Episode 1076: Invest in Yourself - Interview with Coach and Author of At All Times Donna Renay Patrick – Part 1

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1076 of the inspired stewardship podcasts.

[00:00:07] Donna Renay Patrick: I am Donna Renay Patrick I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure to live out your car. Having the ability to use your temple and thoughts, it's vital to live out your purpose.

[00:00:28] And one way to be inspired to do that is listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:39] I had been in corporate America all in my working life. So it was a total mind shift for me. It was a total mind shift to not be in corporate America, not have those deadlines and. The different stresses that go along with the legal profession? It was it was a [00:01:00] total mind shift mindset shift.

[00:01:03] Scott Maderer: Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true color in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in you. Invest in others and developed your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:29] in today's interview with Donna Renee, Patrick, Donna, and I talk with you about her journey as a worship leader and as an Arthur, Donna also shares her passion for ministry and how she transitioned from a corporate job to living out her. One reason I like to bring you great interviews. Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others.

[00:01:53] Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find [00:02:00] it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:14] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. Donna Renee Patrick is serious about walking and her unique purpose in helping others walk in theirs.

[00:02:40] She is an award-winning Arthur of two devotionals at all times. And it's in your praise. She also coauthored three volumes entitled the perfect seven stories of roaring faith volume four, and be refreshed. She has been a musician and a choir director, most of her life and serves as a powerful worship.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] She is a regular presenter at the bay area. Church workers convention has had a commentary published with the African-American lectionary and serves on the faculty of the national convention of gospel choirs and choruses. Donna also serves on the executive board of the Northeastern district Baptist association.

[00:03:19] As the award-winning radio host of the Donna Patrick show, where we talk about all things, praise and worship, she coaches and trains, music, ministry, personnel, and church leaders on how to give God the kind of worship he wants rather than just what we choose to give him. Donna earned a bachelor of science degree from Bishop college in Dallas, Texas, as well as a master of arts in Christian education from Dallas Baptist university.

[00:03:46] Welcome to the show.

[00:03:47] Donna Renay Patrick: Thank you, Scott I'm create you having me tonight. I'm happy to be.

[00:03:52] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So one of the things that I talked about a little bit in the intro is you've been working for a [00:04:00] long time in worship and with the music and all of these sorts of things. What brought you to the point of getting so heavily involved as a worship leader?

[00:04:10] Donna Renay Patrick: Let me give you a little bit of the backstory on that. Probably back in the early to mid nineties, like search for our surfing in, we were not doing anything in terms of praise and worship, as we know it now. And so we were just really on the edge of that. And so my pastor came to me and I'm on staff there at the time.

[00:04:31] I'm one of his musicians. And so he brought me in his office and said, Donna, I want to add a praise and worship class to the Sunday school. Correct. And I want you to teach it. I said, okay. And I don't know from that day, this one, I don't know why he asked me, but he did. So God knew something that I did not know, but as I taught the class and Scott, the more [00:05:00] I learned, the more I wanted to.

[00:05:03] And so that's when the fire really began burning. That's when God really lit the fire. And so at that point, I began looking for ways to learn more about praise and worship, learn more about what it really meant to be a worship leader. I began seeking out worship conferences and I began buying books and.

[00:05:23] Seeking out mentors, people who knew more than I knew to learn more about this praise and worst of stuff and learn how to be an effective worship leader. So that's the backstory on that. And I just love it. I still love it. Yeah.

[00:05:39] Scott Maderer: And as part of that, though it's as you got immersed in that it spilled over into other things because you've also now become a writer and you've published and worked in the lectionary. And so how did that kind of how to getting so deeply immersed in your church and doing worship there lead to the kind of broader impact.

[00:05:59] Donna Renay Patrick: [00:06:00] Once I moved on from that church, another church that I was involved in, I began to start writing praise and worship devotionals and distributing them by email, via email marketing. So I did this every Friday. I would come home from work on Thursday, go into my home office Thursday evening, crank out these devotionals to go out on Friday morning and all of them were based on praise.

[00:06:26] And so that's the fire. The fire just kept on going. So that's how that's where the writing came. And so I did that. I did that probably at least a year. I'm writing all these devotionals and sending them out by email. My pastor comes to me, my pastor at the time, he says, why don't you put all these into.

[00:06:47] And I said you know how to think too much about it? I didn't think too much about it. I heard what he said, but I just keep on sinning. I keep writing well about a year later, about a year goes by and I start [00:07:00] getting serious about finding a publisher because now I'm thinking about this.

[00:07:06] That he's put into my head. And so I started looking for a publisher. I find one, I choose to self publish, and I basically put that the first book was really a compilation of all of these emails that I have been sending out over time. So that's where both of my books came from and the first book was in production, but the Lord had me keep on running.

[00:07:30] He keeps giving me stuff to write. And so by the time some more time went by. I had enough for a second book of devotionals. And as a matter of fact, the second one was a little bit larger than the first one because the Lord just kept giving me stuff to write. And so I kept on. I kept bill riding. And then I started looking for maybe contributing writer opportunities for Christian magazines and websites and things.

[00:07:58] And that's how I came across [00:08:00] the African-American literature. And actually I did not reach out to them. They reached out to me. I remember I'll never forget that day. I was at work one day. I was at work one day and I got an email from them and asking me if I would submit an article to the lectionary

[00:08:19] Scott Maderer: immediately said, no,

[00:08:21] Donna Renay Patrick: Yeah, it was a great feeling. It was a great feeling.

[00:08:25] Scott Maderer: So how does your life, and as a worship leader and writing and all of this, how does that actually interact and spill over into know, your day job and the rest of your life as well?

[00:08:38] Donna Renay Patrick: Actually I spent about 20 years in corporate America as a paralegal.

[00:08:44] And when the Lord said time's up on that, I really went into full time ministry on a couple of levels. I had my music, I had my music. I'm still on staff at a church. I'm [00:09:00] still writing. I'm still a contributing writer. So different places, different things came out of that came out of that.

[00:09:08] So I hadn't been in corporate America for a while. Wow. I've been Tim. I've what I thought of going back for different reasons, but that's not where I belong anymore. And so I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now.

[00:09:25] Scott Maderer: And back when you were in corporate America and you made that transition into more of the full-time ministry what was that transition like?

[00:09:34] If you can. I

[00:09:36] Donna Renay Patrick: do remember. I do remember I had been in corporate America, all of my working life, so it was a total mind shift for me. It was a total mind shift to not be in corporate America, not have those deadlines and those. The different stresses that go along with the legal profession.

[00:09:57] It was it was a [00:10:00] total mind shift mindset shift from me, it for me. So that was the major thing about,

[00:10:07] Scott Maderer: and so how do you think that work that you did then and the legal world how did that prepare you to what you're doing now, as you're living out what as your purpose and your.

[00:10:19] Oh,

[00:10:19] Donna Renay Patrick: wait, whoa, wait, how much time do we have?

[00:10:22] Scott Maderer: How much

[00:10:23] Donna Renay Patrick: time do we have? Scott, I can tell you, in terms of the writing, I have no idea what God was doing all those years in corporate America. In terms of my writing, I know that corporate America prepared me for it because as a paralegal, you do a lot of writing for a time.

[00:10:43] And as you probably know, you do a lot of writing to them. You write letters, you write motions, you work on briefs for them. And and there's very little margin for error. In that space. So I learned how to write for clarity. I learned how to write for [00:11:00] context. I learned that one word to throw the context completely off and somebody would not get the message that she planned to convey.

[00:11:09] So absolutely. I learned how to communicate with them. I learned how to talk to people. I learned how, what to say. I also learned what not to say to people. I learned that too. So as far as writing communication, respect for other people, I learned all of that in corporate America and it's coming into play.

[00:11:33] Now. It came into play. Even after I left corporate America.

[00:11:37] Scott Maderer: Where do you think the passion that you have for Christian ministry originally came from?

[00:11:42] Donna Renay Patrick: I grew up in a Christian home, Scott, first of all, I grew up in a Christian home and my mother really laid the foundation. And I can tell you that I do what I do today in ministry because my mother laid the foundation.

[00:11:58] Now my father came [00:12:00] to the Lord later in life. Later in life. So when I was growing up, he was not insured with us. He came to the Lord later. So that's why I say my mother was the one who really laid the foundation for what I do right now. And there was so many people Scott in my church growing up who poured into me and really sowed into my life.

[00:12:22] They invest so many people in addition to my mother, invested so much in me. And so it really came from there. It came from there. I learned to love, I learned how to serve people. I learned how to serve God. I learned, I had a love for his word from an early age, because that's what they sold into me and my sisters.

[00:12:45] They invested so much. So there were so many people, there were lots of people sold into me.

[00:12:51] Scott Maderer: You can follow Donna Renee, Patrick on Facebook or LinkedIn as Donna, Renee, Patrick, or find out more about our books and [00:13:00] services over on our website at Donna Renee, patrick.com. That's spelled D O N a R E N a Y. P a T R I C k.com. Of course I'll have links to all of that in the show notes as well.

[00:13:14] Donna, anything else you'd like to share with the LR?

[00:13:18] Donna Renay Patrick: You know what, I just want to share that stewardship is more I grew up where stewardship was pretty much all about. And how we handle it, but I've since learned that there's so much more stewardship than that. So I just want to encourage everybody to expand your thinking, to expand your thinking about stewardship and recognize that everything, literally, everything that we have belongs to God, the earth is he is everything we have in our particular sphere of influence.

[00:13:49] It all belongs to God. And so I just want to encourage everybody. To keep that mindset and understand that whatever we have, even down to our [00:14:00] education, our degrees, all the experiences that we've had in life, all of it belongs to God, all of our resources be they financial, educational, academic, ministerial, all of our resources that are in our grasp.

[00:14:16] It all belongs to God. And I hope that we'll all be encouraged to remember that.

[00:14:21] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:14:49] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast [00:15:00] so that you can get every episode as it comes out. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.