A person’s physical, professional, or emotional issues can affect their spiritual life. A person's confusion may stem from their physical state, their work, or their emotions. For example, if a person is controlled by the spirit of lust, they are eager to be in a relationship and become preoccupied with it. As a pastor, when ministering to people, it is crucial to understand the source of their confusion. If their confusion arises from romance, then resolve the issues related to romance. If it stems from work, then address the work-related problems. Therefore, the training of pastors is profound. The most important thing for a pastor is to continuously move forward and grow.
JY’s confusion lies in her work. She studied fashion design, but her family wants her to take exams for banking or accounting jobs. JY does not know what her specific problem is, but she knows that she is struggling and feels confused. If, as pastors, we do not know how to solve JY's problem, we should learn and explore. In the process of exploring, we will think, and this thinking will bring about the inner growth of the pastor's life. Work and study occupy a significant portion of our lives, so our shepherding should aim to resolve these issues. Shepherding is not only about conveying the words of the Bible, but also about teaching the application of the Bible in daily life.
I. Clear Direction
The church expanded rapidly some time ago, which led to some bottlenecks. But do not worry, it is not too late to address these problems even if we are solving them today. JY has studied fashion design for four years. Compared to starting from scratch in a banking job, which path is better for her? Of course, the shortcut is the better option.
A mature person does not follow trends; they must have a very clear direction. If a person pursues short-term gains, they will sacrifice long-term interests. If they pursue long-term interests, even if short-term gains are sacrificed, they will eventually be recouped. Successful people have clear directions in all aspects, including their careers. As long as a direction is set and one moves towards that goal step by step, they will surely reach it. The danger is in moving east today and west tomorrow, remaining in the same place after ten years, thus ruining one's life.
As pastors, we must also train our sense of direction. Following God's word, we cannot say, I will live casually in our lives. Living casually will not lead to a good life; one must have a clear direction. What makes Jack Ma remarkable is his sense of direction. He worked on yellow pages, telephone directories, and eventually created Alibaba. A sense of direction is very important for everyone. In this process, we are often tempted by short-term gains. When tempted, we must have a clear vision. If a person is not eating, they must first solve the problem of eating; if the problem of eating is not solved, long-term and short-term plans will fail.
However, solving the problem of eating is not a long-term direction; one still needs a long-term direction. JY's parents only have her as a child, so she has no problem eating. Since she does not have the pressure of eating, she should spend her time on her direction. Developing her overall direction becomes an important part of building her spiritual life. Everything related to her life is the building of her spiritual life.
As a pastor, the ability to shepherd people is in four areas. The first is to strongly break down carnal things in people. If you do not break them down, you allow them to gradually deteriorate. The second is to break down spiritual oppression in people. The third is to teach people spiritual words, that is, the words of God. The fourth is to apply the words of God to life.
God values[keen on] a sense of direction. We cannot live day by day in a perfunctory manner. In China, many people live day by day without a plan, and end up relying on their parents in their old age. In today's generation, pensions are also very risky, and they can collapse at any time. Development is the hard truth. If we do not develop, pension insurance and other things will all face a crisis. Everyone will eventually receive a pension, but they do not create any value now, nor did they create so much value in the past. Social pension insurance is a time bomb, and we do not know when it will explode.
Those we prepare in the church must plan themselves well, improve themselves, and reach the top of the pyramid in the entire social stratum, so it does not matter if there is an earthquake at the bottom. People at the bottom of the pyramid collapse with a tremor, but we at the top will not. When I say that pensions are dangerous, it is not to convey a crisis of pension insurance, but to send a signal: everyone must be prepared and use their time well to develop their skills. For example, JY is confused now. As pastors, if we take her to read God's word every day, it will not solve the problem. We must start solving her direction problem.
There is a clever clothing maker in Beijing. Every Saturday, he goes to the movies, and when he sees beautiful clothes in the movies, he imitates them, so his clothes sell like crazy. As soon as a movie comes out, he watches it, and the clothes are designed and made in the second week. He never remembers the plot of the movie, but he sees the clothes in it very clearly. His customers are very loyal customers. This clothing maker knows very well what he is doing. The fashion design industry has great potential [lot of potential], because now people do not like to buy clothes that are easily duplicated. If you design clothes with your own selection of materials, colors, and fabrics, it is unlikely that they will be duplicated. There is also a tailor shop in Shanghai that is becoming increasingly popular online. Making clothes is different from the era of large-scale production. Now people pursue personalization.
Building a church cannot just be a group of people listening to sermons and then going home. Building a church requires highly personalized ministry, and only our network church can do that [achieve this]. Going to a traditional church takes a lot of time, and there are many people in the church, so you may feel lost. This is similar to the past mass production, where individuals are not edified. When I was young, if blue was popular that year, there would be a large amount of blue on the street for the New Year; the second year, if gray was popular, there would be gray Zhongshan suits everywhere. But that era has passed.
Since JY has studied fashion design for four years, she should continue to put her energy into mastering the basics of tailoring and design this year. Even if she goes to a tailor shop to learn machine work, standing on the basis of four years of undergraduate education, she can take a step forward and get a return and make money. Of course, skills are still lacking when one comes out of university, but it is good to make up for the skills, which is much better than working in a bank for five years. When JY's direction is set, she immediately feels at peace in her spirit. As pastors, we need to train ourselves to solve these complex problems. When we face physical oppressions, we solve the physical oppressions; when we face emotional oppressions, we solve the emotional oppressions; when there are problems with work, we solve the work problems.
II. Time Management
The first sign of maturity is having a direction, and the second is having the ability to manage one's time. Today, I will study fashion design, buy some fabric and make my own clothes, take a picture and post it on social media. If good friends like it, I will charge them to make one for them. You can also build a website to do marketing, and maybe you will become famous. Alibaba did not make any money in the first five years, from 1995 to 2002, and only slowly started making money from 2003. So do not be impatient, eating is a very simple thing. Manage your time well, and you will always be able to achieve your goals.
Our church looks very popular today, and everyone is praying fervently, because the most difficult days have passed. The first few years were very difficult, but I insisted on managing all my time well. Time is money for young people, so do not waste it. It feels very comfortable to play every day, but without direction and good time management, one drifts from day to day, and when a crisis comes in their forties or fifties, they are unable to resist it. Therefore, we must have a clear direction and learn to manage our time.
If worldly work is not done well, heavenly work is even more impossible to do well. If worldly work is not done professionally, heavenly work cannot possibly be done professionally. But do not mistakenly think that spending time praying will affect our worldly work. Confusion consumes all the time saved, but by removing confusion through prayer, creativity increases exponentially, efficiency increases exponentially, and opportunities increase exponentially. Therefore, worldly work will be done better if we pray every day. This is God's grace and blessing; God will bless the work of our hands. If you read the Bible carefully, you will find that God cares about trivial things like the deaths of cows and dogs in someone's home. God cares about raising children, and God cares about working. We report to our group leaders every day, not to show them what you have done, but to plan your time. Your group leader can see from this whether you are a mature person and see your growth process. In this process, the group leader shares the joy of growing with you and shares the growth of your spiritual life.
III. Emotion Management
In the process of growing up, people will inevitably struggle from time to time. Therefore, the third sign of a mature person is emotion management. People really feel hopeless and depressed sometimes, and this is normal. People really will collapse sometimes, because the direction you insist on taking will not reach the end smoothly. When you do not see the result, work your way up the mountain when encountering mountains and build bridges when encountering water, and move forward with faith. We manage our emotions by managing our faith. When we manage our faith well, our emotions will be well controlled.
A mature person will have a clear direction, good time management, and management of other resources. The third is having good emotion management. If these three are well managed, a person will surely succeed. Maybe not in one year, not in two years, not in three years, but when they do, they may become Alibaba. Today, I am also training everyone’s pastoral ability. In this story, although JY took some detours and suffered some grievances, it will become a part of her own personal story in the future: I was very confused at that time, taking this test today and that test tomorrow, completely without direction, but later I straightened it out. This experience itself will also become our own asset. In the future, when she encounters people with similar problems in pastoral shepherding, she will know how to solve them. In the process of shepherding JY, JX should also pay attention to JY's time management to see if she is using her time wisely.
Today, we use JY's example to illustrate how to shepherd specific problems encountered in the process of life building. A person without direction is very painful, but once they have a direction, as long as you strengthen their faith, they will definitely come out. At the same time, I also encourage JX to make use of her idle spiritual organs while taking care of their child: their ears can listen to learning materials related to their direction, their mouths can open to release faith, and their brains can start to think. If one is eliminated in such a generation, they can only blame themselves. The child knows clearly what we are doing, and we are edifying ourselves while edifying our child.
With good direction, time management, and emotion management, our life growth will advance by leaps and bounds, and the direct feedback will be financial feedback. From Deuteronomy, we can see that God values personal finances very much. When we implement this way, we can create a lot of value. Is this a lot of pressure? This is not a lot of pressure. What kind of pressure is a lot? The pressure of being at a loss when a crisis comes is great. If JY had known me four years ago when she was in university, then she would have studied hard and prepared well for the entire four years, and she would not have any pressure now. Now she is under a lot of pressure because she did not make good use of her time in university. Today, we must all repent, constantly improve our ability to serve, and improve our value in this society. We must all reflect on whether we have a direction, whether we have managed our time well, and whether we have managed our emotions well. We must go against the current and be someone who is above and not below, who is the head and not the tail.