the fence, who hasn’t made up their mind. Don’t ever offer it to somebody who’s not proved themselves faithful and is prepared to go through the difficult times with you. Don’t even think of offering it to that person.
I don’t care how good a leader he is. I don’t care how qualified he is. I don’t care what resources he can bring in and offer this ministry.
Don’t you dare offer it to him. And if you do, you test him like Jesus tested the rich young ruler. You want to follow me? Give it all up.
Go ahead. Come and follow me. Give all your wealth to the poor and become a pauper.
Come and follow me and be one of my servants instead of the great commander who has his household of servants. You’ll soon find out. Don’t think you can give them the bait that will draw them in.
Make it as difficult for them as possible. Make it as difficult as possible. And when somebody keeps wanting to come in and join, make it even more difficult for him.
Make it as tough as can be. Chisel him like mad. Test him to the limit.
And if he can last through that, then he might be suitable to be in your team. There’s something about getting something that’s valuable that’s not being offered freely. Don’t ever offer freely to anybody the opportunity to be part of your team.
They must be prepared to give up everything. And that’s what Jesus required of his disciples. He didn’t go to Peter and say, Peter, ask your dad if you can have the time off from the business and see if you can come and help me in the ministry.
He said, Peter, give up your shares in the business. Give it up. Come and follow me.
That was a big price to pay. So where are you going? We’ll find out when we get there. Doesn’t matter where we’re going.
Come and follow me. Set as high a standard as you can for those that you’re going to commit yourself to and pour everything that you have into. You wonder how I’ve been so tough on you guys.
You wonder how sometimes I seem so hard and I chisel and I seem so uncaring. It’s not that. I want to make sure you have what it takes because you don’t have what it takes.
I don’t want you. I’m not prepared to pour all that I have into you. If you’re not prepared to go out and do the same as I’ve done, you don’t have my spirit, then you are not suitable in this team.
So it’s taken me so long to find a team that I can rely on. You want those that are committed to you. You do not want somebody who’s concerned about what other people think.
People who want to say, well, you know, you know, don’t you think we should, we should try this and do this in the ministry because that’s what everybody else does. We should have celebration meetings. You know, we should get together with all the other people and be part of them and get in on all the fellowship meetings and have the joint conferences.
We should be there and be part of so that they don’t think that we’re just, you know, rebellious and on our own. I don’t care what people think. I don’t care if they call me a heretic and a cult leader.
I’ve been called out by members of my own family. So what the heck? I don’t care. If you care, see the door, take it now while you can.
There’ll be a time when you’ll be called upon to stand up and defend what I stand for and not make excuses for me. Well, you’ll have to say, I don’t care if he makes a mistake, I’m still following him. That’s the kind of commitment that I require from you.
If you want to be part of my team, that’s the standard that I’ve set. I believe it’s a standard Jesus said. It was very clear.
And he made it very clear to his disciples. And when they stepped out of line, he slapped them. Get behind me, Satan! And we understand some of our motivation now.
I don’t have to do that with everybody else out there. What’s the point? Weigh myself out trying to try to chisel away at somebody. Listen, if I chiseled you, it was to find out if there was a flaw in the stone.
And there’s a flaw in the stone, I can’t carve it. I can’t make it into something beautiful. So welcome it.
Submit to it. Now when you go out, do the same as you’ve seen me do. Set a very high standard for those that you’re going to choose as your team.
Be very, very fussy. Until they prepare to commit themselves fully to you and follow you into the fire. Follow you into death itself.
You’re not suitable to be a team. Go find somebody else. I don’t care how long it takes.
I don’t care if you battle to find the right number of people and if you have to search the whole world to find them. They don’t have the fire that burns in you, they’re not suitable. Okay, now who do we not choose? Let’s look at a few things that we’ve got to watch out for.
Even amongst those that are committed to you, there are some danger signs. And I’m speaking here from experience. This is the GMRN pattern here.
Watch out for those who want you exclusively to themselves. Those who say we’ll support you and pour our all into you, but if I’ve got a problem, I expect you to drop everything and minister to my need. I’ll send you money every month as long as if I write an email, you answer me first.
And if I’ve got a problem, you’re on the chat and you’re there for me. Anybody makes that kind of demand or expectation on you, throw them out immediately. Somebody says, well, I’m your greatest disciple.
I know you have some other guys out there, but you know Elijah only had one disciple that was Elisha and I’m your Elisha. You know who I’m talking about. I’ve had them.
And you get conflict. You get conflict between the team because each one is vying for top position. Well, you know, I know you’re part of the team, but really I’m the most important to those around you.
Ooh, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Watch it. That’ll disqualify you.
Those who want to bask in your success so that they can rise up. They’re going to help you succeed because they know that when you succeed, they’re going to be one of the top dogs and they’re going to be right there by your side. Jesus had two disciples or one of that, got their mom to come and persuade him.
Is it okay if we could sit one on Jesus’ right hand and one on his left? And Jesus said, sure. Anytime. All you need to do is just drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I’m baptized with.
And you can have it, guys. I said, we’ll do it. He said, you just wait.
You’ll drink it, alright. Be careful of these people. Test them even more strongly.
Chisel them even harder. Make sure that their motives are made pure. Don’t even consider somebody who’s prepared to commit themselves to you to fulfill their own goal in ministry.
They just can’t wait to get enough from you so they can go out and make their own team and go do their own thing. They’ve already chosen the name for their ministry and they’ll happily call you their spiritual father and they’ll happily acknowledge you to everybody. You know why? Because you make them look good.
Well, you know, I’m a personal disciple of Apostle Leslie Cross. You know that famous guy out there? He mentored me personally. I know him intimately.
I know things about him you will never know. Watch out. Watch out.
Those people are unsuitable. I don’t care how much they claim to submit to you and how much they say, well, it’s okay. I’ll give all up for you.
Watch them. Watch them very carefully. Be very suspicious of them because when they’ve got from you all that they want, they will turn their back on you and they will go out and use what you’ve given them.
In fact, they will sometimes use it against you. Oh, we know this only too well. I really find it funny when people get all angry with us and say, I’m breaking links with you.
Oh, who the heck taught you to break links in the first place? Try and use our own principles against us. Stupid. Stupid.
Watch out for those who will try to buy you. We have a little, a little rule, a little experience in GMRN and it hasn’t failed yet. Every time somebody gives us a large amount of money, we know that that’s the end of them.
Somebody comes in from the outside and says, we feel led to give you $10,000. As pure as their motive may seem, they will have, they will expect something in return for that. They will.
They may not say it. They may not show it. They may be very humble.
They may be very sincere in their desire to bless you, but there comes as just a little change in your relationship with them. Whereas before they have looked up to you and revered you. Wow, Pastor Les DeKruijs, this great leader, international leader of GMRN.
But now they’ve given you money. They’re saying, Hey, hey Les, my mate. And somehow you kind of feel obligated to them because they’ve blessed you.
You don’t want to be nasty. They may give you another one. Let’s not upset them.
Let’s keep them happy. Watch it. Watch it.
Watch it. I always say to people who give me money, you can’t buy me because my price is too high. You don’t have enough money to buy me.
You’ll have to be extremely wealthy to buy me because my price is too high. So don’t even try and buy me. Whether it be in money, whether it be in, in anything that you can offer me, whether it be in position or recognition, there’s nothing that you can give me that can buy me and make me let go of the commitment that I have and the call of God and to make you have a special price because of what you gave me.
You just get in there and earn what the rest of them did. And the parable Jesus told about the guy who, the men who were hired at the beginning of the day and those who were hired right at the end of the day were paid the same amount in the end. No, we’re going to complain.
So it’s not fair. I worked all day and then you, you pay this guy the same and he only worked for five minutes. See, it was a good way of testing who you can rely on.
Don’t ever allow people to buy you because they’ll come and meet your need. They’ll come and be your friend that you’ve never had. They’ll come and be your mother or father you never had.
Watch it. Be very, very careful. And when you receive from people like that, you make it very clear to them that you appreciate their gift and you bless them in the Lord.
And, and, and you really, you really, you really do appreciate it. But don’t you dare, don’t you dare think that you have a call on me now because of it. You didn’t give it to me.
You gave it to the Lord. And if you’re expecting a reward, don’t expect it from me. You get it from him.
It will happen. Watch it. It will happen.
Be very careful of people like that. Sometimes they’re not doing it intentionally. They don’t even realize themselves they’re doing it, but it just comes this change that somehow you have an obligation to them.
Somehow you begin to depend on them. Somehow they have an edge over you. Don’t ever allow that to happen with your team.
Don’t ever allow it to happen. You must always remain in supreme control and you must have the authority to deal with them, to discipline them, and if necessary, kick them out and say, you’re no longer suitable as a member of this team because you have failed to qualify. I don’t care how important you are to me or what great benefit you brought to me.
You have failed to qualify in this team. I’m sorry. We’ve had so many of these that I’ve lost count.
It really happened. And some people have blessed us with nice amounts of money. I don’t care.
I use the biggest danger is when you appoint team members that will make you look better. Well, you know, if we got this guy on our team, people will be impressed. Can you imagine? Can you imagine getting one of the big names to be part of your team? Somebody who’s famous out there.
Imagine if you could bring to the Lord a person who’s famous, a great movie star or singer or someone like that. And you could get them to be saved and come and minister and be part of your team. And you can say, just look what I have on my team.
So and so that everybody knows who’s famous. You’re going to say, wow, he must be an awesome leader to be able to have a famous person like that on his team. Don’t ever need in that way.
It’s not about you. You’re beginning to see it’s not going to be that easy to find your team. There’s a lot of things that you’ve got to take into account.
Don’t rush into it. Don’t be hasty. Do you realize that when Jesus called all of his disciples, we always get this idea that.
And he came and he called Peter, Peter, follow me. And that was the first apostle. And then he called John and that was the second apostle.
And then he called Matthew and that was the third apostle. When he called them to follow him, he was not calling them to be his team. If you read the gospels, it seems like each person gives you a new story, you know, and you get one story where where Jesus got to meet Peter and them.
You’ve got another one where he went and got in his boat and they had the great catch of fish. You get another one where Jesus just walked around and said, hey, Peter, come follow me. And sometimes they seem kind of disjointed.
Well, so how exactly did Jesus call the twelve? He called the twelve after they had been with him for a very long time. And he called them out from amongst the entire group of those who he had already called to follow him. See, they only tell us about these guys because they became the twelve.
And so when they wrote afterwards and wrote the story, they didn’t care about all the other people that Jesus called. They didn’t even mention them by name. And if you mentioned the second disciple of John that came, we don’t know who he was.
They didn’t care. To them, what was important was the twelve, because they wanted to tell us the story of how Jesus called each one of the twelve. Although we never do find out exactly how Judas Iscariot came into the story.
And there again was one. And probably the reason they left him out is because he was the failure anyway. And they didn’t care how he came in.
But how did Judas come in? How could Jesus make a mistake like that? See, Judas had been following Jesus for a long time before he chose him to be one of the twelve. In fact, all of the twelve had been following Jesus for a long time before he chose them to be his team. Jesus did not choose his team one at a time.
Yeah, that really throws a spanner in the works, doesn’t it? I didn’t choose my team one at a time. You were all appointed at the same time. Well, as I said, except for the variations.
In fact, some of you replaced the originals. But the original team was all appointed at the same time. And when Jesus appointed his twelve, he appointed them all at the same time.
So this is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to start calling in those who will come and be involved. And you’re going to offer them opportunities.
And you’re going to wait until the time is right. And when the time is right, and you’re ready to begin to move out in your ministry, and you’re ready to now go through an intensive time of pouring into them all that you have, then you will seek the face of the Lord. And you will get revelation.
And you will find out who your team are. And you’ll call all of them at the same time. That’s the pattern.
It’s a pattern Jesus followed. It’s a pattern that we followed without realizing it. So I have to believe it’s the correct pattern.
Okay, you have a clear understanding now of how you’re going to get your team. Okay, and final stage. Now that you’ve got your team, how do you train them? Well, if you want to know how you would train, you already know the answer to this.
Firstly, you set them apart from the rest. So here’s the crowd of people following Jesus. Each of them thought they were special to him.
And yes, everybody’s special to him. But there comes the time when rank is given to a select few. And it changes things, you know, it really does.
I remember when I went to the army, and I was with all the guys who are my friends. And a few of them were given stripes. And they became corporals now.
And they weren’t my mate anymore. They were my boss. There was a change in relationship.
And it was very clear to everybody who had been appointed, who had been promoted, and who was now set apart and had special privileges that I didn’t have anymore. So the first thing that’s going to happen when you appoint your team is you will make it clear to everybody, this is my team. They stand apart from the rest of you.
They’ve been given a special privilege position. They’ve been appointed to that position. And because of that, they’re going to have greater access to you than anybody else.
Part of the privilege of being the team. You got to make it clear. And everybody guess.
Make it very clear. You make it very clear that every single one of them have been appointed. And they’re equal.
Until such time as you decide to appoint amongst them those of higher rank. Looks exactly the same way. We spoke a little bit about this last night.
Now that you’ve appointed your team and set them aside, you now begin to open yourself up to them in a way you’ve never opened yourself to anybody else. If those team members are coming from within the church realm that you’re ministering in, you’re going to now enter into a relationship with them that you never had before. Whereas before you were the leader and they were the flock.
Now suddenly there comes this closer relationship. Whereas before you didn’t open your heart and your home to them, now you’re inviting them to come in as a friend. To come and know you more intimately.
Now you’re going to let them see your weaknesses. You’re going to let them see you fail. As well as succeed.
You know what’s the best way to train your children in marriage? Is to let them see your marriage the way it really is. We’ve got this idea, well don’t fight in front of the children. The kids are here.
Are you afraid to let them see you fail? Are you afraid to let them see you the way you really are? You know what? When they grow up one day they’ll become full of the same failures you have. You’ve got to let them see who you are. You’ve got to let them see that you’re weak and that you’re frail and that you’re not perfect.
And then you’re going to show them how you have learned to overcome your weaknesses and your failures. I’ve eaten nothing from you guys. I’m me.
And if I screw it up you’ll see it. And you know that I’m just human and weak and frail. That what I have is what God’s given me.
And the rest of it is a mess just like for you. I’m just human. You see? Now other people don’t see that.
And I don’t allow them to see it. The Lord made it very clear to me, especially once the team were appointed, that the rest of the world do not have access to me. I don’t write emails to anybody except you.
Nobody else is allowed to write to me directly. The only exception I’ve made now is in the marriage course. But I don’t come to them as a Pastor Les DeKrasse.
I come to them as Les, a shepherding marriage counselor. They think that they can take advantage of that and now come and get into a special position of getting to know me personally. No, I’ll share with them only what’s necessary so that I can help them as a counselor.
But the innermost parts of my heart and of my successes and failures in ministry are for you alone. And so as you appoint your team, you’re going to open your heart to them in a way you never have before. Whereas before, they always may have looked up to you and thought you were just this great preacher and apostle.
They’re going to see now that you’re just Manuel. You’re just Claude. You’re not Apostle Claude D. Wittmer anymore.
You’re not D. Wittmer. What did you say? How’s that? You’ve got a good middle initial. You should.
You should. It sounded good, don’t you think? Can you see what I’m saying? Be prepared to open your heart to them. It’s kind of like Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, but he still remained the Lord and Master.
You know, I found that in the beginning when we began to minister to people personally, we would invite people to come into our home and stay with us for a week. And you know, we made a mistake of inviting some people that had never really known us in our public ministry. They’d read our stuff and met us on the net, but they’d never seen us in action.
And when they saw us just being ordinary people, they couldn’t respect us anymore. You guys had opportunity to first see us in public ministry, to see it in operation, to know the power that’s on us. I remember Ron saying the very first little get-together that we ever had, somebody asked him about what we were like.
They’re pretty ordinary people until they stand up and speak. You’ve got to maintain that image before the world and even before the church, because they have that expectation of you. That’s your public ministry, that’s your crowd ministry.
But when you bring the team together, there comes an intimacy and an openness and an honesty of who you really are. You’re not afraid to share your weaknesses with them. You’re not afraid to ask them to minister to you, because that’s true leadership.
And only in that way will they finally pick up everything that you have. And they’ll not go out there putting up this great big false front of this great big wonderful preacher and just P-O-ing and P-I-ing and P-everything. And then give them everything you have.
Pay the price as a true leader, like what I told you last night. Be ready to give up everything to them. Everything that you have must be available to them.
Because in that way, you’ve given them an example of what kind of leader they must be when they go out there. They must see it in you and that you must pour into them the DNA that you have received. You pour it forth.
The same way that I’ve taught each one of you to let go of your old DNA and to receive the new spiritual DNA. You pour it all into them, withholding nothing. Nothing.
Can you see why it’s so important that you choose the right people before you even begin? Because you’re going to pour a whole lot in. You’re going to share secrets with people who you might not be able to trust in the future. We’ve had such people.
We’ve had those that came into the original team who were not committed. And so we’ve had to learn this the hard way because that’s how we learn, isn’t it? By making our mistakes. Now that I’ve made the mistakes, you can learn by mine and not have to go and make your own.
Although you still will make some of your own, and that’s part of your learning. I’ve had those who were appointed and committed, and we committed ourselves to be part of this family, to be part of the leadership of GMRN, who never had our DNA. I’ve had leaders who, because they had been in ministry before and showed great spiritual maturity and knowledge of spiritual things.
I’ve had those who supported us financially and helped us, who we felt that, you know, we just let the Lord deal with them. We wouldn’t chisel them too badly because they showed commitment, it seemed. It wasn’t that they bored us, but they showed commitment.
But when the time came to chisel, it showed it was really there. When the time came to speak it straight and call it what it was, we find out they never had that commitment. I’ve had someone living in my home who received more than a lot of you have.
As soon as he had the opportunity, turned his back on all of us. Now he’s got some of the secrets of GMRN. He knows things that most people don’t know about how we operate.
It’s very, very dangerous if Satan has got a hold of him. Very dangerous for us. And I can just pray that the Lord will not allow that to be used against us.
And very often we share things with people like some of our own failures of the past that can be used, that can be made public to try and tear us down because that’s the way Satan works, isn’t it? So be very careful when you choose your team before you go and open to them and share with them all of your past failures and your history. Make sure that these people are going to stay with you through to the end. They’re prepared to pay the price.
Now I’ve failed in that already. Try not to do the same. Now I’ll be here to help you because of that experience and to have the wisdom to warn you.
I’m saying now, watch out for him. I feel nervous about him. You don’t have to make that same mistake.
Okay? Before you appoint a single person in your team, before you come to that final decision, I’m here to help you make that decision. We talk it through. We pray it through.
We make sure that this is what God is saying. See, because those members of your team are coming upwards to be my 70. I’m going to send them out saying, we’re going to set a very high standard from the beginning.
The beginning we never set as high standard because we were learning and because we were just plain needy, which didn’t have that many people in this ministry because we’re on an internet ministry. We had to take who we had and try and make the best of them. You don’t have to do that because you’re part of a larger group now and you have that protection.
Okay, so firstly, you give them everything that you have and then demand from them the best that they have to give. Well, this is a hard one. It’s hard.
You know, I can bring myself to a place of giving you everything I have, but it becomes difficult for me to say, I expect you to give me the best you have. Most of us don’t feel we have the right to do that. God’s had to deal with me about this.
I’ve had to be very straight with you guys. If you can’t be faithful to feed upwards to me, then you can’t follow the pattern because how are you going to give downwards to others if you can’t even give upwards? Some of the members of this team that fell, fell on that basis. I don’t care how bad you’re doing financially.
I don’t want any excuses why you have not given money into this ministry. And it’s not because I need the money, it’s because you need to give. I don’t want any excuses.
If you’re not prepared to give the least money you have, even though there’s no food in the house, well, that’s big, that’s heavy. Listen, I do that. I do that all the time.
And I don’t expect any more of you than what I’m prepared to do myself. If you’re not prepared to give upwards, how will you ever give downwards to your team? Now, I’m not trying to bring conviction and guilt here. Please don’t misunderstand me.
And I’m not asking for your money. We’ve had those that have just taken off this ministry and taken off this ministry. And when it comes to give back, there’s excuses.
One of the ex-members of this team, we gave her the way of blessing free because she gave us a poverty story. And then found out she bought one of these expensive dogs. We had somebody once who was having renovation on their house and then told us they had no money to give 25 bucks donation.
Listen, you find money for your needs. You’re not an ordinary church member here that I’m preaching tithing at. You’re leaders.
If you’re a leader, you’re not prepared to give up all you have. And I mean all. Listen, there’s nothing I have that I will not gladly give away right now if God tells me to.
If any one of you need my car, you can take the keys now and drive it away. And those who live close to me know I’ve done this more than once. I can’t emphasize this enough, guys.
Are you prepared to pay the price for the call? Because Jesus gave his all. He gave his all. He gave his very life blood.
He gave up the throne of heaven. Okay. Come to that place of total sacrifice.
And I’m not being the cult leaders wanting everybody to give up everything for me because whatever you give me goes out as fast as what it comes in. You know what? Sometimes it comes back to you. It does.
That’s the way we work in GMRN. It’s a dumb situation here. We fight over who’s going to give who what.
You know? And I say, well, Jen, I really want to bless you now because, you know, you don’t have an official salary here and you work so hard. And then somebody gives Jen 50 bucks. And she says, yeah, I feel I should give it to you.
I said, don’t be stupid. No, no, I feel I should give it to you. That’s how we sow.
That’s how we reap. That’s how we bless one another. We find excuses to bless one another.
Find excuses to give up everything we have. Find excuses to give away the best we have. I tested you on that.
And you finally, I think, passed the test. Bought this nice, expensive Taylor guitar. I said, you know, I always wanted a Taylor.
I didn’t really. I was just testing him. It was his boast.
It was his baby. See, I don’t want the things that you don’t need. The Lord doesn’t want the things you don’t need.
He wants the best you have. He wants the thing that you cannot live without. And if you have such a thing, give it away now.
You need to. If you’re going to go through all of your possessions and say, this is one thing I really believe I could not live without. Then maybe it’s time to give it away.
If you don’t give it away, literally be prepared to give it away if God says so. And when I had my first keyboard, and I really was beginning to enjoy to play the piano. And I was doing so well.
Colette was really excited and keen to play the piano. And the one day the Lord said, give the piano to her. I said, well, Lord, I’m just learning to play now.
He said, well, let her learn to play now. Give it up. So I went back to the guitar.
I stopped playing. Gave her the piano. And she got up there and ended up playing better than me.
So I got this nice new guitar. And the Lord said, give it away. Yeah, I got to the place where I was afraid to buy guitars.
Because sure enough, somebody out there needed it. Every time I bought one, I’d know, well, I wonder who I bought it for this time. And that’s why I never got the Rickenbacker, you know.
Somebody here was wanting a Rickenbacker. That’s what it was. You know what I’m saying, guys? Withhold nothing.
Whether it be temporal, whether it be your own heart, whether it be your pride, whether it be anything, whatever you consider important to you, be ready to let it go and give it up. But more than that, expect the same from your team. And let them know that you expect the same from them.
Make it as hard for them as possible. Because unless they are prepared to do that, they’re not going to follow through. And they’re not going to have your heart.
They’re not going to have your DNA. And they’re not going to do the same with their team as what you’ve done with yours. And then don’t be afraid to correct them.
Don’t be afraid to lose them. Don’t be afraid to lose them. As valuable as what they may be to you.
Don’t ever think to yourself, well, you know, if we lost that person in the team, we’re really going to have a problem. I mean, he’s the only guy who knows how to use the camera. If he goes, who’s going to do it? Don’t ever let yourself be controlled in that way.
The Lord has somebody else. Not one of us is indispensable. And then test them to the limit.
Or how do you test somebody? This is important. How do you test somebody? You sit and lie awake at night and think, I know what I’m going to do. This is what I’m going to do with Claude.
I’m going to do this and that. I’m going to tell him this. And I’m going to see how he responds.
And then depending on whether he passes or fails, I’ll let him know that he failed the test. I’ve never done that once with you yet. I’ve never ever once predetermined or thought what I’m going to do to test you.
But you’ve been tested often enough. You know that by now. So how do you test somebody? Firstly, you let the Lord choose the time and the method of testing.
Just keep your eyes open and watch for it. You’ll say something. You’ll do something.
Something will happen where suddenly the person is put on the spot. And sometimes you’ll say something in pure innocence, not even realizing that you’re testing the person. You might make a joke.
Sometimes you just get plain angry and just want to slap them. I don’t know. Whatever it takes.
The Lord can use your flesh too. So don’t ever feel a failure when you lost your temper and chiseled somebody. God maybe had to bring you to anger before you had the guts to do it.
But when it happens, you will see. Oh, I know what happened here. That was a test.
Oh, Jennifer, that had been. The worst is when it happens publicly. And when it happens publicly, crucify them publicly.
Don’t be afraid to. And God says, you see what’s happened, that’s a test. And you make you are being tested right now and you just failed.
And then go crawl in a hole and go die for a bit. That’s what’s needed. Don’t be afraid to do that.
You are a leader. And you want followers who are going to rise up and be leaders. They can’t pass the test.
They disqualify. So recognize when a person has been given a test and let them know if they failed. And also let them know if they passed.
If they failed, then they know what they must deal with in their lives. If they passed, they need to be encouraged to know that. Hey, that was pretty tough.
But you know what? I want to encourage you. Do you realize you just passed a test? You should be moving up to a higher level now. You just qualified.
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. All the pain and suffering I’m going through the last week.
So that’s what it was all about. Yeah, that’s what it was all about. Isn’t that exciting? Hey, it’s over now.
Relax. The test is over. You qualified.
You passed. That was worth it then. I don’t mind.
Okay, I’m finished. I just want to say in conclusion, you cannot succeed in your ministry without a team. You will not succeed with the wrong team.
Make sure that you choose correctly. Make sure that you find them correctly. And when they’re ready, then get out there with them and do the job.
Work together as a team. You being the captain. And your ministry will succeed and it will flourish.
And you will know that what you built will remain the test of time. That there’s nothing Satan can throw against it. That can destroy it.
Jesus knew that he could go off to heaven and not just sit and worry about him. He trained them right. He showed them how to do it.
And he just sent them to let it go and do it. As I look at you now, I say the same thing. I’ve trained you to the best of my ability.
I’ve given you everything he gave me. It doesn’t get better than this. You’ve got it.
You’ve got it all. Now go out and be what I am. Go out and do what you’ve seen me do.
Go and apply the same principles. And if you’re going to do it any differently, do it better. Amen.