How Do We Do This?

**Title: Navigating Uncertainty in Ministry - "How Do We Do This?"**

**Podcast Summary:**

In this episode of "Beyond the Mic," host Mike Yates discusses the challenges of undertaking ministry or tasks without prior experience. Titled "How Do We Do This?", this episode explores the apprehensions and practicalities of diving into new responsibilities in ministry, especially when there's a lack of formal training or clear direction.

**Key Insights:**

1. **Jumping In with Preparation:**
   Mike shares his personal journey of starting the podcast, highlighting that while he didn't have prior podcasting experience, he didn’t let that stop him. Instead, he emphasized the importance of preparing as much as possible and then taking the plunge. This approach can be paralleled in ministry, where sometimes you need to start a project or role without being an expert.

2. **Dealing with Criticism:**
   Yates recounts an incident where someone criticized his initial efforts harshly, which led to a reflection on how criticism is perceived and handled, especially when starting something new. The key takeaway is not to be deterred by negative feedback when you are in the learning phase.

3. **Embracing Imperfection in Ministry:**
   Mike discusses the concept of starting ministry tasks with what you know and learning through the process. He stresses that the fear of imperfection should not prevent one from engaging in ministry work. This is particularly significant for listeners who may feel unqualified or inexperienced.

4. **Learning from Every Situation:**
   Reflecting on the reality that not every situation in ministry can be foreseen or prepared for, Mike encourages embracing each challenge as it comes and learning on the go. He uses the biblical story of Elisha and the Shunammite woman to illustrate how unforeseen challenges in ministry require faith and adaptability.

5. **The Importance of Action Over Inaction:**
   Yates challenges his listeners to consider whether fear of failure or a desire for perfection is holding them back from acting on God’s call. He advocates for action, emphasizing that doing something imperfectly is better than doing nothing out of fear.

**Conclusion:**

Mike Yates' message is a powerful reminder that ministry isn't about having all the answers or being perfectly prepared. It’s about stepping out in faith, using the resources and knowledge available, and trusting that God will guide through the uncertainties. This episode is particularly encouraging for new ministers or anyone feeling unqualified in their calling, urging them to take action and trust in their divinely given abilities.

Transcript

  Welcome, everyone. You've tuned in to Beyond the Mic with Mike, where we share our experience and passion to offer encouragement and advice to new ministers and anyone working in the ministry.  I am the Mike, Beyond the Mic, Mike Yates. 

Today's episode is titled, How Do We Do This?  It's going to discuss the issue of not really knowing how to execute the assignment given to you and what to do in that particular situation.  Let's get started.  Today is our third episode of beyond the mic with Mike.  I'm having a lot of fun,  but it really feels like it's been a lot longer than just the third episode. 

I suppose that's because of all the work that has went in  to not just putting in three episodes, but getting ready to even launch the first one.  If you remember episode one was my introduction and I explained where the desire for this podcast came from  in that podcast. I admit that I am not an expert in anything,  but I, if you listen carefully, you'll notice that I never mentioned.

Having a background in podcasting.  This is new to me  leading up to the first episode to create awareness and interest. I created a short video and posted it on a used zoom and I posted it  and I was just trying, like I said, just trying to create awareness, trying to create interest, trying to promote.  And in that video, I mentioned that I had no experience in this art form. 

Someone close to me watched the video. And they got upset.  I mean, they were ugly with me. They told me that I had no business posting any more videos until I learned what I was doing. It,  it, it hurt my feelings. I mean, I don't mind criticism. I don't mind feedback, but that was ugly.  They might as well put me in a corner and just beat me.

I'm a victim.  Pray for me.  In all seriousness, what they heard was, I didn't prepare at all, but here, let me give you the quote of what I literally said verbatim.  Do you know how many articles there are about how to run a podcast? How many books?  If I was to read all that i'd be 80 before I actually started.

So I read as much as I could Listened to podcasts that I respect, talked to some friends, and just decided I'm going to just jump in, sink or swim.  Now that's what I literally said, but they took that and heard that I didn't prepare at all.  I did prepare.  Now I'm not a proponent for winging it, so do not misunderstand what I'm saying in tonight's lesson. 

I believe in training. I believe in learning,  but what I cannot stand even more than winging it are excuses for doing nothing  in cowardice. I cannot stand a coward.  I did in fact, prepare for this podcast.  I worked very hard preparing for this podcast. I just didn't have time to go to broadcasting school and learn everything that needs to be done. 

So I gathered as much information as I could to get started and I jumped in  now doing it that way.  Will I make mistakes? Absolutely. I've already made mistakes.  You know, I'm already showing proof that I'm no Joe Rogan. I mean, you can see the quality difference.  You can tell that I'm winging this and, and I don't mean use the word winging it, but you can tell I'm doing the best I can in my house.

You've seen me shoot from hotel rooms,  trying my best, but yeah, I'm, I'm learning as I go.  And that's what we're going to talk about today.  Being handed a ministry. Or an opportunity  and taking charge and jumping in  and not using the ignorance as an excuse to do nothing.  I know how overwhelming it can feel. 

It can be intimidating when you look at something and say, I don't know how to do that.  I will say now that I have never attended a Bible college,  so I will admit that I am ignorant to what they do and do not teach there.  I've got a lot of great friends that went.  And are, are still involved  and I have not asked them what their curriculum is. 

And I don't know what their, what the lifestyle is of a student there. I don't know. That's  man, that must be a wonderful thing. I'm very, very pro Bible college.  If you have a chance to go make it happen, I believe in Bible college.  But from my experience.  I don't want to say most cause I don't know, but I won't say a lot.

Let's just say a lot. It may be majority may not be majority, but a lot of people will never have the luxury to attend a Bible college.  So that means it's up to the pastors and or elders to teach the younger ministers. What to do and how to handle things.  Well, there's a problem there.  Even if,  even if the pastor is really good at teaching, really good at training,  there's just so much to know for someone like myself, who is as burdened and passionate about training and mentoring.

I still cannot think. Of everything that my staff needs to know until that moment has already passed us by. And we're like, whoop,  you should have  lessons learned. Okay. So here's what we should have done. Here's what we're going to do differently next time.  So what do we do? Do we just not do anything? Do we lay in wait, training, and constantly preparing?

Of course not! Cause then nothing would get done.  To do, to not do something under the excuse of not knowing how  is cowardly.  I'm asking you right now, take a moment.  And ask yourself if you've ever  failed to start a ministry that you felt led to do  or had, or that you were asked to do.  And the reason that you didn't do it was because you didn't know how to do it.

At least that's what you said.  Maybe you said you would do it, but you never got started.  It could have been a youth ministry, a men's ministry. It could have been walking up to someone  that you felt impressed to talk to. You never started that Bible study,  something that  We're supposed to do for the Lord, but you didn't, but you never did it  because you were afraid that you didn't know how to do it right. 

Why did you know? And you, I say that putting that answer in your mouth, but is that really why you didn't do it? Cause you felt that you weren't going to do it, right?  I proposed to you right now that it is.  The lack of action was not based on your desire to do well,  but instead it was based on a fear of doing something poorly. 

And those are entirely two different things.  It's not a burden for a job. Well done. It's an ego that doesn't want to look bad  and shame on you  for not being willing to look bad.  Meanwhile, the fields are white and ready to harvest.  But a crop doesn't stay ready to harvest forever. It'll go stale. That moment will pass if you don't seize it. 

You can try to justify it if you want by saying God deserves your best. You can try to justify it if you want and say, Well, I don't want to make God look bad. It has nothing to You can't make God look bad.  He's too great.  Problem is, you don't want to be embarrassed.  Which is better a poor batting average or a zero batting average  an old message that I like to preach  Comes from the story of Elisha and the shooting white woman and her dead son.

You remember that story? No, you don't  Well, some of you do but I have to assume you don't right? That's that's one of the lessons learned  You cannot assume people know your story. You need to explain it.  So  what happened was Elijah in his  So his helper Ghazi would travel to and fro, and this woman recognized him as a man of God.

So she made room for him in his house, in her house.  Made a little  bed, a little nightstand with a candlestick, a little, you know, a little desk and candle. And that was perfect for him.  And he was grateful.  And he, he asked the Hazu  or he asked her, what can I do for you? Don't he put in good word for you to the captain or to, and she says, no, I'm, I'm content.

I live among lone people.  So he asked Ghazi, what can we do for this woman to show our gratitude? And he noticed, well, she has no children.  So Elijah told the woman, this time next year when I come back, you're going to have a son.  And her reaction was unique.  She said, don't lie to me.  And it wasn't that she was telling him, I don't believe you. 

She was telling him that he touched something near and dear to her heart. Do not tease me.  Don't get my hopes up,  but sure enough, when he, by the time he came back next year, she had a son  and all was great for a few years,  but as a young kid, he was out in the field,  sounds like he had an aneurysm or something,  my head, my head, and he,  he died  and she ran straight to the profit. 

And said, did I not tell you don't deceive me?  Elijah was now being challenged with a dead son.  What would you do in this situation? Do you know how to handle this?  In today's age, 2024, we would call the morgue.  We would call the cops or hospital or somebody.  None of us would actually expect to be  called upon to go to the woman's house. 

He didn't either. He sent his servant.  It's obvious. He didn't know what to do because his first attempt at helping did not work.  He sent Qahazi with his staff  and said lay this on the boy and  you know what it didn't work.  And then Elijah showed him, showed up himself.  He secluded himself with the child.

He prayed  and now listen, he didn't just pray over the kid. That was not enough.  What he did was he.  Went up, laid upon the child, put his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.  That was from 2 Kings 4 and 34. 

Why did he do that?  He was making it up as he went. 

Obviously he didn't know how to bring a kid back to life or he would have got it right the first time.  Now we could make a, we could preach and I've heard it preached about.  You know, using your own staff because the staff represents your testimonies and,  you know, you can't just hand your staff to someone else because it's not your staff.

You know, it's not their staff. You got to have your own testimony.  I've heard it preached about the impersonal. You know, you can't  send somebody else. You got to do it yourself. But  all we know is he's had to show up and he had to look down and say, now, what am I going to do?  There may have been practical reasons why he did it.

Maybe he thought he could breathe life into him. Maybe he thought his body heat would connect. Maybe if he thought about his hand on his hand, something would transfer.  We don't know. It doesn't say where he got it from.  He did not have a manual resurrection. He had never been asked to do this before. He was just giving it his best shot.

All he knew was that this boy was a miracle and was not supposed to be dead. He knew that something had to be done. And he didn't have time to go wait for someone else with more knowledge and experience to come along. He did not have time to go study and come back better prepared.  It was now or never, and he was not backing down. 

That's where you are every day in your ministry. Now or never.  You don't know people's situations.  You don't know how many more goodbyes you have with people.  By all means, keep studying.  Keep edifying yourself. But at the same time, keep working, keep swinging, keep giving it your best shot. Keep harvesting.

You may miss a few,  but he's counting on you to work and you can not lay there and wait for someone better to come along because then somebody gets missed.  That should not have gotten missed.  Sometimes you just got to give it your best shot, knowing that God is going to back you up.  I will admit this process is not universal.

I'm referring to ministry.  There are some things in our lives that you ought not to try until you know what you're doing.  Don't go grabbing electrical wires, trying to change a light fixture. If you don't understand electricity, the hot and the  cold, positive and negative, and wonder what happens if I touch these.

No, no, no, don't do that. There  are certain things if you don't, if you're working on your car and you don't really know  what goes where.  You might want to study that for a little bit,  but I'm talking about things that God called you to do,  and there are some things in the ministry that require experience and study. 

You're not expected to convert to go from your conversion altar experience  to the pulpit that night in pastor  I'm not I'm not exempting  the process of maturity.  That's not what I'm proclaiming tonight  What I'm trying to get you to overcome is that fear that  stops you from moving forward?  You're going to always be confronted with situations.

You're not prepared for  Even Bible college. While I don't know what they teach you, I know they don't prepare you for every situation because I've yet to see a product come from Bible college prepared for every situation.  I've yet to see a pastor that knows how to handle every situation.  For example, COVID, no one knew how to handle COVID when it came up a couple of years ago because it was a first. 

So you'll never be prepared for everything. You're you'll never master everything.  Brother David K. Bernard.  One of the more educated people that I know of still studies and prepares because he understands that he has yet to master everything.  So keep studying, but keep, but don't let your lack of under perfection, your lack of mastery, stop you from doing something  that is cowardice. 

You have to be willing to look like a fool in the name of reaching the soul.  You have to trust that he's with you. You have to trust that he called you.  And in that process, you have to have faith that you can be used. He can use even you  to doubt that you can do it to doubt that you can make this work.

It's a doubt God, because he's the one that chose you. He's the one that puts you in a situation  that you make a mistake.  God doesn't make mistakes.  You have to have faith that you can walk on water because he said you can walk on water.  Now there may be something said about people jumping off and into the water when God didn't tell them to,  I am talking about  God called ministries. 

I am talking about being obedient to the spirit here.  But if God's telling you to do something,  you have to do it, whether you are  prepared in your own mind or not.  My last point, something I referenced earlier, but I want to expound on it and close on it.  You have to be willing to fail.  Failure is not the end of the world. 

Failure is not the end of your ministry. Failure is not the end of the kingdom. It's a part of life.  It's a part of your maturity process. It's part of your learning process.  Unfortunately, some people would rather quit  than fail.  When they get to a point where failure is inevitable,  they'll just quit. 

They'll say, I had a good time. I want to go home now. Thanks. Thanks for letting me play.  Because they don't have the guts  to keep going and possibly  fail.  They don't want to look bad.  That's the same reason they don't want to sing.  They would rather rob God of worship than be heard singing off key.  In context of our lesson,  don't be guilty of robbing God of a harvest because you don't want to be caught looking bad at it.

It doesn't matter if somebody thinks you don't know what you're doing.  As long as God knows you're doing what he called you to do,  you'll get better at it.  You'll figure it out.  You can do this.  We are in this together.  That's what we're here for.  We're here for each other. We are laborers together.  I hope this helped.

I hope it motivated you. Hope it encouraged you. Thanks for listening.  Give us a like subscribe or follow  and help, help spread the word. If you know somebody that needs it. Share it with them. Appreciate you. Have a good day. Okay.