At the recent Pastors' Conference in the Twin Cities, it was an opportunity to think about pastoring and evangelism. Pastor John, how can pastors think and live more evangelistically? There's probably no pastor who's satisfied with his own life of personal witness concerning Christ. We are public figures who preach sermons and lead meetings and do devotions, and we are as slow as anybody probably to be out among unbelievers, maybe even slower because our job tends to surround us with believers.

And so Darren Patrick was urging pastors to seek to move beyond that private circle of believers. And he just gave one example, there's nothing new about this, it wasn't even original with him, he was quoting somebody else, but it was refreshing to me again. Made a difference yesterday, even as I walked into Precision Tune, with my oil chains.

Darren said, "When you walk from one room to another, it might be from the kitchen to the living room, it might be from the sidewalk into Starbucks, it might be from one aisle over another aisle in Target," he said, "ask the question, 'What is God doing here?'" Which simply, for me, I mean there are a lot of ways to take that.

It's based on John, I think, 519, where Jesus says, "I only do what I see the Father doing." But what it says to me is, I want to be a person who walks in the awareness of God's activity. And my goodness, even as a pastor, I can slip out of that.

I can enter my day, I can go get my oil changed, I can eat at McDonald's, and I wake up two hours later and realize I've not had any consciousness of God or of God's activity. Well, if I'm walking in obliviousness to God's activity in the world, how am I going to interact with people at a God level, where He might be preparing them for some word from me or from some action from me?

So I was so helped by just the simple statement, "Be aware of God as you move from one part of your day to another. Ask God, 'What are you doing here? How might I join with you in your saving, helping purposes?'" And then just enjoy the ride as He leads us.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Send your questions to us via email at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Please include your first name and your hometown. Find thousands of other free resources online from JohnPiper@DesiringGod.org. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.