Archive for July, 2015

Siesta Scripture Memory Team 2015: Verse 15!

If you are unable to watch the video, here is Beth’s message:

 

Hey girls! You have to know I really love you if I’m going to get on here with all this sunscreen, and with all this sweat, and in the middle of all this beach goings on. But I do love you and want to keep my commitment to you and to the Lord Jesus, and make sure that you know I am still with you in the scripture memory.

 

I am still memorizing out of the book of Ephesians and I’m in the most interesting verse in Ephesians 4:20. Right before it in verse 19, Paul is talking about the fact that there are people that give themselves over to the flesh. They give themselves over to greed, to callousness of heart, and to every kind of impurity. But he says something in verse 20 that I think is so profound. Ephesians 4:20 says, “But that is not the way you learned Christ.” And I thought about all the opportunities we have for that verse, when someone’s been unloving to us, unkind, or we really want so much to be ugly back to somebody. We’re reminded over and over again “but that is not the way we learned Christ.” That is not what He taught us to do.

 

I cannot think of a limit to the opportunities that we would have to tuck that verse in our hearts, to be able to say I know better than this. This is not the way I learned Christ. When I depart into the flesh, when I know that I am in an area, maybe even a gray area, maybe it’s not all the way in the ditch, just a gray area. But I can say to myself that’s not the way I learned Christ. I know how I learned Christ. I know what He calls for from me.

 

Beth, Houston TX
Ephesians 4:20 (ESV) But that is not the way you learned Christ.

 

We learned Christ in the love and grace and mercy of God the Father who gave Him in our behalf. I’m just crazy about you. Stay with it. It is August 1st and it is a glorious time to celebrate what God has already done in 2015! Have a great day everybody and make sure to put in your verses!

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SSMT Celebration Registration

It’s time to REGISTER, ladies!

Beth and Sabrina have some fun and important news to share with you in the video below about Registration for the SSMT Celebration.  You’ll hear the ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ to get registered…starting today! If you are continuing on in your memorization, and plan to make the 21-out-of-24 verse goal, we so hope that you are able to join us in January to celebrate!

This will be our 4th Celebration, and registration this year is easy, peasy! Just 3 quick steps!
1. Click on the blue BOOK ONLINE link below. It will take you to a quick registration page where you will enter your information.
2. IMPORTANT: Watch your email inbox to verify your registration. You will need to respond to this email within 15 minutes, or you might need to start over. If you do not receive this verification email, do please try again.
3. After verifying your registration, you will receive a 2nd email with your confirmed registration.

That’s it!

The registration page includes tabs for Details and Documents (i.e. FAQ’s).
WHEN: January 15-16, 2016 | Friday 7pm | Saturday 9am-noon
WHERE: Houston’s First Baptist Church

Book Online

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You can also find this registration information on our Siesta App.
Head to the “SSMT Event” tab to get started.

SSMT app 1[1]

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LPL Boise Recap Video

We so love sharing these video recaps with you from Living Proof Live! Enjoy this one from Boise.

Boise LPL photos by David Lowe

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LPL Boise, ID – Scholarship tickets for you and a friend!

This is your 5-day countdown until Living Proof Live Boise!  Who is coming?  Beth is  already tweeting about you guys; so anticipating a move of the Spirit.  She always asks God for a specific message to share with each group she teaches.  She is excited about what God is revealing to her through the Scriptures for you! As she likes to say, you will never waste a prayer on her. Grin.

Let me remind you (or maybe tell you for the first time), that we would like to help you go if you are in the area!

Here’s the deal: If you are thinking you would like to attend this weekend, and have wanted to invite a friend to join you but couldn’t quite swing the cost, we want to offer scholarship tickets for both of you!  Another thrilling thing for Beth would be to make a way for you to bring a friend you’ve been wanting to introduce to Jesus. Or maybe that friend is new to the Word, or just less-discipled in the Scriptures.  If this sounds like you, just give Kimberly a call at our office and she will set you up.  Toll-free 1-888-700-1999 (NOT 800).

We sure love Jesus and His Word, and want you to fall more in love with Him, too!  He is our great hope and joy!

We sure hope to see you this weekend in Boise!  To purchase tickets, or for detailed information about this weekend, visit Lifeway.com here.

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Siesta Scripture Memory Team 2015: Verse 14!

2015-01-17 18.23.09 20150124_220238

My name is Melana Cummings (aka MooseMama…story to come). I live in Sheridan Wyoming. I have been married to Tim Cummings for 32 years. We met through a letter and he asked me to marry him in a letter. (It’s a very long story, but oh so sweet and God designed!) The first time we kissed was when he put the engagement ring on my finger. It’s not a common way to start out a life together, but we were best friends who got married. He’s still one of the dorkiest people I know. He makes me laugh. He makes me shake my head. He has always said that if I ever leave him, he’s coming with me. We have a 26 year old daughter Sarah, a 16 year old daughter Emily, and a grandson, Jensen, who is 3. I have worked for the State of Wyoming for 28 years, and have a degree in psychology from the only university in the state. I was raised in the Lutheran church but had no idea what a personal relationship with Christ was. When I was 21, Christ sought me out, and I prayed to receive Him. From that day forward JESUS HAS BEEN MY LIFE!

In 2006, I prayed that I would grow even more in my faith and in Christ. About a week later a snippet of video was played about the Bible study, Believing God by Beth Moore (never heard of her!) that would be starting soon. A prayer answered!

A few months later this Beth Moore was going to be in Salt Lake City with Living Proof Live, so myself and 5 friends drove to see her. She taught from Ephesians 3…how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ….to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. One phrase she said “All excess is a result of emptiness”, hit me hard. As a woman who has been overweight all my life, all I could think was “nuh-uh”!

That one Bible Study and Living Proof Live event were the beginning of many more Bible Studies and live events through the last 9 years. My prayers for growth were being answered! I loved reading Beth’s blog and made a lifelong friend through it: Adrienne Hudson (aka Fuzzytop in Tennessee) and I became online friends. In 2008 a friend and I drove from Wyoming to San Antonio Texas for the Living Proof Live, and “Siesta Fiesta”, where I finally got to meet Adrienne face-to-face. I wish I could name all of the Siestas I have met over the years! They have become so dear to my heart and really, an integral part of my life in Christ! Honestly, the kindness, love, support and joy these women have brought to my life is no small miracle.

The most hilarious part of that trip was a stuffed Moose with a Wyoming bandana on his neck. It was my intention to give the moose to Beth as a gift. Well, we started to take pictures of “Miesta Moose” (Miesta is a male Siesta), along the trip. The pictures got posted on a secondary blog that a couple of Siestas had started, which was all about the Fiesta. By the time we arrived in San Antonio, Miesta Moose had become somewhat of a celebrity. And so it began. I took him to every Beth Moore event I went to. He would even end up in recap pictures, and then Siestas from all around the country, most of whom, I had never met, asked me to send him to them so they could take him to the event in their area. He has been kissed and carried by some of the most wonderful women! Around his neck, he wears the wristbands from the events he has attended. I became MooseMama. He became so recognizable, that women asked to have their pictures taken with him. It pleased me that he showed up at tapings and book signings that Beth was doing.

In 2009, I felt God really was telling me that I could be more of what He wanted for me if I lost that excess weight and fill the emptiness with Him. I lost 120 lbs. in a year’s time. I was leading Bible Studies. I was teaching Sunday School. I even went on a mission trip to Africa with my church. Something I never would have tried when I was so overweight. Prayers answered!

The year 2011 brought with it a season of severe loss and struggle. A heart attack altered the health of my husband, my oldest daughter became a widow at 22. Two weeks following her husband’s death she discovered she was expecting our grandson Jensen. I grew steadily depressed with these changes and gained back all the weight I had lost. I felt like I was trying to hold everything from flying apart. I was exhausted. We stopped going to church. But God…

We returned to church last year, and God is showing me how He used Jensen to redeem these past few years. His faithfulness to me never faltered. This verse has never meant more to me, than now. Today it is my verse to memorize:

Romans 8:38-39 NIV

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

AMEN!

 

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LPL Greenville Recap Video

Good morning, y’all!  I always anticipate receiving the video recaps following a Living Proof Live. Here is the recap from this weekend’s conference in Greenville. I so wish I could have been among your group of women attending (and a few brave men)!  #Gravity

Greenville Living Proof Live 2015 from LifeWay Women on Vimeo.

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LPL Greenville, SC – Tickets for you and a friend!

Well friends, we are 3 days away from Living Proof Live Greenville.  Who is coming?  We, and our faithful team of prayer warriors, are on our knees for this weekend, and Beth is hard at preparations for the specific teaching she is bringing. She is so excited about what God is revealing to her for you!

I am excited to remind you (or maybe tell you for the first time), that we would like to help you go if you are in the area!

Here’s the deal: If you are thinking you would like to attend this weekend, and have wanted to invite a friend to join you but couldn’t quite swing the cost, we want to offer scholarship tickets for both of you!  Another thrilling thing for Beth would be to make a way for you to bring a friend you’ve been wanting to introduce to Jesus. Or maybe that friend is new to the Word, or just less-discipled in the Scriptures.  If this sounds like you, just give Kimberly a call at our office and she will set you up.  Toll-free 1-888-700-1999 (NOT 800).

We sure love Jesus and His Word, and want you to fall more in love with Him, too!  He is our great hope and joy!

We sure hope to see you this weekend in Greenville!  For tickets and detailed information, visit Lifeway.com here.

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Going Forward

So, what do we do now?

What do we do in this world, in this day, in this time, in this era?

In this climate of increasing hostility toward Christians?

How do we glorify God and do people good in an environment where we’re colossally unpopular?

Bailing is not an option unless we really weren’t in it to start with. If an issue causes an exit, we were around Christ but not in Christ. (1 John 2:19) Hiding is ridiculously counterproductive since the reason we’re here is to be lights in the darkness.

So, what now?

My Scripture memory over the last month has had me in the fourth chapter of Ephesians so, for the process to work, I have to read the verses again and again, asking God to peel them from the page and stick them in my head and bind them to my heart. They speak to me in very personal ways but I can’t shake the thought of their relevance to us corporately in a culture growing, in these hot days of summer, icy cold to Christianity. Sometime soon I hope you’ll steal away a moment to read the whole chapter. It is seed for the soil of our time under the sun as surely as it was when God first gave it to Paul. With your patience, I’ll pick out a few segments that might land on some ground firm enough to stand on when we’re shaken. The chapter opens with this:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

This is the world you and I have been called to serve. This exact world. This exact era. It is not a mistake. It is a mission. Isaiah 41:4 says, “Who acts and carries out decrees? Who summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning and at the very end – I am the one.” (NET) 1 Peter 2:9 calls us a “chosen generation.” Ephesians 2:10 says that we were created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared for us beforehand. Acts 17:26 says that God “made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times.” (NET) God is sovereign in all things. Never unprepared. Never caught off guard. Nothing happening presently is inconsistent with what Jesus said prophetically in places like Matthew 24.

So, this stage is set for us. We’re on.

Bemoaning will not help us. Believing will. We here in the west have, generally speaking, gotten away with living out our Christianity selfishly, carnally, politically, lazily, and, forgive me and include me, sloppily. We’ve left it for the professionals to do for us while we’ve tried to stay buffered on neutral ground. That’s not going to work now. Christianity has grown too inconvenient. These are days for sanctification. These are days to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we each have been called. Let’s clear out the cultural camouflage from our closets and go ahead and be willing to look different from the world and love different than the world…

Or looking different is nothing but masquerading. There are people I dearly love on the other side of many of our issues. Wonderful people. My own flesh and blood. I want those relationships. To lose them from my life would break my heart. I’ve got no stones to throw. No condemnation to scream. I breathe by the grace of Jesus alone. My very colorful extended family doesn’t leave me the convenience of discussing cold concepts. These are warm-hearted fellow human beings welcome and wanted in my home. I need Jesus to teach me how to love them well in the midst of believing differently.

(V.2) with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

What’s not going to serve us well in this era is arrogance. We have to be willing to stare ourselves in the mirror and ask an honest question: does anybody out there in the unbelieving world want what I have? If we have the love and hope of Jesus and the joy of those who know they are forgiven and the security of those who know they are loved unconditionally, and the certainty of those who know where they are headed when this life is over, the answer to that question will be yes. If we’re grossly self-righteous and condemning and lack humility and gentleness and grace and genuine love, we can’t blame their resistance on being put off by Jesus. They’ll be put off by us. We serve this world. That’s what we’re here to do. And we do it with humility and gentleness and patience and love.

(Vv.11-16) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

This is a huge part of what provoked me to write this post:

It’s time for us to go forward to church. Not back. Forward. I mean to a local church. It has never been easier to be a believer in Christ and not be invested in a local body of believers. We can sit right in front of a screen every week and watch a church service. We can hear an endless stream of podcasts by our favorite preachers and teachers. We can do Bible studies at home – thank God –  and have praise and worship in our cars on the way to work – I love that, too. And those things are fabulous and edifying but they cannot supplant the local church and us fulfill our missions and follow Christ’s way. I’m asking you to hear me out here. The days we have coming are days that will necessitate – if we’re to live them well and effectively and in the will of Christ Jesus – congregating regularly and being in an intentional community with Bible-learning believers.

I’m not talking about going “back” to church the way we used to do church when Christianity was culturally and politically correct. I’m talking about going forward to church.

My maternal grandmother lived with us until she passed away when I was in early high school. She was born in rural Arkansas in the mid 1880s and died in the sprawling city of Houston, Texas in 1973. During her earthly tenure, life in these United States moved from horseback to automobiles and from jets to spacecrafts. She sat in front of a television screen utterly transfixed as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and, with words thickly accentuated, made a statement anyone in that generation knew by heart until the day they died: “One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.” Perhaps no word characterized the era my grandmother occupied like “leap.” Progress didn’t meander along. It long-jumped. It was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The west wore a big S on its chest and a red cape fluttering in the wind.

Never one to believe in keeping an opinion to herself, she scoffed openly every time she heard a person long for the good old days. “You can have them,” she’d say. Then she’d commence into a diatribe like this:

“Go right ahead and swelter in the heat. I’ll stay in the air conditioning.

Go right ahead and huddle in front of a small fireplace when it’s freezing outside and grab your pillows and sleep in there, all of you, because your rooms feel like they’re 20 degrees below zero. I’ll take a heater.

Go ahead and scrub your clothes then put them through the ringer one by one and hang them on a clothes line. I’ll put mine in the washer and dryer.

Go ahead and milk that cow early every morning. I’ll go to Piggly Wiggly. Just go right ahead. The good old days are yours for the taking. Cut your electricity off and have at it. As for me, I’ll keep the days we’re living in.”

The moment Pillsbury put out the first canned biscuits, my grandmother never rolled out another batch of homemade dough. She cracked open a can of biscuits on the counter in the gladdest defiance of the good old days.

I guess in some ways that’s how I feel about church and the general climate of Christianity in my upbringing. I loved church passionately. It was a lifeguard throwing out a buoy to me, flailing in waters way over my head. It meant more to me than I have breath and words to articulate. I walked through those doors three times a week minimum. But I do not wish for the good old days of church. I’ll take today. In my upbringing, practically everybody went to church whether or not they believed in God. It was America. And, in my part of the country, it’s what Americans did because American, by and large, meant Christian. But we didn’t speak much about Jesus outside those walls. Salvation was something you received around eight or nine years old instead of every day for the rest of your life from the moment you called Jesus Lord. My family growing up wouldn’t have known to get down on the floor together on all our knees and cry out with one unified heart for God to come and rescue us from our destruction, our bitterness, our despair, our unforgiveness, our addictions and our hypocrisies. We’d never been taught or shown such a thing. Issues like rampant prejudice and sexual abuse never came up. Church didn’t sort through the trash. Collectively, church was mostly about being proper. Respectable. And, where I came from, American. I don’t have anything against being proper, respectable, or American. I want to be all those things. But it’s a new America and one the cross of Christ foresaw. The tide of Christ’s blood reached these banks way back then. He hasn’t moved off shore. This is the new America we who live here are called to inhabit on purpose and serve well.

I was raised in a thick Christian atmosphere. I have not been out of church for a single month in my entire life. In all those years I never heard anyone pray like I hear people pray today. That doesn’t mean plenty of people weren’t praying the roof down somewhere. I just didn’t happen to be where they were. I heard sweet prayers and meaningful prayers and reverent prayers and, all of them, genuine prayers. And they were heard by God, bless His Name. I cannot fathom where I’d be without them. They mattered greatly. But I never heard anybody pray under such an unction of the Holy Spirit that I had to open my eyes to see if they were lit up like a torch. I didn’t hear prayers like that at church until the last few decades. I don’t mean screaming and yelling. That doesn’t move me.  I’m just talking about an atmosphere filled by the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit where the Word of God is not just taught, it is walked and stalked and pounded out on the pavement of our workplaces and social environments and under the roofs of our very own homes. An atmosphere not of convenience but of desperation where the Word of God has the power to break addictions and mend factions. When I was growing up, the only people who studied their Bibles were clergy. Good Lord, we’ve come a long way.

My experiences may not be yours. Maybe for you, days of the past really were the good old days. But whether we’d have them back or not, they are gone. Yesterday’s gone. LONG gone. Jesus longs to work here and now and among us in this world.

A gift has come to us if we’ll receive it. Our old way of doing things won’t work anymore. We won’t get away with being lazy in our faith and in our spiritual disciplines, not if we’re going to join that great cloud of witnesses one day who did their jobs well in their generations and did not shrink back in the face of hostility. We won’t get away with sharing the good news in a bad mood. Nobody will buy it. We won’t get away with virtual church. We can’t be equipped that way. We can’t fulfill our callings autonomously and self-contained.  We won’t get away with all our fracturing and infighting over secondary issues. We’ll need each other too badly. The padding on the Body of Christ in America has been stripped away with the last threads of nominal Christianity. We’re lean these days. Just listen to the statistics. But make no mistake. Lean can be strong. Lean can run fast and hard with the gospel around the globe.

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 

We won’t get away with all our carnality. It’s cheating us of the Spirit. And, boy, do we need the Spirit.

22 put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

We won’t get away with these things if we’re to walk worthy of our callings in a culture increasingly unwelcoming to Christians. Not if we’re going to love people who hate us. Bless people who curse us. Help people who hurt us.

And that is a gift.

Our lives will be over before we know it. And we will stand before Jesus and look at His glorious face and marvel over His worthiness of every ounce of our devotion. And we won’t be able to do this over. We’ll have only had this one chance to do this thing with all our hearts. Let’s not go back to church. Let’s go forward to it. Let’s not go back to the Bible. Let’s go forward to it. Let’s not go back to prayer. Let’s go forward to it. Let’s not go back to the way the Holy Spirit worked yesterday. The pipe is breaking. The Spirit pouring. He’s doing something wildly significant today. Let’s congregate, Church, under the nearest spout, so we can spread out and splash on a dry and thirsty land.

for we are members one of another. (V.25)

And the devil’s not playing out there.

 

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Exciting announcement and a Giveaway!

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS!!
1. #1659 – Angela Wagner                 11. #186 – Yaicha Schuler
2. #587 – Stacey                                 12. #515 – Velynna Spangler
3. #1618 – Cathy P.                            13. #1422 – Amanda
4. #1335 – Lindsey Muecke               14. #1058 – Stephanie Johnson
5. #427 – Shannon Lenz                    15. #1197 Desiree Whittaker
6. #1228 – Barbara Pierce
7. #1602 – Judy Fires
8. #68 – KimDotJoy
9. #849 – Lisa Earnest
10. #227 – Monica Blankenship

 

Hi friends!

Before we are out of the office for a long weekend, we wanted you to share in a little celebration we are having around Living Proof.  It was just announced that Beth’s “Portraits of Devotion” was awarded Christian Retailing’s Best Devotion for 2015! Congratulations to Beth and B&H Publishing! You can see all category winners here.

PortraitsOfDevotion_CVR_WithJacket.jpg

So that we can hopefully treat you before the Independence Day holiday this weekend, this will be a quick one.  We will leave this Giveaway open until tomorrow, July 2nd, 11:00AM (CST).

We will quickly draw the winner’s names and then reach out to you via email to get your mailing addresses.  Set a reminder to look back tomorrow morning to see if you won!

(Check your local Lifeway Christian store to pick-up a copy, or order online here.)

 

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