After some inspiring worship, its time for Joyce Meyer to be interviewed by Nicky Gumbel. 

A gentle introduction to Joyce and a reminder of the call to church unity. Meyer describes her’dysfunctional’ upbringing when she faced both abuse and rejection. A neighbour took her to church but a recognition at the age of 9 that she was in need of a saviour. She committed her life but recognised that she needed someone to be an example to her and someone else to walk alongside on that faith journey. 

“If you live with someone who is dysfunctionl, do not let them steal your joy. What they need is stability”

As leaders, we should not be trying to give people what is not working for us. We need to be doing behind closed doors, what we are doing on the platform. If you take the word and apply it to your everyday life, if you do your best to honour what God is saying, He will show the way. If God decides to anoint someone for something, it is going to work whatever anyone else says or does. 

As Meyer is sharing her testimony to God’s faithfulness, it is very apparent that the journey of faith in leadership is a hard grind, demands graft and will be misunderstood, but with perseverance, you know that there is no other path to take.

The higher someones profile, the greater the criticism people will give. As leaders, criticism still hurts and leaves you with rejection. Initially, it is most painful. There is a need for us all to be patient with one another. We all have the same problems, we just put different titles on it. A lot of criticism is based on jealousy, people like to criticise success, not because of who you are, but because of what you have. Meyer has discovered that whatever the enemy has sought to take away, God has given it back more abundantly.

John 10:10 – Jesus wants us to enjoy our lives, there are many miserable Christians but we should be happy as we have the light of the world within us. Meyer had to learn that work is not identity, we can have rest and fun. I can’t do what God wants me to do unless I learn to trust Him to help me to do it. God is our teacher and will give us the life that Jesus wanted us to have. 

In Christian leadership, we tend to replace spending time with God with working with God. If you want to be successful, you must learn how to seek God first. Time in God’s presence, first, is vital. Our time with God is not foremost to get a sermon first but to sort self out first. Being in ministry can take a lot out of you. It is important that we are vulnerable with people and we learn to accept that we are all different and that God did this on purpose. You can’t make evryone be a light, you have to find the right spot for them for them to flourish. Even in ministry, we can be selfish. The greatest thing we need to learn in the church today is love – and it will cost you something, it takes time.