Life's Calling and Ministering to Others | Trinity Talks | Life Group Live

Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, that's exciting. So you are, are you all part of a life group?

Yes. Yes. You are not the same one. Not the same one. Heidi and I are in the same one.

Okay. I'm in a men's life. Okay. So Bill meets Thursday mornings. What about you guys? Every

other Tuesday night. Yes. Great. So I'm just going to let everyone know if they're not familiar with

what a life group is, what a life group is. So some groups call them small group or some churches

call them small groups. But here at Trinity, we have life groups and they stand for learning.

Does anyone know what the I stands for? Innovation. Innovation. What else am I saying for? Imagination.

What does I stand for? I don't know. I just go. What about the F? Fellowship. Fellowship. And? E.

Evangelism. It's not evangelism actually. So this is more of an internal thing.

My name is Elizabeth. I could just stand for Elizabeth. Encouragement. I'll remember that

for next time. I love that word encouragement. It is. And we see that in our small groups. And

actually that's how the early church began was people met in larger groups, but they also met

in the small groups. And that's how people developed in their faith. And we still see that

as effective today, don't we guys? All right. So we were talking about Joseph. We've been doing

that for a while now and today was about his dream job. And I actually love that Rob talked

about it not being necessarily his dream job, but God's dream for him through his work. But we have

to talk about our dream jobs, especially when we were kids here. So we all had one, I'm sure.

We all had a dream job that we wanted to do. We want to be when we grew up. Let's hear it guys.

What was something that you wanted to do when you were little? You go Jen. Actually, I wanted to be

a psychologist. I did. Why? Because I just, the idea of a young one, but I just liked the idea of

helping people. And I used to read all of these different self-help books and I was just curious.

Yeah. You're interested. Yeah. I was just interested. So yeah, that was my dream job.

You dreamed about a psychologist. I wanted to be a ballerina. Me too. Yes. The body was not the

right kind. I didn't even take dance lessons. So I just- No, I did. Did you? Yeah. But I don't think

I had the hip turnout and stuff. No. Did you stand on your toes? I did. I did point work. Yeah.

See, that's so normal. Ballerina, psychologist ballerina. I don't know. Maybe I need help. I

don't know. And what would you build? Well, I think I'm supposed to answer a police officer or

astronaut, but I think I really wanted to be either a nurse or a therapist.

Oh, you're hilarious. You're so funny. Then I have to ask, in the service today, so Rob likes to do

little polls sometimes, which one did you answer? There were eight different jobs that he polled us

on. I believe there was pilot, there was video game developer. Do you remember that? As he was

during the service, which one did you vote on? Actually, Elliot voted for me because I said none

of them. And he said, what about musician? And I said, well, no, because I didn't like the idea of

gigging at night. Just assuming. No. I guess as a musician, you could freelance. You can probably

do the daytime. So, okay, if you put it that way, the musician, because any of the other ones really

appeal to me. So, sorry, Rob, not even Anglin Priest. Sorry. Not everyone's calling. What about

you? I don't remember the eight. I don't have the list in front of me. I was banking on Heidi having

a somewhat decent short-term memory here. No, I think I may have been thinking about something

else during that eight. Which sometimes I do. I go off on rabbit trails. Right. All right. Sorry

to throw that out there. She's going to rewatch the sermon. She's going to get back to us next

week. It was on the 1115 to Heidi. That's true. Yeah. I'm sorry. What about you, Bill? Which one

did you vote on? There was a couple that interest me. A musician appeals to me. But Anglican minister

was something that was considered for myself early on. Yeah. Can I say that would be interesting?

If you were an Anglican minister, that would be interesting. If he were an Anglican minister.

Yes. That would be really interesting. There's always time. Go for it. You got time.

There's a little part of me that still would like to be a deacon. There's some hoops to jump through

create some difficulties. Ministry or ordained ministry was something early on that was

considered for me and that I thought about. Then I realized that everything that I wanted to do in

ministry, Christian ministry, I could do without being ordained. That is a fantastic segue,

I think, into our conversation here today. That you don't have to be ordained to do God's work.

We see in Genesis, we were just reading, that Joseph's title could best be described as minister.

Why don't we as a group come up with maybe a definition for what a minister is? What do you

think a minister is? What do they do? What are some words maybe that jump out? Servanthood.

Serving the people that you're leading at the same time. Using the gifts that you have to serve.

Definitely a pastoral component to being a minister, caring for other people.

One thing I just throw out there is just meeting other people's needs.

In some ways, do you think that our society would find it hard to consider

everyone being able to be a minister? Or do you think that that is something that

everyone would be able to do? I think it would be difficult because of the definition of what

people think a minister is. Because even for me, in today's sermon, that was new to me. That was

really new to me because growing up a minister was like rock, like a priest. With a title.

Yeah. But when you think about the word ministering, it makes sense that you minister. But for

the society out there, the secular society, they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't understand that.

They would put a religious attachment to it, I think. Yeah, I agree with that. I would add that,

I think given the larger definition, I think we all can be, or we all should be, ministers if we

can meet people where they're at and be a positive Christian presence in their lives.

So in what ways is your current calling, whether it be in your family life or in your job,

a minister? In which ways do you see yourself as a minister? And if you haven't thought that before

yet either, I guess that's okay too. We can kind of unpack that today. I don't know. As a parent,

I feel like I'm a minister. Within the parameters of every relationship, you can consider yourself

a minister. Professionally, I'm a psychotherapist, so I look at that as a calling and a ministry role.

I am a minister to the people that are my clients. But even from moment to moment,

right? You're having a conversation with a person that you've just met. You can minister to them.

You can listen to what their needs are. You can be an attentive, caring, compassionate person.

Yeah, that's so true. And I think you just described pretty much what I do in my job,

even though I'm a career consultant. And what I do is when people lose their position, their job,

I support them and tell them how we're going to help them move forward. And there's an opportunity

to do that, to support them. In some cases, I get really lucky and find out that the person's a

Christian. And that's usually God driven. And so then I have the opportunity to remind them

of who they are and who they belong to and the fact that this is just another step in a direction

that God wants them to go. And it's really rewarding to be able to do that. But yeah,

I think that in the role that I'm in, I have that opportunity. That's what Heidi described. I have

that opportunity to do that, which is a blessing, really. Right. Yeah. I think we get stuck in

thinking that minister is like, oops, I'm not used to this technology. We get used to thinking

of it as being this big, huge thing. And it doesn't need to be. It can be this little teeny moment.

It takes the pressure off. Yeah. Ironically for me, I think I'm in the least minister role that

I've ever been in my life or my working career. Anyway, for those who know me, I worked in Christian

ministries and in the nonprofit sector and started the dam and was the executive director of the

Beedon Food for Change Food Bank and Mystography for 10 years. Now I'm working at a telecommunications

company building testing equipment for the internet. Wow. So a little outside of my...

It's a bit of a change. But I think if anything, what that has taught me is that

being a minister is not so much what you do, but who you are. And so you can be a minister in a

full-time Christian ministry. You can be a minister in a secular nonprofit organization. You can be a

minister working your job, whatever that job is. There's people... I enjoy working with my hands

right now. It's certainly less frustrating than working with people. You think?

I can tell. I've done both now. You're onto something.

But there's still people around and you can still take time to show care and concern and love for

your coworkers and for people that... clients and your vendors and all that kind of stuff.

Whatever job you're doing. Love it. I love it. Now we're just going to flash forward to the New

Testament and we're going to look at something that Jesus said when he was discussing one of his

parables. He said, he who is faithful with little will be faithful with much. Now that's found in

Luke. And I just want to see if we can reflect on that statement, how we think that was reflective

in Joseph's life. And then we're going to sort of apply it maybe to our own lives. I'll just

read it again. He who is faithful with little will be faithful with much. How do we see that in Joseph's

life, do you think? I think it didn't matter if he was in prison or if he was overseeing all of the

storehouses of Egypt, that he was following God's plan for his life, that he was using whatever he

had to minister. Yeah. And we saw that in Potiphar's house as well. Yeah.

He was just being the person that he is. He was faithful with God and he never changed that.

He never wavered from that. He always remained the same. Always having faith in God, never

questioning why God, why, but just sort of taking what God put in front of him.

So why do you think that we may sometimes find it hard to be content and faithful to God in the

work that we're doing? And let's use the term work loosely, not necessarily in a career.

Because the work is hard. I often wonder as I drive to work, I think, what is this about?

This is sitting with other people suffering. It's not an easy gig. And yet he doesn't say it's going

to be easy. He doesn't say the work is going to be smooth even. But he does say that he's going to,

like Rob said in the sermon, I was listening, that God provides what you need to do to do the job,

the work that he's calling you to do. Right. Yeah.

Echoing what's already been said, I think it's not so much about the amount of responsibility

that you might have in your job. So it's less about what you do and more about who you are.

Or in the case of Joseph's story over decades, it's who you're becoming. So when you start out

and you're being trusted with a little, it is a test. It's a test of not so much about capacity,

but worth, self-worth and who God is growing you to become.

And I just, I wonder if you think that our society contradicts what you just said, Bill.

There's so much emphasis and I see this for our young people and those who are going into

university, into college and trying to find that perfect job that fits you and find your perfect

calling and so much stress on finding that perfect job. Do you think that that can maybe

be counterintuitive or counterproductive to staying faithful in the work and the place

that you find yourself right then and there? Wow. Do you think counterproductive? I don't know.

Well, it gets in the way of thinking about God's long-term plan. If you think you need to be

landing where you're supposed to be five years out of university. But that's actually not,

God uses all of the seasons of your life and builds and builds and builds. It took me

till I was in my mid forties to go back to school to become a psychotherapist. But I look back over

my life and he had been doing it from the very beginning. He'd been planting these seeds all

along the way and building me up to be the person professionally that I am now. And like Joseph,

you would not have seen that coming. No, no, no. And I still don't see it coming because I'm at

Wycliffe right now part-time and it took me five years to get there because I kept thinking, well,

why am I going there? Like I already have a current worm. Why do I want to do this? And then

I made myself believe that it was because I wanted to go deeper, but God has a plan. I sense that he

has a plan for me. And something that I've always focused on is spiritual direction. And when I look

at my life at church and my, in my journey, God's put me in so many different ministries

to give me different sort of big picture of what church is and how to serve. And it's always been

pastoral. So he's kind of already put me in that direction, but it can be counterintuitive if your

focus is on what you have to become rather than who you are and who you belong to. That's when it

can be counterproductive. Wow. So I think you kind of already alluded to this next question.

It's in the next question, we have this in our sermon questions for this week,

the difficult trials Joseph went through equipped him for his ultimate ministry. Can you relate to

that? And I'm not saying you're in your ultimate ministry yet. Nope. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying

I'm not in my ultimate ministry right now. So you can sense that. Yeah. There's hope for the future.

Yeah. The, I think COVID and the pandemic, like many of us, it just kind of threw us for a loop,

threw me for a loop, changed up a bunch of stuff for me. And so I'm still kind of, you know,

kind of figuring out what's next, but I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful that, you know, whatever that is,

that I've been preparing for that each step of the way. So that's, that's, that's, that's my hope.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on to it. For me and for all of us. I think it's the hard stuff. Like it's

the hard, tough moments that God uses to actually reveal himself to you in a way that when things

are easy and smooth, you don't necessarily see. Right. And so it's in the revealing that you start

to understand also who you are. Right. Who he's calling you to be, who he's created you to be.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just getting through, through those really difficult times when you just don't

want to, you just want to wallow in it rather than listen to God and then, and understand that he's

trying to teach you something. I like wallowing. That's one of my favorite things. Yeah. Or he

lets you run around the mountain because I did a lot of running around the mountain because, you

know, we put it in front of me and I'm well, what if we try this instead? Well, go ahead and run

around the mountain. But it allows you then when you're looking at, like when I'm looking at what

I'd like to do, when I'm walking alongside someone, I understand it because I've been through it. And

that, you know, you don't want to be, you lose your faith and you become, and I always say to God,

you made me so human. It's not my fault. You know, when it comes to emotions, cause we want to hang

on to those emotions rather than understand that it's a sign that something's wrong or you have to

do something about it, but God is right there to help you. But you somehow, you don't want to look

in that direction because it's hard. It's hard to get through difficult times. Well, that's great.

Listening to that, it reminds me that that compassion is not only a gift, but it's also

a learned skill. So as we go through life and we experience things ourselves, we can be more

compassionate to others. So during, certainly during those difficult times or stressful times

when we rely on God and our family and friends to get us through it, we can, you know, on the other

side, we can, we can be that support for others. But I think, and I kind of go in the last couple

of years for me, it's not the difficult and stressful times or the busy times are almost

easier to bear. It seems because the last couple of years have been pretty slow for me. So the

difficult thing for me is just kind of understanding who I am and preparing for what's next in that low

time or in that slow time. So, well, it's actually interesting that you're talking about slow times

and more exciting times and lower and higher. And we're currently doing a study at Trinity

for four weeks. It's called Joseph When Life is a Roller Coaster. So that just reminded me

of how life can be. It's not a straight path, is it? There's ups and there's downs. So if we're

riding high, we know that a low time is probably coming soon, but it also gives us hope. Like Bill

said, that we know that we know that there's going to be changes as well in our lives. And so in

Genesis, our question number eight in the sermon questions is we see Pharaoh providing for Joseph

everything that he needs to do his job. And let's just substitute the word job there for his ministry.

How has God provided for you in your life or in your career? Maybe in ways that you don't think

you'd be able to do on your own. I guess God really does provide for us really everything that we need.

So how have you seen his provision? There's three words that come to mind immediately when

when I'm hearing the question and community, relationship and mentoring. So on a larger

scale, being part of a healthy Christian growing community has benefited me through the years,

for sure. And my relationships, most importantly, my relationships with my wife and my daughters,

but also friends, lifelong friends that I've had have been very encouraging and very supportive and

motivating me to do what I need to do or what I have done. And then last thing, mentors,

I'm just a very strong believer in mentors. I was involved a lot in youth mentoring in different

jobs or roles that I've had and just feel that it's so important to be mentored

in order to develop yourself. But even beyond that, to mentor someone else as part of your own growth

and process and learning in terms of faith and discipleship. So both are important.

So I think for me, I did mention all the different ministries that God gave me the opportunity to be

a part of, but I think before I even got there, I had to understand that I could have a relationship

with God of my own and that it was important to have a community, but it was also important to

have a relationship with him so that when he was providing for me, I could hear him

above the noise. Because if you don't connect with God on that level, you can't hear him.

And sometimes when you do connect with him, you can't hear him, but at least you know that you

have a relationship. You know that he hears you and at times when you don't want to hear him,

he's still going to put it in front of you. I have a Moses complex. As soon as he tells me,

I'm going to do something, it's like, not me, somebody else. But he still puts me through it.

And every time he does that, it reminds me that he's right there and he's going to provide what I

need. I just need to let him do it, stand back and just let him do it. So it's having that strong

faith in who he is in my life. Thanks Jen. I think for me, when you look at Joseph and how he got

that whole, especially at the end, like he even got the wife and the family and everything,

like power and everything. And I think for me, it's helpful to remember that provision doesn't come

in big splashes like that. A lot of times provision often comes in small moments.

Like I, so I see five clients a day and if you can imagine sitting and listening to suffering five

hours consecutively, it's a lot. And when I first started doing this work, it was, I would always

feel that I would not have enough. I would not have enough in my own energy stores, in my

own energy stores, in my mental focus, in my ability to be empathetic. And what I realized is

that God gives me what I need one hour at a time. It's sort of like manna in the desert. Daily bread.

He's not going to give you more than you need, but he gives you what you need. And so to circle back

to that financially, relationally, emotionally, all of the things that you need will come as you,

because God knows, God knows exactly what you need for any given moment of your life. And he will

meet you there and give you what you need. Yeah. I love that. Thanks guys. So before we wrap up,

where do you think you're going to go after hearing this sermon, knowing that in your role,

as in your jobs, in your families, that you are a minister. And like Heidi said, it's not necessarily

just in the big things. It can be in the day to day, minute to minute conversations. How can we

grow up and move on with our lives as ministers as we go forward outside of the church today?

To remember that I'm responsible, right? Like that I can't run away from that responsibility. I loved

Rob's connection with baptism as sort of like the welcoming into that role. And to remember that

since I was baptized, I've had that responsibility, right? So just to remember that it's not something

you can sort of sidestep. Yeah. I think being a leader and a servant in everything that you do.

And I think there's in some jobs, people might have jobs where they don't consider themselves

a leader. They might consider themselves more of a servant. But I think in whatever role we are,

we do play the role of a leader and a servant. And I think if we kind of examine that or figure

what that is situationally for where we are right now, then I think we'll benefit and those around

us will benefit from that. And I think just continuing to draw on God and knowing that He is

the center of all of it. And it's not just me and I'm not just doing a job, but it's centered around

who God is in my life and what my responsibility is, Heidi said, and how I serve as Bill said.

That's really important that we remember that. And that we don't, you know, if we step away from

that, then it becomes something completely different. So we just need to stay focused on that.

Stay focused. And as Jesus said, whatsoever you do to the least of those you do to me. So really,

He's in the mix the whole time, isn't He? Well, thanks guys. This has been a great conversation.

I almost want to see if Bill could maybe join your lady small group sometimes.

This is a really good report. I was just saying, I know I said I'd be in your life group. I've been so

encouraged by listening to you guys. I want some of that every two weeks. Maybe we need to have a life

mingle. He may come and never leave. You can have the men's life group and the women's life group

come together for a social. I think we're on to something next week. Stay tuned.

Stay tuned. All right. So that's going to be it. We've got 1115 service starting soon, everybody.

So maybe we'll have you back again soon, but thank you very much. So thank you to Heidi,

to Bill and to Jen for the great conversation. And we'll see everyone again next week for

another conversation. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much.