What Is Our “Ministry Values Statement”?The term “covenant” may sound a little formal or serious to you, but it is really just a way to say, “I agree. I’m on board.” Our “Ministry Values Statement” is an informal covenant. It’s not a law and we don’t require you to sign something to prove your loyalty; it is simply our effort to ensure that a group that takes the name “Mom Heart” will, at its heart, be known for certain biblical and sensible qualities. If you believe God is directing you to become a Mom Heart group leader, then we ask only that you carefully and prayerfully read the statement and decide if what we are trying to build is something you can wholeheartedly support. If it is, then we are here to encourage, equip, and enable you to join us in this movement. If you are on board this train, then God can use you to change the world one mom heart at-a-timeMINISTRY VALUES STATEMENTOur VisionMom Heart Ministry is a Christian movement and informal network of small groups for mothers that seeks to restore moms’ hearts to God’s heart for motherhood. We believe God’s eternal purpose for mothers was evident at creation in His design for marriage and the family. Our vision is to encourage, equip, and enable mothers to start, lead, and tend Mom Heart groups around the world. We affirm and embrace the values in this document:We value GOD’S WORD, not opinions. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group discussion grounded in what the Bible says, in historical and biblical context, to us today. She does not allow herself or others to promote or defend favored experts or personal opinions that can constrain others from participation.
We value CHRIST, not theologies. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group discussion focused ultimately on the person and work of Christ. She does not allow herself or others to promote or defend systematic theologies, personal dogmas, church traditions, or controversial views that can divide and exclude.We value LOVE, not expectations. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group discussion focused on expressing love and acceptance of one another. She does not allow herself or others to add extra-biblical expectations or conditions to the love and forgiveness of Christ offered unconditionally in His gospel.We value GRACE, not laws. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group attitudes focused on our grace and freedom in Christ. She does not allow herself or others to express Christian laws and rules that create a burden of guilt by requiring works or specific beliefs of any kind not specifically required in Scripture.We value SPIRIT, not control. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group life and activities focused on listening and responding to the Holy Spirit’s direction. She does not allow herself or others to impose formal requirements more concerned about control and order than about the Holy Spirit’s leading in the group.We value PEOPLE, not tasks. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group life and activities focused on the needs of people made in God’s image and loved by Him. She does not allow herself or others to let the accomplishing of tasks and projects distract from or displace a sensitivity to the people being served.We value MINISTRY, not exclusion. — A Mom Heart leader keeps group life and activities focused on loving and serving others inside and outside the group. She does not allow herself or others to become comfortable, complacent, and cliquish, but looks for ways to reach out, serve, and include others. An excerpt from Taking Motherhood to Hearts.Printable version here.
Are You a Godly Encourager?
Being a godly encourager is not about what you can do but what the Spirit can do through you.
From Taking Motherhood to Hearts by Sally and Clay Clarkson
The Lifegiving Home and Lifegiving Home Experience are now available! These would make a great new study for your Mom Heart group!
A Group in Colorado
Today I want you to meet Joan Girkins and learn a little bit about her Mom Heart group.Joan has led a Mom Heart group in Colorado for six years. Her group got its start because she asked one young mom if she’d like to read through “The Mission of Motherhood” together. That woman said, "Yes!" and asked if she could bring a friend. That was six years ago! Since then her group has grown to around 25 women simply through word of mouth. They meet once per month and are currently reading “Own Your Life.”Joan is committed to being available to mentor her group members one-on-one. While this does not work for every group leader, meeting occasionally with group members goes a long way toward building and nurturing relationships. Because Joan is now “retired” from homeschooling, she is devoted to mentoring these sweet women almost full time. What a blessing!
Joan's largest challenge as a leader is maintaining consistent attendance amongst her group members. Because her group is large, the dynamics change a bit each meeting. This can make it difficult for some women to feel comfortable opening up. This is certainly a challenge faced by many Mom Heart leaders. We encourage you to believe that God will bring the women who need to attend each specific meeting, as you kindly and graciously encourage the women in your group to be consistent.Joan loves seeing individual lives changed by reading a book and being in community. If you are a lonely mother, Joan reminds you to pray persistently for God to lead you to a mentor and/or like-minded friends. Like the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8, keep asking the Lord for a mentor and keep reaching out.Please pray that the Lord brings women that need to be mentored to Joan’s group, as she is available and committed to being a Titus 2 woman in their lives.3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:3-5
Joan and her beautiful family.
The Lifegiving Home and Lifegiving Home Experience are great books for a new study in your Mom Heart group! Available now!
Is Your Space a Safe Place for Mothers?
We think of beautiful spaces and comforting traditions as spiritually unnecessary and underestimate the profound importance of a safe place for growing minds and souls.
Excerpt from The Lifegiving Home.
The Lifegiving Home and The Lifegiving Home Experience are great books to use for a new study this February. Available now!
Let's Explore Mom Heart Social Media
Have you made local connections with other mothers? One way to find local women is to utilize social media. If you have explored this site a bit, you may have found the Mom Heart Social Media Page. There are many options there for you to get further connected to the larger worldwide community of like-minded women.I'd like to highlight one particular option. On the Mom Heart Groups Facebook page, we have started a community of women who lead groups all over the world as well as women who are searching for connection. We'd love to have you join us there if you are looking to find women in your local area. It is a "closed" group so you will need to request to join when you click the link. Over the last several months, Mom Heart groups have been started all over the country (and world!) as women connect virtually and then move to meeting each other in real life and stepping out to start groups together.Once on the Mom Heart Groups Facebook page, use the search bar at the top to find your state or city. Often there are other women looking for groups or advertising their own established groups that would love to welcome you. It's been amazing to watch God connect women that feel alone in their communities.
A Welcoming Home
A home that says "welcome" opens hearts to real relationships.
Is your home welcoming? What small personal touches could you add so that the women who enter will exhale and be open to real relationships?
I am excited to share our first Mom Heart Group Profile with you. Jeanna Young has been a dear friend of Mom Heart Ministry for many years. She and her precious family have been fixtures, volunteering at and loving the women attending the Southern California Mom Heart Conference year after year. Today she shares about the Mom Heart group that she has led for several years.I love being a mom.As a mom, the evil one loves to point out my faults and failures in my life.Sometimes, I listen.And feel inadequate for the job God has given me to do.But thankfully, God has given me a couple of tools to speak truth into my life: His word and friends.I knew the minute I met Sally that I wanted to open up my home for a Mom Heart group. Most of my life, just like Sally, I have always had to start the groups to make them happen. I am the one who invites people to my house because I want to surround myself with women who love Him and are striving to be the best moms and wives they can be.I started my Mom Heart group 5 years ago. I sent out emails inviting friends to come to my home once a month to study one of Sally’s books. Most of the girls don’t know each other, but it is a sweet time of fellowship together. This year we are studying “Own your Life” and there are 15 girls signed-up to be a part of the group. Our group has children ranging from newborns to kids in their 20’s. But each of us has a heart for the children in our homes and the husbands God has given us.
Each month we gather having read a portion of the book over the last month. I make soup and salad for anyone who hasn’t had dinner and dessert for a snack for others. I open up with “A Teaching Moment” from something God has taught me during the last month and then we share our “Aha” moments. We go chapter by chapter through the book and then end in prayer. I am very aware of the time and make sure the ladies get home to their husbands at a decent hour.Twice a year, Christmas and June, we have a special dinner where I ask the moms to come and I serve them. On Valentine's Day, we write cards for our kids and husbands as an activity. Each year, I encourage the girls to go to the Mom Heart conference in our area.My favorite Mom Heart time together this year was our first gathering in September. I had each of the girls pair off with someone they didn’t know and pray together at “stations." The signs strategically placed around the house were “Husbands/Marriage”, “Children”, “Idols/Sin areas”, “Dreams/Goals” and “Challenges”. We each moved from station to station sharing and praying for each others’ needs. God moved powerfully that particular day.I would encourage each of you seeking to find like-minded friends to pray for God to bring them to you. God may seek you to start a group yourself and invite women into your home. “If you ask, they will come!” Don’t worry if you are nervous, I am, too. Somehow, each meeting I feel the enemy ready to bring me down. I can feel rejected if people don’t show up or upset if I didn’t feel the evening went right. But God is glorified none-the-less and every time despite my inadequacies, the ladies are blessed! It is all the Lord’s doing!Won’t you consider starting a Mom Heart Group today? You will be blessed by others and in turn be a blessing!
Jeanna Young is the author of the Princess Parables Series, introducing two new books this year. A Royal Easter Story comes out January 26th. You can pre-order on Amazon here. When Jeanna is not writing, speaking, event planning, or homeschooling, she can be found scrapbooking her life, redecorating her home, loving on her husband, planning fun events for her kids or eating healthy to stay cancer-free! You can find the Princess Parables and Jeanna blogging at www.theprincessparables.com
How Will You Use Your Home?
Let's Explore MomHeart.com
Hi Friends!Thank you for your enthusiasm about this new site. It is so much fun to hear from women all over the world (including Italy and Madagascar) who are looking to find and form communities of encouragement. We are here to help you start your own MomHeart groups (including ideas about where in the world to find like-minded women), and then how to tend and encourage those women all the while finding ways to fill-up your own soul so that you have something of value and truth to give.I wanted to take some time over the next few weeks to highlight some portions of the site that you might not have seen yet. If you already lead a group, you may have discovered that occasionally it's hard to translate your own enthusiasm for the MomHeart philosophies and Sally's wisdom into something your members can relate with and understand. (I actually had someone once tell me that I was misguided in my enthusiasm! I am a bit.... well... passionate about things I'm excited about and she thought I was a bit crazy. Oh well.)One way I have made Sally a real person in my own groups is with her videos. When the other ladies can see and hear Sally relating her stories in her own words, the whole book comes alive in a new way. When you hear Sally pour out scripture naturally and easily, you understand the value reading and studying the Bible every day. I have invested in many of the DVD sets so that I can start our group meetings with a few minutes directly with Sally.What a blessing that these videos are now available, streaming here, for free!!! You can use them to encourage your ladies and bring the stories in the book to life. For now, there are videos to accompany Mission of Motherhood, Ministry of Motherhood and Seasons of a Mother's Heart.The videos are under the tab "Resources" >> "Heartbeats Videos" or http://momheart.com/library/video-helps/.How have you used videos in your groups so far?
Our Vision
Welcome to a New MomHeart.com
Mom Heart came to life within Whole Heart Ministries around 1995 simply out of a heart and vision to encourage mothers. Twenty years later, Mom Heart is still beating, and my vision to restore moms' hearts to God's heart for motherhood is still clear. In this new and changing season of ministry and life, though, we're listening to God to discover how best to invest our resources, energy, and ideas. We want to focus on building a lasting legacy of ministry to mothers for generations to come.Here's what I want to offer through MomHeart.com, the new online home of Mom Heart Ministry:
- Encourage and equip mothers wherever in the world they are.
- Train moms to start, lead, and tend a Mom Heart group.
- Provide resources and media to help moms in ministry.
- Provide ways for moms to interact and help one another.
- Profile Mom Heart groups around the US and world.
It's a big vision, but our plan is not to grow MomHeart.com into a big website. We want to feed a movement, not manage an organization. To help that happen, I am so thankful that God has provided a capable and devoted Mom Heart leader of many years to help me help mothers through this website. Let me introduce you to my wonderful friend, Jennie Nelson.
Jennie lives in Idaho with her two boys, and is expecting her third boy any day. We first met years ago at one of my California Mom Heart conferences. Jennie has been a part of our staff there for many years, helping with registration and books. Since then she has also attended Mom Heart Intensives for training, and has started and led Mom Heart groups in California and Idaho. She carries a passion for our ministry, but her organizational skills and love for women makes her a perfect person to help run this blog and website. Our ministry thrives because we have so many women like Jennie working together to build a movement to encourage and equip moms all over the world. I am so very grateful that Jennie has a heart to help encourage group leaders and to inspire women all over the world in their God-designed strategic roles as mothers. Welcome, Jennie!If you have a heart for God's heart for motherhood, for helping and encouraging other mothers, and for finding ways to be God's kingdom woman wherever you may be, then your heart will be strengthened here on MomHeart.com. I invite you to connect here and come back often as we grow the site to grow a movement of ministry to moms. I look forward to reaching forward together as mothers after God's heart.
Welcome to the New Mom Heart Website and Blog!
Hi Friends!I'm Jennie and am so excited to be part of the new Mom Heart Website and Blog. I will be here to inspire and help you form new groups in your local areas, solve problems that may arise in your groups, and encourage you in your own walks, both as leaders and mothers.As a teenager God specifically called me to raise up and encourage small group leaders, so I am privileged and thrilled to play a part here. There is no better ministry for me to walk out this calling than Mom Heart. Sally and I have been friends for several years now, and I have been challenged and have grown immensely through Intensive Leader Training in her home. I am eager to serve you in the same ways she has served me!Over the next several weeks, I will be highlighting different areas of the site so that you don’t miss out on anything. Expect posts here about twice a week. If you have any questions related to Mom Heart Ministry or Leadership, please visit the “About Us” page and send us a note. I look forward to helping you begin or continue in ministry with local mothers in your communities.To celebrate this new blog, we are going to give away 10 of our Mom Heart Study Guides:
You Can Make a Difference We live in a rapidly secularizing culture that is losing its heart for biblical motherhood. For over two decades, Sally Clarkson has called mothers back to God’s design, driven by her passion to restore moms’ hearts to God’s heart for motherhood. Taking Motherhood to Hearts will give you a picture for how to join her by starting, leading, and tending your own Mom Heart small group. In this book you will find inspirational “why to” vision, practical “how to” advice, and motivational “can do” encouragement. Motherhood is more than just a biblical duty; it is a ministry of discipleship. This book will show you how to have a meaningful ministry to moms that will make a difference for eternity.
I am so excited to share this new study guide and planner that will be perfect to use in small groups, and personally for planning each month of the year to make your home a Lifegiving place. It is filled with personal stories about my home, gives space to plan your own home and each month–what days you will celebrate.It’s time to plan some unforgettable moments with your family! Containing sections for each month of the year, this companion resource to The Lifegiving Home is a planner full of creative ideas that will help you be intentional about creating times and spaces for your family to relax, celebrate, and simply enjoy one another all year long. You’ll learn how to cultivate special times that will speak to your family’s hearts . . . and inspire cherished memories that you will all treasure.To celebrate our new blog launch, Sally wants to give away 10 copies of Taking Motherhood to Hearts and 5 pdf’s of The Lifegiving Home Experience. Please leave a comment here about something you found on the new site or how you think this ministry blog might help you. We would love for you to join our community of small group Bible studies and enjoy new friends and fellowship.
Soul Advocacy
Learning Fidelity through Fiction
Today, an excerpt from Caught Up in aStoryas I have been reading back through Berry here in between papers and thinking about the way that literature teaches us what it looks like to be faithful.