I am currently prepping a message on Passion, Momentum and Enthusiasm. I remember when I was a young leader at Citipointe Church in Brisbane in 2001, I came across a set of videos of TD Jakes Preaching a series called Church on Fire. The context was that he was speaking in his church to Pastors and Leaders. It was predominately on creativity in leadership. The entire series deeply impacted my life, leadership and outlook. In particular the opening lines in one of the Sermons. Thought I would share those few lines with you on my blog. Thanks TD Jakes….your impact on my leadership and life has been immense even just in the four minutes it took you to say these words…
Now the enemy of exceptional is ordinary.
And all you have to do in order to fail to be exceptional, is just be ordinary.
Ordinary people lead ordinary lives. They do ordinary things and they die ordinary deaths. Uneventful, unaltered and unchanged. And they are so boring that they low themselves to sleep and weary those with whom they have to do. Because nobody, hear me good, nobody is interested in following ordinary.
Yet there in is the conflict because within the heart of us there is the tendency to want to fit in.
And if we fit in we neutralise our potential to be exceptional. We need to be accepted and in order to be accepted we need to fit in and if we fit in we are not exceptional and if we are not exceptional than we are ordinary and we wonder why we don’t prosper and grow as leaders.
Who follows ordinary?
Who listens to ordinary?
The press doesn’t even write about ordinary.
People don’t write books about ordinary.
They don’t make movies about ordinary.
They walk past ordinary people and they become anonymous, invisible people. Jesus calls them salt that’s lost its savour. He says if I sprinkle you and you don’t change what I sprinkle you on, you are ineffective. In order to change it, you have to be different enough to alter it. If I sprinkle you on it and the taste is not effected it means you are so ordinary that you made no difference.
And the worst thing about living and dying is to get to the end of your life and to stare death in the face and to think to yourself:- I have made no difference. All of my toiling and labouring and teaching and preaching and praying and perspiring and supporting leaders and supporting leadership or in whatever you are here to do:- whoa be unto you if you don’t make any difference.
There are people in this room who are Pastors and leading churches. There are people in this room who are married to people who are leading churches. And there are people who are supporting people who are leading churches. And each of us have a role to play that is significant and the danger, the most lethal thing that can happen to anybody in this room, is to be ordinary.
Ordinary is your enemy.
Hope that inspires and challenges you as much as it did me those many years ago…..I do not want to be ordinary.
Peter Pilt.
Categories: INC, Leadership, Motivational
peterpilt 
“Ordinary people lead ordinary lives. They do ordinary things and they die ordinary deaths. Uneventful, unaltered and unchanged. (and how’s this for inspiration …adg) And they are so boring that they low themselves to sleep and weary those with whom they have to do. Because nobody, hear me good, nobody is interested in following ordinary.”
One of my e-mail sigs Peter is “Convince me from the Bible, stop trying to play with my emotions”. This imo goes beyond playing with my emotions, it’s a deliberate put down.
In my Bible God takes ordinary people like Moses who asked “Who am I?” or Gideon to whom the angel said “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior” or David, a shepherd and the youngest son and does extraordinary things through them.
I think you are dealing with semantics Adrian….I could put the Jakes post in a scriptural context. There are plenty of examples of people in the bible who were ordinary people who chose to stay ordinary. Then there were others like you have pointed out that God did extraordinary things through…it comes down to choice though. Individual people’s choice. This post is an attempt to inspire people to make right choices to reject being ordinary.
Well it inspire it.
Not sure about the semantics Peter.
Years ago someone who could have been called a “rising star” (and he has risen a long way) was (as expected) given opportunities by God to rise. One Sunday he told us that when we had visiting speakers he’d spend as much time with them as he could because he wanted to get places (which is good) so he wanted to spend time with people “better” (for use of a better word) than him.
My thought response was that I’d have liked to spend time with them too but I’m not in the position to automatically be able to and if I asked I wouldn’t be allowed. I then thought that I’d even like to spend time with the speaker but that wouldn’t happened as he’d just said that he wanted to spend time with those “better” than him, not the other way round, not people like me who weren’t “better”.
Yes people need to make right choices. But lots of people make right choices, do lots of great things, yet stay ordinary. Most people are ordinary, doing ordinary things, but that’s what’s needed for the world to run. And it’s only that most people are ordinary that we recognise those who God made extraordinary.
Jesus said that if we are to be great we must become like servants. That’s extraordinary because we don’t see it often. Claiming to be a leader but telling people that they are “so boring” does not inspire me to be like that person I’m afraid. If that’s extraordinary, no thanks. I’ll do ordinary stuff like providing lonely people with a bit of company, or paperwork to ensure things are done properly/ legally, ordinary stuff, but stuff that doesn’t put people down.
Back again Peter.
I will apologise for not waiting till after this morning’s Church staff meeting before replying. If I had I would have used different (kinder perhaps) words.
What is boils down to though is being told that I “weary those with whom (I) have to do” and that “nobody, hear me good, nobody is interested in (me)” does not inspire me to make right choices, rather it causes me to wonder about the wisdom and understanding of the one saying it, whether they’ve considered the words they’re saying and the affect they may have on people.
How do you explain Jesus’ comments about Christians who lave lost their saltiness?
“… lost their saltiness?”
Never thought of it Peter so don’t see how it fits in. This post seems to be about “improving”, gaining something not losing it.
I’ve some McKenzie’s Australian Natural Sea Salt in front of me. Since I’ve bought it that’s all it has been, salt. And it functions quite well being what it is.
If it loses it’s saltiness (however that happens) I’ll move on to the next bottle, but my salt has never tried to become extraordinary salt.
You’re not ordinary Peter. I praise God for that. But the right choice for some, most even, is to get behind, pray for and support the man that God has raised up to be extraordinary, not try be it themselves.
The blog from Jakes quotes Jesus where he talks about being the salt of the earth and who then goes on and talks about salt that has lost its savor….its impact. I think you have totally misread the statement Jakes makes. Its not condemning. Its inspiring. Jesus was not all warm and cuddly. He was real. He expected results. He hated Luke warm. In fact Revelation says that luke warm makes God want to vomit…Let’s remember that and not put a modern day PC filter over the word of God.
“I think you have totally misread the statement Jakes makes”
Quiet possibly Peter, I’ll re-read it later and see if I understand it differently based on our discussion. I’m not sure if it’s fun to be wrong, but being lead to see something differently and the associated joy of learning something new totally overrides that feeling anyway.
Hello again Peter, I took up the challenge. (It was raining today, I needed something to do …)
I am most pleased that these words of TD Jakes had an immense positive impact on your leadership and life. When God designed and then later made you He went for the something different. In the days of Moses when he “chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” you would have been one of those who had the potentially to become one of the officials “over thousands”.
Similarly, when God designed and then later made me He also went for the something different, but a different “different”. Speaking of Moses’ day again, of the thousand people you would have had the potential to lead about 850 would never lead. God didn’t make them to and I am one of them. Perhaps I’m like one of those who are included in Ex 31 off whom God said to Moses “in the hearts of all who are skilful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you”. Anyway, I do stuff.
And it is probably because of our differences that I see what you’ve quoted above differently to you.
Now that is not to say that if I had TD Jakes say these words I would not be affected, I would not be inspired, because I would be. But that would worry me so let me tell you why.
First worry: To me this is an appeal to the ego, to the emotions.
As I see it what’s quoted here would fit in perfectly at an Amway (or any other marketing) Convention. It’s an emotional appeal to people that says that they’re special and don’t have to be like everyone else. Amway’s intent would be to get you out there and increasing product sales …
…. to be continued
… continued
Second worry: To me some of the things said are wrong, and some are downright insulting.
“Now the enemy of exceptional is ordinary” – Ordinary defines exceptional. If everything was exceptional then everything would then be ordinary. The difference is subjective. To do what I do now 40 years ago, when I got saved, would have been exceptional. God’s been doing His bit so now it’s ordinary. Exactly the same thing though, and if it’s what God wants me to do who’s to say it’s “ordinary”?
“And all you have to do in order to fail to be exceptional, is just be ordinary” – Very ego appealing isn’t it? There’s an underlying implication you’ve a failure of you’re not exceptional.
“Ordinary people lead ordinary lives.” – Yep
“They do ordinary things and they die ordinary deaths. Uneventful, unaltered and unchanged.” – Nope. (This is a lead in, a justification for the next statement) No one’s life is “Uneventful, unaltered and unchanged”
“And they are so boring that they low themselves to sleep and weary those with whom they have to do.” – Apart from being totally untrue that is condescending and offensive.
“Because nobody, hear me good, nobody is interested in following ordinary.” – Well not as inaccurately described above, no, I guess they wouldn’t be.
“Who follows ordinary?
Who listens to ordinary?
The press doesn’t even write about ordinary.
People don’t write books about ordinary.
They don’t make movies about ordinary.” – Ego tickling again? If you become extraordinary the press might write things about you!!! The Bible is mostly about ordinary people. Yes, a lot go on to doing extraordinary things but as Christians we should know that it’s recognition by God that’s important, not by man. If we get it OK, but it shouldn’t be the reason we do things and suggesting that Christian leaders should do things to get worldly recognition is, to me, a bit “off”.
etc.
I could go on (well maybe I am), ordinary people often do extraordinary things, but if they’re always doing extraordinary things then those things are now ordinary.
… and finalised
Third worry: To me the Biblical reference is incorrect
“They walk past ordinary people and they become anonymous, invisible people. Jesus calls them salt that’s lost its savour. He says if I sprinkle you and you don’t change what I sprinkle you on, you are ineffective. In order to change it, you have to be different enough to alter it. If I sprinkle you on it and the taste is not effected it means you are so ordinary that you made no difference.” – Seriously? Jesus calls ordinary people “salt that’s lost its savour”? Most people, most of us, most of your congregation (when you had one) are so useless that the only thing they’re good for is to be a path to be trodden on. Sorry Peter, but being spoken to like that does not inspire me one little bit. Pastors, leaders, shepherds are supposed to look after the sheep, not walk over them. Here’s one commentator’s comment on the subject “So it is with ministers of the gospel, so with the professors of it; if they have lost their soundness in the faith, and holiness of life, they are of no value, nay, they are worse than other men” (http://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/5-13.htm).
Concluding remarks.
To people like yourself Peter whom God has made to continually aspire to what you see as greater and greater things these words can, as you’ve said, have an immense positive impact.
But to others who don’t want to be swayed by our emotions and step back and look at the words used, we (well I, I shouldn’t try speaking for others) see an emotional statement filled with untruths that’s condescending and offending and in an attempt to use the Bible to justify such attitudes is Biblically in error.
P.S. I could be completely wrong here Peter. I’ve never heard Jakes nor read any of his books. I just looked at the words he used here and the “genre” in which he said them.
Truthfully spoken, if all we ever are is ordinary, then even whilst alive we are “forgettable”.
No one will seek you out for anything, no one will want you around, want to emulate you or believe and message you would be sharing. As Christians we are called to emulate Christ…and He is anything but ordinary.