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Nicole C. Mullen on Multi-Faceted Faithfulness
Last month Nicole C. Mullen sang and signed “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” along with selections from her new album, “War Songs” (based on Psalm 91), at the EPA Christian media convention in Lexington. Afterward, she sat down to talk with me about longevity and the varied faces of faithfulness. Mullen’s grandparents had “sixty-plus-year marriages on both sides of the family,” she said. Her grandfather on her dad’s side “pastored and worked for the phone company for thirty-six years.” Her parents were married for “fifty-four years, five months, and fourteen days” before the death of her father. The latter “also worked for same phone company for thirty-eight years.” And…
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Living Out of the Heart Jesus Won for Us
The guests are gone, the good dishes are stored, the decorations are removed, and the Easter story is put away. Wait a minute! The Easter story is not meant to be put away but to be lived year-round! It is so easy to celebrate Easter according to the calendar but neglect to live by the transformational truths every day of our lives. We each have a debt of death to pay to God for our sins, but Christ’s death on the cross cancelled our debt (Rom 6:23; Col 2:13-14). Christ intensely suffered physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in His excruciating death on the cross (in our place). He became sin…
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It Is Okay to Be Ordinary
Is it okay to not make a splash by doing something recognizably great that leads to acclaim and social media notoriety? Why is there so much pressure on girls and women today to be powerful, to start and lead a cause, or to stand out above everyone around them by their success? Are you letting yourself down if you are just an ordinary woman letting God be the one who is extraordinary? Is it okay to be ordinary? That is what we will explore in this post. Not Accomplishing Anything? Several years ago, I read an Engage blog by Tiffany Stein called “Next Steps.” Tiffany wrote about the pressure she…
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Living without a Guarantee
Some of our most important work and most difficult suffering does not come with a guarantee of success...
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IF WE TALK THE TALK, LET’S WALK THE WALK!
If we talk the talk, we need to walk the walk!
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New Year: Looking Back and Forward Through the Lens of Struggle
It’s easy to look back at the previous year through the lens of struggle—to look only at the difficulties, the disappointments, the dark places—and then jump to inappropriate conclusions. My husband and I have had more than our fair share of “hard” the over the last year with tough ministry decisions, medical treatments for our son, and the loss of loved ones. Friends have faced equal if not greater challenges as well. The list of those struggling is endless. Thus I’ve been pondering on the struggle and the hard lately, but not in the way you might think. For churchgoers who think the Christian ideal is “health, wealth, and happiness,”…
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Hearing Well and Being Heard Well
Everyone wants to be heard well, but are we as willing to hear others well? In order to understand ourselves and others, different ways to categorize people have emerged over the years such as Myers & Briggs, DISC, and Enneagram. I recently read about another way to categorize people in a book dealing with how we communicate, 5 Voices: How to Communicate Effectively with Everyone You Lead.[1] The book describes 5 different voices with which people communicate—the Pioneer, Creative, Connector, Guardian, and Nurturer. Each voice (think communication style when I use the word voice) has positive inclinations and negative tendencies. In analyzing the book through a biblical worldview, I discovered…
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WHAT GOOD IS THE GOSPEL?
The Gospel is the message we need to hear to be saved. It is also the message we need to hear in order to live out the confession of our faith.
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Theology of Self-Care
Once again, I’m thankful to have Victoria Monet guest blogging for me. Victoria is from Georgetown, Texas. She loves her husband, son, dog, and impacting others’ everyday theology through creative writing and teaching. She writes poetry and topical articles on her blog “Theology Reflected.” *** Is self-care selfish or unspiritual? Some churches and Christian circles say “yes.” And while today’s popular self-care strategies may have a bent toward self-serving interests, a biblical perspective of self-care is holistic, worshipful, and others-centered. Self-Care Involves All Aspects of Ourselves God designed us as complex, whole persons (Ps. 139:13–16). We do not—like a computer or machine—consist of parts, but encompass spiritual, physical, mental, emotional,…
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Resolve to Remember
From New Zealand to New York City, the world celebrated the beginning of not only a new year, but a new decade on January 1, 2020. Something exciting stirs within us at the prospect of something new. We are drawn to the fresh start and clean slate it provides. Whether the first page of a new journal, the fragrance of a new car, the butterflies of a new relationship, the opening chapter of a new book, or the scent of a new baby, “new” evokes a feeling of hope. We seek to make the most of our new opportunities, whether big or small, and begin to reflect on what’s to…
