S2S Sisters: "Being Effective Women in Ministry for God’s Honor and Glory" by Tara Foster

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Hello everyone, welcome to Strength to Strength Sisters. My name is Christina Baer, and I'm very excited to introduce Tara Foster. She's going to be talking on evangelism today.

This is something that I'm very interested in learning more about, and I'm really happy to introduce her to you. Tara is an unmarried mom of a 22-year-old son. She divides her time between St. Thomas, where she's a member of the Leamsters River Brethren, and State College, Pennsylvania. She serves as an English teacher for LifeQuest at Penn State University Park campus. She is passionate about influencing the world with the gospel through relationships.

I know in my life personally, I can definitely grow in the area of evangelism, and evangelism is so important in the gospel and the purpose of Christ's coming and to spread His good word and His good news and that just to proclaim that Jesus Christ is our Lord and our King. And I'm so looking forward to this talk. Before I pass it over to you, Tara, I'm just going to pray for you. So if we could just bow our heads.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You so much for this wonderful and this beautiful day that it is. I thank You here for our sister Tara. I pray that You would be with her as she speaks today. May Your Spirit guide her. I pray, Father, that she can bring encouragement and motivation and knowledge to us sisters here that could use a little bit more encouragement in this area. Father, there's always areas for us to learn and to grow, and I pray that You use Tara today to spread Your word. I pray that this call would be a blessing to You, Heavenly Father. May it be to Your glory and Your honor. And I pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen. All right, welcome, Tara. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that, Christina. Okay, so I think every one of us probably has a time when we're given a topic that strikes fear into our hearts. So this is probably the most terrifying topic I have ever addressed.

So I had to ask myself why I felt so reluctant to talk about this subject when I've spent a lot of my adult life in ministry and I've done a lot of public speaking and teaching. But one reason became apparent when I started asking other single women for their input on the subject. I quickly felt a measure of comfort as other women expressed everything from pity to shocked admiration that I agreed to tackle this topic.

The second reason I felt angst over this is because the subject is often very situation-specific, so making blanket statements on the subject feels a bit like setting myself up before a firing squad. I trust you ladies have the law of kindness rolling your tongue, so I am disciplining myself to not be afraid of you.

If I'm going to have anything meaningful to share with you, I'll have to be vulnerable, and that comes with risk. The third and final reason I wanted to bow out from doing this topic lies in the intense spiritual battle I was in for about four months. The enemy dealt me some hard blows, so I began preparing for this topic, feeling a little like a person on an airplane who is trying to help someone else put on their oxygen mask before taking care of their own.

Yet today, I can speak with freedom and gratitude. Other soldiers came alongside me, held up my hands like Aaron and Hur, prayed with me and for me, and encouraged me to get up and persevere. My prayer is that God can redeem all of these things and receive the glory He deserves. A broken vessel can't proclaim its own glory. So here I am, a broken vessel, mended and made useful again by the Master. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

Heather Holloman, a Penn State professor, shares a quote from Margaret Wheatley in her book, The Six Conversations, "You can't hate someone whose story you know." Before I delve into the meat of our topic today, please permit me to share a nutshell version of my story. I've shared my story at length in other settings, but that's not our topic for today.

So I come from a non-Christian background with things like drugs, alcohol, and divorce in my childhood. In my teen and young adult years, I was an immoral and sassy girl with the mental health challenges you would expect with so much trauma and instability. When I was 19, I met a young man from an Anabaptist home. He was a prodigal and living much like I was. After dating for several months, I began attending church with him. There, I experienced real Christianity and began to embrace it for myself.

Unfortunately, in my desire to still live life how I wanted, I got pregnant to my boyfriend and had a son. I have never been married, so I know what it is to struggle to provide financially while dealing with custody challenges and all the loneliness and difficulties a situation like this creates. I also know the incredible provision of God and the love and support of His people. My son, Ethan, will be 23 this month, and I rejoice to see how God has kept His hand over our lives.

So there's my son, Ethan. So yes, he has his 23rd birthday this month. I've done various types of ministry over the years, teaching the Bible to women in my local jail, speaking to teen girls, teaching in a Christian school, and currently working as an English teacher, which I will describe in more detail momentarily. I don't know what the ratio is of single to married women of those of you who will listen to this talk, but I will definitely focus on being in ministry as a single woman.

But I hope you married ladies will feel inspired and perhaps relieved as you listen in, and hopefully you'll also feel like you can glean some relevant and helpful thoughts.

So for the last two and a half years, look at this picture. I've divided my time between my home near Chambersburg, PA, as was mentioned, where I live, and then that's where I live with my son, and then State College, PA.

Chambersburg there is the center, bottom, sorry, South Central PA, and then State College right in the center. So State College is where I work. I'm employed by LifeQuest, an Anabaptist Bible teaching and discipling ministry, primarily engaging international academics at Penn State University.

And so, yeah, I'm the English teacher. So using primarily conversation, internationals from a variety of countries come to me to improve their speaking and listening skills. I use a simple translation of the Bible to also teach English proficiency and biblical concepts in a Bible literacy class.

So to prepare for this talk, I posed several questions to about 25 single women in ministry to get their perspectives on the topic. I really appreciate what these women had to share. Some of them are far more mature than I am and should probably be the ones speaking today.

But other women told me they didn't know what to say. They didn't have any input. They say they're looking forward to hearing more about the topic and learning, yeah, learning. So parts of my talk will have some of their contributions woven in. I just feel so blessed that we can glean from each other. 2 Corinthians 3:5, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God."

So I'm going to be giving lots of different Bible references. Sometimes I'll actually quote the verse. Sometimes I'll just mention the reference. And I'm going to also have a lot of different inspirational quotes from missionaries or other people. So don't try to jot any of that down. There is a document that I think the ladies will tell you how to find that later.

So yeah, all of those quotes and Bible references are on there. So there's also a number of quotes from missionaries that I won't be mentioning in my topic. So I think you'll find there's, yeah, some really, really inspiring quotes that I won't be mentioning in the topic at all today.

Okay, so ladies, we are not our own. We are bought with the precious blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18 and 19, "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ. In order to be in ministry of any kind, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. We need to rightly view ourselves and serve selflessly. We are called to love God with everything we've got and our neighbors as ourselves." Ministry opportunities abound. You can serve a mom near you, serve your family, help an elderly neighbor, spend time with other people's children, and of course, teach the word, pray with people, etc.

The first question I asked the women was how to deal with relational boundaries in ministry, particularly with men. Ooh, I got a range of input. I think it is important to recognize a few things before I start sharing specifics, their thoughts, and my own.

First, we should be very slow to harshly judge another woman's methods if we don't have a good concept of her specific situation and personality. And second, we also need to be aware that others are likely to pass judgment on us if they see real or perceived issues with how we relate to the men in our lives.

We all view life from our individual perspective and need to consciously choose to take a different view at times. So one woman shared with me how she moved to a boys' camp here in the States, and she was automatically put into a sharing group with some married women, and she has to share a home with several other single women. She feels like she has such deep relationships with other women, and that helps her to have boundaries and gives her support so she doesn't need men as much.

On the flip side, she said it's so important that we don't worry so much about boundaries with the men we work alongside because God has brought us each to whatever our particular ministry is. He's given us a job to do, and worrying too much about guys can cause unnecessary distraction.

So I think we can see this refreshing statement as she means it and not have to qualify it. Another single who has worked in various ministries in the U.S. has had to relate with both single and married men. She stressed the need to communicate with proper reserve, but to also resist excluding or ignoring men. After all, our teammates, both male and female, can see and speak into our lives and help us develop into more Christ-like people.

One sister served God as a widow for many years. She and others stressed how wise it is to let male relatives fill the places where we need men as much as possible. This is an area that's been hard for me because I grew up with hardly any Christian relatives, especially male ones. But God has provided fatherly and brotherly men to help meet this need for me at times, and I'm so grateful for that.

Several women talked about the need to have men in our lives to answer questions and give advice. A friend of mine who has spent nearly all of her adult life in Central America is extremely grateful for the couples she has in her life. Her lady friends are happy to share their husbands to benefit my single friend, but it happens in a guarded way as a couple helping her. We can all see the tremendous risk when a lady goes to a man alone for advice or help, particularly when it's often.

Relating with couples also naturally keeps children in our lives. We all need little people and perhaps pets or plants or something else to nurture and enjoy. God created us as women to be life givers and life sustainers. So if we don't do it biologically, we can find other healthy outlets for this gift of feminine care that the world needs. There are always widows and handicapped people who need a visit from a cheerful friend.

In my work, I relate with male English students one-on-one often, but there are several guidelines I follow. First, the meeting always happens in a public space. My classroom on campus has large windows with, sorry, I'm saying that again. My classroom on campus has large windows lining two sides of it, and the door is always open. The hallway is very busy, especially at certain times of the day. So at any time, someone might come popping in the door to say hi, and they do all day long.

Second, when using conversational English to help people with pronunciation, vocabulary building, and such one-on-one, I keep my personal life and especially the inner thoughts of my heart very guarded. I know a lot about my students, but they know much less about me.

In a public academic setting like I work in, people don't think twice about cross-gender interactions. But for my friend who teaches in Central America, she never does individual classes with men because the cultural context is completely different. There, it would be assumed something romantic is going on, so she works within the cultural expectations.

She says it's important in mission settings to look to the nationals to see how to relate culturally rather than insisting on using our own cultural lens. We may know how to serve problems on U.S. soil, but those methods may be inappropriate or dangerous in a different cultural context.

Many of the women who shared thoughts with me say it's important to avoid texting men and allowing friendships to grow by text. This feels like one thing I agree with, but it doesn't fit in with my job in quite such a cut-and-dried way. I teach adults from about 19 to 70 years old, men and women, single and married. And part of what I do is coordinate classes and events, give advice, and answer practical questions. And all of that requires an indescribable amount of texting with these people, all of them.

So another thing we single ladies need to avoid is viewing all single Christian men as potential suitors. We live with our hands open before God, not resistant to who he might bring into our lives, but not on the hunt for him either. We just need to rest in our hearts. After all, we might not always interpret a man's motives correctly. I think all of the single ladies would agree that we fluctuate emotionally with this reality.

Sometimes it's tough not to look at an attractive prospect and imagine what it would be like to receive his attention. I find I often need to take thoughts like this back to God and offer the longings and desires as a sacrifice.

I think about the audience of one, the Lord of heaven and earth, the one for whom we live and labor. Elizabeth Elliott said, "Discipline is not my claim on Christ, but the evidence of his claim on me." Marriage is God's design for most people, but many of us will spend a significant portion of our lives as a single, including widowhood. Somehow we need to find rest in the tension of hope and longing for the gift of marriage and contentment when that longing remains unfulfilled. I think the married sisters could describe the burdens and stresses they endure as married women. The grass really isn't greener on the other side.

One sister put it this way, "We all have different styles of relating, but we need to remember the men in our lives belong to someone else. We need to treat them the way we want our women." Sorry. "We need to treat them the way we want other women to treat our husbands if we have one, or how we want our future husbands to be treated by other ladies."

In 1 Timothy 5, we're instructed to relate with other believers as family. Treat older men like fathers and other men like brothers in all purity. One more thought on this specific topic. We mustn't delay our lives wondering if we'll get married. If God gave you a love for nursing, teaching, Bible translation, or other things, pursue those dreams. But live every day willing for God to close that door and direct you elsewhere if he so chooses.

A man worth having as a husband will likely not want his future wife to be sitting around doing shallow or meaningless things, waiting for him to show up so her life can begin. Men want a woman who is already alive, happy, and fulfilled.

One woman asked me to address the need to have healthy relational boundaries with other women. She is concerned that some Christian women may be tempted with inappropriate thoughts toward other women and be afraid to talk about it. I think it is a valid concern. So some church or ministry settings may provide a stronger sense of safety to share vulnerably about embarrassing things like this. So whether you're tempted with inappropriate male or female friendships or crushes or have even crossed some boundaries, find a safe person to share with.

A trustworthy Christian sister, couple, or minister and his wife are invaluable resources to help us. We will all struggle at some point, if not morally or relationally, then in some other way, such as bitterness over singleness. Let's soak in a couple of scriptures. James 5:16, "Confess your faults to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed." Hebrews 12:1-3.

Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

We need transparency in all areas of our lives. Transparency makes us able to be wounded. The woman I referenced earlier who lives in Central America shared a very inspiring article with me that she wrote about being whole and wholesome. In the article, she pulled together different thoughts about avoiding self-protecting and self-reliant behavior patterns.

My friend has inspired me so much by how real and vulnerable she is with her confidants because she knows that this is one of the keys to being spiritually healthy and therefore effective in ministry. She describes keeping our hearts honest so we can be real before God and others. We need people who know us well enough to ask us probing questions, and we need to trust them enough to answer from the depths of our hearts, answer from the depths of our hearts. This overlaps with caring for the needs of our own souls, which we will delve into next.

So how do we care for the needs of our own souls? Do we need to? Can't we just run selflessly from catastrophe to catastrophe, serving food without food or sleep or concentrated time in prayer? Laughably ridiculous, but don't we sometimes act as though we can function without stopping?

Again, I think we can find ourselves at opposite ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum might be giving too much and hurting ourselves and our families. We're still with the air of a martyr. And the other end of the spectrum is a careful guard on our lives, so much that God and people are all kept in neat little boxes where they can't upset the control we think we have over our lives.

1 Corinthians 13:3 talks about giving, but with wrong motives. "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing." And then the next two quotes talk about living unselfish lives, remembering whose we are. Richard Wurmbrand said, "We are not all called to die a martyr's death, but we are all called to live a martyr's life."

And then this quote, I found somewhere, I don't know who said it, but it's, yeah, very inspiring. "Ministry is giving when you feel like keeping, praying for others when you need to be prayed for, feeding others when your own soul is hungry, living truth before people when you can't see the results, hurting with others when your own hurt can't be spoken. It is being faithful when your flesh wants to run away."

I presume the vast majority of you who will hear this talk will be born-again Christians. In order to flourish, to have and give life, we need to be connected to the vine, as John 15 explains. Seasons of prayer are vital. If you are a single, perhaps you can manage blocks of uninterrupted prayer. I do, and it's the only way I can output what I do. If you're a busy mom and aren't all moms busy, you may be praying in the bathroom while bandaging little knees, while dozing off at night, or in any semi-quiet snippet you can find during the day.

People with health concerns or heavily demanding schedules will need to be mindful of their limitations. Not all seasons allow us to be very productive outside the home. If you are a woman with young children, your ministry is going to look more like cheerful care of your family rather than something glorious outside the home. Your primary gift to people in this season may be taking meals or welcoming the traveler or stranger into your home. If you do this with joy, serving Jesus, people will feel loved, hopeful, and they will see Christ's love radiating from you and your family.

Singles, how do we balance all of this? Are we taking food or are we too busy to contribute? Well, possibly. If you have to work a job to earn money, care for your property, and have a ministry on top of all of that, yes, you might need to leave the food prep and delivery to someone else.

Do you all feel this pressure to be a superwoman Christian? Sometimes this pressure is self-inflicted, and sometimes it's more microculture-based, but I think it's real.

So now let's discuss introverts versus extroverts, but we're not against each other. So I picture the introvert quietly ministering to one or two women, working in the kitchen or volunteering to do another task few may realize needs to be done. Extroverts are fluttering from social interaction to social interaction, using their gift of gab to minister in some form. So who is more important? Bad question.

God has equipped each of us to serve in different ways, so our soul care will look different as well. I am primarily an extrovert, but oh, let me spend too many hours a day, day after day, interacting deeply with people, and I stop being able to speak.

My mind numbs, and trying to form words is nigh impossible. It's like being in fight or flight mode, but in slow motion. If I can't get away from people at that point, it's not going to be pretty. I have been told to draw apart before I reach that point, but sometimes it's hardly possible. Normally, I'm such a happy extrovert that other people load me up with the responsibilities they think I can handle, so I dutifully try to accommodate them. Ugh.

I think we all need people in our families or areas of ministry who can tell us when we are overcommitted if we can't recognize that ourselves. My son has done well at that the last several years. He sometimes would say, "Mom, you've got too much happening."

So at regular intervals, we need to do something restorative. We need to take a walk, pray privately, make a phone call to someone, nap, eat something nourishing and/or delicious, read for a while, daydream while folding socks, journaling, or whatever you find suits your particular needs. There are times to just push through our own physical and emotional needs to keep serving. Jesus knew what it was to be surrounded by people. Touchy, needy, demanding people. Mark 6:31 tells us he hardly had time to eat.

However, Jesus also sent the crowds away and spent time in solitude and prayer. We need to ask God to help us correctly order our priorities as we minister to our families and others. Sometimes the right thing is to say, "No." That's hard for those of us who are people pleasers. We may need to kindly ask those we live or work with us, those we live or work with, to give us a little space sometimes.

Mentors and good friends, both local and out of your community, are indispensable. Sometimes we ladies need to blow off steam about hard things without gossiping or violating confidences. A good talk with a life-giving friend and praying together is a vital and integral part of our spiritual and emotional health. We need someone who can listen to us and point out the underlying issues so we can regain our balance.

Our friends and mentors can recognize things like Aaron Davis points out. Chronic discouragement may be an indicator that our ministry efforts are too focused on us. Let's let others show us a new perspective. We really need to invest in and enjoy the relationships we currently have. Relationships can be fleeting, especially in a mission setting.

For myself, I have felt shock and grief many times when people left state college with little or no time to say goodbye. The nature of my work is quite transitory. There are people who stay and complete whole semesters, but visiting scholars and interns are always coming and going. There have been intense seasons of many goodbyes with internationals I'm close to. In those weighty times, I have often wished for a husband, someone who won't leave even if it feels like everyone else is.

These are the times when I am so grateful that even if my circumstances keep changing, God does not. One sister put some of my thoughts into words when she talked about being tired of belonging to everybody and nobody.

Likewise, she said the pain of being strong for everyone else, but no one being strong for me. Charles Stanley put it this way, "From the world's perspective, there are many places you can go to find comfort, but there is only one place you will find a hand to catch your tears and a heart to listen to your longing. True peace comes only from God." We all need someone who is heavily involved in our lives, someone who will point out our blind spots, ask hard questions, and help us battle on as good soldiers of the Lord, as 2 Timothy mentions.

Our main heart connections need to be with God's other children, not with those we minister to, especially if they aren't Christians. Sometimes we don't know if we are not spiritually or emotionally healthy, so we need others to speak into our lives. Other people hold up mirrors to show us who we are. One single girl I know who is very spiritually strong recommends going to a professional counselor for self-care, especially if you've experienced a death in the family or some other trauma.

Routines were mentioned by many ladies. We need to eat, sleep, worship, and do other things with as much stability and predictability as we can manage. We need to remain connected to our home church if we are a field.

We mustn't allow ourselves to become alienated from others. An animal separated from the herd is easy prey. We need to take heed. We can get into all kinds of bad situations if we don't relate in healthy ways with our mission folks or church community.

As we serve, we must fight against growing dry. One sister I talked to served as a medical missionary in South America for many years. She found ways to keep herself alive. She did things like writing Bible verses all over the treehouse she asked the administrator to build for her in the cow pasture. This gave her a place to go which nourished her soul. A woman who delights in the Lord will be beautiful and winsome to those who are spiritually starved.

Occasionally, it is helpful to draw apart for an extended season of rest and refreshment. One woman suggested going to a cabin or an Airbnb. We can't always afford to pay for something like this, but maybe you can work out an exchange with someone to make it happen.

Amy Carmichael penned this, "If we are discouraged or tired or hurt today, one long drink from the well of Him who lives and sees will give us new life, new courage, new patience to go on running the race set before us even to the end."

The last question I ask my single friends in ministry to share about is how to relate well with the authorities in our lives. We're all under authority to someone. After our Father God, there are probably men we must answer to, our earthly father, husband, pastor, boss, landlord, board members, or others.

Personalities and life experiences are so different. So how do I cover learning how to sweetly speak up for the timid ones and tell others to sweetly shush and let the men make the decisions? Depending where you fall in the spectrum, hopefully you'll find some encouragement to grow in this area.

I'm not speaking primarily to married women today, but respect and honor in that relationship is of utmost importance. For singles, think of your authorities in church, work, and ministry. What happens when they cross your path, neglect your opinions, or didn't consult you for input? Ouch, ouch, many of you, and I might say.

One thing I think is very true when we observe each other's lives of women. If we are afraid, if we are afraid, we will try to control things. So how do we cope with that? Jesus commands us to not be afraid in Matthew 14:27 and countless other places.

Perfect love casts out fear, we learn in 1 John 4:18. We have a loving God who set the universe in perfect order. Will we not trust Him to care for us and those we love? This means trusting His authorities over us and respecting them. Others will treat us with respect accordingly.

In ministry, we're all on the same team. Proverbs 13:10 tells us, "Only by pride comes contention." We are engaged in warfare against the enemy and his vile cronies, so we mustn't turn and begin slaying fellow believers with our tongues or attitudes.

As you work with your team, listen to the perspective of others without trying to think of what you want to say. Stephen Covey says, "Seek first to understand and then to be understood." As women, we are called to be submissive and support, it's called to submissive and supportive roles in most cases. If we agree with our teammates or authorities, it's not really submission. How do we let the men lead even when they've disappointed us or wounded us deeply? This is a hard, a very hard question.

Turn to the Lord to heal this area. Not one of us is free from pain like this at some point. So we all need to know how to run to Jesus for strength and direction. We are told in numerous places in scripture to obey, respect, and pray for our authorities. So let's do it. When your authority appears to have made a bad decision, who do you tell?

Pray first, and then ask God to show you if you should make an appeal. We must avoid gossip or slander toward our authorities. If we are silent toward our authorities, that doesn't necessarily communicate respect toward them. We might need a chance to step back and evaluate what they said, but if we think things through, it can often be appropriate to offer our thoughts at the right time and in the right way. We have valuable relational insights men need to hear, and good men are happy to hear a respectful contribution.

We must always speak positively about our ministers and other authorities. If we respect our authorities, it gives credibility to those we are in authority over. If you hear me repeating myself, you're right. I need to hear some of these commands more than once, and if you're made of the same stuff as me, you do too.

I love the words from the song, "Channels Only," verse 3, "Emptied that thou shouldest fill me a clean vessel in thy hand with no power but as thou givest graciously with each command." When we live in mission settings, we often have shared living quarters of some sort.

Oh, raw humanity is an ugly thing. We don't really know how selfish and persnickety we can be until we have to live with someone else. One single lady who mentioned this reality stated that we're all diamonds in the rough and we can't shine if our will isn't crossed.

We need each other if the rough edges are going to be removed and the polishing is going to occur. We won't be so petty if we're busy caring about others. Something to remember is that every person you relate to is made in the image of God, no matter how badly they have marred that image.

One sister shared this, that this is her mindset, and it allows her to look a transgendered individual in the eye and treat them with dignity. The same sister who lives in state college currently, but has also lived in other places, shared a little story she read about how important it is to plant trees, whether we think we will stay somewhere long-term or not. We might need to move before our trees, literal or figurative, have a chance to bear fruit. But even if we don't get to enjoy the fruit, someone else will.

Now, to quote my friend in an article she wrote, "In the dark of night, when life is full of goodbyes and my mind fills with familiar faces that span the globe, I pick up my guitar. I claim the blessing of number six because the Lord promised, 'If you pronounce this blessing over the people, I will bless them.' When the tears come and I wonder, 'Why this place?' I remember that it's worth planting trees even if I never eat the fruit."

Faithfulness and integrity are two of the pillars our ministries are built on. Faithfulness is small acts of obedience carried out over a long period of time. Recently, I heard a story told by a pastor. He said our lives are not comparable to handing God a $1,000 bill all at once.

Rather, we spend our lives and live faithfully, one quarter at a time as we do the next thing God gives us to do. Occasionally, we will be asked to plunk down something large and costly to us, but most of our lives are simple acts of faith and obedience carried out one by one and day by day. 1 Thessalonians 1:11-12, "Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him according to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

A sister in my church said, "God overcompensates for our losses and gives us blessings we never saw coming." I have found this to be true, but it can be hard to remember when life is either humdrum or hard. We must continue faithfully, day by day, regardless of the cost, for we serve the Lord of heaven and earth. We need always to live for the audience of one. If we have any other audience in mind, at best it will be a distraction, and at worst it will be an idol.

As we wrap up, I want to close with a poem from the Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan writings.

"Oh Lord, I bless thee that the issue of the battle between thyself and Satan has never been uncertain and will end in victory. Calvary broke the dragon's head, and I contend with a vanquished foe who with all his subtlety and strength has already overcome. When I feel the serpent at my heel, may I remember him whose heel was bruised and who, when bruised, broke the devil's head. My soul with inward joy extols the mighty conqueror.

Heal me of any wounds received in the great conflict. If I have gathered defilement, if my faith has suffered damage, if my hope is less than bright, if my love is not fervent, if some creature comfort occupies my heart, if my soul sinks under pressure of the fight, oh thou whose every promise is balm, touch every touch life, draw near to thy weary warrior, refresh me that I may rise again to wage the strife and never tire until the enemy is trodden down. Give me such fellowship with thee that I may defy Satan, unbelief, the flesh, the world, with delight that comes not from a creature and which a creature cannot mar. Give me a draft of the eternal fountain that lieth in thy immutable, everlasting love and decree.

Then shall my hand never weaken, my feet never stumble, my sword never rest, my shield never rust, my helmet never shatter, my breastplate never fall, as my strength rests in the power of thy might." Sisters, may the God who made us in His image help us to see each soul we meet as valuable in His sight. This will make them precious to us. We will gladly serve people as well as doing the mundane tasks to run a ministry or a home, for it doesn't matter in what capacity we toil. Ephesians 2:10 tells us the Lord has prepared us to do the tasks He sets before us. In obedience to Jesus, we will find life.

Thank you. And Christina, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you so much, Tara. That was really great. We are going to open it up for a question and answer period now or any comments. So if anyone has anything to say, please turn on your microphone, and it'd be great to see you as well if you want to turn on your video. Otherwise, you can also post something in the chat box, and we can read it from there.

Some of the things that I really enjoyed that you said, one of them was to ask God to correctly prioritize our lives or to order our priorities. I think that's such a beautiful thing because you can be overwhelmed with thinking you have so much stuff on your plate and ask God what He wants you to do and get clarity from Him. That's wonderful.

I also like that you said, "If we're afraid, we'll try to control things." I've never really thought about that before, but when you mentioned it, yes, that's very, very true. But everything is God's, and He has a perfect plan, or you can turn bad things into good just to kind of live your life with that open hand. So I really liked that point that you said.

I also really enjoyed that you said, "We're on the same team." Amen. We are on the same team. I say that all the time as well. There's a real enemy out there, and we are not enemies with each other. It doesn't mean we always have to agree on everything, but there's a real enemy, and we are on the same team, and that team is our King is Jesus Christ.

So that's beautiful. And also, run to Jesus for direction and protection. We had a sister on Strength of Strength Sisters before. She had a talk, and she talked about running into the arms of God and just acting like a little girl and just running onto His, like throwing yourself on His lap, I think is what she said. And it's such a beautiful image, and it's such a, yeah, it's beautiful. Anyway, thank you very much for that.

And pray first. I love that as well. Yeah, Tara, that was excellent. Thank you so much for sharing. There was just a real depth to what you had to offer, drawing from so many different streams of wisdom. And I just really appreciated that synthesis and how you presented it. And I really appreciated, too, your emphasis on having real, honest, transparent relationships, certainly a huge priority for someone who is in ministry and especially for someone who is single. And for many of us, married women, our husbands can be that best friend, but sometimes that's not the case for various reasons.

And so it's equally important to intentionally have those relationships. And I just wondered if you had any practical pointers in how to prioritize. If you find yourself in a season of life where you don't have any really good, deep relationships, how do you foster that? How do you go after that?

That's a very good question. I wish I had something very intelligent or eloquent to say. So that felt like one of the things that I battled through for a number of months. Because I live in two communities, that means I miss things in each community. So I spend half the week in home community, half the week in my work community. And so, yeah, I'm always missing something in the other community. And so I don't have the continuity of someone who lives in the same place all the time. So maybe a number of months ago, six, eight months ago, I just kept telling people, "I need to talk to someone." I spend so much time listening to people.

And yeah, finally, our director's wife said, "You keep saying this. Would you like us to meet every week?" It's like, "Yes." I guess I'm not inclined to go chasing people around and saying, "Would you please sit down and listen to me talk for 30 minutes?" It's nice if people say, "Would you like to talk to me for 30 minutes?" And so, yeah, so I've been talking to her every week. And then one of my minister's wives has been going to her once a month, and we just spend two, three hours together and, yeah, talk about all of the hard things. And it's such a blessing. But yeah, I wish I did better at spending time with people.

One thing with the nature of my work, it is extremely people-intense, and I love it. But then I come home to my house and like to spend one or two days a week just being a hermit. And so sometimes I think what I really need is time with a Christian sister, but I don't have any words to say because I'm, yeah, kind of in that hermit state. So I don't know if I answered your question, but it's hard. It's hard to prioritize it, I think.

I have a couple of comments in the chat box here sent to me, so I'll just share them with you. One sister says, "Thank you for sharing. Although I am married, a married woman with four children, I really enjoyed this talk, so may God bless your ministry." And then another woman has said, "Tara, thanks for sharing. As a single woman who has served in ministry, many things you shared resonated with me. May God bless you."

Thank you. Thank you, Tara, for sharing with us. We really appreciated some of the things that you touched on and talked about. One of the practical questions for you is, whenever you meet someone for the first time, how do you start that conversation? And what is your goal for the relationship?

You talked about how you ask them lots of questions and you find out a lot about them. And I know that about you, and I know that you pour a lot into the people that you interact with. So what does that look like? And are you trying to—do you try to go to a spiritual conversation right away? How fast? What does that look like?

Yeah, it's a very good question, Lynelle. So yeah, I highly recommend reading Heather Holleman's book, The Six Conversations. I read that soon after I started working at State College, and I feel like that played a vital role in shaping how I have conversations with internationals and Americans. I do occasionally talk to Americans.

So yeah, one thing that is interesting about people is they almost all like to talk about themselves if you can figure out what they're interested in. And so if you walk up to somebody and you're genuinely curious and interested, but in a way that doesn't feel high pressure or nosy, most people will talk.