The words just tumbled out of my mouth one day. I had been talking with another female minister who had asked what I thought God was leading me to do since Navy chaplaincy was no longer a viable option. She kindly listened as I poured out my heart’s burden to provide very practical help from God’s Word for women in their every-day lives. I lamented the tragedy that many women (people in general, actually) perceive God as only being concerned about spiritual matters and not the personal and practical, and they consequently relegate Him to the confines of Sunday, a church building, and general platitudes and other theoretical talk. Having personally received God’s practical wisdom and help in my own life, marriage, and homemaking challenges, I knew He belonged outside of the box we had put Him in. So, with a mix of passion and frustration, I blurted out that I wanted to get Him outside of the church and “bring God home!”
“Ooh,” she said, “that sounds like a good tagline for your ministry!” And I never forgot it. I didn’t even have “Domestic Minister” yet, but I had this great little phrase for a tagline.
I’ll admit that I have doubted whether it was a good encapsulation of all that I want to do. That would have been during the time I was focused on trying to create a ministry plan (basically a business plan model used in the secular world with a spiritual twist). All that mental work to figure out a mission statement and a vision statement (which are not to be confused but usually are) and then a strategic plan is enough to make anybody question everything! Yet, when it came time to put in a tagline here on this blog, “Bringing God Home” seemed to be the perfect fit.
Maybe someday in the future I’ll change it. That’s normal, I guess; businesses do change their catch-phrase or tagline every so often. But right now, I’m liking it.
It reminds me of a mental picture I imagined many years ago whenever I read John 14:23, where Jesus says “If a man [anyone] loves me, …. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him” (WEB [World English Bible]). I know it may sound silly, but I would (and still do) imagine Jesus and the Heavenly Father standing at the front door with suitcases in hands like excited houseguests eager to visit the person within. Can you see it too? They want to come into our lives. They want to be with us. And better than most guests today, they are more than willing to step in and really help!
In keeping with the tagline, though, I guess I need to modify my little daydream vision. Instead of us opening the door to invite these Honored Guests in, we need to be outside opening the door, hollering to our families inside, “Hey, look who I brought home with me!”
Thanks for reading!
Domestic Minister 