Vision – Part 3 Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Vision Part 3 with Pastors Aaron and Lawson Perdue! In this session we’ll talk about how people of vision help us find the vision of God and fulfill God’s plan and purpose for our life.

Vision Part 3 Transcript

Friends, I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today. We’re gonna be sharing on vision. God has a vision, God has a dream. God has a plan and a purpose for your life. And I believe that you can fulfill it. And we’ve been talking about ways that we get vision, but one way is through people of vision. So, we’re gonna be sharing today about how people of vision help us find the vision of God and fulfill God’s plan and purpose for our life. Stay tuned. Friends, it’s so good to have you today. We’re continuing to talk about vision and where it comes from. And thank God, God has a vision for our life. God has a plan for our life. Aaron, I believe that if people knew how good God was and how amazing his plan for their life was, how much that he loved them, that they wouldn’t serve the devil for one more day.

Amen, I agree. So, I agree too, yeah.

And you know, God has a plan for your life. It’s a good plan. You know, sometimes it takes different turns in how he gets us to that plan. And I know God took you through secular college and you went to Carnegie Mellon University, got your undergrad in music and also in business. And then you went to Rice University and got your master’s and doctorate in music. And some people say, “Well, how could God use that to help you in the ministry?” And I know when I felt like God might be directing you to come here. And I prayed about it for a period of time, and I talked with Pastor Max Cornell, who was my assistant pastor at that point in time, was my assistant pastor here for three years in Colorado Springs and helped me, volunteered before that while he was going to Bible school. But then Max, Max has a master’s degree in English. And then Max went to, and he’s a teacher, by trade he was before he came here. And then he went to Kansas City and we helped him plan a church. And he’s actually done a great job. Pastors in the west side of Kansas City, in Johnson County, Charis Church, got a great church there. But Max felt like, yeah, that’s God directing you to have Aaron come here. And you prayed about it for several months. And then you got real clear direction from God and you said, “Dad, I’m gonna come here. It’s not about a paycheck, it’s not about a position, it’s about the call of God.” But you know, I believe that you learn things that have really helped you in the ministry while you were studying really music in the world. You learn things also about administration. And I know you help us in administration. You oversee all the pastors here at the church. But I believe there’s things that you learned in the world that helped you. Lawson Sumrall would go travel when I went to his ministry, I worked for him. I went to Bible school there. But he would travel around the world and he would go to the very best churches, very largest churches in the world. And he would come back and tell us, “Well, you know, this person says this is why I’m successful.” But then he would say, “Well, this person studied to be an architect and their dad was in the military. And so because their dad was in the military, they’re very diligent. And because they’re an architect, they’re very precise.” And I know things that you learn from classical music. You pay a lot of attention to specific details. And you know, the difference between good and great is the details. And so I think you learned a lot of different things there that are helping you fulfill, you were trained in my house, you grew up with the Word, right? You heard the Word on a consistent basis. You’re very diligent. And even I believe God was calling you prior to that. You’ve never missed a Christmas service, Christmas Eve service here for.

Ever.

Ever at Charis Christian Center. Even when you were going to college, getting your undergrad, your master’s and doctorate, 11 years of college that you, but all those things developed you. And I know one of my leading board members at that point in time, I shared it with my mentors, I shared with my board members. But one of them said all of these things that you traveled all around the world and played in different places in Argentina, Central America, Spain, you know, Europe, and you’ve played all over the world. All those things God used to help you fulfill what God’s called you to do here.

Yeah, there’s a proverb that says a man plans his steps, but the Lord directs them. So you might be thinking you’re headed in one direction, but you need to be open to hearing from God’s voice. ‘Cause sometimes he leads you in a certain way that he’s trying to develop you.

Develop you.

Develop things in you before you jump into the next steps. Sometimes people just wanna jump into the next thing without really going through the process. You know, vision is a process.

[Lawson] Yeah.

And it’s not a sudden thing. And it’s not always a direct route either. You know, sometimes if you just, the quickest point, the quickest way is a straight line. Sometimes God wants to take you on a different route to get there.

Just talk about Mom and I for a little bit. I knew at a young age I was called to preach the gospel and I got prepared. Andrew Wommack left Lamar, but you know, I got involved in a good word of faith, Spirit-filled church. The pastor saw the gift, saw the calling, began to teach me, began to train me, began to invest in me. So I went through the Assemblies of God and got in their Berean School program. And you know, through that program, I got essentially the equivalent of a two-year degree. And then he called me to go to Lawson Sumrall’s Bible School. Well, when I went to work for Dr. Lawson Sumrall before I went to work, they said, “Can you come volunteer this Saturday?” I said, “If I can move in my house on Friday, I’ll come Saturday.” Ultimately, we moved in our house on Friday. So that Saturday after they hired me, I came and volunteered. Now, I wasn’t to go to work till the next Monday, but when I went to work that Saturday, I saw that Dr. Sumrall had a degree from Berean School. So I asked Dr. Delron Shirley, who was the dean of the school, “Hey, could I get some stuff?” And so he said, “Get your transcripts.” And so it was a couple months ahead of school then. So I called and got my transcripts back. And out of the 64 credit hours that I’d taken at Berean School, they gave me credit for 42 credit hours to put towards my degree. So I was able to graduate with a two year degree in one year. And then after I graduated, we started the church in Kit Carson and in eastern Colorado. And God had been directed me towards that. But after we got the church built, then I got my four year degree by correspondence. And so, you know, different ways, but a lot of people, in fact some of the leaders at the ministry, the office manager talked to me years later. He was a wonderful man. His name was Ken Aldrich. He was their office manager. He said, “We all thought you made a mistake when you went to Kit Carson.” And some of my friends told me, “Why are you going to Kit Carson?” You should be going to a church of two or 300, not a town of 300. I said, “Well, this is where God called me to go.” And so, I felt like I can do this, God is with me. And then after we were there 13 years, God called us to come to Colorado Springs. And I told your mom, “Listen, if Jesus doesn’t help us, we’re done, we’re out. Hang it up.” And you know, the scripture says, “Jesus said, ‘Without me, you can do nothing.'” But I knew, you know, when I moved to Kit Carson, but here, I said, hey, if the Lord does. Both of those things, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And without him you can do nothing. They’re both still focused on Christ. But I know I had more of a focus on Jesus when we came here. And it was much more difficult starting here. I believe if we would’ve moved to Colorado Springs to start the church when we first got out of Bible school, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are today. But God moved me to a very small place to put me around some people of vision in the natural in the world, right? And taught me some things that have really helped me, I believe be even better where we’re at here in Colorado Springs. And help me think in a bigger way. He put me around some farmers ’cause I was raised with a small mentality that had a big mentality. So one thing that God uses, we talked about how God gives us vision. The word of God gives us vision. God spoke to me before I went to Kit Carson, gave me a scripture about when I was praying about where am I gonna start my ministry, what am I supposed to do? And God gave me a word from File Lehman about the church that is in your house. And I called the people about the Bible study in Kit Carson. And so, he’ll use the word of God he’s given me, words from the scriptures about my business, about church, different things. But he also uses people of vision. And the Bible actually says this in Proverbs 13:20, one of my favorite scriptures. It says, “He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed.” So you gotta find some people of vision and you know, they could be farmers, they could be business people, they can be different people, but listen to what they have to say. And I’ve had different mentors in the ministry. You talked about how I’ve had visionary people, Andrew Wommack, Lawson Sumrall, Mark Hankins, Jesse Duplantis, all, all these are close friends of mine. And, and I’ve been blessed by having them. But listen, when they’re speaking, I’m listening. And, and so many people don’t have other people that they keep listening to. And and I have relationships that go back for Andrew Wommack. I’ve been friends with Andrew for 45 years.

And where, where God has you, where he placed you for a season, it’s important to be faithful there as well. Some people just want to get ahead of God and they, they don’t really go through the process or they’re not really faithful where, where God has placed them. And it’s, it’s really important for, for to to look at the big picture and see that God, God can develop me and, and, and use me in this role. And, and he’ll eventually make it happen. A lot of people try to try to get a head of God and try to make things happen on their own. – [Lawson] Right.

[Aaron] And sometimes they say it’s a faith thing. That’s why I’m just, I’m just gonna kind of skip the process. And.

The process is valuable. – Yeah.

Sometimes painful.

Yeah, – but valuable.

Yeah, but be, be very faithful where God is placed you and keep doing, just be diligent where he’s placed you

You know, – and called you.

Elijah faithfully served Elijah for 10 years before God put him in that position of

Yeah. You were, you were in Carson for 13 years. You were, you’re a great pastor there. Did a great work building the church there. My wife was listening to Christine Kane, she’s a very famous minister, you know, and she, she said she just helped in, in the youth ministry for, for 12 years, just served at her local church. I think she still goes to the same church and, but God, she’s just very faithful where she was at. And people look at, look at her and say, God just ex you know, your ministry came outta nowhere. But she said, no, my ministry began when I was just helping out in the youth program in a – [Lawson] Sure, right.

You know, her church actually asked her to, they had a guest speaker coming and they asked her to chauffeur this guest speaker drive around and it was Joyce Meyer. – [Lawson] Right. And she said she was, she wanted to do such a good job, you know, chauffeuring the guest speaker that she got to Joyce’s hotel two hours before she was supposed to pick her up cause she didn’t want to be late. And she said she was waiting outside of her room and you know, she, she opened the door to get her breakfast and saw her there and, and I thought it was odd, you know, this person’s standing there. And then, and then half an hour later she opened it again to leave her dishes out there and saw her again and she said, are you here for me? And she said, yeah, well I just came early, I don’t wanna be late. And, and she just invited her to come on in and was showing her all of her, you know, outfits. And Christine noticed that she had a lot of sparkly outfits. And, and Joyce said, well the more, the more sparkles, the better. And, and you know, Joyce is actually a huge mentor to Christine Kane even today, but uh…

Aaron, Heather, your wife, was teaching in our minister’s conference and just taught a fantastic sermon and I told you

no Women Women’s Conference.

Yeah. Our Rejoice Women’s Conference, one of the two largest conferences that we do here at the church and this just happened and, and as she did it, I told, I told you that she’s really doing well and, and the anointing on your wife Heather reminds me of Joyce Meyer. She’s just very real, very practical, connects with people well, and you said, well actually Heather’s been listening to Christine Kane who was mentored by Joyce Meyer, but she was faithful, you know, and here’s a, here’s a scriptural. I I said this was a principle for years, you know, and, and the principal, I said is that, you know, the reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. And it’s actually a scriptural thing because Jesus said, if you’ll be faithful in that, which is least, then you’ll be faithful in that which is much.

And sometimes that process of being faithful, it, it can take 10 years. It’s a, it’s a fairly lengthy season.

Paul and Timothy, Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elijah, 10 year relationship.

Some people think it’s just a six month thing or a one year thing, you know, but it, it can often take, take 10 years or more. – [Lawson] Right.

Kind, kind of being -[Lawson] serving

Maybe in a remote area or serving somewhere behind the scenes.

Yeah. And listen, you know, some people just chop off relationships. The Bible says your own friend and your father’s friend don’t forsake. And so I’ve kept relationships with people. Maybe they haven’t honored the relationship, but I’ve kept them because I’m not looking to chop off relationships. God works through relationships. Look at Paul’s letter in Romans chapter 16, First 16 verses he talks about 30 people or groups of people that helped him accomplish what God called him to do. And then he says in verse 17, mark those who cause offense contrary to the doctrine you’ve learned and avoid them. And so, I mean, he, he uses 16 verses to talk about the good, but then he also says, you watch out for those that are going the wrong direction. Relationships are important. We’re gonna come back and talk more about how you can move into the relationships that God has for you to accomplish God’s purposes in God’s play. Thanks so much. Stay tuned. Blessings. [light music] Friends, I want to tell you about our product that we have available with this teaching and we have a special offer. First of all, we have the Vision series and I have five messages that I taught on vision. You can get them on CD or digital download on our website. You can get them immediately and then My Uncommon Favor book, this is My life story from just a few years back. It’s a lot of different stories. A lot of people tell me when they read My Uncommon Favor book, it encouraged me because it gave me hope that if God did this for you, he would do it for me and he would help me. And there’s so many ways that God has blessed me and helped me, but it’s not unattainable. You see, God is no respecter of persons. He is a respecter of faith. So when you get ahold of the word of God and begin to believe God, you can move into the vision and the plan that God has for your life through the favor and grace of God on your life. Thanks and blessings. Thanks friends for staying tuned. We’re so glad you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about this scripture in Proverbs 13:21 of my favorite scriptures, he that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Aaron, you now direct our music department at Charis Christian Center. You oversee all the worship, you oversee a lot of the production that we do and you don’t do it necessarily. You, you’re involved. You have other people that are leading it, that are directing, that are doing it, but you oversee it. But you learned, you know, in the world at a very, very high level. And you studied actually flute. I remember when you were just, you know, in fourth or fifth grade, the teacher said, Hey, I want Aaron to play the flute. We didn’t know mom and I didn’t know about a boy playing the flute, but he gave you a flute, you brought it home, opened it up, put it together, played Amazing Grace. Like you’d played it all your life. It’s like no squeaking, no squawking, just gorgeous. And mom and I said, Hey, our rocket science mind, you can play the flute well at, you know, when you were just, you played in eastern Colorado Honor band that first year you played the flute in, in April or May, the, the head of the music program at UNC, one of the top music programs in the state at that time was there directing it. When mom and I got there, he said, you’ve gotta get your son professional help. I’ve got kids in college that can’t play at this level, but you’ve studied with two of the top three teachers in the world and God really developed that gift, but you learned a lot of things from them. Not only did you learn how to play music at a high level, you learned honor, you learned respect, you learned different things. Tell us some of the things that you’ve learned about having long-term relationships as far as those that will help you to fulfill your calling and destiny.

Um I think it’s just important to honor people and respect people. A lot of people look at relationships like, what can I get out of this? They try to use the relationship and, and if they’re not really advancing from that person, they’ll, they’ll chop it off. And that’s a very sad thing. You know, relationships aren’t, aren’t just just meant to, to, to benefit you. And, and how can you know, you know, don’t, don’t look at relationships like, how can I use people? You need to be investing in other people and caring for other people. – [Lawson] Right?

And um…

And I’ve invested a lot in people, some of those people have used me, some of the people you know, haven’t, haven’t done the right thing. Sometimes when that happens, you, you don’t want to, you know, somebody said this about relationships, everybody needs a Paul, everybody needs a Silas, everybody needs a Timothy. So you need people that are older than you that are investing in you. I have that. You need people that are on your level, right? That help keep you going the right direction. Okay. I’ve had that in the past. I might need to develop that a little bit now because I’ve lost a couple of friends and the Lord actually told me that he was doing a separation, right? But I also have people that I’m investing in and I have a number of those and I’ve helped a number of ministers, right? I’ve helped buy churches, I’ve helped buy homes, I’ve helped by, you know, all kinds of different things, how I’ve helped people. But I’ve had help. You know, one of my mentors told me, one of my financial mentors told me, pass it on Lawson and he, I, I lost two of my mentors really that invested in me from a business perspective, from a leadership perspective last year and they both went home in within the last year to be with the Lord. But I value those relationships and you know, I still am investing, right? I’m trying to invest back into their families, into different people, into helping different things, because it’s not that I’m receiving a lot, but I still want to invest in those relationships. I want to invest in other people. Sometimes I go and preach for somebody and give them a lot more in the, in the offering than I receive. But, you know, I’m, I’m looking to help pastors, I’m looking to help churches. I’m looking to help not only that, but just help people as in general, you know, we recently had one of the candidates for mayor at our church. But in talking to this person, and they’ve been involved in politics for a long time and served in the county commission, served in different areas and served in, you know, at at a national level, a state level and a local level. But this person, I could tell because of what they’ve done in their business that they really care about people. That they’re really invested. And I like that they’re just not out for themselves. And some people just like in it for what they could get. That’s not, that’s not where I want to be.

Yeah. I mentioned this when I was taking up offering once, just how, how you can tell if someone’s really invested, if they really care about what they’re saying by, by just by looking at their giving and I mentioned when, when there’s a, you know, presidential race years ago it was when Obama was running the first time there were several Democratic candidates and the, the Democratic National Party released all, all the candidates tax returns for the previous 10 years. So Joe Biden was one of those candidates. He, he eventually became the vice president to Obama. But his, his 10 years of, of tax records showed that he only gave $376 a year on average for 10 years. So he, he gave 0.2% of his income away for, for 10 years. So to me that’s actually really pathetic that someone who, who, who wants to be a great leader and help a lot of people, hasn’t really helped people, you know? Yeah. He hasn’t, he hasn’t given, he hasn’t. And, and, and it’s really.

And that may not always show up on your tax return, but you know it should show up on your tax return if you’re a giver.

Yeah. – If you look at my tax return, you can tell I’m a giver.

Well, if you care, if you care about a certain cause, you should, you should be – [Lawson] Yeah.

Giving towards it, you know? So, and, and again, if, if I, I look at it too, like in the, in the kingdom of, of God, you know, some, some people have come to me saying, well, I want to, I wanna go in a ministry, I wanna be a pastor. And I said, well, you better start, make, make, make sure that you’re a giver, right?

Because – Well Jesus

if you’re not a giver, you better not even just, just stay, stay out of.

Jesus actually said this in Luke chapter 13, I think it is, but he said, if you will not be faithful in that, which is another man’s who’s going to give your own. So I said this beginning in the program, right? When we’re talking about, you know, where do we get vision from? We receive vision from people of vision. But I said, you know, the reward for work well done is an opportunity to do more. I, I actually didn’t realize when I was saying that, that that’s a scriptural principle. That if you’re faithful in that, which is least you’ll be made ruler over much. So that’s like a scriptural law. And then if you won’t be faithful in that, which is another man’s, then who’s gonna give your, your own and and just because I’ve become successful right? Does not mean that I get opt out of this thing. So I, I continue to, so, and some of the places I sow that people have no ability to, to repay me whatsoever.

Well, we’ve, we’ve actually helped our, our ministry here has actually helped pay for the building of several churches in India. – [Lawson] Yeah.

For instance, I don’t know how many churches we’ve helped build.

You know, well we just, we’ve paid for five this year. So we’ve partnered with five churches. I just sent the check last night. I sent a check two weeks ago to pay for two. And I told the man, I called him when, this is a really neat story, but I said, listen, I, I want to partner cause they have to raise half the money from their church, right? And then with, with, with five churches this year to build churches in India. We did two last year, and I was just planning on doing one. And, and he said, well, I, and, and they do water wells in churches and a lot of these towns don’t have even one church. And so he said, well, that’s really interesting because last weekend I, I spoke at two churches and they both paid for water wells, but nobody paid for a church. And I’ve got two churches right now, and I was a little close on funds, but they have raised their money, they’re ready for somebody to partner with them so they can start their building program. And I said, listen, I’ll pay for two, so I’ll, I planned on sending one. So I, I sent the check, right? I said, I’ll send the check today before I go to work. I called him about 8:30 in the morning. I wrote the check to pay not to partner with one, but to partner with two, send it to this ministry. He’s been doing it for over 25 years. And, and then, but right after I did that, I thought, I need to call this other person because they might be interested. And I called them and they called me back in 10 minutes. He went and talked to his wife. He said, listen, we wanna partner with you and do two, we wanna match your church gift and we want to do two. That was on Monday. And so I was running around the house shouting and glorifying God and your mom had been up in the shower. And she said, what’s all that about? I said, I was planning on paying for one church and we’ve already, you know, I I’ve paid for two now and I’ve already got a commitment for two. Then I came Wednesday night and that man and his wife were in church and they said, oh, we decided that we want to go ahead and not only do two, but we wanna do three. So within one week, I said Sunday morning to the people. I said, I want, we did two last year, I wanna do five this year. And by Wednesday night we had the commitment for that. Now, it was a couple weeks before that money came in, but that money came in yesterday. And I put the check in the mail last night to go to this ministry to pay for those last three churches this year. So this is seven that we’ve done in a pretty short time. I, I believe we’re gonna do a lot more of them. They’re good spirit filled churches. It’s a really good program that we’re working with and I just love to give. But you know, these people have no power to repay us. But God repays us. God takes care of us.

Amen. – And you know what? He’ll increase us. He’ll bless us, he’ll help us. I invest in some of the most prosperous ministries in the world, and yet I give to some people that, you know, they have no power, no ability whatsoever to pay me back. I’m not looking to be paid back. God takes care of me. But I am looking to associate in life giving soil where the spirit of God moves, where people are being saved and healed and set free by the power of God, filled with the Holy Spirit. Thank God for that.

Well, I know giving is a big part of your vision. You know, planting churches, raising up leaders. I know that’s a big part of your vision. And yeah, your vision needs to exceed, go beyond yourself. A lot of peoples have a vision for their own life. Like, I need to have this car, this house, this job, but really your vision needs to go beyond yourself.

[Lawson] Amen.

And that, that’s part of the vision that God gave Abraham, was that I’m gonna bless you, but you’re gonna be a blessing to others as well. Both you and your descendants actually right through you, you’re gonna be a channel of blessing. You’re gonna be a channel of multiplication.

[Lawson] Amen.

And your, your vision needs to go beyond yourself and I think that’s what God was trying to do in Abraham’s life. You need to look at the stars.

Praise is God. You know, Karas Christian Center, grace for today our television ministry. We are a blessed ministry. I believe that we have an, an anointing of increase and I like to sow into people like Jesse Duplantis, Mark Hankins, Andrew Wommack that have an anointing of increase. Because guess what? It comes back to me and if you’re not partnering with us, I would encourage you to pray about becoming a partner. I believe that you’ll receive more than you sow, so thanks so much and God bless you. [light music]

[Narrator] Too many people live their lives without ever connecting to their God-given purpose. Learn the importance of having a vision and some practical steps for walking it out. God has a tremendous plan for your life. Start now and see it come to pass. Get the vision package, which includes the book Uncommon Favor and the Vision CD series for $24 or digital, download for $15 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit CharisChristianCenter.com.

Hi friends, I’m Pastor Lawson Perdue from Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. We want to invite you to Family Camp meeting. We’re gonna have special speakers, Mark and Trina Hankins, Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, full of the Holy Ghost and fire Philip Renner with special music, special teaching, Max Cornell, Ashley Terradez, Myself, Aaron Perdue. We’re gonna have a great time. If you can’t come in person, check us out [email protected].

[Narrator] Thanks for watching Grace for today. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000 or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at set PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for today.