MERGE Story
Lakeshia Lenard
“Living Her Calling in Every Environment”
Nurse | Businesswoman | Music Teacher | Ministry Leader | Mentor
Lakeshia Lenard beautifully embodies the mission of MERGE as ministry in the marketplace. Her life demonstrates what it means to merge power with purpose!
During a recent hospital stay with my mother, Author Elizabeth Motes, I met Lakeshia while she was serving as her nurse. Almost immediately, I recognized the presence of God in her. Her compassion, professionalism, and spirit of service revealed that nursing was more than a career, it was also her ministry in real time.
The Interview
MERGE: How do you balance your medical career, ministry, music, and business simultaneously?
Lakeshia’s answer was simple:
“I don’t separate them. I do not have a ministry life and a professional life. I have one life, and every part of my life belongs to God.”
Whether she is caring for patients, teaching music, leading a choir, mentoring others, serving in ministry, or assisting healthcare organizations through her consulting company, A New Perspective, LLC, Lakeshia sees every environment as an opportunity to serve God and impact people.
MERGE: What does ministry look like outside the church?
For Lakeshia, ministry is not confined to a pulpit or church building. Sometimes ministry looks like praying with someone before a medical procedure. Sometimes it means encouraging an employee, leading with integrity, helping an organization better serve its patients, or reminding a choir member that worship is more than singing, it is a lifestyle.
MERGE: What principles guide your career, business, and ministry?
Lakeshia’s work is grounded in four principles:
Servant leadership. Excellence. Compassion. Integrity.
She believes God cares not only about what we accomplish, but also about how we lead, serve, and treat people.
Three Lessons From Lakeshia’s Journey:
- Submit to the Assignment
Do not compare your calling to someone else’s. God has uniquely equipped you for the work He has prepared for you. Faithfulness is more important than recognition.
- Serve With Excellence
Whether you are in a hospital, church, classroom, boardroom, or business, excellence honors God. People may forget what you said, but they will remember how you served them.
- Let Your Faith Remain Consistent
The character, compassion, humility, and integrity displayed on Sunday should still be evident on Monday morning. The marketplace is one of our greatest mission fields.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Colossians 3:17, NIV
Lakeshia’s profession provides a platform, but her purpose is to represent Christ wherever He sends her. Whether she is wearing scrubs, standing before a choir, teaching music, leading a meeting, or serving a client, her mission remains the same: To honor Christ in all that she does. Purpose is not something Lakeshia puts on when she enters the church. Purpose is who she is, and she carries it into every room God allows her to enter.
This is how we MERGE!
MERGE Story is a featured interview by Sherri D. Motes Jones, Co-Founder of Motes Jones & Company, who works with people to discover, develop, and implement their stories, businesses, and artistry through:
Music. Media. Management. Ministry.
MERGE is a ministry of Motes Jones & Company.