Julio Rivera | Healing Creative Culture in the Modern Church

This is City Post Church. We're about three things.

Build equipped and send. All under the Lordship of Jesus

Christ, a small church plant in Fort Worth, TX.

Who decided to do things a little differently?

Adoramos Ajesu Cristo I love city post because of the people.

It's where I belong. We truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community we've been able to

build to do ministry like Jesus, for light to push back darkness.

This is City Post podcast. It's management.

You know what I'm saying? Like you get on stage and all of

a sudden you, you think that because Julio got up here, sang

a couple songs, made himself look holy.

That's what makes him holy. No, but that that that is, that

is not the cold. Holiness is not image

management. Holiness is alignment.

Holiness is our ability to see Jesus, see the cross and say

that's where I'm going. Holiness is our ability to see

Jesus, to see the blood stains on the cross and say I want to

be there. Yeah, private lives and public

leadership becoming one. Holiness is character submitted.

Holiness is a heart that's surrendered.

Holiness, ambition crucified. Is that what I want?

It's not what I desire. You don't need tons.

I've said that you know what holiness is.

Holiness is ego exposed and the sad part, sad part, and I'm

saying this with a lot of love. I've been in ministry for for a

long time. I'm very, very young.

I'm very young, guys, very young, but I've been, I've been

in the church, I grew up in the church, Hispanic church all my

life. And we see this in our Hispanic

community. Some leaders are trying to use

ministry to prove spiritual maturity, but ministry was never

meant to be the evidence. Fruit was.

That's right. And so we tried to build our

churches and we tried to put the cameras and put the screens and

put the lights and put the TV's and put all these beautiful

things. But that's not the evidence.

The evidence is how are your people?

They are assigned to you souls. How are those souls?

Como estan Las tan Las cersei Norte entregalen dos manos como

estan Las familias queso como estan Los cratimos de trilesia

Los cantantes de trilesia El butterista que Taco en ocho en

una vadra. Except the mobius iglesia and

the God Estamos, it's just look estamos de ranto iglesia.

It's muy normal. But the reality is, the reality

is that all these things is with our people and the lost souls,

because we come to Sunday morning for those lost souls.

If that's what they're receiving, Does that make sense?

I'm talking passive, right? Yeah, I'm probably leaders from

pastors. Yeah.

OK, I'm, I'm going home tomorrow.

So you guys, this this is yours. All right?

So I promise I was going back to the modern fig leaf, right to

the list. So here's the list.

Perfectionism, figures over functioning, applause,

addiction. Have a fixity, excellence.

That's validation. Have a fig leaf ministry as

identity platform dependency. If it's not me.

The face you make when it's not you.

Singing spiritual performance. No, I'm not going there.

No, you guys can't. No, I'm not going there.

Listen, not all excellence is rooted in health.

I'm not saying to I'm not saying that you can't have excellence.

Please, let's run after excellence.

Yes. But the reality is that what the

world calls excellence, Jesus calls sin.

And so it's time that the church increases what excellence looks

like. It's time that we stop right

after what the world does and building, after what the world

does and what the world has and increasing.

What does that look like? Does that make sense?

Oh, that's so good. I love it.

OK, second point. Second point.

Holiness creates wholeness. Write that down.

Holiness creates wholeness. Holy leadership without

wholeness becomes harsh. Have you noticed that holy

leadership without wholeness becomes harsh?

Wholeness without holiness becomes vague self help.

But when holiness and wholeness meet, guess what happens?

Leaders become trustworthy and they become trustworthy stewards

of God's presence, but only when holiness and wholeness meet.

And so here are 4 markers. I'm going really fast as I want

to get to a certain point and I don't want to take an hour to

get to this point. Here are 4 martyrs, 4 martyrs of

whole leaders, identity who know who they are, the leaders that

know who they are, intimacy leaders who spend time with

Jesus, leaders who can, who you can trust and interdependence.

I love this one. Dependence leaders who work well

with others. It's so good.

It's so good, especially if you just, if you're just starting,

if you're just planting or if you've been 30 years in.

Listen, these are the four markers.

These are the four markers. All right, point #3 you guys

ready? Yeah, This one, this one,

they're all my favorite, but this one's my favorite because

this is often times overlooked. Specialty, specialty in creative

spaces. This is, this is for the entire

church, right? It's for the entire of the

church, for the wholeness of the church.

But in creative spaces, when we're leading worship, when

we're writing songs, we don't think about this.

Maybe we do, but hospitality is evidence of wholeness.

I want to say again, hospitality is evidence of wholeness.

Fragmented leaders use people. Fragmented leaders use people.

Whole leaders receive people. And so I'm asking you tonight,

I'm asking you tonight whether, whether it's you, whether it's

you seeing your volunteers on Sunday or it's you building a

team of volunteers, I ask you, do your volunteers, do your

pastors, do your leaders, do your worship pastors, do your

singers, do your musicians, do your ushers, whatever it is that

you that you run at the church, Do they feel seen?

Do they feel safe? Do they feel valued?

This one's good. Do they feel equipped?

This one's even better. Do they feel pastored?

Yeah. Or do they merely feel

scheduled? If your team only matters when

they serve, that isn't ministry. If your team only matters Sunday

morning, that's not ministry. If your team only matters when

they answer the phone, that's not ministry.

Ma'am. Cuentos Bezos.

Montgomeries. Cuentos Dias cuantas ordas de

ricas ES forsas cuantos momentos either repente not see this it

doesn't not see this croquete. Are you not generacion Y cuando

de generacion? I'm sorry for the ones that

don't understand what I'm saying.

I just feel like I need to say this in Spanish.

I truly apologize. Do you want to try and say,

yeah, do we have another microphone that we could That

one? She's a professional translator.

It's a cheat code yo. I feel that it's a generation.

I. Want to say generation?

I'm not. Talking about age because we

always say the new. Generation it's.

Like a 60 year old not talking. About a.

Talking about hearts, I know there's a generation that seeks.

Celanovia este cin manchas. For the bride to be free of

Clanesh. Sina Rugas.

Free of any Broncos. San Double I believe.

I see it when I go to States and countries.

I see the hunger. And.

The desire and the generation to be better than we were.

I see the hunger. And the generation.

To be better worshipped. I see the hunger.

And so I believe that in this room tonight, there is a

generation that desires to be whole despite the price and the

cost, regardless of what we have to do if we have to.

Go. Whatever it takes, I want to be.

Whole I. Want to be whole.

I want that. Deep and Fruto, then yours and

me. And me be the fruit of God and.

Me. I want the evidence of my life

to be the fruit of God, not what I'm able to do on the.

Other but. That the fruit and.

Nothing. Be birthed and born.

I know and I can feel it. The first atom covered itself,

the second atom surrendered itself. 1 hidden shame.

The other one I'm sore with. Doesn't matter what you bring,

what you. Bring.

Doesn't matter what your past is, it doesn't matter what's

taking place. Lucas Angel.

What you've done? Oh, OK, no, as Angel.

Or we haven't. Or what I said.

Today. El what I said El Pinder via the

ground for two rocker senor care about a thing.

It'd be the first day of that great fuchsia when the Lord has

for you. We no longer have to leave

covered. And this is this is very

important in the Hispanic church.

Listen to me, this is very important in the Hispanic

church. We we all grew up.

At least I did just. Don't talk about what happens in

the house. And ESTA and ESTA.

I think that at this stage that we've reached, we've come to a

place where we no longer have to eat from them needs.

The church does not need more talented creators or talented

pastors or talented. The church needs prepared.

Church needs prepared people, but it also needs holy whole

leaders who can steward the presence of God without using

ministry to hide. So before we end, I don't want

us to leave this place with just leadership principles because

some of the things that we've talked about today, they're not

just systems issues, they're just, they're, they're not just

process issues. It's a hard issue.

Yeah, that's right. And if we spent the last half

hour exposing fig leaves, it would be very irresponsible to

leave this place still wearing them.

Do you agree? So instead of asking you to say

them out loud or respond publicly, I want to invite you

to respond honestly in writing. I already said this like 3

times. This is my favorite part of this

preaching. You know, teaching exercise.

This is what I do every single time I'm going to write a song.

I spent countless hours of studio time, countless hours

trying to really hear what God wants to tell.

It's his pride. And this method and this thing

that God has put in my heart to do really works.

Y'all, It's beautiful. And so you've seen what we've,

what we talked about. You have it in front of you,

you've brought it and you've written it down where everybody

has a notebook and A and a pen, correct?

Yeah. For the next 60 seconds, I'd

want us to really confiscate and really think about these fig

leaves that we may still have in our hearts in our ministries.

I want us to really think, I'm going to put, I'm going to put a

62nd timer. I'm yo, I'm serious.

This is what I do. This is what I do.

And for the next few moments, I want you to resist the urge to

manage the room. I want you to resist the urge to

fix my microphone and maybe fix the keyboard because it's too

loud or I want you to resist the urge.

Don't lean, Pastor, I'm watching you.

Don't lean. Don't analyze.

Don't perform. Listen.

Don't prepare your next meeting. I see you.

You're thinking about tomorrow. Don't stop.

Just be pressing right here. And for 60 seconds I want you to

sit in silence. And I want you to think about

these stickies. And then we're going to do

another exercise. Sounds good.

Here we go. That's kind of odd for great.

It was meant to be. It was meant to be.

It's all part of the plan. All right, for our second

exercise, everybody thought about their fig leaves.

Everything came to mind. Holy Spirit helped us.

I I really truly believe that he did.

But for this for for the next 10 minutes, here's what I want us

to do and this is what I do when I get into the studio and I want

and I need direction. I want you to write honestly.

I want you to grab your notebook in your pen and I want you to

write on this. No one I need and I need this.

No one is going to collect this. We're not going to go outside

and bring this. We're not going to, you know,

frame this on a no, nobody's going to collect this.

This is going to be between you and God.

I'm going to give you a couple of prompts and you're going to

choose one. I want to choose two or three or

four. One sounds good, but I still

want you to write all the prompts so that you share them

with your leadership team, your executive team, your leaders,

your deacons, you guys ready and and paper in hand.

All right, here we go. They're going to come up on on

the street so you can write them.

The first one is identity. What part of my leadership has

become a covering instead of an offering?

Identity. What part of my leadership has

become a covering instead of an offering?

All right, the next one, performance.

Where have I used ministry performance to compensate for

private emptiness? Where have I used ministry

performance to compensate for private emptiness?

All right, third one, intimacy. When was the last time I

encountered God without needing to produce something?

Intimacy. When was the last time I produce

something? Next one.

Hospitality. Have I treated people as son?

Have I treated people as sons and daughters or as solutions?

It could also be brother and sister.

Have I treated people as sons and daughters or brother or

sister, or as solutions? All right.

The next one, Repentance. Yeah.

Repentance. What do I need to confess

honestly before God today? Repentance.

What do I need to confess honestly before God today?

And the last one. I'm sorry if I'm going fast.

I apologize for the last one. Here we go.

Surrender what fig leaves am I ready to remove?

Surrender What fig leaves am I ready to remove?

You guys let me know when you're ready.

Everybody good? Yeah, No.

Maybe you can cheat. Look up at your neighbor's

notes. It's OK.

All right, so here's the fun part.

Here's where it gets good. This is this is what I actually

do in the studio. I want you to.

Grab one of those prompts. You choose, you choose.

I'm not going to tell you which one.

And I want you to write. I'm going to, I'm going to put a

10 minute timer, 10 minute timer and I want you to write.

But listen to me because this is this is where the great songs

come out. This is where the the, the

really good, really good, good songs come out.

Don't think about the prompt. Read the prompt and just start

writing. The goal.

The goal with this exercise is that you empty out your heart

and your mind completely, that when you're done writing, you

just don't have anything else to say.

Usually when you get to minute 8, you have nothing else to say.

When you get to minute 8, you have nothing else to write.

And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, Jesus takes over, Holy

Spirit starts helping, and you start writing words that you

didn't even know that you had inside.

And so I want you to grab a prompt.

You have 20 seconds. Just think about a prompt.

And I'm going to put a timer of 10 minutes.

And they're right. Sounds good.

Don't stop writing until you hear that alarm go off.

Sounds good. You ready?

Everybody ready? Yeah.

All right. Here we go.