Tag: Giveaway

A Look Behind the Scenes

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Today, my friends, just for fun,I’m going to share a little backstage pass into what my book release day looked like for Anywhere Faith.

Here’s a little bit of what I did and my thoughts along the way:

dedicated the book with prayer

After the initial morning rush of getting everyone where they were supposed to go for the day, I paused.

My todo list was especially long because of the excitement of the book release.

But I knew once I jumped into productivity mode, it would be harder to stop and do the most important thing:  Pray.

So, I laid face down on my bedroom floor, held the book in my hands and offered it to Him.

I prayed for you–for anyone who might read the book. I prayed for its message and impact and for His favor.

And I thanked Him, wholeheartedly praising Him for doing this work.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:17 ESV).

Prayer isn’t in addition to the work; it isn’t after the work or beside the work.  Prayer is the “work” that matters most.

 Spent the morning being a mom

Life definitely helps us keep perspective.  Even if it was a super-exciting book release day, I was still a busy mom.

I took a walk both for the exercise and for the soul-restoring quiet it gives.

My son wanted a trip to the library.

Dishes needed to be washed, meals planned, mess cleaned.

I remembered what matters: Service to God through our service to others, whether that’s writing a book, playing with a preschooler, or cleaning my house.

God values our sacred offerings of even the simplest acts and most daily ministries.

Felt blessed by my support community

Once my son went down for his nap, I was off and running with “official author business.”

For me, that meant lots of posting on social media and being completely blessed by the support there.

Thank you for your prayers, friends.  Thank you for your notes of encouragement, your post shares, your video comments, your “likes,” your Amazon reviews, your pictures and more.

You reminded me that one of the greatest gifts we can give to another is cheering them on when they follow Jesus.

I want to be that voice of encouragement for others and the kind of friend who comes alongside another.

We need friends who will carry us to Jesus even when we feel paralyzed and unable to walk to Him on our own. #AnywhereFaith

worried about failure

At some point in my day, I pulled out a copy of Anywhere Faith and I felt the full weight of looming failure.  I actually stopped where I was in my bedroom, hand stretched out over the box of books, and almost cried.

These words pierced me:

No one is going to buy this book or want to read this book.  Everyone was so nice about your first book just because it was exciting and new, but you are too small and insignificant for this book to have any impact.

On a day when my heart celebrated all God had done, Satan was still at work speaking lies, stirring up anxiety, and beating me down with hurtful fears.

I’m so thankful God meets us precisely in the moments of our greatest need.

Later that day, I read this verse:

Shall I bring to the point of birth
and not cause to bring forth? (Isaiah 66:9 ESV)

God is faithful to complete the work He begins (also see Philippians 1:6).  He doesn’t abandon us along the way or lose interest and give up on us.

We can trust Him with our callings, our ministries, our offerings, but trusting Him means leaving it in His hands.

It’s not up to me to make a book “successful.” We simply walk in obedience and we leave the results to Him.

Worked hard!

Results are always up to God, but we do need to do the hard work of obedience and be good stewards of our calling and ministry.

So, sure enough, I spent most of my day (in between trips to school and ballet and making dinner and the like), working through that to-do list: Create events, print signs, make images, write posts, share about the book in videos, reply to comments, offer giveaways.

I was a busy bee and thankful the whole time for the privilege of writing and sharing with you all!

Thank you again to all of you for your support and encouragement!  Here’s some news for you if you’re looking for info about Anywhere Faith or ways to help me as part of this book release:

Here are some quick links if you are looking to order the book online:

Facebook Giveaway:

For those on Facebook, I have a completely quick and easy giveaway posted on my Facebook author page here.   To enter for the giveaway, you leave a comment on the pinned post and that’s it!  Voila!  You’re entered!

Book Signing:book-signing-1

For my local friends, I’ll be on site at The Courthouse Restaurant on Main Street in Gloucester, VIrginia on Saturday, October 22nd from 1-3 p.m.   I’ll be signing books and chatting with those who stop by and visit!  If you drop by and see me that day, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a giveaway!!

Some preorder goodies and a giveaway for #AnywhereFaith

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Friends, excitement is really building around here.

For one thing, my almost-three-year-old is super-pumped about his upcoming birthday in October.  He’s talking about it everyday, planning presents and a cake and all kinds of fun things.

Then there’s me, prayerfully looking forward to the release date for my new book, Anywhere Faith, on October 3, 2016.

That’s less than 2 weeks away!

I am excited to share the message that sometimes we’re afraid to follow God, sometimes we don’t know if we’ve heard Him correctly, sometimes we feel overwhelmed or uncertain or insecure.  But when we tell God what’s on our heart, He helps us overcome and follow Him “Anywhere.”

Thank you so much to those who joined with me to be part of the Launch Team for the book.  I hope you’re having fun sharing and participating in the group.  I know I am!

Thank you also to those who are praying over the book release.  Your prayers mean so much to me!

As a way to show how grateful I am, I wanted to offer some free gifts and goodies to you and host a giveaway!!

One of the ways books receive a huge boost on websites like Amazon is through preorders.  They make a big difference in the success of a book’s release.

If you preorder Anywhere Faith, you can click here (or use the button below) to fill out this simple form letting me know that you did.  We’ll email you some free gifts:

  • Printable Scripture verse cards
  • A printable image of the quote “Lord send me anywhere, only go with me.”
  • A collection of a few of my favorite Bible verses on faith that you can print and post in your home or at your desk or wherever you like!
  • A quick-and-easy book club discussion guide.

Right now, the paperback version of the book is available for pre-order on Amazon.  You can click here if you’re interested in pre-ordering your copy now.  (If you’re waiting for an e-reader version, don’t fear!  It will be offered for Kindle and other e-readers around the same time as the paperback release.)

Remember, this only works for preorders!  So, these offers will end on October 3rd when the book officially releases.

If you’ve already pre-ordered the book (some of you did that months ago), you get the free gifts, too!  Just complete the form and you’re all set.

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Oh, and I have another treat for all of you!

I know this amazing young woman who started her own business creating hand-lettered wooden signs on Etsy.  She calls her business Paintings for Mada and she gives part of her proceeds every month to missions or charity.

I adore this girl!

I’ll be giving away one 12×12 hand-painted/hand-lettered sign from Paintings for Mada to one of you!

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(I love this sign.  I’ll be honest.  I ordered one for me so I didn’t have to give them all away!)

If you don’t win, don’t worry!  I’ll be running another giveaway when the book releases so you can try again.  You can also visit Kailyn at Paintings for Mada on Etsy and see all the beautiful signs she has to offer.

How do you participate in the giveaway?

Leave a comment here on the blog (It has to be on the blog please.  I can’t include Facebook comments in the giveaway drawing) letting me know if you have done any of the things below.

Each action earns one individual entry—so make an individual comment please to make those separate entries count!

  1. Preordered the book.
  2. Liked my Facebook Author page here.
  3. Signed up here to receive my once-a-month newsletter with updates and other fun musings that I don’t share on the blog.
  4. Shared this post on Facebook so others can enter, too!

So each time you do (or have already done) one of these four actions, you leave a comment below saying, “I preordered the book” or “Followed on Facebook,” etc.

This giveaway will end on October 2nd at midnight.  I’ll use a random number generator to choose the winner of the sign and then contact you if you won.

I hope you enjoy some of these thank you gifts!

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Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

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It’s time to announce the Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all those who participated.  I absolutely loved hearing the book titles you’d choose to tell your own story and am reminded of how much we can learn from one another.

I used a random number generator to select the comment number of the winners and they are: Mary Reese and Betsy Marmon!

Congratulations!  I’ll contact you privately about getting these signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord to you.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a copy of the book here:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, for the final excerpt from Ask Me Anything, Lord.  Enjoy!

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You want me to do what, God?

You want me to parent these children? You want me to stay in this marriage? You want me to lead this ministry? You want me to start this program?

When God calls us, it isn’t about us at all; it’s all about Him. We’re the ones looking at our qualifications and feeling mismatched for the job He’s assigning us, whatever that calling looks like in your life.

Moses reacted that way at the burning bush all because he focused on himself. He asked God:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV).

It was his way of saying he wasn’t qualified for that.  “It’s all about me and ME isn’t good enough.”

God, on the other hand, focused not on Moses, but on Himself.  He said:

“I will be with you . . . I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . ” (Exodus 3:12-15 NIV).

There are moments and days when I fell like Moses, when I begin to wonder how I could possibly minister to others when I’m working so hard at basics like keeping calm with misbehaving children and not stressing about my calendar.ask-me-anything-lord_kd

When I feel so empty, how can I pour out to others?

It’s one thing to serve and encourage when we’re overflowing; God’s goodness just sploshes over the tops of our lives and refreshes all who cross our paths. But, what about when our cup seems dry? What happens when a thirsty neighbor lifts up needy hands in our direction and we ladle out empty air?

In some ways, that’s where Moses was. He felt enthusiastic to the point of foolishness about leading the Israelites decades before when he was still in Egypt. Unfortunately, he was oozing confidence and overflowing with a vision of leading a slave revolt that depended on his own strength. He believed then that if it all depended on him, well then he was enough.

Then he murdered an Egyptian in his enthusiasm. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought to punish him. That’s what happened when he served in his own strength.

At the burning bush, however, Moses clearly recognized that if this deliverance thing depended on him, well then he simply didn’t cut it.

And that’s what we say sometimes when we tell God that we can’t possibly do what He wants us to do.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus was saying, ‘Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.’ In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow ‘the rivers of living water’” (John 7:38 NIV).

Similarly, the Psalmist wrote, “Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘All my springs of joy are in You‘” (Psalm 87:7, NASB).

God is the Source, the Spring from which comes all our joy.

He’s not an immovable Fountain either, located at only one place or accessible at only certain times of the day. He is our Portion and Provision every moment of every day. 

When we find ourselves carrying our cups back to Him like Oliver Twist in the orphanage, asking shamefacedly, “Please, Sir, can I have some more?” we’re forgetting that we serve a generous God, who longs to pour out His grace on us. He isn’t stingy and doesn’t want us thirsty or starving.

The more times a day we lift our cups to Him, the more times He will fill them. If that means we’re having a quiet time every five minutes all day long, then that’s what it takes that day to fill up at the Fountain of God.

I know that when I’m running back to the well every few minutes, it’s because I’m a needy and leaky person, with holes punched all in my heart from stress and busyness.

Yet, it’s also because I’m pouring out to others and God is willing, even joyful, to replace what I’ve spilled over into the cups of my husband, my children, my friends, my Bible Study girls, my church members, the Wal-Mart cashier and the girl who cuts my hair.isaiah41

The frequency of our visits to the Well doesn’t reveal our weakness or failure. It reveals our dependency on Him and how much we pour out to others. 

So when we peer into an empty cup and think we’re too dry to walk this Christian life, too empty to share with another, then we’re forgetting that It’s All About Him.

That’s the mistake Moses made. He assumed the ministry depended on himself. Truthfully, though, none of the ministry we perform in our homes or outside of them is contingent on our ability, brains, beauty, education, character or godliness (thank goodness!).

It’s really all about Him, and He promises: “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13 NIV).

Taken from Ask Me Anything, Lord,© 2013 by Heather King. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 49501. All rights reserved. www.dhp.org.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is now available!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Guest Post and Giveaway!

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We’re throwing a little party here today in honor of Pastor Appreciation Month.  So, grab a slice of cake and enjoy this post by John P. King over at Smoking Newspaper.  He’s a former pastor who has written a funny and insightful book about lessons learned in ministry.

And what would a party be without a present?

So, I’m going to give away a signed copy of his book.  All this week, I’d love to hear from you just one thing that you have prayed or will be praying for your pastor.  One word or a quick sentence is fine.  Let’s encourage and inspire one another to pray for our pastors this month. It’s okay to duplicate others’ ideas.  If it’s what’s on your heart, just share it!

Leave a comment here or on Facebook.  Each comment gets you an entry and I’ll draw the winner using random.org and announce it in Saturday’s post.

And by all means stop by John’s blog and check out his devotionals. He’s even posted the first chapter for you!  If you don’t win the book, you can find it on Amazon.com here: Don’t Smoke the Newspaper and Other Lessons Learned by a Pastor.

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When I was pastoring in Oregon, a young man approached me and told me that he believed the Lord wanted him to be a pastor.  As we talked, the first question he asked me as he wrestled with what God wanted him to do was, “What is pastoring like?”  I have to admit that I wasn’t ready for that question.  That one was a little different from the normal question, “What does a pastor do?”  I had heard that question a hundred times.  It’s a whole lot easier to answer about what one does than what something is like.  However, a job description complete with responsibilities of both the spiritual and mundane, and a list of daily, monthly, and yearly activities was not what he was after.  He wanted to know what he would be experiencing, not doing, if he followed the Lord’s call.

I thought for a moment and searched for a description of what my work, what my life, was like.  I took this young man to the pulpit of the church and had him look out over the seats.  I said, “Imagine all of the people of our church sitting in the pews.  Now understand that on any given week, half of them will be experiencing some kind of victory.  Life will be good for them.  Imagine that all the people on the left side of the sanctuary are standing up because they are handling life.  On the other hand, all the people on the right side are sitting down because life is handling them.  They are going through some kind of struggle; a temptation, or trial, or tragedy.  And as they go through, they will come to you looking for help commensurate to their need.”

“Next week, they will all switch places.  The people on the right will be standing in victory, and the people on the left will be down, slogging through the difficulties of life.  And the next week, they will switch back.  And then switch back. And back again.  And again.”

I explained to him that when dealing with the Christian life and the daily ministry we all should be engaged in, the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”  That is what the pastorate was like; rejoicing and weeping.  Only the problem was, as I had mentioned earlier, the people who are toughing things out will always come to you. Unfortunately, the people in victory rarely do.  So you are always tilting to the ones who are “weeping,” whichever side of the aisle they are on.  The pastorate is a see-saw ride of moving from one hurting group to the next from one week to the next.

The look on his face said he was neither amused nor enthused.  Of course, I didn’t want to leave him like that, so I proceeded to tell him what a pastor does.  No, not the proverbial, full job description as mentioned earlier, but the one-line biblical definition.  Most people think that the pastor’s job is to minister.  You hire them to do the “ministry.”  However, Ephesians 4 makes it plain that the five-fold ministry, including pastors, was given to the church by Jesus Christ “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”  (Ephesians 4:12).  As a pastor, he would need to train the people to do the ministry; to rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep with those that weep.”  If he didn’t, then he would carry the load of “ministry” all by himself, and believe me, if he did, he would either be miserable or he wouldn’t be in the ministry for long.

With an understanding of what it’s like to be a pastor, what are my encouragements through all of this?  They are two-fold.

  1. Get engaged in the “ministry.”  It is not the pastor’s job to do it all.  It’s their job to   train us to do the ministry.  It’s not their job to build up the body of Christ.  It’s their job to equip us for the building up of the body of Christ.  If we aren’t doing our part, the body won’t grow and it will make their job exponentially more difficult.  However, if we are doing our part, then the church will grow and it will make the pastor’s job a delight.
  2. Rejoice!  Remember, the pastor has their own life and family problems to deal with too.  If the only things they ever hear from us are the hardships, it will only make them want to quit.  Pastors take great delight in their people’s triumphs and victories.  Trust  me, as a former pastor, I LOVED hearing about what God was doing in the lives of my congregation.  There was never any jealousy.  It didn’t matter if it was something “ministry” oriented or some kind of encounter with God in their daily lives.  Rejoicing  with my people always made my day.

So as God moves in your life, tell your shepherd.  They really do want to hear about it.  And don’t forget to take your place in the ministry.  Your pastor needs you.

Joy in Christ,
Rev. John P. King, M.A.
Copyright © 2012 John P. King, Used with permission
Verses from the NASB

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.