How did you get started? Where did where does all come from?
Yeah, so I actually have an interesting background. I worked in social services for over a decade writing a nonprofit, but I felt God was really pulling me to start my own ministry.
I do need to give this caveat I am a trauma survivor and work working through my own trauma for many, many years and still in many respects I still am.
And also seeing some of the trauma that the people at my nonprofit were facing due to gun violence. It really caused me to feel passionate about the area of emotional healing.
So I started writing weekly blogs on the topic that developed into a book which developed into a podcast. And then eventually I became introduced to the Trauma Healing Institute, which allowed me to run Bible studies to help people heal from trauma.
The local groups that developed internationally working with people. And then I started up started my own counseling practice to help people additionally in other areas. And then that evolved into me coaching other women who needed help with starting their ministries.
This was over years, but that's the cliff notes.
Well, thank you for sharing that so I'm, I'm going to throw a little bit of myself in this because you touch in a place that's very near and dear to me. So I started out as an organ tissue and I coordinator over the telephone contacting families for of course tissue donation or
organ donation. I then went into the field of HIV AIDS substance abuse and mental health, and I tell you, I would not be who I am today. If I didn't hear the stories, go through the stories with them and sometimes feel like I was in this story so I tell you what
you're sharing with me Reverend Jocelyn is the fact that you probably would not be who you are if you didn't, number one experience it yourself and then listen to stories of others, and now decide to start telling people how to go through, get through and and make life
better for themselves so I thank you because I as I stated that's near and dear to my heart, very much so. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.
And so now that you are in this place and you've you said you run two businesses and now we're going to speak about focusing on the women.
Tell me a little bit more about that and what's the vision for the for that business there.
Yes, so the vision for women in the ministry is to help women who are called to ministry to not put themselves in a box, not put God in a box as it relates to what God can do through them and so allowing them to see that ministry goes beyond the walls of the
church. It can be in the marketplace it could be in a nonprofit it could be virtual, but just helping women to answer the call and not be limited. And this is especially important for women in the church because unfortunately certain doctrine.
There's a certain theology that is taught in the church that limits women. There's patriarchal beliefs that women aren't supposed to be in leadership that they can't do certain roles that they're limited, and I resist that narrative, and I say no women
are called and if you were taught that here is a new narrative to to remind you of who God made you to be and you can step out and be bold and do incredible things to transform this world.
And so that's the vision that I have that amazing, and I know.
I just said as a woman, there's, there's often some pushback and trying to become a leader in the church, and actually be giving the title and the okay to be a leader in the church.
How do you help them manage that push back.
Is not easy, particularly because if you've been, if you grew up in this environment and your experience in the church is like a second family is what you know to be true for so long maybe your spiritual leader is, they show you love but then when you say hey
I'm called I believe God's calling me to do something and they're like, Oh no no no no, even sometimes I've heard stories of women saying that they were told that's the devil or that's just whatever just completely trying to teach you that God says that this is
a woman's place. And so when you are led to believe that this is doctrine and this is true for many years. It's a process of the programming that and saying, Okay, I understand that this was your church home I understand that you love your pastor
or you're a leader or this is a culture, but this is a new way of looking at this. This is what God says this is examples in the Bible of women having countless roles and leadership doing things that were transformative.
And so there is a different way of thought and showing them examples of women who are pastors are leaders who are doing things that their heart desires to do. It takes time to deprogram and unlearn that, because sometimes you don't even understand how embedded
that theology is in us. Yeah, yeah. And I think that as, as you spoke about trauma there's trauma and deprogramming and reprogramming, which may cause for separation right in order to be that leader, and
and then going through to figure out what lies beneath all of this. And in this, there's so many times I believe we as individuals don't know what the calling looks like feels like or is how do they, or how do you help them identify if it is their calling
or if they don't know it and, and, because I'm sure you hear it. But what does that look like from someone's like I'm not really sure if that's what it is.
I love that question because I remember wrestling with that for many years and I like to tell people that God gives us different assignments and sometimes our assignment from 10 years ago, that season is, is over now, but because God gave us that assignment.
It was good for them but now he's calling us into the new and I think sometimes people get that confused. And so, I believe that there's points in time in our journey where God might be calling us into our next chapter when we have this tension, this like
wrestling is that we're not settled anymore. And it might not always be clear, what is the next door I'm supposed to walk into. But there are some questions that I like to ask people to consider. Yes, first I asked them, what are your gifts, what are the things that you do that is
completely easy for you is natural you feel like the anointing is on you. And with those gifts, do those gifts help to address a need that the world has. When you're able to connect your gifts with a piece that the world needs a place in which there's a deficit,
where you can meet the needs with your gifts, then that's purpose driven work. So that's one. I also asked them, is there a cause that burdens you. Is there something where when you see this issue on the news, when you hear a story, it, it brings you to tears because
you're extremely moved by that. That might be because God's putting that burden on your heart for a reason for you to do something about it. And then also I asked people, who do you feel drawn to, to serve. Sometimes we feel drawn to serving the younger version of ourselves before we made certain
mistakes and we wish we could just go back and be like, don't do that. You can't go back in time for yourself but you can help others who are in similar situations so you might feel called to serve people who are similar to you and your journey.
You might be called or feel passionate about serving some other people who are in your community. And so, again, that's connected to the burden. It can kind of guide you these three questions into determining your passion driven purpose driven work.
I asked people to reflect on that but I also asked people just to take time to slow down, because in order for you to be able to process this and really see where God is leading you, you got to take pause because if you are so busy on in the rat race, then God can't really
reveal the next steps to you because you are just so busy. It's so much noise. So it's important for us to slow down so we can really reflect on these things and seek God about what our next step is.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
Thank you for participating in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.