God – Page 4

Easy Ways to Encourage Your Pastor

October 26, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my most recent article for the Deeply Rooted Magazine blog.
You can read the entire article here!

I love church. I really do. I love the Church with a capital C—the church universal that Jesus died and rose for, filled with every tribe and nation and people and tongue (Rev. 7:9). And I love our particular church that meets every Sunday in a building that used to be a funeral home (a reminder of the beauty of going from death to life every week!). And after years in church ministry, as a pastor’s wife and now as a seminarian’s wife, I can unequivocally say that while church is messy and challenging and sometimes deeply painful, I know that there’s nothing else I will give my life to—because that’s what Jesus did. If he gave his life for the church, then I will give my life to the church, to love and care for and serve his people.

If Jesus gave his life for the church, then I will give my life to the church, to love and care for and serve his people. Share on X

While my husband and I are not in full-time ministry right now, I know what it’s like to be married to a pastor, and one of the many things learned in those years of ministry is that most pastors live in the simultaneous reality of loving what they do and also being tired. Sometimes pastors are just kind of tired. But other times they are exhausted. Getting to pastor the people of God is an incredible gift, but it is also a job that doesn’t have very clear starting and ending times. Ministering is fluid; people don’t have important questions and life crises only between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm. Work and ministry and life bleed into one another. And yes, sometimes pastors need better boundaries. But sometimes life and ministry are one and the same thing—and that’s ok. And tiring.

Your pastor is meant to be a gift to you. But you are also meant to be a gift to your pastor: Share on X

I don’t know who your pastor is, and I don’t know what kind of season your pastor is in. But this is the pastor that you have in this season of life, and he is meant to be a gift to you and your church family. The flip side of the equation is that you are meant to be a gift to your pastor, too. One way to do that is to intentionally encourage him and the other staff members at your church. So, as we end Pastor Appreciation month, here are some simple ways you can encourage the pastors in your life:

Say thank you. Say thank you when you see him on Sunday. Send a quick note of thanks to the office. Write a thank-you email regarding something specific that meant a lot to you. This will go so, so much farther than you can imagine.
Drop off coffee or food at the office. Find out when the weekly staff meeting is and drop by with donuts or coffee. You might just make the staff’s entire week! They will know they are loved and thought of on days other than Sunday.

Read the rest of the article here, at Deeply Rooted!

Filed Under: God, Life, Ministry Tagged With: Ann Swindell, Christian, Deeply Rooted Magazine, encourage my pastor, encourage your pastor, family ministry, how do I help my pastor, pastor appreciation, pastor appreciation month

Come and Write Your Story

October 6, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest article for The Gospel Coalition.
You can read the article in its entirety here!

I’m not gifted at comprehending my own spiritual growth while still in the midst of it. I don’t typically live through trials and victories with my antennae attuned to how God’s transforming me. I wish it were otherwise; I wish I had the ability to see my immediate experiences through the lens of spiritual development. But most of the time I’m just doing my best to love God and my family—and make it through the day intact. I’m not necessarily looking for the big themes or revelations the Lord is weaving into my life in the moment.

But I know God has numbered the days of my life (Ps. 139:16) and that he’s working out all things for my good as he conforms me to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29). I don’t want to miss these things; I want to be able to point to how God’s transforming me “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18) as I walk with him.

I turn to two things in order to help me understand my spiritual growth: my Bible and my pen. via @TGC #amwriting Share on X

So I turn to two things in order to help me understand my spiritual growth: my Bible and my pen. Reading the Word and writing my story—these are how I’ve learned to experience my life as a purposeful whole, even when the days feel splintered and confusing.

Read the rest of the article here–and let me know how you understand your spiritual growth over at TGC!

And, if you’re interested in writing your story, make sure to check out the Writing with Grace: Memoir class that I’m teaching this fall. Registration is only open until October 11th, so don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to write your story powerfully and hear from industry experts! See you there!

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, Christian writer, come and write your story, how do I write my story, memoir, The Gospel Coalition, write your memoir, write your story, writing your story

Write Your Story, Change Your Life

September 20, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

I started writing my story years ago; long before I was anywhere near a book contract or a marketing team, I felt that the Lord was inviting me into a process of writing my story down and–in the process–meeting him in the middle of it. I’m not sure I’ve done anything more powerful in my personal spiritual journey than write my memoir.

Memoir is the genre that I love the most, because it’s the genre that allows us–even gently forces us–to re-examine the lives that we have been living as we write them down on the page. A good memoir isn’t autobiography, and it isn’t a personal journal. It’s the true story of our lives written in such a way that others can understand, access, and be changed by it.

I’m not sure there’s a more dynamic form of the written word.

Our God is the God of story, and he loves making himself known through our stories; it’s how he’s wired us. We start loving stories as children, and we inherently know when a story has a satisfying or unacceptable ending, because we were made to long for resolution, peace, and hope.

Our God is the God of story, and he loves making himself known through our stories. Share on X

If you’ve always wanted to write your story, or if you’ve been wondering how you can tell your story in a meaningful way, I’m going to suggest that writing your memoir might be one of the most powerful things you can do in your personal journey with Jesus. Down the road, might your story impact hundreds or thousands of people? I hope so! But in these days and months, writing your story will transform you most of all. I know that it has transformed me; I got to see Jesus at work all over again as I’ve written my memoir over the past years.

I just opened registration for the Writing with Grace Memoir course that I’ll be teaching this fall. To say that I’m thrilled about this class is an understatement; I’m practically jumping out of my chair!

Registration is open for Writing with Grace: Memoir! www.writingwithgrace.com #amwriting Share on X

I’d love for you to join me over at Writing with Grace–you can even see the new video that we created just for this course.

If you’ve been aching to write your story, this is your time. I can’t wait to see you there!

Filed Under: Book Writing, God, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, Ann Swindell memoir, Christian writing class, Christianity, memoir, Still Waiting, write your story, writing class, Writing with grace

When it Feels Like You’re Losing Yourself

August 18, 2016 by Ann Leave a Comment

This is the start of my newest piece for Today’s Christian Woman, and it is about something I felt so deeply after my daughter was born: the fear of losing my identity. My hope is that these words can encourage not only fellow moms, but anyone who feels displaced or confused by their current season–because the good news is that in Christ, we can’t ever lose who we truly are.

When I was in college, I had a lot of friends who told me that what they really wanted to do in life was be a mom. Yes, they were getting degrees and they wanted to work, but really, their highest hope was to become a mother.

I nodded and affirmed them. I hoped that one day I would become a mom, too—but I never really knew how to respond to their longing for children. I’d never felt that; what I did feel was a desire to pursue other things—dreams of writing and teaching and speaking—and I wasn’t sure when having kids might fit into my life.

Perhaps that is part of the reason why, at first, becoming a mom was so difficult for me. I had gone on to teach and write and speak . . . and then I became a mom. Once she arrived, I loved my daughter fiercely and relentlessly. But I also felt that I had somehow misplaced my identity—my very self—in the process of becoming a mom, and, like a missing wallet, I felt waves of panic when I couldn’t find it, no matter how hard I looked.

I felt I had misplaced my identity—my very self—in the process of becoming a mom. Share on X

I felt subsumed by motherhood. I couldn’t get my bearings; I couldn’t find my footing. Without the trappings of my former life, my identity was deeply shaken. When I didn’t have time to read and study, or when I didn’t have margin to talk with my husband for uninterrupted hours, I felt misplaced. When I didn’t have the emotional energy to meet with a friend for coffee and discuss our faith and our friendship, it was then that I felt that I was losing myself. Add to that the exhaustion I experienced, the raw responsibility I carried for another’s life, and the unrelenting needs that my daughter had, and I felt like I was drowning.

I remember looking at our living room one day: my daughter’s burp cloths and toys were scattered around the space, and a stack of papers was waiting on the coffee table for me to grade. Who was I? I knew, intellectually, that I could say that I was a mom, and I was a wife, and I was a teacher. But who was I now, really? Nothing felt the same. My life had been rearranged when my daughter was placed in my arms. Where was the Ann I knew before I became a mom?

Losing to Gain

In Matthew 16:25, Jesus tells his followers that in order to truly find your life, you have to lose it. This is a radical, upside-down statement, and it jars me every time I read it. Because what Jesus is saying here tosses my idea of identity very far out of the proverbial window.

Losing my life for Christ’s sake is actually a good thing. It’s not something to be feared. Share on X

What the Bible tells me is this: Losing my life for Christ’s sake is actually a good thing. It’s not something to be feared. And in truth, I hadn’t actually lost myself in my new role as a mom. Did it feel like it? Certainly. I felt confused and disoriented as a mother. But motherhood didn’t actually change my identity; it simply stripped me down to the marrow of my existence by altering the external circumstances of my life.

Read the rest of the article here, at Today’s Christian Woman!

Related blog post: He is our Brave

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Motherhood, Parenting Tagged With: Ann Swindell, how do I find my identity, I feel like I lost myself, identity in Christ, losing myself, my identity is lost, my soul is tired, true identity, what does it mean to have identity in Christ, what is my identity

Don’t Write to Get Published

August 5, 2016 by Ann 2 Comments

I have a deep respect for The Gospel Coalition and the work that they are doing online and in the “real” world as an organization that unabashedly proclaims the truth of the Bible. I was able to attend The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in June, and just this week I had the opportunity to write for their blog. It was an honor to write for TGC about one of my favorite topics! You can link to the full article here.

And, if you’re a fellow writer, make sure to read all the way to the end of the article at TGC, where I offer a discount code for my Writing with Grace course–registration is open until the 17th of August (and don’t forget to check out the site and the brand-new video I released)!

Here’s the start of the article for The Gospel Coalition:

For those of us who love words, we’re drawn to the clack of the keyboard and the parsing of meaning on the page. We feel alive as we wrangle words into sentences; some of us even feel closer to God as we work out our faith by writing about it. Time spent writing feels important, even holy.

For those of us who love words, we’re drawn to the clack of the keyboard. We feel alive as we wrangle words into sentences. #amwriting Share on X

But for many of us, running parallel with our love of writing is the desire to get published. This desire can be fueled by the culture at large, which says our writing only matters if our readership is huge and our byline well known. Publication is commonly assumed to be the goal of the writing life, and seeing our words in print the truest form of validation for our work.

As an author and teacher of writing, I often have conversations with other writers fixated on publication. They’re desperate to see their work published somewhere. They want to know how to start a writing career, or how to get the inside scoop on writing for a top magazine.

In response to their questions, I have to ask: Do you want to be published? Or do you want to write?

Do you want to be published? Or do you want to write? Share on X

These aren’t the same question, although many of us confuse one for the other. For as much as writing is tethered to publishing, getting published doesn’t make a writer. Writing makes a writer.

Read the rest of the article over at The Gospel Coalition, and don’t miss out on open registration for Writing with Grace!

Filed Under: God, Guest Post, Writing Tagged With: am writing, amwriting, Christian writing, I want to be a Christian writer, I want to be a writer, I want to get published, The Gospel Coalition, Writing, writing class, writing for the Gospel Coalition, Writing with grace

Still Waiting Cover Reveal

August 2, 2016 by Ann 29 Comments

I’ve been writing a book this past year, and have spent the last few months crystallizing edits with my powerhouse team at Tyndale. It’s hard to believe that nine months have passed since I signed the contract; we have less time than that before it releases in April of 2017!

One thing that I’ve loved about the process of seeing this book come to life has been the excitement generated around the cover. I’ll share more later, but Tyndale walked me through a really helpful and empowering process when it came to designing the cover of this book. Although their design team creates the cover, as an author I had a clear hand in the tone and feel of the design, which I was deeply thankful for.

The #stillwaitingbook cover reveal! Share on X

The cover matters so much to me because as much as we say otherwise, the truth is that we really do judge a book by its cover. Whether we’re perusing the stacks at a bookstore or clicking through pages online, it’s the front of a book that initially draws us in or pushes us away. My hope is that this cover will draw you in and thrill you as much as it has thrilled me!

I won’t keep you waiting any longer. Here it is!

Isn’t it beautiful? This cover encapsulates so much about Still Waiting in one image. I’m amazed at how the design team captured both the beauty and the ache of trusting God; they nailed the feeling of yearning, and yet the rich colors point to the vibrancy that can be found even in waiting seasons. The handwritten title adds a softness to the cover without being overly dramatic.

In short: I love it. LOVE IT.

This cover blew me away the first time I saw it, and I’m so thankful that it will be the “face” of my first book. I’ll be sharing more about the book-writing process in the months ahead, but I wanted to let you be the first ones to catch a glimpse of the cover!

(If you’re new here and want to stay up-to-date with my work and this book, click here to join in on my monthly updates!)

Oh, and if you want to pre-order Still Waiting, you’re in luck. You can pre-order it here!

So, what do you think? Do you love the cover as much as I do?

Additionally, if you’re interested in writing, too, make sure to check out the course that I offer, Writing with Grace. Registration just opened TODAY, but it won’t be open for long! Click here to learn all about the class:

Filed Under: God, Still Waiting Book, Writing Tagged With: Ann Swindell, author, book writing process, Cover Reveal, how do I write a book, Still Waiting, Still Waiting Book, Tyndale House Publishers, writing a book