Hope City Church - Dave Gilpin (Video)

Unless someone likes you, they won’t get to know you. If they don’t get to know you they can’t trust you. If they don’t trust you they won’t love you. If they don’t love you they won’t be able to see what you love AND will be held back from loving what you love. Like it or not, influence begins with being liked. Jesus grew up ‘in favour with God and in favour with man’. To be liked is to be favoured. To win the favour of others is where great dreams begin. Sometimes people just won’t like you and don’t like you. Sometimes you need to make unlikeable choices. Sometimes those that liked you will unlike you because of them. Sometimes you need to lay down your life. But the rest of the time, which is most of the time, we’re build bridges of ‘Like’ over which the Ubers of grace and truth will one day zoom.

The Kingdom of God is like SLOW TV- it’s like 7 hours 23 minutes of Salmon fishing in Norway on NETFLIX. Even the analogy Jesus gave of seeds being planted is all SLOW SLOW SLOW. And that’s the same for every one AND every church everywhere. We grow slow, church goes slow and we all go slow even when we think we’re all going fast. Almost every bad leadership decision happens by ditching slow and trying to speed things up through raising people up far too early, raising completely the wrong people up, being too authoritative, giving stern ultimatums and creating a fear driven environment…. all understandable, yet completely devastating by sending the church backwards instead of leading it forwards. WHY IS IT ALL SO SLOW? Because SLOW AND STEADY beats FAST AND ERATIC every time. SLOW AND THOUGHTFUL decisions are always better than TOO FAST AND EMOTIONAL decisions. SLOW AND PERMANENT change is better that QUICK THEN REVERSIBLE change. BUILD SLOW PEOPLE THAT KEEP MOVING IN WINTER, NEVER STOP SOWING IN AUTUMN, NEVER PULL UP IN SUMMER AND NEVER CEASE TO GROW IN SPRING. For within them lies the secret of the Kingdom of God. The Tortoise beats the Hare every time. If you’re continually thinking ‘why is God so late at coming through?’ think again. His timing is actually perfect. It’s just that He knows more than you. That’s all. YOU WANT THINGS FASTER? Love SLOW a little bit more.

Becoming conscious of the deep unconscious part of your being is the start of everything. It’s the truest you, the essential you, the vital you. Paul calls it your inner man that sits below your soul and below your heart. So he directs all of his prayers in Ephesians to that place. This message is profound for all looking for a better, stronger, more victorious life.

You’re probably still waiting for that return text, that return gift and that return invite to that party. You’ve probably already decided that they are a rude, self-seeking person who has thoroughly undermined your worth and is seriously vindictive and dismissive. Yet the truth is they probably forgot. They’re thoughtless. That’s all. When Jesus said his last words in Matthew 28, he closed with a nod to this. He said that, ‘I’m with you even to the end of the age.’ In other words, I won’t forget you like others do. This podcast is what you need to survive in a world that would lose its head if it wasn’t screwed on.

You’re either really really tidy or really really messy!! You either pray a lot or don’t pray at all; and when you do pray, your first words aren’t ‘praise you’ they’re ‘I’m sorry’. These are all indications that you may be carrying a virus called Perfectionism. It’s a form of self harm that afflicts 90% of the population. It results in huge guilt, self rejection, an inability to raise a team and a propensity to quit and quit for good. God’s vision for you is not perfection. It’s less than that. It’s excellence. Recorded at Hope City Sheffield, this message will both deliver you and reset you for an easier, more productive future.