Justin Answers Your Questions - Part 1

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 everyone. Welcome to Made for Mondays this Monday morning. I'm happy you guys are joined in with us today. We're continuing this journey. So I want to give you guys a heads up as we get into the month of November. Made for Mondays for me was a promise I made to myself, a promise I made to the church to share the things that God has done in my life and share them on a podcast. And this podcast purpose was to really just empower you all and empower myself to be consistent, empower you all with the things that God has put into my life for one full year. And so as we get to the end of this year, we're going to get to the end of this particular podcast. Maybe down the line we'll revive it. And maybe down the line we'll come back with it. But my wife and I have a podcast entitled Saved af, Saved and Faithful. And together we're going to embark on that journey intentionally in the month of January, in 2021. So all the month of December will be my wife and I actually coming together on here and we'll be talking about leadership, life, love, marriage, relationships, children, all of that. So as I conclude my journey together with you, I wanted to take a moment this entire month and actually hear directly from you all and actually take a moment and answer some of your questions. And so today I have four questions I'm going to answer, two from people who gave us their names. And two of you, you're anonymous and I understand. And so two of them deal with leadership, and then two of them deal with church and pastoring. And so I want to take two of the questions and then two of the church questions at the end, and then we'll go to our affirmations. I know you'll be blessed by it. And we'll see what God has to share with us in this moment as we simply take a moment and talk to you. So if you want to ask a question, you can go to www.jrlester.com, click on made for Mondays. You can ask a question for Made for Mondays or you can email me@revjr lestermail.com if you want to stay anonymous, stay anonymous. You want to give us your name. Give us your name and we'll go ahead and do our best to encourage you. Now, let's jump into these questions. First question I received is from one of our listeners, Shantae. Thank you, Shantae, for listening from Texas. And here's a question that Shantae asks. Long story short, she said this Pastor Justin, I see that you do a lot. How do you balance all of your time? It's a great question, Shantae. Talk about balancing time. Earlier in one of our podcasts, I talked about organizing your week out before your week begins, really telling your time what to do instead of your time telling you what to do. A couple of practices that I'll give you that I've employed in my life that have helped me balance my time. Number one, I'm really good at three things. Based upon the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, I took my time to focus instead of doing a lot of things. Okay, I do three things really well. My research interests, what I read, what I do are focused on like three particular areas. And I master those three particular areas. Everything I read, everything I do is all in those areas. Just recently I started journeying into a new area of research, a new area of thinking. And that's just for my own mind and to expand my mind a little bit. But other than that, I've mastered three areas. That's one thing I do what's essential. Number two, when it comes to emails, what I recognized in my life is that my emails were telling me what to do instead of me telling my emails what to do. Therefore, here's the practice I have with emails. First of all, I check my emails only every two hours. I check them for 15 minutes. I take 15 minutes to go through my emails. I take 15 minutes to respond to my emails. My emails have a time limit. My emails go off at six o' clock every single day and I check them the next morning at 9 o'. Clock. Here's what I realize about emails. They're going to be there whether you respond to them immediately or. Or don't respond to them right at all. Because most of the emails that I receive don't need a response. That's one way as well. So my emails are told what to do by me. I only do what's essential. And lastly, when I start my week out, I take a moment and plan out as much as I possibly can. And it's simply a process. On Sunday nights, that takes me about 15 minutes. So 15 minutes. On Sunday night, I plan out my Entire week. These are the meetings I have on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, all throughout the week. These are the areas of my day that I have free. These are the areas of my day where I can read. These are the areas of my day where I can give to others. I make sure that only two days of my week are allocated for meetings, actually allocate time for pop up meetings. And in the midst of all of that planning, you have a lot of flexibility. I've learned that the better we are at planning, the more flexibility we actually have. My evenings become absolutely free. I don't do anything at night besides watch television and hang out with my wife and my son because they are on my list of things. But also they're important. They're more important to me than anything else. So that's a way I balance my time out. I tell my time what to do, so my time doesn't tell me what to do. And to me I think that's a way you can grab a whole lot of success in your life. Thank you for your question, Shantae, and thanks for listening. Second question we have here is from Anonymous. And Anonymous asked this question. Pastor Justin, what would you tell a leader who's in the midst of some serious conflict? First of all, congratulations, you're a leader. One of the amazing things that comes with conflict, comes with leadership, excuse me, is conflict. I believe leadership is down to two things. It's communication and managing conflict. That's it. We're really just the tie breaking vote. When you get to a position of leadership, you're just the tie breaking vote. You allow the people to really kind of go with the guidance and the value system that you set out with a concrete vision, concrete strategy, concrete goals, concrete directives, concrete mission. And from there, you're the tie breaking vote when it comes to managing conflict and managing communication. So in the midst of conflict, here's the one thing I want you to ask yourself personally. What is the absolute worst that could happen? I want you to ask yourself that question seriously. What is the worst thing, thing that could happen from this conflict? Can you handle the absolute worst thing? I mean, if everything were to fall apart, can you manage that? If so, let me tell you something. You can get through this conflict. One thing I've learned about conflict for me is that I had to take a moment to pull back every time I found myself in some serious places of conflict. And if I knew I could handle the worst things, thing, I didn't worry about anything else. If I knew, not just talk my way out of it. If I knew that financially, with my integrity, personally, I can handle the worst situation. I can handle anything that comes that way. That being said, number two, then I want you to actually take a moment and write down who are the serious players you need to address? Who are the individuals you need to have personal meetings with? Who are the individuals you need to have more community meetings with. There are some people that will help you in conflict, and there are some people that will help you in public and help you in private. I want you to ask yourself this question as well. Is this necessary conflict or unnecessary conflict? There's some conflict that's completely necessary. Some conflict we grow at the places of our greatest discomfort. Some conflict is so important. You need it to solidify your organization. You need it to solidify your place with the people you're leading. You need it to solidify in the place you're going to and the places where you personally can continue to grow professionally. Some conflict is necessary and some conflict is unnecessary. If it's unnecessary conflict, I'm not telling you to avoid it. I'm telling you to confront it, make humor out of it and keep moving. Unnecessary conflict does not deserve our attention. Necessary conflict needs you to take a moment, pull back, evaluate your vision, your mission, your strategy, have meetings, see what the worst possibly can happen, and then confront it head on. So I've learned for me, in my own leadership style, I didn't like doing this before, but it's been something beautiful that's happened in our office. Now, I love confronting splinters before they become infections. So if I sense that something is very small, I'll confront it. If I see a lack of communication, if I see a tone under an email, if I see that someone is normally acting one way, they start acting a different way. I confront that behavior, confront that conflict before it becomes serious. Because once it becomes serious, some infections, you just need to cut the entire arm off. So I challenge you as a leader. If you see small things happening, confront them before they become big things. So those are the two questions I got on leadership. I have two questions on church. I hope you guys are being blessed by this so far today, but let's continue this journey as we now get to a moment where we talk about some questions for church. First question comes from David from Alabama. David, thanks for listening. Also anonymous earlier. Thank you for listening. Question. Here is what are some suggestions you would give to someone transitioning into their first pastorate? Congratulations. I'm sorry and I'm happy for you. I have a blog I wrote on this in my first pastorate here in Providence, Rhode Island. First thing I would tell you is write down a list of the first 10 people to your office door. Eight of them are going to give you absolute hell. Two of them are going to be on your side. Be mindful of the people. The reason I say that Be mindful of the people who want to dictate how you see the church you're leading. Be careful of the people who want to tell you who to talk to, who not to talk to. Before you get a chance to know people, the people who come to you and tell you that they have insider information in your first month at this point, everything is new to you. That's the first thing I would tell you. Be careful of the people who want to dictate what you Number two, Be a person of prayer. If you are not a person of prayer, you'll fail. And I'm just telling you that very honestly straight out. If you are not a person of prayer and a person of fasting, you will fail in your first pastorate. Number three, get to know your community. Take a moment and drive around or walk around before anybody gets to know you. If you're new to the area, if you've been in the area, get a moment to walk around the space and see it from the position you're in. Being in the pastorate, as you're going from the seat of either a staff member or just being an associate preacher to now you're in the seat where you're making decisions and you have influence. Just the title pastor gives you influence. Take a moment to walk around your community. Walk around at least a mile radius. Take a day, a week and be in prayer and walk. Be in prayer and go visit local companies, local businesses, local spaces. Don't tell them who you are. Get to know the people, know the community. What do people like to eat? Where do people go to eat? What do different generations do? What do you begin to like about the community you're pastoring with this title of pastor in it, I suggest to you, don't use the title pastor outside of your church for the first six months. Just see what it's like to get to know the people in your community and see how they respond when you tell them you are a pastor. Then fourthly, preach the gospel fully. Don't preach what you think people want to hear. Preach what God tells you to tell them. And sometimes that's what people want to hear and sometimes it isn't. But preach the gospel and what you'll realize is what Jeremiah teaches us, and that is faithfulness to God is always more important than faithfulness to people. The last thing I'll tell you as well, don't get so consumed thinking that people are the ones who are paying your salary. Therefore, they can tell you what to do. You are serving God. You are leading the people that God has trusted to you. Sheep, don't let the shepherd tell them where to go. Because remember, sheep are stupid, right? And there's nothing against any member who's listening to this because you're not a dumb person. But you would never. The CEO of JCPenney is not being told how to make decisions from the person who just started working at JCPenney. The CEO of Apple is not being told by somebody who just got hired at Apple how to make Apple run. They can give suggestions, they can give influence. They can give inference. But you have a vision. You have a mission. You have strategies and goals that God has given you. Be the pastor. And that's the last thing I'll tell you. My best friend told me something over and over and over again. He said, justin, you are the pastor. So be the pastor. Our last question for today comes from another person. Assuming you're a pastor as well. I'll answer this as a pastor as well as a member of a church. The question here is, pastor Justin, I'm ready to quit my church. What should I do if I'm talking to a member of a church? Leave. Go. Oh, my gosh, please. If you ever feel that God is pulling you away from a space, leave. Here's what I would suggest doing. Number one, talk to the pastor. Don't create conflict on your way out. Go talk to the pastor. Have a moment to talk. Because I'll tell you this. We realize as pastors that your season at a church, your time at a church is not forever. But when you talk to us, don't use the words like season and deep language for it. Just be very honest. Life has shifted. Time has shifted. Be honest about what's going on. Don't tear down a church on your way out. Because I realize if you want to always have a way in, you never tear down the door. When you walk out. You always leave. Well, you can start someplace else, right? If you leave someplace else. Wrong. Now, if you're a pastor, let me talk to you. If you believe that God is calling you to leave your congregation, leave. I know most people won't tell you that. They'll tell you to pray harder. They'll tell you to Fast more. They'll tell you to pray some more prayers. They'll tell you to contact some more people. But if you feel that God is calling you to leave and depart from your congregation, don't do the people a disservice by leading out of anger, leading out of envy, leading out of frustration, leading out of pain. Do what's best for your family. The church currently you're at isn't paying you what you believe you're worth, and you've communicated that to the church, and you're ready to leave that congregation because someplace else will leave. If you feel that God is pulling you away from that field, go. One of the beautiful things we notice about the Apostle Paul is the apostle Paul planted, but he wasn't called to pastor. He went and planted churches and left the churches and then sent other people to pastor them. If God is calling you away, go away. It's amazing that we love to follow the calling of God to places, but we don't like following the calling of God from places. Now, if you're sitting in the middle of a scandal and you've done some things that are against the will of God and the purpose of God, repent. No, no, no, no, you will not. God will not honor the departure in scandal and to tear apart the kingdom of God. But if you're leaving, well, communicate it to the leadership. Have them sit down, talk with them. Because what you'll learn in that moment is that most people are rational people. Most people understand. Okay, it's time for you to go. You've grown out of the situation. You've outgrown shoes. My son is growing out of shoes left and right. One of the things we realized is that the reason he was so frustrated one day we got him dressed and put all these things on him, is that his feet had outgrown his shoe. He wasn't trying to be rude. He wasn't trying to hurt us. He appreciated the shoes we gave him, but the shoes are just too small. And maybe you're in a church right now, Pastor, where your shoes are too small. So, anonymous, pray, repent, go. Communicate it. Everybody's not going to like it. Nobody. Imagine if you were on the other side of that table, you'd be frustrated, too. The pastor that you love, a pastor that you've given time to, a pastor you've given energy to, is leaving. But if it's time for you to go, go and God will honor it. But if it's not time for you to go, you better get back in that pulpit. And tell that story right. So I hope this helped you guys today. How we balance time, suggestions we give to people in the first pastorate, what we would tell someone in the midst of conflict and if you're ready to leave your church, what should we do? So I hope you guys go into this week made for Mondays and with balancing time, understanding what the power of conflict in your life, not giving up too soon or leaving because you're called to go and also transitioning into something. Well, let's say our affirmation today as we leave out of here and go into our weeks, would you repeat after me? Just say, I am me, I can be me, and no one will stop me from being me. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. You were made for this. Give yourself a license to live. Mondays don't own you. You were made for Mondays. Have a great day.

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