How to Know If God Is Calling You to Start a Ministry

You keep circling back to it. Maybe it's a nudge you can't shake at 6am, or a conversation that ended and you thought, why does that keep coming back to me? You've started typing "how do I start a ministry" into Google more than once. Maybe tonight is the night you finally hit search.

If that's you, take a breath. You're not crazy, and you're not alone. This is one of the most common questions I hear from women in this community — and it usually doesn't show up as a burning bush. It shows up quieter than that.

The calling rarely looks like a plan

When I started Hope, Light & Wonder, I didn't have a five-year strategy. I had a stack of children's stories I couldn't stop writing, a devotional I needed as much as anyone I'd give it to, and a conviction that wouldn't leave me alone. That's usually how it starts — not with how do I begin a ministry answered in full, but with one obedient step taken before the rest of the map exists.

I talked about this on Season 3 of the Joyful Purpose podcast, in an episode called "Nothing to Prove." The whole premise is that God doesn't call the qualified — He qualifies the called. If you're waiting to feel ready before you believe this could be real, you may be waiting on the wrong signal.

Three signs it might be your season

1. The idea keeps returning, uninvited. Not the fantasy of building something big — the specific, small, recurring thought. A verse that keeps surfacing. A group of people you keep thinking about. A skill someone keeps telling you that you should "do something with."

2. You feel the fear and the pull at the same time. This is the part people don't warn you about. Calling doesn't remove fear — it sits right next to it. My guest Jenilee Samuel talks about this on the upcoming Season 3 episode "Called to Show Up" — she didn't set out to be an actress, she went to help on a film set and ended up cast as the lead. She said yes to showing up small, and God did the rest. Calling often looks like showing up for the thing in front of you, not the whole vision at once.

3. It survives a hard season. My aunt Judy shares something similar in her episode, "Held in the Breaking" — after losing her mother and walking through the disorientation of retirement, she talks about what it means to trust God through a transition you didn't choose. If your sense of calling is still there after the hard season, not just in the emotional high before it, that's worth paying attention to.

What to do with the "yes"

Here's what I wish someone had told me: saying yes to a calling and knowing how to begin a ministry are two different problems, and you're allowed to solve them one at a time.

The calling is between you and God. The structure — the how — is where most people quit, not because they weren't called, but because they were suddenly alone with a hundred logistical questions and no one beside them. Who do I even talk to? How do I build the first thing? What do I say when someone asks what I'm doing? How do I keep going without burning out in year one?

That second part — the how — is exactly what the Member Library was built for. It's not a course you sit through before you're allowed to start. It's a set of tools and a community built for the exact moment you're in right now: the one right after the "yes," when you need company more than you need another sermon on calling.

Inside, you'll find the Ministry Launch Planner (a step-by-step guide that turns "I think God is calling me" into an actual first move), the Faith Creator Niche Finder if you're still working out who this is for, and the Small Group Study Guide Builder for when you're ready to gather people around it. You'll also get Joyful Purpose, my own book on exactly this season, free the moment you join — it's the book I wish I'd had before I started.

You don't have to have it figured out. You just have to take the next step, and let this be the place that walks it with you.

Start your free month in the Member Library →

First month free. Everything you need to build your ministry — without burning out.

Want to hear more stories like this? Listen to Season 3 of Joyful Purpose, "Forward: Walking Through Life With God's Steady Hand," on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music.