Missional Motherhood Month

For the past two years, November has been Missional Motherhood Month at 168 hours. I'm doing it again this year - so now it's definitely an annual tradition!

I originally started this series in my own confusion about my role as a mother of young children who is also a disciple of Jesus. I quickly discovered after having Jacob that motherhood provided me with a mission field right in my home 24 hours a day: precious children waiting to be evangelised, discipled and sent out into the world as followers of Jesus. At the same time, (especially in the early years), because more time is spent at home and in the immediate neighbourhood I have suddenly became more 'community based', and another mission field has opened up with real, valuable relationships with your neighbours.

The idea behind this series is for you to do some of the work and provide me with real life examples of women who have wholeheartedly embraced their calling from God to glorify him as wives and mothers, and in the midst of that (through it and alongside it) have made the most of the mission opportunities open to them as mothers. My aim was that in getting some concrete examples, it might help me work out ways I could do this better in my own life. I have been thrilled with the responses over the past two years. There have been a wide range of different women who were written about, and I have been greatly encouraged and inspired by their examples.

Here's how it will work:

• If you email me with your stories, and if they fit in with the topic, I'll publish them here.
• If you have your own blog, and want to publish it on that, then send me the link and I'll link to it from my blog.
• You and the woman you are writing about can remain anonymous if you would prefer.
• You have until the end of November to write your 'entry'.
• If you can keep your entries down to around 500 words, that would be great (although I obviously don't always follow that rule!).

As I said last year, the aim is not to award a prize for 'mother of the year'. We all have different kids, different husbands, a completely different set of circumstances. Serving Jesus looks different in each of our lives. What I'm looking for are stories - whether it's about a pattern of behaviour in a woman's life or one thing that this woman did that provides a good example for how we can make the most of our opportunities to be a blessing and to share the gospel with others. And you don't have to be a mum to share examples. I'm hoping and praying that by sharing real life examples, we'll all be encouraged to think through how we can be 'missional' in our particular set of circumstances.

So get writing! (Please!!) You might have thought of a couple more examples since last year. Or maybe you're a new reader and want to join in for the first time. Either way, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. And don't forget to check out the last two year's posts if you need inspiration.

Pic from stock.xchng.com