- [Kevin DeYoung] When I was candidating at the church I now serve at, University
of Reformed Church, I remember they asked me specifically what my vision for
pastoral ministry was. And I felt really good that I had thought through this and I
gave them three Ps. There was even an alliteration in it. I said, "I want to
preach, I want to pray, and I want to be with people." And those three things have
served me really well. I've tried to stick with that. And people in the congregation
have come at different times and said, "Now remember, Kevin,
you said you wanted to preach and pray and be with people. Are you sure you should be
spending your time there?" Or it's even saved me from getting bogged
down in some other things in ministry. So I think by the Lord's kindness,
those were the right three things to mention. However, I learned pretty quickly
that there was a fourth P that I should have said, and that was patience.
You can't learn that by just taking a class. You can't learn that in school and
writing a paper on it. You know, if somebody would have told me ahead
of time, "You got to have patience in ministry," I'm sure somebody did say that,
but until you get there and you have to learn how to slow down a little bit. So I
remember very clearly coming into the church and seeing different problems or
issues or things that I thought needed to be addressed. I remember even saying
to some of my elders and to myself, you know, "Let's give this six months and
I think we can get this taken care of." And then six months would go by and then
I'd say, "Well, I think another six months and we're really going
to have this, you know, behind us." And then after another six months and
it'd be, "Well, maybe in six years," And then eventually it's, "Well, you know,
maybe in Heaven or something." So I know one of my weaknesses in ministry
is impatience. And that's not just a restlessness, "I want to do something."
That's a certain type of impatience, but I think I had to learn how
to slow down, how to not get way ahead of myself and ahead of the congregation and
how to think through things. I think that's what a lot of young ministers don't
know how to do, is how to really cast their vision in with the culture and the
life of the church and how to go through it. We may think it's a slow process
but God ordains these processes, you know, how to go through the right committees
or the right leaders or the board of elders, and then not just have buy-in,
but really listen to others, learn from people. So I had to learn
pretty quickly, and I'm still learning about that fourth P in ministry
about patience. And sometimes, I think I would get myself into trouble
by spinning out three or four, what seem to be really good ideas and then
maybe not counting the cost. Do I really have time to see these
through or have I spoken more quickly and too soon before I've really
thought through, can this happen? Can this work? So I'll just say to anybody
who's thinking about ministry, especially guys who are starting out,
look, we all tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in 5 years and we probably
underestimate what we can accomplish in 50 years. So Lord willing,
as God gives you strength and breath and He gives you a chance to bloom where
you're planted, you're going to have an opportunity to make a difference over the
long haul. So it's okay, you know, preach the Word, be faithful in season and
out of season and slow down. That's probably the biggest thing I needed
to learn.