[00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.

Everybody, welcome to the Cooks Cast Coaches Corner, where I break down important topics with you and your team for mission in your family, in your church, and in your ministry. So my name is Jim Jansen and today I'm gonna talk about how to start small. Okay, so we've all heard the advice, right? Just keep it simple.

Start small, let it grow. Don't get ahead of yourself, but how do you actually start small? I mean, I don't know about you, but for me it sometimes seems like I, like I'm culturally conditioned to think big, to make things so big and so [00:01:00] complicated that I, well can't actually figure out how to get started.

And that's why this really matters if we can't figure out how to start small. Then we can't figure out how to start, and that's a tragedy when we're talking about the mission in our families, in our parishes, in our personal apostates. So I have four strategies for you on how to actually start small. So I'll break these down.

I'm gonna give some examples all the way through, kind of in between. I'm gonna give some specific examples for those of you who are trying to build a clear path of discipleship in your parish or in your ministry, we'll talk about. What that might look like to actually start small in building a clear path.

Okay, here we go. Number one, strategy. How to start small. Shrink the first step. I'm just gonna shamelessly, you know, uh, throw out the work of, uh, James Clear in his atomic habits. Uh, other people have written about this, but he's really clear about it, but you just need to [00:02:00] shrink the first step. So instead of your first step being workout Monday morning, you shrink your first step to be, lay out your clothes, your workout clothes, Sunday night.

That instead of making your first step work out, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna make this even smaller. I'm gonna lay out my clothes, right? I'm gonna make sure that I've got my workout clothes. So the first thing that happens when my feet hit the floor is they stumble on my tennis shoes and I realize, oh yeah, that's right.

I'm gonna work out this morning. It's really key to take the first step and make it really, really small, really, really easy, so that you develop momentum and confidence. So that's strategy number one, shrink the first step. Strategy number two is similar, but it's subtly different. It's do the next right thing, right, or, or schedule the next right.

Action. This is particularly helpful when you don't know the destination or the [00:03:00] outcome and, and you need to just do the next right thing. I think this is helpful 'cause oftentimes we don't know exactly what the end result is supposed to look like. So rather than being a builder who knows exactly what, you know, what the end is and we've got a blueprint to get there, we're, we're moving into the unknown.

And often when you're moving into the unknown, it's really, it's really helpful to just do the next right thing. So here's some examples of that. Right? Just have the exploratory conversation. Find the file or order the book that's gonna help help your learning process. Set a time to ask someone for advice or for coaching.

Again, this is very similar to shrinking the first step, but this is different in that you don't necessarily know what to do. Again, I would say this is helpful, like if you're in a discernment space, and again, there's lots of ways to talk about discernment. We could do a whole long form podcast on this, but you can break discernment down into three [00:04:00] main types of, uh, activity, thinking, praying, and acting.

And it's sometimes helpful to ask yourself. It's like, okay, in this discernment process that I'm in here. What do I need to do now? Do I need to think more? Do I need to learn? Do I need to converse with people? Or do I need to pray? Do I need to talk to the Lord? Do I need to spend some time reflecting about my desires and what he's placed there and what's surfacing?

Or do I just need to act? Do I need to reach out and call somebody? Do I need to take the first step? What do I need to do? Do I need to think? Do I need to pray or do I need to act? That's all part of finding the next right action and just doing that. Number three, third strategy here for starting small.

That's learn to settle for incomplete and imperfect, right? Some of you have heard me talk about this before, but it's only doing one decade of the rosary with the family. We've all heard the phrase, right. Don't let the [00:05:00] perfect become the enemy of the good, but that's real. That's a real thing. I think it's helpful to think of it this way, you know?

We, we've probably also heard the phrase, you know, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well or it's worth doing right. And that's true. But I would say there are some things that are so worth doing that they're worth doing incompletely, at least at first. So again, I've given the example in family life, you know, one decade of the rosary.

We could go back to the workout example. I'm just gonna go for a one mile walk. I'm just gonna write one thank you note to a friend. I'm, I'm just gonna call one old friend that maybe what seems insignificant or incomplete or imperfect, maybe that's just the thing that you need to do. So learn to settle for the incomplete in the imperfect in order to start small and get started.

Again, I promise this at the outset, but I'll give you some specific examples for those of you who're trying to build a clear path to discipleship [00:06:00] for your parish or for a specific ministry like youth ministry or religious education, marriage prep, something like that. You wanna start with a dirt road before you get a paved highway.

What I mean by that is it's okay if it's like kind of dirty and messy and maybe not perfectly clear right away. You wanna start with a dirt road. You wanna see where the spirit is leading. Where the grace is and then begin to grow and expand where the Lord is at work. Here's some practical ways to do that.

It, as you're discerning a specific, uh, step for your clear path to discipleship, consider just doing some sort of seasonal offering. So as nice as it might be to have an ongoing alpha or rescue project or a conversion moment retreat that's offered three to four times a year, maybe you just do it once in Lent.

Maybe it just seems ridiculously small. It's not, doesn't, it's, it's not enough. The reality is it's [00:07:00] just not adequate to the task at to hand, but it's just enough to get started doing it once during lent, during it once during, during the summer. So think about offering your ministry or a step on your nuclear path seasonally.

Another great strategy for for this is to make it invitation only. Now this is hard for a lot of us selective invitation just to get started, just to build leaders. Again, we all want everything to be open to everybody. And that's, that's a good aspiration. I mean, the gospel is for everyone, right? Go make disciples of all nations.

All souls in the boundary of the parish are our responsibility, but you don't have to start that way. I mean, Jesus was selected at the start of his ministry. He only chose 12. He instructed them. As he first was setting them out only to go to the lost sheep of Israel, and even at the Great Commission, he gave them a pattern for expanding the ministry, first [00:08:00] Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the ends of the earth.

You see these geographically widening circles from a city to a region to the whole nation, uh, or historic boundaries of Israel all the way to the ends of the earth. Give yourself permission to outgrow a particular ministry or a particular program tool. This isn't the best. This isn't quite right for our parish.

This doesn't quite fit. Great. Get started and then once you've outgrown it, once the right tools in place, then you can graduate or expand or upgrade to that new tool. But just let yourself get started. Fourth strategy. Wait for it. If you're having a hard time figuring out how to start small, go to the word of God where the Lord talks about starting small.

I'll give you three verses here. Zachariah chapter four, verse [00:09:00] 10. It says, do not despise these small beginnings. For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin sometimes right? The, the task at hand. In this case for, uh, Zacharia, um, they're trying to rebuild the temple. It's a huge task, and the Lord is counseling him and us not to despise the small beginnings.

Another great verse is Job chapter eight, verse seven. Though your beginning was small, your latter end would increase abundantly, right? Things that start small sometimes end big, and if our dream is big, sometimes the thing we need to do to make that dream a reality is simply to start small. And then of course, I mean, I think you're already thinking of this.

Jesus. Matthew chapter 13, verse 31. The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a mustard seed, right mustard seed, one of the smallest seeds, but it grows and grows, and that's what happens to the kingdom of [00:10:00] God. The Lord instructs us not right to be distracted, to be willing to start small, and even to expect that the kingdom of God will start small.

All right, I'm gonna pray for us here. Lord have mercy on us that you would grant us the grace to overcome our temptation, our confusion, our desire to do things big and perfect. Lord, help us to to see the one small step you're requiring of us today. And Lord, help us to begin. Help us to start small. Amen.

Alright, everybody, what are your thoughts? You can respond back in the chat@quiparchomaha.org. Again, that's quip arch omaha.org. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the Quip Cast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip dot arch [00:11:00] omaha.org.

God bless and see you next time.