Tuesday, February 18th | Five Kinds of People in a Work Environment (pt. 1)

What's going on guys? Hope you're having a great Tuesday and thank you so much for listening to the Clearview Today Show. I want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by Mighty Muscadine, king of the super fruits. Mighty Muscadine offers a variety of products from their signature Muscadine grape juice to powerful dietary supplements.

All of their products are made with 100% natural ingredients. No preservatives, no added sugars, just the pure, rich taste of Muscadine. So if you're looking to boost your health, Mighty Muscadine has you covered.

Visit their website today, that's mightymuscadine.com to learn more about the incredible health benefits of Muscadines and discover your new favorite super fruit. Use our promo code today, that's T-O-D-A-Y at checkout for an exclusive discount on your first purchase. Not only are you saving money, but you're supporting our show as well. So thank you. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. Give us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

Absolutely nothing less than five stars. Link in the description below. Happy Taco Tuesday to our host, Dr. Abbadon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Oh, I hit the wrong button. I hit the wrong button. I was going to try to give you a round of applause. Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. Thundering into the gym to thunder it in.

I had big, fat fingers, and I just hit the wrong button. That is hilarious. I'm going to give you a little round of applause as well.

Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Welcome to the show.

Welcome to the show. You said Taco Tuesday. I don't know if you knew this, but the way to say taco in Spanish is taco. Is taco.

Mi taco tiene chorizo con papa. Slow down. Let's pour it with... Slow down. Hold on, partner.

I'm overstimulated. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Nehemiah 2, verse 18. And I told them of the hand of my God, which had been good... I'm so sorry.

Let me try that one more time. Nehemiah 2, verse 18. And I told them of the hand of my God, which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. So they said, let us rise up and build.

Then they set their hands to his good work. It is kind of hard to read when it's in all caps. I don't know why, but I was having a hard time too.

My brain was having a hard time processing those words. Well, there might be another reason for that, which we can talk about in a second. But I love that goal, let us rise up and rebuild, and they set their hands to this good work. And I think a lot of Christians forget, Dr. Shadd, that we've got some work to do. This life that we live is not... There's a whole lot of... We need to rekindle our relationship with God. We need to just come into peace with God. Just rest in the Lord. We need to just rest in the Lord. And all that is true.

That's great. Get to work. We need to be working.

The Lord wants us to be working. Well, I love... People have this picture of Adam... I feel like... Maybe this isn't true, but people have this picture of Adam and Eve in the garden. They were just reclining on the meadows. A waterfall.

Just laying back on a giraffe. And there's a vine with grapes that's singling right there. I used to think that. I used to think...

Seriously, I'm not joking. I used to think that because God cursed Adam with work, that work was a curse. We have to do this on earth because that's our punishment.

Right. To the contrary, work is part of worship. Work is worship. If you see the right way, it means every work that you and I do, unless you're like robbing banks and doing some horrible evil things...

It's be difficult to spin this. I'm grinding, man. I'm doing what I got to do.

Yeah, no, no, no. That's not worshiping God. But things that you're doing to build society, to build a business, to create a vision, to improve your community or improve the status of your family and whatever, work as if you're working unto God. That's right.

Anything that you will do will not only first and foremost please him, but also benefit, of course, your family, your friends, but also benefit other people. That's right. That's real worship. So worship doesn't just happen on Sunday morning in church. It also happens Monday through Friday.

That's right. I remember you shared from the pulpit one time, Dr. Shaw, that the work was not the curse. The fact that work became a drudgery, became a chore, became painful, it became fatal. That was the curse. But work was always meant to be part of the Christian life. Okay. So let's look at it this way.

Since you brought that back up, I want to talk about that for a few more seconds. You know, God gave them one day to rest. It was not because, hey, so I know you're working so hard, one day to rest. I think it was more like you cannot stop working. So here's a commandment. One day you have to stop.

Every week, one day you have to stop. Human beings, if we're made in the image of God, we are made to be workers. We're made to achieve and accomplish. Unfortunately, either because of our upbringing or the way our family talked about work, or maybe we had bad experiences or bad jobs or jobs where we did not fit, that we have this disdain towards work. Oh, I hate working. You know, I've known people who constantly talk about retirement. I'm ready to retire. Or they're like, oh, man, the best thing that happened is I retired. What do you do now? Nothing.

I mean, I tell you what, that's good. And I feel sorry for them. I feel sad because either they were raised that way or they were in the wrong job.

I don't know what happened or bad experiences or bad job bosses or coworkers. But that's not how life was supposed to be. You are you're supposed to have this drive to do things and create and build. And God saw that because that's how God is.

He made us in his image, the image of his son, Jesus. So he had to go. I know now that if I don't go ahead and put this one day that they have to put down their tools and rest, rest their bodies, you know, reconnect with their loved ones, rejuvenate their spirit and refocus their heart towards me. If I don't make that one day a law, they're going to work themselves to death because he knew that was part of their makeup.

That's how they're built, not working because we're desperate to achieve and accomplish or no, it's just we're built that way with a drive. And I think that's for that reason, God also gave us a day and night. Yes, there are people who have to work at night. There are people who have to go for the late night shift. I did that when I was in college, I was working a lot of late night security.

I was like kind of on the bottom of the totem pole. So I ended up getting weekday late night shifts. And some of the other guys would get Friday night. And I was like, huh, I wish I had Friday night. Because you got classes in the morning, right? Yeah, I had classes on Monday mornings and Tuesday mornings and Wednesday morning. And if there were early morning classes, I mean, it was bad. I failed one. I failed public speaking because of that. Really?

Wow. I remember, I remember doing working nights at Food Lion and I remember it messed my schedule up. It messed my sleep schedule up because I did it for like a year or so. And then the very first year that I started here, I remember I was still transitioning. I would come out, I don't know if you remember the start of the show, I would come into work at like two o'clock.

Two in the afternoon. I remember that. Because I was still getting off of, I was still working at Food Lion when we met and I was getting back to where like I couldn't, I could not wake up before two o'clock. I remember I would come into the office at two o'clock.

The biggest thing that that did for me though, and I know this is kind of taken away, but I was like, man, this pastor is really willing to work with me because anybody else could have been like, hey, that's not going to work. Yeah. I remember. And that stuck with me. That's like 12 years ago. That was like 12 years ago. I was 21 years old.

And I thought for sure it was going to be a situation where it's like, no, no, no. Here in the grownup world, we get up in the mornings, but Dr. Shaw was like, hey, we'll work with you and we'll get you back on your schedule. That's always been the way. But going back to the day and night thing, I want to make a quick remark there. The reason God made it such that all, you know, morning until evening, you have daylight, go do your thing. Evening is going to be dark.

I think part least so that we will go to sleep. Now, I know again, as I mentioned, I had to work late night shifts, doctors, nurses, you know, first responders, they have to do it, military. I mean, a lot of jobs that have their factory workers have to work all night, but on a large scale or on a wholesale, I guess you can say most people go to sleep at night to stop them. Not just like one day you have a week has to be a day of rest. But even in a day, you have to stop working at a certain point. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's because that's how we were designed to work. It's almost like we feel like people are by default lazy and they have to learn how to want to work.

But God's design is really the opposite. You have to learn how to stop. We have to be made to stop. And that's how we should be. Right.

Made to stop. So then when somebody says, man, he's a workaholic. Like, what's your point? Yeah. Right.

I don't like the holic part, but I mean, what's your point? Yeah. That's how God designed. Isn't that how you should be? Right. Exactly.

Well, guys, don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more Clear Read Today. single dollar you give helps us share the hope of Jesus with a world in desperate need of him. If God is pressing on your heart right now to give to the Clear View Today show, you can visit our website, clearviewtodayshow.com and press that little button that says give today. And we just want to say thank you for your support. May God continue to bless you as you partner with us in making our show as impactful as possible for the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's right.

We appreciate every single one of you. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right, Dr. Shah. We're talking about work today. And I think this is something we have said on the show before, but one of the biggest things that people say about workers in the ministry, and I think, and you've told me this, and I think the longer I've been in ministry under you, the more I've seen it. Thankfully, I'll say this is not the problem here at Clear View Church, but across the board, ministry workers and lazy.

Yeah. Lazy people. I hate to say that. I know there are some pastors and staff members who are listening and you may not be that person, but don't you know somebody who's in ministry and you're like, buddy, you got to do more than this. So I used to get really annoyed when people were like, oh, so you work at a church. So y'all just work on Sunday. And then the rest of the time y'all just sit in the office and do Bible studies and stuff.

That's right. That used to annoy me. In a way it still annoys me, but at the same time, I'm like, now that I've seen a lot more people who are in the ministry, I'm like, I get it. I get why people make that joke. That joke is there for a reason.

It's not unfounded in truth. Yeah. It's sad, but unfortunately, you know, sometimes seminaries train people that way. They make them think like your job now is to go and just kind of walk about, have conversations with people and just pontificate on life. Yes. I think a lot of Christians, I understand that.

Oh, I 100% agree. I think a lot of Christians think that when you live in the minute, when you like work in the ministry, you get coffee with people and you have lunch with people and that is your job. That's all. That's all you do. That's all you do.

Yep. Bible study and visitation. Christians love coffee and Christians love lunch and they'll go get lunch with people.

We can have lunch at coffee. Oh man. That's what they love. And it's sad because churches are suffering, right? Many cities and towns are suffering because there are churches there, but the person who is behind the pulpit or in that pastor's office or that church staff, they just don't know what to do. And then they go to some conference and then some guy gets up there, who's got a pretty good church, knows what he's doing. He said, let me tell you something.

It's not about how hard you work. It's about how or some lofty... How much of your heart, your work is given to God. Yeah. Some spiritualizing of the text. And then the person who says like, I guess I don't need to do this.

Right. I was listening to a speaker today because I listened to some, you know, one of my favorite preachers and I have a list of them. It's not just one or two, I have a list. And he started on that and I was like, come on, man, are you serious? I know you better than that.

Why in the world would you promote that false understanding of church ministry? And he's like, let me tell you, when there's a closed door, don't try to open that door. Wow.

Don't try to open that. I was like, yeah, I get your point. I get it.

I get it. But many, many times it's not that the door is closed. God wants you to go extra hard on it.

Right. Like Paul still, when God closed the door, Paul still tried to go to those places. It was still on his heart to try and go there. The Lord stopped him from doing it, but it wasn't like, he was like, well, I have a feeling. But see what I wanted to tell that pastor, and he's a famous personality.

I mean, he's a very, very famous person. Think about what you're saying. It was not that the door was closed, just stop pushing.

Right. No, it was like, that door is closed, go with this door. But he communicated that when the door is closed, don't push it. You stop.

And I was like, oh my goodness, come on. Now that should not have been his major point on that passage to begin with, because it's about the movement of the gospel, not about doors open and closed. But secondly, even then he did a horrible job because one door was closed, but another one was open.

That's right. He didn't talk about the other one open. He talked about stopping. Just stop. Just stop.

Wow. Stop. Because sometimes some of you will push the door and you try to find a crowbar to prop the door open.

Sometimes you even put a dynamite on that door to blow it up. Stop doing those things. Like, oh, come on. And Christians also have an easy out because they can not do anything with their church, not do anything with their ministry or their organization and say, well, it's just not God's timing right now.

And who's going to argue with it? Try doing that in a secular business or like a secular enterprise. Be like, you know, we wanted to expand and we wanted to grow our profit margins, but it's just not the right time.

They'd fire you. Now, there are times things cannot be the right time. I get that. But it does not mean cessation from work. You still move. You still do things.

You find creative ways to capture the territory you're in, not just sit back and say, hey, it's just not the timing. What are you going to do now? Nothing. No. You're going to do something. Yeah.

Maybe not go down that road, maybe not start that project, but you've got to do something. Right. Because the money it takes to run an organization is not spiritual money. It's real money. You know, real tangible money that we have to spend and we have to pay to keep the lights going and to keep these microphones going and to keep the church running. It's not like hyper spiritualized concept of money. Yeah.

We have to live in the real world. You've hired a lot of people over the years. Like, are you able now to tell these like different types of workers that come in that are looking for a job in ministry? Most of the time. I'm okay at reading people. I'm not going to say I am the best at it. If I were given a scale of one to 10 and 10 being like, oh man, you saw right through that person.

I mean, they opened their mouth, they walked in your peripheral and you saw them, you've nailed. That's 10. Zero is like, you just get bamboozled by like, yep, that's the one. I would say I am somewhere 4.5. Okay. I wouldn't even say five. Wow. Really?

I'm 4.5. You know, when you're in ministry, I was very skeptical, skeptical of people. I was very hesitant. And then you have to go, let's give them a chance.

Let's give them a chance. You become more trusting. The older you get, the more you do it.

No, no, I'm not necessarily older you get. For me, for me, I cannot talk about other people. Some people become more cynical with time.

For me, it was more just seeing how God is gracious to me, see how I don't deserve it. Hey, give them a chance. You never know how God is working in that person's life. Give them a chance. And nine out of 10 times, it doesn't work out. I was right. They should not be.

They should not be given that opportunity. Nine out of 10 times is bad. But that one time, you know, you see something good from that person. So I would say I am more trusting and it's not always for the best.

I see. Do you have like categories that you put people in where it's like, okay, this person, I think this person has a good heart. They want to serve, but they just don't know what ministry is like. Or this person, maybe they're really not here for the right reason. They've heard about all the things that are going on here and they just kind of want our resources.

You know what I mean? Do you have like categories of workers that come through? And it's come from not just personal experience, but also reading and studying on leadership. That's one of the things I do all the time. I have, I listen to leadership podcast, especially like John Maxwell. I love, I love John Maxwell's work. And I'm reading, you know, constantly reading leadership books, especially the classics. I'm always like, read those.

They're classics for a reason. Right. So my knowledge about what kind of a worker you have in front of you is, is based on personal experience, but also studying. And in my understanding, my opinion, my experience, there are five kinds of people in a workplace. And if you want to, we can discuss them. Yeah, absolutely.

Let's do it. So the first one I would say is the worker. And what I mean by worker is not like, man, he's a worker. What I mean by that is this person is just there for the paycheck.

Yeah. They have no desire to grow the organization. They have no desire to grow themselves in the organization. This is simply, they're just passing through. They're quiet quitters.

Like that's what they call it. They're like, they're like, I'm going to do, like, you're paying me, this is a contract. You're paying me for my time. You're paying me from nine to five. I don't owe you any time past five, unless you pay me more. Right. And even then, you know, they may not do an excellent job. It's difficult to develop an attitude of solicitude and solitude. No, you're not getting away with that. Solicitude. Is it really?

Ryan always gives him away, his self away, which I do too. I'm bad at the secret word. Solicitude. How am I going to get that past you? What is solicitude?

Care or concern for others? I feel like you could have got that. Solicitude? There's no way I could have spun that.

Ryan does not use that. I figured I'd at least get a Q. I'm out of it. An attitude of solicitude.

You can't develop an attitude of solicitude and solitude. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, I guess so.

I was like, I'll at least give you a little phrase to remember by. The worker. The worker.

That's the worker. The second category of person that I have encountered, learned about is the saboteur. Yeah, that's a big one. And I think this one people are like really grow up. You think someone's coming in to sabotage you.

You really think you're that important. Yeah. David is the one who gave us that word. What does that saboteur mean to you, David?

How does that work out? When I think of that word, especially in a work organization, I think of somebody who not only has not bought into the vision, but they are intentionally setting up roadblocks or intentionally sabotaging. Yeah. Like they almost like speak in a manner that is going to take the morale out of the room so that people don't want to do those certain things that are going to help the organization. There are people, I've seen people on TikTok who brag about this.

There are people who do apply for jobs they don't want and don't like to demoralize the people around them and to hurt the company. There's a guy, there's a guy, I wonder if I should say his name. His name is Charleston White. He does that.

He will go onto job sites for the purpose of finding violations and suing them through OSHA. Wow. Yeah. People do that. That's crazy.

You have that kind of time. That's how he gets paid. That's his living. That's how he gets paid.

Every lawsuit is like 40, 50,000 dollars. Yeah. I'm sure what he makes there is far more than what he would get if he were to work an honest living. But even then, like you have people who will come into the organization knowing that it's not their fit. I mean, even in churches and in ministry and try to make it of their own vision. Yeah. And those are the saboteurs. Now you find a clear example of that in the book of Nehemiah, especially, you know, you have those three. Tobiah the Ammonite, Sanballat the Huronite, and Geshem the Arab. These were three individuals who were trying to sabotage Nehemiah as he was helping his Jewish people rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. And they kept trying to, you know, harass him and then intimidate him and then try to, you know, extend the hand of friendship with him. But Nehemiah had their number and he was like, I'm sorry, you're not going to come and help us.

We don't need your help. And that angered them. Like, wow, this guy does not take the bait. But he was like, no, I don't want any saboteurs here because it's not going to be good. Right. So if you have a saboteur in your organization, if you have a worker in the organization, let's get what you can out of them and just know that they will probably, I would say eight out of ten times. Yeah, maybe seven out of ten times. That's where they will be. They're not going to buy into you. Yeah, the needle is not going to move. But there is the three out of ten times where the needle may move, like either they grow up, like age-wise maturity comes in or, you know, they catch the vision. It's like, oh, wow, something is happening here and I'm getting this. And they will jump on board and now they will be your best, you know, coworker. Saboteurs, on the other hand, more than likely, unless they meet Jesus, they're not going to change. And the only way to deal with them is you got to get rid of them.

Do you feel like a lot of pastors and ministry leaders are really reluctant to fire people? Yeah, because sometimes saboteurs will come and they will, you know, dig their fingernails, you know, in the system. And so you cannot pull them away. They'll find somebody and they've already dug their claw into that person and now they're hanging on to them. So they try to get friendly with leaders in the church. They try to get friendly with families. They try to get some people as their spokespeople. And man, they make life difficult.

Wow. Yeah, I've had saboteurs. And I have to tell our leadership, it's like, hey, listen, you're trying to be friendly with them and help them and carry them around.

They have an ulterior motive. Right. It's good that you do that, though, because I genuinely, I mean, I've only ever worked for one other person in a church setting, but I think you're one of the very few pastors who will do that.

I think a lot of pastors will try to over diplom, like try to be overly diplomatic and still cast that person in a good light and speaking a roundabout way. And people, you know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. They're stabbing you the whole time.

You're bleeding, buddy. Yeah. I respect that you are willing to go to our leaders and say, don't trust this person.

Yeah. They're not good. I'll tell them. I've told them before.

And thankful to the Lord for that. I've tried not to hire a saboteur. And sometimes it may happen here or there. A person may act like a saboteur and have to work through that.

And hopefully that person doesn't think like that. But that's a saboteur. The third is a survivor. A survivor are, they're not a worker.

Okay. They're not going to just punch in, punch out. They're not even a saboteur, like they're trying to sabotage you.

They're a survivor, which means they're simply trying to get through here. So they will do whatever you want them to do. They will, but I mean, not do, but they will say things that they know, hey, I think Ryan likes it when I compliment him about his hair. So I'm going to compliment him about his hair. John likes it when I compliment him about his kids. I compliment him about his kids. Nick likes this.

David likes that. I'm going to do this, whatever, because I'm going to play the game and then see how they, they're almost like Pablo's dogs. You know, when I ring, they come. Okay. Yep. I got them.

I got them in my pocket. No concern about the vision of the church or the organization. No desire to catch the vision of that church or the organization. They're survivors. They're trying to get, they know that if I, if I play the game, I, and I compliment these people and I get them on my side, I'm not manipulating them in the sense that like, I'm trying to hurt them. I'm just trying to get as much out of them as I possibly can. This is about me. This is about me. This is not about the organization. This is not about the, none of that.

This is about me. Right. But they'll never say that. They'll never say that because saying that without them. So they will often, you know, have lofty things and they will even try to prove their loyalty to you.

A survivor's going to try to blend in. Yeah. They'll try to prove their loyalty to like, oh, you like that?

You like it when I talk? Watch this. And they will prove that.

And, and you know, if, if a pastor or a CEO or a supervisor or a director or a manager is not, not aware, they think, oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're saying all the right things? You're saying the right thing. Yeah.

I don't know where to put my finger on this because I don't like this person and how they behave and act, but they just did this. And I like this. Yeah. Yeah. I like this.

And so I guess it's all okay. No. They harder to spot. You think survivors are harder to spot? Survivors are harder.

Not anymore. Now I can pick them out real quickly and go, that's a survivor right there. Because they'll, do they typically tell you about their life away from the church? Like they don't have a lot of money and they don't have a lot of resources and they, they have the like, they have the right, I guess, backstory. They have a sob story. Yeah. They have a sob story. They're fighting somebody. Just keep in mind when they leave here, they'll be fighting you.

Yeah. You are also one of their source of trauma. So that's a survivor.

What do you do with a survivor? Hopefully just like the worker, they will change. If I were to put them on a grading scale, like I said, saboteur, not going to change much. Survivor, like I said, what'd I say? Seven out of 10. I mean, worker would be seven out of 10.

Survivor, I would say like maybe eight out of 10. Like they won't change? They won't change. Yeah.

Maybe two out of 10 times they may change. You said that there was five. We're almost out of time, but do you want to, do you want to take the last two in the next episode? Sure. And we can maybe recap these, these first three. Absolutely. Cause I feel like there's a good break cause three of them are sort of negative.

The last two are pretty positive. Yes. Workers that you want to have. So maybe we can talk about that tomorrow.

Helpful for us in a ministry setting and even in just the corporate setting and helpful to know who it is you're employing and how to interact with these people, how to lead them. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear View Today Show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen. And you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com. John, anything you want to plug for our listeners?

Yes. Dallas, Texas. We are coming your way in just a couple of weeks. The Clear View Today Show is going to be next week. We'll be there next week.

Next week. We're coming Dallas. Clear View Today Show is going to be at NRB. Come see us. Say hi. Maybe we'll put you on the show.

Shout out your ministry or your organization. But definitely, definitely, definitely come see us. Say hello at NRB. Lots and lots of things going on. Lots of new releases that are going to be coming out at NRB.

Some of them may not be in English. Got a big announcement coming that way. But for right now, make sure you check out Nicole and Dr. Shaw's book, 30 Days of Praying for America. These are daily devotions to heal our nation. This is book three in our 30-day series. Book four is coming out very soon. Also, our new original music is on iTunes or Spotify. Great and Awesome is our new single. You can get that when that comes out.

You can get that on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, anywhere digital music is streamed or sold. That's right. Make sure you guys join us for the conversation tomorrow. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearly Today.