To get the spiritual formation book I wrote (The Wild Land Within)… 🎁 ❤️ just click the book or google search the title to get one or a few.
• You can find out about my publisher Broadleaf Books here
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Feature photo is from NASA. The first is MSH 11-52, a supernova remnant blowing a spectacular cloud of energized particles resembling the shape of a human hand, seen in data from Chandra, NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), and ground-based optical data.
BIO: Nicole Unice is on staff at Hope Church in Richmond, Virginia, and the author of the breakout book: “She’s Got Issues” which she wrote from her counseling and ministry experiences. The book produced and encouraged a refreshing and radical honesty that she’s built on in her new book “Brave Enough”.
Enjoy the Shownotes and links below and please share this with friends that you know CAN be “Brave Enough“. Thanks for listening!
#GetBraveEnough
xo
~Lisa
P.S. Would you like to get a special, cozy Spark My Muse t-shirt?
on the Richmond VA place and new midtown location.
1:30
Nicole’s podcasting experience (the Becoming Podcast) doing hundreds of episodes with her pastor doing 15 minutes shows for commuters.
Lisa asks: Is “campus” a Christian code word for mega church?
2:40
How she grew with Hope Church for 18 years, as they started out small in an elementary school “cafetorium”.
3;50
The “Youth Lodge” plans and the unique setting with wetlands and hills.
5:10
On the importance of Beauty, Setting, and Art in architecture and church building planning to evoke the imagination, inspire awe, and connect with the heart.
6:40
Collaborative workspace, and place where kids can do their homework and where people can enjoy the time away in a beautiful setting.
7:40
“artist come through the side door of the soul and preachers come through the front door.”
8:50
The history of the church and Christian tradition is one where the Church is source of beauty, wonder and connected to art because God is a the Creator.
9:40
Her first book: She’s Got Issues
6 main issues women (and men) face that can be a hinderance.
A rich relationship with God can come to a dead end as the ways we do life stop working.
12:00
How was it received? The #1 thing Nicole heard was, “You’re so honest.”
Why would honesty be such a revolution in Christianity?
12:40
She leaned into that for her next book “Brave Enough”
13:00
The story of how she got the title for the book:
To the question, “Do you think you can be brave?” Lucy Pevensie in the Chronicles of Narnia says, “I think I can be brave enough.”
14:35
Few women will self-identify as brave. [and not many men will either]
“After we identify the hinderances, what does it look like to walk forward in freedom?”
15:00
Brave Enoughis about Grace and its effects, inside and in action.
15:40
Nicole answering the question: Do men have the same problems in this area?
16:00
“Women hearing teaching from women is like hearing in your first language.”
16:30
Ways Nicole leads and teaches men.
17:00
on how women have to translate teaching from men into their “language” and context.
18:00
On how, similarly, Brené Brown was challenged (by a man) to include men in her writing and teaching. (Lisa)
18:40
How men and women have similar vulnerabilities though they might deal with them differently.
19:40
“up speak” tones in language in women and men revealing different insecurities. (Lisa)
21:00
Nuggets from the Brave Enough book:
How the ingredients mixed into something she didn’t expect. It follows a narrative “arch of the heart”. How we can be full and free and confident in life.
22:30
on why (inner) freedom is illusive for men and women.
On “Fake Grace” in our head. (the excuses we make or how we blame others). Inviting God/Jesus into those places.
24:10
We all (default) and go back to rules and laws and how to short circuit that pattern.
It’s about resetting the heart with a new spiritual reality.
25:00
Radical honesty about our ugly parts inside the heart.
25:30
Nicole’s Parable: The violently stopping of the elevator door…(and how it relates to our soul).
26:10
Open ourselves to God’s Presence and healing.
26:10
(Lisa) God uses what bothers us about other people is a mirror of what we don’t like in ourselves.
27:20
How our baggage works to impede our progress.
Brave Enough includes major parts on forgiveness
28:00
God’s breathing on us and giving us the mission of forgiveness, first.
previous post:
Here’s an other taste of the magic happening on my new project.
It’s going be exciting to see this thing make its splash.
If you are a fan of Where the Wild Things Are, the Narnia books, The Little Prince, or The Velveteen Rabbit, then you are going to love this one and I’m counting on you to spread the word!
I’m going all-out with an art book quality self-printing that I hope will be a cherished book beyond my lifetime, and something my daughter can read with her children or grandchildren one day. My goal is to get it into a short-rum printing before the year is out.
I’ve been sparse with details…so — Do you have any questions about this project?
If so, let me know.
This Sunday marks the start of the season of Advent 2015.
The predominant theme of Advent is WAITING in expectation.
It’s a timeless theme.
(Before mobile phones, if a bus broke down you had to find a pay phone and wait your turn to call for rescue. These folks don’t seem too upset by it.)
Waiting makes up a big portion of our lives, doesn’t it?
Whether it’s waiting in line or in traffic or waiting for an occasion or certain situation–we do a lot of waiting.
For me, a focus on waiting pulls me out of the present moment to a moment that exists in theory. It involves hope or anxiety. Or both.
The prisoners I minister to have a life centered on waiting for their freedom. They routinely tell me that keeping busy is the best way to conquer the burden and stress of waiting.
But a closer interaction with the experience of waiting can unearth and reveal deeper spiritual longings that can both call us into a richer walk of faith and engender the growth needed to more fully surrender to God.
If we just stay busy we can miss the gifts that come only through waiting.
Because waiting is such a huge part of the human experience, it’s no wonder that Christianity has long interacted with this theme as a entry point into bigger spiritual conversations and concepts. It is through this struggle we gain growth and maturity in our walk of faith.
Patience is rarely, if ever, attained by any other means than practice.
Waiting is that practice.
Waiting on the Lord is a vibrant theme in Scriptures too, right?
Most of the stories in the Bible include the aspect of waiting. Abraham and Sarah (and many others) wait for offspring, David waits on the Lord for deliverance, the prophets wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled, Paul and the other apostles do a lot of waiting in prison, and in the season of Advent we acutely encounter Mary’s waiting for the Savior, Jesus. She is the vehicle God has chosen to birth the Prince of Peace. It’s a nine month process–on the heels of thousands of years of waiting for the Messiah.
This delivery involves a lot of anticipation and waiting.
And so too does most anything else of worth. These many stories echo our own pain and struggle.
I appreciate Mary’s expression of gratitude during her wait (a.k.a. The Magnificat-see the video below to hear “Mary’s Song” sung my John Michael Talbot). We can use her example to help us along.
Gratitude produces joy that makes waiting easier.
Waiting aptly exposes our traits of impatience, also. It works to refine us.
Henri Nouwen once wrote, “Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. ”
Waiting is how God gets at the idols of our heart. Waiting addresses the things we think we need besides God to be content: money, comfort, expedience, success or control.
TODAY’S NUGGET:
It’s a powerful lesson we find in Advent. Meditate on the longings of your heart and cultivate the seeds of advent there. Expectantly wait for God to fulfill his promises with a heart of trust and gratitude.
![Downright Awestruck [SSL 301]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/supernove-hand-of-god-825x510.png)
![Reborn into Wonder [SSL109]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-02-at-1.08.44-PM.png)
