By Becca Wellan

Today, my dear friend came over, just to talk. Sitting on my bedroom floor, wrapped in blankets, we talked girl-talk, life-talk, Jesus-talk. Somewhere between the laughter, honest reflections on God’s grace towards us, and an intense discussion on the sugar content of yogurt… I started crying, again. 

As we were talking, a question freakishly common amongst twenty-somethings came up: what in the world am I doing with my life? 

That’s when it hit me. Even though I’ve wrestled with this question since I was a freshmen in college, I still feel judgement, shame, and confusion when people ask me about my education, what I do, and where I’m going with my life. 

I’m a college graduate with a Creative Writing degree, working a college-girl job as a nanny. I have no career goals because I haven’t found anything I’m passionate about yet (except being a nanny). When I say this, I see people look disappointed, confused. “Oh,” they say, “okay … that’s great.” Then, quick as a hummingbird, I tell them I’m “thinking” of getting my masters in teaching. Despite not really wanting to teach, anymore. But dropping the grad school comment makes me sound - and oddly, feel - like I have a direction.

I don’t. 

And, again, I feel shame creep into my mind. Subtly, at first, then in waves. 

Ya know, I know stuff. I know that Jesus died to save me. I know that I am loved by Him. I know I am forgiven. I know that in and through the work of Christ I don’t have to be ashamed, anymore. I know these earth-shattering realities can transform anyone. 

I believe these truths with all my mind. But my heart doesn’t always clue in. When it’s 2am and I can’t sleep because self-condemning thoughts plague me, or I’m talking with a friend and burst into tears because I have no “direction” in my life, I forget what I thought I knew.

Ya know, I know stuff. Yet, there are lies in my heart I believe so deeply that they drown out what I know. Subtly, at first, then in waves. I believe the lie that that my worth as a person is found in how other people view me. I believe that my worth - my ticket to feeling “okay” with my life - is found in using my degree. In having career goals. In “success.” In settling down. In white picket fences, pearl necklaces, golden retrievers and a husband. None of which I have. 

Though our world tells us we are what we do and what we have, Jesus tells us we are who He says we are, and in Him we have everything. And this changes how we view what we do, and what we have. 

So, what defines you? What do you look to to define your worth and establish your identity? 

Recently, I asked my lovely small group girls these same diagnostic questions. We’re going through Ephesians, a book that establishes the identity we have in Jesus. All our answers - some unspoken - were different. No struggler has an identical twin. But what we all have in common - including you - is this; by nature we rely on something other than God to make us feel worth something. For me, it’s having a career. I believe that if I had one, my existence would be validated and people would respect me. The truth? Even if I had this Barbie Dream Career and Ken to make me pancakes and bacon, I still wouldn’t feel fulfilled. Another monster is bound to haunt me. 

Paul writes Ephesians from a prison cell. Probably not in your five-year plan. Yet by God’s strength, he is incredibly passionate about the blessings we have through the gospel. It even changes how Paul sees his not-so-comfortable circumstances. He tells his readers of the blessing of a new identity - chosen by God, adopted into His family, fully forgiven, redeemed out of darkness, and loved so deeply by a perfect savior (Ephesians 1:3-7). Everything we are should - and by His strength, can - be colored by this reality. In other words, I am not “Becca, the girl without a direction.” No! I am “Becca, chosen by God to be His daughter, cherished beyond words, and blessed by the promise that He is always at work in my life.” 

Who are you? 

May our head-knowledge, by His power, be transformed into heart-knowledge. If you believe in Jesus, your value is fixed. On the cross Jesus paid the highest price to save you; His own life. Now you are an adopted child, completely forgiven, loved and cherished. THIS is your identity. And it doesn’t change. Ever. But it can change you, as His truth saturates your mind and your heart. 

Now go, rest in truth. Believe and live as one redeemed. It’s who you are.

Do you like reading? I have noticed that people either love it or hate it. There usually isn't an in-between when it comes to reading. I hate reading. Now, to those that know me would hear that statement and say that I am a liar. If you know me, I usually have two books going at a time, and I usually end up finishing between 20-25 books in a year. So to the untrained eye you would think that I love reading because that is all I do. 

However, that is far from the truth. I am learning to enjoy reading the more I do it, but it is not as enjoyable to me as some people would think. 

The reason I find reading hard is because of a few reasons. One is that I cannot keep my eyes open, reading puts me to sleep faster than a brewery popping up in Bellingham. Two, my mind has a hard time concentrating and seems to move in many different directions. So a lot of the time, I have to re-read a page because I was thinking of something else and have no idea what I just read and that gets annoying. And thirdly, I am lazy by nature, period. I don't want to spend time reading. So, you are probably wondering why do you bring this up? 

I bring this up to share that I have hated reading in the past, but there are certain purposes to why I read often. My hope is that these three objectives will give you a desire to read more and often. 

1. Grow

I don't know about you, but I have never been satisfied with where I am at in life. It could be sports, schooling, parenting, whatever but I have this insatiable desire to grow. I was never this way growing up, though. I hated spending time on something to get better at it. If I weren't good at it in the first place, I wouldn't even want to try. As I grew up though I realized that by reading more often I was giving myself an opportunity to grow. 

Specifically, I wanted to grow more in love with Jesus. The books that I spend most of my time have to do something about Christianity. As I navigated, my relationship with Jesus I realized that a Christian is not passive but is called to be active. Our sovereign Creator uses means, like learning, to grow us and transform us. Once I figured out this reality, I realized that even though I dislike reading I needed to produce a habit of reading. I wanted to grow as a Christian. However, I didn't wish to grow as a Christian to gain a right standing before God; He sees me as perfect only because of Jesus' perfect life, death, burial, and resurrection. 

I want God to continue to use the means of reading to grow my knowledge of Him in hopes that reading strengthens my relationship with my King. 

I read to grow.

2. Remember

I am a forgetful person by nature. I wish I could remember things I learned years ago. But as everyone knows, if you don't use the thing you often discovered your mind tends to forget it all together. Our minds were created to remember things, but we tend to remember the things we interact with on a regular basis. 

Therefore, because I forget often, I read to remember my identity as a Christian. As Christians, we are saved not by our quality of faith, or our quantity of faith but by who our faith is in, Jesus Christ. He is the object of our faith and because of that I read so I don't forget this great reality. I desire such theological clarity so that when my mind wanders or my world gets rocked by some unexpected incident, I want to be able to remember Who I have faith in, Jesus Christ the righteous one.  

I read to remember. 

3. Lead Others

Lastly, I read because I know I am called to be a leader. Now you might read this and say, yes but I am not a leader. I believe everyone is called to be a leader. Whether you are in college, young married, deacon, elder, church member, father, mother, you are called to be a leader in some capacity. 

There are different levels of leadership I believe the Bible lays out pretty clearly. For example, husbands are to lead their wives and homes, the Apostle Paul was a leader of movements, And we are all called to be disciples of Jesus which implies we are to be leaders of self. I would put these into four different categories, the leader of self, leader of others, leader of organizations, and leader of movements. I think these groups gives enough handles to knowing what we're called to. 

So in that regard, If you don't have a family, you certainly are still called to be a leader of yourself. 

I read because I want to continue to keep my mind sharp and continue to grow in greater capacity to lead. I want to lead myself well; I want to lead my family well, and certainly I want to go in leading others well. 

I read because I am a leader.

4. Where Do I Start?

If you are not a reader, the best practical advice I can give you is just to start reading. Even that information is hard just to start doing when you hate reading. Here is what I did when I began to try and read more, I started small and picked five books I wanted to read within a year (here is a list if you need help getting started, or ask a friend you trust what they would recommend). I would add all the book pages up and divide by 365 days (because that is how many days are in a year). This number would give me a great starting point to know how many pages per day I needed to read to get through my goal.

For example, you take five books that are 200 pages each, add them all up and you get a 1000 pages of reading. Divide that number by 365 days in a year and, voila!, you get 2.74 pages a day. That is how many pages you need to read a day to finish those five books.

By doing this, I gave myself a possible target when it came to reading. Meaning that I was no longer intimidated by reading any longer.

Reading is worth it, even if you find reading the worst.

Each week, Redeemer is going to start posting weekly blog posts from a dear family who has been a part of the Redeemer Church family for years who moved to Africa to do medical education for 9 months. The Sund Family, Greg, Stephanie, Ella, Biniyam, and Mekdes moved to Burundi for the last 7 months and we the people of Redeemer to be up to date on all that they are doing and all that is happening in Africa.

Below is the Sund's latest blog post from Africa called "Why We Go".

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The excerpt below is from a book that has become very dear to me.  It is a book of puritan prayers, titled, The Valley of Vision.  Most of my mornings I start by reading over one of these short prayers.  These prayers are a daily reminder to me of the depth of my depravity at the same time reminding me of the grandeur of God's glory and goodness.  On my best day I am prone to forget these two great truths ... on my worst day I am prone to invert them.  

When Stephanie and I made the decision to take our family to Burundi to serve for 9 months, one question I thought I would often be posed with was, "Why are you going?".  As it turns out, very few people have actually asked me this question.  But I feel like it is an important one to answer, whether people are asking or not.  So, although our intention is to primarily use this blog to keep our family and friends updated on what we are doing while in Burundi and to share stories from there, I feel I need to start by trying to answer the question of why we are going.

The truth is that our motives are mixed, and some of these motives are entirely selfish.  Stephanie and I both love to travel, we love an adventure, we want our kids to gain a larger worldview.  But buried under all these selfish motives, is one motive that we hope is pure, and that really has very little to do with us, and that motive is our faith in a God who would love us enough to pursue us and reconcile us to Himself through the humble and sacrificial servanthood of His Son, Jesus. 

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” - Mark 10:42-45

This is the paradox and the beauty of the Christian faith, that God Himself became meek and lowly to serve us, and to adopt us into His family.  That is why we go.  We go, because He came to us.  We serve, because He first served us. 

The Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,

where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;

hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

 Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up,

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

Blog post by Kati Berreth (Redeemer Kids Director)

Gospel Communities are just that, a community that is based on the Gospel. As you think about that purpose for gathering, whether it is around a meal, dessert, community event, or in a circle discussing the sermon questions, what brings you all together is your love of the Gospel and your desire for the Gospel to be made known to the ends of the earth.

With that as the purpose, the inclusion of kids into your GC is not as daunting a task as you might think. When we think about including kids into our GC, we often think that means that our GC has to be kid centered. This isn’t true, the same as your GC being young adult, single or married, or just adult centered isn’t the case. Gospel Communities at Redeemer should be and are Gospel Centered. Your GC gets to look Gospel Centered where everyone in your group gets to hear the Gospel proclaimed at some point during your meeting.

So what might that look like? Here are some ways to welcome your future brothers and sisters in Christ that are 2-4 years old into your worship of Jesus at your GC meeting.

1. (Sing and Dance together)  Kids love music so if you have someone in your group who plays the guitar, ask him or her to bring it and sing a few songs together. The more you do this, repeating the same songs, the faster the kids will be able to pick up on the lyrics and sing along with you…and until that time, let them dance to the Lord, just like David did. There are not a lot of things sweeter in life than seeing a 2 year old dance to music that praises God without inhibitions or a 4 year old singing “Here I raise my Elbowneezer:)”
2. (Pray together) After your meal or dessert and before kids go off to play (which is a great way for them to be building community as well so continue to let them play with their friends) stand in a circle holding hands (which keeps busy hands still for a few minutes) and ask everyone to pray for the person on their left. Praying together will model how to pray aloud not only to the kids but to some adults in the room as well. And if there are older kids you can modify the prayer time to assign families to pray using ACTS - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication to focus the prayer time.
3. (Read the word together) Gather everyone together and have kids sit on laps or on the floor with their parents and read the verses that are going to be discussed out loud to the kids. If it is a long chunk of scripture you can read a few verses that are applicable or if those verses are in the Jesus Storybook Bible or Gospel Story Bible read them out of there. These books are amazing and always take everything back to the Gospel - which is great for adults as well. Be sure to ask questions as you go to engage the kids or if things are listed or numbered have the kids repeat those lists or numbers using movement…it really helps them to engage if they can move their bodies in some way.
4. (Build or Craft together) Crafting or having families build something together as an attention getter towards the text will help kids and parents alike engage in the text. Kids who are tactile become adults who are tactile and doing an activity that is related or even just gets everyone engaged in a fun way to help build community.
5. (Family Devotion together) Each week Redeemer Kids hands out a family devotional to parents as they leave. These are also posted with the sermon questions. I would encourage you all to look at these and incorporate them into your GC. Attention getting activities, books of the bible memorization, questions, and specifics in regards to prayer are all included and can be modified for your GC setting. These devotionals usually connect what happened in RK on Sunday to the sermon to help parents be the primary discipleship makers in their child’s lives…which can be modeled and encouraged in a GC setting.

Hopefully these ways to engage 2-4 year olds will help you make sure that everyone gets to hear the good news of the Gospel as you meet and will strengthen your relationships in your GC family.

photo credit: KkleinRN via photopin cc

When The Pursuit Of Justice Isn't: Justice in the Bible is not some nebulous fairness or sense of altruistic equality. It is the spreading dominion of the righteousness of God. (Note how often justice is paired with righteousness in the Bible.) When God calls us to “do justice,” he is calling us to reflect the life-giving, culture-flourishing, gracious abundance that is in keeping with his glory.

Pornolesence: So many young Christians have stunted their spiritual growth through what I call pornolesence. Pornolescence is that period when a person is old enough and mature enough to know that pornography is wrong and that it exacts a heavy price, but too immature or too apathetic to do anything about it.

The Trip Is The True Adventure: Car trips are fascinating microcosms for conversations that affect and reinforce our shared story as a family. Perhaps this summer’s travel time holds for you a conversation that will change or clarify your own life’s adventure. But you won’t have it if you don’t turn down the volume or disconnect the digital movie playing in the back seat. Use the sacred space of a road trip to explore and deepen your own shared story with the people who matter most.

Keep Up The Prayer Meetings All You Can: If you want your people as well as yourself to be soul-winners, try and keep up the prayer meetings all you can.

Could the Persecuted Church Rescue American Christianity?: Moreover, this nominal Christianity has emphasized the “values” and “meaning” aspects of Christianity while often downplaying the “strangeness” of Christianity, namely the conviction that a previously dead man is alive and returning to judge the living and the dead.

Men Hear With Their Eyes: Of course, this is just one aspect of learning to communicate with the man you have given yourself to. But it is a good place to start! "When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent" (Pro. 10:32).

Dads, Date Your Daughter's Boyfriends: One of the most terrifying moments of a not-yet-married man’s life is meeting his girlfriend’s father. The much-anticipated introduction is an unending fountain of humor for friends and family, but it’s more often an occasion for horror for the young man. What will dad say? What will he ask? Will he be armed? The moment is a mountain to overcome in almost any relationship, but I believe it’s a mountain we, as Christians, can capture for the good of the daughter, the suitor, and the father.

Stories Of My Dad: God gave me a great dad.  He was the finest man I’ve ever known — and the best pastor, and the best preacher, by far.  I drew strength from his love for me.  I miss him today.  I miss him every day. Here are some reasons why I honor him.  And these are just for starters.

Happy Failure's Day: If you’re a dad, you know what it means to fail. On Father’s Day, don’t dwell on your failures; remember how Jesus has overcome them.

Knowing God or Knowing About God?: If we reduce knowing God (in a deep relational sense) to knowing things about God, then we’re going to find ourselves producing disciples that look like demons – who have perfect knowledge of God but refuse to treasure Him.

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Walking Through The Flood: Christians must sojourn through the deluge. We must submerge ourselves in the Word of God–especially those difficult stories. We must do this as a family. Otherwise, what we are left with is the neutered children stories, flannel graphs, and children decor available at most Christian retailers today–not the actual stories of the Bible.

Ten Lessons From A Hospital Bed: All of these are things I needed God’s help with. I was surprised how difficult it was for me to focus on anything, and therefore, how vulnerable I felt spiritually. I’m used to fixing my mind on God’s truth — especially his promises — and fighting off the temptations of fear and anger. But when focus is hard, trust is hard. So don’t assume as you read these, that they came easy. They didn’t.

What We Need: Good works are not optional for the Christian. Christians who live in habitual, unrepentant sin show themselves not to be true Christians.

Three Things We Can Learn From Jimmy Fallon: Why is Fallon so appealing? What makes his show a joy to watch? Why is he a great host? I think Fallon’s success can be traced to three key practices: He doesn’t take himself seriously, he puts the spotlight on others and he speaks through culture. I believe Christians can actually learn from Fallon’s example as they attempt to demonstrate the love of Christ. Here’s how.

3 Key Characteristics Of Disciples Of Jesus: How do you teach new Christians what it looks like to follow Jesus? You learn from Jesus’ first disciples.

A Glorious Expedition: Therefore, I wanted to put together a practical list for leading our wives better on this glorious expedition. Now, some of these tips will work better for some couples than others so feel free to find what works for you and to mix and match. This will be a process of trial and error, but it is worth the struggle to grow spiritually.

7 Ways To Create An Evangelistic Culture In Your Church: So your church is “evangelical.” But is it evangelistic? Here are seven ways you as a pastor can build an evangelistic culture that’s about more than baptism numbers.

Failing With Family: If you face decades worth of family damage, here are three steps to consider taking. Although reconciliation is never guaranteed, we are always guaranteed that God will look upon the humble and contrite.

Five Admirable Traits of an Early Church: In the Bible, one such example is the marriage of Priscilla and Aquila. They are mentioned only a few times in Scripture, but even in those brief moments, you will see commendable traits in their relationship that are worth further reflection. Like any couple, they weren’t perfect, but their story is one I admire and would love to see emulated in my own marriage and in those of my Christian brothers and sisters. Their story highlights five admirable traits of a Christian marriage. These traits are not recorded as God’s ordained requirements for us, but I believe they are worth seeking after as we navigate what a godly marriage looks like.

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