Thrive Without Striving - Interview with Matt Ham

01/14/20 • 41 min

Matt Ham left a 10 year career in insurance sales to start YouPrint, a faith and personal development organization, and its nonprofit initiative called the Life Center. In this interview, Matt offers perspective on how we can thrive without striving.
[Matt 00:00:58] "Unfortunately we place our own understanding and expectations on how things should work out and it never works out that way. One of the greatest mistakes that we make is limiting God by our own understanding."
YouPrint is positioned as executive coaching, mentoring, community, and discipleship between Sundays. The philanthropic side of The Life Center is about removing obstacles, with the message "God loves you and he cares about you and he desires genuine relationship with you. And He created you for such a time as this. And we're here to walk with you."
"The Life Center is actually going to be a campus style facility where it will literally be a launch pad for entrepreneurial kingdom minded endeavors. It's a vision from the Lord that we are faithfully following out."
The Desires of Your Heart
God gives to you from His Spirit, and your heart is where those desires dwell. "It's like seeds of his genius that he planted in your heart. And you feel them or perceive them through your desires...He says, I will give you the desires of your heart in exchange for your will. You give me your will. And I will give you the desires of your heart. That's it. That's the offer. That's the offer of faith. Delight yourself in the Lord. What does that mean? That means surrender your will. Yield to him. Trust in him. Abide in him. You know, it's all throughout scripture. Who did this the best? Jesus."
"What are you busy with doing in your life? Are you busy with protecting and building your own reputation, or are you more concerned and busy with living underneath the reputation of God and his provision and his literal desires to give you the desires of your heart so that you can change the world for his glory? That's why we do what we do."
Investing in People
"People are the best investment that you can make. Period. Investing in people is the best investment that you can make." Just as Jesus encountered each person in a different way, so must we. What are the gifts God has placed inside that person? Can we see the potential and not just the circumstance?
Being the Church
"The church is the body of believers. That is not confined to Sundays. It's not confined to buildings." That includes entrepreneurism. God has called people into business and into all kinds of roles in society. "We need a people who are infused into those cultures and become literally evangelists in those pockets...God will clarify the call as you yield and surrender to him...The process of discipleship is to get people to that place because that is the most effective way to spread the kingdom."
But How?
Matt says we come to that place of knowing who we really are, and fulfilling our purpose starts with a post

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If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
Master the fundraising story calendar.
Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
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Previous Episode

What Does it Mean to be Called?

While many other books will give you tactics and tools to discover your calling, or to focus your vision, I want to start with The Call, by Os Guinness, because it gives us a solid foundation.

What is Calling?
A quick trip to the dictionary offers these definitions:

the act of a person or thing that calls.
a call or summons
a strong impulse or inclination
a convocation (like a meeting)

The origin of our word for the vocal meaning of “calling” has its origins in the Old English “hildecalla” which means “battle cry.” Calling also shares roots with the Latin word for “glory” - ”gloria” - and this is associated with the vocational meaning of calling.

The idea of calling and vocation is important to us because it affects our personal identity, humanness, and significance.

The main idea for The Call is that there is no calling without a Caller. As Guinness says, “If there is no Caller, there are no callings—only work.”

Here is how the Guinness defines Calling:

“Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.”

We are called by someone, to someone, and for someone. And that someone. The One who calls us is Christ. This is our primary calling. That which we see as a vocational or occupational calling - those things we do in response to the primary call, are the secondary callings.

Distortions of Calling

Guinness points out two distortions of calling, the “Catholic Distortion” which elevates the spiritual over the secular. Then there is the “Protestant distortion” which elevates secular over spiritual so that work becomes the thing we serve.

Then there is the term “vocational calling” which - remember our definitions - means “calling calling.” So what we mean by “vocational calling” is actually “occupation” or work, and before we know it we’ve separated that area of our lives from our primary calling.

Four Key Distinctions

The key to overcoming these distortions of calling, according to Guinness, is to balance giftedness with stewardship. How do we do that? He offers four areas where we must carefully watch the way in which we view calling:

the distinction between individual or particular calling and general or corporate calling
the distinction between a special calling and original or ordinary calling
the distinction between something being central to our calling and something being peripheral
the distinction between the clarity of calling and the mystery of calling

Invitation
Set aside some time over the next few days to sit alone and present yourself and your gifts, your talents and your tendencies to God.

There’s a song that says “Here’s my heart, Lord--speak what is true.” It makes a wonderful prayer.

Somewhere in that quiet place and in th

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
Master the fundraising story calendar.
Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show

Next Episode

Audience of One

This week we're talking about living for an audience of one, in part two of my look at The Call by Os Guinness (see Ep. 31: What Does it Mean to be Called? for part one). Guinness writes, “A life lived listening to the decisive call of God is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others—the Audience of One.”
Have you ever been in a conversation and added a comment that seemed innocent at the time, but later you felt convicted about it? And what about defending ourselves? Especially when we feel we've been unjustly accused or insulted. Right or wrong, the flavor and intensity of my response may indicate my focus has shifted away from the Caller.
One danger in today’s world is that we are so connected and easily distracted. And at the same time we are more anonymous than ever. No longer tied to each other in physical community, our personal relationships are often based on what we choose to show to others, not what they see of us in real time, in real life. This can be a great temptation, as we can do or see whatever we want because we can’t be seen or held accountable. The message today seems we can do whatever we want.

Guinness addresses the distortions and dangers of calling. The reverse side of calling, he says, is conceit. Truth can be distorted, and the most effective lie begins with a sliver of truth.
“The closeness between calling and conceit is easy to see. After all, to be called is to hear God whisper three things to you in a hundred intimate ways—“You are chosen; you are gifted; you are special.” Let those three things sink in for longer than the first precious moments and you will inevitably hear another voice, honeyed and smooth: “Yes, you really are chosen . . . gifted . . . special.” - Os Guinness

If we let that second, subversive whisper take hold, we elevate and deceive ourselves. Above others, and even above God, the very One who calls us. This conceit isn’t limited to individuals. Groups and even nations can follow this distorted, malicious whisper. It is the very nobility of calling, Guinness says that makes us vulnerable to pride. Guinness writes, “Temptation tempts most temptingly when it is a shortcut to realizing the very highest at which we aim. So the twisting of our highest aspirations will be twice as evil as the twisting of our lowest.”
We are vulnerable to pride even as we claim the audience of one. Why? Because the audience of one is not God, but ourselves! It is possible to think so highly of ourselves that we look down on others so that we do not care what they think. If the Audience of One is us, we’re in a dangerous place.

What is the remedy for pride? It is grace. When we understand, through grace – that we are called only because of God’s grace. It is not something we’ve earned or purchased for ourselves. We are unable to call ourselves. God does it, It is by his grace alone.
Action steps:

Read

If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:

Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
Master the fundraising story calendar.
Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
Build your story library and your confidence.

Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show