It has basic tenants to it like I will love you, you will respect me. It's a pretty good idea right; I will love you, you'll respect me. And inside that it has even more tenants to the basic agreement, like it's a pretty good rule stated or unstated that your husband should not come home and greet you with a punch in the mouth every day, pretty good rule right? Like if he did that he would be breaking his basic agreement alright. [Yeah.] Pretty good idea for you not to address him with obscenity-laced tirades, probably pretty good right? So pretty good for the wife not to address him like that, pretty good for the husband not to address - and whether you've stated it or not stated it these things are understood agreements. Every relationship like that that you have understood agreements about sexuality, you have understood agreements about how we're going to handle money, like it's a pretty good idea for one of the two not to go out and borrow $50,000 without consulting the other person right. Like this is a pretty good idea.
Now in Hebrew culture when you broke your basic agreement it was called marital unfaithfulness okay, marital unfaithfulness. So in a leadership culture as in a relational culture we have to keep our rules and our agreements consistent. It doesn't mean that we don't change our rules; it means that when we change the rules there's a general agreement that that's the best way to do it. You don't change it in the middle of the game okay. Number four, the greedy leader will sacrifice the good of the organisation for the sake of personal gain alright, that's the heart. Now here are the consequences of that. Here's what the culture will look like if we don't deal with that: number one, it's a culture where decisions are made with the good of the leader in mind rather than the good of the organisation; number two, if you want to know if there's some greed in our hearts in terms of leadership - I'm not talking about in terms of money. That's a whole different one. I'm talking about in terms of leadership. If your culture ever becomes defined by turf wars, if the culture of your organisation is ever defined by turf wars somewhere there's greed in our heart that needs to be dealt with.
So if the children's guy is fighting with the youth guy, so if the children's guy is fighting with the teen's guy you've got a turf war. Now in this church's situation if the children's guy is fighting with the teen guy it's a case of schizophrenia because it's the same guy okay? [Laughter] He's fighting with himself. Okay, so this is MY side of the budget. This part of the money should be this, MY department, so there's no sort of consideration to wait a minute, hold on, what's best for the organisation? Any time your organisation starts struggling with turf wars there's greed in some people's hearts that needs to be dealt with, needs to be dealt with. Number three, a culture of secrecy. Why? Why is there a culture of secrecy? Because I don't want you to know everything that is going on, because I want the bigger piece of the pie. See the guilt, the secrecy and guilt is this: I don't want you to know what I'm secretly dealing with. The secrecy and greed is I don't want you to know what I'm doing because ultimately I'll get a bigger piece of the pie that way. It's a scarcity mentality as if there's not enough to go around.
Alright, the fourth type of problem here is jealousy and I don't mean here, I mean in this talk okay. I'm sure that all of us deal with this all the time, jealousy. Jealousy has the underlying thought, it's an entitlement thought. It is God owes me. I deserve something. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever get secretly offended when you're not noticed? Do you ever get secretly offended when you're not noticed? That's a sign of jealousy in your heart. The jealous leader is quick to point out the failures of others. Why? Because they think they're entitled to the promotion, and if someone else doesn't get the promotion then they will. They're quick to point out the failures of others. Number two, the jealous leader is reluctant to facilitate someone else's success. They're reluctant to facilitate someone else's success. Although the spiritual principle is this: whatever you make happen for others God makes happen for you. So actually if you want God to bless your side of the ministry, the best thing for you to do is to partner with someone else in a different department and help them win. That's the spiritual principle. If you're a car salesman the best thing you could do is help someone else sell cars. God will handle the rest for you.