Your Steeple | Kyle McMurray Coaching, LLC

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I remember as a kid, when we would go to my Grandparents, there was a certain hill that we would top and I could see in the distance, the town church steeple. You could see it for what seemed to be miles around. Once we went through town, I would always know that we were getting close. You could see that steeple before anything else.

My Grand Dad would tell me that back when settlers would move to a new town being developed, they would instantly know where the hub of that town was. It was the pinnacle, the main influence and the genesis of everything in that town. Oh sure, there may have been a courthouse, but the church steeple was the tallest thing in the town. It was the first thing you saw.

Every culture has a key hub. There is always a central social common ground that gravitates certain birds of a feather, where they can flock together (as the saying goes). Today I would like to discuss with you the importance of that social hub and remember, we are not talking about religion. We are talking about your influence today on Living the Freedom Life. This is Episode 104 and we are talking today about Your Steeple.

I’m from the South and we call it a Steeple. It’s called a lot of other things like Spire, tower, or Belfry, You know what I’m talking about here. You don’t have to be from a small town to know what a steeple is. In fact, now that I think about it, you may not know. …and that’s okay, the Church where we attend doesn’t even have a steeple. It’s the tall pointy thing that is on top of a Church, pointing its way to Heaven. Nowadays it’s put to use by mounting cell phone antennas on it. It’s a good income for the church. I’m getting off track here.

The original meaning of a Steeple is to show everyone around, where the pinnacle of the town is. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by John Maxwell, you’ve heard me say this before, he says “You are the culmination of the top 5 things that influence you. If you don’t determine what those are, the enemy will.”

You see, a Steeple was a way for the town to put a stake in the ground and say “This is what influences us, this is where our central, our nucleus, our place from which everything else flows from, this is the point of where the influence comes from, here is where it is. It’s a bold statement, and today, it’s turning out to be a courageous one.

Our culture today is a sea of offense and I hear a lot of people saying that we need to stand up, someone has to stand up, the atrocity must stop.

Now, no matter what you see as the atrocity, (BTW, there are plenty to go around, you can just pick one) but by all the horrible things that are going on right now, what kind of solutions are you hearing?

Pointing out a problem is only half of the equation. It’s easy to point out a problem. Anyone can do that. There is a big difference between talking about the problem and talking about solutions. What about solutions?

That’s where most people stop dead in their tracks, they get sheepish. They say “Well, I’m not sure what the solution is but there is definitely a problem.” Good for you, what are you going to do about it?

Maybe the world is just waiting for you to get fed up with it to the point of action, to the point of studying, searching and finding, or rallying, or even creating a solution. I may just be talking to the next great solution finder here.

See, we’ve lost sight of what The Town Steeple means. What I see, is that by other buildings towering over one another, by the next business conglomerate building another skyscraper to amazing heights, shadowing over the original central hub of society, we have put business and work, and responsibility, and status, and how many likes and friends we have, how many times we can get a viral video posted, or even a podcast episode shared, or wear just the right clothes, say just the right things to the right people so that we can get just a little further ahead in the race that WE are personally running in our lives, between our ears, and in our hearts, with our desire and drive…when all the while, we have lost sight of The Steeple.

Now, what in the world do I mean by the Steeple?

Most people don’t live their life to a degree of expression. What I mean by that is they don’t live their life as an expression of who they are. We’ve lost what that means. We’ve also lost the knowledge of HOW to do that.

Most people go through life, reacting and responding to life as it happens. They say “Well, this happened so I guess I need to do that.” And that’s how they live life.

It’s not really life as it was intended, that’s just a series of events.

Then as they get older they look at their life and think, Who am I? How did I get here? Why is my life this way? Or even worse, they look at their spouse and ask, Who are you? I don’t even know you.

That has fueled many car purchases and maybe even some meaningless surgeries with some type of plastic involved.

Why does this happen?

People lose sight of their Steeple. They lose sight of where their purpose is, what their core source of drive and ambition is and…here is the most important part, they don’t communicate it on a daily basis.

There it is!

We can know where our Steeple is, we can know how to get there, but if we don’t GO there consistently, so we can communicate the message clearly, we will lose sight of it and ourselves.

Now I don’t know what YOUR message is, or how you want to express it, or even where you want to communicate it. But I do know when we make the priority of being connected to our Steeple (whatever that means to you) when we are connected to it, we will be able to life meaningful lives. We will begin to live a life that is an expression of who we are.

The Steeple of the church was the center point of culture. It wasn’t a country club to sit around in and enjoy each others’ company. It was a place where thoughts and ideas, that Iron sharpening Iron came into play, it’s where people lived life with each other, it’s where families came and shared with one another the victories and heartaches of everyday life. It was a place where you can be rejuvenated and refreshed, empowered and equipped to go out into the world that is hurting and be a conqueror and share that with others.

Let me leave you with this challenge today, here are three points:

Find out what your top 5 things are that influence you. What matters to you the most. What determines, what guides the direction you go? Write them down.
See if that lines up with your life. Dare to take an honest inventory. See if those ideals you wrote down in #1 are a reality, a true reflection of your priorities on a daily basis.
If you want help with those things becoming reality, let us know. We can help. Contact us, we would love to hear from you.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle