Priscilla Shirer Opens up about Grief, Being a Woman in Ministry and Finding Balance in Life

so instead of trying to be superhuman and act like we aren't hurting that our family isn't maybe disappointed that god didn't answer particularly with our mom the prayers that not just us but people all over the globe were praying for my mother we got video prayers from churches in kenya and new york and all over the world europe people that were collectively praying for our mom we were stunned and disappointed that god didn't answer in the way we had prayed god is not asking us to not be disappointed to not be honest with him about our frailty but i think we can question god or i'm sorry ask questions of god without questioning god well hey everybody alan parr here and it is my sincere honor to have a special guest with us here today on the beat you guys are in for a treat i'm sure priscilla shira is not a stranger to you but we are honored to have her today on our show and i cannot wait for her to share her story her testimony what god is doing in her life so priscilla thank you so much for giving us your time today super excited that you are here welcome to the beat i'm so glad to be here i'm i'm a big fan of what you're doing so it feels like a gift to me to be a part of it thanks for including me oh that is awesome that is awesome so i have to start off before we get into some of the questions and all the different things that i personally along with many other people who some people have written some questions in and they're like hey make sure you ask her this or whatever we've got lots of questions we want to ask of you but first i just need to start off by saying how much of a blessing it is your family has been such a blessing to me um first of all starting with your father um you know i'm sure he knows that he's made an influence and an impact on so many people's lives myself included whenever i was a younger christian coming up he was one of the main preachers that i was listening to to get fed spiritually and all those different things and also as i was really developing my craft as a preacher um you know he was just so inspirational and influential in my life he will never know that maybe after this interview he will but um just to see a strong african-american man who was combining great preaching with great theology was something that wasn't really prevalent in our community in our society and so i want to thank him i want to thank you because you know i've been blessed personally by some of your teachings as well as my wife loves to follow you and also uh tony uh to me your your brother anthony evans i love his music got all of his music and cds and all those things and i know jonathan is killing it over at oakcliff and i know your sister crystal is has got a phenomenal ministry as well and of course we can't leave out your mother as well and all things she's done so i just want to say thank you to the evans family i appreciate that so much especially when i hear you talk a little bit about dad to hear that now from adult child ears means a whole lot different than it did when i was little you know you realize all of the little decisions that dad had to make to have integrity for this long faithfulness for this long to serve god unashamedly to not try to be politically correct and liked and all that but to just serve god and honor the truth of god i realize now what that cost him so i'm really grateful to hear you say that i'll pass that along to him and he was a good dad too so he still is a great dad so i appreciate you saying that well that's great and that actually actually transitions kind of into the first question that i really would love to kind of ask you about is you know what i guess kind of a two-part question first of all what was priscilla like growing up like if you had to describe yourself kind of what what were you like and i asked that because i've got a four-year-old daughter and she's like very um she's very she's kind of intrigued with a lot of things she's very curious about a lot she's very outgoing um you know she loves her daddy she's like the smartest kid in her class and all those things of course i'm a little bit biased but i wonder i'm like i wonder if priscilla was like that growing up so that's the first thing i would love for you to to kind of comment on and then on top of that tell us a little bit about what it was like to grow up in the evans household i mean i almost said the word dynasty because we all looked at you all like wow this is like this is like the royal family here right like but like what was it like being in the evan's home and what were you like growing up well um so i'm told i was pretty much asleep for the first three or four years of my life and then i got to around the age your daughter is now and what i'm told is that i woke up one day and never went back to sleep that my personality just exploded out of nowhere and that i just sort of was outgoing and social and wanted to connect with people i was very active in lots of different sports all four of us were involved in different activities in sports and mom and dad did the best they could you know i'm sure their attention was so divided and they were exhausted as we all are when you're trying to support four kids who are very different and unique but um i was very active and just engaged in a lot of different things so my parents tried to support that i will tell you that i was also in trouble for most of my childhood i was always getting in trouble most of the trouble i was in revolved around my mouth that my mother would always have to say uh that you didn't need to say that so i either talked too much or when i said what i said my tone wasn't right so she she looked back at me with that mama eye and said you better get your tone right so communication was always a problem for me but i will tell you that talking about what it's like to be raised in my parents house i would be disciplined for the things i needed to be disciplined for whether it was rebellion or lack of obedience or you know talking out of turn we were disciplined for sure but i always remember my dad he would always turn the negatives into a possible positive to see it from the perspective of the way god wired me so most of the reason why i even considered communication not even ministry but i went to school for communication i thought i'd be in broadcast television was the the goal i was pursuing when i first went to college that was because my dad said to me all those years priscilla you're a born communicator i think that god wired you to communicate so if we can just allow the if you can surrender this to the holy spirit and we can allow the holy spirit to mold this thing that's getting you in trouble right now in your immaturity it could actually be the thing that god uses in your life to serve the purposes that he created you for so dad was constantly reframing even the stuff that we were struggling with so that we could see maybe how god's hand was in even those bits and pieces so awesome awesome and so speaking of your dad you know how how did you i mean how was it sharing your dad with the world i mean here's this international speaker i mean obviously we know that you know he didn't come on the scene right away and just become this but i know in the mid to late 80s and 90s and of course everything just kind of took off from there but you know how was he able to manage all the things that he is was was doing is still doing and i'm going to pull the same question to you a little bit later but that comes a little bit later but how how was he able to manage all that and still be this present loving father of four and and husband and be present when people ask me what it was like to be tony evans daughter it's kind of hard to answer that question because we just see him as dad you know he was just our dad and of course we knew he was a pastor they started the church when i was one so the church always seemed big to me you know at three years old there were probably 125 people that was enormous to me by the time i was in high school and college those were the promise keeper years so dad was speaking to 30 000 people at a time there were 10 000 members at our church people were starting to recognize him out because of the radio ministry so we'd be in eating dinner or in line at the airport and people would hear his voice they didn't have to see his face they just heard his voice and they were like oh excuse me are you tony evans so people were starting to stop him and we were beginning to recognize the breadth and the scope of what dad's influence was but i think and dad certainly would even confess to the fact that he didn't do it perfectly but he was so purposeful and intentional about being with us so when he was home he was home when he um would make it a priority to pick us up from cheerleading practice even sometimes when he would come to my cheerleading practice or track practice so he could be the one to drive me home sometimes he might be on the phone on a phone call because he had a meeting that he ducked out of early so that he could pick me up and he might be on the phone but he was there you know he was present i know for a fact there were times where dad was speaking somewhere in philadelphia and i remember he flew back home so that he could be at one of jonathan's football games and then after the football game he had to get back on a plane and go back and finish the conference those were the kind of choices that i now know how exhausting that must have been those were the kind of choices that he was making so that the memory i have of growing up with dad as busy as he was the memory i have is not of a dad who was not there i have a memory of dad and mom building the church but we had dinner around the dinner table i remember him leading us in devotions i remember riding his back his back as he did piggyback rides and we had family talent shows and i remember us being engaged at the church as a family or at his ministry events we were the staff behind the book table you know when he had one or two books at the time we were the staff we were the participants with them in ministry so we were just never sidelined and i think that reason i just have a memory of being dad being fully engaged and invested with us i will say briefly that in hindsight i know my dad says that he would go back and he would do it a little bit differently he would probably shave off a little a few more hours that he spent building the church and building ministry that he'd probably even shave off more of that now and i'm always shocked when he says that because i'm like dad you were there you gave our late mother they were married 49 and a half years when she passed away 18 months ago um you gave our late mom like a great life like she enjoyed ministry she enjoyed you y'all got to travel together you raised the four of us somebody else didn't do it y'all did it so dad you did good and still dad says but i would have invested more time in y'all and that right there continues to reframe my choices right now here in my mid 40s what i know is that when i get to 70 something like that is now i'll probably look back we probably will alan and go i should have invested more just in my wife my husband my children so i'm trying to allow the conversations i see my dad having and the things he's saying now in hindsight i'm trying to allow that to inform the decisions that i'm making now as i'm raising my kids yeah yeah believe me that's that's a constant tension as god continues to grow in my ministry as well both online and offline as i'm like okay god um i want you to grow it as long as it doesn't take me away from home and uh um you know because my parents were divorced and so i didn't really have you know that that typical type of structure that you know dad is always home and eating family you know but now that i have that with my kids and my wife it's like i want to make sure that i'm i'm you know giving them as much attention as possible um now you know you mentioned um you know kind of your communication gift right and just kind of really embracing that and your father you know talked about how that can be a positive thing for you talk to me a little bit about how how did you kind of embrace your calling if you will and kind of at what point in your life did you sense that god had a unique calling on your life and i asked that because so many people will send me questions and they'll email me and they'll say hey you know alan um how did you know you were called to the ministry like what does that look like what does that feel like did god just kind of speak it you know in the clouds and say okay i want you to go to ministry like what does that look like and so what did that look like for you and when did that kind of happen yes um i'll answer that question in a nutshell and then i'll kind of tell you what led me to that conclusion but the nutshell answer to that is that i've i'm learning and have learned that god's calling and god's will for our lives looks less like a moment and more like just a daily commitment to honor him with what's in front of you for today when i look back in hindsight over the past now almost 25 years of being in in some uh portion of ministry when i look back on that i realized that i could not have mapped out in my wildest dreams what god's will for my life was all i knew was the light he had given me for the next step the next 24 hours the next week the next month the next two and as i followed him i didn't even realize that each stage was actually setting the framework and the foundation for what was to come so i couldn't have jumped to step three without having walked through whatever the step one and step two was that he had entrusted to me right then that's how god's will unfolded for me it wasn't a strategy and it wasn't a plan and it wasn't a moment of calling it was just doing what was next and then god giving me a passion or lighting a fire or a peace or an opportunity to move forward in a particular direction and watching him really strategically close doors in other directions so i had to decide what i was was i going to ambitiously force these doors open or was i going to trust and honor the doors that he was opening up for me in the direction that he was sending me so as i mentioned i went to school um at the university of houston for communications and i was planning to go into broadcast television i was going to be on the news that was my goal journalism i wasn't thinking about ministry at all and i interned at a christian radio station just for class credit while i was in school in houston and they gave me an hour-long radio show and i would just come on every two or three songs as djs do and i would say they gave me they told me i could talk for 60 seconds and i might just share a word of encouragement or share a bible verse nothing major and i did that through the three years three or four years that i was at u of h well people started to call the station and say well that girl that comes on one day a week will she come and do a bible study for the women at my church or will she come and emcee an event so here i was a 19 year old freshman sophomore in college and i'd show up and sometimes there'd be 10 women there and i'd just share a little bible study sometimes i'd show up and there'd be 500 women there and i would just do the same thing share a little bible study and the reality is that for 25 years the invitations to just share a little bible study never stopped coming that's how god's will unfolded and i began to realize that my other pursuits either the lord was very clearly closing the doors and by the way those doors being closed in television for me was devastating i mean i would be on a show or be hired by cbs to be a reporter and then they wouldn't need me anymore almost as soon as i started or you know it was very crippling to my self-esteem in my young 20s i just felt like i wasn't good at it that the lord wasn't allowing me to pursue my dreams it felt very devastating to me in those young years but i realized now that all of those disappointments were actually the lord reorienting and redirecting my path and my passions in the direction that he had planned for me all along and i also discovered that those years i felt were wasted years where none of those dreams were realized in television for example i would start and then stop and then be called here but then be disappointed when they didn't need me anymore everything i was learning about what it meant to be in front of a camera i had no idea that these video driven bible study resources were going to be a part of the lord what the lord was would be calling me to do so i knew how to stand in front of a camera and talk to a camera because of all those disappointing years that i thought were worth nothing they actually were the fodder god was using to prepare me for the calling the purpose the plan that he had for me so nothing was wasted but it wasn't one moment of calling it was just doing what was next and then seeing where the lord was directing my passions and opportunities and then following him in that and not trying to force a path that he clearly didn't have his hand upon yeah i love that answer i really really appreciate that answer and i hope for those of you who are watching that you really got something out of that because so often we get this idea of calling so confused and as a result many people just get paralyzed because they're like i'm waiting for god to show me my purpose i've got so many my friends where i'm like you know they're like hey i'm waiting for god to show me my purpose i'm waiting for god to show me my calling and i love how you put it it's like hey just do the very next thing that god has put in front of you and then see where god takes it from there i always tell people hey if you don't know what your calling is just look at the bible because the bible is very clear that every christian is called to evangelize every christian is called to use their spiritual gifts every christian is called to make disciples so if you don't do anything else find one person who may not be as far along in their walk or in their faith as you are and just pour into them what god has already shown you and if you do that one thing you take that one step then god will show you the next step and the next step and then at some point you'll be crystal clear on okay this is more than likely where i'm uniquely going to be used by god in ministry and here's the thing what social media has done with all of the benefits that it has afforded us what it has also done is painted this picture that platform ministry or that being in the spotlight or that having a microphone or perfectly lit pictures of you know of you on stage that that is actually what ministry is that that's the goal and it's not that what you just described of discipling other people most of those people and some of the most impactful and effective discipleship that happens are the people that are right within our sphere it's not about a platform for thousands it's about my son or my daughter and me taking the time to prioritize them in the young years and and help them to learn bible verses and to disciple them or the young woman at the church that's weight a teenager she's waiting on somebody in their 20s or 30s to place value on her by just paying attention to her and spending time with her and helping her to see what biblical womanhood looks like that's what it's about that's how we serve and honor god it's not about a platform and hundreds of thousands of followers it's about honoring god with the spear that he has placed us in um in the neighborhoods we live yeah and i love that because i'm actually getting ready to do a video where i'm going to talk about um you know different preachers who have had influences on on my life and many of them are well known but you know there's there's one i'm kind of a spoiler alert there's one that's maybe not so well known and the whole point of the video is going to be hey you know um you know sometimes you very well may be the person that has this large platform you know like you and i have been blessed to have something you know some semblance of that but you you somebody else you may be the person who disciples and pours into the next person who does have this large platform like i can look back at some of the people that have poured into my life then nobody would ever know their names but because of their impact in my life they have helped me get to where i am so never underestimate the power of one absolutely yeah yeah now speaking of speaking of calling you know i would love to kind of transition talk a little bit about you know obviously it's no surprise you are a female you're a woman you're a female communicator you know so what were some of the challenges that you have faced and maybe are continuing to face you know as you are a strongly evangelical bible-based um you know speaker and communicator but you know we live in this church culture where you know a lot of people will want to put a kind of a ceiling or cap or limitations on things that you know women can do or whatnot and let's just talk a little bit about maybe some of those challenges and how maybe some people may have treated you as you started to really progress in your calling well that's a great question and i i regret the fact that even as you use that word evangelical that it has been so muddied that to say it even now has these layers of misunderstanding and um distortion unfortunately that has been so impacting to church culture right now but but yes i believe very firmly in the gifting of women that god placed jesus himself placed value on women we see him all throughout the scriptures reorienting people's perspective on who women were the value that they had and the dignity that were intrinsic to to them at the same time i know that there's order in the church i know that god has established um roles that are not indicative of value of of male versus female but the roles that he has called us to and i honor that and i value that so i have been very blessed to be uh having been raised in an atmosphere where i was always encouraged to serve the lord with my gifts always now i go to the kind of church where i have a pastor that does the preaching so there weren't any other preachers really that were preaching in our churches on sunday male or female dad that's what dad does dad's a preacher so i never really had the opportunity to see women in ministry in the way that i ended up being in ministry so it was a little bit foreign to me because i just wasn't raised in an environment that allowed me to see that all the time like other people were but as the lord began to point me in the direction of ministry what i knew for sure was that my primary calling was to women so my my writing um my speaking teaching most of everything that i do i know is filtered through what i what i know and believe god has called me specifically to do and that is ministry to women when um the invitations began to come for me to speak in environments where there would be a mixed audience that was something that i did go to my dad and talk to him about number one because he's my pastor he's my daddy but he's my pastor too and i wanted to have just the covering of my my pastor i wanted to have clarity on um the way that i should handle that and i wanted to be sure that no matter what all of the biblical nuances are of that that i don't forfeit what it is that god has asked me to do um because i'm spending time doing a whole lot of ancillary things that aren't in the wheelhouse of god's purpose for me so i just ran that through my father and he began to express to me the the need for there to be a spiritual covering male and female we all need to be spiritually covered but if that but if i was being invited by a pastor at a local church to speak to his congregation that that there was a covering that it was being provided for me and to the extent that i felt the holy spirit giving me the freedom to speak into those environments than to know that i would be covered by him my daddy as my pastor but then also the pastor of that church that was inviting me to come and so i ha i still haven't done that for the majority of my ministry but i have done it some and um the reason i haven't done it mostly again is because i really want to honor what it is that god has called me to do i know that's primarily women's ministry so i want to honor that um but another reason that i have taken some of those opportunities is because you know for many black church environments there might not be a women's conference there's going to be women's day on a sunday that is their nod to a women's conference or the women's retreat it's women's day so if i refuse to go into an environment where there might be a mixed audience on a women's day there will be a whole um demographic of churches or denominations that i may never have the opportunity to minister to to simply because their dynamic for women's ministry looks a little bit different um than others might be so that's that's a long answer to that question yeah no no that's a great answer you know and i asked that because you know as an influencer myself you know we and i know you can relate to this if we get criticized so much for you know for for people i mean we should expect it i mean if jesus himself got persecuted and criticized and and lied on and talked about and ridiculed i mean should we not expect the same and you know it's just it's it's amazing how even though you're going forward and you're you said it yourself like your focus is on you know women in ministry and wanting to encourage them and even in the midst of all of that you still have people out there who will criticize and who hate and say certain things and she shouldn't be doing this and she shouldn't be doing that and so that kind of leads me to another question which would be you know i've got a lot of people watching right now and i'm sure many of them are women and they feel like they have a gift and a calling and they feel this this sense of okay god i feel you're stirring something up in my spirit to do you know what advice would you give to that woman who feels like they are really gifted and they really want to do something for the lord but everything in their in their space every you know people around them um even maybe their own self-talk or their their society is telling them everything that they cannot do as a woman in ministry and you can't do this and you're not allowed to do this and the bible says this and what what advice would you give that woman that feels kind of stuck and stagnant because she's a woman wanting to do ministry well when anybody feels like they're called to ministry or that god is is steering them in a particular direction whether male or female the very first thing i would say is go to some healthy spiritual leadership to talk to them about what it is that you sense god leading you to do because to me every samuel needs an eli you need someone to help you to discern when god is calling you and then to help you sharpen and focus in on what it is he's specifically calling you to do and you need people to free you up that release you that tell you you're okay that that that say hey you can do this and that encourage you to move forward and after you've bounced that off of some wise counsel the next thing i would say is start being obedient to what god has asked you to do don't wait until you have a platform or you have a microphone or you have a following say lord what do you want me to do today in response to this calling and then start doing it like start being obedient right away and sometimes that looks like um you know the the teenagers that are coming home with your daughter on wednesday nights because they're finished volleyball practice well why wouldn't you recognize the fact possibly that they are the audience that the lord is calling you to they need some woman to sit down with them and say hey let me open the word of god with you guys on wednesday nights from 7 to 7 20 and i'm just going to teach you something from god's word about your identity in christ that could be in fact for me alan for five years i did a bible study at southern methodist university i just showed up every week because my cousin was in school there and couldn't find a bible study she moved from maryland to go to school there and when she told me she couldn't find a bible study i was like i'll come do one for you and your friends and so for five years it was like the same eight to ten girls it never got to hundreds of people there was never an aspiration to build something i was just kind of showing up and i didn't even know that the discipline of study that required that the illustrations i had come up with that some of the things i had written that actually became the fodder for whole messages that would serve hundreds of people later or chapters that i didn't even know would be in books that i had no clue that i would write that that all of that stuff in those small spaces mattered when the lord continued to unveil for me what ministry was going to look like so it's funny you mentioned that oh my goodness so like you know i earlier i talked about these invisible heroes right these people that you'll never know who they are because they don't have these large platforms but people who um pour it into us right and so like when i when i was in college that's really how i really started to understand kind of how god wired me calling to ministry and all those types of things there was a guy by the name i'm going to give him i'ma call his name out his name is deacon kevin miller so if you ever see this deacon kevin miller i don't even know what this guy's up to anymore i don't even know where he's at but he did the same thing you did every friday night he would come down to our campus and do a bible study with a whole bunch of college students and most of us didn't want to have anything to do with god anything to do with the bible didn't know how to study the bible but the way he broke the bible down for the first time in my life as a 19 year old i was like wow i actually understood the bible and reading it and studying it was so much fun he would go through these parables and i was like wow that's really cool how jesus taught this thing and it was a deeper meaning and this that and the other and it's because of him coming down and ministering to about eight or nine of us on a friday night that's triggered some sort of desire and passion in me to want to read the bible for myself and i have not been able to put the book down since so that's one thing i'll say but the second thing you said about getting started man that is so important right because like even this ministry that i have now on the beat it really emerged from a place of okay look i'm not gonna continue to wait for somebody to tap me on the shoulder and say hey alan can you preach for me or can you teach this bible study can you do this can you do that i got to a point where i said i know i'm gifted i'm called to communicate the word of god let me just start somewhere with zero subscribers i don't know how many people are going to subscribe or watch but i'm going to start putting my videos out there and god has blessed it so guys don't wait until you have a certain place just start somewhere start where god has gifted you for where you can start with right now absolutely i would completely agree with that and what if that what if that dude had decided that doing that bible study on a college campus wasn't worth his time and it wasn't a big enough platform that it wasn't a big enough venture so he didn't do it you know if all of us are not doing the small things that god has called us to start with we're ignoring a whole opportunity not only for those people we're supposed to be impacting but us we're the ones that miss out on the gift of being a part of pushing other people towards their trajectory that god has for their life yeah awesome awesome so i i want to kind of transition a little bit and um to something that hopefully it's okay to talk about but you know over uh matter of fact my wife she's going through your elijah series and she uh she she loves it first and foremost and she going she's going through with several other young ladies on thursday night and um so she's going through this part i think it's the chapter where it says anywhere but here anywhere but here and i know you're well familiar with that page and so she brought it to me a couple nights ago and she said hey you know you you want to read up on this and so you know obviously i know that you know over the past few years you know you and your family have really dealt with so much difficulty loss disappointment um trauma you know i know you've dealt with some personal health issues as well literally you've had you've had a job experience like you've had a job literally no joke like a job type of um interaction you know basically experience if you will so i just would love for you to kind of talk to those people out here who they just feel like life is beating them down they're dealing with loss they're missing people that they love they're questioning god questioning the goodness of god and how can how do you remain emotionally and mentally stable in the midst of so much loss so much confusion so many questions so much disappointment yeah you well the question is how do you know i'm emotionally stable that that is true how do you know um you know it has been a trying time i appreciate you asking about that honestly every single one of us have been through a lot the pandemic it hadn't just been a medical pandemic it's been a racial pandemic a political pandemic one layered on top of the other but in combination with that you're right over the last two years we've lost eight family members and i mean every three to six months we lost another loved one you talk about a job experience i really feel that way when i look at my dad because most of those people were directly connected to him his sister his brother his father his wife his niece all of these people very very close to us and we just lost them one after the other after my mom passed away seven months later my mother-in-law passed away just she wasn't even sick i mean she was fine one day and then the next day she just was gone um so it has been difficult and then the health challenges that i uh face the surgeries that are surgery rather that i had to have which was pretty significant it has been hard and the key i think if there is a key because we're still traversing it is to remember i've had to remember that god knows i'm human and he knows this is hard he hadn't asked me to be a superhero he hasn't asked me not to cry not to grieve not to even need to stay in bed a little bit longer this day or this week or this month not to have to start saying no to a whole bunch of things that i don't have the emotional capacity to invest in right now in this season he knows i'm human and he says my grace is sufficient for you so instead of trying to be superhuman and act like we aren't hurting that our family isn't maybe disappointed that god didn't answer particularly with our mom the prayers that not just us but people all over the globe were praying for my mother we got video prayers from churches in kenya and new york and all over the world europe people that were collectively praying for our mom we were stunned and disappointed that god didn't answer in the way we had prayed god is not asking us to not be disappointed to not be honest with him about our frailty but i think we can question god or i'm sorry ask questions of god without questioning god that i've never allowed and honestly i think my father's example has helped me with this that he can cry his tears i've watched my big strong superhero amazing dad cry his tears we've seen him in an emotional slump some because think about this allen right after mom died the pandemic started and he lost church too he couldn't even go to church preaching and being with the congregation that's therapeutic for our dad for us but then with the pandemic he couldn't even do that that was like a whole nother grief a whole another loss and so we watched our dad lose a little bit of motivation we've seen him as a visionary and motivated our whole lives but of course there's that emotional slump of all of that loss and grief all clumped together but watching him in his humanity but at the same time not question the character of god that he would look at his kids and say god is who he said he is he's still good and he's still kind and he's still sovereign and he still has a plan for us and heaven is real that we could watch this dad go that i've been preaching when stuff was good i'm not going to now not believe and not continue to preach just because things have gotten bad god is still good we saw that same thing with our mom in her last days she knew that it was her last days and we knew that it was her last days and she was still passing on the baton of faith she was still looking at the four of us going do not let this slow you down do not drop this baton of faith that i'm handing to you you pass it on to my grandchildren and you make sure that your grandchildren my great-grandchildren still know how good that jesus is any kind of person that can have that kind of resolution of faith knowing that they're facing death that tells me that the holy spirit's presence must be real and that there is a hope that is worth hanging on to so really it's been watching the faith of my parents and other people like them that have been steadfast in the midst of trouble that has encouraged me to have that same kind of backbone too because alan our kids are looking at us your your kids and my sons just like i'm watching my parents go through this and i will always have a memory of it that will shape the woman that i'm becoming in christ my sons are looking at me and i want them one day to look at their kids and say your grandmother lost a whole bunch of stuff in the two-year time period let me tell you what mom your grandmother went through but let me tell you how she never doubted the goodness of god and the grace of god and how she still continued to speak the praises of god out of her mouth to other people even when things were very difficult in their life i want to have enough backbone that i give my son something to tell their kids about that's what keeps me steady wow wow wow you know and and i'm just i'm just i'm humbled hearing that because i almost i'm almost nervous to say this but i don't believe in the whole speaking things and all that but you know i'm i'm 45 years old and i i've been so blessed to have never experienced a major loss um you know my parents are still here and my sister and you know my family all my aunts and uncles and you know um i just i hope and pray that i i know it's not about if it's when i experience that that you know i'll be able to like you said be honest and be okay with my feelings and go to god and and let him know what i'm feeling and um but it's just it's an encouragement to know like even in the situation with your mom like here she is the one that is she's not watching someone else pass she is the one that is knowing that days are are limited and she's still fighting the good fight and and holding up you know holding up that faith so um you know thank you so much for that um you know along those lines and i've wanted to ask this just just in general um i know this obviously isn't an interview with your father but you know how how how is he how is he doing i mean how is he really doing i mean you've got a life partner 49 and a half years i i mean the love was evident between him and and lois um you know how is life after life after lois if you don't mind me asking how is he coping how is he managing his time his thoughts yeah um thank you for asking that i'm so grateful that you would ask dad really is doing well and i don't say that loosely i say that because i have known and seen others in this kind of a scenario where you lose a spouse after basically 50 years they were six months from 50 years of marriage your life is so intertwined with someone at that point that i've seen some some people who have lost that even with less time and have come undone because their life they don't even know how to move forward solo so with that in mind i can honestly say that dad is doing well partly because the four of us won't leave him alone we're all up on him he's like are y'all going home is anybody leaving the house today um y'all could leave me alone i'll be fine and we're like no we're gonna hang out so he's got us and i'm grateful that we're around my mom's sister um they are like siblings my dad and my aunt um they've known each other since dad was 18 and she was 14. that's how they long they've known each other and their buddies and they hang out and um dad's life is still very full with ministry he's still preaching and pastoring the church he still travels in ministry um even throughout the pandemic you know the technological needs of ministry continued and so he was very much ministering to others and trying to help people in leadership governmental positions of leadership work through the political season that we went through um so he's been very busy and i'm grateful to the lord for that because dad thrives as he's giving and as he's ministering and as he's studying and writing and he thrives during all of that so it is a new normal he's having to find a new normal we all are but i think that god is giving him grace to be able to find that and he has lots of friends around him um men who have been in his life literally since mom and dad got married so people he's known since he graduated from dallas theological seminary and they call and they check on him and they hang out and have lunch and so those kinds of friends i think are also an encouragement to him and keep him going so thanks for asking he's really doing good that's awesome that's great to hear now you speak a lot about you know spending time with your family and i mean i see all the posts on instagram and i love seeing it i love seeing how you how close you are with your your brothers and your sister and your dad and i i love all of that um talk a little bit about how you prioritize i don't even know if the word balance is the word that we want to use here because we all know that i don't even know if that exists but like i just was thinking about this the other day i was sitting i was trying to write a list i'm like okay this sister has been in movies so you've had to learn how to act i don't even know how long it takes to film a movie and you know so you got to learn all your lines so you got the movies you got the international speaking you're writing books i know you used to have i don't know if you still have the chat which was your talk show i watched that a few times i loved it the guests that you have on there you know you're writing bible studies you're traveling with anthony you're doing all these conferences you're doing the awaken conference like like you seemingly are just going going going and i'm like okay did the lord give priscilla an extra 40 hours a week you know that that he didn't give to the rest of us because i don't know how she i mean i'm trying to do two videos a week on youtube trying to be a husband and you know love my two kids and i'm out of i don't even have enough time to do that and i'm like how does this woman keep popping out books i mean and she's still traveling and got this new bible study i'm like i can't even write one book like i haven't written a book so like what is your secret how do you do it spill the beans and how do you keep your family together i mean what is what is it well i will tell you that the main answer to that question is that i'm not doing everything that it appears that i'm doing you you said the key word earlier you said it seems like and that is what it seems like but i'm really only doing a couple of things at a time and sometimes because they might those things might dovetail when they're released or they dovetail when they're happening online it looks like i'm doing them all at the same time but i'm really very careful to make sure that i'm not expending um too much time in a million different directions all at the same time um when our kids first started coming along when jackson was born i remember getting six months into having a new baby and saying to jerry i want to make sure that i'm mothering this kid it was just about the time that the lord was starting to give us some clarity that travel might be included and what he was calling us to do jerry was feeling compelled to for us to do ministry together so he was leaving his corporate job and we were going to do this together and i i was very clear on the fact given my mother's example that i was supposed to raise my children so if i couldn't be at home with them or if they couldn't be traveling with me what i did know is that this wasn't going to be something that i would be able to sustain or that i even wanted to sustain i didn't want to i wanted to be with my kids so really everything we've done in the past um you know now my oldest son is 18. but everything we've done right down choosing to homeschool our sons is because that was the priority that was at the top of my list and so still to this day i continue we continue to go to the lord with each season because this is the thing man that will keep you before the lord in every season of life you're going back to the lord going now what now how are we supposed to get through this week or this month or this semester of the kids schooling and we literally put down the things that are priorities for our family in that season anything that doesn't jive with those priorities we say no to and i mean no it's a whole sentence and we say it all the time so when i'm doing one thing i've said no to literally hundreds of other opportunities in terms of speaking engagements or interview requests or opportunities to write a book or co-auth or something we've said no to lots of things so that we can honor the one thing i'll give you another example alan i hope i'm not answering too long no you're fine but you mentioned films a minute ago that has been one of the surprises of ministry for us that's not something i ever aspired to or thought would have an opportunity i mean who thinks that who thinks i'm gonna be in a movie or two one day it wasn't even on my mind but the first time the kendrick brothers called me it was when they were filming courageous and they wanted to see if i would do a role in courageous and i responded to them and said no i'm not going to do it number one because i'm not an actor but number two because the time i would have to film was about a month and it was right at the end of my kids homeschooling year and i just knew that it wasn't a good time for me to be leaving them or for even them to be uprooted from what we were doing at the time there was too much going on at the time and it wasn't going to be good for my family so i said no i ended up working with them um writing the resolution for women they wrote the resolution for men i wrote the resolution for women which was a book that coincided with just so i still got an opportunity to to work with them and build a relationship with them but they told me that they were so taken aback in a great way that i declined being in a movie they said we've never had anybody that said no to being in a film and so for them um they said they respected and appreciated that so much that by the time they got around to writing war room they said as they were writing the script they were thinking to themselves as they wrote for elizabeth jordan's part they were thinking what would priscilla say and they were writing those words in and so as they thought that they called me before the script was even done they said this time we want to ask you far enough in advance where hopefully you can honor your family as we see clearly you want to do but you can also participate with this project so when we filmed war room they said we will we know your family is important we'll bring your family with you so for the whole summer we move together to north carolina my sons sort of interned on the set they got to be a part of certain scenes and we did it together as a family and that really was the only way that i was going to be able to do it because i don't want to compromise the main things because i'm doing everything um and that's not easy it's it's constant give and take it's constant struggle as we realize oh man we're imbalanced in one season and we've got to recalibrate for the next so we don't have it down packed because it's like as soon as you do your kids grow up a year and the dynamics change or the dynamics of your marriage change or you change your energy level changes so it's a constant recalibration but it's this intentionality to say lord give us the courage to say no to the things we need to say no to so that we can leave margin for the things we're supposed to say yes man that was a word i appreciate that because learning to say no to things it's difficult when you're somebody who wants to do wants to serve everyone and and a lot of times you know people don't understand why we have to say no sometimes and and a matter of fact if you would have told me no i cannot interview with you allen as somebody who has had to say no to other people i would have been like oh man i'm disappointed but i get it and i understand because sometimes even one hour of people's time it's like you have to make these decisions all the time the busier that you get so now speaking along those lines you know it takes a really strong man to support a very strong successful woman right so talk a little bit about you know how how does jerry support you what role does he play in the ministry because i don't think a lot of people really are maybe from the outside maybe from your inner circle they kind of know but from the outside you know they don't maybe know what role he plays and how whenever he saw okay this woman is really being called to do these things you know how did he have to sacrifice any of his dreams or anything that he may have wanted to do because he sensed that you know you lord was doing something special in your life talk a little bit about about his role in all of this well jerry is actually the reason we have a ministry um i don't know that i'm even organized enough to have developed sort of an umbrella of a ministry um that he that he developed so i was kind of just randomly speaking doing little bible studies here and there in my early 20s and jerry begin to see that this is the ministry the lord has called us to as a family so he founded going beyond ministries which is the ministry through which now we try to equip churches and women's ministry leaders with resources where we're real strategic about even like our local ministry here in dallas fort worth and how we serve women that come to our awakening events and we do outreaches um he also is a businessman so there is a business aspect to ministry that has to be balanced um and so he and i are in two completely different lanes um all of the behind-the-scenes business aspects of of what the reality is in ministry and technology and publishing and all of that stuff that's jerry's lane and it's it's not mine i'm not gifted in that at all the flip side of that is he does not want to be on a stage he doesn't want to even want to be on social media for that matter he doesn't want to be sort of the face of anything so we're not really bumping heads he and i about anything because we're in two different lanes and we try our best to respect the lanes that each of us is in and honestly him sort of spearheading and and being the visionary of ministry for me has been incredibly helpful because um i as his wife and so it's em submitted to his leadership and i trust the vision that the lord has given him for us so um there are many things that i have so much freedom to say no to for our family if if he is not feeling that same passion or that same direction for us as a family then i know that that's not that's not for us um so i i look to him for that not just with our personal family needs but also with ministry um having his leadership there really does give us a lot of guidance so we kind of stay in our lanes and do our thing and and then dovetail together and just try to honor god as best we can and you know i'm so so thankful that you that you said that because i just want to encourage every single person watching this that there is a blessing and there is an anointing and there is a ministry in the support role and being and i only want to call to support i'll just call it a behind the scenes rule because sometimes support sounds secondary but like behind the scenes listen even paul not only to preach to you all but even paul said in first corinthians chapter 12 he said sometimes the the hidden invisible parts of the body are the ones that we present the most honor to right and so you know just thinking about our own bodies right you know yes it's nice to have big arms and you know the the biceps and all that stuff but like if your heart stops bump like pumping or if your brain is something going on with your brain or your liver or whatever like the invisible parts are sometimes the most important to keeping things running so i just want to be an encouragement like my wife she's she's on camera sometimes but quite frankly she supports me and and she is behind the scenes and she does so much and jerry is the same way and so many of you are that way as well so i never want to belittle anyone who may not be in front of the camera doing these things that priscilla and i are doing but your role can be just as much or greater of an impact behind the scenes as you can be on center stage i i just want to echo that and say that i'm so grateful that even you differentiated between even saying support role or behind the scenes because it can put it can compartmentalize in people's mind what that means honestly if the behind the scenes folks in church in ministry in business if the behind the scenes folks aren't good at doing what it is that god has called them to do and honoring and serving well and doing with excellence and taking pride in the role that god has given them then most of the stuff that's happening above the surface won't even happen it won't even happen i would have never published a book i would have never been in a film i would have never been a part of some of the ministry opportunities that we hope has have been impactful to people that would have never happened if there is not someone willing to sit in the meetings to read the contracts to have all of the kind of in-depth conversation that has to be had before any of this connect these things can actually work those people are necessary and um important to whether or not the product or the resource is finished or comes to fruition at all yeah yeah awesome awesome well you know this has been a phenomenal time uh sharing with you uh priscilla it's been awesome awesome i just have one final question i would like to ask how can we be praying for you uh how can we be praying for your ministry what's next for going beyond ministries what's next for the shires personally um you know what i saw something on social media i want to say it might be today that there's a new book i think it's called divine disruption or something of that nature i just saw it on instagram right this morning so kind of let us know kind of what's on the horizon for you all what can we be praying for and how can we best support you in this season i appreciate you asking me that thank you um ministry wise yes my um siblings and dad we got together over the past year or so and we just sort of pinned down some of the questions that you were asking me about like how to hold on to faith when life breaks your heart and we just sort of wrote down some of the things that have happened in the past two years and the way that the holy spirit and the lord have encouraged us and guided us through it so we could i would love for you to be prayerful that that resource which um we posted about it today but it doesn't come out until november but really that it will encourage some folks who are going through some really hard stuff to just know that god's still got him and there's always still hope in him um but then personally i'm just at this season where i just dropped off a son at college i have another one going into his senior year and all our focus and energy really is going towards just this transition in our son's lives we have another one coming up into his high school year soon and so we're just in those real formative teenage years where we're dealing with all the teenage things and i've told you before we started um taping this allen how grateful i am to you and your wife your family for the ministry you do because you really are helping me parent sons through these years where they need a godly man who looks like them to be sharing truth with them on hard hitting topics that they need to know what the bible says and and you're helping me do that i play your videos all the time for family devotions and i'm grateful for that so just prayer as we steward these years with our boys before they all sort of head off into the horizon of college and whatever god has for them i'd be grateful for that awesome awesome well priscilla it's been an honor to have this time with you and um it's just been amazing to see what god is doing you know in your life in your family's life and um once again just always cheering the evans family and the shirers on and uh and for those of you watching hopefully you all were encouraged um you know in the midst of difficulties that you may be going through whether it's financial whether it's loss or whatever hopefully if you are a woman who has this sense of calling in ministry and you're just feeling stuck hopefully something that was said today will encourage you to start where you are and to not wait and to really be obedient to what god has called you to do hopefully for some of you who are questioning your calling and ministry and you're not doing anything and you're waiting on god to give you some revelation in the clouds or knock on your door and say hey deliver you a letter and say hey this is what i want you to do hopefully you'll just start with what god has already told you to do and god will reveal more and more to you as you go forward in ministry so thank you for all the wisdom that you've poured into us and uh i don't i always normally always ask my guests how how can we get in touch with you but i think everybody knows it's the best way to get in touch with you is obviously going beyond dot com is that what it is or going beyond ministries.com it's going beyond.com that's ours okay awesome awesome so guys stay in touch with the showers pray for them um i don't know if they have i'm assuming they have support um opportunities on their website where you can financially support um i can tell you that we need it right i mean we we need that support so if god's laid on your heart please feel free to support i'm going to put links below the video to um i don't know if they can pre-order the book i'll find out later but if so i'll put that link there i'll also put links to her ministry as well instagram and all those different things and um so thank you so much priscilla for your time and uh god bless you and hopefully we'll be able to do this again i'm grateful thank you so much alan all right bye-bye everybody

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 112,094

Rating: 4.7469716 out of 5

Keywords: allen parr, priscilla shirer, priscilla shirer 2020, priscilla shirer 2021, priscilla shirer armor of god, priscilla shirer bible study, priscilla shirer conference, priscilla shirer elijah, priscilla shirer false teaching, priscilla shirer going beyond ministries, priscilla shirer hearing the voice of god, priscilla shirer inspiration, priscilla shirer jackie hill perry, priscilla shirer prayer, priscilla shirer sermons

Id: 61OgOpU7jZw

Length: 58min 50sec (3530 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021