Q&A Interview with Abingdon Women

I was asked to do an interview here on the blog with Abingdon Women about the Namesake Bible study.  I’m thrilled that it’s being released in February and can’t wait to see how God will use it.

AW: Jessica, what has your first experience as a published author been like? Have you experienced anything unusually awesome in the development of God speaking to you through this study?

Jessica: Becoming an author is a lifelong dream come true for me.  In elementary school, when other kids were playing astronaut, I was playing author: folding stacks of paper in half to make a “book” and then writing and illustrating stories on them. I’ve written many things for ministry, but Namesake is the first published work that will be used by churches across the country.  I can’t tell you how excited I am about that!  The very first lesson in Namesake is on Abraham and Sarah and how, even after God changed their names as a sign that He would to fulfill His promises to them, they had to wait and wait for those promises to be realized.  When I first started telling friends about the upcoming publication of Namesake, a friend who had been a classmate of mine in seminary contacted me. We had been in a prayer group where we shared our deepest dreams about life and ministry and prayed over one another, but we now live across the country from each other.  Her message to me said: “Do you realize we prayed for this dream twelve years ago and God is now answering that prayer?” It is amazing to think of God’s faithfulness and His perfect timing.

AW: Explain to us how the vision of Namesake evolved.

Jessica: I’ve always been fascinated by names and where they come from.  My own name: Jessica Lynne, was given to me because my mom admired a classmate of hers named “Jessica Darling” and because her younger sister’s name is “Donna Lynne.”  When I read the Bible and find an interesting name, I’m always following it down to its footnote to find out what it means.  It’s fascinating how often a name actually tells a part of the person’s story.  I began speaking at retreats several years ago on the names in the Bible and how they’re often changed to indicate a transformation in someone’s life. God seems to think a new identity deserves a whole new name.  I realized that God’s vision or each one of us is transformation. He longs to see us change from who we once were to become more and more like Him. That reminded me of all the people I knew who were named after someone, who were given a namesake in hopes that they would grow up to emulate that person’s best characteristics.  Since we are made in God’s image, we are His namesakes, hopefully growing to resemble Him more and more.

When I began working with the people at Abingdon it was amazing to see this small idea God had given me long ago nurtured and developed by so many people – from editors to graphic artists to producers.  Seeing your idea on the cover of a book, on the wall of the set in a recording studio, on a page in a catalog… it’s a very humbling experience. It’s been so clear to me all along that this is God’s vision unfolding, not my own.c

AW: Candidly, what has your life been like juggling roles of pastor, writer, wife, and mom? Most of our women find great encouragement in knowing that daily balance is an ongoing act of surrender to the Lord!

Jessica: Let’s get really honest here… It’s crazy!  It’s no easy task to balance life as a full time pastor, a full time mom (no mom’s job is ever part time!) and writing and speaking.  When Abingdon approached me about making Namesake into a Bible Study, I had a two year old son, Drew, and was six months pregnant with my daughter Kate.  I sometimes say I had two babies in 2012, since the undertaking of a big publishing project often felt like childbirth! I wrote much of the study while on maternity leave with Kate sleeping in a bassinet beside me, and she flew to Nashville with me at three months old when I recorded the teaching videos.  There are times when this very full life seems far from balanced.  I’m so thankful for a husband (Jim) who is a full partner in all things parenting and ministry, and that my own mom lives close by and spends a lot of time at our house.  She was a single mom while I was growing up and worked full-time too, and she is absolutely my role model in faith and family.  The key to juggling is not to try to be a hero. Life isn’t going to be perfect, so have grace for yourself.  You can’t do it alone. You need to ask for help. And you have to rely on God and remember He’s holding the universe together – so you don’t have to.  

AW: How do you hope to see Namesake used within church programs and independent small group Bible studies?

Jessica: The best groups I’ve experienced are the ones that draw you closer to God and create true community.  I love “Aha!” moments of realizing new things I’ve never noticed in the Bible, and have tried to create plenty of those in the study.  Namesake is ideal for groups that want to go deeper into the stories of Scripture. It’s narrative-based, meaning that each chapter tells the story of an individual in Scripture and also tells contemporary stories from my own life and the lives of others.  The goal is to let the lessons we learn when we study the Bible touch and transform our own stories.  Groups will have a chance to learn deeply about God’s message for them in the Bible while they examine their own name and identity and explore how God wants to offer them a fresh start. Namesake would be ideal for a group Bible Study or even a Sunday School class, and while it’s produced under the Abingdon Women label it has been great for men as well.

AW: If you were to speak to a live Abingdon Women audience on the primary message of Namesake what would you say?

Jessica: Namesake is all about God’s transforming love for us. The stories in Namesake are of ordinary people who encountered God and found themselves changed forever.  When they surrendered their lives to God, their identities were so altered that even their names had to be changed.  You and I need the same kind of transforming touch from God in our own lives.  By studying together in community we’re given a chance to tell our own stories, and when line those up against the stories in Scripture we find that we just might have a few things in common with Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Daniel, Naomi, Peter, and an unnamed woman who met Jesus.  We also learn that the blessings that come from a life surrendered to God are not for our own glory, but for His name’s sake.

Be sure to “like” Abingdon Women on Facebook for more info about their upcoming studies.

While you’re at it, be sure you’ve “liked” my Facebook author page so that you’ll find out the latest news about Namesake and more!

Can your hero become your friend? – A post in the “Why Ministers Matter” blog tour

This week MinistryMatters.com is inviting leading pastors and authors to share the story of ministers who have touched our lives in a blog tour called “Why Ministers Matter.”  I’m honored to be today’s stop on the blog tour that includes thoughts from Max Lucado, Adam Hamilton, Mike Slaughter and other great pastors and authors.

We were asked to share the story of a minister who made a difference our lives.  That’s both an easy and a difficult assignment, since so I can think of so many pastors that have influenced me through the years that it’s difficult to narrow down.  It’s also not the first time I’ve been asked this tough question… 

When I was ordained in 2005, our Bishop laid her hands on my head and spoke the words “Jessica Lynne Box LaGrone, take thou the authority to preach the Word of God and to administer the Holy Sacraments.”  It was an amazing moment.  But I have to say that I felt the authority given to me to preach had been transmitted before her hands ever touched my head.
 
As Bishop Huie stood in front of me, my husband of three months and a group of mentors stood behind me, hands on my shoulders, praying for my ministry and the journey ahead.  I had been allowed to choose the pastors who stood behind me, praying over me.  Picking out just a handful of people who had influenced me was a tough decision, but in the end the choice was obvious.  They were all men who God had used to shape my faith and my ministry in incredible ways.  Here they are on my ordination day.

Ordination 2005 – my mentors

Garry Masterson (on the left) and Kip Gilts (on the right) are two pastors who helped launch me into ministry. I worked as a Youth Minister for Garry and then later in my first position as an Associate Pastor for Kip.   They each took a chance on me when I was young, disorganized and naive, starting out and thinking I already knew it all.  Both of those men are incredible leaders and visionaries who showed me what it truly meant to have a pastor’s heart.  I saw Garry and Kip love and care for their families and include them in their ministries, and I learned from them that it was possible to have a healthy family life while doing a difficult job.  When, as a jaded 20-something, I almost walked away from the church and my call, their love for people and for Jesus restored my faith in ministry itself. But (sorry guys!) this blog post isn’t really about them.
 
The man at the center of the photo with me is the one who immediately came to mind when I was asked the question about the most influential pastor in my life.  Ironically, although he was a successful pastor of local churches for most of his career, I never experienced him as a pastor, but as a professor.  However, Dr. Ellsworth Kalas is such a pastor at heart that whatever role he is filling at the moment: professor, seminary president, guest preacher or lecturer, he is always a pastor to those around him.  
 
Dr. Kalas was my hero.  He was one of the reasons I chose to attend Asbury Seminary. His teaching on the art of preaching is legendary.  I had read his books and heard his name spoken in hushed tones as the best preacher in The United Methodist Church.  I couldn’t wait to experience his wisdom in person.
 
When I got to seminary I was disappointed to learn that Dr. Kalas’s classes are in such high demand that most students don’t have the seniority to get in until their last year.  There was a rumor, though, that he reserved a couple of seats in his Intro to Preaching class and then gave them out to students of his choice.  In hopes that I could get into his class early in my seminary career I sent him a note: 
 
“Dr. Kalas, you don’t know me, but I understand there may be an open spot in your preaching class you are saving to give to some special student.  I’d like to be that student.  I would enjoy having you as a professor.  And I know you would enjoy having me as a student.”  I got in. Dr. Kalas still laughs about that note. I’m still shocked that I had the audacity to send it!
 
Once I got into his class I sat spellbound by Dr. Kalas’s teaching.  The content of his lectures was rich. I still pull up my notes sometimes 12 years later when I’m preparing to preach. But the real treasure was so much more than anything we could write down or be tested on. Dr. Kalas would often give us some guideline about preaching, and then to illlustrate his point he would launch, seamlessly, into a sermon right in front of us. We would sit fascinated, unable to believe that we were in the presence of such greatness. When he returned to the point he was making you could hear an audible exhale from the class.  

With my friend and fellow Asbury grad,
Nolan Donald

 When we got to the portion of class where we were to begin our preaching assignments, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I was pretty terrified.  I had preached a handful of times, all in front of people in my home churches who knew me and loved me and told me I was great. I had no idea whether to believe them or not.  Now I was supposed to stand up and preach in front of my peers, whose job it was to critique me, and in front of a man who had the most masterful preaching presence I had ever witnessed. Gulp!  
 
I got up in front of the class with no notes in front of me (Dr. Kalas wouldn’t allow us to use any!) and preached a short sermon on the call of Moses. I felt like I was standing before the burning bush myself!  When I finished, I sat down and waited for the critique to begin.  To my surprise, Dr. Kalas praised my preaching, holding it up as an example to my classmates.  Again and again that semester he let me know that God had given me an important gift that I needed to hone and cherish.  It would be several years before a bishop laid her hands on my head, but that classroom was the place I was truly ordained.
 
Dr. Kalas’s confidence in me gave me confidence in myself.  When he told me I was great I had no choice but to become so.  I went on to work for him as a research assistant and grader, doing small tasks to help make his job easier.  The best part of my job was that I got to go to his office each week and sit down to have a conversation with him, the topic of which usually strayed far beyond what help he needed in the office.  We would often sit for an hour or more as he shared stories about his experiences as a pastor and wisdom about life.  That office was the best classroom I ever experienced.  Those stories still play in my head when I’m searching for wisdom to make tough decisions in my own ministry. 

Dr. Kalas flew to Texas to pray for me at my ordination in 2005

He once told me a story about his own family that made me realize what made this man I admired so great. When his children were young he was the pastor of a large church, with a lot of responsibilities and demands on his time.  The church happened to be on his son’s way home from school, and each afternoon as he walked home, his son would stop at the church and come into his dad’s office.  Dr. Kalas would get him a coke and come around from behind his desk to sit with him and hear about his day before giving him a hug and sending him off on his way home.  When his son grew up he also became a pastor (the ultimate compliment to parents in ministry, since many preachers’ kids grow up and run from the church because their parents put it ahead of them in their priorities).   He called his dad up one day and told him he had just realized what a sacrifice all those afternoons meant.  “I thought you had nothing better to do,” he said. “Now that I’m a pastor I realize how incredibly busy you must have been, but you made me feel like the only important thing that happened in that office all day.”

With my son Drew in 2010

When I thought about that story later, I realized that I had made the same mistake his son had made, thinking, in those long afternoon conversations, that the relaxed way in which Dr. Kalas asked about my life and taught me from his own, that he had nothing better to do.  In reality, his time is very much in demand. In addition to his teaching and writing, within the next few years he became the president of the seminary at a time when many people needed his wisdom and guidance.  I can tell you that each person that encounters him still feels like he has all the time in the world for them.   
 
Somehow, Dr. Kalas moved in my life from the position of far-off hero to teacher to mentor to friend.  Not many people who start out on a pedestal in your mind can live up to it once you know them well.  Once or twice he has asked me to call him Ellsworth.  I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I get to see him once or twice each year, on visits when we try to pack months of conversation into one afternoon.  I’m still in awe every time I get to sit and talk with him.  He still looks me squarely in the eye with that patient, affirming smile as if I’m the only person that matters.  He’s still my hero.  

Dr. Kalas speaking at The Woodlands UMC September 2012,
with friends Alicia Coltzer and Melissa Maher

Is there a pastor/minister/professor who has greatly impacted your life? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section.
 
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Join the MinistryMatters.com “Why Ministers Matter” blog tour to read as today’s leading pastors and authors share their stories of ministers who made a difference in their lives. Visit MinistryMatters.com/blogtour for a complete list of virtual tour stops and to link up your own post about a minister who mattered to you!
 
Next stop on the blog tour…

The Problem With Princesses

When we named our daughter Katherine Juliet, friends commented that her name sounded like royalty, or at least like some character out of Shakespeare.  

Katherine Juliet LaGrone

The Kate most talked about in the news in the last couple of years is actual royalty, a real life princess: the beautifully poised young woman who will probably be the next queen of England.  I’ve saved some pictures of the wedding of Kate and Prince William (which happened the year I got pregnant with our little Kate) so that she can someday see the beautiful young woman who shares her name.  Watching that royal wedding took so many women back to the dreams of their childhood, like watching a real life fairy tale.

William and Kate

Kate is only one month old at the time that I’m writing, but I confess I’ve already developed an inexplicable love for all things pink and frilly.  My iHusband didn’t seem to understand why we needed to repaint the nursery or replace some of the blue and green baby accessories we’d bought for our son only two years before.  The bedding set we picked out for Kate’s nursery (and by “We” I mean I spent months searching catalogs and websites for just the right decor.  The iHusband carried it upstairs.) is a soft pink and chocolate brown.  As part of that set we could’ve ordered accessories with little signs for the wall with the word “Princess” in scrolling type, or a matching rug shaped like a big crown. I declined.  

Kate’s nursery

 

Now that I have a daughter, I do feel a certain excitement about a future that includes watching movies about princesses and playing dress-up with gowns, pearls and tiaras.  As a girl I loved all the Disney princess movies, the ones that told basically the same story: a princess, beautiful but helpless, finds herself in a dangerous situation (locked in a tower, enslaved to a wicked stepmother, or asleep under a curse).  She needs someone to come and rescue her.  A prince, of the charming variety, comes along and is enraptured by her loveliness. He fights the battle she needs fought (slays the dragon, climbs her hair, or kisses her sleeping lips even though she hasn’t seen toothpaste for 100 years).  She is overwhelmed with gratitude, falls into his arms, and they live happily ever after.

But along with nostalgia for the stories I loved as a little girl, I also have a growing wariness about these fairy tales.  I’m starting to realize that although those stories captured my imagination and gave me some of my first dreams of romance, they also did me a great disservice.  They planted a desire in me for someone to come along when I was in distress, rescue me from my reality, and carry me away to happily-ever after. 

I know I’m not the only one bringing up these kinds of questions.  This summer, Disney is trying out a new archetype for a heroine with the release of their new movie “Brave.”  I haven’t seen it yet, but discussion online points to it as an attempt on Disney’s part to answer criticisms of their trend towards helpless princesses who need to be rescued.  This heroine has no love interest and doesn’t need rescuing.  Will little girls love and adore her as much as they have the princesses whose chief attribute was their ability to lie still while waiting for the kiss that would wake them to a new life?

Girl Power

I know it’s not Walt Disney’s fault, but growing up with stories of princesses of the more classic variety I ended up spending a great deal of time and energy looking for that prince, the one who would make my life complete.  It turned out that every man I met fell short of that expectation (not to mention bringing with them some problems of their own!) and I was left lonely and confused to begin the search again.  It would be hard for me to overemphasize how much that obsession threw me off balance, causing me to over-focus on having a man in my life, charming or not.  Because of it I neglected friendships and family relationships, missed lots of opportunities to rely on Jesus, and underestimated my ability to solve my own problems and progress unassisted towards my own happily-ever-after. 

I’m not alone.  Telling a friend about the new man in her life, one woman said, “We met after my divorce and he was my savior.”  Really?  I’m sure he’s a great guy and all, but put him on that particular pedestal and he’s sure to fall right off.  

That brings to mind a pastor-friend whose grand, cathedral-like church attracted lots of young couples for weddings.  He met with each of them for pre-marital counseling and at some point in the interview asked them each to answer a simple and seemingly obvious question: “What is the most important thing in your life?”  With stars in their eyes the young love-birds would, without exception, gaze over at their betrothed and say: “He is,” or “She is.”   At this point the pastor would stand up at his desk and get stern with them: “Don’t do that! He is going to make a great husband, but he makes a really lousy God.”  He’d then talk to them in a gentler tone about what God could provide for them that no human person ever could, and how their marriage would be stronger if they’d let God shine in the role He wanted and their spouse shine in the role they were intended for.  Many of those young couples recognized in his words something their hearts had been longing for, and began relationships with Jesus as they began their marriage together.  That empty cathedral of a church was soon full of young families growing in faith together.

These are some of the reasons I’ve chosen not to fill my baby daughter’s room with crowns and labels of “princess.”  It’s not that I don’t want her to play dress up, to twirl around in gown and tiaras and feel beautiful and sparkly.  But I don’t want her to assume from her earliest days that she is the center of our universe or even our household, that she is “The Little Princess” we will cater to.  I also don’t want her to cast herself as the helpless maiden in the Disney tales, singing “Someday my prince will come” while life passes her by.

Sleeping Beauty – the first movie I saw in a theater

I want to offer Kate a story big enough to build real dreams on.  I want her to dream about a story that will capture her imagination and her longings, but I also want those longings to be ones that will actually be fulfilled.  I want her to know that yes, she does need a Savior, and that He is the one who can provide the kind of rescue we all need, whether our nursery was decorated in pink or in blue.

I don’t mind if Kate wants to be Cinderella for Halloween, or Sleeping Beauty, but I don’t want her to learn those stories by heart until I have a chance to tell her another story.  A true story.  The story of Ruth, who will never, ever get cast by Disney.

Here’s what I love about Ruth, the anti-princess:

  • She’s from the despised land of Moab (and not the chosen people ofIsrael), but that doesn’t stop her from becoming our heroine.  Just the fact that she gets the starring role means that God doesn’t play favorites. He doesn’t withhold his love and blessings because we don’t have royal blood or a fairy godmother or we aren’t the fairest of them all. 
  • The central relationship of her story is not a romance, but a friendship between women.  I want Kate to know that friendships will be some of the strongest and most meaningful blessings in her life, and that she should hold tightly to them, even when she thinks Prince Charming beckons.  Ruth’s beautiful words of commitment to her mother-in-law Naomi, the poem of covenant and conversion where she chooses her as family and converts to following Naomi’s God, is one of the most quoted passages of Scripture.

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. (Ruth 1:16-17)

The fact that we quote those beautiful words in weddings to make romantic commitments (and not to our friends or mothers-in-law) shows you just how focused we are on romantic love over all other kinds.

  • When tragedy strikes and Ruth and Naomi are left without a man to provide for them, Ruth doesn’t cower under the curse of women’s status or lack of it in her culture.  She doesn’t bemoan the fact that she has no rights, or that she could be left begging on the streets, or worse.  Instead of waiting for Prince Charming to do something about her problems, she gets out and finds a solution herself, working in the fields and bringing home the bacon (or in this case, barley) to support herself and Naomi.
  • When Naomi plays matchmaker between Ruth and Boaz, the wealthy owner of the field she’s been working in, the two women are clearly the ones in control of their destinies.  Boaz agrees to their plan, but it’s most certainly the women who are writing their fairy tale ending.

Instead of mistaking the romantic relationship of this story for another “Prince Charming” situation where a man rides in on a white horse to save the helpless women, let’s consider the role Boaz plays in the story.  

When Naomi realizes that  Ruth and Boaz have become acquainted, she speaks her first positive words in the whole story after a long line of “Woe is me” negativity:

He [Boaz] is worthy of praise before Yahweh who has not abandoned his kindness to the living or the dead”  Then Naomi said, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers.” (Ruth 2:20)

Boaz is called a Kinsman-redeemer, or a “go-el” in Hebrew.  That title describes a role given by the law in Leviticus to a man who would help out a family member in distress by “redeeming” them.  

The law ofIsraeldeclared that a kinsman-redeemer was responsible to redeem a relative who had fallen on hard times and needed rescue.  This was called the Levirate law.  Look up each of these passages and write out any insights you find next to the law as described: 

1. If a family member went bankrupt and had to sell their land – the kinsman redeemer – a male relative – would buy the land back for them. (Leviticus 25:25)

2. If a family member was sold into slavery to pay a debt, a kinsman redeemer would buy them back and set them free. (Leviticus 25:47-49)

3. If a woman was widowed without children, a kinsman redeemer was obligated to marry them, have children, and then raise those children as if they belonged to the widow’s deceased husband in order to carry on his line.  (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) 

This last one is what we find happening in Ruth’s story.  A true gentleman, a true go-el, would marry a widow of his closest male relative and give inheritance to those children even though they’d be considered the children of the deceased.  If you’re a woman, and you’re married, think about this for a moment.  If your husband passed away, and you had to marry his closest male relative, who would that be? That’s a thought worth shuddering about, isn’t it?

The Kinsman-redeemer was someone highly valued by family members because they could count on him to come to the rescue when they were desperate.  Besides being a human agent with responsibility to help family members, a Kinsman-redeemer was also definitely an instrument of God.  While the human kinsman-redeemer is working in plain sight, the true Redeemer is the one working behind the scenes.  Scripture is clear about the fact that God is the ultimate Kinsman-redeemer.  Any human person who takes on that role is simply showing the world how God comes to our rescue when we need his help.  Scripture uses the word “go-el” to describe God as redeemer.

Ruth and Naomi’s story makes it clear that Boaz is not the prince here.  He may be the go-el redeeming them from a life of poverty and hunger, but God is the great go-el behind the scenes, redeeming their story of grief and brokenness, bringing light where before there was only darkness.

The romance in the book of Ruth is a story with a hidden hero.  The true Redeemer peeks from behind the scenes, waiting to see if we can find Him whispering an invitation through the story.  Transfixed by the happy marriage of Boaz and Ruth, we just might find ourselves caught up in our own love story, one with the Kinsman-redeemer who is at work to claim what is lost. He will not stop until we are found.

Let’s be clear. You do need a rescuer, but you will not find Him in the personal ads.  And when rescue that is needed arrives or romance of the most true kind blooms here in this life, He is always the one behind them.  He was at work in Ruth’s story all along, romancing her through every circumstance and saving grace.  The ultimate goal of every positive turn in her story is that she would recognize and praise Him, not just the prince he sent in to save the day so that He could save the soul.

Move over Snow White.  This is the kind of fairy-tale I want my little Princess Kate to find captivating.  One she can build dreams on.  One where her friendships are some of the greatest loves of her life.  One where her own ingenuity solves the problems of the day instead of waiting on someone to ride in on a white horse. One where all of her earthly needs are met through a Redeemer who is sufficient to rescue her from any situation.  And when the white horse comes, may the man on it know and follow the same Redeemer, so that the sunset they ride off into together is the one and only true Happily Ever After.

Sweet dreams, Sweet Kate

Job 19:25
I know that my Redeemer (go-el) lives,
    and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

I’d love to hear your comments.
Did you grow up idolizing a fairy tale?
Do you encourage your daughters to participate in princess paraphernalia?
Are there certain stories you read/tell/show your children now because you want to create a different dream for them?

Kate’s birth story

The name of this blog was chosen intentionally to reflect the see-saw nature of my life: back and forth between giving energy and attention to my dual roles as Reverend and Mother.

Sometimes those shifts happen so quickly that I feel a little like a ping-pong ball bouncing between two worlds.  But there are also seasons when one or the other of those roles gets my complete attention and focus for a time, and this is definitely one of them.  This is a season of being fully and completely a mom.  Newborns don’t allow time for attention to much else, so I thank God for 8 weeks of maternity leave to focus entirely on this brand new person, her big brother, and becoming the person they need me to be. For a month now it has been such a huge blessing to be completely and totally devoted to my kids for a while (and by “completely and totally devoted” I mean that showering is optional, PJ’s are the daily uniform, and meals consist of snatching leftovers off a toddler’s plate while jiggling a newborn on my shoulder.)
So forgive me if I drop the “Reverend” and go all “Mommy Blogger” on you for a while. The pastoral part of my personality is in hibernation for a bit, and the “Mommy” part is in full force.  Excuse me if I occasionally slip into baby talk with you, dear readers, and say things like: “You’re just the cutest thing I’ve ever written a blog post to! Yes you are! Yes you are!”  I promise that my professionalism and “Reverence” will emerge again at some point.  For now, consider your cheeks pinched.
So many of you have sent greetings and congratulations since Kate’s birth, and I’ve felt incredibly blessed that our family is surrounded by such warmth and love.  Many of you have also asked: “So… what happened? Tell us about the day she was born!”  It’s quite a story, filled with drama and joy and more than one LaGrone passing out (hint: not the baby), and about a thousand references to my water breaking (be forewarned), so I wanted to wait a month into Kate’s little life to get my wits about me in order to write about that day (and by “wits about me” I mean I’m off the Vikodin and sleeping for two whole hours at a time. Still shouldn’t operate heavy machinery, but writing seems safe.)
Katherine Juliet LaGrone, “Kate,” was born on Tuesday, June 5 at 6:08 PM.

Part I: In Which I Try To Be Reverend AND Mother (in labor)
At The Same Time

Since she was due on June 19, two whole weeks away, I had made plans to attend our Methodist Annual Conference in Galveston that day.   I was determined not to miss this annual gathering of colleagues and friends – only an hour and a half away from home/hospital.  And besides, the due date was circled on my calendar.  Did I mention I still had two weeks to go?  Drew had arrived promptly on his due date two years ago (something less than 5% of babies accomplish) so I was going with my limited experience and the rookie mom’s false assumption that it’s OK to compare your children and expect them to be similar in any way.  Since I had a night of constant Braxton-Hicks contractions on the 4th, was waddling like a duck, and my entire family was urging me not to go, I gave in a little (just to please them) and had my mother drive with me in case we needed to leave for some reason and go directly to the hospital (which I was sure we would not!)
Before we left The Woodlands my mom and I stopped to pick up breakfast. Sometime during that  that experience something seemed a little “off” – and I remember thinking to myself: “Did my water just break? Surely not! She’s not due for 2 whole weeks!”  So we got back in the car and off to Galveston we went.  My mom dropped me off at the Convention Center and I was there for about 5 minutes before feeling a little odd again – so back to my favorite vacation spot (the bathroom) – with the same question  in mind: “Did my water break?” Every story I had ever heard about that happening involved a puddle and a great deal of embarrassment, and that was certainly not the case here, so I returned to the Conference.
The next 20 minutes was the greatest experience of cognitive dissonance I have ever been through.  I shmoozed with pastoral colleagues and mentors, making small talk, all the while thinking in the back of my head: “Did my water break? Am I in labor?”  If I had a conversation with you that morning, I apologize for the strange look on my face and the abrupt ending to our talk, as I stepped casually away from you (Haha! Excuse me! Be right back!) to visit the bathroom 5 more times, just to check on things.  I think 5 times in 20 minutes is a record. Although I still wasn’t sure this was really happening, I finally decided it was time to go.
I called my mom, who was around the corner having coffee with a friend, and she sped back to the Convention Center to pick me up.  To her credit, she drove the hour and a half back to our hospital very cool and calm (on the outside at least).  Also to her credit, she never said “I told you so” about the fact I shouldn’t have gone to Galveston at all.  Maternal restraint is amazing.  She didn’t speed on the way back, although we would’ve had the ultimate excuse if stopped by a trooper.
I’m not sure if it’s good technology etiquette to text your husband that you’re in labor and on the way to the hospital, but that’s what I did.  He left work and picked up our bags at home and we arrived at  the hospital at the same time, where they confirmed that yes, my water broke at 8:30 that morning.  I had been in early labor the whole time.
On the floor of Annual Conference, in front of a couple of thousand of my closest colleagues, the Bishop read my Facebook status from the podium: “This is Jessica LaGrone’s status on Facebook today: ‘Do I get ultimate credit for being at Annual Conference? Was there 20 min. Went into labor. Mom drove me back. Am I obligated to name my daughter John Wesley?'”  The Bishop suggested instead of “John” I name the baby Susannah after the founder of Methodism’s mother.  Here’s hoping I don’t get professionally reprimanded for not following a Bishop’s orders!

Kate’s Annual Conference Nametag

Part II: In Which The Drama Begins

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the glorious decree came from the doctor that I could go ahead and get my epidural.  Contractions were now in full force, and the epidural is (I’m not joking) my absolute favorite part of having a baby.  I mean, seeing new life come into the world is great and all, but that epidural… if I speak of it with more fondness than I do for my newborn, please forgive me and never tell her.  Jim jokes that when we came to the hospital to have Drew I announced at the check-in desk “My name is epidural, can I have my Jessica now?”  Once I found out what a blessed gift pain relief was, Drew came dangerously close to being named Epidural LaGrone.
For some reason, the anesthesiologist thought it would be a good idea for Jim to stay in the room and sit on a stool facing me and hold my hand while I got the epidural. You know, to comfort me.
0 Fact one: I have a medical background and a great fondness for the epidural, and I was not in the slightest in need of comfort.
0 Fact two: That is one huge needle going into your spine.
0 Fact three: Jim has sometimes been known to pass out when giving blood, something that requires a much smaller needle.
So… as the nice doctor was placing a needle into a place inches away from where it could cause paralysis, I stared into my husband’s eyes as his face turned white, his eyes rolled back in his head, his rolling stool rolled out from under him, and his head make a loud knocking sound while connecting with the hospital floor.  All the while the nice doctor with the needle was screaming in my ear: “Do not move! Do not move!” (NOTE: Please don’t mock my husband when you see him. He was kind enough to give permission for me to blog this!)
Suddenly the entire emergency response team was in the room with us, and I wasn’t the patient everyone was most concerned about.  Jim regained consciousness immediately, but everyone insisted that he make a trip to the Emergency Room for a CAT scan and MRI.  I agreed we were better safe than sorry (and I didn’t want to worry about whether his brain was bleeding while our daughter was being born) so off he went to give our hospital bills a creative addendum.

Kate and her daddy

Part III: In Which We Had More Drama Than An Episode of E.R.

I can see that God was at work in so many parts of that day, but one main one is that my mom was there with me when Jim was gone getting his brain checked out.  If she and I hadn’t been on the road together, it might’ve been just Jim and me, and then I would’ve been alone for this next part.  God knew I would need my mom there.
The doctor let me know that she would try to hold off delivering the baby until Jim got back, but she couldn’t promise anything.  Doctors generally don’t pay close attention to you in labor until the moment the baby is to be born (the nurses are your go-to gals up to that point), so the fact that my doc kept returning over and over to check my vitals let me know something was up.  It turned out the baby’s heart rate was too high, and was dipping during contractions.  Because of circumstances with my pregnancy, they were pretty sure at this point that I had an infection in my amniotic fluid called chorioamnionitis, and were worried the baby was in distress. They came close to having to deliver the baby quickly to assure her safe arrival, and let me know the neonatal team was planning to be present when she was delivered in case anything was seriously wrong.
At one point my sweet young nurse was the only one in the room with me, and she came over to the bed and calmly informed me she was going to pray for me.  She proceeded to pray the most powerful and beautiful prayer.  I’m so thankful when people are brave enough to show their faith at work, even when it’s against the rules.  (NOTE: The nurse recognized me because I had performed her sister’s wedding several years ago! You never know when the people you’re ministering to will become the people ministering to you.)  The baby’s vitals leveled off and we were able to wait until Jim came back, having certified that he did indeed have a brain and that it was functioning as normally as can be expected for a man whose wife is in labor.
They had given me medication to slow down contractions, now they gave me medication to speed them up, along with another glorious dose of epidural.  When time came for Kate to be born it all happened very quickly. I remember wanting so badly to hear her first cry, and being so thankful when she finally did.  The neonatal team pronounced her healthy and beautiful, 8 pounds 4 ounces, and they put her in my arms for the first time.  It was, as they say, love at first sight.

Our first picture

I would love to tell you that the drama ended there, but things got complicated again.  I spiked a fever, began shaking uncontrollably, started hyperventilating, and soon after handing the baby off to Jim and my mom, I passed out: the second LaGrone to lose consciousness that day.  The emergency response team rushed back in, and they were all: “Weren’t we just here? Why do you people keep passing out?”  Actually, I don’t know what they said, because I was in and out of consciousness for the next several hours.  I lost a lot of blood due to the infection and felt like the rest of the day was one big out-of-body experience.  My mom says she just sat in the corner and prayed a lot and cried a little most during that time – another reason I’m so glad she was with us.

Kate and her Grammy

Part IV: In Which We Have A Happy Ending

Finally the drama was over, and I was fine, Jim’s brain was fine, and little Kate (the healthiest one of all of us) was better than fine, but ironically had to go to the NICU for a couple of days to be on IV antibiotics and make sure she didn’t get an infection as well.  It felt strange to be visiting our big healthy 8 pound baby in the NICU when the twins in the room next to her didn’t even total her birth weight if you added them together.

Kate watching her weight

Drew came to visit the next day and showed great joy over finally getting to meet “Baby Sister.”  That’s the story we’ll tell her anyway.  His greatest joy was getting to push the buttons that moved my hospital bed up and down, and his ultimate question was: “Mommy, why you have your PJ’s on?”  Since we came home and I’ve had my PJ’s on for most of a month now, he’s stopped asking.

Drew meets Kate!

First Family Photo

Kate is an amazing baby: calm and mellow, sleeping between every feeding, and opening her eyes to turn her little head towards the sound of her daddy’s voice when she’s awake. She has the sweetest little rosebud mouth, and looks quite a bit like her brother did as a newborn.  I’m thankful for her every day (and even right now in the middle of the night).  Writing the story of the day she was born I’m thankful again to live in this century.  If we lived in another time our story might not have such a happy ending.  I think medical science is a true gift from God (especially the epidural – can I get an Amen?) and that those who practice it are in ministry to their patients.

Heading Home

Sappy hormones are creeping into this post, so before I get all sentimental I’ll stop for now. But not before saying: God is good.  I know that now more than I ever have.
Welcome to the world, Kate. You were definitely worth all the trouble.

She’s let herself go

When we’re children, our moms seem like know-it-alls.  They are the ones in control. The ones who say when we go to bed and how many bites of green beans we have to eat before we get any ice cream and then how long we have to wait after eating to go swimming.  They always have sunscreen and Band-aids and snacks in their gigantic purses.  They hold all the cards, and they always seem to know what they’re doing.

My amazing mom and me

Imagine my surprise when I became a mom myself to learn that when they hand you your baby for the first time, they don’t also hand you the magical secrets that all moms know, all the instructions for how to know what to do at every moment, and all the answers you’ll need for all the questions your children will ask. 

I remember insisting that the first night home from the hospital with our new baby that my husband and I be left alone.  I kicked all the relatives that had gathered out of the house with this picture in my head of the sweet little nuclear family bonding all alone together…  Let’s just say that night and future nights convinced me of how much I had to learn.   

The next morning my mother called to see how things went and heard the sound of my voice.  A little while later she called back: Jessica, she said, I’m on my way there. And I’ve packed a bag for several nights. I think you need help, and you just don’t know it.

She was wrong about one thing: I knew it! I was not in control and one night alone with my husband and that newborn baby told me so.

During those early weeks of motherhood I remember trying to stay awake to finish reading all of those baby-care and parenting books that seemed so important at the time – like they were going to tell me all the things I desperately needed to know about becoming a mom.  

On the way home from the hospital with Drew

There were some good tips here and there, but they all came up short of telling me what I was really looking for.  I was looking for someone to tell me what it meant to “become a mom.” Not what it meant to schedule feedings, or sleep-train, or plan date nights or locate amazing child care.  I wanted someone to explain not just what was happening to the baby, but what was happening to me. This whole identity shift from who I was before to the person I was becoming, mostly without my control or consent.  

What did it mean to be the new me?  The person whose life now obsessively rotated around a three hour cycle of nursing, changing, sleeping, changing and nursing again.  My life was totally consumed. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore, and I didn’t really have time to think about it.

The tiny part of me that had a few extra brain cells for self-reflection wondered:  
In the middle of figuring out my baby and his needs, when would I have a chance to figure out who I was again?  Where had the me gone that I once liked so much and was so attached to, and would I find her again?

Back in my more put-together days, when I could browse in bookstores and leave the house on a whim to go shopping for no reason, or to “run into the store” without 50 pounds of baby gear, I remembered seeing new moms who were venturing out in public for the first time.  They were unaware of their smeared mascara and baby spit-up dried on their shooulder, their clothing not fitting them right, their hair thrown up in a ponytail at best, their sense of arriving somewhere on time or making eye contact in a grown-up conversation totally forgotten.  

And a phrase that I had heard people use about women in that stage (and other stages) of life came to mind.  Forgive me, but I thought to myself: “She’s let herself go.”  

When I had a chance to throw my own unwashed hair into the new-mom ponytail and glance for half a second in the mirror to see the spit-up on my shoulder, I wondered the same thing about me. Had I let myself go?

The answer is yes.  And in a way, it’s not a bad thing.  Because really I cared about way too much in the past that wasn’t really me.  Some of those things I’ve lost control of were not the things I should’ve been controlling in the first place.  I wasn’t losing myself, just the scaffold of image I had created around the identity that is truly me.

There are things I don’t really have time to care about any more.  
Do I have the right haircut to frame the shape of my face?  
Have I bought the latest sandals for this season?  
Is my purse SO last year?
Have I read all the issues of the magazines that arrive at my house and am I getting the right magazines?  
Have I made an effort at friendship or acquaintanceship with the people that it seems important for me to impress?  
Do I sound smart to my colleagues? 
Are my roots showing?  
I mean: Who has time to think such thoughts anymore?

Having children makes me think daily about what’s really important and what’s not.  Because there’s not time for both!  And because of that, I may not have let myself go after all. I may have been forced to find who I really am.    Because there’s just no extra time or extra brain cells left to pretend to be anyone but my true self, not even to pretend it to myself. 

With Drew at 18 months

I find myself, on the verge of having a newborn again, this time with a bonus toddler thrown in for fun, frantically re-evaluating my life once more. Because I know I’m about to lose myself all over again.  My little reflection time is spent thinking again about what is most important for me to do and to be, and how to protect and preserve that.

That’s something I honestly didn’t think about much about when my whole life was mostly dedicated to me – before I lost myself. 

Losing something can actually help you find what’s really there.  It’s actually a chance to let go of what we thought was important and reestablish who we want to be. There’s just no time any more to invent our identities based on what other people will think of us.  

Caring about what other people think is a luxury we do not have time for when we spend our lives caring for others.  What’s important now is to figure out who we really want to be, who God has created us to be and who he’s transforming us to be, and grab onto it with a death-grip that will not let go.  Because we have to fight not to lose the really important things.

Because all of those details that involve keeping small people alive and nurtured are going to overwhelm our lives and our thoughts, and if we want to have any self left over when they are old enough to keep themselves alive we are going to have to fight for it now.

Who am I now?  None of those parenting books had a chapter that can tell me the answer to that question.  What part of me did not go away when I stopped caring about the things that weren’t really me in the first place?  What part of me do I miss and want to reclaim badly enough that I will go through the gargantuan task of finding someone else to care for my child for a short time while I pursue it?  

And where does my relationship with God fit into this picture?  Was it so superficial that it was easily discarded when my life became consumed by children?  Or is it a part of me that now I long for all the more, especially when I have the least time for it?  

Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist said about Him: I must decrease, so that He may increase. As the parts of me that I have less and less time for slip away, am I holding onto the identity of Christ in me in a new way?  

Parenting is a glorious opportunity to become more like Jesus through acts of sacrifice and submission that I may never have had otherwise, to serve the Lord while I serve my family. It’s also a chance to see Jesus’ character grow in us in the places where less substantial things have withered away from lack of attention.  

The desire to claim a new you that reflects the character of Jesus and the individual, beautiful person he made you to be is emerging as the stuff that doesn’t matter fades into the background. That’s a gift.  

Losing what you thought was you is a gift, but only if you use it as an opportunity to find out who you really are with God’s help.  You don’t have the time to waste on the trivial stuff anymore.  

The desired outcome of parenting for our children can be found in those books that I still have on the shelf. I should probably go back and read some of them again – in my spare time – before the new baby comes.

They tell us how to get the outcome we want for our kids – We want them to be well fed, well rested, well adjusted individuals who love Jesus and contribute to the world in a way that matters.

But the outcome of parenting for us is not in those books.  It is something we have to take the time to wrestle with if we’re going to lose the parts of ourselves that don’t matter and find the parts of ourselves that do.  

To get a little out of control in order to place ourselves and our children in the hands of the One who ultimately is in control after all. 

To let ourselves go.

Gethsemane – the power of surrender

The journey of Holy Weekend begins on Maundy Thursday.  Thursday was a big day for Jesus.  A friend said to me tonight: It started out with a party, but it didn’t stay that way for long.

Jesus went from washing his disciples’ feet to eating a supper he called his body and blood. At that party one of his closest friends betrayed him and left, which must have really killed the mood.  And then he ended up in a garden with a handful of friends who fell asleep while he prayed that God would come up with some other plan than this ridiculously painful thing that was about to happen to him.  He didn’t.  In the end his enemies arrived and arrested him.  And Jesus surrendered.

Surrender is a great word to describe what happened in that garden.

Gethsemane, January 2012

The garden is named Gethsemane, and it is my favorite place in all of Israel.  Going there made me feel connected to Jesus in a deep way, because I can picture exactly what happened there.  Of all the places I’ve visited on my two trips to the Holy Land, Gethsemane still looks and feels somewhat the same as it might have the night Jesus prayed there.  The ancient, gnarled olive trees with root systems around 1700 years old are descendants of the trees Jesus knelt by, watered with his tears and sweat in the agony of prayer.

Gethsemane is a place of surrender in a couple of ways.  It was there that Jesus surrendered spiritually to God’s plan, saying “Not my will but yours be done.”  And then at the end of the night he surrendered physically to the soldiers who arrested him. 

One act of surrender seems active: a wrestling and inner struggle so powerful that we’re told his sweat came out in great drops of blood.  The church next to the garden is called the Church of the Agony.  Those Catholics are always so cheerful in when they name things.  The night Jesus spent there in prayer was one of agony.  He’s described as distressed, agitated, grieved, even unto death

If his surrender to God in prayer is an active one, filled with overwhelming passion and struggle, the military surrender that follows seems almost anticlimactic. A passive act. What we usually think of as a submissive relinquishment, the waving of a white flag:
“Go ahead and take me.  I won’t fight. I surrender.”

Is surrender an active fight? Or is it when we passively stop fighting

I would say it’s both:
Surrender is the fight to stop fighting
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Life has never seemed like a passive prospect to me

I’ve always been what you’d call “Goal Oriented.”  Ambitious, even. 

Growing up I became accustomed to seeing what I wanted and working to get it.  The achievement of one goal always led to another ladder to climb, another target to accomplish. 

When God knocked me for a loop halfway through a pre-med degree and pointed me in the direction of ordained ministry, I’m not sure I surrendered to that call.  I really just found in it another series of goals to pursue. 

Preparing for ministry is great if you’re an over-achiever.  There’s an academic track to complete (graduate school with courses to cross off a list) and a set of hoops required by the church to reach ordination (tests, papers, meetings, and several levels of board interviews).  Once you climb one rung, you find another.  At the end of it all a bishop prays over you and you’ve reached the rank of pastor.

The same year I got ordained Jim and I got married and moved to the church where we currently serve.  It seemed like the perfect timing to pursue the other big goal I had felt all along, the dual calling to ministry and to motherhood.

Achieving this second calling seemed like it would be easy enough, just another goal that would be simple to grasp.  But it turned out I was wrong about that.  For the first time there was something I wanted that I couldn’t just make happen.

What ensued was a 4 year struggle with infertility and the loss of several pregnancies.  In the midst of the grief and even times of depression that followed, I still held onto my active, goal setting nature. 

I came up with detailed plans about what doctor to see next, what drug to take next, what procedure was around the corner. My medical background and access to the internet meant that I read and researched so much I think I scared my doctors by telling them the best course of treatment before they could tell me.  With all that was completely out of control in my life, I continually found ways to be as in control of the situation as possible, even if only in my head.  But nothing that I did meant the realization of my dream.

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Strangely enough around the same time I developed a phobia, a sense of uncontrollable anxiety and fear.  Every time I got into the passenger’s seat of a car and someone else started driving, my heart began racing.  As soon as they turned onto the road and I realized I didn’t have control of the wheel I would get nervous, panicky even, several times I bordered on an anxiety attack, just because I could see where we were going, but I couldn’t steer. I couldn’t brake. I wasn’t in the driver’s seat.

I realized one day there was an uncanny parallel between the lack of control in doctors’ offices – my feet pressing into stirrups as I searched for ways to control this out of control experience of infertility – and the anxiety of my foot pressing the floor of the passenger’s side – my reflexes looking for a brake even when it was obvious that there would be no controlling the journey.

The years we spent in and out of doctor’s offices, up and down the roller coaster of infertility and pregnancy and miscarriage, taught me more about surrender than I cared to learn.

I learned over and over again about the fight to stop fighting.  I had no choice. I had to surrender and let happen a future I couldn’t control or predict.

When we got pregnant with Drew we went to a high risk doctor for a while, holding our breaths at every visit while we waited for the heartbeat to flicker on the screen, waiting to see if this was finally the baby who was going to make it.  There were drugs and tests and daily injections with crazy side effects and lots of statistics to read about on the internet and worry over – as if I had one ounce of control over the outcome.

At the end of our time with that doctor she released us to the care of a regular obstetrician. I’ll never forget that day.  I should’ve been ecstatic.  I had reached a goal! I was graduating!  Instead the day I walked out of the high risk office doctor’s was one of the hardest days of my life.  Our doctor took me off every medication. She took away my daily injections. She stopped the weekly visits and ultrasounds that kept me going.

 Before I left I asked her: “And what do we do now?”
“Just let it happen,” She said!
Let it happen?  That was not in my vocabulary! I made things happen. I didn’t let them happen.  I panicked. The passengers’ seat was not a comfortable place to be.

It was tempting to replace research and medical intervention with constant worry.  The fight to stop fighting was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. 

Even today, with a healthy two-year-old and pregnant with our second child, I forget sometimes that I don’t have to actively plan and orchestrate this baby’s growth.  What am I supposed to be doing? If I don’t think about what organ is developing or what phase of growth this baby is in, will it still happen?  I forget that something is happening TO me, someone is growing inside of me without my help or even consciousness, and I’m supposed to just let it happen.

All of that surrendering has been great training for parenthood, for learning that no matter how much I plan and read and act, I actually have much less control than I would like over the two year old in my house, his behavior, and the person he will become.

Surrender has been great training for my relationship with God too.  As much as I’d like to think otherwise with my work and prayer and study and ministry and feverish effort to contribute to His Kingdom, God is just not a plan I can work. He’s not a ladder I can climb one spiritual discipline or ministry act at a time.

The most powerful force in the universe is actually the one working on me, not the other way around. And my job is to let him. To surrender.

I’m not the one in the driver’s seat.  And the life of the Spirit is growing in me slowly, moving inside of me, gradually, taking over every system of my life. I’m not making it happen – I’m letting it happen to me.

I’m in the midst of the biggest surrender of my life – a fight to stop fighting the God who has a grip on me so tight that I can let go. I can loosen my grip a little. And it will be OK.

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Gethsemane means “The Olive Press.”  When olives are pressed, they surrender the most valuable substance they have to offer: their oil.    It is a staple in parts of the world for cooking, but also for healing wounds.  That oil has been known to be a nourishing and a healing balm for as far back as people knew what an olive tree was.  But it only comes out when the olive is crushed. 

The Mount of Olives where the garden stands has a perfect view of the opposite hill where Abraham laid Isaac on an altar and surrendered.  It overlooks the city where Jesus was hung on a cross and surrendered his spirit and died the very next day after his prayer in the garden.

The story of Gethsemane in Luke tells us that under pressure Jesus sweat great drops of blood in that garden that fell to the ground and into the roots of those trees.  That means that the first blood of the cross didn’t fall on Golgotha, it was spilled in prayer on the ground of Gethsemane, the olive press, the place of surrender.

The place where Jesus taught us about the fight to stop fighting God and say: “Not my will, but yours be done.” 

At the end of that night in the garden, when Peter went rogue and pulled a sword to try to start fighting the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, he had no idea that there was no reason to go into battle.  It was already over.  The surrender had already happened before those soldiers even showed up

And because of that there was nothing they could take from Jesus – he never actually surrendered to them because he had surrendered already. To his Father. The battle was basically done on Thursday before the cross ever appeared on Friday.

That’s the power of surrender. There’s nothing the world can do to us – because the control has already been handed over to the one who understands the power of surrender better than we ever will.

One little letter

Jeff was one of our favorite speakers to invite to speak to our youth groups.  He always had a powerful presentation, always held the attention of even the most A.D.D. teenagers, and (cardinal rule of youth ministry) he always had them crying by the end.  Jeff’s testimony centered around his own teenage years, when he had been rebellious and wild, rejecting his parents’ Christian views and filling his life with parties, alcohol and sex.  At the pinnacle of his story, Jeff left a party under the influence of alcohol and tried to drive his car home.  When his best friend stood in his way, intending to stop him from driving drunk, Jeff didn’t see him in his rear-view mirror, and unintentionally backed over his friend, killing him instantly.  The wake-up call was immediate.  In the midst of grief, confession and repentance, Jeff gave his life to Jesus and pledged to go into ministry telling his story to prevent other teens from going down the wrong path.

Teenagers loved the drama of Jeff’s story and the transformation they saw in him.  Each time he told it, a handful of them realized they were on the same path of rebellion and made a dramatic turn with their own lives.

But then there were the rest.  Good, church-going kids, many of them had already given their lives to Christ.  Most could not identify with the dramatic circumstances of Jeff’s life. Many of them lamented: “I don’t really have a testimony. God hasn’t done much in my life compared to Jeff.”  They didn’t realize they were being daily transformed in little ways, or that it was important to expect God’s help with the smallest things.  Turning their temptations towards greed, lust, selfishness and materialism over to God bit by bit was forming a dramatically different future for them.  They were  becoming new and different people, but sometimes the alterations were almost too small to see.

When God changed Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah, the transformation might have seemed small.  In Hebrew it was just one tiny letter a piece. But when God makes changes, the tiniest adjustment can communicate big things, to us, our futures, and to those whose lives we impact.

Abram and Sarai each receive the same letter as an addition to their names.  In Hebrew the letter is called “Hey” and is written like this: ה

אַבְרָם(Abram) becomes אַבְרָהָם (Abraham) and שָׂרַי(Sarai) was renamed שָׂרָה (Sarah).

In Hebrew, letters have significance beyond just a pronounced sound.  Each character of the Hebrew alphabet is infused with meaning.  The letter Hey, for example, also signifies the number five, since it’s the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Hey sometimes represents the divine breath, revelation, and light. In some Jewish teachings, Hey is a picture of the presence of God within the human heart.  Adding Hey at the very end of a Hebrew noun gives the word a feminine character, which can metaphorically mean the word has become “fruitful” or reproductive.

What might that little letter have meant to Abraham and Sarah?  Hearing their new names spoken by God they might have seen clear picture painted of their future.  Not just a picture of becoming the Father of Many Nations, or A True Princess (the meanings of their new names), but a picture of a God who wanted to dwell in their hearts, making his presence as accessible as their next breath.  A picture of a new life that was fruitful and reproductive, infused with hope of a family that they had dreamed of for years and a God who would surround and bless them.

Too often we underestimate the value of small changes God makes in our lives.  What looks like one little letter to us meant the whole world to Abraham and Sarah.  Dramatic testimonies are inspiring, but if we miss the small changes God is making, we will miss the big picture He’s painting for a big future.

“God works powerfully, but for the most part gently and gradually.”
-John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace

(Note: To learn more about the Hebrew alphabet, follow this link and click on individual letters to learn their character and meaning.)
http://hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Aleph-Bet/

Can you think of someone whose life was changed in a small way by God?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

 

Social Media and Ministry

Today I’m giving a presentation on “Social Media and Ministry” to a group of Christian Educators.  It was fun actually using social media to prepare for the presentation by posting a request on Facebook and Twitter for people to share ways they’ve seen social networking impact ministry in positive and negative ways.  The response was amazing.  I got comments, twitter responses, and phone calls – all because people wanted to talk about how this topic is changing the way they do ministry.

Although I’m not a professional in social media, I am a practitioner.  I love the ways that it has helped me connect with people inside and outside my church for ministry and relationships.

I also feel it’s misunderstood and ignored by many churches and people in ministry.  We need to be talking and learning about how this can be a great asset to ministry.  As great as the first printing press was for the Bible.  The church needs to stop lagging after cultural trends and be on the leading edge of how people communicate, relate, and learn.

I want to offer you some of the resources I’m using in the presentation. If you know of others, please add them in the comments.

Here are some websites and resources to get you started:

Social Media Revolution Video (4:19)

Justin Wise has an exhaustive compilation of resources here. Many of them are great places to start. This is the list that I would type here, only Justin has already done it for me.
http://justinwise.net/social-media-resources#more-1451

Church Marketing Sucks blog
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/
Start with their “Read This First” tab – especially the series: “Facebook for Churches”

Church Social Media
Blog http://churchsocmed.blogspot.com/
Twitter @chsocm

Here’s one on from Justin Wise on understanding the relationship between an overall communications strategy and a social media strategy. Both are so important.
http://justinwise.net/communications-pyramid

What else would you add?

Going Public

Only epic Facebook news could produce 314 “likes” and 195 comments.*
And epic news is what we have.  Jim and I were blown away by the congratulatory responses to our announcement on Facebook last week that we are expecting a baby in June of 2012.   Who knew so many people wanted us to continue to procreate?  We are awed and grateful at everyone who wished our growing little family well.
*(Cumulatively between my status announcement timed precisely with Jim’s status announcement. Can’t have one parent scooping the other on the internet!)

Playdough Alien, or Living Proof?

 

Going public with news that has been a family secret for a few months has been fun – and a little overwhelming.  Public for us means MUCHO public, like 1400-Facebook-friends and 9000-church-members-public.  Jim was keeping count of how many people he had never met before came up to congratulate him at church Sunday.  He has it easy – I got “belly-groped” the very first day I started telling people at church.  As in – “I’m only 13 weeks pregnant and that’s just my chubby abdomen you’re rubbing, lady.”  I’m sure I’ll have enough material for a full post about belly-groping soon, so I’ll save it now.

When I told people that I was pregnant with Drew, I was amazed at how excited relative strangers were for us, and how personal people immediately got with me.  How eager they were to share very, very specific details of their own pregnancies, deliveries and (yes, Virginia) breast-feeding experiences without prompting.

If you and I are on a first name basis, I’m not talking about you here.  I was so new and green to the whole mommy-hood experience that I was seeking advice from all familiar quarters.  But it’s a little disconcerting to have someone whose name you don’t actually know share the inner secrets of their lady-parts, their ability to squirt milk across a room, or the fact that they breastfed their children until they were seven years old.  (None of these stories are exaggerated, I assure you.)

The personal nature of conversations with strangers wasn’t limited to their experiences. People had questions.  Lots of questions.  If people shared personal things during my first pregnancy, they were even more adamant in their personal questions.  They wanted me to reciprocate with information about my pregnancy and delivery and parenting plans.  This week that trend has begun again, including a question that I don’t remember being asked the first time around:

“Were you trying?”

A gentleman in his 60’s first asked the question the day we went public with our info, and I just stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded.  My answer to personal questions, as always, is just not to answer at all.  So he just kept talking: “I didn’t know you were trying.”  My response: “It’s not something you generally post in the church newsletter.”  Not taking the hint he responded: “Well, maybe that’s something you just share with your girlfriends, I just didn’t know you were going for it again!”  I wasn’t aware that he expected an update!

Several more questions about “trying” (though slightly more delicately worded) have been posed this week.  I’m sure many people aren’t shy about sharing that they had a plan for family planning, or that they intentionally planned their children a certain number of years apart.  (Although what’s the alternative response to this question?  “No, it was a total accident! Things got out of hand after a couple of shots of whiskey one night and we just threw caution to the wind…”  Is that a response they’re prepared for?)

For many people I’m sure that answering questions about the intentions behind their pregnancies is just a normal part of a normal childbearing experience.  But it feels like a very, very personal question when you haven’t had any “normal” in your childbearing experience at all.  When your experience involves infertility and miscarriage, doctors offices and tests, surgeries and treatments, when grief is as much a part of your efforts to build a family as hope, “trying” is a very trying process indeed.  One that we’ve not shared with many people outside of our inner circle.

When a baby is the result of years of a private cycle of ardent hope and shattered dreams, when a plus sign on a stick doesn’t always have a happy ending, going public feels a little like wearing your heart on the outside of your clothes.  The first few months of keeping the news to ourselves feels like we have a delicious secret, one that we’d love to share with people, but also one that we’re not quite ready to fully admit to ourselves.  The moment of telling, of taking the personal and putting it in the public domain, is a bittersweet one.  My voice catches a little in my throat when I say the words “I’m pregnant!” to people.  Because I’m not just telling them.  I’m really telling myself over and over: This is for real. It’s happening.  It’s time to stop being scared and be happy. And then be scared again.
Because, Oh My Gosh, how on earth will I ever handle two???

Commenters: Have people ever shared or asked you for too much information?

Slacktivism: How raising awareness is hurting the cause

The night that Casey Anthony was acquitted, my Facebook and Twitter feeds lit up with people raging against the perceived lack of justice that had been done by letting her go when most of the nation believed her to be guilty.

Used by permission – flickr account was_bedeutet_jemanden

Statuses on my Facebook wall ranged from:
“Justice is in God’s hands only.”
to “Casey Anthony is free. God help her, because I wouldn’t.”
to “That bitch needs to get cut before she leaves the courthouse.”
What can I say?  I have an eclectic set of friends.

By late afternoon a new kind of post was circling the web, an invitation to “Leave the light on for Caylee.”  The idea was to turn your porch lights on that night and leave them on until the morning as a sign of love and support for the deceased, Caylee Anthony.  Two million people RSVP’ed to a Facebook group, pledging to light up their porches for Caylee the night that her mother’s trial ended.

Now, I understand that people needed a constructive outlet for their rage and grief over something that the media had blown up in our faces for months, only to be dropped in a hot potato of disappointment.  But then again, that’s just it. This wasn’t a constructive outlet. Running up electric bills for a few hours did nothing to help Caylee, or better yet to help children like her who live in abusive and perilous households.  In fact, I think it hurt the cause of those living children instead of helping them.  Here’s why.

Every time someone participates in an act of cyber-activism they are bolstering their own image as someone who cares, in their own mind and in the mind of others.  It’s easy to believe that I’ve done something constructive when I say “Post this as your status for an hour if you know someone who’s been touched by cancer,” but in fact, all I’ve done is make myself feel like a person who does something to help a cause.  Clicking “attend” on a pseudo-event where I promise to leave my porch light on just means I’ve cast myself in my friends’ eyes as someone who cares.  I can go to bed at night sleeping easier thinking I’ve done something, when in fact I haven’t.

This feeling of doing good without having done anything at all is called slacktivism. I’ve done my bit in the virtual world, so I no longer feel burdened to actually help anyone.  I won’t sign up to be a CASA court appointed advocate to help prevent other children from ending up like Caylee because I already left a light on.  I won’t give money to cancer research because I’ve soothed my conscience.  I’m an activist on screen so that I don’t have to make the effort to be one in real life.

October is breast cancer awareness month, where companies produce five dollar bags of pink M&M’s so that we’ll buy them and feel like we’ve helped the cause because of the fraction of a cent they send along to help research.  On Facebook an annually annoying campaign has already begun: women posting cryptic statuses with innuendos that are supposed to somehow raise awareness about breast cancer.  Two years ago the mysterious status posted was the color of their bra. Last year they posted the location of their purse in statements like: “I like it on the kitchen table.”  That was a joy to see on the Facebook statuses of the teenagers I know.

This year’s innuendo status has women posting that they are pregnant and having cravings.