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The Aftertalk for Lions Rising - expanding and expounding on the topics discussed in Lions Rising.
Yellow, everyone. I am Luke Milky, the host of Lions Rising podcast, where we have five minute interviews on practical, tactical insights for raising up spiritual warriors. The conversation today with David was a lot of fun. I really enjoy Bill to see his heart for ministry. Even though he's already had a full career, he's about ready to retire from being a police officer.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean that he is done working for God, which I think is absolutely awesome to see his excitement to get behind the pulpit, get into ministry and be a pastor and all the work that he's doing right now to be a pastor. And the things that he talked about today, I think go a long ways, not only in trying to become a pastor, but being in ministry in general. I think that we need to take a lot of what he said and just apply it to any life, whether you're going to active full time ministry or not. I love how he said that we need to be a lifetime learner. I think that is a big part that a lot of people don't think about a lot.
Speaker 1:They think, well, I'm done with college, I'm done with high school, I really don't want to go into college, or we've had college, I really don't want to go any further. And I admit when I finished college, I am never doing anything like this again. And the next semester I was in my master's degree. And when I finished my master's degree, told my wife, I'm not going to say I'm not going to be a doctorate because I don't want to jinx myself. Obviously, I don't believe in that kind of jinxing stuff.
Speaker 1:But it was a joke that don't say, because I don't want to make it happen. But being a lifetime learner, learning continuously about what God has called me to do is very, very important. I believe it is important that we all continue learning in what God has called us to do. When I was a professor at Maranatha Baptist University, I remember putting into one of my slides, I don't remember the exact details because it was a while ago, and probably the stats have changed slightly because this was quite a while ago. I think it was fifty seven percent of people will read less than five books after graduating college for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:And it was forty something percent will never read a full book ever again in their lives. And to me, that was just blew me away. Now, I'm not an avid reader. I'm not one who just reads and reads and reads, but saying that I never read and never will read that to me is amazing. I think if you're one that falls in that category that you don't read books at all, and you're never going to read, I think you need to start reading, you need to start learning, and you need to dedicate to being the lifetime learner.
Speaker 1:Now, all learning comes through books. I get that. I do a lot of my learning online and doing other learning routes as well, including mentorship, being with people, learning from other people. And then another thing that David mentioned was God promises to provide what we need. When God is calling us to do something, whether that's full time ministry, whether it's something, some other type of career, maybe that's just doing something that's challenging, maybe it's moving somewhere to be able to follow through in what God has called you to do.
Speaker 1:God has promised He will take care of you. He's not going to send you on something that He's not going to provide for. So I think we need to remember and continuously remind ourselves that whatever God has called us to do, He's going to be there with us. He's not going to send us on some rogue trip, rogue adventure without Him. When He has called us, He's going to be there and He's going to provide what we need.
Speaker 1:Whether that is the finances, the learning, He's going to give us the skills. He's going to bring us the mentors, whatever it is that we need. If God has called us to do it, God's going to provide what we need. Another thing he mentioned was with age comes wisdom. Don't assume like, well, I'm older, so I'm already kind of stuck in the ways I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I can't really do something else. There are a ton of people who switch careers later in life and were very, very successful in their careers. It's not just in ministry, but I think ministry is something that we can seriously consider changing careers later in life because God gives wisdom. So maybe you weren't ready to be in the ministry back in your twenties or your thirties, but maybe in the forties, fifties or sixties, you have developed the wisdom, you developed that lifelong learning that you are now ready to fulfill the next call that God has for your life. So I think it's something a lot of people think, well, I wasn't called in ministry when I was in college.
Speaker 1:So this isn't my route. God doesn't have me to be in ministry stuff because he didn't call me back in my teens. Because we've all heard the stories where someone was at camp and they said, Well, God called me into a Lifetime Ministry when I was at this camp. And that is awesome when that happens. And I think a lot of people think, Well, since I didn't have that calling when I was a camper, that's not life for me.
Speaker 1:And I think that the careers that God has for us can change the things that he's called us to do, whether that's the surroundings around us have changed, whether God has worked in our lives for the last fifteen, twenty, thirty years. We need to always be ready to do whatever God has called us to do. So if God wants you to do something, you just need to do it. I love how David said that. God wants you to do something, just do it.
Speaker 1:You can almost think of the Nike slogan there, Just do it. Because what is the point of arguing with God? God is the God of the universe. He created everything. It doesn't really matter what type of arguments, what excuses we have, things that we can come up with like, Well, there's this reason, there's that reason.
Speaker 1:And God already figured all that stuff out. Do you think you're smarter than God? Do you think God missed something? If God is calling you to do something, whether that is in your current career, changing careers, being a parent, what you need to as a spouse, what you need to as a child, as a son, as a daughter, whatever it is, I think God's already figured out the entire situation better than you ever possibly could. So if you start questioning God and saying, well, what about this?
Speaker 1:What about that? No, if God has called you to do it, you need to do it. So I think we also need to start serving in our local church, because that's what David mentioned as well, that serving in your church is key. Once again, you don't have to go into lifetime ministry, but that is still something you need to be doing. If God wants you in lifetime ministry and you're not willing to start taking the first step, you're ignoring that, it's going be hard for you to hear that God's calling on your life to go to the next step, to go to the next level of doing something if you won't do step one.
Speaker 1:If you won't get out there and do what God is calling you to do right now, the simpler things, the smaller things, the serving in the children's church, the serving in the music program, the serving in visiting the people who are shut in, whatever it is that you can do in your church currently, do it. And God can work from there. You might not go into full time ministry. It might be something God starts working in your heart and you start learning these skills. You get mentored through this.
Speaker 1:And again, God says, I want you now in ministry. And I think we need to be ready for that. David also mentioned how we need to be handling the Word of God. Don't just assume that, well, God has called me into ministry. I'm just going to jump into the pulpit and I'm going to be ready to preach because God has called me.
Speaker 1:There is still some training you need to do. There is still some work that you need to do. There's still education that you need to, going back to the whole being a lifetime learner. These are things, even if you're not in ministry, but if you are going into ministry, especially, you need to be very careful on how you handle the Word of God and you need to be consistently in the Word, whether it's preaching it, discipling someone else, teaching someone else, these are all things we should all be doing to some level. But if you're going to the ministry, you need to be doing this more than anybody else.
Speaker 1:You need to be heading headlong into this because this is the primary purpose of the pastor is to be the one who handles the word and is able to give it to the sheep of the church. The pastor is the shepherd and the people in the church are the sheep. And we need to be able to know that our shepherd gives the... Our pastors are the under shepherds under Christ. That we need to know that under pastors or under shepherds are handling the word correctly and feeding us what we actually need.
Speaker 1:They know how to prepare us the... Get us to the the water that we need to. All those illustrations in our scripture, I go through a whole bunch of them, but we just need to have a pastor who is ready and able to do that. So if you are, whether you are being a pastor or you're helping with the children's ministries, you need to be able to handle that appropriately. So when you are with either the children or with the adults or however it is God has called you in your ministry, you need to make sure that you have a good, solid handle on how to handle the Word of God.
Speaker 1:And then here's another one I think a lot of people are afraid of doing, especially in America, that they want to be able to do it on their own. We like the idea of pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but what we really need are mentors. So we need to be the one mentoring somebody else, but we also need to find somebody who can mentor us. And once again, this is whether you are going into ministry or whether you're going to full time ministry, just working in your church or going into in your career, you need to find mentors in all of those. And that is going to help you go drastically further in what God has called you to do.
Speaker 1:If God has called you to be a witness in your secular work, you still need to find mentors in that career so you will be better at what you do. So you will be a better witness of Christ and be a better light for Christ in your secular work. If you're going into ministry, you need to have that mentor, somebody who's done it, who's been in the trenches of the spiritual warfare and knows what's coming and is able to help you go through those difficult times. So I think we can sum up this entire interview as basically we need to be lifetime learners and we need to get mentors. And no matter what God has called you to do in your life, you're going to need to be a lifetime learner and you need to go to find mentors.