Podcast

Welcome back! It’s been quite a year, and it’s been nine months since I posted a podcast. That has a lot to do with the title of this podcast and what I am doing moving forward. When I started Spiritual Teamwork in 2007, it was a coaching website, then it moved to a discipleship website, then I shut it down. Then I switched to pinnaclebalance.com. Then I switched back to spiritual teamwork. This went on for four or five years. Also, during this time I was trying to get ordained, so I took a pastorate at a church no one else wanted to prove I could do it. That lasted three months. This all went on for about five total years, then I got out of pastoring all together. And now someone else owns pinnacle balance. I didn’t have direction. I had no idea what I really wanted to be or do all because I didn’t have a focus or a purpose. I had no idea where I wanted to be or how to get there. I was a certified coach for a certain career company and I still couldn't stay focused on what I wanted. I knew all the tips and tricks, but I couldn't make it work. In the end, i started blaming everyone else, but it was just me all along. After we left the pastorate in 2014, I became deeply depressed. I knew for 15 years that I was supposed to be a pastor. I believed in my innermost depths that God had called me to be a pastor. Apparently, I was wrong. Which is okay. I gave it a shot. I followed my dream, and it didn't pan out. It didn't pan out, not because God wasn't in it. It didn't pan out because I had no purpose and no real direction. I wasn't willing to do the work because there was no plan. Why am I doing this? When you can answer this question with every ounce of honesty you can muster, I believe you will be on a road to success. The problem is most people I know don't have a why. Purpose Why Am I Doing This? Our purpose for doing something can be fairly wide ranging. Our purpose can be simple, like I want to save money, or it will make me feel better. To grand like I want to help save baby turtles in Guatamala. What our purpose does is give us a motive. The underlying why to our trip we are about to take. Having a purpose that will make us want to conquer the world will help draw people to us. When they see that our purpose drives us, they will want to take part in what we are doing. People will come alongside us and provide support and encouragement. I had no real purpose for becoming a pastor other than I believed God called me. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is a vague purpose at best. I didn't develop a purpose beyond that initial calling, so I couldn't see past any problem that came up. Not having a defined purpose was the reason I kept flip flopping back and forth between websites and the message I was trying to convey. I created problems that would have never come up if I had defined my purpose. Having a purpose keeps us focused when the cares of life creep in. Problems will always pop up, and having a purpose will keep us focused on the bigger picture so we can get through the problem. Having a purpose helps us prepare. When we have a purpose, we can set goals and make plans that give us direction for our cause. Direction We have to look at where we are going before we start. I wanted to be a pastor. That was where the center of my goal target was. The problem was that I did not know what all the steps were to become a pastor. When you use Google maps, there is a section that shows you every step from your location to your destination. That's what we need to have in our lives. If we want to achieve "X" we need to figure out what every step from where we are is to "X". Let's say one of my goals is to have a deep relationship with God. How do I get to that relationship? Do I wake up every day and say, "Hey God it's Steve, just wanted to let you know I'm here waiting for you to show up." Or can I lay out a logical plan that takes me from, hey God, it's Steve,