Recently, I was a guest at a beautiful Nashville farm property belonging to a popular Christian recording artist. When the other guests were talking about life on the road as a well-coiffed Southern Gospel musician or a gospel-announcing evangelist or a tattooed Christian rock star, I could only smile and nod, very aware that I was, technically, not counted as one of their ...

It wasn't until I began attending my new church that I realized much of my ministry life has been directed by my own ideas and capabilities and not by total reliance on God. I have always endeavored to "do good" or to "lift a helping hand." While my motivations were inspired by my love for God and people, I often signed up for ministries and assignments based on my desire ...

We are an impatient culture. Our hyper-fast technology has wired us to expect everything instantly–even transformation. While it's understandable to demand hyper-speed from our electronic devices, it's utterly unreasonable–and ungracious–when we have those expectations of ourselves or of the people we lead.

Though we all wish that it wasn't the case, profound and lasting change ...

I have great sympathy for the new hires at our church. Our building is a maze of classrooms and closets, navigating IT takes a decade, and recalling names of all our staff is a bit numbing. It's a big, bustling place, a jovial family complete with fierce loyalty, inside jokes, and an expected dose of dysfunction.

One of our recent hires, new to our city, looked particularly ...

I wept as I heard the diagnosis four years ago: "You are losing your hearing."

Questions about my job, relationships, and life in general permeated my brain. Every "what if" plowed over me, and they were mowing me down quickly. Everything seemed a blur that day. But God spoke to me in a way I was sure to hear.

I'd spent eight years in the classroom, and both the doctor and ...

You spend hours in planning meetings, trying to put together wonderful events for the women

in your church with the hope of helping them live productive Christian lives. Yet time and again, they don't show up. Your leaders have done all they can to get the women in church excited and nothing seems to be working. You've prayed and you've fasted and the only logical conclusion ...

I'm hidden under blankets in a bedroom of the parsonage next door to the church my husband pastors. My limbs are cinder blocks. My gut, a pool of quicksand. I hear a muffled voice. "Mom? It's time for dinner. Mom?"

I roll onto my back and squint my eyes up at Zoya, ten years old, the easiest baby for me, the one who still crawls up in my lap and rests her head on my breast ...

When Solomon decided to build a temple for Yahweh, it took seven years to complete the task. And no wonder. It was both enormous and ornate. 1 Kings 6:34-35 reads, "There were two folding doors of cypress wood…decorated with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers—all overlaid evenly with gold." The specificity and care that went into planning and constructing the ...

Here at GFL we're interested in the unique journeys of women who are called into leadership. That Dr. Marguerite Shuster, Professor of Preaching and Theology at Fuller Seminary has remarked, "I would never recommend that anyone proceed as I have if she wants to get anywhere," has really only made us more curious.

When did you notice your first sense of calling to the ministry? ...

Image: Daryn Stumbaugh | Unsplash

Ambition is complicated. When related to material things it sounds like greed, so we often take the idea of "bigger and more" in our lives and boil it all down to sin. We sit in the back like my friend Jamie, who aches to dream, but says, "It always seems easier to sit on the back row and kill my dreams than to fight the sin that may be attached to those dreams." ...