When I started talking about feeling far from God a few weeks ago, I had no idea how much that would resonate with so many of you. You have shared that you too feel like you are unable to connect with God. You feel like He is distant.   It’s confusing, it’s frustrating, even disappointing...and it feels lonely.   There are many reasons why we experience a season feeling far from God. Last week in episode 114 we talked about being in a spiritual rut and some things we can do to connect with God in a meaningful way. If you haven't listened yet you can check it out HERE.   What should you do when you find yourself struggling to hear from God?    There are many things that can keep us from hearing from God. Spiritual and emotional fatigue and exhaustion can play a factor. Busyness and constant work in ministry and other activities in life can impact our ability to hear. Our own sin and desires of the flesh, our worries, fears...they all can play a part.   While it is hard to give an exhaustive list or a quick step guide to hear from Him instantly, there are some questions we can ask ourselves to see the bigger picture and gain spiritual perspective. If you feel like you are not hearing from God here are some things to consider.   Are you listening? Are you in the word...consistently? Have you forgotten your first love? Is your relationship with God put on the back burner as you attend to everyone and everything else? Do you say a bunch of stuff and then get up and move on. (I know I do!) Do you expect God to answer at that moment. Are you watching and listening throughout the day?  Are you distracted? What’s going on around you? What’s going on inside of you?   Are you in the right posture?  Are you receptive, expectant, hopeful? Are you convinced of His love, His control, His goodness, and His ability? Are you looking to glorify and honor God? Are you looking for something from God or are you looking for God? There is a difference. What is  your mind focused on? What are you meditating on? Truth? Are your thoughts set up against the truth of Christ? Have you slowed down? Have you created space and margin? God often shows up there!   Are you having the right conversation? Is this the conversation God wants to have with you? Perhaps there is something else that needs to be discussed before moving on to your concerns. It could be directly tied to helping you sort out what He’s saying about the particular situation on your mind or it could be entirely different. Is this what matters most?    Are you limiting your perspective on how God wants to speak? Could God be talking to you in a different way? Are you only looking for Him to speak in one specific way or are you open to Him coming in an unexpected way? Is God speaking to you through people? Through your circumstances?   If you are feeling far from God and are struggling to hear God remember, this is normal. It is a normal part of our relationship with God. And it comes from a place of love. God uses this time as He does of all things, for your good... to bring you closer to Him...to trust Him, cling to Him, rely on Him and Him alone.   Your Next Step If you are sensing that you need to attend to your soul and your relationship with God but not sure what your next step might be, let’s connect for a call over Zoom. You can sign up HERE and pick the time that works best for you!  

O God, you are my God;      I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you;      My whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land      where there is no water.   Can you relate to these words written by David in Psalm 63? Do you feel like you are searching for God? Maybe you can feel the dryness of your soul and you know it is impacting your life and leadership. Maybe you are worn out. The journey has depleted you, it’s made you tired and even though you search for God you can’t seem to connect with Him. He feels distant and you feel lost.   We all go through times when we feel less connected to God and there can be a variety of reasons for it. Maybe you feel stuck as you seek to grow in intimacy with God. Nothing you’re doing right now makes you feel like you are growing closer to Him. Maybe you are not able to hear Him because you are distracted or not stopping to listen. Or maybe you have hit what Pete Scazzero calls, "the wall" and you are in a deeper place of distress because of God’s silence and perceived absence. All of these things are a normal part of life with God and the good news is that when we find ourselves in these places, it is because God loves us and wants us to be even more intimately connected and dependent on Him.  Today we are going to talk about being in a spiritual rut and I will share some tips that may help you. The reason why this is so important is that the state of our soul directly impacts our life and ministry. The condition of our soul affects every part of our life...all of it. And if we don’t attend to our inner life with God and try different ways to connect with God when we are feeling thirsty for Him, we could be setting ourselves up for depletion and burnout.   Our relationship with God is the strength that carries us through all of life and it is our relationship with God and His strength that allows us to serve in the place He has called us to. Our doing for Him comes directly out of our intimacy and meaningful connection with Him. Too many of us feel like David...parched, searching, weary, longing for God AND we don’t do anything different. We keep doing the same things expecting, hoping for a different result. While you can’t fix it (God is the fixer of things) you can explore with God and try some things to put you in a place that helps you be open to God and what He is doing.   If you feel dry, if you feel like you just aren’t able to connect, you may be in a spiritual rut. You may need to reposition yourself (maybe literally in a different place) and do some things with God a little differently.   Some of the thoughts I’m sharing are things that I rediscovered as I recently read a book by Gary Thomas called “Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect With God" and I wanted to make sure to acknowledge his work.    Here are some tips to help you explore different ways that you can connect and love God.    PRAY. God, I’m not connecting. I’m not feeling like I’m connecting. Help me. Take me beyond my feelings. Pray the words of Psalm 63.   Go back to your Gethsemane.  You may know the garden of Gethsemane as the scene of the agony and arrest of Jesus and therefore it is a place of great mental or spiritual suffering. That’s what I always think of when I hear Gethsemane. While this is true, there is something that Gary Thomas pointed out in his book Spiritual Pathways that I had missed. Jesus went out and made his way as usual to the Mount of Olives. (Luke 22:39) John 18 says, Jesus crossed the Kidron Valley with his disciples and entered a grove of olive trees. Judas the betrayer, knew this place, because Jesus had often gone there with his disciples. Jesus went back to a place that was familiar. It was a place that He had often visited.  Do you have a place? Do you have a place you like to meet with God? Where is it? Where do you feel drawn to Him? Go back if you can and if you can't get to that particular place, go back to the type of place. Discover how you connect with God in this season. God doesn’t change, His love doesn’t change, but how we connect with Him can and often does. We tend to narrow our approach from our past experience or what others tell us we should be doing. Consider your wonderful, unique design and imagine how that might help you connect with God. Explore what you and God can do together as you worship, pray, read the scripture, and listen.   Learn from others. This is another way to explore. Not because you want to copy someone else. Not because you are looking for the right way. But sometimes it’s helpful to get ideas. Again, our thinking is so narrow...we never even consider connecting with God in certain ways, it just hasn’t crossed our mind, it wasn’t on our radar. As we listen to others we can be inspired by God to lean in to Him in different ways. And we may find encouragement in hearing stories about how others have also found themselves in a dry and weary land.   Experiment. You are not going to know until you try. You may be surprised. You can’t fail. You will learn something about you and something about God.   Be a good steward of your life for the long haul. Spiritual replenishment, soul care, self care are all intertwined and absolutely necessary in order to develop Christ-like character and glorify God in whatever you. Too many people are not speaking up for themselves and creating the rhythms and boundaries necessary to do what God has called them to do for the long haul. Burnout is real. In fact, God wants to connect with you because you matter to Him apart from what you do!   Connect with Jen If God is revealing to you that you need to attend to your soul and journey with Him to be a healthier leader but you just don’t know where to start, let’s connect. Let’s have a discovery call and figure out your next step. You can schedule one HERE.   Whatever you do, whether or not you want to hang out together, don’t keep doing the same thing hoping for a different result. Lean into God and what He is trying to do in you.  

Do you feel far from God? Is it hard to hear Him? Do you struggle to see the ways He is working around you? When we feel far from God it plays a role in our soul health. And when we feel depleted, worried, even alone, it impacts the way we relate to God and others.   In this episode, I'm sharing a call that I recently had with a group of women taking the Margin Maker Workshop. We just completed the first session, "Getting Ready for Change" where we asked the question, "How's your soul?" In this conversation we talked about how we might be feeling and what assurances we can take with us on the journey to wholeness in our relationship with God and margin in life and ministry.   Scriptures Referenced Isaiah 53:6 Psalm 25:8 Psalm 23   If you'd like to join me for our next Margin Maker Workshop in a few months, you can get on the waitlist HERE. Or, if you're not quite sure what your next step should be but you know you need to make a change, let's have a discovery call. This is a free call that you can book with me HERE.

You are loved by God. Not because you are in ministry. Not because you said yes to leadership. Not because you are compassionate. It is not because of anything you have ever done or will ever do. It is because of who God is. As the song Jireh, says: You have never been more loved than you are right now. God loved you and chose you because it gave Him great pleasure to do it! Many of us struggle to anchor ourselves fully in the complete love of God. We worry about disappointing Him. We want to make Him so glad that He chose us. He does choose you and He would do it over and over again because He is love. And His love and acceptance has nothing to do with your ministry.   If you struggle with the idea that you are loved by God apart from ministry, this episode is for you. Scriptures Referenced Ephesians 1:4-5 Ephesians 2:1-6 Romans 5:8 Romans 7:22 Isaiah 30:15-18 (verse 18 in the Amplified Version) Isaiah 43:4  

Are you feeling marginalized as a woman in ministry? Is your contribution and leadership not valued? Are your ideas ignored? This is a common challenge that many women face, even in denominations and churches that say they welcome women in ministry. If you haven’t experienced this, I’m thankful and I would encourage you to listen to this episode because I am willing to guarantee there is someone you know who has, even if they are in a denomination or church that embraces an egalitarian model of ministry.     Boundaries are intricately tied to the challenges of being a woman in ministry.   If we aren’t careful we over extend ourselves. We will try to prove them wrong if they question our leadership. We will over compensate and do more. We won’t stop because we are afraid that we’ll be judged or we won’t be seen. And we can spend endless amounts of time and energy trying to fight and make our case for why we belong in ministry. We can spend an exuberant amount of time and energy trying to figure out what we should do to change other people’s perspectives and fix the situation in our own context and in the church at large.   It is exhausting. It requires boundaries to not personally take responsibility to fix or change someone else. It requires boundaries to practice self-differentiation and not internalize what other people think.   So what can you do? What should you do?   Here's what we cover in this episode: Bring awareness to the situation. Give input and offer suggestions. Do what you were called to do the best you can. Discern which battle is yours to fight. Be confident in who God created and called you to be.    Connect with Jen If you need support creating boundaries but not sure where to start, join Jen for a Discovery Call. Sign up HERE.

Are you spending time on things that are working in ministry or are you building structures, programs and paradigms that simply just don’t work anymore?   This is a question that continues to come up in conversations with pastors and leaders around the country. We are all feeling the loss of community. We are grieving what church once was or what we hoped it would be. People have drifted away. Others remain on the sidelines. The programs we did and the way we did them don’t seem as effective.   Some of these shifts are temporary but many of these trends may be here to stay. The church has changed. The truth is, it was changing before COVID and now the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already unfolding. And it has become incredibly difficult.    Our tendency is to try and figure out how to get people to come back. How do we fill the room again? How do we get people back to what used to be? It’s exhausting. It’s painful. Because of our own fatigue we are defaulting to what we knew, what worked or sort of worked before. And it is running us ragged.    We strategize and plan and promote activities and opportunities that we think will appeal and draw in those who have not come back...or we decide that we are going to go back to pre-covid church and count on things eventually getting back to normal.   And if you can identify with this struggle you are not alone. This is the reality, the struggle in almost every single church, especially in the western world. It’s new territory and it’s difficult, overwhelming. We can get stuck trying to solve a problem that may not be solvable...therefore chasing trends and building models that no longer effectively share Jesus and spread the Kingdom of God.   Here’s the good news...the Spirit is still at work. God is on the move. He isn’t finished. What the enemy meant for evil, God uses for good. There are churches where transformation and miracles are happening. Lives are being changed...God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven...and it’s not because of buildings or programs or events to attract...it’s not by the power or might of the people...it’s by the Spirit.   You may see a crisis. But today I am going to invite you to see the opportunity.   In this episode, I share with you some shifts that working in ministry. These things are opening up opportunities for the Spirit to move in the present and they are relieving pastors and leaders from the unreasonable expectation and burden of fixing the church. Here's what we cover:   6 Things That Are Working Today in Ministry Building relationships with whoever shows up. Staying in the moment. Establishing connections however people are opened to them. Supporting meaningful communities outside the church. Looking at spiritual growth rather than the numbers. Wanting something FOR your people rather than FROM them.   Check out today's episode as we unpack what's working today in ministry!   Give yourself permission to stop chasing trends and numbers of people and let God and His vision and desire for you and your church in this moment, be enough.   The Spirit is still at work. God is on the move. He isn’t finished yet.   Connect with Jen Facebook Instagram

There is so much going on in our lives, in our communities, and in our hearts. Our lives are full…full of overwhelm, full of responsibility, and full of worry. Today we are going to trade in our overwhelm for thankfulness by doing the 5 for 5 Challenge. All you have to do is write down 5 things for 5 days (and it will only take you about 5 minutes!)   5 for 5 Challenge Each day write down these 5 things:   Something you can celebrate. Something that made you laugh or smile. A way God loved you or you experienced His grace. A person you are thankful for in your life. A ministry win. This easy exercise will shift your mindset and help you see the ways God is working in you and around you. As you are able to shift your perspective it will relieve the burden, give you room and space, and help you experience Christ's joy, peace and power.   Connect with Jen Facebook Instagram

Do you have everything you need for ministry? Many of us feel like we don't have everything we need in order to do ministry. We often think, if we just had: more tools more programs, people attending more engagement more resources more education and training more time more energy more ideas more help ...then we would be able to make some progress! What if I told you that you have everything that you need? That's right, everything is available to you in order for you to share Jesus and build the Kingdom. Would you believe me? If you are feeling discouraged, if you feel like you just don't have enough, then this episode is for you! Scripture from Ephesians 1:15-23 Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.  Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.  And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.   Connect with Jen  Facebook Instagram  

Are you busy in ministry?  Is it ok to be busy in ministry? I will admit that there was a time when I didn’t think it was ok to be busy and I’m now rethinking this idea. I think it depends on what we mean when we say “busy.”   Here are some definitions of busy: activity or fully engaged or occupied Crowded with or characterized by much activity Constant at work, diligent; active.   My friend Amber doesn’t use the word busy. She substitutes the word busy with productive. For her, busyness means a time of increased productivity.   So, if we think about those definitions and concepts of busy there is really nothing wrong with being fully engaged, productive, diligent, and active. Jesus was all of those things. He was active in the work God gave Him. He was focused. There isn’t anything wrong with having seasons where there is a lot to do. Even seasons where you might have to make adjustments for the short term because of a particular event or season in the life of the church.   But here’s the thing, that’s not what I think most of us are talking about when we say we are busy in ministry. Busy is not productive. Our busyness is counterproductive because we just have too much activity.    When we talk about busy we usually mean that we’re in a place where it is hard to get it all done, in fact, maybe we aren’t getting it all done. Things that need to happen are going by the wayside. When we talk about being busy we don’t mean we are simply occupied, we actually mean we are preoccupied. We are concerned with something else, we are distracted. When we say we are busy, we are saying that there is so much going on that we are sacrificing the most important in the name of trying to get it all done. And our busyness is unending. One season of busy runs into the next until it is a blurred mess. So, is it ok to be busy in ministry? I think it depends on how we define it. Sometimes God will call us to seasons that are full and there will be lots of things going on. And yes, there may even be seasons where your typical rhythms are off a bit for a little while. But we need to remember that God won’t call us to stay in those seasons and exceed our limits. He won’t ask us to sacrifice our health, our relationship with Him, our families in the name of being productive for Him.   Busy is ok when we are doing the things God has called us to do and staying connected to the power of the Spirit, guarding hearts and our time so that busyness doesn't just keep on going.   If you are distracted, if you are going too hard and fast, struggling to connect with your spouse, not fully present with the people in your life, irritated, not spending time with God, unable to focus, exhausted...this is the kind of busy that isn’t healthy and it’s time to make some adjustments. A great strategy is to sit with God and ask, God…where are the busy seasons coming up in the months and weeks ahead and when should I create margin before moving on to the next things? This is one of the questions in the brand new Margin Maker Planner. Grab your copy on Amazon today!  

"Margin is the space between our load and our limits." -Dr. Swenson We all need margin. We were built for it. We need margin from things like being in change, constant activity, overwork, noise, running around, the news, and social media. We also need margin set aside for things like rest, relationships, play, silence, God, eating uninterrupted, processing our feelings, and moving our bodies. We want margin but sometimes we struggle to make it a reality in life. Here are some reasons why. 4 Mistakes Ministry Leaders Make When Creating Margin  They don’t have a vision. They know they can’t keep doing it the same way but they don’t know what they want and if you don’t know the target, you’ll miss it every time.     They rarely evaluate. They rarely reflect and see if they are living into that vision. Did they honor the commitments they made to the things that mattered most? Did They spend their time the way they wanted to? What worked well? What got in the way?   They are looking for a quick fix. Making margin is actually part of our spiritual formation process. It is another way in which we try to live like Jesus. Spiritual formation takes time and practice. It's filled with trial and error.  The transformative work of the Holy Spirit tends to bring up a bunch of stuff. It reveals our insecurities, shows who or what we are trusting, clinging to, and relying on other than God, and it exposes the fears, lies, and limiting beliefs we have be living by. So many leaders  give up so easily on themselves because things didn't turn around in an instant. They try and do it alone. We don’t talk about space, margin, overwork, and burnout in ministry. We hide our struggles. We don’t want people to think that we don’t have what it takes. We don’t want to look weak or incapable. We don’t want to disappoint the people around us. We don’t want to disappoint God. We try to keep it all under wraps, afraid to be judged.  Leaders that struggle to create margin don’t have community around them to help them process what they need to live and lead with healthy rhythms and boundaries. They try and figure it out all by themselves. They don’t connect with the people or resources they need in order to get support on the journey.   You need margin. You were made for it. Margin helps you be a better leader, better spouse, better friend, better parent, and better neighbor. Being intentional about making margin in life and ministry is one of the most powerful and courageous, God-honoring things you can do.  Need Help? If you need help making margin I just created a planner for you! The Margin Maker Planner is designed to help you discover and thoughtfully plan the space you need in the months ahead. Monthly journal prompts invite you to connect with God, hear His vision, and integrate the rhythms that will bring you life. Weekly reviews help you intentionally reflex on how the week went, how you experienced God, and what you may want to do differently. And throughout your journey, you’ll find a scripture, quote or tip to keep you motivated and discouraged.  You can grab your planner on Amazon.