Untitled - July 23, 2025

00:00:00 Larry Ragland: Welcome in to the Remnant Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Ragland, and I tell you what, I'm so pumped and excited that you took the time to be a part of something like this particular podcast. I'm going to try to respect your time, but I'm also not going to apologize for going deep. We're going to talk about some issues that I really believe are affecting five fold ministry leaders, prophetic voices, pioneers in this moment, pastors, builders. The generation of Noahs is what I call it. The remnant is rising, y'all. This is what it's all about. This is leadership. Everything rises and falls on leadership. And if you've chosen to listen to this podcast, it's because you're hungry to know more about what it means to be the leader that God has called you to be. Now I'm speaking specifically to what I call my tribe, okay? These are the ones who feel that they've called been called to the kingdom for such a time as this. Now, for those that are that fit that bill? Um, you're probably going to feel like you're isolated. You're probably going to feel like you're in the shadows. And if you're like me, I mean, I've many of you have not been in ministry as long as me. Um, moving into just about my 31st year of pastoring the church that Sandi and I founded, as well as being in ministry altogether. Uh, coming up on 37 years in ministry. So that's just incredible for me to think back that I've been in ministry for that long. I've been in ministry for many more years than I have not so well over. I mean, I'm 57, so, um, so, yeah, you can do the math. I mean, I've been in ministry for 37 years, so. Wow, that's crazy to even hear me say that. Uh, but many may have felt like I have felt before. And, please, this is a safe place here for us to be real. And I'm going to be real with you. And you can judge me if you want to, but I'm just going to talk plain to you as a voice in your life that I have felt like I've been in the shadows before, and I. And I'm sure you have as well in leadership, feeling like maybe you've missed out, maybe you've missed your moment. Uh, especially in the early days of ministry. And I came up in, uh, the world of of the church and the world of preaching that I started to say, right or wrong, it was actually wrong. Uh, to be taught this way. But, you know, we were trained as young ministers to seek the, um, seek charisma magazine, which I love. Chris magazine got a lot of friends there now. Um, but, you know, that's the was the premier publication to listen to. I mean, to read. Excuse me. And then of course, there was, uh, TBN and Christian television. And so, you know, you wanted to be successful and, you know, you wanted to grow a church, you wanted to have a a nice building, you wanted to have a packed house. And then Christian television, as I said, Christian radio, uh, selling your books. Selling your tapes, you know? Yeah. I look back on it now, and. And I'll just be transparent that, you know, that's not a kingdom mindset, I understand that. But you got to understand, if you came up when I came up, that was the way you were trained and taught. And many times you will battle depression. You'll battle feeling like you look around and you see you're working so hard and you feel like you're out working 90% of other people out there, but they're being more successful than you. They've their kingdom is advancing further than your, um, not their kingdom. I should say. Their ministry is advancing faster than yours. And you feel like you missed the moment. Maybe you felt like you were born in the wrong place. Your city's not big enough. Or, you know, you've just. You haven't got the right breaks. But I want you to know that I had to learn it the hard way. You know, I went through being put in the hospital, my marriage almost crumbling. People look at me as Sandy now, and they just see how much we love each other, and we're partners in the ministry and everything that we do. But if you've read my book, I see greatness in you, then you know that there was a season in our ministry that my wife told me that she was probably going to leave me, that she loved me, but she didn't know if she was in love with me anymore, because the ministry had just sucked the life out of me and created, uh, a new type of Larry. And I was not who I was when we first got married. And I had, quite frankly, lost the passion for the ministry and turned it into something it wasn't supposed to be. So I want to talk to you about, you know, this culture that drives the minister to be quote unquote successful. And I think it's really on steroids now. It's gone to another level. Uh, nowadays it's, you know, you're you're driven to have followers. Subscribers view count always checking the your analytics and things like that And crowd pictures and positioning your, your, your, uh, selfies to just be in a perfect angle to where it looks like the crowd is packed. You know, when you might have 75 people in your church, which is great. Don't get me wrong, 75 people is a tremendous size church, but you can strategically make that picture to look like you've got 2 or 300 people in your church. And and so we are being trained and programmed to, quite frankly, try to achieve that because we just feel like, you know, we're not going to be able to be successful, uh, in the eyes of God, if we don't let everybody else think that we have this platform, this, this powerful reach. Um, and, you know, and when when you take the camera down and you look around and then you look at the budget and you look at, you know, your count, your reach versus what you see in others. If you have built your ministry on likes and subscribes and followers and the image of success, you will battle depression. It is. It is not a good life to be living. You'll feel like you've really, when it comes to the kingdom, reach and advance that you're sort of invisible. Mm. Yeah. Boy, I'm talking to somebody right now. You. You'll feel like that. You've been obedient to God, and I. I used to remind God all the time of how much I've done for him. Um. And nobody even knows that I've done it. Um, but I can tell you that that is not a healthy environment. So I want to talk to you on this podcast about what it really means to be successful and what it really means to be a kingdom impact in this moment. And and I want you to know right now that I mean this from the bottom of my heart that there's nothing wrong with success. There's nothing wrong with desiring to accomplish something great for God, because I am that same way. I'm driven to do something great for God. I want to make his name known and famous, but I just I want to do something great for God. I've always said that I just want to do something great for God. So I don't fault you for wanting to do something great for God. We're just talking about, you know, check your motivation, okay? If your motivation is personal success, then you're never going to feel like you've done anything significant for God. You're going to feel like you've been overlooked, that you are not significant whatsoever in the eyes of God. And you're going to look at your stage, compare your stage to somebody else's literal stage in your sanctuary. If you pastor a church, uh, and the size of crowds that you preach to, but also just your digital voice, your digital stage, the digital world has changed what Kingdom Impact looks like, and I'm thankful for it, quite frankly, because you can take a church now that a pastor, now that maybe an evangelist as well, that's traveling. And, you know, for so long we have equated crowd sizes and building sizes as success. But some of the most powerful voices that are out there right now in Holy Ghost, spirit filled leadership, you know, pastoring churches in 100, 200 people. And you would think that because what I'm talking about is you go to their YouTube channels and they'll put out a video. That video gets 7000, 500,000, even up to half a million views or more. And you'll just, you know, they've got subscriber counts up to five, six, 700,000. Some of them over a million. And you think, wow, you know, the old school way when you see that, you would imagine their church is running two, three, 4000 people. And you finally get a shot, you know, a picture or whatever, an honest picture of their sanctuary. And you'll see that where they're preaching, even if they're a traveling evangelist, their crowds may be very small in comparison to what you thought they were going to be. But the stage and the impact is so much greater. But more than anything, the Bible says that Jesus will leave the 99 for the one, and all of heaven rejoices over one sinner saved. It is hard for a true pioneer, a true apostolic anointed, five fold ministry gift believer to get excited about small numbers, I get that. But when you really start having an eternity mindset, a kingdom mindset, a biblical worldview, then you will see success in a different way. You don't need a stage to shake hell, are you hearing me now? As I said, we're living in a time where visibility. Visibility equals validation. So you feel like if I'm not getting enough views, uh, Then I'm not getting the validation that I need. You know, somebody you think about, you know, if you've got the blue checkmark, uh, you've got the the numbers, you've got the crowd. People assume that you're automatically anointed. And if you don't, if you're not verified, if you don't have a huge subscriber count, then guess what? The opposite. You begin to feel that maybe you're not as anointed. Maybe you're not as called as others other people are. Uh, but what how do you how do you how do you handle that? How do you handle when you know that you're just as called as anyone else, but you don't have all the algorithms working on your behalf, and the analytics is not showing you, uh, what it looks like. You want it to show you, you know, what happens when you're a pastor and you're pastoring, you know, 35, 40 people in a storefront church, and you're mentoring a group of six young men in that no one else sees. Well, when you're praying in your prayer closet and interceding for your city and nobody even knows your name. Okay. I feel like I'm speaking to some people right now because you think that because you're pastoring 25, 30, 40 people mentoring 5 or 6 people, um, and that that's not on the level of someone who has pastoring 500 people and has multiple staff members and so forth. And, you know, an a great reach when it comes to the digital world. Well, that's a lie from the pits of hell. I said, that's a lie from the pits of hell. The kingdom of God operates by a different currency. It operates on a different stream. It operates on a different level of success. Um, it runs on obedience. Obedience is a currency of the kingdom. And the Bible says to obey is better. Better than to sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams. So you know you don't need to be an impact in the kingdom. A viral video you don't need your video to go viral. You just need to be a yielded vessel. Okay, I will say that again. You don't need a viral video. You need to be a yielded vessel. And when you are, guess what? Your life will become viral. See, now we we want to look at numbers. And quite frankly, fake numbers and fake numbers create fake preachers and fake preachers promote a fake kingdom impact. That is not what God wants. Think about this. You know, think about some of the most viral people in Scripture. They didn't have an algorithm. They didn't have, uh, analytics. You know, they didn't have somebody sharing their podcast. They didn't have the just the right guest to come on to blow up, uh, their impact for the kingdom. No, Elijah, shut the heavens down with a prayer. Just a prayer. Not, you know, not even a pulpit. He didn't even have a pulpit. Elijah shut the heavens up with simply a prayer in isolation, without any kind of kingdom impact, if you can imagine that. Think about Deborah in Scripture. You know she delivered a nation from beneath a tree, not a platform. Jesus spent 30 years in obscurity before he even started three years of ministry. Let's forget that. Let's not forget that 30 years of silence, 30 years of obscurity before three years of ministry and three years of ministry, before thousands of years of impact, with no Instagram, with no YouTube and with no Facebook. And even though Christian television and not even a local church to pastor and lead the modern culture, culture in the church right now has mistaken exposure for authority. And that that is that is not a kingdom principle. Exposure is not authority. Authority doesn't come from who who sees you and who knows you. Authority comes from obedience to obey. To obey is better than to sacrifice. Are you just being obedient? Well, if you're being obedient, then guess what? In the kingdom, your life is going viral. Because if you think about what viral means in the kingdom, in the digital world, viral means, uh, so many people shared your podcast, so many people viewed your podcast. These are people that you'll never see. 99% of them you'll never meet. But what about you? The impact of the person that's right in front of you, the life that you really changed. And then they begin to change other people's lives, and then they begin to change other people's lives. Well, you don't even see how viral that one person that you impacted has really become in the kingdom of God. God isn't looking for influencers. You know what he's looking for. He's looking for intercessors. I mean, you got people all the time saying I feel led to be an influencer. Well, do you feel led to be an intercessor? Because intercessors impact are many times a lot greater than influencers impact? Okay. Now when you're talking about obscurity, you're talking about operating, uh, in a hidden place. I feel like there's a lot of leaders that are listening to this podcast right now that you'd consider yourself to be a hidden leader. You haven't really been put out there, uh, by God, in your opinion, to be seen by the masses. But your obscurity is not a punishment. You're obscurity might just be your preparation. I mean, you think about David before he ever held Goliath's head in his hand. You know what he held? He held sheep. But nobody knew that he was holding sheep. But, boy, they knew about it when he was holding Goliath's head. But he had to spend a lot of time alone. He had to be isolated. He had to be forgotten. But what was God doing during that time? Was God still working in David's life? Was he being an impact? Well, he was teaching him how to fight lions. He was teaching him how to fight bears. He didn't have any applause. He was. But he was training his hands for battle and his fingers for war. Come on, somebody. I feel the Holy Ghost right now. He was training his hands for battle and his fingers for war. Now, listen. It is in the cave where God began to develop David. That's where he began to develop. It was in the wilderness. It was in the. It was on the mountains. That's when he developed David. That's where he developed David. Long before he picked up those five smooth stones. He had already been practicing with that slingshot against all the enemies that would try to attack the sheep, but he did that in obscurity. He did that in, um, in silence and and without being able to be, quote unquote, viral, obscurity. You know what it does? It filters out impure motives. It kills the need to be celebrated. It teaches you how to depend on the voice of God instead of the approval of people. See, some of you right now you're cursing your obscurity. You're mad about the fact that you are alone and silent. But you know what? You need to be thanking God for it. Because it is. It is taking out the impure motives. Now I'm going to say something. I'm going to say it. I'm going to try my best to be as humble as I can, because I really do mean this humbly. I went through a phase of my life where I desired to be recognized by the masses. I desired to, and I felt like I deserved it. I felt like that I was preaching, uh, on a level. And, you know, I've, I say this from the bottom of my heart with with no, uh, conceited spirit about me, but I know I can preach. I know I'm anointed. And I'm telling you, I've been preaching deep word, uh, for for decades. And many of those messages that I preach when they was 25 and 30 people in there, I would I would feel like the whole world needs to hear this message. And, uh, you know, I did desire one day to, uh, to be on Christian television and, and to have a worldwide impact in the thousands and thousands of people. That was that. I wasn't driven by that. I've always been kingdom driven. But I did have a heart for that. And you know what? Uh, this is the truth. A lot of the things that I sought in my life 20 and 25 years ago are actually happening now. God is putting me in rooms with people that I would consider my my spiritual heroes that I've followed for years. And friends, now that I have in my phone and my contacts, just blow my mind when I see that I can call them anytime I want to. Heroes of the Faith. Generals of the faith. Uh, being put on platforms now and invited to speak in different places, that the old me would have just fell all over himself to have a part of that. But you know what? I wasn't ready for it. I God knew that I could not be trusted. Not that I would have fell into sin. I don't think I would have fell into sin, but I might have been a candidate for pride. But you know, now, at this phase of my life, none of that matters to me. And now God is actually doing the things that I desired for him to do back in those days that probably would have invited pride into my heart. So I'm thankful for the wilderness. I'm thankful for obscurity because it got things out of me that when I look around and I see a lot of these big time, big time preachers that I followed back then that I would have loved to have lived their life, or maybe have, you know, been a part of their life, been a part of their ministry. Uh, I'm seeing some of them, unfortunately, fall, fall into sin. So I'm thankful that God sheltered me, that kept me in obscurity until this season of my life. Some of you are crying out. God, you know why isn't the door open for me? Uh, you know, and God may be saying back to you because I'm building the foundation. So when it does open, you don't collapse. This is what you got to get later. Because if your character can't handle your calling. Your calling will crush you. Now there is. There is a word for someone. This. I really believe there's a word in this message for someone. Uh, you know, how about this? Don't. Don't rush into the spotlight. If you haven't conquered the secret place. Imma say that again. Oh, I feel the Lord on that. Don't rush into the spotlight if you haven't conquered the secret place. So that's why the Bible talks about be faithful over a few things and God will make you ruler over much. You do not need a microphone to have a mantle. Mhm. That'll preach right there again. You don't need a mic to have a mental. You don't need a church building to walk in apostolic five fold authority. You don't need a million followers to have heaven's backing in heaven's affirmation. Jesus himself said, all authority has been given to me. Now go. He just said, now go, because I have all authority. I got you back. Now go. He didn't say go viral. He said go into all the world. He did not say. Now go find out a way to be viral. No. He said, just go to the world. Go to the world and preach the gospel. Just preach. Come on, just preach. Just preach the gospel wherever opportunity you're given, just preach the gospel. Authority is not measured by volume. It is measured by victory. You don't have to have the loudest voice in the kingdom. You just need to have a voice in the kingdom. Now, before you start talking about conquering demonic spirits and jezebels and witchcraft and In Washington, D.C.. How about this when you're in this place of obscurity, in this place of a lack of quote unquote visibility, are you conquering depression in your own house? Are you breaking generational, generational curses in your own bloodlines? Are you winning quiet battles that nobody sees? That's authority. And you know why? I mean, excuse me. Let me say let me say it this way. When you do that, when you conquer things in obscurity, you know who trembles. Do you know who sees it? Hell, I've often said many times it's one thing to be known in heaven. Every believer is known in heaven. But not every believer is known in hell. Are you known in hell? Guess who's known in hell? That praying grandmother that nobody on Instagram knows anything about. Nobody on TikTok has ever heard of her, but hell knows about her. Satan's not afraid of your Instagram reach. He's afraid of your spiritual depth. He's afraid of a leader who's been hidden in prayer, soaked in the word and forged in the fire. See, you may be unknown right now on Earth, but you are famous in the spirit realm. Are you known in hell? Are you known in heaven? Do angels know your name? Are they working on your behalf? Let me remind you what acts 1915 says. It says that the that demons said to the sons of Skiva, the sons of Skiva was trying to cast out demons of this of this person. And and this is what the the demon said to the sons of Skiva who who were religious, remember, they had been they were preachers kids. They were sons of the priest. So they thought, you know, this is this is how I build my ministry. This is how I build my platform. I'm going to go out there and get somebody to video me, uh, doing like, uh, you know, I've seen others do. I've been following Paul around watching Paul cast out demons. I'm just going to mimic him. I'm going to try to get followers like him. And those demons said Jesus, I know, Paul, I know, but who are you? Wow. See, they were not. The demons were not impressed by how many subscribers, how many followers, how many views that the sons of Skiva had? No, they said, Jesus, I know, and Paul I know. But who are you? Well the why? How did they know Jesus and Paul? It wasn't because of of going viral on Instagram or having a packed house inside a giant multi-million dollar sanctuary. No, it was because, uh, they they've heard them pray. They saw them faithful. They knew that they knew the word of God. So the real question leader isn't who knows your name down here? It's does. Does hell know who you are now as well? Are you making an impact? Not just in heaven, but are you shaking hell? Let me give you three quick truths for leading in this season with fire when no one's watching. Because if you made it this far, I think you're hungry too. Okay, give me some answers. Give me. Give me some. Help me, help me, help me, help me know how to stay faithful and not quit right now when I feel like I want to give up. Well, number one, don't try to get out of the secret space. The secret place. Don't. Don't try to, uh, get out of this place of isolation. Stay there. Stay in the secret place. That's the place of prayer. And prayer is not preparation for battle. It is the battle. Okay. You're not praying to prepare for battle? No. When you're praying, you are battling leaders who tarry and seek God in prayer. In that secret place. They carry a weight when they speak. You know, you can tell when somebody's been with God. So quit rebuking isolation and embrace this isolation and become a prayer warrior. Number two, be faithful with what's been put in your hand, you know, what have you been given right now? Why are you trying to get something else? What have you. What do you already have? Don't despise the small group that God has given you. The small church, the part time ministry, the bi vocational world that you live in. Jesus fed the multitudes with a boy's lunch. So what's in your hand is enough. What God has given you right now is enough, and it's time for you to embrace that. It is enough. Number three quit chasing platforms. Stop chasing platforms. It's time to start chasing presence. Imma say it again this way. Don't chase platforms. Chase presence. Every great revival was birthed in obscurity. Brownsville. Azusa. Wells. They didn't start with cameras. They started with a hunger. You hear me? Now I want to close this episode. I want to close this moment. Close this thought with, I guess you'd call it a prophetic charge to you, leader. First of all, don't rebuke obscurity. Embrace obscurity. In fact, there will come a time as God begins to promote your ministry and bless you with the things that you are desiring. Now, when you're ready, he's going to start doing it, and you're actually long for obscurity. You're long for be able to for the times when you didn't have to put out fires left and right. And you could you just it was just you and God or just you and a handful of people, you know, many of these leaders that have fall fallen in sin is because, uh, their ministry got so big that they forgot who they really were. So to the leader right now, that's listening to this podcast that feels unseen to the pastor who feels discouraged, to the fivefold ministry gift to the apostolic voice that you feel like you haven't been received. Let me just say something to you. You are not forgotten. You are not disqualified. What you are is you are being forged in the fire right now. You know, iron sharpens iron. So does a man sharpen the countenance of his friend before you ever get to sharpening. You've got to the. The heat has got to be applied. You've got to be bent, beaten into place. And that's where many of you are. Uh, your prayers in isolation. They're not echoing in heaven. I promise you, they're not. The heavens are not brass over you right now. It may feel like they are, but they're not. Your obedience in this moment, I promise you, is shaking strongholds in your simple yes to God is building the kingdom. If each one will reach one, the world could be changed. It's time for us to start seeing it differently. So it's important for you to hear this word. Just keep doing the simple things. The simple things are really, uh, simple words, but they're very difficult. And that is this. Preacher. Leader. Keep preaching, leader. Keep leading. Preach in the living room, preaching the break room, preaching Walmart, preaching pulpits. Wherever you're at, just keep preaching. Keep mentoring. Just the one. Instead of thinking about boy, I wish I had a group of about 20 or 5 or 30 businessmen. Uh, well, has God put one in your life? Has God put a neighbor in your life? Mentor them. Advance the kingdom. Keep interceding in the midnight hour. Come on, somebody. Because when the doors fly open for you and God says, it's time for me to set this person out. I'm about to set my man out. I'm about to set my woman out. Will you be ready? Have you prepared yourself for the battle? When David ran with Faith with a slingshot and five smooth stones. Why? Because he was already prepared for that moment in the wilderness, in the pastures, in the fields, with his sheep. When the crowds finally show up, you won't be performing. You'll be overflowing. We're not building performers. We are building people who are flowing in the Holy Ghost. Come on. Somebody. So you have not been forgotten in your silence and in your lack of exposure. This is really God setting you up. He's preparing you for this moment. So just be faithful over a few things. God later. Listen to me later. God is about to make you ruler over much. Thank you for joining me on the Remnant Leadership Podcast. If this word hit your spirit, share it with another leader. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and then visit us at Larry Ragland Comm to connect further with us. See you next time on the Remnant Leadership Podcast. God bless you and thank you for saying yes to Jesus.