The Center for Leadership Excellence and the Commission for the Status and Role of Women are teaming up in the hopes of offering more support for women in ministry in the NC Conference.
As a part of this endeavor, we are sending monthly emails of encouragement and suggestions for how women in ministry can support one another. If you would like to be added to our email list, sign up here. Or, you can check out past Encouragements emails in the archive at the bottom of this page.
Recent Encouragements
For several of my childhood years, we had the habit of spending Labor Day underground. School would start the next day and this was the last opportunity for a summer activity. One year, as we were in the middle of a four-hour tour through Mammoth Cave, the guide told us to stop for a break and sit on some large boulders along the trail. Everyone in the group was most grateful and told him so. “Oh no, this isn’t a reward for what you just came through. This rest is to prepare you for what’s ahead.”
There are some days in ministry that I wonder if God wasn’t crazy to call me into God’s service. Moses’ question in Exodus 3:11 (see below) becomes the very question that I ask myself and of God: Who am I? I ask this often in a self-deprecatory way because this is how I was socialized even though I was an excellent student and excellent employee. Even as a pastor, I often still ask myself: Who do you think you are?
I wish I could tell Moses all the great things God would do through him, even with all his doubts of ability and the massive criticism lodged at him from the very people he was called to save. So let me tell you that God’s call on your life is not based on your ability to perform
There are a few phrases and words I use every day in my life. At work and home, I catch myself saying “hope” a lot. As I try to keep everyone thinking positively, “I hope so” or “hopefully” seem to roll off my tongue.
As I write this, though, our parsonage fridge decided to go on sabbatical. And this morning, my spouse was busy getting ready for a funeral he was leading. Since I could tell that baking soda would not conquer the smells coming from the fridge, it was time to say “adios” to the trash and haul it to the nearby dump.