During a panel at Live Action’s Women’s Summit: Return to Eden last month, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose discussed how each of the women on the panel built powerful ministries while raising families, by taking small steps towards truth.
Key Takeaways:
- Allie Beth Stuckey, Stephanie Gray Connors, Lisa Bevere, and Lila Rose all participated in a Q&A panel on their experiences in ministry.
- Their ministries began by simply saying “yes” to God, not with large platforms or power.
- They each encouraged the women present to say “yes” to God and let Him do the rest.
The Details:
On the panel with Rose were three women who have each created ministries that are changing countless hearts and minds.
Lisa Bevere is a New York Times bestselling author and an internationally known minister, as well as the co-founder of Messenger International with her husband, John. Stephanie Gray Connors is an author and international speaker. Allie Beth Stuckey is a speaker and author, as well as host of the podcast “Relatable,” which analyzes culture, theology, and politics from a Christian and conservative perspective.
“My question for each of you to kick us off here is, how do you discern what to say ‘yes’ to in the mission field with all of your other obligations and responsibilities and keeping your primary focus your vocation, your marriage, and your children?” Rose asked.
Bevere replied, “First and foremost, you don’t ever want to go out and neglect what you have in your house. That is your first and your foremost ministry. And so John and I made a decision that I could go out on Friday night and come back on Saturday so that I could take my children to church every single Sunday because John was traveling.”
Stuckey agreed, saying, “There were seasons that I can look back and I’m like, I probably didn’t say ‘yes’ enough. And there are seasons that I look back and I’m like, ‘oh gosh, I said yes so much!'”
Gray Connors added, “When I get the info, it’s like, is my gut saying ‘yes’? Or are we kind of waffling and we’re like, ‘I don’t know if this is good.’ And usually if we waffle, that’s kind of a sign this probably isn’t gonna resonate.”
Getting started
Stuckey said starting a ministry requires hard work with little financial return to start.
“Say it’s you want to start a podcast. Say it’s you want to speak. Say it’s you want to write. Say it’s something like that. Or maybe it’s you want to volunteer, start a pregnancy center,” she said. “Be willing to do those things for free, I would say, at first. When I first started speaking, I was not asking for a fee. I thought it was an honor and a privilege that they were just giving me their ears and their eyes to be able to be an audience for me.”
She added:
I would say if you are in a season of life where you do have a day job, I would say don’t quit your day job right away. I worked full-time in PR for two years while I was still doing this. It wasn’t until my husband got another job and we moved that I jumped into doing it full-time. And even then, it was scary.
There were sacrifices and all of that that we made, certainly, in the beginning. But I didn’t just jump into this as if it was some kind of full-on career or persona or platform that I had been given. I was willing to dig and work for free for a long time, for years, before I tried to make it into any kind of career.
For her part, Gray Connors said being raised in the pro-life movement shaped the person she is today.
“Raise your children well and they will want to become activists,” she said. “That was the foundation.” But specifically, she saw a conference where pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf spoke that made the biggest impact:
I was 18. And he said, there are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them. It was 1999, I was 18, and I thought, oh my goodness, I am meant to work full-time to save babies.
READ: HHS legal memo blasts court order: ‘Planned Parenthood has no right to taxpayer money’
But what should women do after becoming fired up to make a difference? Gray Connors said to just do the next right thing:
I’m gonna give this talk. I’m gonna do this podcast, whatever. What’s the feedback? Are there confirmations that more doors are opening?
I always pray, Lord, close the doors you want closed and open the doors you want opened. And if you pray that prayer, that is a prayer God will always answer.
Just don’t get upset when the doors close. But look for the doors that are opening.
Bevere’s road to ministry was more difficult to get started; she was uncomfortable and scared to speak in front of others. So she started small:
I just started having the girls in my house for a Bible study. You guys, you start small and you believe big. And I poured out what I knew. I didn’t stop my life.
I said, if you come to my house, I’m gonna be folding laundry, and you can talk to me as much as you want to. And when you serve, like Allie said, when you serve, God makes room for you. You give your gift first.
Too many young people think, ‘I’m the gifted, make room for me.’ That is not how it works. You give your gift, and God will have that gift make room for you.
Humble beginnings
Rose shared the humble beginnings of Live Action, which she founded as a teenager.
“It was not Live Action in any way or shape or form as you see it now,” she said. “It was literally a couple friends coming together to have brownies at my parents’ house, and read Scott Klusendorf books, and learn how to be pro-life apologists to go talk to our youth groups about how they needed to be pro-life. And then I interned for myself for probably, I think, eight years until I hired myself,” she said, adding;
So I agree with what you were saying, Allie, like, put in the work for free, and then eventually, you can build something, Lord willing, but the doors might close and then you say, ‘Lord, what next?’
And then another window might open. And it’s this adventure.
I mean, it really is this beautiful adventure with the Lord of ministry and just work and apostolate to say, what’s next? I’m gonna try something different and see where God may take this.
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