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Josh Whitlock from Ezekiel Ministries in South Carolina shares lessons he's learned while leading a mentoring organization. How to trust God, entrust volunteers with vision ownership, and say yes to Jesus despite our leadership insecurities.
Show Notes
- Ezekiel Ministries - https://ezeministries.org/
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:What's up mentor and mentoring leaders? Wanted to share with you guys some exciting information we got. You Can Mentor has released a book. It's entitled, You Can Mentor, How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses. The purpose behind this book is to train up more mentors and more mentoring leaders to effectively disciple the next generation through mentoring.
Speaker 2:If you will, please go purchase a book on our website. You can find it on Amazon. If you go to Amazon, leave a 5 star review. That helps us out a ton. If you're a mentoring organization and you want multiple copies, holler at us and we will give you guys a deal.
Speaker 2:You can find out more information on the You Can Mentor website. Go pick up that book, You Can Mentor.
Speaker 3:Today's episode is an interview with Josh Whitlock, the executive director of Ezekiel Ministries in South Carolina. We hope you enjoy the episode. If it brings you or your organization value, all you have to do is share it with someone you know, and that would make us feel great. You Can Mentor.
Speaker 2:How's everyone doing today? Zach Garza here with the You Can Mentor podcast. I'm hanging out with my main man, Josh Whitlock from Ezekiel Ministries. It was birthed in 2009 after a group of people served in a downtown community that was just in rough shape. People called it the the gates of hell.
Speaker 2:And what these people did is they went in there and they started to invest. They saw that there was so much potential in these kids, but there was no one who has taken the time to invest into them, and that is where Ezekiel Ministries was born. If you guys know anything about the book of Ezekiel, it is the story of lifeless things coming to life at the hands of god, and that is what they're all about. And so they help families by recruiting Jesus following adults who will make a long term investment into those kids. They show up consistently, and they do whatever they need to do to help these kids make better decisions, form strong families, thus impacting the community at large.
Speaker 2:Josh is the executive director. He's been doing that for a while, since 2013, and I'm just gonna let him kinda share about who he is and just what EZQM Ministries is all about. So Josh, my man, why don't you tell us about yourself?
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me today. Yeah. I've been looking forward to it. So I'm I'm Josh Whitlock. I'm originally from a little town called lake city, South Carolina, and ended up in Columbia, South Carolina after going to school here at the university of South Carolina, go cops.
Speaker 4:And, and 5 years ago, it got married to my wife, Brittany, and we've got 3 young kids. I've got a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a 3 month old. So our, our little one is sleeping really good. So we're really thankful. Praise the Lord for that.
Speaker 4:I, after college, I got into the, the business world first through outdoor advertising at billboards. And then, I was a commercial sign salesman. So I would consult businesses and help them buy the signage. It would be their first impression for customers coming into their, their buildings. And then more, a little bit more than that as well.
Speaker 4:And around 2,009, after I had been preparing to become a missionary and I was thinking I would move overseas and I was just trying to get my financial house in order. As soon as I did, I went to this service project that you mentioned earlier, where we were just going to renovate a building. That was it. We were going to fix this building and 6 months later, we were going to be done and we're going to be able to check that box that we helped this other ministry get a community center in this, this rough neighborhood in the middle of Columbia that was known for having a lot of crime and being a tough place to grow up. And this funny thing happened on the 1st day we were there.
Speaker 4:This little guy pops his head in the back window out of nowhere and says what y'all doing. And the relationships just exploded from that point forward. And at the end of 6 months, we knew that we were at the beginning, not at the end. And we, so we started mentoring children and there was a team of people that were doing this. And that went on, until about 2012 When we decided through some, some, some meetings with other people who were in the afterschool world and mentoring world, that we should start an afterschool program in this facility that we had renovated so that kids would have a safe place to go after school and could hear the gospel on a regular basis and, and really learn that God loved them.
Speaker 4:And we re we really want kids and I took the things when, who God was and how valuable they were in his eyes and how to read. Cause we wanted them to be able to read the gospel for themselves. And that those were our 2 big things. When we, when we decided we wanted to start that program. And I mentioned to you earlier that I didn't think when we were talking about all this, that people would point their finger at me and tell me that I was the one that needed to start this program and leave my job and do this full time.
Speaker 4:But after a meeting, you know, after a week of fasting and praying collectively and a meeting where everyone agreed that we needed a full time person in the neighborhood, in an afterschool program, the last guy in the circle pointed at me and said, I'm like, you need to be the one to do it. And I was pretty, I was pretty hesitant to say the least. I did not want to do it, but I knew I was supposed to. And every day I didn't say yes. I felt more disobedient to Lord and eventually a really special person named Annie kind of set me straight and told me that my hesitancy about raising funds and taking money from the church to survive off.
Speaker 4:While I did this, he told me that my hesitancy was, was kind of arrogant and that I was limiting what God can do to only what I could provide and not what he could. And it really, it really impacted me in a good way. And it helped me to have a little more faith. And as soon as I accepted that and took the step to move towards going into full time ministry, the walls started coming down and the doors is falling open and all the stars aligned. It was obviously meant to be because it was a 1000000 times easier than it was supposed to be to do this.
Speaker 2:Man, so awesome.
Speaker 4:To get into my role. So that's kinda how we got started. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just love what the Lord can do whenever we say yes. Right? I'm just like, okay, Lord, I have no idea what's gonna happen. Like, I don't know what tomorrow will have for me, but I just say yes. And then he just lines everything up in order.
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 4:Yeah. I got him. I have a mentor also, and I'll tell you a little bit about him later. But but one of the things he always says is, and he's been in ministry for over 30 years and he says, do you still feel unqualified? And do you still feel like God drops everything in your lap?
Speaker 4:And I say, yes, every time I'm looking at, and it's really true. It's, you know, our, our ability to do this is the Lord's strength, not our own. And that doesn't mean we don't, that doesn't mean that we don't pursue, you know, training and becoming better at our roles. But those things are just, they're, they're just a help. God is the strength that gives us what we need to, to actually do this role well.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, so, so learning that has been a big, you know, big, a big part of me being able to say yes, because I've, I've felt inadequate almost every time I've said yes, but God has showed up every single time, you know? And that's just something that it mentors need to hear that as leaders need to hear this. Like God is gonna give you what you need when you're pursuing his goals and his mission and in our city to help kids who are in need. Like he's going to show up. So I've been able to be a lot more bold in my, my saying yes with that knowledge.
Speaker 4:So,
Speaker 2:yeah. That's awesome, man. So just like, give us a real quick overview of what a week looks like at easy co ministries.
Speaker 4:Okay. It's a little more complex than it used to be. Yeah. The, the first little, the first little bit, whenever we first got started, it was, it was me and a couple of VON, a few volunteers that were really faithful. And we would show up in that little building in the neighborhood and we'd run that afterschool program.
Speaker 4:And I'd be there the rest of the day working with the mentors and planning out everything. Now we have, 2 afterschool programs in different parts of town and we have a staff for each one. So we have a director there and he has part time staff at each location. We've actually, we've actually created a hybrid role where mentor coaches serve in the mornings with, with the mentoring team and in the afternoon with the after school team. So our, our mentor, many of our mentor coaches are with us in the office in the morning.
Speaker 4:And then on-site at our after school program, one of our programs in the afternoon, which has been really good. The there's the other program we have called easy farms runs downtown on this little one and a half acre plot and middle school. And some high school guys come out there around 4 o'clock every day and they're out, you know, working the farm and learning the gospel and just being invested in on a daily basis. So morning times are spent in the kind of plan and follow-up with mentors and then afternoon times are investing in the kids that come to one of our physical programs that run, run every day. And then we have that the mentor coach role is really important.
Speaker 4:Those are our, our guests who follow-up with our mentors and kids and parents. And they have to, they have to be pretty flexible in their schedule because but just because of the nature of what they do and mentors and parents having difficult schedules sometimes. So those roles are, you know, sometimes they may work in the morning and sometimes they may work after they get dumped after school. It's a, it's a little flexible. So we've got stuff going on almost all the time now where it was a little easier to, it was a little easier to tell you what was going on, you know, 5 years ago than it is today.
Speaker 4:But the first day of the week is when we kind of rally everybody together on Mondays and have our staff meeting. And that's where we take some time to pray every other week. We do a Bible study and we really remind ourselves of what our purpose is and why we're doing what our doing, why we are doing what we are doing in those meetings. And that really kind of sets the tone for the rest of the week. And, it it allows us to also know how we can pray for each other during the week.
Speaker 4:And I'll tell you some stories about that in the next section. But we, we have every year when we do our evaluation of the, of the previous year, the one thing that we've never said is we prayed enough and you know, that, that is something that we've always looked back and said, man, we should pray more. We need to pray more and we need to have more people praying. So that's, that's one of the things that we can remind ourselves about weekly at this meeting and and help us make sure we're in the right posture to do the kind of work that we're doing. So
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Like, I have a saying that someone told me one time and said, when you do your ministry without prayer, that's the greatest form of pride. Like, this is all about me. It's about me doing me me me me and but whenever you get your eyes off of yourself through the act of prayer, I mean, that is that is the way to go. So the Lord loves it whenever you ask him for help.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. I love that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. It's so true too. And and we see our success rate on, like following up with people and meetings, like our success rate goes in the tank when we don't do it. And it's because Satan doesn't want this stuff to happen. Like we need to be battling for, for every little inch of every relationship in prayer.
Speaker 4:And it's just really important. We've got to remember it. So that's good. The prayers
Speaker 2:of a righteous man, powerful and effective.
Speaker 4:Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 2:That's great, man. Do you have any success stories or anything like that about a kid or about, you got your school program or mentor or anything like that?
Speaker 4:Yeah. We got a lot. The one I the one I always like to share about is one of my guys that I I'm in the store. I met him when he was, you I had 2 guys and they're both doing there. They both graduated from high school and are one of them is in the air force.
Speaker 4:And one of them is, is, currently looking for a job and the one that's in the air force. I remember one of the first times that I had him in the car, he asked if he could show me around his old neighborhood. And I was like, okay, cool. And he knew the city way better than I did. Like he was 8 years old and, or may he could have been 9 at the time, but he showed me all around this neighborhood.
Speaker 4:And every time we we get on the street, he would point out a house and say, I used to live here. And he'd say, me and my dad did this, me and my dad, that me and my dad and, or like 6 houses that we went by. And I knew that he had never met his dad. So like, it really, it really broke my heart, honestly, to know that every time he was talking about somebody, he was talking about someone who had promised to be dad and it left and it just, it was just, it was just hard to think, man, this guy has been let down that many times in that big of a way. And that, you know, that was one of the moments where I thought, God, I can't be another person that lets this kid down.
Speaker 4:I mean, you know, and like, if we're, if we're going to say we're going to do this, we got to do it right. We got to do it long term, you know, and that was just kind of one of the things that set the tone for me. And then this guy over the years has just impressed me. He is, I mean, he's one of, he's one of my, my buddies now. Like he just shows up at our house and more, but he, he graduated with a very, you know, very high in his class in high school and chose not to go to college because he just didn't want to do any more school.
Speaker 4:He wanted to, he wanted to have some time to go and just make some money. And he said, if he went to college, he would go after he finished his 6 years in the air force, which at this point he might not need to go to college because his certifications, when he gets out, we'll get him a really great job when he gets out of, out of the air force. But, but you know, the success, like in the air force, I think the success is that we were able to, we were as an organization and just as the church, we're able to surround him with people who cared about him and were in his corner, not just me, but like lots of people because he, you know, he had access to. To not just me, but all my social capital came his, you know, and he got his 1st job through some money at our church. He got his second job through somebody he met through that job and, you know, he, he had opportunities afforded to him that he wouldn't have had any other way.
Speaker 4:And you're talking about a guy who literally had to say, excuse me, to the guy's deal office front porch to get outside. You know, he, he overcame a lot of pressure that most kids have a hard time overcoming that only strong relationships, I think, pull kids through. So he's definitely somebody I'm really proud of. And I just, you know, just being, being in his life has been one of the biggest blessings to me. So I think it's a, it's a real big success.
Speaker 4:Not because he did something good, but because we have such a great relationship and my other guy's great too. We have good relationship too. He's he's, you know, he, he doesn't show up at my house cause he and I was licensed ship. So I think he probably would have figured, but Jim wants it. That's that's one thing.
Speaker 4:And then we just, we have lots of mentors who just continue to show up even whenever a kid's going through something hard and they don't know why they just show up. And it's just, so, it's just so awesome to get to watch God use people in the lives of children to show them that they're loved and that they matter. And I get to see that every day. And it's, it's just really neat and fun and powerful to watch the impact that a mentor can make on the life of a child. So
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. Like, I just love that. Right? Like, relationships change lives. Relationships, relationships, relationships.
Speaker 2:And it's not just the kid's life that gets changed. Like, that's what I love about it is when you enter into a relationship, because it's not good for a man to be alone, there are 3 things that happen. 1, the kid gets an impact. Right? Like you're intentionally investing in a positive way into the kid.
Speaker 2:But 2, the Lord changes your heart. And then the third thing that happens is both you and the kid can say, man, how good is the Lord because of what's going on here? Right? So it's like the kid gets impacted, the Lord gets all of the praise and you get impacted. I'm just like, man, come on Jesus, more discipleship through mentoring.
Speaker 2:And I just absolutely love those stories, Josh. Thanks so much for sharing, man. Yeah, man. So now like a like a super large part of your job is how how do I connect other adults into what we do so that they can experience what what I have experienced, man? So do you think that you could just kind of share with us, like tell us what it's like to lead?
Speaker 2:Like what's it like to lead staff, volunteers? What's it like to lead a community into discipling through mentoring in your neighborhood? And then just tell me a couple of things that have helped you expand as a leader that have helped you figure out how to do it well.
Speaker 4:Yeah. As your organization grows, when you when you're small, you you can do a lot of what needs to get done in the organization. And as you grow, you realize that you're just one person and you you've got to, you got to really understand that as one person you're limited in what you can accomplish personally. So, you know, one of the things that I would say has been really important for, for me learning how to lead an organization well, and is to, to really embrace delegation and trusting the mission to other people, finding people who will work for us that don't, don't do it because the money is great, but because they, they believe in the mission so much that they would come and work for an organization like ours. And we found, we found some really incredible people that, that are just like that.
Speaker 4:So for me to, to withhold all of the major responsibilities for myself and not give them to those people who share in this mission really stifles the growth in the comradery and just the shared responsibility of running an organization. So I think just learning your limits and learning how to take care of yourself is one of the big things that has been a struggle because you start off, you're a doer and you, you do, do, do, do, and then you realize I can't do it all and, or, or you don't realize I can't do it all. And you keep trying and you end up, you end up harming the whole organization because you become the roadblock and the, the speed bump that everybody has to get over to get anything done and, you know, kind of removing yourself, from that and changing your role a little bit to lead instead of do is really there's a shift that has to happen at some point in time as your organization grows. And that was a struggle for me. I did.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I did. One of the best things I ever did was got a mentor. I think I mentioned that earlier, but I got a mentor that had gone through what I was going through kind of my, my picture on the wall of, of how to lead an organization and lead things that were spread out, not all in one place, like you know, different parts of our organization. And that mentor has really been a lifesaver for me because when you have somebody else that you trust and look into what you're going through and what your vision is, Who's not there with an agenda, but just there to help you process your role and what you're doing. You have a lot more confidence in your decision making because you got somebody who's kind of watching out for your blind spots.
Speaker 4:And some of you may have board members that do that. And our board members certainly helped to do that as well. But there are, you know, there's a, there's a big benefit to consistently meeting with someone who's who's who you're trusting to, either a firm or, or help you think about things from a different perspective. So that's been a life changing thing for me. I would say that our growth in the last 2 to 3 years wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had someone listening and helping me know when it was okay to pull the trigger on certain big, you know, big asks and big things that we needed to accomplish to grow.
Speaker 4:I would I would certainly say that my mentor, you know, and I think you're on a podcast about that. Mentors need mentors. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Look at
Speaker 4:you. Yeah. So I was already there checked, but yeah. And sometimes I think kind of what we were saying earlier about choosing to say yes, a lot of times, I think those same insecurities and things that would help us or stop us from saying yes, are the ones are the same ones that when we're in the ministry, keep us from giving ownership away to other people. I think a lot of those insecurity are the same and getting over that and learning to have have faith that this is not mine to to hold with a tight grip.
Speaker 4:This is God's and I have to trust it to other people. I mean, have faith that God will use other people to to grow what we're doing. That is, that is a big, big part of, of learning to be a leader. I think so we, you know, and sometimes it might be pride. It might be arrogance.
Speaker 4:It might be a lack of faith, but a lot of it is just our culture trains us to get this, this big identity or the majority of our identity from our work. Well in ministry, we can't do that. Like our identity has to come from Christ and it's it's hard to be in something, working hard at it every single day, but to step back and remember, that's not my identity. My identity is in Christ and I'm good at this because he sent me here to do it, you know, and just breaking away from the idea that it's all on us and remembering that it's all on God is a big part of leading. I think it allows us to embrace much bigger ideas, bigger vision, and move towards like God sized vision instead of puny vision.
Speaker 4:I tell people all the time that one of them, one of the things that God has done consistently for me in my leadership is he has shown me how puny my vision is compared to hits. Like he just has it's puny. I'll give you an example. So when we were, when we were going to start our 2nd year of after school, we were at a point where we could finally hire 2 teachers so we could split kids into different age groups. And we're, they were going to be our 1st paid employees besides me.
Speaker 4:And we designed these jobs for college kids to be able to come in and, and we, we posted the jobs. We had them online all summer long and we were like, yeah, we'll just get freshmen in college. We'll train them. They'll stay with us for 4 years and we'll get some new, new people. Nobody applied in the, and then a few people did right at the last minute, but they all canceled before they even came in for the interview.
Speaker 4:Like we literally got no interviews out of a job that was paying, you know, around $10 an hour for college kid. When a lot of college kids are doing the same thing for free other places, like we'd literally got nobody and it didn't make any sense to people where we had posted the job said it didn't make any sense. And we just couldn't understand it. Well, we're a week before we're supposed to start and we have no teachers and we have a meeting with the pastor at the church that we're moving into the run this program. And he had, and his church was awesome.
Speaker 4:I mean, they called us and said, Hey, we got this building that we really want someone to use for an afterschool program. Would you guys want to move from your location that you're too big for to come over here and run out of our educational building? And we had literally just the week before said, we need to find another building because we can't fit here anymore. So I got, got me, God does these kinds of things. So I was having breakfast with this pastor.
Speaker 4:And I said, I said, John, we don't have any teachers yet next week. And I'm getting a little nervous about it, but not really because God seems to always show up at the right time. So would you, would you just pray with me about that? We'd find the right teachers. And, and John looked at me, said, I got some bad news too.
Speaker 4:I told you, you could use our bus to go pick up the kids from school, but our insurance company said only people who are members of the church can drive the bus. So you can't use it anymore. So I'm like, we just lost our transportation. We don't have any pictures. Like, are we going to be able to open it or what?
Speaker 4:And we prayed and, you know, I wasn't, I was a little nervous maybe, but I just knew God always showed up. So I think I had a lot of faith that something was going to happen. And literally one of my board members had made me post our job on Craigslist. Like who posts jobs on Craigslist? You know, it was one of those things.
Speaker 4:I was like, I don't want the people who would apply for a job. I'm off of Craigslist and all right. He said, and this was bad when it was free. He said, it's free. You need to post it on there.
Speaker 4:And I slow rolled it until that Friday before this meeting. And within an hour, I had a resume from, from a candidate who had written curriculum for 2 inner city Christian ministries and was moving to Columbia to plant a church in the neighborhood that was 3 blocks away from our location. Now is, has left us to go get a double master's degree and come back. And as one of our mentor coaches, who's developing RPM rental program now. Yeah.
Speaker 4:All right. And then somebody from a ministry called crew called me that same day, said, Hey, we want to do a fundraiser for y'all on USC's campus. And I was like, oh, cool. Could you tell some of your students that we're looking for? And, you know, we need a teacher to come and teach.
Speaker 4:It'd be great if there were a guy, cause we already have a female teacher. It'd be great to have a guy teacher. And she said, well, I'll think about it and tell some of my students, but I might tell my boyfriend. And the first thought that went through my head was, oh, great. Your video game plan unemployed boyfriend.
Speaker 4:I had no faith at all. I was so cynical and she told me the guy's name and I said, I know him. And like immediately I knew him and I knew that he had just left a position at an inner city school, teaching kids from the neighborhood where we're from an inner city Christian school that literally worked with the same kids that we worked with. And he was going back to school to get his Bible certificate and had the exact timeframe that we needed him available and was fine with working for the money that we had. So we got like a 1000000 times better employees than my vision.
Speaker 4:And God just he's done that over and over and over again. He said, Josh, like quit thinking puny and think the way I think. And, and I still can't do it. I still, my vision is puny. You like trusting him and his vision is what we have to do as leaders.
Speaker 4:And we have to walk towards those big things because he literally has the whole world at his fingertips and will provide whatever he needs to, to get his mission completed. You know? And so, so don't have a puny vision as a leader because God will make you look silly. Like he has made me look numerous stops. So, and, oh, and I forgot the best part.
Speaker 4:The girl's boyfriend was a member of the church and could drive the bus.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Come on, Lord.
Speaker 4:We got our bus driver. I mean, we, you know, and we, and these, these are just a few stories from way back, but these stories like that shows up all the time. I know all the time. And then we got to remember that. And we gotta, we gotta operate in a way where we know he's with us when we go, because we are, we have much more strength when we go with the more strength than with our own.
Speaker 4:So being a leader who, who operates in, you know, in that knowledge and just knowing that something that sounds too big might not really be too big because if it's got a plan, he'll, he'll provide for it. Like it's a big deal. And as a leader, sometimes we're, we're guilty of, of like playing it safe and, you know, and sometimes we have to, we have to be wise, but we also need to have a lot of faith and walk towards the big visions that God gives us. So, yeah, that's that's one story. And then the other thing I think that has been a big struggle is communication.
Speaker 4:So how do we communicate what we're doing in a way that's meaningful to the people who are hearing us communicate, whether it's parents or or kids or donors or mentors. Like, how do we how do we communicate well? And I know you guys are big Donald Miller fans, but we we have we have tried to go through all of Donald Miller's courses and create a common language in our, create a common language in our, amongst our staff and our volunteers that help people communicate in a, in a way that isn't either above somebody's head or derogatory. Like we just need to make sure we're communicating in a way that brings someone from what I would call a level, a level 2, you know, up to a level 5 or 6 instead of trying to communicate to people why they already understand what's going on. And I was very guilty of that early on, assuming that people would just get it.
Speaker 4:And I've learned, you know, I've learned that repetition in a common language is really important. That is each one. That was hard. That was hard for me because, I mentioned my, you know, my personality was just to assume people understood and they, they really don't like people need to be brought up to speed, not just, expected to get up to speed on their own. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And you can you can help people get up to speed by creating a common language that you operate by. So I think the other thing that a lot of leaders struggle with is not not celebrating what God has done and focusing more on the the things that are yet to be done. And I think we we'd need to slow down and celebrate what God does in the life of, of each kid and in the life of the organization. Like we need to be good at celebrating our wins. And one of the, one of the things I've used in the last few years has helped me a lot.
Speaker 4:I don't know if you, prescribe to any of Michael Hyatt's stuff, but the full, the full focus planner is something I use and it, it really not, you know, paying me to say, but, but it's helped me manage my focus a lot. And one of the things, the more people you have that are working within your organization and the more mentors you have, the more fires there are to put out and the more you can get distracted from, from staying on task and keeping your focus as a leader. So having a tool like that has been really beneficial for me to protect times where I can focus on longer term vision than just this week or this month and really, you know, plan for 1, 3, 5, 10 years, which we don't really do 10 because we're we're more of a 135 kind of organization just because we wanna make sure we're we're really staying in tune with the voice of God and willing to to turn a little bit left or right and not just build programs, but build programs that are great tools to, to serve the mission of what we do. So, so we don't, we don't get too far out on our, on our vision.
Speaker 4:Yeah. But not to say that's bad. It's just one of the things that we really value is, is being willing to shift in, in that paid off a lot when COVID hit because we, we had to shift everything really quickly. And, but one of our values is, is that we started from the very beginning is we want to be obedient to what the Lord is calling us to do, even if it means, you know, shift in the way we do things to, to make that happen. And, you know, that's something that prayer helps a lot and hearing from your leaders.
Speaker 4:So as as a leader, one of the things a lot of people have a hard time doing is listening to their mentors and listening to their staff and listening to the voices that are and listening to the parents and listening to the, you know, people from the community about what the needs are and how the needs are shifting to help us know what our response should be to, you know, shifting and changing needs in the community. So that's one of the things that we try to be good at, is listening. But sometimes that can be a struggle too whenever you become another layer removed as a leader. If you if you're you know, sometimes you feel like you're you're you're not on the front lines anymore. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And listening gets a little bit harder, so you gotta you gotta be intentional about listening as a leader as well. So, yeah, I think and, you know, kind of talking about the focusing on the the what you don't get done. There's a quote I really like from from John Aitken that I'd use all the time on my staff. He he said he wrote his book, I'll finish, and one of the quotes he uses in there, he says the most important day of any goal is the day after perfect. And I think that's, that's something we have to remember as leaders is we, we don't have to be perfect.
Speaker 4:We just have to keep heading towards our finish line and or our bull towards our bull's eye. And we have to be wise enough to give ourselves some grace and continue to move towards the goal. Why we can't quit when we're not perfect. And a lot of people you set really lofty goals and quit. And one of the things we have to do is, is manage goal setting in a way where we're not setting goals that are completely unattainable, but also that we're not quitting just because we're not perfect.
Speaker 4:And that we're we're, you know, we're, we're focused on getting, getting, like continuing, continuing to walk alongside children, even if a mentor and you're not perfect. It's okay. So you're sorry. And a kid will forgive you and you can keep heading towards that direction of, of a long term investment in the life of a child. If you're a leader and you screw something up, like it's okay.
Speaker 4:Like keep heading towards your goal. And you're still going to be successful in the longterm because you're going to finish don't quit. Like that's, that's kinda one of our, our big things is like, you know, like God, God literally show you success if you don't quit. And we we really have to remind ourselves of of the the importance of giving ourselves grace so that we don't quit. Because a lot of, you know, a lot of people who are mentoring are doing a lot of things.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of them are the movers and shakers who say yes to a lot of things. And we what we've gotta make sure is that they're not the people who say yes unless they're not perfect, and then they quit. You know? So not quitting is a really important thing when it comes to relationships because quitting a relationship can be really damaging. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So we've gotta, you know, we've gotta exemplify that from the top down in in any organization.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite quotes is if you don't quit, you win. And it's
Speaker 4:kinda that simple. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But thank you so much for all of your wisdom today, Josh. If someone wants to learn more about Ezekiel Ministries or yourself, can, you please share with them how to do that?
Speaker 4:So my email address is josh@ezeministries.org and our website is ezeministries.org. You can find out more about us there. If you have any questions, we'd love to connect with you and and talk through some things. Yeah. Let us know.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. Well, dude, God bless you and your family and everything that you guys do, and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to to share with us how to become more like Jesus and how to get better, man. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, man. I enjoy being here, and I'm thankful for all you guys do. It's it's great to get to be part of the the network that you can mentor. And, I'm just excited to see what God does through this, you know, collective just pool of wisdom that
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Being shared by a loss of leader to cross the mission. We're just excited to get to be a part of it. So thank you.