bread and water

It was easier to involve our sons in helping with the ministry when we homeschooled them.  They also traveled with us when my husband was a full time evangelist.  When we moved back to our home state of Georgia our life rhythms changed a lot because we quit homeschooling the older 3 and I started working part time outside of the home. Talk about a change!  I still homeschooled the youngest for Pre-k. Now our oldest son owns his own business, our second son is a Senior in high school at a public school and our younger two are at a private school in 10th grade and 2nd grade. Each year my husband and I reassess what kind of school our children need to be in and if they need to be homeschooled again or not. Seasons change in life and that’s okay.  I recently took a course that reminded me of the importance of including your children in the work of the ministry. Younger children naturally like to help serve.  If you have teens or young adults all you have to do is as...

Seven days, two spent flying and driving, from South Georgia’s farmland to the huge city of London England. My first sign of culture shock though was eating lunch in Atlanta with my brother and sister in law who were helping us get to and from the airport. I walked into the loud crowded restaurant and felt a bit dazed and confused. I looked around at the people noticing a stark difference from city life to country life. The kale salad with tangy dressing was good. I knew I needed a break from ministry even though it was technically my husband’s sabbatical. I needed one too, after all, I am married to the Pastor. We love the Lord and are so grateful God called us both into the ministry before we even met but it’s a 24/7 job with a heavy burden if you truly care about people. We love our church family and are grateful they allowed us this time to get away and rest and get refreshed. I was unable to sleep on the plane so when we got there we took a 4 hour nap and then got out and explored...

My husband didn’t know I was taking this picture. We stopped in right before church to look at the building our church recently purchased to turn into a youth building. When we moved to this small town in South Georgia to pastor a local church we had no intention of building anything, starting anything, or shaking things up. We were content and happy when under 100 folks voted him in as pastor after serving in West Virginia and Kentucky. We were happy to be back in our home state of Georgia where the green grass grows and the corn pops up in rows. Rows not toes autocorrect. Get it right.  But then God started moving and the church was so packed with people that we had to move the morning service to the gym (and it still meets there). People were getting saved, born again, blood washed and baptized. People were joining the church and it grew and grew. The devil got to work too and stirred a great ruckus. We persevered in face of persecution, attacks, even harassment and betrayal. No...

 As I started reading the first 2 chapters of this book (Ministry to Women) that our women’s ministry leadership team is about to study together, I had a God moment.  I love when this happens! I tell people about them all the time. My book (Walk by Faith) is full of stories like this that really happened.  Oh the joys of walking with Jesus! I wish everyone could experience it.  In the first chapter, one of her first sentences was about a book called Start with Why. This was a book I recently read with another woman in ministry as she was going through an assessment with me.  We discussed the importance of how any leader must “start with why” when they are leading a team to accomplish a goal together.  In ministry the goal is not making money or building buildings. The goal is to see lost souls saved, new christians discipled, to help people discover their spiritual gift so they can serve the body of Christ & to obey what the Lord is calling you to do. W...

 What if a woman is called to ministry?   By Brandi Beck Smith   As promised, not really promised but as mentioned, here are my thoughts on the Southern Baptist Convention vote on women serving as Pastors.    As some of you may know, I am a woman called to the ministry. I was called to the ministry as a teenage girl, long before I met my husband who is a pastor and evangelist.   I was sitting in my car in the church parking lot of Briarwood Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Church in Watkinsville, Georgia, and I was reading my Bible in Jeremiah chapter one when I heard the Lord‘s call to me personally to speak for him and to give my life in full-time ministry, whatever that may look like.    I read Jeremiah 1:4-9 which says,   “The word of the Lord came to me, saying,   “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,     before you were born I set you apart;     I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “A...

 I did a couple things that grounded me last weekend. I didn’t know they would ground me. They just needed to be done. I cleaned my house with my own hands. I used to do this all the time but during basketball season I paid someone to clean the house because we were too busy. And we have 4 sons. We live on a non working farm in the country. It gets dirty. These days people talk about nervous system regulation but they don’t realize it can happen in the natural rhythms of life if we slow down. The second thing I did was ironing. I was dreading it. My closet is tiny in this 100 year old farmhouse so I stored my summer clothes in a suitcase and when I got them out they were all wrinkled. A steamer wouldn’t cut it so I got out the old fashioned iron. And it was so relaxing! I can imagine that cooking and gardening and organizing closets can have the same effect. The Bible talks about working with your hands. It really helps your mind. God has a way to regulate your nervous system with ...