It’s not about me November and I wanted to share with you a lesson I learned the hard way about evangelism and how it pushed my comfort zone, uncomfortably. In high school I went to visit my grandparents, who are believers in a different religion, the first chance my grandmother had she tried to take me to her church and get me to convert to that religion. I respectfully told her that I followed Jesus Christ and that I wasn’t interested in this other religion, she turned to me angrily and told me how disappointed my parents must be in me for following Christianity. It was a huge blow to my confidence in sharing my faith, especially with her. Several years later I felt more comfortable in evangelism and sharing my faith when meeting new people or sharing with friends, but the comfort zone ended at sharing my faith with my grandmother. I was getting ready to go on a mission trip in 2011 and I went to visit my grandparents again so I could see them before I left. My grandmother opened up opportunities where I could have shared why it is that I follow Jesus Christ but each time the opportunity came up I felt uncomfortable and afraid of her rejection or the possibility it could end up with her extremely mad at me and not wanting me to be part of the family anymore. When I drove out of their driveway I waved goodbye and drove home in tears because of how much my heart was breaking for my family who did not know, really know, who Jesus Christ was. I guess I thought another opportunity would come up in the future where I felt more comfortable, a perfect opportunity, but that opportunity would never come with my grandmother again. Three months later while I was on my mission trip I got an e-mail that my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. The amount of grief I had was immense. I grieved her leaving this world, but more I grieved that I did not take the opportunity to share the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ alone by faith with her. So this Not About Me November I wanted to challenge you that sharing your faith isn’t about you, it is about the person you are sharing your faith with and ultimately it's about Jesus' passion for them to know Him. They might not take it well, they might reject you, but in the light of eternity it is worth any amount of rejection or discomfort you may have. If you are like me and have family you love who are completely unopened to hearing about Jesus Christ I want you to know that I am praying for God to give you the perfect opportunities, words, and selflessness to share with them, and that their hearts may be opened to receive it. ![]() Check out the rest of the Not About Me November Series About Hope![]() Hope McCleary graduated from Mesa State College with a degree in Mass Communications. After graduating she spent two years working in local news at KKCO 11 News in Grand Junction, Co. She decided to give up her career in the media to share the message of Christ full-time. She joined full-time staff with Master Plan Ministries the summer of 2012 and got married to Forrest McCleary in September of 2012. Through her own personal ups and downs in college Hope has a heart for college women understand their worth as God’s daughters, to see them grow in their faith, to grow in the unique gifts God has given them, and to stand firm in their faith even with the pressures of the world all around them. Hope’s interests include world and local missions, photography, singing, playing guitar and writing music, reading, meeting new people, coffee, and hiking. Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
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During this series of 31 Days of Missional Living we are going to give you a few good links that help you live on mission from around the web. Check out the first 5 here. The second 5 here. And here's 5 more awesome links: 11. This free book from Verge Network talks all about missional communities. “Missional Communities (MCs) are a hot topic right now in the church, and many are excited about the potential of MCs to be a vehicle that allows the church to better live out its mission in the world. But if we embrace and implement MCs merely as a new program, they won’t live up to their potential” 12. Don't cancel that short term trip. “Books like Revolution in World Missions and When Helping Hurts have many youth pastors and church leaders ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater of short-term trips.” Read more… 13. The Gospel Project. We love the Gospel Project at our church. You might use it too.. But did you know there is an app now? It’s a great resource for families whose kids are in the Gospel Project. (if you want to bring Gospel Project to your church check it out here. 14. 8 Easy Ways to Be Missional. Living on Mission doesn’t have to be hard. Here are 8 easy ways to easily be missional. 15. Building a Missional Family. We love families that do the mission together. Here’s a free resource guide that might help you! Did you Benefit from this?
And we have a ton of other FREE stuff for you: Printables, Bible Studies, Videos, Book Recommendations, Giant List of Blog Hop/Link Ups and more. Spend some time exploring the site. About Angi![]() Angi loves Jesus, coffee, baseball and baking cakes. She is a missionary to college students and can't think of anything she'd rather do to serve God. Angi first met the Lord while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa but really understood His love and grace as a freshman in college. Her heart is to invest in college students in the same way that many others invested in her. You can find her blogging over at Stuff Angi Does where she tells stories about Jesus, college students, and life. You can also find her on facebook, twitter, pintrest and instagram. Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
Sharing this article over at these awesome blogs During this series of 31 Days of Missional Living we are going to give you a few good links that help you live on mission from around the web. Check out the first 5 here. 6. 11 simple ways to Disciple your kids on Mission. My favorite idea is how Seth McBee talks about redeeming everyday things like Phineas and Ferb. This is a something even we adults need to do. 7. This free guide from Verge Network has TONS of helpful and practical tips to living a life on mission. 8. A great article about how single moms can still remain connected to the mission. 9. Operation World totes itself as the definitive prayer guide for the nations. It has a thorough list of the countries in the world and their highest prayer needs 10. John Piper, Matt Chandler, and David Platt discuss the trendy, vital, and often blurry topic of social justice. Did you Benefit from this?
And we have a ton of other FREE stuff for you: Printables, Bible Studies, Videos, Book Recommendations, Giant List of Blog Hop/Link Ups and more. Spend some time exploring the site. About Angi![]() Angi loves Jesus, coffee, baseball and baking cakes. She is a missionary to college students and can't think of anything she'd rather do to serve God. Angi first met the Lord while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa but really understood His love and grace as a freshman in college. Her heart is to invest in college students in the same way that many others invested in her. You can find her blogging over at Stuff Angi Does where she tells stories about Jesus, college students, and life. You can also find her on facebook, twitter, pintrest and instagram. Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
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Have you ever heard the phrase, "Christians are the only ones who shoot their wounded"? If we were sitting down over a cup of coffee, I would love to know you're thoughts about that comment.
I had a great conversation with a friend the other day about how to respond to comments said about other believers. My friend was in a spiritual conversation with a girl who was describing her experience with Christians. The girl said a pastor had told her she was "the spawn of satan". Everything in us wants to jump to the girls defense and bash that pastor who would say that. It's also common to hear Christians and non-Christians alike talk bad about the general "other Christians", lumping every Christian into a category of judgmental, legalistic, cheesy, dorky... etc. It's easy to passively nod in agreement about those "other" Christians being so ______. But... Didn't Jesus say people would know He was God by our love for one another? He didn't say the non-believer would know Jesus was God by our taking their side and joining them in pointing the finger at the Christians they came in contact with. Rather, people will know Jesus is God by our love, our unselfishly choosing for another's highest good, of other believers, even believers we don't know, even believers we don't agree with or necessarily relate with all that much. How beautiful it would be to see bashing and belittling Jesus' bride come to an end. Here are 4 practical ways to deal with criticism from believers.
1. Pray for them. There was a time I was unjustly criticized and I got angry. I was so angry I just stormed off and neglected my responsibilities and went to vent to God about the person. I started praying for them things like, “God, you show them what you think!” “Show them how wrong they are… convict them!” But gently the Lord spoke to me to really pray for them, to pray the hardest things for me to pray and pray for their best interest. I didn’t want to pray for their good, I wanted God to get em! But eventually I did, not because I felt like it, but out of obedience. As I kept praying for this person and for God to give them an incredible ministry someday and other super hard things for me to pray, a crazy thing happened. My heart softened. The anger subsided and I was able to forgive them, even when the person didn’t ask for it. The next week this person said they were sorry making me the first person they had ever said sorry to in their entire life.
2. Sort out good and bad. Dr. Henry Cloud wrote a great book called Changes that Heal that describes this really well. Basically it says we have a tendency to think in terms of all good or all bad. If we like something or someone we lean toward thinking it (or they) are all good and can do no wrong. Or if we don’t like something we tend to think nothing good could come from it. When we receive criticism we need to process with the Lord what’s good and true about what is being said and be able to separate that from what is not true. 3. Clarify and Communicate. When we (or others) are criticized we need to communicate in a healthy way about the issue. We need to share what we heard (or think we heard), what we felt and thought about it, our desires and then also share what we’d like to see happen in the future. Here’s a great tool to help with this process. It is also very helpful to ask questions and reword what you think someone is saying to help clarify what you think someone is saying because the majority of conflicts are a result of miscommunication. 4. Remember what’s true about you and “them”. We fail, and if you're anything like me, it's easy to demand mercy for my mistakes yet justice and wrath for others, forgetting that Jesus died for their mistakes too. When another believer messes up, our knee jerk reaction is to point the finger and accuse. But here's the reality (ital. mine), "Once you [and they] were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your [and their] evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you [them] by Christ's physical body through death to present you [them] holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." Col. 1:21-22 The more we understand our true identity in Christ, we should understand that same identity as given to other believers in Christ as well. About Laura![]()
Laura, the creator and host of Missional Women is married and has four kids, two of whom are adopted. Laura and her husband have been missionaries to college students for 11 years serving with Master Plan Ministries. Laura is the Staff Women's Development Coordinator and has discipled over 150 girls, led over 30 Bible studies and speaks 10-20 times a year. Laura is an award winning author of a 12 week Bible Study on First Samuel, Beholding Him, Becoming Missional, recently released Reach; How to Use Your Social Media Influence for the Glory of God, and A Devotional Journey through Judges, a devotional to accompany the free online Bible study at TheBookofJudges.com. You can find her on facebook,twitter, pinterest, youtube, instagram and her author site.
Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
Sharing this article over at these awesome blogs 1. Helpful diagram that explains the balance between spending time with God, spending time in fellowship, and spending time reaching others 2. This article from our friend Rosalind gives 10 totally do-able ideas on how to do missions with out leaving the country 3. This awesome free e-book from John Piper talks about how we were made for something such as missions. Here’s an excerpt: ““‘Holy ambition’ means something you really want to do that God wants you to do. Something you want to do so much that doing it keeps you from doing other things that you also really like to do” (p. 17).” 4. Joshua Project is a great website that list each country’s people groups in need of the gospel. This is a great tool to pray for the nations! 5. One of our favorite mission-minded books. The Unexpected Adventure. ![]() Read more of the 31 Days of Missional Living. ![]() If so, we have a FREE book for you! All of this and more is in our brand new book, Missional Life; A Practical Guide to Living in Light of Eternity. Sign up here. And we have a ton of other FREE stuff for you: Printables, Bible Studies, Videos, Book Recommendations, Giant List of Blog Hop/Link Ups and more. Spend some time exploring the site. Ever feel like you are on a rollercoaster? Climbing higher during sermons on Sundays, and then crashing into the pit of bland Christianity, sometime around Monday morning? Sometimes our faith can feel like a temporary high, with feel-good emotions, yet be void of the substance that keeps us going Monday mornings. Like a sugar rush, crashing when difficult things happen, laundry stacks, or exams challenge our intellect. Could it be that true faith requires daily nutrients, constant care, and intentional feeding? So, how do you stay unswervingly faith-filled, when (let’s face it) we can all be painfully busy? How do you prevent faith from crashing when you are at the water cooler Monday morning, at home refereeing screaming children, or are required to study or work in an atmosphere that is anything but holy? Even busy woman don’t have to let their faith starve, their Christianity crash like a fast going rollercoaster ride going downward. Thankfully, through technology and our ability to access encouragement at our fingertips, our faith can daily grow stronger, although the world can pull at us, and time can be a commodity we just don’t have enough of. Although caring for our spiritual health can take a little conscious planning and intentionality, there are strategies that can keep you going throughout the week: 1. Care for body, mind, and spirit simultaneously. Often we can compartmentalize our lives, but what if we merged exercise with challenging our minds and our strengthening our spirits? Try walking, running, or going to the gym, while listening to worship music, a downloaded sermon, or an audible version of the Bible. 2. Utilize the time doing chores, errands, and daily duties. Often while doing daily, mundane tasks, our minds can drift, and we can spiritually crash. But, what if we listened to worship music, sermons, the Bible audibly or even prayed over each person or task we were doing instead. How might our perspective change? How might our “ho hum” mentality driving us into a pit of distain, turn to a spirit of gratitude and praise instead? What if we read the Bible to our kids, had worship music playing while cooking dinner, or went to bed marinating on faith-filled books on c.d. instead of plunking in front of the t.v. each night? Wouldn’t we be closer to God at the end of the day? 3. Let the car be your sanctuary. It can be so easy to get “stuck” thinking we can just praise, pray, or get close to God at church. But scripture tells us, we are the temple of the living God. Some of the best prayer times can be during our commute or while picking up kids from sports or school. Try audibly praying, worshipping, or spending commute time listening to faith-filled books, the Bible, or Christian books from our iPods or c.d.s. 4. Get Scripture texts or tweets. Go online and request scripture be sent to your phone or e-mail daily as texts or tweets. You will be amazed at how God will use these to speak to you daily. 5. Grab some earphones. There are many excellent, encouraging, and Biblical e-books. Grab some earphones and download the application to audibly listen to some good teaching while you work, run errands, or just plain relax at the end of the day. 6. Serve. You might be surprised at the benefits in service. Teaching your child’s Sunday School class, reading kids the Bible, or choosing a Christian non-profit to do service hours or internship at can ignite the flame of faith inside you. We often most grow our faith, become sanctified, and connect with Christ, not when we are “getting” but when we are giving our lives away. Resources: Free Sermons Downloaded Online. www.oneplace.com/downloads/ or www.sermonsaudio.com/main.asp Free Christian Radio Online. www.jango.com or www.pandora.com Free Bible Verse Tweets. https://twitter.com/Daily_Bible Free Daily Bible Verses for Phone. http://bible2mobile.com/ Bible Online for the Hearing Impaired. http://www.bible.is/deaf Audible Bible in 746 Languages. http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/ Free audio Bible. http://spiritlessons.com/bible/ Free Christian Downloadable E-books. http://www.globalchristians.org/ebooks/ or http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/cms_content?page=928515&sp=110934 About Jen![]() Though born, raised, and still living only miles from where she grew up, Jen's heart lies in the nations. Jen loves the beautiful tapestry found in the wide diversity of people, different cultures, and all nations. Jen and her husband have been married twenty years, and have parented fifteen kids and counting; twelve foster, one adopted, and two bios. Her multi-racial family reflects her passion for unity, desire for faith without walls, and missional mindset to share both the gospel and the power of redemption to a world desperately needing the hope found in Jesus Christ. Jen and her husband have led in a variety of ministries; including prayer, small groups, children's, and women’s. Jen advocates for the orphan as a board member for the non-profit, A New Song; and loves doing missions work internationally, along with her family. You can find Jen writing about faith, while challenging her readers at her blog, Rich Faith Rising, as well as at tweeting faith-filled messages @Jen_Avellaneda . Jen is also on facebook. Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
Sharing this article over at these awesome blogs “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”
My friend, quoting from Ephesians 2:10, explained that the Greek word for “masterpiece” was related to our word for “poem.” It touched my heart that God was making my life into a beautiful poem. I decided I wanted to know the “good things” God had planned for me from even before I was born (Psalm 139: 13 – 18), so I spent the next two weeks focusing solely on this passage in Ephesians. Prayerfully, I sought God’s direction for my life. He gave me two themes, Creation and technology. Within days of this revelation, I had two opportunities which fit both. Over a decade later, I’m still blogging about both subjects and also consulting and training about how to use technology for ministry. I “started small” as a homeschooling mom and am doing more now as an empty-nester. The friendliness of a church can make or break it for visitors.
After a recent move, my family and I visited a few nearby churches. Some excelled at being friendly; others failed miserably. When we visited a mega church, no one greeted us at our arrival. When we stopped by the welcome desk to present ourselves as guests, no one offered to help us navigate their large campus or direct us to the service. After worship, no one spoke to us at their coffee and donut reception. Everyone remained huddled in separate circles. They looked happy enough, but they weren’t friendly. Because we didn’t make any connections that day, we didn’t return. I hope that first-time guests to my current church want to return because they’ve made connections with others, and most importantly THE Person that life is all about. I hope guests feel wanted, like they belong, and that they have space to serve. And while I realize that ‘church’ is what you make it, there are a few things I can do as a church member to ensure guests get the right impression about our community of faith. Think of any woman in the Bible: Eve, Ruth, Esther, Bathsheba, Mary, Martha, and others. These woman are pillars in the Bible. Strong examples of spiritual lessons, both difficult and sweet. The only thing that troubles me regarding their stories, and what I wish for them is this: That they experienced the rare gift of an influential and invested discipler. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2:3-5 I am so thankful that each book in the Bible is sprinkled with strong, open, influential women. My question lately has in my quiet time has been, "Lord, how would the presence of an invested, Jesus-loving older woman have ministered to their circumstances and heart-needs?" I can only guess how discipleship might have influenced or changed these women fingerprints in history. But as I reflect on their stories of faith and risk, sin and heartache; I'm pushed to believe a spiritual mentor would have been a priceless gift to each. Which should remind us of what an exciting time we get to live in! Not only can we ask an older woman in our life to disciple us, we can also gain wisdom from these female leaders in scripture. Let's learn today from the women of the Bible. There may not be recorded instances of discipleship in their lives but we can devour scripture to learn their lessons. We have an opportunity to learn alongside a trusted, Jesus-following mentor who can pull apart their stories with us and gently nudge us to the foot of the Cross. Prayerfully consider how the Lord might be leading you to the most precious gift of a spiritual discipler. Because the female giants of the Bible, probably would have given anything to be gifted with such a resource themselves. Let's not waste a moment more without guidance: ask God to faithfully provide for you today what so many others could have only dreamt of receiving. Read this post to learn about finding your own spiritual mentor. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:15-16 About Carly![]() Carly is a husband-swooning, health-inspired, simplicity-loving, Jesus-follower. She and her hunky husband Ryan adventure wherever the Lord takes them and most recently that has been into the often scary world of chronic illness. Connect with Carly on her personal blog,Pinterest and at Reaching For Fringe, a resource for chronic illness and marriage. Very nice to meet you! Want to read more from this contributor? Put her name in the search box at the top.
Sharing this article over at these awesome blogs One of my all time favorite things to talk about is the period when I lived in Europe. For 2 1/2 years, my husband and I lived in the Netherlands on the dime of the United States Air Force. We were young, wild and free, with minimal responsibilities outside of work and grad school. This freedom allowed us to travel to a new country at least once a month. It has been a decade since we made our first flight across the pond. And, while I have traveled to many stateside locales since leaving Europe, few experiences compare to tasting crepes for the first time in Paris or gazing upon Michealangelo's David in Florence.
Much has changed since my ex-pat days. I'm now the mother of three crazy boys. I live in the suburbs of Seattle. If I'm lucky, I might travel outside of Washington once a year. My days are spent mostly chauffeuring little boys to soccer practice, making a Costco run, or sorting laundry. In comparison to my days in Europe, that all sounds so B-O-R-I-N-G. |
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