For this blog post, I’d like to share four Biblical, practical tips that I pray will help you to turn your hobby—whatever it may be—into a ministry that’ll glorify God and bless others.
Tip #1: Pray
Prayer is something that has played a HUGE part in my ministry journey.
If you desire to truly turn your hobby into a form of ministry, take the idea to God and pray to Him about it.
That’s what I did when the idea to convert my writing hobby into a blog ministry came to my mind.
I prayed and asked God whether or not it was His will for me to do this ministry idea.
The Bible has a lot to say about praying and seeking after God’s will before doing something.
For example, there’s the story in the Old Testament about David’s property in Ziklag being stolen by the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 30.
So David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”
(1 Samuel 30:8)
As we can see in the above verse, David first PRAYED to God about whether or not it was His will for him to get his stuff back from the Amalekites BEFORE making any decision to do so.
We see something similar in the New Testament when the apostles were praying to God for guidance BEFORE choosing someone to replace Judas.
In Acts 1:24-26, we read:
And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
(Acts 1:24-26)
So, in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, we see how important it is to PRAY before making a decision, and that includes decisions like choosing whether or not to turn a certain hobby into a ministry.
Tip #2: Surrender
The second tip I’d like to share with you when it comes to turning your hobby into a ministry is SURRENDER.
When I think of “surrender” in the context of ministry, 1 Chronicles 29:16 comes to mind
“O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have prepared to build You a house for Your holy name is from Your hand, and is all Your own.
(1 Chronicles 29:16)
Well, what does that mean?
I really like how the God’s Word Translation (GW) puts this verse:
“Lord, our God, all this wealth that we gathered to build a temple for your holy name is from you. All of it is yours.
(1 Chronicles 29:16 GW)
If, after much prayer to the Lord regarding His will for us to turn certain hobbies into ministries, He then gives us the green light, it’s then important for us to adopt the same attitude we’re seeing in 1 Chronicles 29:16.
This idea of turning a certain hobby into a ministry is REALLY God’s idea, not ours.
And so, it is essential for us to humbly acknowledge that, and to surrender it completely back to God, allowing HIM to be in complete control of the ministry, not ourselves.
Conclusion
Today, we looked into two Biblical keys to practically transform our hobbies into Christ-centered ministries.
The first tip is PRAYER!
Throughout the Bible, we see how ESSENTIAL prayer is when it comes to turning a hobby into a ministry.
The second tip is SURRENDER!
1 Chronicles 29:16 illustrates the importance of humbly acknowledging God’s sovereignty over our ministries, and giving our ministries back to Him in humble surrender.
Why?
Because it was really HIS ministry idea in the first place!
And we as God’s chosen vessels are to acknowledge that we are but tools in His hands, working out the ministry work He has given us to do.
So, as a conclusion, prayer and surrender are two primary key ways to practically begin turning our humble hobbies into God-honoring ministries for our Lord Jesus Christ!
Stay tuned for next week, where we’ll look into a couple more Biblical tips to turn a hobby into a ministry!
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