Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

7 May

Finding My Purpose

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , .

Relating well is what matters most to me

Even as I struggle to find my voice here on my blog, I am not giving up. I’m willing to allow imperfections as I learn to express myself better with my writing. My realization that I’m not doing as well as I’d like motivates me to refine my purpose.

What My Purpose Isn’t

For starters, I realized that I can’t be what I’m not. I’ve been trying to stay current on what’s happening in the world and in the blogosphere and using those things as inspiration.

What I’ve noticed is that when I try to write about what’s trending, that’s when my voice is weakest. Why? Because even if I pour my heart into a thoughtful reflection on something current, the topic itself didn’t come from my heart.

The Purpose on My Heart

I started out with a pretty general purpose, to blog about living out my faith in daily life. I didn’t realize in the beginning how broad that topic could be. It was easy enough to justify writing about whatever was current as long as I could relate it to what it means to live out the Christian faith.

I discovered that what is most on my heart about how I live out my faith is how I live in relationship with other people. The books I read, the things I teach my son, the things that keep me awake at night are all about relating well (or the failure to do so). These are the things that I need to write about here.

Practical Matters

What has helped me over time is practical, down-to-earth ideas about how to honor others in relationships. Much of what I can share is from a lifetime of reading and learning about this stuff. I can offer ideas about relating well from my own experience of integrating these ideas over time.

I never want to come across as having it all together though. Some of what I can share is hard-won from having royally messed up in a relationship. Other times, I can share ideas that I am still working to integrate, but that I believe are better ways than what I’ve been doing.

The Purpose Behind the Voice

As I’ve thought this through some more and refined my purpose, I admit to being just a little nervous. It’s kind-of scary to narrow my focus. Maybe it’s still too amorphous! But the clarity that I feel gives me hope for finding my voice.

The following links have helped me refine my purpose or affirmed my need to do so:
“10 Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice” by Jeff Goins
“Branding: Put one sign in your yard” by Mary DeMuth
“In which I’ve got a song to sing” by Sarah Bessey
 
 

3 May

Finding My Voice, or Getting Laryngitis?

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Inspiration. Tagged: , , , .

laryngitisI have a confession to make: blogging is way harder than I expected it to be. A lot of great writing advice suggests blogging is a good way to find your voice. I want to find my voice, but keep coming up with laryngitis.

I wouldn’t call it writer’s block, it’s not that I can’t think of anything to write. I have plenty to write about, that’s part of why I started this thing. There’s a lot more tumbling around in my brain than is turning up onscreen.

It’s not a time factor either. My son is old enough to entertain himself for a while if I need to write. My husband is very supportive of me writing. I am aware of the time-killers in my life, now more than ever, and set them aside at will so I can write.

It’s not that I can’t write. There’s always room for improvement, but I I think I do alright with the basic mechanics of writing. Constructing a sentence or forming a paragraph are not my top worries when it comes to blogging.

Why Laryngitis Explains it Best

My trouble with blogging is much like suffering from a case of laryngitis when my favorite hymn is played in church. My heart swells with all the emotion that song evokes for me, but I can’t sing because I’ve lost my voice.

Likewise with blogging, when I actually sit down to write, I just can’t get the words out. Even when I have something really meaningful on my heart to write about, I get bogged down when I try to put it into a blog post.

I think the public nature of the blog intimidates me a little. I mean, people are reading what I put out here. It may or may not be all that many people just now. Still, thinking that others can access what I write at the click of an URL sometimes messes with my head.

Values competing in my thoughts sometimes distort what I want to say. For instance, I often try to “put things in the positive,” emphasizing what is possible or permitted rather than what is discouraged or denied. Yet, sometimes the clearest way to state something is to use a “negative” message. (“Don’t play in the street” is much more to-the-point than offering, “You can play in the lawn or on the driveway.”) The inner debate about how to approach a subject stifles my ability to just write.

Uncertainty about who my audience is challenges me on decisions about what to write or how to frame a post. Maybe if I was more specific about who I want my target audience to be, it would be easier to decide. Even when I resolve to answer that question, I have different ideas about who I hope to reach.

The Cure and Certain Hope

I suppose the cure for this bloggy laryngitis is similar to the cure for ordinary laryngitis: communicate the best I can right now and don’t overstress what voice I have. Like the patience required to wait out true laryngitis, I need to be patient with this phase of writing. How long will it take me to truly find my voice? I can’t say. But laryngitis always passes and I know this will too.

29 Apr

The Power of Family to Shape Faith

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Family, Inspiration, Leadership. Tagged: , , .

20130430-231747.jpgHeather Caliri wrote a great post the other day about the power of family culture. Heather and her family live in Argentina. So powerful is their family culture, that her children, who are homeschooled, have been slow to learn Spanish (the local language).

She says she is not surprised, but she learned something else too:

The real lesson for me is the power of family to insulate you from the culture surrounding you. It’s almost complete. And that is both frustrating (for someone who was trying to immerse) and heartening (as a parent who loves being in a family).

She goes on to call family culutre a “super power”! Reading this got me thinking about the responsibility to use a “super power” for good.

One of the ways in which we can use the power of family culture is in passing on the Christian faith to our children. Many families may not realize the impact that their day-to-day family culture has on their children’s faith.

Church and Sunday school are only a couple of hours a week. If you think about it, that’s not that much exposure to the faith. But when the family culture is infused with faith-talk, praying for one another, and reading the Bible together, the potential impact is much greater.

A lot of my thinking on this has been influenced by Faith Inkubators. The church where I did my Deaconess internship used a lot of Faith Inkubators materials. One of the pastors there taught me a lot about the importance of equipping parents to “incubate” faith in the home.

On his blog, Faith Inkubators founder, Rich Melheim wrote a Top 40 Principles of Faith Inkubation. I’d like to highlight one of those principles:

19. 3/4 of your youth ministry must be committed to helping parents DO and BE who and what God once called them to do and be when they first held their child in their arms.

This is important because it calls the whole church to responsibility for helping families use their “super power” to pass on the faith to the next generation.

Some families naturally weave faith into the fabric of their family culture and that is wonderful. But in my experience as a church worker and being married to a pastor, a lot of families don’t know where to begin. Either way though, it is counter-cultural to raise children in the Christian faith and families need the support of their church to do it well. After all, every super hero needs a trusty side-kick.

What do you think helps families weave faith into their family culture? What best practices can churches do to support faith formation in the home?

23 Apr

A Teacher Who Saw My Heart for Justice

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration, Leadership. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

20130423-162018.jpg

Today’s tribute is about Mrs. Winegarden who was my 10th grade English teacher. Mrs. Winegarden lost her battle with cancer a number of years ago, but I have held her in my heart all these years.

Mrs. Winegarden required us to keep a journal. She read all the entries as the year went along and commented from time to time. At the end of the year she made a career prediction for each of us and wrote it in our journals.

Mrs. Winegarden’s prediction for me was:

I see you as a zealous ACLU lawyer!

I had written throughout the year about my faith in Jesus, about mountaintop youth group events, and even about my sense that I was called into ministry. I was sure that Mrs. Winegarden would affirm church-related ministry as my vocation. But she didn’t.

When I asked Mrs. Winegarden about it she said that in all my writing throughout the year I frequently wrote about “standing up for the underdog.” She noted that I was outspoken about things like discrimination and respect for all people. She said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if that became a centerpiece in my vocation.

While I still don’t think I’m destined for a legal career, I think she was right in some way.

In that class I wrote a paper about “ageism” and how children are often disrespected or mistreated just because they are young. Even then I was forming my attitudes about the kind of mother I would be. Today, as a mom I favor positive discipline and non-punitive parenting.

In a single journal entry I lamented abortion and capital punishment. Back then I was already forming an ethic that included respect for the unborn as well as dignity for convicted criminals. Nowadays I continue to scratch my head when someone affirms one but not the other.

I wrote in that 10th grade journal about the evils of racism, how bad stereotypes are, and my greatest ambition being to make the world a more loving place. It all sounds so idealistic now, think Jackie DeShannon’s “What the world needs now is love,” but Mrs. Winegarden was right that these types of concerns have been a big part of who I am.

Even in choosing to be a Deaconess, one of the hallmarks of Deaconess ministry is what we refer to as a “bias for the broken.” This means we pay particular attention to what Matthew 25:40 calls “the least of these” or what Mrs. Winegarden referred to as “standing up for the underdog.”

Maybe I’m too much on the fence to be a lawyer battling over rights like the ACLU does. I tend to look for quieter ways to make a difference, even if it is just one person at a time. But it means so much to me that Mrs. Winegarden saw that passion in me back then. I thank God for her insight into my future.

12 Apr

Is Your Giftedness Too Obvious?

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Community, Inspiration. Tagged: , .

“People tell me I’m really good at this, but to me its no big deal.”

If you’ve found yourself saying something like this, then you’ve probably found something in which you are gifted.

20130412-003640.jpgFrom time to time I have led classes in the church to help people discover their unique God-given gifts. I love seeing people light up when they recognize their gifts and live more fully into who God has equipped them to be.

Sometimes churches struggle to fill slots and at the same time people in the church feel like their ideas and talents are overlooked. The church is stronger and better when people’s gifts are lifted up and they are free to exercise those gifts.

There are tools that we can use to help people discover their gifts. I often use the series from Stephen Ministries. I have used tools from other publishers as well, but I like the Stephen Ministries resources because they are very thorough.

As I teach about these gifts and guide people through discovery activities, sometimes people express concern that their gift isn’t unique. They tell me their results showed them something they already knew about themselves. Then they go on to say something to the effect of, “anybody can do that.” They discount the value of their gift because they assume it is universally practiced with ease.

The thing is though, the very thing you or I take for granted about ourselves is something that someone else struggles with. We may think something is easy or “no big deal.” The reason why we think something is easy is because that is what we are gifted in!

I encourage people to look around, ask around and reconsider their assumption that “anyone” can do what they are good at. Chances are good that when they talk to other people about it they’ll discover that not everyone can do it.

If something comes naturally, or seems “easy” to you, don’t overlook it. Embrace it as your gift.

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