LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again

A 40-Day Journey to Renewal

LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again is a 40-day devotional for the season of Lent. The season of Lent refers to the 6 weeks of preparing our hearts leading up to Easter. I hope this 40-day journey will lead you into paths of freedom, renewal, and spiritual awakening.

Lent is practiced as a time for the spring cleaning of our souls. Just as in our own houses, that usually means clearing out the junk that has accumulated over the past year. In the same way, we look to God to expose those things that have unknowingly settled in our hearts and have put our souls in disarray—and then returning to God and allowing Him to restore us in a fresh way.

Lent is a way of keeping us honest with ourselves and before God that we might reach out for grace.

This is what makes Lent so valuable: Lent is a time of looking honestly at our lives, a habit we might not practice otherwise. Lent reminds us that our struggles and weakness are the very things that allow us to experience grace. Lent invites us to look more carefully at all the ways the ongoing work of salvation comes to us in the daily-ness of our lives. In the end, the journey of Lent prepares our hearts for Easter.

Lent may not be a regular practice of yours, but I invite you on this 40-day journey with me. Lent: An Opportunity to Start Again offers a daily devotional thought, Scripture verse, reflection questions (with space to write your answers), a space personal prayer, and some Lenten practices introduced throughout.

Excerpt: “In my early twenties and early years of ministry, I remember at the end of one day thinking to myself, “I didn’t have one single thought of God today.” A red flag shot up like a flare. It was a marked moment of honest and searing self-revelation, accompanied by a twinge of shame and embarrassment. How can I claim devotion to God when my mind is continually preoccupied and scattered in a thousand directions every day? How do we call Jesus our Lord and yet our thoughts are consistently elsewhere? I had no idea, at that time, how crucial a role the practice of habitually directing my mind and my thoughts toward Christ would play in the transforming and flourishing of my life.”

LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again is available on Amazon. Find it here.

LET THE WEARY WORLD REJOICE!

Advent Reflections for Runaway Lives

This year, we vow, things will be different.

We want to live differently this Christmas season…more reflective, less hurried, embracing a different rhythm of celebration where slivers of joy can be found.

As the season unfolds, however, we still find ourselves inwardly rushed and whizzing through our obligations. Our good intentions crumble into a heap at the feet of exponential hurriedness. In a culture and season cluttered with distractions, we seek to make room for what is real and essential.

For all those who are weary, Let the Weary World Rejoice! serves as a nourishing rhythm for our runaway lives. With a short, insightful daily devotional, Scripture reading, and reflective questions, Let the Weary World Rejoice! is the perfect tool to help you slow down and keep your heart in a place of wonder and anticipation rather than a place of exhaustion…and may your weary soul rejoice!

What others are saying about Let the Weary World Rejoice:

“It’s my favorite Advent devotional!” Dave M.

“I loved the daily devotional thoughts. They were new and refreshing!” Shari D.

“We used this for our family devotions and my teenagers even liked it!” Lisa L.

ALL THERE

How Attentiveness Shapes Authentic Leadership

 Ministry is not what it used to be. What is most needed in our ever-changing culture? Join me on a journey as we settle into these questions:

• How does a leader lose their soul in the midst of leadership?
• What is a leader’s first responsibility?
• What ability do leaders want most in their leadership?
• How do we lead courageously in a shifting culture?
• Why our formation matters (really matters) in God’s Kingdom purposes.
• Don’t miss the most important thing.
• What is our most essential role as a leader?
• What is the most significant relational skill a minister can possess today?

All There unpacks Jesus’ invitation to give careful attention to the three essential dimensions of human life: God, self, and others. Birthed out of my own struggle in ministry leadership and working alongside ministry leaders for over 10 years, All There is about the soul of the leader and what it means to live as authentically and redemptively as possible for others.

I have learned that the real vision we bring to our leadership is the ability to see what God is doing. We have a role in God’s creatively unfolding story in our unique context, and that is what is most needed.

My prayer is that this book allows leaders to order their lives around personal, emotional, and relational practices of wholeness, which would overflow into authentic and transformational leadership.

What others are saying…

“Gail Johnsen introduces us to a dynamic form of authentic leadership…” LEONARD SWEET, best-selling author, professor, and founder of PreachTheStory.com

In today’s leadership climate, I can’t think of a more timely book than this. DR. DAVE E COLE, Northwest Ministry Network, author of Refocus: Creating an Outward-Focused Church Culture

This is a summons to reshape how you spend yourself. As a minister, I am taking notes. And sitting a while. DR. ROSEMARIE KOWALSKI, author of What Made Them Think They Could? Women in Early Pentecostal Missions

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This is a must-read for those who have a deeper longing to keep in sync with the work of God we all desperately want to be a part of. BETH BACKES, pastor, speaker leadership coach

Every ministry leader should read this book! DR. JODI DETRICK, author of The Jesus-Hearted Woman

All There is truly an incredible book! Every pastor and leader needs to read and digest this book. DR. TROY JONES, pastor of New Life Church, Renton, WA, author of Recalibrate Your Church: How Your Church Can Read Its Full Kingdom Impact