The Missional Man (Ep. #7, The C3 Man)

We welcome Gregg Curtis this week to discuss, in his characteristic humility and vulnerability, living on mission - as an ordinary follower of Jesus - whether that's at home, at work or at play. This is how to impact others for Christ's glory in the normal, daily bustle of your life.

Christ Community Church Little Rock
A community transformed by grace sent to transform the world for the glory of God.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Starts with traction. And that's what I want to start with this morning. I have a picture here of me in a kicking posture. I was the youth pastor at this church for several years, honestly, some of the best years of my life. And we did an event that I inherited from John Denny, one of the founding pastors of the church, and now John Jetnik continues it. And every iteration of student pastor has kind of added to it. Broomball is what we did. And from like 10 p.m. till midnight, we ran out of the Arkansas Stadium. We have however many kids, and it's 20 versus 20 at a time on ice in tennis shoes. And you're not holding hockey sticks, but these weird wooden sticks with these rubber triangles on the end of them. And that's where you're kind of trying to hit this hard rubber ball around with. And so it's like hockey, but it's not hockey. And the hockey, and the hardest part about it is that you're on your tennis shoes on ice. And so I introduced soccer, two-ball soccer, two balls out there, everybody go crazy, 20v-20. And I remember my first year I did it. This isn't the actual picture of it happening. I've learned. You can tell that it's an incredibly powerful kick. And it was a goal. Of course. But the first time I went for that kick, I forgot I was on ice. And I mean, I ripped and I, you know, a good soccer, both feet come up off the ground when you shoot. Watch the World Cup starting in June, you'll watch the best players. That follow-through, you're getting both feet off the ground. And we talk about give, I guess, in physics. If you fall onto your bed, if you fall on your back on a trampoline, even if you fall on carpet on grass, there's give. Ice is like reverse give. If you look closely, they've done studies, the ice will come up and punch you. It will take your soul. I remember I kicked, I fell, and there as the leader of that event, I was having to like decide, do I want to cry right now? It hurt that bad. And I decided not to cry, but I seriously, I'd like to walk off and be like, Justin, don't cry. Traction. The point is traction. Traction. We've been given a definition of uh of man and of the biblical man this semester. And it is the biblical man is formed and placed by God to keep, lead, and bleed for God and garden. Man, I hope that you have that memorized. I hope you are memorizing it. That is traction. That is not so much what you do, that is who you are. You are formed and you are placed. You are formed by God, not by man, not by your wife, not by yourself, by God. And you are placed in a garden. And that means a lot of things. And so we've moved now into what is the C3 man, and we've talked about several things. We've talked about how the C3 man is biblical and relational and missional. And that's what we're going to focus on this morning. And what I want to do is focus on that word placed for a couple of minutes. We are placed in a garden. God has placed you in a garden. Not literally like Adam. We don't have that pleasure. But metaphorically and in a very real sense, you have a garden. God has planted you. And even yes, and I hope that you guys have walked around in your garden. That that is something you're visualizing, that that is something that you're taking very seriously, and you're starting to use that language to see the world in which you live, because it brings about, as we'll get to, an incredible mission to your life. And even yesterday I was driving, and instead of turning on a podcast like I normally do, I walked through my garden. And if you remember, all the way back to week two, which I know you do, we did that together with our eyes closed. And remember, you can write this down. We had we have the garden, G A R D E N, and I just walk through this. And so you say, gee, okay, God, where am I at with you, God? And then you get into your appetites, the good and the bad. Where is your ambition? Beautiful. Where is it unholy? Your lust, your body, your sexuality, your hunger, your thirst, your need to be included, that feeling that, man, I don't feel like I belong. I'm significant. There's these appetites that we have. And then we get into our relationships. And to be honest, that's the big one. There are a lot of people in your garden that you bleed for. You will either bleed the garden for yourself or you will bleed yourself for your garden. You are its keeper, its shamar. Then you talk about disciplines. Okay, these are great things to focus on. How am I disciplined right now? What are my rhythms? Where do I need to create rhythms and keystone habits? And then you get into your emotions, which we're really good at as men. Kind of turning inward and being like, okay, here's what I'm feeling. I got an argument with my coworker. I avoided conflict with my wife. My kids are acting like this. What are our emotions? This is good. This is a part of your garden. You are a part of your garden. And then end is neglect. And that's just your next best step. It can be overwhelming, especially if there's a lot of smoke in your garden. Things are on fire. What have I been neglecting? What can I get my hands on right now as keeper and use my strength towards? That's what we do with our gardens. And in all of this, this can seem kind of inward focused. Like, okay, Justin, so we're just gonna be focusing on ourselves all the time. No, no, no. You're looking at it the wrong way. This is incredibly outward focused. As you are tending to your garden, there are other people in your garden. There are objectives, there are hills to take, there is wild to advance your garden into. That is all outward focused. We're gonna talk about missional or missionality this morning. And we have an interview with Greg Curtis that I'm just stoked for. But missio, the Latin word, does not mean special. It means sent. If you are in Christ, you are on mission. And that just meant, that just means sent. You are, you are sent. And so every part of your life has a mission to it because you are sent. Every time you are tending and keeping your garden, you are working the mission that God has given you. And that goes back to our definition. Because you were placed in the garden. To do what? To keep, to lead, and to bleed. What gives a man traction is a mission. You are sent. That matters deeply. Now, the main thing I want to switch in your brain, if it's not already switched, is what happens when you hear that word mission or missional. If the first thing you think of is long-term missionary, those are the missional ones, then no, that's not it at all. We love long-term missionaries. I pray men from this room become long-term missionaries. There is no higher calling. But that's not just what it means to be missional. Not according to Jesus. Very common, uh famous passage for good reason. Matthew 28, 19, the Great Commission, Jesus is resurrected, talking to the disciples, and he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. I did something nerdy yesterday, and I looked into the Greek just to make sure, because I've been taught this, and I wanted to look. The word go is not an imperative. It's not the command. It's a passive participle. It means in your going. As you go, there's a passive, a passiveness to it. Not a bad passiveness, but just as you go, as you work your garden in our language, as you tend to things as keeper, wherever the Lord takes you today, there's that passiveness where God is leading as the active character, make disciples. There's the imperative. As you go, be on mission. That's all of us. All of us are called to that mission, not just long-term missionaries. And so the most missional thing about you, men, is how you tend to your garden. And how honest you are when you fail to tend your garden. Because let's be real for a moment, men. What are the two things you will never do when you men, when we are living kind of in our carnal flesh, when we're not walking in the spirit, what are the two things we will never do in those moments, in those seasons? We will never pursue holiness, and we will never admit when we are living unholy. Those are the two things. And so some of the key things about being a shamar, a keeper, is pursuing the things of God and just admitting when we're not. And so before our interview with Greg, I just wanted to have three quick takeaways as on-ramps to becoming more missional. The first, oh, there's there's the points, to pursue holiness and to admit when not holy. Okay, this is what we do with Shimmar's. I forgot about that slide. Number one, on ramps to missional living. Okay, that you're already doing. The first is to decrease self-infatuation. The truth is, we all know that you are a mess up. Our theology is good enough to know. I know each of you, without even knowing all of you super well, are a total mess up. I know that because it took the second person of the Trinity to die to redeem you. You're that bad. And I'm that bad. And so, men, a part of being missional, and we'll hear more about it from Greg later, is just to drop the mask. You're already exposed. Jesus was on the cross. That's the moment where it's like, okay, I can't hide. But yet we still get so self-infatuated. We still think that we can fool everyone. I think I have you guys fooled, and this is one of the worst things about me personally, is my idols to make sure I look really good in front of everyone. I've given me and my wife have given names to my idols. I would recommend you uh giving names to your idols. You've got uh Super Justin, and you've got Justin Jesus. And these are not good terms in our household. These are things that I'm working to kill, but they're there. I deeply desire from wounds, from my past sins, all of my insecurities, I want you to just know that I'm perfect. That I just I got it. I have the capacity for everything. My shoulders are broad enough to take it. And that's an I'm confessing that. It's embarrassing. But like it helps me not be so infatuated with myself, which now helps me to steward my garden. And you have them too. And so maybe that's a first step today is to name your itis and do it with someone else so that you can't hide or duck from that. Uh, the second is to increase exposure. I just want to get real practical. It has never been easier to be alive. Like, if you think about staying alive, like it's never been easier. And that has led to really soft men. The fragile men. We are way softer than our counterparts 200 years ago, a thousand years ago. That's not to shame us. Let's just name it. We are we are way softer. And so, what I what what I what I mean by increased exposure is we have to go, we are way more comfortable than we even realize we are. And so to go about our lives on mission, in Christ and on mission, guys, just like we need to open ourselves up to being uncomfortable. Whether that's talking to the Spirit today and saying, okay, you're gonna you're gonna tell me, Spirit, I know you are, you're gonna lead me into something uncomfortable. An uncomfortable conversation, an uncomfortable workout, an uncomfortable discipline, you're gonna do something you might put your phone up for three hours today. That's uncomfortable. You're gonna feel your addiction just start to flare. As we increase exposure and leave ourselves out there just to have discomfort flood in, resilience is built. And then as we become more resilient, spiritual things just become more normal. When God says, hey, there's a person over there that I'm leading, or you know that there's an uncomfortable conversation. I mean, you could go down the list of examples. When we are resilient, we are adaptable, we are not slaves to being comfortable, and we're we're like not just living in this soft contentment, and we want to stay there. So we want to decrease self-infatuation, increase exposure, and release expectations. And here's what I mean by that, man, as we end. Just follow Jesus. A lot of times we stop with our mission. We stop seeking impact, we stop tending our gardens because it's not happening quick enough. Gardens take a long time to grow. Man, it takes a long time to repair a marriage. But it's a beautiful thing. And a lot of times it's two steps up and three steps back. It's the way it is. It takes a long time to disciple kiddos, to influence your coworkers, to stop laughing at their sexual jokes. Like you might be disappointed in yourself, you might be disappointed. The people that you're supposed to have influence over, take your expectations, divide them by three, linger in beauty, and just follow Jesus. I heard, I wasn't really planning to say this, I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and they talked about pastoring on the y-axis. Pastors these days, it's all I don't know geometry algebra, so this is about all I know. X axis, I think, goes up. And it's like, man, there'd be these celebrity pastors. Is this wrong? I'm done. Maybe I misheard the point. So I want to have a uh this is like me talking about duck hunting at the men's retreat a couple years ago, Toby. You were just slapping your forehead. Okay, well, I want to introduce a new concept to you guys. Uh this there's the J axis. J stands for Justin, not Jesus. Crap, my idols. The point is we are so flared right now with like what's trending, what's up. And what about the length of time? What about overtime? What if like being men of our gardens over 20, 30 years and just this steady down, up, down, up is more beautiful, and we create a culture that's more celebrating that than like these big glorious moments, as glorious as they are. That's an original thought. Uh, I just think that's really profound and pretty defined in a culture that's all about just trending and quick snapshots. It's just, man, let's just release expectations, follow Jesus, and we'll be men on mission. Amen. And then, okay, well, I want to have an interview now with Greg Curtis. One second. One second. Greg is uh, Greg, you mean a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. Uh, you were the first person to really take me seriously as a pastor when I came in at 25 years old. You treated me like I was a man. And what you mean to my wife, and what you've done for us, and when I say you, I'm throwing JD, your wife, in there. I I am uh I could not recommend a man more heartily than you before these men. You, even from the start, Tim Lundy, he was like, Justin, tether yourself to Greg. He's got his ears to the ground. That's a man. And I was like, yes, sir. And I'm just honored to have your number and my phone and that you're always, always there for me. And you really have been there from the beginning. And so, men, I am so excited for this conversation with Greg Curtis. Can we give him a warm welcome? Yeah, sir. Greg, as we're awkwardly transitioning, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah. Born and raised right here. Is he on? Did you mute it, Toby? Okay, that's not bad. That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah? Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Good?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. Okay, sorry. Born and raised, my own dying right here on the rock. Uh high school sweetheart. 41 years. Uh doing some great counseling. We're still married. I got three kids, maybe Christian, one daughter in Paul Jordan, and two grandkids at player.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I know you're the kind of guy that just likes to dive right into it. Keep you on track. I'll keep you on track. But uh no, I'm not gonna do that. Uh you know what it's like, Greg, to live without mission. You know what it's like to live on a wrong mission? Uh can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah. Uh without mission first. Uh I'm gonna start with my family. Uh and I'm I'm a guy that gets emotional. I know you say sometimes you don't like me get a cry. I do sometimes I cry. Definitely uh mission. Uh and then kids didn't realize it till they wrong in person. I'm not sure that's hard. So I just encourage all the kids in the same attention. If you don't know how much you're slightly, come ask me. Come ask Justin S like. I think the other thing I'm missing.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Can I do that wrong with it? I would just say if you're a grandparent with young grandkids, because that's who uh easy to baptize me by grandparent. So I just want to say, just throwing another bucket up there with young kids.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Can I get a redo with that, if you will? There's like two songs that I think everything's in Scotty K. And this is They sing those songs. You have to sing them for them. So, but they did pay attention. The other thing for my kids was um just not getting involved enough in what they were doing. Uh I got involved in their sports, coached my kids to one waves from time, they could do anything until they got in activities. But I didn't get involved in their in their friends, lives, and I didn't realize some of the things that they were involved in. So I encourage your dads to really know your friends' kids and to be missional about it. You've got to set it up now and just get involved. The wrong mission. The wrong mission. Um multiple times. Uh, because uh missions may last a short period of time, they last a lifetime. Uh the wrong mission, again, I'm going to go back to work. Um probably 17 years ago, maybe 18 years ago, we were kind of identical of what I thought the Earth was and what it really went. And a lot of local standing boards were recognized nationally, I was getting opportunity to see about marketing and management, those kind of things. I'm like, and I I've got this area. And uh I mean I was having this great ride and just getting active waves all the time and didn't see the death. So that injury, that scar, that wound, it took about five years of counseling uh for us to work through that. But honestly, just in the just went until recently, the Holy Spirit revealed to me the damage that I caused. And I was able to go back and apologize for that period of time when I was totally on the wrong mission. Where I made it feel less a woman, or that's a wife, or that's a mom, and it was saying. So wrong missions can cause a lot of damage. So uh we have plenty of community groups here right now. If you're not in a community group being in one, uh Julian have been in one since our second-year marriage. And they can if you'll let it happen, the men in that group, and it's a code with the boss fight pretty quick. They can tell when you're on the wrong mission. Um that's one of my wrong missions.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

It's not just our sins that can lead us from the word, it can lead us away from the words, it's our successes. Oh, 100%. So let I just want to hand you a boxing glove and let you take a swing. What are some wrong, be as brave as you want? What are some wrong visions you see men on uh these days, the men that you're rubbing shoulders with all the time?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh yeah, okay. So, like we've been community for a long time. I've called a frustration, um, aggravation, wrong vision, how you love your kids, but don't make them a point. Okay? I see so many guys get too involved in their kids' activities, and they go from one practice to the next practice to the next practice. Uh they don't put their lives first, they don't put their families first, they put your family first in the is what I said at the beginning. Odds are there might be a group of men that I run around with. And then at this church, there might be one or two D1 athletes later on. There might be one no pro player anywhere. But I think it's we put on sports, and I see these young families put on sports. You're not allowed to experiment what's going to happen for another 10 years. But we can see some of the damage in some of the couples that we interact with now. Just like I said about the damage I made from wishing. We see the damage in those families now because you're going from practice to practice to practice.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Greg, I've seen you from the start, my first interaction with you, as I kind of mentioned, was C3 students. And um I just saw the way you love Julie. You love like not many companies in their late 50s are in student ministry. Not just in student ministry, but I'm getting in spot to them first. I don't want to put your secret songs, I don't have much to leave for them. I don't know what something of what's going on there. Because we're taking it to run to the police call people in the whole time for the loader.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

This is not for real. I'll just look on the ground like throughout the crap. Uh just I think it was at the very beginning. Uh John D said, we need to get a youth group, but they're just one eight place in July. I don't fear why sometimes they step out before you do it. Maybe you can buy them. My my idea, she was the very first community, our very first youth group, came back and told me about it. I'm like, okay, I can be a part of this. And we met in our house for months and months and months. And the the blessing of that, the neutral blessing of that for me, I don't I don't think I called it, I don't know if I called it bleedy. It was, it was, it was energizing, it was fun. Getting to interact with these young men and women, sitting in our, you know, 40 kids sitting there eating the pizza rolls, getting it on the carpet, which was great. On our pool table, all over the couch, and just get interact with them and see, honestly, see what I what I missed. Not kids, you know, and it made me uh feel for the parents of the parents like you don't know how good your kids are. You don't get an opportunity to see how much your kids want to love the Lord. So bleeding could be a term literally for me at that one point, but other than that, it was an honor to get together with other people.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, it's good. Greg, when I think about you as a man, you're the leader, you as a just a man that's on mission 168 hours of a week, um, living here in littoral connect. Uh, vulnerability is crucial to you. Yeah. Why?

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Um I'll never share my view, my opinion. Um if I've never experienced it, um I'm gonna refer you to someone else. Uh just not just my opinion. They're about the only opinion I'm gonna give you. Um vulnerability I've learned over the years, and it took me time. And uh mainly you've got to know when to share, how to share, what to share, what not to share. But I've seen vulnerability over the years make an impact pretty quick. And as you said, you're not a vote to open the book. And good or bad, um, I've experienced uh more than I want to share right now in life. So if somebody comes up to me and said, hey, I'll share something, um, and I'm like, come on. Okay, I'm sure how I gotta do that, how I don't deal with that anymore. So vulnerability for me is just telling the experiences of my life, and hopefully it'll be something that can impact you. The guy can use that in a way, because the way he's used it in my life of people being vulnerable to me is helped the heal is still helping the healing process in my life. So vulnerability is really good. Yeah, we elaborating more. No, okay, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Um, okay, so we've come to the end. What is your burden for these men? As they live sent by God omission right now, 167 hours, and so we're right back here. You know, what is like your your heart's burden that you could just just throw out for all of us to these men?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Uh you said in just a second or one of them, don't take yourself too seriously. Um if you if you really want to know what's going on in your life, ask someone close to you, ask your wife if you're brave enough. So do the things with manually or your emotional segment. So I just want that's one of the hard ones, but it's fun. Asking your wife, certain things. Uh, but I don't know before I get to that. Um I think uh men are scared to ask for help. Men use any excuse uh not to do something. Uh again, in this room, there's a lot of knowledge in this room. Uh odds are you can ask somebody that experience it. If you got a question, ask me anything. Uh experience it. I don't know how I'll probably know some of you that can. But to go back to that, just ask. Um I think there's two things that I'd love to share on this. Yeah, okay. Two things I'd love to share on an issue. One is if if you have kids and they're 25 and over, um, and write them a note. Uh some people uh call it dressing, write them a note. In my case, I didn't have to do it with all three other kids. Um oldest son, Cody, I actually had to do an apology letter first. And uh I did that, and it took about five years to be able to write a note to tell me when I was sawing it all like it, to tell them how to see them. And for the guys that that are older, you might be thinking, man, that's that's gonna be hard. Um it's not, it's it's a simple um Justin. Man, I'm so proud of you, just the way you love your wife and your family. Uh, when I see you look at May, it's like I know about your first day that you've talked about it, but it's like you look at her like your first day, and the way you raise your kids, it your own mission on that, your own task, you want them to love the Lord. One of the things I love about you, you're at the Good Earth one day, and these kids are down there, you know, in a mud puddle. And the wife's up there going, boy, and he's like, it's no big deal. And I'm like, he's right, that's not a big deal. But what you teach your kids in the way you want them to have adventure is amazing. So thank you for that. That's that's a good start, okay? Just start writing things down what you notice about your kids. So I'm a I'm a I grew up in a volume kid. Me and my dad said, I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna do that. So I carried that into my preparing style. So it took me a while as I was writing these notes to my kids and write down the things that I saw and down that guide to see up and make that note as well as you want. Ideally, uh, try to read it to them. I only got to do that with one of mine, that's my daughter. She likes to put me on the spot, so she wanted me to read it. Two boys, I just gave it to them. Uh, the other thing is um, we all have parents in here. Right away tricky. Um, take time again to go back and look at the things they spilled in your life. Uh Julie and I have to do this with several people over the years. If they uh passed away, it's okay. Um my favorite story is a guy like Boston, and he was watching me work with another man at work who worked with his character's tribute. He goes, What are you doing? I don't like the treatment. My dad's dead. It's okay. You know, we don't know about my dad. So I I have wounds for my dad, I think. There's always comparisons. I don't know. But Robert's dad actually tried to kill me twice. He shot at me twice. Let's figure this out. Took it about a year, he came in his dress blues, went up to the cemetery, read it to his dad, buried it, came back by another shape. Called his mom and his sister, he's like, What are you doing? He told me to heal me. And he told me guys that we five years ago every year, and he was talking to himself. So there's something powerful in tribute. Um I got to meet both of my parents while they were alive. Um I recommend someone to use about a page to a page and a half for him to put some pictures there. Do not build this to him. Because I passed away, you're gonna tell them. Yeah, we get it too. Again, the lesson that goes back and forth is unbelievable. So to back up, to be on mission, decide what your mission's gonna be for the next, well, the next three weeks it needs to be finished this up. Yeah, and say you participate in the series. Uh preached at the same way at the end. Um so I did probably do this as well. And that started my mission of thinking. Uh again, I got on the long weekend overline sometimes, uh without mission. Uh but I didn't say a little bit about work for a second. Yeah, okay. Um, because good earth was a big part of our work, it's part of our part of our injuries and our family, but it was also part of the blessings. And Julie and I early on learned that uh that was when we were on mission because we did overseas missions as well. If you're if you work right now, um you cannot get in trouble for sharing your story. Uh the ACLU can't get on to you, the lawyers can't get on to you. You can share your story. And multiple times probably a year or two, and I got to circle around somebody because they said, Hey, you can tell me somebody's trouble. And you say, What's up? I tell you, they said, Can I show you a little bit about how I dealt with this? You can't get in trouble for that. Another thing we did is we prayed for people. Uh that's powerful. It's really, really awkward. Uh, the first time it happened to me, uh, somebody on the king total, he came in. He's brave. But uh it was a spring day, and he used to come and check on me once I said, We're done. It's April this time of year, 11 o'clock. I was can't pray for you like, no, you pray. Everybody needs to pray for it. You go, no, no. Right now. Right now, right now. He wings up and just starts laying his hands on him, praying for him, right? What seemed like Tim, they seem to get that nervous sweat, start to sneak. That was me. I said it felt like Tim that's me. Justin, I get done and I'm like, well, what is this gonna be like? I look up, there's two or three people. Yeah. Yeah. That Holy Spirit gave me the freedom, and they go, it's okay. And the amount of people that that uh really have to freedom can work, co-workers, and then reach out, but uh just customers. I go story after story with that. The blessing of that, that uh the first time you do it, it's awkward. But after that, man, it is it's powerful for everybody involved.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, that goes back to just the exposure I was talking about. Just expose yourself to the hard, uncomfortable thing, it ends up being amazing.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

But that's also you know you you've got to notice it. Yeah, you can't just be well hopeful to bring somebody about forget to pray with. But you gotta notice what's going on around you. Notice your coworkers. Some of you work remote, uh that's what we do. Uh it doesn't mean when you're on Zoom, you can notice something on Zoom. Maybe text that person and say, Yeah, for you off the Zoom, you might follow it. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I mean, can we give it up for grid?