You're listening to Women in Fuse Radio, where women in the marketplace connect with purpose and spirit, where the conversation covers all things women, business and fascinating faith. And now your host, Kristi Lynn Olson. Welcome to episode 34 of Women, Business and Fascinating Faith. I want to have some conversations this year with as many brilliant, amazing women as I can so that we can help set you up for success this year.
Real success in the marketplace, which is where I think this next wave of prosperity and ministry is going to take place. In the places where we live and work, and throughout these podcasts, I also want to challenge you to reevaluate your definition of success, because as we grow as women of faith, I believe our definition of success will shift also. We have the potential to create wealth, but we also have an amazing opportunity to create impact and influence wherever we go, because we carry the glory with us. Today, I want to share with you a conversation I had with Lynette Dutton.
It's about achieving your dreams in 2019 and how to press forward and find your way through, even if things seem like it will never happen. She is going to share more about how past hobbies might just lead you to bigger dreams, although it may look different than you expected, and how to just start where you're at. Pastor Lynette Dutton is one of the most sought after women in North Carolina and across the country for incredible life-changing testimony and story of life breakthroughs. Today, she is co-pastor of the epicenter church.
She relocated to Forest City, North Carolina in 2012, along with her husband, Dr. Joseph Dutton, and her children, Destiny, and Ben, completely led by God. Leaving the dynamic leadership of Bishop Joby and Pastor Cheryl Brady of the Pottersaw, in North Dallas, Texas. Lynette and her husband have recently launched their next big dream as co-founders of Dominion TV.
Dominion Studios and Dominion TV are the worldwide media outreach ministries of Dr. Joseph and Lynette Dutton and Dominion Harvest Ministries. We're on casting from the campus of the epicenter church in Forest City, North Carolina. They are a Kingdom resource hub for the body of Christ, meeting the needs of ministries of all small and large to take the mountains of media and arts and entertainment.
It's their vision to expand the kingdom by bringing the uncompromising word of God by teaching and preaching from apostles and prophets from around the globe. Pastor Lynette considers herself to be very fortunate. Her passion for leadership was cultivated from working with some great leaders and some not so great. She often says empowering others to achieve success and significance in their lives pursuit is at the heart of what makes her who she is.
So grab a pen to take notes because this conversation is full of inspiration and steps you can take to move forward towards your big dreams. And don't forget to listen to the whole podcast episode because at the end Lynette prays a powerful prayer of importation over us so we can achieve our dreams for 2019. Lynette, welcome to Women and Puse Radio. How are you today?
I'm wonderful. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm super excited because I get to talk to you today and because I'm gathering what I call some of my most favorite women so we can have conversations that are going to set us up for success in the new year.
And the reason I wanted you here today is to help us just have a conversation around achieving your dreams in 2019. Now you've recently launched a new dream this past year and I thought it would be a great time just to share with our listeners more about that journey and specifically to give us some concrete steps that we can take to launch our own dreams this year because it just doesn't happen overnight. Right? Or am I missing something?
No, it does not happen overnight. You know from the outside looking in sometimes it looks like it may have, but it didn't. That's right. That's right.
Well, that's why I think it's so important because you know what the world of social media, which is amazing because it connects us. But I also think one of the downfalls to social media is that we think everybody else has a perfect life and that everything happens just magically. And that's not true. And so that's why I want to kind of peel back the curtain a little bit today and talk about, you know, what does it really look like?
And there are ups and downs to any dream, but you in particular have been so successful and it's not just this latest dream. I have watched you over the last couple of years. And when you get a vision from God, you implement and you understand the voice of the Lord and you don't always do it perfectly, but you somehow press forward and find your way through. And so I just want to share a little bit about what that journey looks like and then how can we do that with our dreams.
Wonderful. Yes. That sounds great. So here we go.
Tell us a little bit about, you know, your big dream that you had last year and I think you've actually had that dream for years, but you actually started implementing. So share with us like what did that look like and then how can we just at least take a step towards our dreams. Wonderful. Wonderful.
So Dominion TV was probably birthed originally when over 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. All right. Me and my husband both did the television ministry for our church and a local Christian station came to town. We helped them launch their ministry and it started with me wanting my own show, which, you know, at the time was not reasonable.
I couldn't do any of those things, but it started with planning my own show, planning our own shows and then it turned into a series of shows and through the years as we're talking, it turned into a whole TV station. So our dream started small and they continue to grow, but the funny thing was is for most of those 25 years I worked in finance and didn't really have anything to do with TV other than that was a hobby of ours. We always did media. We did TV.
We did social media, whatever it was new and techy and was communicating to people. We would jump on that bandwagon. And then I want to say it was probably close to three years ago that we were streaming our services. We had done blog talk radio.
We did all different types of things. We had our own TV shows on a local network and God just started saying, you need to step back to a little bit. There's something different that I want to do. And I didn't understand it because I don't like taking steps backwards.
I can understand that. Yeah. You kind of say, get behind me. Right?
Right? I'm kidding. But you know, you're kind of like, you know, why would God tell me just to hold up? You know, why?
Right. And over that year, he did a series of things just in shifting our visions, shifting our dreams and really grounding them in his words, showing us kind of a bigger picture. And about two years ago, we actually started taking steps. He got real verbal with us, really started talking to us, not audibly, but you know, through signs, through prophetic words, through things we would hear in a prayer, things we would dream.
And one of the prayers we had is God, you've got to be bigger than the place that you put us in. You never called us to a small place or to do a small thing. How are you going to do this, God? And he started showing us media again in a big way.
During that time, we actually saw a television studio for sale, well, recording studio for sale, and we went and looked at it. And as my husband describes it, he says, I put my hands on the wall. He said, and it was like, I could just like, a movie screen started going off of vision and what could be accomplished. And it was just like the most powerful energy that you could feel.
And about that time, you know, our dreams that looked so far away got real clear, real visible. And we just felt it was really tangible. Like, now is the time. So that was two years ago.
So it took us a year and a half to two years from walking into the first place that looked like a studio. Then we went on the search, is this a studio? Is this a studio? What's the best?
Do we sign a lease? And, you know, that would have been nice, but no, we had to start with making business plans and putting down financials and getting all the paperwork in order, talking to investors, talking to bankers on actually the steps. And then we have some really good friends that we can find in and kind of bounce our decisions off of, you know, to make sure that we have counsel and went to those over us in the Lord. And we were getting green lights except for when it came to a building.
Because we were looking outside of our city into a city because we're in a small town and we thought, okay, God's got to do this in a big city. And we were praying one day is why isn't this happening faster? And I want to say eight months have passed where we were just doing paperwork. I mean, that sounds, it sounds horrible.
There's nothing fun about that part of the dream of, you know, because I was working full time. We had ministry that we were doing together. So, you know, in every spare minute of every spare day, you know, we were calculating and doing, you know, putting down everything we were going to need in our plans. And that day in prayer, God said, I never told you to go and do it anywhere else.
You're going to need to, and he said these words, you need to start where you're at. That's why I gave you the property. Wow. And I was like, okay, God.
And from the minute I heard that my husband bore witness to that. And from that minute when we started making plans to start where we were, things started rolling. And I want to say that was my years are going to run. That was February 2017.
By July 2017, we got in full funding for everything. We had the investors and bankers come alongside us and we started working on remodeling and building out the studio portion of it. We got all those pieces together by November 2017. And in January 2018, we had the engineers coming to install the television equipment and to actually build it out.
I thought after that, one trip in January that we would be locked and loaded and be able to go on air, but it actually took us another eight months to get on air. And not just setbacks, but learning curves that we had to learn, you know, because we had done portions of this, but we did not, we had never fully scaled opened the studio, you know, from scratch before and everything's digital. And, you know, if one thing doesn't work, it leads to another thing. So we launched August 1, 2018, and so that was over 20 years in the making and over three years of walking towards that.
Two years really active. So it didn't happen overnight? No. You know, you said, I actually was taking notes and I don't want to stop your train of thought, but I had, I've been listening to you and I heard a couple things that I think I want to just repeat for our listeners.
One thing is that you can turn a hobby into a dream. And so don't always discount the things that you've been doing all along because I heard you say, well, we've kind of done the work all along, but it was more for other reasons not necessarily you thinking, oh, this is where our big vision is. You know, I never thought the money would come from it. Oh, back in the day, I thought it was a hobby.
You know, finance was paying everything. You know, I was in banking. I was an insurance. I was a recruiter for financial industry.
I thought that in my coaching training. I thought that's, you know, that's where my money's going to be or ministry. And it turns out that this thing that was a hobby that was just fun that intrigued us and Bishop Brady told me something one time, Bishop, Jobe Brady, he said your oil knows you. Oh, I love that.
And I noticed that anytime. And this is like high inside the 2020, you know, it took me years to figure this out. Every time I turn a camera on or every time we go live, whether it was back in the day, it was that internet radio show, you know, any time that we would click live or we would go to record something, the oil would flow. I love that.
And, you know, so we were thinking this is fun because, you know, the oil that noint is moving in this, you could feel that, you know, when you start going, it's, you know, you open your mouth and the words come. Yeah, but I can open, you know, I'm trying to read a book. And I can sit over there and they don't flow like it does when I click the live button, right? It's something about clicking that live button or, you know, that red button to record that, you know, it's just, it starts coming out.
And I won't have a train of thought and Bishop is Mark, tutor Bismarck said that the first time you birth something, it's really the hardest. So he described that when he was writing his first book, he said he never did anything so difficult. But once you overcome that first hurdle, and you know, it may have been that. I don't even remember because the first time I went live on TV was 25 years ago or more.
So, you know, it probably was really difficult to verify the first few times, but I've done it so much that it's like, you know, the oil is just there. And so I'm believing once I get through this first book that it'll be the same with writing, but we'll see. Right, right. Well, your oil knows you, so we'll say.
Well, and that's so good because then the next thing you did, which I heard was, you know, God told you to step back. And that goes against, like you said, everything we think in the natural like, no, press forward, press forward. It's just the enemy trying to get you off the mark, which can happen. But it's so important that you knew when you were hearing from the Lord because you had spent so much time in his word and you could discern his voice.
And so you were able to recognize, no, this is from God. And he's saying, step back, how hard was that? It was hard because at the time we had just launched two television programs on another network. And it seemed just really cumbersome and working with it.
It just, it wasn't flowing. Not that our recordings weren't flowing, but it was like just the production of everything and getting it on and getting the response. And we were praying it, but we knew God told us TV. So it was like, well, God, you told us this, but it was not the time or the avenue that he wanted us at the time.
Because it was really difficult to make the two programs that were on once a week. And right now we are doing, personally, we've got one person that's helping us. Personally, we're producing, I want to say 15 to 20 shows per week right now. But then three years ago, two shows were a lot.
Right. But that doesn't, you know, it goes back to your oil, right? Because you took that step back to allow God to give you the bigger vision. And then he gave you the resources for that because now, yes, it's hard work, but you're doing five times the amount that you were before.
And it's coming easily, not easy, but easier. Yeah. It's not stifling. It's not, it's not, it's work, but it's not hard work, you know, to where, you know, you're laboring to try to figure it out or anything.
It's just, it's really there. There's a flow to it. And that's how you know when God's in something, it doesn't mean that obstacles don't come. It means that you have the grace to overcome that that you're facing.
And you get really good in your working your dreams at managing uncertainty. Because there's a faith that's so built up inside of you because you know that you're in the will of God and that you're doing exactly what he told you to do. And, and so, you know, when you're crunching the numbers or when, you know, things aren't looking like you thought they would look, you know, you have to manage that uncertainty. But it's with a trust and the face that God you told me to do this.
And, you know, if something's happening, I'm going to say, God, if I'm this stepped, you know, have I stepped out of exactly what you're asking. And, you know, if that is, you know, fix my steps and get back in that flow. But most of the time, it's just him saying, no, just do the answer or he'll tell me when it's going to happen. And so it's knowing that if you're sick at him first, he adds all this other to you.
And that's what I think you meant when you said he was showing you a bigger picture. Yeah. And that you were called into bigger. And I think a lot of times, especially as Christians, I hate to say this, but I know a lot of Christians who live what I call underneath their capacity.
You know, because I don't know what do you think, are we afraid to ask the question, God, do you have something bigger for me or are we afraid of the work? Why do you think we maybe play smaller than we should? I think that there's something in Christianity or in religion that has told us that we need to be satisfied and that we don't need a degree or when you look like you're a little ambitious or you say you want more or you want increase, then people question you because you've got, what did my mom used to tell me? You know, it's like, you know, eat everything on your plate because there's children in Africa.
You know, now there's children down the street that don't have enough to eat. Right. You know, and so you've got that mentality that I need to be happy with what I've got because there's somebody that's got it worse than I do. But see, then there's comes this mind shift at some point that says, do I need to be happy with just what I have, you know, creating one program or, you know, teaching somebody how to do this?
Or do I need to, you know, I want to create opportunities. So I don't want to make just enough money for me. I want to make enough money that I can employ people, that I can invest in people. So if they have a dream or a vision that I can give them the seed money for that, you know, I am blessed to be a blessing.
But there's so many that, like, pigeonhole themselves that I just need to be happy with and I don't need to be greedy. And I'm better off than everybody else. And, you know, they look at God like he's on a budget. Right.
You know, if God favors Christi, God can't favor Lynette, but that's not how God operates. God's the creator. So if you were to come to the end of his supply, he would just create more. Right.
And when we realized that we're creating his image and likeness. So when you come to the end of your supply, we can just create more because he's given us the power to create wealth. But usually what he doesn't do is he usually just doesn't drop a bag of money off for us. Right.
He gives us an idea. Well, and that's the dream. And that's what I love about all you've accomplished and what you talk about because it's so much bigger than money. It's really about creating transformation.
And so when I hear you talk about, oh, people think I'm greedy. Really, if we look at it from a kingdom perspective, God is saying, I'm going to give you something. I'm going to put it in your hand. And I want you to run with it because you are going to transform nations with this.
And then a fallout from that is we're going to be blessed financially. We're going to be blessed with our relationships. And so it really is. And even the bigger picture is that transformation that we're making for the kingdom.
And when we can get over ourselves and understand it really isn't about you. It really isn't about me. It's about the kingdom transformation that will take place that will ultimately affect nations. And let's take your television station, for example.
That is reaching nations. So it's not a small thing, even though you felt like you had to start with what you had and it looked like you had small beginnings. But there is not was there is such a bigger picture that that's kind of what we have to get our hands around. So maybe that's one thing that we need to look at and just ask God that question and not be afraid to ask him.
Show me a bigger vision. Right. Is it not selfish or is it not greedy to think of just yourself instead of thinking of nations. Absolutely.
That is the biggest thing there is thinking beyond us, thinking about generations, thinking about nations, thinking about all those lives that you can impact if you just had the opportunity to have more provision. And what those ideas God may be giving you that can finance those things. You know, when you think of, oh, you know, I want to make sure everybody has clean drinking water. Well, that's not like just buying a case of water from your local angles or your local mark that you're at.
You know, you have to think of how many places would I have to dig wells. Right. And how what kind of cost is that? You know, so whatever God gives you, you've got to think of, you know, you can't solve that locally.
That's a global thing. But you have to start with what you got. Right. I did not.
When we started walking on the stream, I'm going to tell you, I didn't have the I didn't have I don't know that I had a hundred dollars to put towards it when I started walking towards it. I mean, everything was a faith walk in. I know, I know, you know, we talked before is I actually asked God to allow me to go to work. So I would have seed money and investment money to put towards it.
So I actually, I was in ministry and working for my own business full time and ask God and I actually worked for two years for a company. And the neat thing is, is my position was done away with, I got a severance package. So by severance package ended the day before we launched the television station. And, which is just such cool timing because I was like, God, I need the money to continue until this thing is built.
Right. However, you want to send it. So, so I mean, it was really funny. It's not funny.
It's God how the timing of everything worked out. But to encourage you that sometimes, you know, when you're launching your dream, you know, we have to take action. That doesn't mean I didn't have a check to write somebody to do it for me. We did a lot of the stuff ourselves.
I got that extra job. So I would have the extra seed money to put towards it. And then in addition to that, you know, I was working that and and building at the same time. And God just happened to help me work that transition out to where, you know, I had four months off of severance pay right before it started.
So I could really put even more effort towards it. But that is just like God. Just like God. Right.
You know, it reminds me of the story of Nehemiah and building the wall where sometimes they had they had one hand on the wall and one hand with the sword fighting off the enemy. So how I'm going to relate it to this story is sometimes we have to be doing the work. But on the other hand, we have to be doing the other things that come around us that will allow us to do the work better, if that makes sense. So, you know, God, that job can definitely fund the dream.
And it's okay to be doing two things at once. Right. You know, we're building the dream by doing the stuff we need to do every day to seed into that or to feed into that dream, which is exactly what you're saying here. Exactly.
Exactly. And you said something else too. In the midst of all your planning or over this two year period specifically, when God was ordering your steps, it wasn't always fun. But there are certain things you have to do.
And God always gives you an order. So how did you, you know, it's fun to sit down and do a TV show because you said you'd love a quick live button and I, you know, my oil flows. But there are some things that we have to do that aren't always this fun. How do you get yourself motivated to do the things that aren't always fun?
Sometimes you have to eat the frog first. Sometimes, you know, how you eat an elephant one step at one bite at a time. Right. But, you know, sometimes you really, you have to kind of play mind games with yourself of, you know, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to give myself a treat.
Oh, I love it. Whatever that is. Right. Maybe time outside or, you know, I'm going to work really hard for these few hours.
I'm going to be totally brain dead and then, you know, I'm just going to go do something like shopping or something. So there was different things at different times that we did to kind of just keep plowing. You have to know when to recharge. You have to know when to unplug.
And that's probably my hardest part because I'm so dream driven that it, I really have to make myself unplug sometimes. But I'm learning that. But, you know, it's when those obstacles come when those things that you don't really like, I don't like crunching numbers. I worked in finance 25 years and the last thing I want to do now is crunch a number.
So I would, you know, I'd have to just say everybody just leave me alone. This is quiet. Just leave me in my office. Don't come ask me anything because if I'm sidetracked, I am going to, you know, I'm going to chase that rabbit full on.
So I don't have to do what I need to do. So, you know, there's different things that we did to try to get through it. And, you know, in the years, I'm going to crunch some more numbers again here by January. So, right?
Well, it's just the nature of the process. Yeah. You know, and another thing you mentioned though is so you're, you're walking forward in your dream. You can't have to start where you were at, but there were learning curves.
And so as you navigate those learning curves, what have you learned and maybe not specifically about Dominion TV, but what? I don't know. One of the techies stuff. Well, that's not my forte either.
Maybe I do need to learn some of that. But, you know, when you're talking about learning curves overall and you can take any dream you want, you know, when we navigate that, it can feel like we're set up for failure and we want to quit. What do you do to just keep pushing through to the next mountain, you know? Yeah, you know, it's hard and I'm going to tell you this year, I probably had more setbacks or more obstacles that had absolutely nothing to do with a dream.
But we come to stop that. And so it was the worst best year I've ever had. Does that make any sense? It does.
Actually, when you said that, I had to think through that for a second. But the worst, the best year you've ever had, that makes total sense to me. No. So it was, you know, the most devastating things happened and the most delightful things happened all at the same time.
So, you know, in that it was, you know, to me, prayer and the word gets me through and I have a phenomenal spouse. But there were a few few weeks where it was hard to do much anything. And what I would have to tell myself is, is one, I'd pray and study. So I would get my mind right.
But even a small step is a step forward. So even those days, I didn't feel like I had any energy to move my dream forward anyway. I would, whether it was sitting by the Internet and sending out a couple of emails or a couple of text messages that were going to keep things moving, answering messages, you know, whatever it was, even if it was just an hour a day on some of those days, I would say any step forward is not standing still and it's not stepping back. And so even when those things, you know, my world was shaken and things are good now or getting better.
But during those times and, you know, some of that happened, I did some moves. I mean, there were all kinds of stuff. And so it was like, even though I can't put 100% into today, I'm going to do something. So I wouldn't let myself in with a mind game of that I played with myself of you got to do something to keep this dream.
Moving forward. So I did not ever give myself permission to stop or to take off as far as, you know, just totally shut down. I made sure that I did at least one small thing to keep it going, because if I would keep going, it gave me enough motivation and energy to know that I could do that the next day. If I was faithful to help me through whatever I had to do today, then I knew he'd be faithful tomorrow.
That was totally relying on on Jesus. Well, and that's great advice to know that God is the same yesterday and tomorrow. If you have faith for yesterday, you'll have faith for today. You have faith for tomorrow.
But it can be hard. And I know you've even kind of just glossed over two years worth of work and we've done it in like 20 minutes. So there's a lot more to that. But I think if you had to give one piece of advice for the listeners, how to advance in their dreams.
And I know maybe it's hard to give once. You can give three if you want, but at least one. What's one thing that you think is the most critical thing if a woman is thinking, I want to walk forward in my dream. What would you tell her?
Number one, don't let money stop you or the need of money stop you. There's something that you can do. I'm brought to the point where God asks what's in your hands, what do you have, and then he can multiply that. For that little boy, it was his loaf of bread and his vicious.
So whatever you bring to the table, start with that and God can use that and multiply it. But don't let money stop you. Number two would be don't let no defeat you. I can remember, I told you for eight months, I was going through that financing and trying to put our numbers and crunch our numbers and I can remember the first bank coming back saying no, you're not a good investment.
And I can remember, you know, that that next hour after that, no one was kind of like, man, now, you know, now I got, but I rebounded really quickly from that, because then I said, you know, those terms weren't good enough. I'm going to turn it around. They can't tell me, no, I can tell them those terms wouldn't have worked out for me. Right.
Well, you got to turn around that turn around that no whatever that no maybe. That's great advice. Those are those are my two. And then, you know, like I said, just for when you're overcoming obstacles, just keep moving it forward, even if it's baby steps, baby steps still get you somewhere.
Right. It takes those baby steps before you can take those giant leads. And that's what I have watched you do. And that's why I'm such an admirer of you and your family, because I've seen you all just keep moving forward.
You listen to the Lord. So I know that beyond the shadow of doubt that you're hearing from the Lord, but you keep moving forward in spite of, you know, in spite of everything that happens. So I'm so thankful that you can share some of that with us today. And thank you.
We can't, we can't wait to see the rest of the story because I really believe there's so much more there. I was wondering if you would be willing to just end our conversation today with a prayer over the women specifically who are thinking of walking into their dream and just kind of pray around that if you'd be able to take us out in prayer for that. It would be my honor. Lord, I thank you for these phenomenal women that are listening now.
They're listening in the future. God, I thank you Lord for the dreams, the visions, even the things that may seem dead or may seem desolate. God, but you told them to do it and they kind of put it on a back burner. God.
I ask that you're going to renew the fire and the fervency of their dreams and visions right now. God, and I'm asking that you give them a strategy, tangible steps to take towards their vision. God, and as they step out in faith, whether it's baby steps, whether it's that giant leaf, whatever they're doing to walk towards their vision that you be so faithful God that you cause abundance of provision to come and to meet them in the steps that they're taking Jesus. God, I ask whatever it is that has made them feel defeated or that has been that obstacle or that mountain facing them where they thought that they couldn't do it or maybe they didn't have the education for it, the resources for it.
They didn't have the talent for God, but I want you to speak to them. God, and let them hear what you think about them that they are more than enough that they are more than conquerors that they have the gifts and the talents that you put inside of them. And just like that little boy had that insignificant lunch that day that fed 5000 God. I know that each of these women can feed at least 5000 with the things that you put in their hands today Jesus.
God and I ask God that that even those small things or or they're settling God that you bring such an enlargement to their mind and to their dreams and to their visions where they can see increase and they can see beyond where they're at today to see what you're wanting to do. And to see what you're wanting to do in and through them in Jesus mighty name I pray and I thank you God. I thank you for these women Lord and I thank you for their dreams and I thank you for giving them the boldness and courage and faith to go after everything that you've told them to do in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Amen. And thank you so much for telling us, Lynette, that we need to see beyond as we enter this new year. So thank you for spending time with us and we look forward to talking to you again soon. And I look forward to it as well.
Thank you. It's been my honor to be on your program today, Christy. This has been Women in Fuse Radio connecting women around the globe with purpose and spirit and we want to connect with you. Get your free gift, unveiled voices, six things you need to do to define your value, voice and vision.
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