“Don’t take it personally”

I cannot tell you how many books, and articles I’ve read that tell me again and again that when my child disobeys “its not personal”. It sure seems personal though. I mean, I tell my child to stop, he looks at me, and then proceeds to disobey.

Sometimes it’s worse. I tell my child to obey, he stops, and then pitches a huge fit in the middle of the store. Kicking and screaming all the way to the car. It’s upsetting, it hurts my feelings, and it seems from all appearances that he is doing it to me

It feels personal. It seems as though my child is defying me. Personally.

So for these reasons every time I hear that tales of “its not personal” I mentally dismiss it straightaway.

Then I had a thought.

I know the rules God has for me. They are clearly written in His Word. A few come to mind straightaway:

Love God.

Love people.

Obey God’s Word.

Hmm. I disobey all the time. Sometimes thoughtlessly. Sometimes in clear defiance of what I know is right.

This has caused me to reflect on my motivations, “Am I actually sinning to hurt God personally”. Is that seriously in my thought process? The answer for me is no. I’m not consciously thinking “how can I offend God?” or “now I’ve really made God mad!”

Yet even though I may not be trying to hurt God’s heart, I do.

The Bible tells us to grieve not the Holy Spirit. I take this to mean that my sinful actions cause Him grief. Just as the behavior of my children causes me grief, as a child of God I do the same thing. I grieve my Father.

I’ve been convicted over the past few weeks as I’ve thought about how I offend my Creator, that my actions cause His Spirit grief.  When I choose sin, I am pleasing myself, with no respect for the Father who sent His Son to die for me. Just because I’m not intentionally trying to grieve Him, it doesn’t change the fact that I am.

**If you missed Part One of this interview you can view it here. I think you will find both parts a real blessing!

Keri: How did you go about promoting this in the community? What are some things people could do to get one of these started?

Michele: Well we advertised in the community. First of all we made posters they were a simple 8×10 poster and it had a pocket spot in it and it gave all the info of what we would be doing for the 3 days but they could also pull out a slip of paper  to take home with them with phone numbers    and reminder dates on there.

We put those everywhere from grocery stores, Walmart, the library, the laudrymat where people would be sitting there looking freely at advertisements on the board.

We also put ads in the newspaper with our logo and explained what was happening for the 3 days.

The last thing we did was we also put out banners in front of the church and in front of the park to bring people in said Love loud free carnival day and emphasized what was free to get people to come in.

Keri: What specific activities did you plan for those 3 days?

Michele: Well we had a lot of ideas when we did our brainstorming trying to pick out what we wanted to do. We originally got this idea from a church in Florida and just seen a lot of, they did it for a whole week. Their whole church did it, but we knew we couldn’t do that big of a project. So what they did all types of activities and we took what they did and took what our class thought our class could handle as a group. We narrowed it down to during the day and two of the days we delivered what we called love baskets. We went to police stations and fire stations in our community those contained all kinds of things they would be able to use. We went to places in the city, downtown, where our church was located and just walked into the library and told them how much we appreciated what they have done for the community. People were shocked that we would do that. That was two things we did during the day. Preparing and delivering those baskets.

>Thursday night we did a project, a carwash, we advertised it for widows and single moms. By the end of the night we pulled in any cars that we could. A storm had come through and once the storm ended we just started getting cars in. we met a lot of people through that. People were just shocked that we would just wash their car. People wanted to give us money and donate but we refused because we wanted them to understand that it’s just your night to get your car washed. We just want to love you tonight so we did the carwash on Thursday.

Friday night we did a dinner for people who had lost their jobs. We had advertised for that wanting people to come out. We had several families come and we had several of those peole come to church on Sunday. They just couldn’t believe it was free no strings attached at all. We did a comedy set up for them, entertainment, music, and then family fun and game night a bunch of games.

Saturday was our biggest day. That was a free carnival event in our city park. We ran a complete fully functioning carnival with inflatables, hot dogs stands and booths where kids could come in and play and win prizes at those.

All for free.

Keri: I keep hearing you say “No strings attached” You mean no money and you also mean no preaching right?

Michele: A lot of times even when we presented to them that we were providing the meal we could always feel or they would just flat out ask the question, you’re gonna preach to us right? We were like “No preaching. This is just fun Family fun night. No preaching involved, no presentation of anything. I think the people then relaxed and when we sat down and had dinner with them there was no pressure. I mean who gives anything for free like that anymore?  When we hear we’ll give you a free condo, what do you have to do? You have to sit through an hour and a half long presentation of what they are presenting to you. So I think people finally relaxed and put their guards down when they realized they were going to just have fun.

Keri: I think that is a hard boundary to get through. Because people automatically think there’s something “you’re going to evangelize me tonight, you’re going to call me forward they don’t know what to expect.

Michele: That is something, I love how my husband put it, he said, We were depositing love into their account and that there is going to be a day they need to draw on that we are hoping we planted even the tiniest seed I mean they had to see Christ’s love through what we were doing and we are hoping that the day they really need that or the day they decided that they need more of God that they will take remember what we did for them.

Keri: Love first leads to effective change in someone’s heart. Without that you are just trying to work a system or something like that. Will you do love loud again?

Michele: This isn’t the end of this project. We are going to do this on a monthly basis. We are going to pick an evening or a day and we are going to love loud in our community for that day. Anything that we have left over that was donated to us we have saved and we are going to use that continually throughout the months and maybe we will raise more money to do smaller project. It can go on, and it can be any extreme that you want. As small or as big as you want.

Keri: I love that you are going to keep doing this.  I’m sitting here thinking if everyone at church got involved. If everyone gave 5 dollars and donated their time.

Michele: What was amazing to us was even the day of our first love loud project a family came to the church that were living in their car and they had a son and a daughter and they had been kicked out of a moldy apartment. They were desperate and had nowhere to turn. The church ahs policies on a couple of things they can do to help them.  But because we had our love loud T-shirt, because we had stuff in our room we were able to reach out to them in a way that our church would not have been able to as a whole. We were able to give them chick-fil-a coupons so they each got a meal for that day. We had a little goodie basket that we gave them and just trying to help them and we told them where all the activities were going to be and they showed up at every single one of those activities. It was neat to watch. That would be neat to do once a month by going out to a business and telling them how much we appreciate them by doing something for them Or by doing something for kids at the park or whatever we picked for that night or day.

So we saved everything in hopes that we would be able to do that.

Keri: What is your advice for someone who is thinking of doing this in the future?

Michele: We learned a lot. It was hard to decide what kind of scale. We were dealing with our class of about 30-35, on average, who were committed to doing this. It takes a lot of time to prepare a head of tiem which we tried to do. We prayed over each and every aspect of it as it came up. Each day as we were preparing for that thing we had very specific prayer requests. We met once a month with meetings to keep everyone up and hand out assignments to people so that Geoff and I weren’t doing all of it. We really wanted our singles to do it. To help organize it.

My advice is that you have to really have to start by picking the days you want to do this. You’ve gotta make sure you are able to advertise in some way or who you are going to infiltrate that if it’s a small project. Get everybody involved and stay very organized. We had a budget and you have to stay within that budget. We had to stay on top of things. How much we were spending how much we were not.

Probably, the biggest advice we had were the things we struggled through the most were how we approached where we held things. For example, the dinner was held at our church gym. That probably was not the best venue. It automatically made people think that we were presenting something to them. Next time, we are going to make sure that is somewhere completely away, a restaurant or whatever we have to do to have that off the church grounds. I think organization is the key, having people in charge of each project, staying on budget, making sure you have the equipment you need for each project and of course praying over each and every one of those. Because that was the goal. Yes we really wanted to love loud in the community we wanted to let them know that we do love them. But if God isn’t 100% a part of that it doesn’t matter how much effort we put into that it’s just not going to function the way that it should have. When we look back over it we have gotten thank you notes from singles already. Just being able to organize something of this size and keep your cool if I should say ti that way, keep it all together somehow and not be yelling at each other out of frustration because it’s not going right. That was huge. I think that was because of the we had prayed through this; all together as a group, and Geoff and I, and separately about each one of these activities. We felt like God was a huge part of that. No matter what He was right there. Orchestrating every one of those details at our events, that’s huge
Keri: When we are talking about Love Loud, the singles, and about how the Bible talks about Single people- about how they can be so used of God, and it’s such a blessing to see you all lead singles in a way that they can actually use their extra time or money, or gifts and talents. Whatever that may be that they are not currently using in a family to serve God’s people and serve the family of our community. It’s just a blessing

 Michele: Amazing. Even for the singles themselves I think they feel limited. This was one of those projects where we tried to show them that you can take a huge project like this, you can do this, and guess what, when the church decides to do that you can be the leaders in this project. Because they are so capable, so willing, and so able, and have the desire to serve and so it is just a perfect match for the singles to step up and do that type of stuff.

I feel privileged to know Michele.  She is a loving leader, and her enthusiasm is contagious! She was gracious enough to speak with me about an outreach program which she recently organized, called Love Loud.

Keri: Would you give us in general what Love Loud is?

Michele: Ok, Love Loud is a project that our group of singles decided to do in our community , and we base it off 1 John 3:18: Little children let us not love in word or talk but in word and deed.

So it was a project getting ourselves out in the community with acts of kindness and just showing Christ’s love to others in the community

Keri:  How did you use it with the singles ministry?

Michele: We decided with the singles to do a different project this year and that is why we chose this Love Loud project. With them we started organizing and just started basic with “what are your gifts?” It was a time when our church was studying spiritual gifts and so we broke people into groups to see what they would be interested in and took off from there to start organizing this project;  to teach them what it would be like to give of themselves in a way such like a mission trip but actually in our community.

Keri: So this to you was your missions outreach?

Michele: This was our mission trip. Because of finances, especially the singles, in this time in the United States we decided that we would do a smaller version of our missions trip and we asked the singles of our class to give toward that. We did not keep track of that, we asked them on their own basis we all did different jobs to ear the money and we asked them to give $250. We kind of looked at a budget and decided how much we thought we would be spending ourselves to promote and advertise and that’s where all of the money went to from our singles group.

We had them treat it like a missions trip. We asked them to take the days off, just like they would if we were travelling somewhere and be able to commit to those days. We actually had a commitment form for them. We were asking them to be committed to pray for it, the dates and time we would need them and the $250 commitment. We were of the theory that they were buying the tickets to go on the mission trip.

Keri: How did you go about fundraising? I know there were singles who could not afford $250.

Michele: That’s right. So what they did was that they could contribute that in any form that they wanted to. We had several who took on their own private jobs where they earned babysitting money or pressure washed someone’s house and they put that money in their own fund. Just like if they wanted to raise money any other way I guess. We had some who could not raise money that way but one won Chik-fil-a meal coupons and that person donated all their coupons so we could hand them out. That was one way that person was able to do that.

The class as a whole, we made our whole class available for rent or for a project so someone could have our class come over so for example we organized someone’s house. We moved, we cleaned out, we did a lot of yard work, we cleaned out back yards and the money we earned from that went into our large fund.

Then we had individuals who were able to go to employers or other people they knew in their community and ask them for money. We set up a fund at our church, of course we had all the proper paper work we needed for that. So they could hand out receipts that were tax deductible for their company.

Specifically, we had one person who is in the food industry. One of the projects was doing a dinner for people who had lost their jobs and all of that food except for the main meat, every bit of that was donated. From tea, lemonade, veggies to desserts and he was able to contact all those people who were able to donate all that for us. It was great to see God provide all of that for us.

Keri: What percentage of your singles ministry do you think got involved in your Love Loud?

Michele: Geoff and I were thinking about that just the other day and we think we were at 95%. There were just a few people who could not because of other commitments. The way that it was timed out too because we had some going on during the day and in the evening. There were a couple who maybe couldn’t do projects during the day but were able to do evening jobs. That’s how we got to that 95%.

Keri: Do you think it was more attended by your singles than say a “real” missions trip where you went somewhere else?

Michele: Oh yes because it was so much more feasible, doable for them. They could see that financially I can do this, job wise I can do this, commitment wise I can do this.

Keri: So you decided to do this basically because of finances  and so more people would be involved. What makes Love Loud different than if you all had held a VBS camp or some type of community outreach from the church what makes it unique?

Michele: I think what makes it unique is because this is not like a door to door evangelistic type program. When we looked at the area in Simpsonville, where Calvary is at, we saw that Calvary is definitely doing the job evangelizing the neighborhood and reaching out in that way. But, we also felt like in the community that’s what they have known us for. They know us for coming door to door and handing out literature and wanting them to come to VBS and wanting them to come to revival which is all good. But we wanted them to see that we really do care about them and we really do love them. I think a lot of times you have to step out of your box and love how Christ showed love throughout Scripture of just showing kindness and concern for what is happening on in their lives. Reaching out to them in a way that most people don’t. Or that it would be a non profit organization reaching out and servicing them with meals or whatever they need. So we really felt that for our singles it was tiem to step out of that box and just love the community with no strings attached to that. Nothing that we were asking them in return.  Like “We’ll do this for you if you come to our revival services.” We just wanted to infiltrate them and love them so they would see Christ.

Keri: I even think about Christ’s miracles. Even when He changed water into wine, His first miracle, He didn’t hand out a tract when He did that. He did it because He loved His mother and the act showed love and kindness to the people of Cana which glorified God. To me Love Loud follows in that train of thought.

Stay tuned for the Part 2 of this interview this weekend!

For a long time I’ve wanted to write something to my readers discussing the issue of abuse. It seems as though the time is right. Proceed with caution though…this is a bit of a soap box for me so you have been warned.

It’s personal.

When I was a teenager, I lived in the Midwest and attended an independent Baptist church. I made several friends there and still have relationships with them today. I had a good friend I got together with several times and even spent the night at her house. A couple of years after we moved from this area it came to light that her dad had molested her and her sister for several years. I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t. The part I find so unbelievable is that the mother never uttered a word to anyone.  Isn’t she responsible for her kids?

Now this church took swift action to remove him from fellowship with the church and the authorities dealt harshly with him. Justice was done at church and in the courts as well.

I’m haunted to this day by that story. It’s always in the back of my mind “are there women being abused around me and no one knows?”  Could I be at their house one minute and the minute I leave abuse begins again? This week another story from within the fundamental Baptist realm and it just shook me to the core. Again a girl is abused and the mother seems to do nothing to protect her child. How many other stories are there? Why does this happen?

The problems as I see it.

Part of the problem is some of the teaching on being a good wife is off balance. Women are constantly chided to submit, but rarely if ever do I hear someone talk openly and honestly about abuse. This leaves women who are dealing with abuse conflicted. Should they stay and be submissive (pleasing God) or leave and be shamed by their church (displeasing God)? It should not be an either/or proposition. There can be submissive women who simply cannot stay in an abusive relationship to protect themselves and their children.

We need church leaders to stand up for these families, pursue justice with them, and encourage them to heal by the grace of God. Shame and guilt should not be a part of the equation for these women. The hope and grace of God should be the driving force.

Young girls who are molested, raped, or sexually abused are not at fault. No matter how much they are made to believe they are partially responsible.  No matter how often they are told that they could have done something differently.

An example of this type of erroneous teaching I have heard is Bathsheba. I’ve heard more than once that she initiated David’s sin because she was taking a bath outside. She caused him to lust. The Bible doesn’t say that. She was taking a bath where it was customary for people to bathe. David was responsible for his eyes. David should have been busy with the battles he started. David was the king and he abused his power by taking another man’s wife. God judged him because of his sin.

God also deals harshly with rapists in the Bible. In both familiar cases, Dinah and Tamar, the men who perpetrated these heinous acts were served equally heinous punishment. These women are in no way implicated as being part of the problem.

Women: Take a stand.

Women need to stand up when abuse takes place. Mothers you need to take responsibility for your children. If someone, man or woman, is abusing your child you need to leave the situation and report it so the abuse doesn’t continue with someone else’s child.

As women we are responsible for their actions independent of our husbands. Think about Sapphira. She followed in her husband’s lie and was instantly killed. She had the chance to speak truth but instead did the same evil as her husband. She was held personally responsible for what she had done. She was not given a pass for being submissive to her husband in his sin.

The Biblical model for personal, Spirit-led thinking.

Esther stood up to her husband for the entire Jewish race. Her husband was a king and yet through God’s help and grace she did not sit idly by and watch her husband annihilate her people. God blessed her for that and used her in a mighty way.

Mothers, I’m speaking to you right now. You need to be the Esther in your family’s life. God has put you in a family and he expects you to protect that family. Your husband might claim Christ but if he is abusing you or your children pray for God’s help and get out of the situation. No matter how poorly you might be treated at your church. Do not allow your fear of what man thinks keep you from obeying God’s voice in your own heart. No matter how popular the pastor might seem. If he makes you feel as though your husband’s abuse is your “cross to bear” or that you are somehow responsible find a different church.

Trust the Spirit of God to lead you. It might seem difficult but His leading is right.

Some will say “she just doesn’t understand” or “she’s a liberal”. So be it. I refuse to sit by and watch this type of situation play out over and over again.

The happy group.

I haven’t spoken much about my personal life on this blog unless it’s a silly story to illustrate a point. I know many of you who read my blog know me but many of you don’t. During the time I’ve written this blog, most if not all, of my writing has been done during the week when I was a work-week-widow. My husband has been in law school and I have been home with our children. I have no doubts that this was God’s perfect plan for us.  I never really felt comfortable putting it out there that I lived alone for all the world to see. Plus I try not to use this blog for a whine festival. Now that I no longer live alone I wanted to share a small piece of my life with you.

It seems like ages ago when my husband first started talking about going to law school. I was about 6 months pregnant at the time. Although it is scary to take that kind of plunge I encouraged him. So he began studying so that he would get a good score on his LSAT ( an entrance test for law school).  As soon as his grade for that test had been posted he began to get letters from all kinds of schools wanting him to apply. Application fees being what they are he did not apply everywhere. He decided to focus his search on schools that were close to our home so that he could commute. That limited the options significantly Emory and the University of South Carolina seemed the closest options. Both had offered significant scholarship money although not full tuition.

During this process Daniel had to get several documents from Bob Jones University. In an encounter with one of his old professors, he was encouraged to apply to Wake Forest. He was accepted there and was told that he was on a waiting list to receive a Dean’s scholarship for full tuition. A couple of months later he was told that the full scholarship had been awarded to him. We saw God’s clear leading and Wake Forest was the choice!

Law School Grad

That is how his journey began to become an attorney.

While I was at home I began to realize how much time I had alone in the evenings. Since my husband wasn’t home I didn’t make big dinners, didn’t have as much laundry, and my nights were quiet. God used writing as a way for me to have adult conversations. Writing was God’s gift to me. It gave me a way to “speak” to other adults whether they read my essays or not. I still felt better going through an adult thinking process at night. It also kept me from sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself. That is a very easy trap to fall into. Once we let our minds go to self-pity it is difficult to recover.

So I wrote, and I wrote, and I started a blog and now a website. Never in my life did I envision myself writing something. I’ve always loved to communicate with people, but that was usually through music or speaking. Writing was new for me, but something I came quickly to love.

Whether you knew me personally or not I want to thank those of you who took the time to comment on this blog, or encourage me. Especially those who were unaware of my life circumstances. I have spent many lonely nights at home. Some nights I’m sorry to say, in self-pity. The kindness many of you showed me through your encouragement helped me get off the couch and get my mind on things above. That is a gift. I’m very thankful for each of you who read this blog.

I actually ran down the aisle and got my picture taken with Danny before he graduated. Yep, I'm a dork!

Praise the Lord for what He has done through His people! Just like the women in the early church in Acts lifted up Paul and his ministry, we have done the same for Anne. I think we had all three types of women there last night.

Just as Dorcas used her hands to make coats for the widows in the early church, we had women who used their hands for good works. Women who lovingly did the work of setting up, cleaning up, and cooking the food.

Just as Lydia used her business sense and wealth to support Paul and the church, we had women who gave generously of what God has given them. Women who freely gave what they had to encourage Anne.

Just as Priscilla used her words to encourage Paul and Apollos, women used their words to encourage. Writing notes to Anne and speaking love and kindness to her.

Much was accomplished because many members of the Body of Christ came together to use their gifts and talents to minister. Kylee and I could have had Anne over for dinner and given her some money but it would have been so small compared to what we did as a group of believers. It is how God wants His church to work. I am so grateful for all who took part in our event and am already looking ahead to our next gathering! Below you can see fairly simply the results of our evening.

The Stats:

40 women

1 missionary

4 cakes

1 pie

6 dozen cookies and brownie bites

Countless cups of coffee

5 giveaways

3 teen helpers

6 sponsors

Equals

30 encouraging notes

$670.00 for Anne’s ministry

Anne Speaking to us

Kylee, Anne, & Keri

Ever had a few weeks where you just felt defeated? That’s where I’ve been the past couple of weeks.

Dwelling in despair and anxiety.

Wallowing in my self-pity and frustration.

Have you ever been there?

Its not that I don’t have some legitimate struggles going on in my life, but the whining and general hopelessness isn’t helping pull me from the depths of despair. My sin led me there.

Last week I was just unloading on my Dad about my frustration with my writing and he told me that God has a plan for me. I know that is true but the reiteration is nice. Although my Dad’s advice was fabulous, in the back of my mind I was thinking “of course he is going to encourage me…he’s my Dad, it’s part of the basic job description to encourage your kids.” Either way, I felt better and was encouraged.

A couple of days later I got a letter from a friend encouraging me. It was probably a small thing to her but it was just the food my soul needed. Snail mail has become rare, unless of course its junk, and it was a thrill to open an envelope and have sweet handwritten words written just for me.

I had even prayed and told the Lord that I was just going to quit writing. Its too frustrating, no one cares, why does He want to use me anyway? Not-so-godly thoughts from a girl who writes about God’s Truth… but it’s true. That’s just how deep the ick factor got for me. Not two days later I found out that I was going to get to go to my first writer’s conference. I could not have gone had God not intervened and sent a friend my way to invite me and make it possible. Once again I could not deny what God had for me to do. Write.

Do you see what I see?

I see God’s kindness. Perfect, complete undeserved kindness.

Sometimes it’s so easy to sit and stew in sadness.  I’m profoundly grateful that God showed me kindness this week even though I was sinful and did not deserve it.  I responded to life’s circumstances and in the past couple of weeks have done so in a sinful way. But God’s kindness and love is steadfast. The mercy of God is new every morning.

This week instead of just believing these statements to be true in my mind, I know they are in my heart. Because God in His kindness used a variety of circumstances and people to encourage me. Pitiful silly me. He cares. He reaches down to us and loves us. He shows kindness to bring us from the pits and bring us back to Himself.

God has showed his kindness to us in the greatest way by sending His Son to die for us. He asks us to love Him and love others. The second way we show love according to 1 Corinthians is through our kindness. God asks us to show His love to others and one way to do this is to live a kind life.

Think about your family.

Think about your friends.

Think about your church.

Do you have their faces in your mind?

Now  think through some new ways to show His love through your kindness. I can write a note on my kid’s napkin for lunch. Take a meal to a sick friend. Babysit the kids of the sick friend. Speak encouraging words to my husband. Write a note to a parent telling them how much I love them. That’s all kindness. It’s also natural kindness.

Think about a family member that makes you crazy.

Think about a person who rubs you the wrong way.

Think of a group that you would consider an enemy to your way of life.

Showing kindness to these people is Christ-like lovingkindness. To love those who you just don’t like or who actively hurt you is kindness.

As I was studying kindness to others I kept coming back to the passage in Luke 6 when Jesus is telling his disciples about loving their enemies.  “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return,”

Let’s say someone I  don’t really like comes to my house and asks to borrow my brand new Pampered Chef stoneware for a party I’m not even invited to. I’m not even invited to this party and this girl who wants to use it has a reputation for taking advantage of people. The last thing I want to do is lend something to her. However when I read this passage I know that is what I should do.  In fact, I should offer my Kitchen Aid mixer to her as well. Hmmm. This is not what I wanted to find while I was studying kindness.

“and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

God shows his kindness to the evil in this world. It’s true isn’t it? He sent His Son to save evil me. Yet I don’t want to show his love to those who I consider evil. When I decide that I can choose who to love and be kind to, I am no worse than those who don’t know Christ. How will they see Him if I don’t show His love to those people I don’t really like? What separates me from the World?

I find this a hard study. Sometimes you can be syrupy sweet to someone and they still treat you poorly or you just don’t like each other. Regardless of the outcome kindness is required because we are required to love.

Love is kind.

April Menking and Shelby Trondle!!

Thanks to everyone who entered. I hope we can have another giveaway soon!

After my interview with Anne, her friend Kylee approached me at church and told me she was convicted about being a better “Priscilla”. In other words, being a woman in the body of Christ who is uplifting those in full-time ministry. Women had a significant role in the formation of New Testament Church.

Tabitha (Dorcas) was a woman who helped clothe the widows and was ultimately raised from the dead.

Priscilla and Aquilla were there to help Paul and even exhorted Apollos in their layperson ministry.

Lydia was wealthy business woman who the Lord used to minister to Paul and Silas.

There are also women listed several times at the end of Paul’s letters to the various churches he travelled to visit.

We are told to be women of good works in the Bible but sometimes it’s hard to find an opportunity.

So what can we do?

Kylee and I have planned an event for April 19th at 7 pm. We are inviting all of you to come enjoy dessert and coffee at a fun filled girls night. Instead of spending money at a restaurant, we are asking that you support Anne instead. All donations will go to help her and her ministry. We will be encouraging Anne and will be a special part of her ministry.

HELP!

I am enlisting your help today because I need an effective name for our event. Does anyone have a creative idea they wouldn’t mind sharing?

Also if any of you would like to sponsor this event you can contact me. It only costs $20 and you will be reaching a large audience of women with your business. On top of that you will be supporting a great ministry!

Pray that we are able to encourage Anne not only through funds but through our words and presence.

Be on the lookout for your invitation. They will be sent through facebook e-mail. If you are not a member of my facebook group you can either join so you can get the invite or you can contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing and meeting some of you there!