5/3/21-Guess Who’s Back!

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student, and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin. What's up today?

Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to Made for Mondays. It's Justin here today. It is Monday, May 3rd, and, well, made for Mondays has been gone for a while. And so I wanted to take this podcast, take a time to actually talk to you all about, well, where I've been and where I think this podcast is going, where I kind of see my life going, and prayerfully, what we can use this podcast to do and to serve you and to serve those of you who listen to Made for Mondays. So. So, first of all, let me apologize. It was kind of an abrupt ending to it. The beginning of 2021, for me personally has been. Tumultuous is not the right word. It's been just a lot, a lot of emotional movement, a lot of mental movement, professional movement, and personal movement. The month of April, I decided to take a sabbatical from my church. And sabbatical just from a lot. Coronavirus came along last year. I was planning in the month of June to take a break, and then the coronavirus came. I needed to lead in our community in the midst of all of that, to the forefront of our minds, not new to us, but to the forefront of our minds, came police brutality and the deaths of black and brown bodies all throughout the country. There was voting rights and everything in terms of getting COVID testing to communities that are predominantly black and brown. And then the beginning of a new year, navigating my own church, my doctorate. And so I kind of pressed through it and I was at a place of burnout, at a place of just really kind of not being okay last year. And you would never know it because of the amount of work we did. I literally took some time last summer to pull away from everything and everybody. And one of my college students reached out and said, hey, Pastor Justin, would you mind being a part of an article for me for school? And I said, sure. You know, nothing big for that, nothing major. It's an article for a final project. And it turned into a front page news story here in our city. That's not what I looked for. And at the same time had another person to reach out, like, hey, we're doing this little short thing on race in Rhode island, and would you mind talking about it and got onto that and that became a full fledged documentary. And then Covid happened and I just was talking and that became another documentary. And so there's a lot of things that happened. Whereas I tried to pull away, God kept putting me on the front stage. And so all of that combined to some other things that happened in my own personal life. The beginning of this year did not go the way I wanted it to go, and last year was just a lot. So I decided to take April, to take the entire month off and just really to focus on my family, to focus on myself, and to focus on what's next in my own life. And so that's where I abruptly ended our couple of weeks on staffing and culture and building and fortifying culture. I just ended abruptly because for me personally, I needed the time to let my mind rest, to not work, to not read, to not listen to podcasts, to just really let the only thing that comes into my life be my wife, my child, as well as my scriptures. And it was beautiful because for the first time in my life, I read scriptures without the need to preach them. I read scriptures without the need to teach them or write lessons about them. And so that's where I was the month of April. And going forward, this podcast will continue because it's a very reflective and honest place for me to work through some things, but also talk to you about some things and all of that. So I want to thank you all for even listening to this thus far. We're three and a half minutes in and those of you who are still listening tells me you care and so I appreciate it. Here's what I'm asking of you as we go forward for this podcast and I'll share with you some things going on in my life. But in terms of this podcast, I would love to hear more from you all. If there's a topic, if there is something that you are interested in talking about, something you want us to research. I really want to assist you in your own professional development wherever you are, so that you can be made for Monday and whatever that is. I'd love to hear from you. If you would Simply go to www.jrlester.com and the link is in the Show Notes and there's a link there that simply says made for Mondays and give us your topics. What you're thinking about, what you're wondering about, what you're worried about, what you're thinking of in your business, you're thinking of. In terms of some of you I know who serve under bosses. Some of you who are bosses, some of you who are leaders, some of you who listen to this in your car on the way to work, some of you who listen to this while you're working out or wherever you are. I'd love to take the time to engage holistically with you and to, you know, whether that's researching it, finding out more about it, bringing in guest speakers on it. What topics would you like us to cover? Are there particular people? Do you want to be a guest on our podcast? We'd love to have you on there. My goal for this is not a big money making podcast. My goal for this is not to become viral sensation. My goal for this podcast, honestly is a place for me to reflect, to engage with you, to help you grow and that prayerfully we all can daily become better humans. Some things that have happened in my life that I think are positive to share with you is I've finished my Doctorate of ministry from Boston University. I'm really excited about that. My son and I just completed writing our second book called Brown Dad, Brown Boy, Brown Dog and we're really excited for that book to be released this summer. My wife has really holistically engaged in some work called Urban Colonial and please go follow her at urbancolonial on Instagram and on Twitter and you'll see some really great cool home design pieces on there. There's been some really amazing things that God has graced my family to do, graced my church to do. Our church is going under complete renovations right now. We are opening up in a couple of weeks and I actually to celebrate have two staff members who've moved on to other professional opportun and I celebrate it because as a leader I get excited when people have grown out of positions and that then is an indictment of my organization to then see how do we structure our positions to help people grow in them. And so I'm actually happy that those two individuals are going on to something that will help them be the greatest humans they can be. So I'm happy about that as well. There's just some really amazing things that I told my wife the other day. I said every time we turn around, God is blessing. And so I'm grateful to be in that position and I hope that your our connections together through this podcast, if we meet or never meet, I'll continue to shower those blessings on all of you as well. So this month we will focus on I'm going to just use this month to share with you a couple of things that I learned in my sabbatical, in my time off from my church and time off from life. I'll share with you a couple of things that I learned and prayerfully. This will be really reflective. I'm curious to hear from you all and that's what we'll use for the summer. We'll have another guest speaker segment over the course of the summer as well as they as I see fit for those and as those individuals see fit as well. And hopefully we'll look up and be in a much better and amazing position going into the fall, into 2022. I truly believe this is a great season. I believe the world needs leaders. The world needs you. And as long as we show up daily, we can do some amazing things. So let's say your affirmations and let's go on about our day. Just say this. I am me. I can be me. And no one will stop me from being me. You were made for this. Mondays don't own you. You own your Mondays. Now go win today. God bless you.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow justin online at mrjluster and online at www.jluster.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.