My life is shattered. My past is embarrassing. My friends don’t know I am here. I am broken. I am ashamed. I am invisible. I am tired. I am confused. I don’t trust this place. I don’t know why I am here. I don’t belong here. What if they see the real me? What if […]
Archives for 2016
Is Competition in Ministry Bad?
Deep within is the need to compete. God designed us with a drive to accomplish. Before God created the heavens and the earth, Satan displayed his competitive spirit to a fault. Satan’s beauty, splendor and position as the archangel became his focus, which soon led to his demise. He burned with a desire to take […]
Prison Ministry: Preparing Your Heart & Your Team
My heart raced and palms grew sweaty listening to the elderly preacher recount his escapades behind the Iron Curtain in communist Russia in the late 1950s. “The crowd clamored around me, begging me to teach them the Word of God. All I could picture was my young wife across town waiting for me to return […]
3 Reasons You Should Consider Coffee Shop Bible Study
I wonder what people think as we hold hands and pray. Tears drop onto the small table, coffee steaming nearby, a half-eaten cinnamon roll on a plate. I don’t even like coffee, but I love what I find in this simple half-hour “coffee shop study” with friends. Life is busy. That’s almost cliché, except it’s […]
Resources for Leading Coffee Shop Bible Studies
For the last few months, I’d been asking God how to reach women more effectively and how to expand that reach, especially in small groups. As I visited with women’s ministries leaders, they shared the same desire. Though churches offer a variety of gatherings throughout the year, Bible studies offer a unique set of struggles. […]
Can Our Strengths Be Damaging?
God didn’t create women to be doormats, weak-willed airheads and pathetic losers. God created women to be iron-sharpening friends, creative life-givers and inspiring influencers. He created us to bring Him glory with our strengths. But, if we’re not careful, we can be destructively fierce instead of life-giving and inspiring — especially in our closest relationships. […]
5 Questions to Help Adults Conquer Their Fear of the Future
A college senior sat in my office, ghost pale and trembling. She looked at me through eyes swollen from lack of sleep and crying and asked, “What’s going to happen to me? I’m just so afraid of the future. What am I supposed to do?” In my roles as a college instructor and as campus […]
What to Do When They Ask You to Speak
Hey Wendy, you lead our women’s ministry. You lead Bible study. You are a perfect fit! “For what?,” I asked. We need a speaker to share a short message for our next women’s event. Can you put together a quick twenty-minute message for next Thursday?” Gulp! Yes, I can lead. I can pray. I can […]
How to Be a Fierce Leader Without Damaging Relationships
He coldly articulated what I’d suspected, but now knew to be true, “I don’t love you.” Outwardly, a long silence followed my husband’s crisply delivered words. What was there to say or add to his announcement? We’d only been married five years. I looked at the beautiful result of a wildly romantic night in Wichita […]
Do You Have Confidence to Obey God’s Call?
What traits do you look for in a leader? For many, leadership means having a certain strength, gravitas or personal charisma — a leader energizes a room by just walking into it. But how often do we think of humility as essential to leadership? In its most basic definition, humility is recognizing who we are […]
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