Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / Ministry is NOT What You Think It Is
Transcript
- Courtney: Welcome to the Rooted Women Podcast, the place for Christian women who are ready to grow deeper in their faith, find freedom from the things keeping them stuck, and confidently walk in the calling God has placed on their lives. Here we're getting rooted in biblical truth, having honest conversations about real life, and learning what it looks like to actually live out our faith. I'm Courtney, your host, and I'm so glad you're here. Let's get rooted. Big topic for today's podcast. I actually had a different podcast planned for today, but the Lord changed my heart. He changed my list. He changed my mind and had me rewrite write the whole entire thing. So here we are today talking about ministry, and it isn't what you think it is. I want to talk about the truth about ministry. And we're just gonna dive deep into some thoughts that I have today. I think that we have made ministry. this big and complicated thing and often, okay, don't don't come at me with daggers when I say this, but often we make it an idol. Okay, we hear the word ministry and we immediately picture maybe serving or a stage or a microphone or a title or showing up at a Bible study or a program that's going on at church, a small group, children's ministry. Maybe you do view it as a podcast, a platform, going on a mission trip, nonprofits, right? any type of leadership position or like I mentioned before, like a title. We think that ministry is the thing that we go and do for God. But I want to reframe ministry today because again, it is not what you think it is. What if ministry is actually happening in the places where maybe we are rushing through, we are showing the worst version of ourselves so that we can get to the things that we have decided our ministry that we have decided are important. Okay. Like I said, don't come at me with daggers. I just wanna ask this question. I wanna frame it in a different way. And I wonder what happens. Like what if we treated the people in our home the same way that we show up intentionally and treat people that we minister to at church? Oof, right? It kind of stings sometimes, doesn't it? There was a season I know in my own life where I would show up and I'd be praying for people and I was there for people, but it was really hard to show up in my own home. And I did not like that there was such a stark contrast. And I kept praying and asking God to allow me to show up in my home as a ministry the way that I would if I was showing up to a ministry. And I think that it's easy to get ready and go somewhere outside of your own home. And put on a brave face or be encouraging, be a little bit more patient than when you are at home. notice maybe somebody that's standing alone or, you know, just kind of off to the side at the park when all the moms are together and and chatting and you notice her and you go and you start a conversation. And you want to be a good listener and you want to serve and you want to represent Jesus well. But what about when we come home? What about when we come home and maybe it's past lunchtime and it's getting close to nap time and everybody's melting down? Did that version of you when you were out looking at that one mom at the park as an opportunity to do ministry change when you got home and you no longer viewed what you were doing as ministry? I know it hurts to ask that question. Sometimes the people who get the most exhausted version of us are the people that God has placed closest to us, in my opinion. I mean, I know that that has been super convicting for me. I don't want to spend my whole life trying to minister to everybody else when I'm treating my actual life like an interruption to that ministry. I'm gonna say it again. I do not want to spend my life trying to minister to everyone else while treating my actual life like like an interruption to my ministry. I was explaining to another mom and just talking about interruptions and the way that we can reframe that with our own children as bids for connection. And if my children are just bidding for my connection and I'm viewing it as an interruption and I'm putting these other ministry things first, what does that say to my kids? So I've been working on trying to allow them to interrupt me and be a part of what I'm doing to a certain extent and still giving boundaries and still following through, but making sure that I'm not looking at them or anything else as an interruption to the ministry that I'm doing because really they are my first ministry. And if I keep first things first, it changes the perspective and the way that I approach these things because ministry is not what we think it is. Also, your home is not the waiting room. I think, especially for women who feel called to something, there's this temptation to believe that we are waiting for ministry to begin. When the kids get older, when I have more time, or maybe when like the next opportunity comes up, when I finally start this Bible study or when I grow on social media, when somebody comes to me and asks me to leave, your home is not just this sitting waiting room for you. To get called upon. Your home is where you are called upon first, and it is training ground. What if you approached being a mom, being a wife, stewarding your home as training ground for what the Lord is going to give to you in this following season? Right? Your life right now is not the waiting room for your calling. It is the training ground for your calling. You are already standing in places where God can use you. Motherhood, marriage, friendship, hospitality are all versions of ministry. Can we reframe what we think ministry truly is? Even sometimes you're in a conversation in the store line or you are maybe at a pickup line at school or you are, I always use like the bank example, but you're going to the bank, you're going through the drive-thru and you're talking with somebody, that's a ministry opportunity. We saw somebody in a drive-thru and she was just like so elated to see my kids. talking to her and noticing her. And she was like, they're so sweet. my goodness. Nobody ever says hi to me. I'm like, nobody ever says hi to you like that. Like, so I make it now. It's a a routine. Like, let's go see if she's working. Just run through the drive-thru, grab something small really quick, just to make it that opportunity for my kids to be pulled into ministry with me because that is an opportunity for ministry. And if motherhood's my first ministry, then I get to pull them into these little moments of ministry throughout, how much more will they respect the bigger ministry opportunities that come. It's all training ground, right? This does not mean that every interaction needs to become a sermon, though, right? I don't have to talk to that woman about Jesus the first time I go through the drive-thru and she says nobody's ever smiled at me and I'm like, it's just the love of Jesus. Come, you know, I don't have to do that, right? But What if I just came and I planted small seeds by saying, of course we would stop and say hi to you. You know, you we always see that you're working with a a friendly face on, you know, we wanted to acknowledge that those things can go so far in somebody's heart. And if we look at these little opportunities as little seeds planted, I feel like the the Lord will see these things that we are doing and want to bless them more. If again, he who is faithful, little, right? I want to be faithful with the little things that he has given me, whether it's a person sitting across from me at my own kitchen table or the person standing behind me in line at the store. I want to take those opportunities and just love others well. I love the book Everybody Always by Bob Goff. And just really the way that it has convicted me and changed my perspective of the way that we interact with people and the impact that we can make just by loving them well. And it doesn't have to be a conversation centered on Jesus. You can imitate Jesus in the way that He loves and your interactions, and that can be enough. And when you start to make those connections with people and make an impact on the their lives, then the Jesus conversation naturally happens. And there are times where you're like, I've seen a woman in a parking lot at the was I at UPS? Yeah, I was at the UPS store. I saw this woman. I said, Hey, I just want to say you are like glowing with joy. And I just feel like the joy of the Lord is upon you. And I hope that you have an amazing day today. And she was like You have no idea what this means to me. It's my birthday. And I'm like, hey, we're kind of in the middle of the parking lot. If you're okay, will you come over by my car and can I pray for you for your birthday today? And she was a little hesitant at first and then she looked at my car and was like, I see this Jesus sticker. This has to be you, right? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm not a mean or weird person like trying to get you by my car or anything. I just don't want you to get hit by a car in the parking lot. And I got to pray with her and she was like, You have made my day. This was so special. th there are moments for those things too, right? but what about the simple things? What would change if I started asking or if we started asking, how can I represent Jesus well in everything that I'm doing? Not just at church, not just when I get to pray for people, not just when I get to mention his name, but everywhere that I go in everything I do. What if I viewed ministry as something different? Jesus did a lot of his ministry around tables. When we look at the life of Jesus, we see him around tables, walking down roads, inside homes, in conversation. And there are people who interrupt him, whatever seemed to be happening at that time, right? Jesus certainly went and taught in crowds, of course, but he also stopped. For individuals and he ate with people and he noticed people and he asked questions and he touched people that others would have avoided and he welcomed in children and he washed feet. And so if I want to be an example of Jesus, then I have to be willing to do those things too, not just with a crowd, not just on a Sunday, not just when it's a title at a church. Can I view ministry as everything that's going on in my life, especially in my home first? If I view that as my training ground, some of the most powerful moments of Jesus' ministry. were not happening with a big crowd at all. They happened because Jesus was fully present with whoever was right in front of him at that time. I wonder how much ministry are we missing because we're looking for an accolade, a pat on the back, a microphone, a title, instead of looking at a person, whether that's again standing in our own kitchen, standing in line somewhere, standing in a parking lot, because we're so focused on the other thing and we're not calling these other moments ministry. Again, Let's talk about the home because we talk about holy h habits, healthy habits, and really changing our mindset, our perspective, our our priorities. All of that's going to start in two places, your heart and in your home. What if we treated our home like ministry? Okay, think about when you go and you prepare to serve somewhere. You're thinking about what you're gonna wear, you're thinking about what time you need to be there, what time you need to leave to make it there on time. You're preparing your heart, maybe you pray beforehand, you think about the people that you might be encountering. You want to genuinely show up ready, right? We don't just go somewhere in our pajamas like, hey, I'm here to serve at this event. Like, no, you get. ready for it but what if we brought even a fraction of that intentionality into our home right what if before the kids you know wake up instead of only thinking okay lunches backpacks breakfast shoes or what homeschool activity are we doing or where are we going today? What if you said to the Lord like Lord help me to disciple these kids well today? Help me to love my children well help me to be patient with them today. Same thing with husbands same thing with work Lord, show me who needs my encouragement today and give me the words that you would want to encourage them with. Help me to listen instead of waiting for my turn to talk, right? I think that if we ask these questions, if we pray these prayers, it helps to shift our perspective because we're starting in our heart. If my heart is not pure, the Lord knows. And if I am not walking out this walk in my own home, my children know, my husband knows. Anybody who comes by is going to know because they're going to see the real version, the unveiled version, the not Sunday morning best version. I want the Sunday morning best version to be the version that my children get when homeschool is hard. that my husband gets in a hard conversation. It doesn't always go that way. And then we repent and we move forward, right? Because it is hard, right? To always feel like you're on in your own home. And that's not what I'm saying here. But I am saying if we were to look at it intentionally, the way that we look at all of these other opportunities, what more could God do with those moments than when we're just missing it and we're pushing past it and we look at everything like I'm just waiting for the next opportunity instead of taking the opportunity that's in front of us. I also want to talk about motherhood being more than just managing, right? This one really, really, really shifted the way that I started looking at my children. Motherhood can become so task-oriented. I have to feed them, I have to get them dressed, we have to switch the laundry, I need to do the dishes, the floor is a mess, there's something sticky over here, who touched this, whatever. Why are these pieces all over the place? Like I those are real thoughts that I probably had in the last 24 hours, I will say. and we repeat these things like day after day after day. And when we're exhausted, it is really easy to start viewing motherhood primarily as just something that we're managing. But these are not just tiny people that we're responsible for keeping alive. Like that's a big portion of motherhood, but they are souls that we are discipling. They are souls. That we are discipling discipling. So if I am just waiting and I'm just managing so that I can go and disciple elsewhere, my children see me going and doing that thing with other people. And how much more are they longing for me to do that with them? They need the discipling too. They're learning what forgiveness looks like by watching us apologize. They learn what prayer looks like because they see and hear us pray. I've been trying to pray even more. I mean, prayer is a huge part of our day. Before meals and in between, and when somebody gets hurt and when there's a fight and when it seems like our home is a little bit disoriented, just pausing and praying for the peace and joy of the Lord to be abundant in our home. That's a huge part of our day. But Just what about the moments that I pray with them even individually? When I see that they are struggling with something on an individual level and I pause and I get down on their level and I speak to their heart in that way, the way that I would somebody that I see who's struggling at church. They are learning what grace looks like when we are just in the mundane of a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday and it's not Sunday morning service, right? This does not require us to be perfect in motherhood. Thank God, right? All the moms said amen. It requires us to just be faithful and to just cling to the Lord in those moments and remember that this is ministry too, because ministry is not what we think it is. Ministry is everywhere and it is all the time. It is in our marriage, even. sometimes we're incredibly gracious with everybody except. The person that we have married. And I mean, I still get here in my own marriage. We'll give somebody at church like the benefit of the doubt immediately. And then our husband forgets something and we're like, seriously, you know, and just like watching our attitudes, the way that we would watch our attitudes with somebody else that we're interacting with. And again, this doesn't have to look perfect, but what gets us there is practicing repentance and moving forward with more patience and with more intentionality in the way that we do interact to view it as a ministry too. And I'm not saying that that our homes are a project, right? Or they're not a ministry project. But if we come again intentionally and show up with love and with joy and with peace and with patience and with kindness and with goodness and with faithfulness and with gentleness and with self-control, and we are intentional in each and every one of those, how much more can we have peace in our home? Right? We talk about survival mode all the time on my social media and in the the holy habits challenges and things like that. And I have women in my DMs all the time that you're struggling with survival mode. How much more could God do in those moments when we bring him in and we are intentional? And what would that look like for getting out of survival mode? You're bringing God into every aspect of your life. You're not gonna stay in survival mode, sister. You kidding me? He's not gonna leave you there when you are so intentional about bringing him in. And I also wanna talk about the fact that ministry doesn't have to be this big and impressive thing. I think that in our culture we have maybe confused this a little bit. Like we started associating impact with visibility. It's only more or I guess it would be more impactful if it is seen more. I've even seen pages on like you know social media where it is just sharing what they are doing in ministry. And I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but when we are doing it for views and visibility more than we are doing it for magnifying the kingdom. I think it it shifts the way our culture looks at things as a whole. And so if thousands of people see it, they think, that's so impactful. And if nobody sees it, it's the thought that comes in like, does that even matter? But the kingdom of God does does not operate according to an algorithm. I'm gonna say it again. The kingdom of God does not operate. according to an algorithm. Some of the most significant things that you will ever do for the kingdom will never be seen by anybody else. It is the prayers that you pray on your knees when somebody says, Hey, this thing is going on with my family and we need prayers right now. You know, it is the things that that you bring to the Lord that you show up for somebody in I think about my best friend showing up at the hospital when I'm like, I don't know what's going on and if this thing just happened and I feel really alone right now and she just, what do you need? And she shows up at the hospital. And it's like, okay, this doesn't r if this isn't really that big of a deal. You didn't have to come. It's like, no, she wanted to be there with me. And nobody needed to see that. It wasn't, you know, this Instagrammable moment of her showing up. She just showed up because she cares, because she loves. And she's doing it because she is my sister in Christ and one of my very, very best friends. And she doesn't need somebody to clap for it or to acknowledge her in the doing it. She's doing it because this is friendship, this is ministry, this is real life. And if we are that way on a Sunday morning, why would we not be that way behind closed doors when nobody else is looking? You know, if people don't clap for it, if people don't talk about it, if if nobody knows, would you still do it? And would the way that you approach it look the same as if everybody was watching. That's that's the biggest contrast right there. Would it look the same if you're doing it with nobody watching versus when everybody is watching, if you knew all eyes were on you, because God sees every single port of it. He sees us in, you know, the hard moments when everybody's tantruming and maybe we did lose it a little bit. But if you got frustrated with somebody in the at the body of Christ at church or in ministry, would you not talk about that with them and resolve it because you're like, We don't want to have like a conflict here and you know we're all sisters in Christ and you know we need to pray for each other and be on the same team. Would we not go and do that with our family too? Would we not go and do that behind closed doors? Ministry, the most important thing in my mind about ministry is making sure that the way that I would show up for ministry that is in front of people is the same way that I would show up for ministry that is one-on-one behind closed doors or solo me and the Lord when I'm in my prayer time. I want that to look the same. And I'm challenging you to make It looked the same too. So that is the question that I have for you today is that you will begin to pray, Lord, where am I not focusing on ministry in the way that you want me to? Or where is my view of ministry a little bit distorted and I need to focus on the smaller scale ministry that's maybe right in my home or the way that I'm acting, you know, Monday through Saturday before Sunday comes. and really just get your heart right with the Lord. Your ministry begins wherever God has placed you. Will you take it seriously and be intentional when you approach it? and trust that He has you there for a reason. Okay, let's pray. So, Father God, I just thank you that you give us moments where we can do ministry in our living room with our children, in our living room with a friend over, behind closed doors with a significant other, or in our prayer closet when we are alone with you, Father, that you have entrusted us to begin ministry there. That ministry doesn't need tons of people looking or people clapping or a title to be able to go and do it. Ministry is just where we serve and where w how we live and where we with who live who we live with. And so God let us approach those things like a ministry. Let us be intentional the way that we would a ministry meeting in a church body. Let us do those things when we are alone, when we are at home, when we are in the mundane moments of the back and forth and just running errands. Let us view those little moments as ministry. And Father, will you show us where maybe you are bringing us into you to be called to minister, whether it's at the drive through, just allowing our kids to say hi and make somebody's day, or it's praying for somebody in a parking lot, will you reveal those moments to us and allow us to walk deeper in the call that you have on our lives, Lord, and not miss the moments because we're looking for the next big big thing. let us be patient enough to see the small things that you're doing and asking us to be faithful in Lord. I just pray over each woman that has ministry on her heart. and and just pray God that you reveal to her how to use it and how to show up and how to steward it well, how to represent you, Jesus, and all that we do. And in the areas where a a woman felt shame today just listening to this message like, Wow, you actually Don't know Courtney, you know who I am behind closed doors and it's not looking good over here and I feel a lot of shame. I just pray for that woman right now that shame will break off in the mighty name of Jesus and that you will reveal to her the next right thing that she needs to do, God. That maybe it looks like repentance, maybe it looks like journaling and sitting with you to think about the responses that come out when we're, you know, stressed out or whatever it looks like, Lord. But I just pray, God, that there be healing in that area for the woman that felt shame listening to this message today, God, and that you just continue to walk so near and close to us, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in once again to the Rooted Woman podcast. I'm so grateful that you are here and that you are along for the ride. If you are not in the free Facebook group, I will link that in the show notes. I also want to let you know in the Facebook group, I gave a sneak peek. I can't believe I posted it. It's real now. I gave a sneak peek of what's to come. Yes, I have shared a lot of fun things in the more recent weeks here, but there's a lot more coming. So I will just reveal a few things. Number one, I'm pulling back from my upper management position at work. I really feel the call to be putting my first things first, right? My home and my my children as my ministry, but also to step deeper into ministry. And I'm so excited for what the Lord has in store for me, for us, for this page, for everything. because I know it's going to be good. And we are working on getting the road to rooted up and running. So get ready for that. The wait list is open. That's going to be a six-week cohort mentorship where I'm just walking with. several of you to be going deeper to get deeper healing to have deeper understanding and clarity to be able to move into all the things that God is asking you to move into with a greater level of healing and peace and patience and joy and all of it. So I'm so excited about that. And then I'm working on the details of a summit conference going to be online and it's going to be a women's conference for those who are looking to lead. We're going to go into some teaching for several days. That's why it is online. You're going to be able to go at your own pace. And then we're going to enter into a challenge to be able to use the voice that God has given us to walk in the call in our lives. So there is a lot coming. I'm just teasing a little bit here so I can get all of you excited with me. Get plugged into that free Facebook group just to get a sneak peek of what things look like. And stay tuned because more will be dripped out here as we continue to go through each of these episodes. I will see you back here next Thursday. Have a great rest of your