My discomfort comes from the fact that the entirety of my life is suddenly in transition: family life, home, ministry, and work have all abruptly shifted.

If you’re following my life these days, you’ll know that I’ve been interviewing for an in-person job since I’ve been working remotely or hybrid for the past 10 years. My husband and I sold our house very quickly, landing us in a rental home. And my children are now young adults, so our nest is part-time at best. Nothing feels, well, comfortable.

And while we are now very flexible due to the house sale, the uncertainty has grown as well. It’s like arriving at a stoplight and all of the colors turn on. If all the answers say “yes,” decisions become harder instead of easier.

Transition stages are completely uncomfortable. While I’m convinced I’m supposed to wait for the “yes,” I’m constantly tempted to capitulate with the mediocre.

2 Corinthians 4 gives wise counsel to those of us in a transition stage: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are… perplexed, but not driven to despair… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” “Perplexed” describes me perfectly right now. And yet, my perplexity lives in the same space as my trust that God will guide me with the next step forward.

Living in this space with both trust and perplexity is hard. But I’ve learned that God wants to shoulder the burden of making it easier. I’ve begun praying that He sends encouragement every day. Here’s how I see Him doing that:

1. Gifting me with beauty. As a visual person, I get discouraged when my environment is dirty and chaotic. With road construction in the front of our rental, and flooding in the back, I’ve had both issues. I found an area coffeehouse today with climbing clematises on its wall, and that brought comfort.

2. Hearing from friends. The offer of a listening ear is sometimes all I need, or a text saying that I came to mind and someone is praying for me. Some people offer a work connection for employment, and that helps me to be encouraged too.

3. Realizing this time is short. Even though right now it feels infinite, I have the sense it won’t last forever. I have time to consider what comes next, and I have time to write. I’ve made the resolution that I won’t choose the immediate opportunity. I’ll wait until God says “yes.”

2 Corinthians 4 ends the chapter with these words: “So we do not lose heart…. We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (16, 18).

Somehow my perseverance will pay off as I consider different employment and ministry opportunities. Despite the uncertainty, I know that I am right where God wants me to be: perplexed, trusting, and flexible.

Reader, what about you? Is there an area in your life where you too are perplexed? Let me challenge you today to lean into it despite the discomfort. Ask the Lord to encourage you in the process and to show you the next step forward.

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So much for research.

Have I mentioned that I’m looking for in-person employment after working remotely for a decade? I thought it would be great if my job search culminated at the same time we sold the house. God had other plans in mind, which is obvious now.

I’m reminded of Noah building a boat for decades. I’m relating to the incredulous questions (“Hey Noah, what’s that for? Oh really? Why in the Sam Hill….”) and to my own lack of faith. My temptation these days is to doubt the Spirit’s guidance and my own inability to accurately understand it. I’m working through it, but the pressure is real.

All that is to say, my posting these days has been spotty. I’ll get back to Substack. But it may be after closing!

Have you been in the same place, between discerning God’s direction, taking action, and then waiting? If so, leave a comment. I’d love to hear how it turned out for you and what you learned from the process. Let’s encourage each other with our stories.

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Just the other day, I was listening to it but starting to drift when the announcer said something that made me tune back in:

“When you get furious, get curious.”

It was definitely catchy. But it gave a route for the rage that I see generated these days without productive pathways for change.

What makes you furious? Maybe you’re like me in that I get heated about church leadership abuse. Just yesterday, the Christian Post released an article about California megachurch Bethel Church, in which the church confirmed “that it no longer platforms or endorses several prominent ministry figures” who have been accused of abuse. Instead, they said that their model needed reform.

Bethel is taking the high road by accepting responsibility and creating policy change. Hopefully these changes will eventually create a culture change for the church. Yet if it does not, and leadership continues to hide wrongdoing, Jesus shows us that it is better that the church is destroyed. He doesn’t mince words with the church of Laodicea, which He accuses of being useless, proud, and lukewarm: “I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). He softens the blow by reminding the church, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (v. 19).

That idea of destruction seems unnecessarily harsh. And yet, from being in churches with passive leaders who allow spiritual wolves to influence and infect, I can tell you that the opposite is worse. Allowing leaders engaged in pride, lifestyle sins, and unrepentance to influence your church is far, far worse.

Going back to HBR IdeaCast, one of the reasons I like it is that I get hyped up about the cross-pollination of ideas. Think about what happens when a bee takes pollen from numerous sources to make honey. When you take one idea that works in one sector to another, occasionally it bombs. But more often, it brings illumination to inform future vision.

As one example, take the economic theory of creative destruction from Joseph Schumpeter. He was an Austrian economist before World War II and emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Harvard. His main contributions were in innovation, entrepreneurship, and capitalism.

Creative destruction works like a cycle, starting with an innovative idea. A new product or organization is begun, leading to market disruption. In the Bethel situation, people leave one church and join the new one. Additional people may leave their churches because they are attracted to the new one. New believers arise as God blesses the new community through His Word.

A new model of ministry arises to meet cultural needs. Older models die, and through this process other churches close. Resources in the form of tithing and people join the new church. Eventually, however, if new models of “doing church” are not formed, the once innovative and “new” church becomes old and obsolete as the culture around it changes.

Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction provides a framework in thinking about church redevelopment, like at Bethel, which began in the 1950s. Churches begin in a cultural moment and reach a certain audience. As the culture changes, the church needs to address those changes proactively in order to continue to reach their audience. A model that worked decades ago, with less sexual temptation for high-profile pastors, will not work now. Church governance with significant oversight and procedures is much more important than it used to be in the 1950s.

So how should we respond to cultural change and what it means for the Church? Cultural changes in the U.S. create new opportunities as much as form new threats for the broader American church today. When we see churches responding with wisdom, humility, and flexibility, and not fear and passivity, let’s cheer them on. It’s not easy for a large organization, like Bethel, to retract and retrench with new policies and people. As their sisters and brothers in the faith, we are called to pray for them and to respond with hope that they can make these changes stick.

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Questions for discussion:

1. How do you respond to news about churches going through public struggles?

2. How does Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction give you hope for church changes and new church plants?

Here I discuss two situations of late where I had long conversations with a native tribal leader from Wisconsin and a Muslim woman from India. (Names of both people are changed.)

The material I’m working through from Novo on spiritual authority contains these points:

1. Pray your identity in Christ as a priest who rightfully can intercede for others. Verbalize what Christ’s sacrifice did for you in covering your sins, indicate that you have the authority to bind the enemy in people’s lives, and then bless people according to the discernment that the Spirit shares with you. These measures focus on speaking out truth.

2. Pray through the armor of God from Ephesians 6. I want people to see my conversation as infused with grace, kindness, and truth. Mostly, I pray that I don’t get in the way! I want people to encounter Christ, not me. These measures focus on repelling deception.

   

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

I had settled into my window seat on the flight back home, glad to have some reading time. Opening my book, I hadn’t gotten in more than a couple of pages before the man beside me asked me about my reading. It was a biography that clearly was from a Christian perspective. I told him a few details about it to see if he would take the conversation further. He did.

My prayers in this instance were nothing more than a breath prayer amounting to this: “Lord, if you want me to have this conversation instead of reading, I will go where you lead.”

Daniel told me about growing up in a tribal community and the difficulties of advocating for it as one of its current leaders. We talked about the importance of effective lobbying since he was seeking funding. But mostly we spoke about belief.

Daniel’s belief system was very different from mine. He practiced ancestor worship, fasting in nature, and belief in visions that provided direction for him. I asked him about prayer. “When you pray, who do you pray to?” His answer was illuminating. He prayed to his ancestors’ spirits. Sometimes he prayed to AI by putting concerns in the search field. Once he went to a Christian church.

I asked him what he thought about Jesus’s statement that He was the way, the truth, and the life. Daniel said that he tries to worship him too. Jesus seemed to be a part of his pantheon of gods. Just like he turned to AI due to its quick response time, Jesus and the ancestor spirits could be rotated for effectiveness just like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

While Daniel’s list of spiritual authorities was long and growing, Aisha’s perspective as a Muslim was the opposite. I visited her mosque with her and a Christian friend during an open house where the imam invites members of the community to visit. The mosque had members of different sects of Islam who were from Morocco, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. They had table displays of food and cultural items from those countries and served us a wonderful meal. It was truly a hospitable experience.

Aisha and I explored a couple of the differences between Islam and Christianity. I explained about how the Quran uses the same Biblical stories but changes the details so that they point to Ishmael being the chosen one instead of Isaac. Ishmael, not Isaac, is almost sacrificed on the altar by his father Abraham, and then Ishmael is rescued in a miracle.

While she struggled in conversing about the details, she knew about the main difference: “Islam and Christianity are related but Islam states that God is one. Jesus is revered as a prophet but He is not the Son of God.” A trinitarian God is abhorrent to Muslims who refuse the idea of the one God in three parts. For other details, she referred me to speak with the imam and to read the Quran myself.

It takes a lot of courage these days to talk openly with someone of another faith. You can face belligerence and ignorance, both of which halt conversation. In these situations I mentioned, I dialogued for two hours or more with both Daniel and Aisha, and they were articulate, interested, and respectful. But it is also likely that they could have been the opposite and shut down the conversation before it even started. I’m grateful for their courage, humility, and desire to understand my perspective.

I went into these situations very differently but sensed God’s power in both situations. I was reluctant to start a conversation on the flight but realized that God had created that opportunity. I had not prayed about it specifically ahead of time. The mosque was completely the opposite; I had planned for it, prayed for the time with my Christian friend, discussed it ahead of time with my pastor, and sought to have a clean heart before God and others. I would not have wanted to walk into the mosque without this level of preparation.

Pride leads to deception, and I don’t think anyone is immune to being deceived. In fact, those who are proud are more likely to be blindsided. God’s power is released in our spirits when we are surrendered to Christ being Lord of our lives and open to the ways that He uses us to guide others to Him. I sensed God’s power in both situations with Daniel and Aisha as He gave me the ears to listen and the words to speak.

Do you feel prepared to have conversations like this that are mutually respectful and kind? Have you had conversations like this where you sensed that God was directing the conversation?

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“That was you.” If such a statement is said about you, it could be a very good thing. Or it may not be, right? The context is essential. So let me tell you about the situation I was in when someone told me that.

Two years ago, I was in Pereira, Colombia, for a short-term missions trip to train women at two different churches. Our team bonded strongly with women with one of the churches, which arranged for a trip at a coffee plantation, high in the mountains above Pereira.

One of the women from the church, Victoria, impressed me with her youthful and vibrant appearance. She was a beautiful and confident businesswoman. But at the coffee plantation, as we looked out at the purple mountain chain and the coffee bushes below, she revealed more of her life. Through an interpreter, I realized that her family weighed heavily on her heart. Among other concerns, her husband was ill, and his disease could be fatal.

She told me, “I had a vivid dream in the night before we came here. A very strong White woman carried me in her arms into the church. Only there could I find peace.”

She paused and said matter-of-factly, “I believe that woman was you.”

This moment stunned me. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. It was an unusually beautiful but awkward moment that I knew was important, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it. And, to be truthful, I mentally filed it away.

Over the past two years, I suffered my own losses. My only sibling, my brother, passed away from brain cancer after my Colombia trip. Right after that, my husband grew ill as well and was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. I didn’t feel like that strong woman. I felt the opposite—weak, bewildered, scared.

But now I realize the opposite is true: I am that strong woman. I claim that identity now. I bring other women to the Lord so they can find rest for their souls.

Today, I read J. Robert Clinton’s words about experiencing God’s supernatural power. He said this about power in Experiencing God’s Power in Life and Ministry:

This kind of power “typically involves needing and seeking more of God’s power in ministry through one’s spiritual gifts. Almost always the breakthrough to embrace this paradigm comes with some unusual validating experience.”

My spiritual gifts are in discernment and teaching, but I hadn’t thought before about the need to embrace God’s power in them. During this “unusual validating experience” at the coffee plantation in Colombia, Victoria was not the kind of person to lightly tell a stranger about a personal dream. She certainly would not have called out a stranger in such an unusual way. I believe that she told me about the dream and its interpretation-- not for that time two years ago, but for now.

Does this “unusual validating experience” of God’s power resonate with you, especially in your experience of how the Spirit has worked through your spiritual gifts?

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—Sam Metcalf, former president of Novo

A missions organization, Novo, offered a study cohort about spiritual authority in a believer’s life a couple of years ago. I took the course. As the topic of spiritual authority was fairly new for me, I wrestled in prayer about the ideas presented. They began with Jesus’s commission to His disciples in Acts 1:8 and showed how the Spirit empowered believers in Acts. God’s Spirit continues to empower believers today.

During this season of preparation I’m in currently, God has led me to consider the topic of spiritual authority again. I have drawn upon the spiritual authority I sense that I have from the Lord from time to time (see the image of me blessing Filipino believers in Manila, which, though blurry, helps to illustrate the idea). But in general I have not considered this aspect of influencing my daily behavior as a Christian.

The Novo study led to more clarity about certain denominational practices different from my own. More importantly, I incorporate some of my learning into my worship and devotional practice now. But I continue to feel a tension around the topic.

Can a woman have spiritual authority?

My tension with this question may come from my upbringing. My parents had a strict understanding of gender roles, and our church was no different. Spiritual authority seemed to be designated for certain roles limited to men—husbands and fathers, pastors and elders.

So. Where does that leave me now as a woman who sees ministry as central to her identity and calling?

I’ll refrain from dealing with the role issue for now since I think this issue is more integral to our identity as believers. As a believer first, and as someone in ministry second, I need to have spiritual authority to pursue my calling. In order to describe my purpose, the characteristics of my calling must be essential, important, and truthful. Spiritual authority brings conviction that the truth is necessary to speak out. I can’t keep quiet if I truly believe the Gospel describes the truth about our lives and our world.

A conversation about the Gospel requires spiritual authority

In my conversations of late with believers and unbelievers about the Gospel, I have realized that I need to express my spiritual authority. Conviction comes from articulating the ideas. Bible study alone does not yield authority in conversation. That’s because studying a source means that you are dialoguing internally with the subject matter.

On the other hand, conversation with someone else means that you are externally processing the topic. Your understanding is broadened as you consider other perspectives. Don’t be afraid of this process. It’s important.

Let’s unpack that further. When I agree with someone, I say, Yes, I agree that what you are saying is truth. It doesn’t take as much mental effort to agree. When I disagree with someone, the burden of proof is on me. I instead have to articulate the reasons why I disagree. Sometimes I need to divide the argument; I agree with this part but not this other one, and here’s why.

For spiritual authority, the process looks like this:

1. When I agree with someone about the Gospel, I give authority away or I share it. The unity of believers is important; I’m glad that I can share this authority with others.

2. When I disagree with someone about the Gospel, I take authority back. Separating right and wrong in an argument is just as essential as being in unity with fellow believers; I’m equally glad I can engage freely in this process.

One of the most important things we can do as we communicate about the Gospel is to talk with people who are not in our camp. Relating only to people who agree with us will not strengthen us. It is only when we talk with people who we do not agree with, either in part or whole, that we understand how to communicate rightly and accurately.

Substackers, do you subscribe to any writer who you regularly disagree with? Does reading that person’s work frustrate you or invigorate you? Let me know in the comments.

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That seems counter-productive to my work here. Right? But it isn’t.

That’s because if a calling is from the Lord, someone new to ministry work will become even more certain of her calling. Even if she respects me and acknowledges that what I say seems truthful, the truth of her calling will become more entrenched instead of shaky. On the other hand, her vision for her calling may change due to new advice.

A friend and former colleague from Awana, Dr. Greg Carlson, once told me to look at Jesus’s example. When He was facing hostile crowds, He would pull away from the disciples to a lonely space. When he faced the cross, He came away to pray in the garden. Even the people who are supposed to be on your side may give you the realistic and logical opinion, which may go against God’s.

Greg told me, “Before you come apart, come away.” Come away, out of the noise, to where you only hear God.

When Noah was called to build the ark, he didn’t even know what rain was. His neighbors thought he was totally wack. That is, until the waters rose. Then a large boat started to look like a really good idea.

When Mary was called to be Jesus’s mother, she didn’t even have a husband. Her community would have gossiped about her having sex before she married Joseph. She probably lived her entire life under a stigma that resulted from her utter faith in God.

These massive feats of faith had no logical premise. Just belief in a God who works incredible promises.

So did I try to dissuade my friend away from starting a ministry? Not really. A better friend tells you when it’s going to be hard but encourages you to begin with prayer, fasting, and intentionality. It’s God’s job, not yours. It’s your job to be available, but you can go into new circumstances with knowledge and discernment or with foolishness. So here’s my advice in brief for starting a new ministry:

· Begin by going away with the Lord. Be intentional about seeking His voice about how to begin. Start with fasting and prayer. A humble stance will inform the rest of your practice.

· Pray for and seek out a mentor who has begun something similar in the past. What went well? What changed? What needed to be revised?

· Connect with experts who can advise on non-profits. Choose an accountant and lawyer who have worked with non-profits in the past. They can help you with setting it up financially and legally.

· Connect with people in your area who are concerned with the same topic. They may be believers or unbelievers. Ask them to join a board or a prayer committee depending on their strengths. The board can be for financial accountability, which legitimizes your group. If you don’t need that, an advisory board is still a good option for networking and wise counsel.

· Expect that evil forces will come against you when you begin a ministry. After all, a ministry fights against these forces. They won’t like it. Ask believers to pray and send out regular (i.e. monthly) subjects for prayer for these supporters.

· Research the federal, state, and local guidelines around your non-profit. Know the laws that are actually in place, not just what people say. Work with the groups that legislate your non-profit’s existence. Setting up your non-profit for success could mean months, even years, before you are ready to begin. But starting off this way means fewer possible obstacles down the road.

· Begin fundraising once all permits and regulations have been met. Make sure that you are handling all funds correctly and with integrity. Make it clear which costs are for personnel and for operating costs.

· Communicate your vision and progress on a regular and redundant basis with stakeholders. Just because you’ve said something once doesn’t mean people hear it; it means that the more important it is, the more you should repeat it.

What advice would you give a friend beginning a new ministry? Do you agree with mine or would you change it in some way?

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Easter is not like Christmas, where we welcome God’s Son, Jesus, as a baby into this world. Celebrating Christ’s birth is amazing. But Easter is a celebration of death, of exchange.

Christ’s sacrifice, for my sins.

And I’m increasingly uncomfortable with my sins. So I pray for the ability to bear with the discomfort as God works in me to understand His way. As I sit with His understanding, He recreates me in Christ’s image.

So many times, however, that isn’t the case. I don’t want to sit with the ugliness of my sins. It’s like sitting on a broken chair at a restaurant; you immediately jump up to find another chair. As I grow into the likeness of Jesus more and more, I better understand the reality of my sins—how they affect others and how they affect me. I would rather bask in the deception that I am a good person and that people see me that way. That’s a comfortable understanding of who I am. But it’s not a truthful one.

Even as I attempt to pull the veil over me, I have to realize that my sheer likeability or ability to fool people is that they see Jesus in me. So it is not me they see as good; it’s Jesus working His ways out in me through His spirit.

A prayer from St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises that I appropriate every year at this time goes this way: Jesus, give me a growing understanding of and abundant hatred for my sins.

My human nature accepts, coddles, protects, and nurtures my sin, rationalizing that it is not bad. That’s because my sin is such a part of me. It takes Christ to cut it out and make me hate my dependence on it and identification with it.

Transformation comes about through the Spirit and through prayer, but that’s the visible outcome. Within our spirits, I believe it takes this order:

· First, we surrender ourselves-- our hopes, our longings, our fears.

· Then, through confession, we sacrifice the ways those things have been essential to our identities.

· Christ purifies us through His sacrifice for our sins.

· Then we are useful for His service, acceptable and perfect.

What are your thoughts about sacrifice? Have you accepted the fact that your life needs to exemplify and practice sacrifice too in order to be like Christ?

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My goal with my Substack newsletter is to convince you that you, too, are in ministry in your daily life. That mindset starts, every single day, with your morning habit.

Becoming a Christian in college was a formative time for me: I was and still am not a morning person. Before becoming a believer, I deliberately started my class schedule after 10:00 AM. I grabbed a granola bar and slept through my first class.

After becoming a believer in Christ, much changed in me. I felt His Spirit in me each morning hungering for time with Him and in His Word. I arose early, stepped in the shower to wake up, and grabbed my Bible for an identity alignment. I needed to hear who He is, and I needed to hear from Him who I am. And I needed to hear it every morning for it to sink in and transform me so I wasn’t as influenced by the world’s noise.

I’ve taken that habit into my adult life too. I’m still not a morning person, and yet, I wake up early to make sure that I have that time with the Lord. He humors my half-awake prayers, and He honors my habit. And He understands that I need coffee before forming sentences.

After my devotional/coffee/prayer time, I get ready for my day. I listen to audio Scripture, like on Bible Gateway, or a Lectio Divina Scriptural meditation practice, like on Hallow.

This year, my devotional life has taken on new urgency and meaning after I received my word for the year, a purposeful activity I’ve been engaging with for about five years. I also began talking with a Christian holistic coach who stressed the need for values to inform my choices this year.

My word was purpose, and my chosen values conformed to that word. I sensed God using those values to conform my decisions to His will, and I realized that they were important. The call was evident: He wanted me to return to ministry. I gave the choice and pathway to Him with open hands and began informing my decisions using the five values for my 2026:

· Abundance

· Purpose

· Recognition

· Steadfastness

· Teamwork

What about your values for this year? Consider what you dwell on and what you long for. Then ask God how He wants to meet those needs in His ways and His timing. Drop a line to let me know what you arrived at.

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So, here goes. [Deep breath.]

The photo shows my Lenten devotional that I return to each year, starting on Ash Wednesday. It’s from CRM Ministries, and each day’s entry was written by a missionary working with CRM.

It’s beaten up, clearly, and the spine is falling apart. That’s because I’ve been reading and marking it up since 2010.

In the journal pages, I sometimes write a reflection for that year. This year, I realized that God has been deepening my understanding of the concept from the entry each year.

The understanding is not linear. It looks more like a spiral, as I take in the concept and consider it from various perspectives.

My reflections from today’s entry, which focused on Isaiah’s purification from Isaiah chapter 6, included thoughts from three years: my original entry from 2011, and then agreements from 2017 and the current year. See if something in my entry from 2011 resembles your own pattern of sanctification and ministry preparation:

After saving us by faith alone, the Lord seems to lead us first into ministry for just a short time until we are truly discouraged and frustrated. We realize we cannot do ministry from our own power. In fact, we can barely handle life at all. He then leads us to the wilderness, where we learn in isolation to become submissive to His way. He then leads us back into ministry.

Over and over the cycle goes as we discover the deep deceitfulness and wickedness of our hearts and how much they rebel against the Lord’s leadership. He allows us to experience only as much wounding as our rebellion needs, and then He isolates us in order to heal us and make us fit for ministry again.

My entries from 2017 and 2026 echo my original thoughts. In them, I’m reminded of the wilderness years faced by the Israelites as they toughened up physically and learned to emotionally depend upon God instead of their captors. If this is a wilderness time for you, realize that it is important preparation for you to dive deeper into ministry.

A short prayer that I have been using lately is “empty me, fill me, use me.” All glory is to Christ and not ourselves— amen.

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My perspective on ministry has changed now. And that’s for the better. All believers have a daily ministry regardless of our job titles. Here’s why:

1. Ministry comes out of our relationship with Christ. Every morning, I’m spending time with Him, and He pours into me so I can pour into others. My identity is formed through time with Him, which helps me to rightly handle the world’s version of my identity (John 15:4-5).

2. How we see others needs to be aligned with the way God sees them. I see them now as precious creations of God; they matter to Him, and whether or not they know Him, He knows them. He longs for them to know Him in the same way (Psalm 139).

3. As we begin our days, we can pray that God will use us in others’ lives as we go about our day.That means I need to notice others— their work, their demeanors, their openness or closedness to the Gospel. I work at seeing their interests as important as my own, which helps me to cultivate humility (Phil. 2:3).

4. An understanding of ministry as a daily calling means that we look for ways to discern if God is working in people’s lives. If I sense that someone is open to dialogue, I make myself available for that. In my studies with Colson Fellows, the program referred to this process as putting out breadcrumbs. Just like the man feeding the bird in the image, I offer a truth-crumb to see if the individual is interested. If the person signals that the conversation is over, I take the cue. God’s people don’t need to be annoying or invasive; we know that God holds all things in His hands (Isaiah 46:10).

5. Unlike a job, the daily calling is part of our identity as believers. A job can end but our calling does not. It’s a mindset and a posture. By cultivating this mindset, I am also putting on the mind of Christ. I take on the posture of servanthood and humility in seeking to be open to others and their needs (I Cor. 2:15-16).

6. This daily calling helps us to further cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in various ways; through it, the Spirit refines our spiritual gifts. These gifts are for the building up of the church. But my personal gifts of teaching, exhortation, faith can also influence my dealings with unbelievers, and I leave each encounter praying for someone new, with more discernment than before (I Cor. 12:4-14).

As I cultivate my daily calling from God, I am asking in faith that God will enliven my calling and extend my boundaries with an abundant ministry role in His timing. I want to bear fruit and show that I am a disciple of Christ and so glorify the Father. For those of us called to vocational ministry, John 15:7 is necessary to keep in mind: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” God is the God of open doors and open hearts.

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Hi, sis. I’m glad you found me in this wild, wonderful world of the internet. I write about staying power for women in ministry. If this is you—or you are simply a believing Christian woman—I wrote this with you in mind.

Ministry jobs can be particularly hard on women. I’ve been there at both ends of the spectrum: I’ve had the best of ministry jobs, and I’ve had the worst.

In between those two, I taught in higher ed at a Christian university. During that time, I began a book about women in all different sectors of Christian ministry: they were speakers, writers, educators, radio announcers, missionaries, pastors or church directors, counselors, and nonprofit or denominational leaders. As much as people wanted me to, I didn’t make the book complementarian or egalitarian. I wanted it to reach women on both sides of the spectrum. And I wanted to learn more about their lived experiences in ministry.

And they told me during our interviews. Oh, yes, they let go.

The experience was healing for some, horrifying for others. They didn’t realize how much they had bottled up until our extended interviews. Some asked me to omit their chapters, and others insisted on anonymity.

I’ll be honest: I was sympathetic, but I couldn’t relate. Until I had a really horrible ministry experience myself.

After that, I returned to Christian higher education, where I felt safe. I didn’t resist God, His whispers or His calling. I was offered a role to serve students with my abilities and my listening ear, and when I could, I told them about Jesus. My business arose from that foundation. My clients were believing leaders in their (mostly) secular fields who also needed my encouragement and my editing and writing skills. Instead of my title reading “ministry” something, I did ministry in all of life.

God didn’t one day call me back into ministry. Over some time, he gently showed me how I talked about Jesus with a native tribes leader while flying from Tampa to Chicago. He revealed how I am Jesus to my family. He showed me that I long to be on a ministry team again.

If that is you, sis, and you are discouraged or just need a regular reminder to remain in your calling, you are in the right place. I’ll write once a week, and if you subscribe, my writing will land in your inbox. You don’t have to click a link or download an app.

Easy? Yeah, that’s the easy part. Ministry can be hard, but “He who called is faithful” (I Thessalonians 5:24).

May this verse remind you: you have wings. You can soar. But first you need hope in the Lord. Let’s figure that out together.

“Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

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