Video Transcript: Habits of Success

I'm Henry Reyenga and with me is Steve Elzinga. And we're talking about ministry training.  And today we're going to talk about the habits you need to succeed at ministry training. And  really, that applies for all of life. Right? So let's start off with a couple of verses. Joshua 1:7, be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all all the law My servant Moses gave you do  not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. So my  guess is you want to be successful in this training, you're taking these classes, there'll be  quizzes, there'll be grades, who doesn't want to be successful, right? I quit on things that I  don't feel I can be successful on, right? And we don't want you to quit, right? So here here,  Moses is sort of handing the reins to Joshua. He's saying to Joshua, look, if you want to be  successful, you got to remember these laws that were given and laws are like, habits. Okay?  And we'll see that in our next verse. Deuteronomy 6:6, these commandments, those are the  laws that I give to you today are to be on your heart. Okay, so But how are they going to get  to that? What are you going to do right away? Ask yourself the question if there's the laws,  but how do their laws get into our lives? So we're talking about the 10 commandments, the  laws. And in Deuteronomy 5, the 10 commandments are listed. Okay. So when he says these  commandments, he's talking about the 10 commandments, okay, that I give you today. They  have to be in your hearts, but how do we get them there? What do we have to do okay, so  impress impress them on your children. Now, notice these next few lines, talk about them.  This is how you have this is how you impress. You've got to talk about them. Talk about them,  when they're home. And when you walk along the road when you lie down. And when you get  up, tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the  doorframes of your houses, and on your gates so that especially verse seven, impress them  on your children, talk about them when you sit at home. When you walk along the road, when  you lie down, when you get up, do those not so like Habits. Habits are things that you do on a  regular basis. You know, I'm thinking about that growing up. We both come from the Christian  reformed background and back in the day it had applied for Baptists and applied for many  others. There was a habit of eating together. And when people ate together, after they ate,  they opened the Bible and prayed, right. So we tied. We tied our devotional life to a habit that we all ready, we're good at eating really good. And I like it. When we were young before  microwaves, right mom spent all day working more traditional, for the meal we ate together  for us was 5:30. And if you're late, you didn't even eat right. I don't know if they do that  nowadays, but you were like, out. So it was a strong habit that happened every single day.  And then they tied this religious habit to this strong habit. And that's why people succeeded.  Now, the Bible by the time I was reading, I knew the Bible by my wife grew up on a farm. And  so they ate together morning, noon, and evening, right in between chores. And they read a  chapter every single meal. So they read three chapters of the Bible every single day. If you  read three chapters of the Bible, every single day, you'll read through the whole Bible in a  year, every year they read through the whole Bible, her whole childhood, her whole  childhood, and my wife has the like exact upbringing. That's why she's such a great partner to me she knows the Bible, like your wife does. Now today, because we've lost that habit of  eating together because food is fast as you can put in the microwave, fix it quickly. Everyone  is on their own schedule. And because we lost that habit, a lot of Christian homes have lost  the devotional time together habit. Right. So they're not succeeding habits are interesting.  And what I want you to go deeper in that I get what, what is a habit? Well, a habit is a habitual thing that you do repeatedly, repeatedly. Okay. So there's a lot of things that we just do, you  know, one off, we just do something and, and then we never do it again. You know, I go to a  ball game, you know, like a professional football game I've been to like three in my life, it's  not a habit. is more like kind of occasion is an occasion thing. But habits are like I brush my  teeth every day. Or you have the habit of celebrating Christmas every year. It's a pattern. It's  a repeated pattern. Okay? A pattern, a pattern that stays consistent, right? That, that you  don't have to think about. Right? If I don't have to think about getting dressed, I have a habit  of getting dressed every single day, you do. And I noticed that your breath doesn't smell bad.  Therefore you have a habit of brushing your teeth. And so you succeed because you don't  have to rethink the whole thing. People that like I grew up going to church every Sunday, and  we didn't, we didn't decide on Sunday, whether we were going to do it, it was just a habit. So 

we succeeded. Now, when I planted a church, I had all kinds of people that were going to  church, but they decided every Sunday morning to go to church, they didn't have a habit. So  when they hit some bumps in the road, they stopped going, or if there's a better deal that  came up, they stopped going. So habits actually, number one, they take away our decision.  We don't have to make a decision again and again. And again, if you had to make a decision,  about every little thing that you do, your brain would be overloaded with decisions. But most  of what you do on a day is automatic. You just do it because this is how you do it, A pattern of  how you live. And that's a Philippians 3:17, join with others, and follow my example, brothers,  and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. So are you saying the  apostle Paul, that Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, the early church, gave not only the gospel,  but a pattern, a way of life, right behaviors that they followed, in fact, the early church was  called the way right way. They weren't called Christians, followers of the way they were  followers. And they were called that because the people watching them are looking at them  from the outside said, These people have a different way of living in those the habits, the  habit of caring for people, the habit of loving and staying in a committed relationship, the  habit of taking care of your children, the habit of caring for the poor, and feeding the poor, all  the habits of the early church stood out so much, that the people outside the church called  them the people of a particular way. So here's my question. A lot of people today that don't  don't have a lot of productive habits, they might have bad habits, which I find are very easy to get here. But productive habits, sometimes are hard to find. And so we have to really know  that we know that we want to do the habit, or we won't do the habit. most most of our habits  we have because we inherited them. you know, I have a habit of speaking English, I don't  work at it. I just live around people that speak English. So I end up doing this. In the United  States, we have a habit of driving on the right side of the road I don't work at I don't think  about it. I just do it. So most of our habits just come to us. So habits really benefit our life. Yes, but they can also hurt our lives. Okay, so the hard part is not? Well, there's two hard parts.  One part is you may have inherited a bunch of bad habits, right? And how are you getting rid  of them? Oh, yeah, that's really hard. The second thing that's hard is to add new ones, right?  So like here, this ministry training for you comes in your life. And you have to figure out how  to get habits of study that go against the default habits that are already existing in your life,  you may have really bad habits of like, you may have the habit of procrastination. There's  things you want to do, but you always put them off. So here you're taking these class. If you  watch one lesson, you know, watch the next one the next day, but then you put it off, put it  up, finally, three, two, three weeks later and you go Forget it. Am I smart enough? Can I learn  right? Ministry literacy is actually having the habits that support me to do the training to get  my dream or my calling of serving. I think there was a Malcolm Gladwell book that we read, I  have suggested that they're really talented, gifted sports people are not necessarily born that  way. They just were surrounded with an environment that gave them incredible habits that  made them practice way more than anyone else. Yeah, 10,000 hour, right. You know, Wayne  Gretzky. Yeah, very interesting. So, so it doesn't really matter how smart you Are it's really  about the kind of habits you may already have some of you already have some really good  habits in terms of studying and learning. Some of you, maybe you've never had great habits  in this arena, and you're going to have to develop new habits. And that's so in order to  persuade me, Tell me, you have these right habits. Number one easier to stick with your  plans, decisions and desires easier to stick with your plan. I do not get how that is connected  to a habit. Okay. So you have, let's say you have a desire, a plan to have a great marriage,  okay? Okay, everybody wants a great marriage. What do I want to do it, or you want a great  family life? That's your desire, your dream your day. But how are you going to make that  happen? So every day, are you gonna wake up and go, Okay, how do I make my marriage  better today? I just wanted to do better. I just want you're not going to wake up and ask that  question. So what you need are some habits. So one of the habits might be, I'm going to start  a habit of having a date night with my spouse every single week, or we're going to pray at  least once a day together, or we're going to sit down on Wednesday nights and read the Word of God together and discuss it. See, those are concrete habits that you're now putting into  your life that actually will contribute to your goal. So a lot of people have this broad goal. I 

want to I want to be I want to make money. I want to provide for my family, I want a great  marriage, but they don't have any habits in their lives that help push you towards them. Do  you remember that study that we discovered at the Bible League, and the study was  marriages that made it versus marriages that didn't make it and there was the academic  study, and I forget where it was now, because early 19 2000s, late in the 90s, and any way it  pointed out, that if, if a couple did nothing else, but actually opened up the Bible together and prayed. I think this one was only praying. If they would just do that habit alone. That was  great. I think the divorce rate among Christians in the United States was something like 40%.  Yeah. But if they had this one habit, it went to .05. Yeah, I know. I mean, go figure. It was like,  it's like you invite God into your marriage. It changes everything. But that is the habit of doing that. Right. That wasn't even a question of Do they get their theology? Right? Did they go to  church every Sunday? Right? It was just if they had the habit of praying together as a couple,  right? So that's why the Bible in the Old Testament, for example, is filled with all these  traditions of these festivals. And every Sabbath, this is what you need to do. It's filled with all  these different habits, because they would hold people to the thing they really wanted. Okay.  Interesting. All right. Number two benefits of habits, you avoid the tyranny of the urgent. the  tyranny of the urgent. You mean without habits, we tend to default to the urgent, yeah,  whatever is the emergency. And let's face it, emergencies are happening all the time. So  unless we decide ahead of time that this is what we're going to do, we will, we will be  distracted if we don't. So a lot of people with church attendance, they want to go to church,  they believe in going to church, they believe going to church is helpful for holding their family  together and the faith together. But because they don't have a habit of doing it, they let  whatever happens. Well, you know, my son is he wants to do, he's got a game. And someone  else you know, where they're in town is the only time to go shopping, or whatever it might be  whatever the urgent thing is, whatever the need of the moment is, you will then sacrifice the  thing you really want to do, because it's not a habit. Now, if it's a habit, you just say I'm sorry, I can't do that on Sunday morning. Right? So again, for example, I'm a pastor, right? I can't  just say, Well, I'm gonna skip this Sunday. Because I have to be there. So for me, it's a really  easy thing to hold on to because I'm in a way forced to. And what about the simplicity of like,  going to the same house every day after coming home from work? Now, you're to think of it  that way cuz it's like duh, I go home. Right? But actually, if that wasn't your habit, your  marriage would probably fall apart in a hurry. And that's like, a habit you don't even think  about. Exactly. and it's often those are all little habits that they are just small little things, of  course, you'd come home. But that house that you own together, forces you to come  together, right? If you didn't have that you wouldn't be forced together, some people, you  know, are living in two different cities and they're married and they don't have this situation.  So then they have to find a new habit, we're going to call each other every single night, or  we're going to, they have to come up with something, or soon the marriage falls apart. So  when it comes to ministry, training, the tyranny of the urgent could easily destroy your dream or your goal to study. So somehow or other, as this is progressing, some habits will need to be formed for you to succeed, right. So these courses, what's cool about these courses that  you're taking is you can take them at your time, right? You know, regular school, Yeah, but  regular school, you have to be there at 10 o'clock, forced habit. At a regular school. This is  right. And, but But I mean, the freedom, some of you have different schedules, you have  work, you have things and you know, you can put it in the most, the best possible spot for  you, right, whereas a regular school, you wouldn't be able to do that you wouldn't even be  able to go to school, because you're working and then the school is in the day, and you work  during the day, and you couldn't do it. So it's an incredible thing, that you can take these  classes anytime. The downside is, you don't have to do it today. You don't have to do it today,  you don't have to do it tomorrow even if you don't have to do it next week, right. And so  unless you stick a habit in there, the chances of success are slim. Well many times what  we've experienced with people who succeed at ministry training, is that they will have to  remove one habit and replace this with a habit of study. And they remove it, inconsistently do  it so that if it's one hour of that your time every day, then whatever that was hour there has  to be replaced. But as and they just stick with an hour, and you go with it, what we find when 

people think I'm going to do it, so they do a binge things for five hours. And then all of a  sudden, like two weeks goes by and then another thing. So it's almost like if we're gonna do a  five hour block, and every Saturday at one till sixi t's five hours, every Saturday, that's the  habit not like, Oh, we're gonna do it. And then I've been done. And then I quit or if it's every  day, from eight to nine every day, you know, or some people from seven to eight in the  morning, they get their coffee. And they right away do this before other work. That's crucially  important. Yes. All right, number three, there's if you have it, the benefit of the habit is the  less stress decisions are made ahead of time. Decisions are made ahead of time. Because,  you know, if I decide I'm going to every Saturday, do CLI stuff in the morning for four hours,  right? Then when something comes up, it's easy for me to say. I have an appointment, I'm  busy. Sorry. Right? Because otherwise, all the demands of life, the demands of family, the  demands of work, the demands of friend, the demands of everything, are just going to boil  right over you. So fine, you know, I haven't really is a thing that you do regular on a regular  basis, generally, at a regular time. So you don't have to think about it. You made the decision  ahead of time, if you have to make the decision every single time. Decisions are hard. For I  do, shall I not? I don't know, now you have to weigh all the options. Well, let's see, I would like to do that. But the man that I get behind, if you have to do that every day, it wears you out. I  remember one of our early mentors, when our friendship Rich DeVos, who helped founded  Christian Leaders, Institute College Alliance, he used to say things like life is about little things that have in habits that get repeated. And he said if you want to start big, you have to  maintain habits over a long period of time, really little by little right. And that's the next thing. Number four, progress is achieved little by little right. So what happens is we don't students,  we know students who who don't have a good habit, so they do something, and then they let  it go, let it go. Let it go Let it go. And then they binge again and try to do something and try to make up for not having a good habit. And it's just it's even hard to understand all the  material, all right, and then they take a quiz and they fail. And then they feel bad and they  self loathe or they're blame someone. They gloze. If something happened there, yeah, they  think in you can't, you know, if I wait three weeks before I take the nest? Next lesson, I forgot  the first lesson. Right? Right. And I'm losing the whole sense of the course. Right? So finding,  you know, doing it little by little by little, is probably the best way towards any kind of  success. Number five habits become a lifestyle. So here you go. So that's, you know, that's  really Deuteronomy 6 these commandments that they give you to the, to the upon your  hearts, how do they get there, you have to impress them. In other words, there's some work  on your children. Talk about them when, when you sit, when you walk on road, when you lie  down, when you get up all the times of your life, tie them as symbols on your hands, you  know, people used to put little strings on their finger to remember things, right behind them  on your foreheads. Maybe you've seen Jewish background, people at the Wailing Wall in  Jerusalem, and they're they're praying, they're nodding back and forth, and you'll see a little  box on their forehead. They're literally trying to do Deuteronomy 6, they actually put the word of God in that box, right? So they're putting the word of God in front of them, right? Put it on  your gates, and on your door. So when you leave your home, the word of God's there, when  you come back from your home, the word of God is there, when you walk with your kids, the  word of God is there, when you talk with your spouse, the word of God is there, suround your  life with the Word of God put habits at every turn. And then you'll have this strong walk with  God, if you have a strong walk with God, that's when you're successful. You know, it's  fascinating around Christian Leaders Institute, when we think about like products, we think  about having products. And one of the things that we kept hearing is that people succeed in  the morning, if they get up really early, and they get their cup of coffee. So there was a local  brewer around here that was very friendly to us, and high quality Brewer that does great  brew. So we thought, let's get Minister brew. And the goal was, yeah, there's a fundraising  component, because we want to keep giving free ministry training, we wanted to find things  that were sort of in our lifestyle brand, right? So we, you know, there's things like cups and  coffee, and all of this stuff like that, because we wanted to kind of get habits of support  habits, because we don't really have people eating together as much anymore. But there are  still eating and drinking habits and coffee for many people, is they gotta have their first cup. 

So if you get up an hour early, so you want to do ministry training, and there's going to be a  sacrifice, we know that we all know that. But if you are challenged, some of you get up an  hour early, get your cup of coffee, have your devotions and then do an hour of study and  make it a habit where the coffee pot is on or whatever works for you to actually get a habit.  Right. And in some ways, all these things. Okay. I just had the time wearing the shirt. We're  tired of them around. Yeah, and we're trying to do Deuteronomy 6. I play a sport called  pickleball. Okay, so I'm the president of the Grand Rapids club. There's 800 members. Some  people go to church, some people don't. I go out and I always put all this on right. Why?  Because I'm trying to hold on to all this stuff. Right? And how can I help? How can I disavow  my walk with God and have this add on? Right? How can I treat people poorly? If I have a hat  that says I'm a minister I'm I'm a person who serves people and now I'm being unkind to  people. So what all this does is it helps me it's like putting the you know, the word of God on  your gates it right. Oh, yeah, this is the kind of person that I want to be. This is the kind of  person that I should be. So in other words, if I'm wearing this shirt, and I'm not doing the  classes that I signed up for, there's a further disconnect. If I'm going to wear this shirt, and it's constantly reminding me I am a leader. I am a learner. I am a one who's on the way to be a  leader. And so I better stick with that. You know, it's funny Steve. We used to not have a  bunch of products and at first I really didn't want to get into it. All right. And in a student, like  when this team fell, we are do something years ago. And then what we found is that people  actually you're right about that. You know, impress them on your forehead. I'm always  amazed at how we get on teams like, you think like a football team, jersey. There's a team  and they have a small team. And we all had, and we're in this together. And if we're gonna  put the hat on, we better do it. So how do we develop good habits? So number one, figure out your schedule. So we're actually kind of talking about that already. Yeah. Are you going to get  up for coffee? Are you going to do it at night, morning person? Do you have like a half an hour at your work? noon? Is that something you're going to do with your spouse, and so you have  to coordinate that schedule, or maybe one of your kids wants to take a class with you. So it's  find your place in your schedule where it works out where you have the best chance, creating  a habit that you can stick? You know, I often don't have an opportunity to talk to students as  much as I want to, because of the whole accreditation issues and being busy and raising  money and all that. So they keep things stay free. But I will tell you occasionally, somehow, I'll talk in just about a month and a half ago, I talked to a student. And she was on the phone, she was trying to get things done. And it really came down to there was one thing lacking in her  plan, she never actually found a time to do her study. So I followed up on her and things are  going great. Now it all came down to she didn't sit down, right. And in what she needed to do  was she needed to talk to her husband. There was an issue with the kids that she had to let  go for different options. She had to actually put it in her schedule with the approval of her  husband schedule. I mean, it was no simple deal to actually put this into her schedule, right?  The thing we're talking about is really hard. We're not talking about your old habits, habits  that you already do, right? Because those are easy, right? That's why they're your habit, right. But to add a new one, all of a sudden, like you had said before, my schedule is already full. So what's gonna give right, you know, maybe I can't watch a movie every night. If I'm going to  do this right now. I have to give up something to add something. Right. Wow. Number two  connect to other successful habits. Okay, so we said that with like, if you're if you have coffee  every single morning, why not put your studies right next to it for me with my devotions?  That's what I do. I do my devotions right in the morning, because I never miss out on this. So  my Bible is sitting right next to it. So now I have to drink my coffee and ignore my Bible that's  sitting right there. Right? Well, that's hard. That's hard to do. You know, we we named it the  coffee ministry brews that really, we wanted to brew ministry. And we understood this concept of habits that was forming our mentorships years ago. And we did that for devotions. But now  we here we are full circle is to train ministers, right? All right, number three, find a positive  environment to study. See, there you go. I mean, doesn't have a similar ring. You know, if  you're if you are in a noisy environment and you need quiet Do not be in a noisy environment. Or if you are in a noisy environment, then you have to find a way you know, earplugs, yeah,  headphones, something so that you can actually succeed at this. I had one person who their 

only succeeded ministry training when he was using the facilities going to the bathroom.  About that was first of all for laughed. And, but you know what? Little by little, he's making it  happen. Right? So get in also, how much time you give it. You know, a lot of times what we  find is students will get a huge amount of time in the beginning because they're really  motivated. But then they started going I just don't have two hours right now and then they  peter out because they bit off too much. Right? And now the expectation is too high. Right?  And that's often why people fail at almost everything because they try it they do way too  much and can't sustain it. Right and then they dropped right off when you do way too much  and since can sustain it and you fail. You almost become resistant for continuing your ministry training right. Number four, focus on earned focus on little by little there's a proverb that says money grows little by little and most, you know, marriage relationship. If you're close to this  grows, little by little, it's consistency over a long period of time. Not okay, I have a  relationship with you, and I'm going to ignore you for a whole year. But then I'm going to take  you on a wonderful vacation for one week. Right? It's better to have a consistent relation little by little, a little prayer here. A little Good morning there. How are you? Here, there? As you go every single week, you know, some some have in their marriage, every time they leave, they  give a little hug, right? That little tiny thing consistently done every single day is way more  important than trying to make up for it all in one shot. Why do you think little by little work? In some ways, that's how we learn everything. I mean, I learned English, little by little, I didn't  make it. I wasn't born speaking English and took, you know, music ministry, I went to  seminary, I learned all these things. But on the job little by little is when i be i became who I  am our friendship. We developed it over 20 some years, little by little by little and little by  little becomes incredibly strong. Yeah, you know, we can even whether when we have our  own disagreements, right? Whether a lot of things because of the little by little established  tiny Foundation, right? When there's too many little by little good things to undo it with one  negative thing. Right? That's really interesting. Wow. Number five, reward yourself and find  others to celebrate with. Yeah, you know, I again, I've underestimated this early at Christian  Leaders Institute. But I have seen like, I remember one guy from New York called who's maybe 2012. And he said, Why don't you guys give out awards, and was like, well just do your  studies and then rewarded. And he said, Well, I'm working hard. And I, you know, so then we  started to think about, like, you know, really, was enough, we thought just offer the training.  But then we start thinking about it. So when you finish this class, you there's no award that  you can order. And if somebody were really not that big of a deal and everything, but it  communicates something in we hear all the time about someone receives an award, and we  have our fees are really low. But can we see the function of why give a reward, and it changes so much in the spouse claps and things change, because you have rewarded yourself for  honest, Rich to them. One of the things that Rich DeVos taught us is people will do what they  get recognized. Alright, what you recognize is what happens. So if you're a parent, and you  want your kids to do good things, you need to recognize the good things that they do. And if  you do, that, empowers them to keep going in that direction. If you never recognize them,  then they're they're looking to the world to find what the world can recognize them in, you  know, at school, or trophies, or sports or bribes or money, or something. The world is really  good at recognizing people to get them motivated to do what it wants them to do. A lot of  ways there's informal and formal recognition, like a good marriage is always in formal  recognition going on. In school, there's, it's hard to get in formal recognition. So what we set  up in our society is like graduations and things like that, because you know that the study is  something that you do alone. And you don't really feel the encouragement of it. Because  you're doing habits and you're in a grind little by little. So when someone gets an award or a  graduation, that's powerful. We have seen and we traveled around the world. Now Steve and I Abby has traveled here and there and we in Florence and other leaders here. And it's powerful to see the tears come with just a simple piece of paper. Because it's not just a simple piece of  paper. No, it represents all the work the struggle, determination to drive, you know, the lonely hours the early morning, trying to get it together. You know what God's showing up in special  ways to keep you going, it represents all those things. Wow. Okay, so number six, find  mentors and accountability partners. So it's not enough just to reward yourself. You need to 

actually find people to walk along the way with you. Right so that The cool thing about this  course of study is you can do it any time. It's free, it's accessible. You don't need to spend a  lot of money to go to some school, there's no travel time, all these things. But the hard part  is, you're not in a class where some teacher and students are forcing you to keep going and to work hard, right? But that's why you need mentors and accountability people in your life,  people that can come alongside and say, Hey, how you doing? Right? And you will hit bumps  in the road? Yeah, one of the things that we really talk about, and especially when you get  into the connections class, which is the next class that we strongly suggest you take is finding a mentor. And can we see that that's that icing on the cake that you're connected in many  times mentors will give you new opportunities. Many times mentors will give an  encouragement, many times mentors will be that extra relational connection, that makes all  the difference, you'll hit bumps in the road. Yes. And without someone just kind of helping you over that bump, a lot of people quit. So find a godly mentor that can just encourage you to  share what you're trying to do. And then, you know, ask them to pray for you, people to pray  for you, but also people to check in with you to make sure that you're doing what you really  want to do. Now, many times failure will strike you you will say why? No, no, I will not fail, you  will fail. And what we've seen, I don't remember you, Henry, when we first started years ago,  we found this whole thing of people need a personal walk with God, right? In their personal  life, their marriage, their family. And we thought, let's just tell everybody that here's the Bible, start walking with God. And when we shared it, we shared it. You know, if you want a  relationship with somebody, you have to talk and listen to them repeatedly. Right? It just  makes sense. But if you want God the Creator, the Sustainer of the universe in your corner,  than having a relationship with it is absolutely the for. So this is like the number one thing in  your life. We got it. And people when we were done talking to her, they would be pumped,  they're ready to go. We show them how to read the Bible. Anyway, the Serendipity bible we  showed them how to pray. We gave them a challenge of 21 days. And everyone was like, yes.  Finally, I've never done anything about my spiritual I've been, you know, God has been close,  I've been confused. And finally I can take control of my own spiritual destiny in there. And it's  easy. And he showed me exactly what to do and are so thrilled about the whole thing. And  they're, they're like this High. You know, Henry, you and I were like, so encouraged. This is  going to be easy. We're going to start a revolution all over the world. Yeah. So that what we  discovered is people were so high. And then three days later, they procrastinate, they put off  they have one problem or another. And two weeks later, they quit. Right? And they don't want to take our calls. Right? You know, we would call and go. So how you doing? And why don't  you know, I'm working on it. And then a week later, they haven't done a thing I call again, and they don't want to take the call. Why? Right? They thought they were going to succeed. They  thought it was going to be easy. They thought it would is simple. But it's not easy, right? And  so they fail, and then when people fail, they don't want to think about it. They don't want to  try they don't want anything. But I find that when people fail their ministry training is fast to  have first they themselves feel bad about it. Then what happens is they you know that the  Christian Leaders Institute classes are not organized correctly. Yeah. Because I was certainly  glozing. Yeah. Oh, you know, that professor to bore us the boring at the site is too slow or that class volume was too low that lecture went on way too long. yes. Like this lecture is already  showing that way. You know, and it becomes this thing where all of a sudden, like it's, it's such a big obstacle failure breeds excuses. Yes. Which breeds anger and glozing, and then pretty  soon, you're stymied and stuck, right? So like then how do you get out of that pattern? Right.  Start again, just start again. Okay. Step one, step one is realize that you will fail Okay, one  problem was people thought it was going to be easy and that they had no chance of failing,  right? So realize that the devil is real in spiritual warfare who are doing something that is  going to give a black eye to the devil's program. So guess yes, he would stop it. So, you will  encounter things that will, you know, try to stop you in your tracks. And you will get stopped.,  right. So, what do you do? Face it. Yes. Okay, I got stopped. Okay. So try again, do you have  any tips on trying, again, some tips. Number one, do course at the same time, and place each day, there's our coffee, Ministry Brews, same time is that habit? Okay, so trying to do a habit  every single day number two, listen to the lecture. One time, listen, a second time to take 

notes, right. So what we're trying to do is establish a little bit of a habit for you, right?  Because we want you to succeed, you only listen once. And that's your pattern, then you  forget it, then you take the quiz, you don't do well on the quiz. And then you quit because  you're failing, right? But if you listen to it once, listen to it. Second time, take some notes.  Remember, the goal is learn little by little learning by little. Number three, read, read the  reading and underline things that stand out are interesting to you do that the first time, read  a second time take notes, right? These are simple little things. Now what people do is they  read the first time and say, I gotta absorb every second of this, who knows what's going on,  and the pressure is on too much. And then you miss things instead, relax, right enjoy, see  what this is, underline only what hit, you know, I'm just reading this. And now you can do that  with your computer on your phone is just copy and paste, like a couple of notes, and then put  them into another file. But you know, so there's, you know, we all have, like, back in the olden days, you'd have textbooks and then you underline them today, be creative of how you're  going to do this to sort of take notes. Or just write them down. We have something that a lot  of students use, and that's the Christian Leaders Institute notebook, and they take notes. And  and then what they have with their notes, they have their notes for further reference, right.  And so when you take the quiz, guess what? It's open. It's open notes. So yeah, so it's a really  you become at Christian Leaders Institute, College, Alliance, you become researchers, and  you become journalizers, you journal, your stuff, you write down the quiz comes, you have  your notes. I have many students when we travel, though, will bring their notebooks out. And  it would be so fun to look and they go like, here's the basic. Here's Theology I. Here's a Bible  survey. And, and this is why I see I see them go through their pages. And I've seen more than  once tears, because these pages relate to habits relating to doing the work, spending the  hours, and they look back to what they've learned. You know, when I finished seminary at the  end, you have to take this big oral exam, right? You have to meet with four or five professors.  And they can ask you any question about anything that you learned over the last four years?  Yeah. Okay. So the first time I did it, I had like, I wasn't doing very great. And the professor  took me aside afterwards. Let me see that book again. Okay. And that's what he said. He said, you know, what, this is what I suggest you do, you get a notebook like this. And you start  writing all the things, different courses, different thoughts, things you read, just write down  the things that are really important to you. And then periodically, just read through it  periodically, little by little go over it, and over it, and over it. and go over it and over it, and  over it, and over it. And soon. All that stuff that you've learned is in here, because the first  time through, it doesn't always just stick. Right. But going over it a little bit. Just little things,  you know, there's the course somebody says something, you write it down, just write it down.  I mean, this is just a little book. Yeah, if you filled this up, it would take you, you know, an hour to read through the whole thing. Right. Right. And if you knew right away, bring back much of  what you learned. This will stand for volumes, but it's going over it again, writing it down. All  these are the ways to make sure sort of get back to really that Deuteronomy passage. So this  is that this is really about Deuteronomy I mean, in a lot of ways that's we're talking about, it's  really not that complicated. Exactly. So, number four, discuss with a friend or a mentor, let  your spouse Yeah, I mean, a lot of times, professors will, will say that they'll say to the  student, even after the lecture, Hey, I've just told you about something, right? Go and do it,  right or go and tell someone else, right, because you listen to it. But it doesn't get internalized to you do something with. A lot of times, I know that when when you write read a book, and  then you call me, okay, or I read a book, and I call you, I just find that, if I call you, I find that  my ability to apply what I've learned, goes up dramatically, because then you'll pop your  thought, or, Hey, I was read this book, and I related to that, and you go deeper all the time,  right? Or I'll challenge you will go, why that doesn't make any sense. And that challenge you  to go. What did he mean? Right? And all of a sudden, that becomes clearer to you than it was  before. Yeah, exactly. And number five, take quiz get into your habit of taking a quiz, after  you, you know, don't cheat the system, right, you know, just mentioned something too we  have, we have a cheating policy, a plagiarism and cheating policy. And we have algorithms.  And we see students who do this, what they'll do is they'll, they'll open up the Christian  Leaders Institute or College studies, they'll go quickly over them, and then they will glance, 

glance, glance, and then they think themselves. I know a lot about this subject. I'm just gonna wing it. Okay, so they take the quiz, and, and they go really fast. And then they get like, you  know, 60% 50% 40%, and then sometimes even tried to get things restarted. And we even  see something more extensive cheating at times where people do forms of cheating that they make up and, and then we have algorithms that you will ultimately get expelled if you cheat.  so the point I'm making is why this is amazing stuff, right? Just do it little by little, get your  habits go through do course at the same time each day, listen to the lectures once then twice, do the reading and get to take notes, talk to your spouse, talk to somebody about what you're learning, take the quiz. And you know, what you find is that when you get an open book quiz,  if you've just done with you, we just talked about, you know exactly where the answers I saw  that gloze, the word gloze was in that, you know, he even said he was gonna put that on the  quiz right away, get that down. So you can put on your notebook, you know, gloze, you know,  and now you tell your family about this word, and they're all gone. That's not a word. They all  look it up. And next thing you know, the whole family use the word gloze. So that, that the  culture of learning is what we're talking about. And the goal. Remember, the goal is not just to get a certificate or a degree, or something that says that you're somebody. Remember, the  goal is the goal is to be a minister, and do ministry. The goal is to make a difference in the  lives of people, right, Jesus, you know how many certificates did he earn? but his goal was to  be a minister to train ministers so that ultimately the kingdom could be built. So Well, until  next time, now you know your stuff about habits. And if you're actually still at Christian  Leaders Institute into your third lecture here, you probably are serious enough to actually  succeed at this. So now, you know, take a little time. Go through the steps. And may God  bless you as you get the habit of success at Christian Leaders Institute, College or Alliance.