{From the Publisher}:

Women have been the secret weapon in the church since the beginning of its existence, contributing significantly to the progress the church has made in the world. These were ordinary women doing extraordinary things, not out of a desire to bring credit to themselves, but from sincere hearts to serve and love those whom God has called them to serve.

Today the missional movement sweeping the church encourages all believers to adopt a mission-oriented perspective.

Helen Lee looked for mothers who lived with God-directed intentionality and purpose in their family life as well as in whatever other context God had placed them. In The Missional Mom you’ll find women who deeply desire to bring change into the world in some tangible way.

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{My favorite quotes}:

These are my favorite quotes from Chapter One: The Missional Mom Embraces the Call of Her Missional God.

{#1} “There is no one way to be a ‘good Christian mom’.”

{#2} “We all need to see the big picture of how what we are doing matters. When we don’t understand how our efforts make a difference in a tangible way, we can become frustrated and anxious… The more we feel as though our actions and labors are irrelevant, the more despairing and hopeless we can become.”

This is a big area of struggle for me. I love being home with my kids, but if I can’t see tangible accomplishment (other than washing another load of laundry, cleaning the bathrooms yet again, etc.), I struggle to find meaning and satisfaction in my daily life.

{#3} “Each and every person who is a follower of Jesus shares the same calling, which at the core is not something to do but a Person to know: our calling as children of God is to know Him, first and foremost.”

I think this is an area that moms probably struggle the most – finding time to sit down and study the Bible in order to know Jesus more. Is it because we don’t have the time or is it because we don’t make the time? There may be an element of truth to each of those answers. This is one of the reasons I have so appreciated the Maximize Your Mornings challenge – it’s a daily reminder and set time to get into the Word and seek His face!

{#4} The primary calling for Christians is to be with God, in whatever circumstances He has placed us. As we reside in those circumstances with Him, it becomes clearer how we are to serve God in those circumstances. Doing things for God becomes an outflow of our connectedness with Him.”

My ministry – to my family, to my church, to you – must be the overflow of a life filled with Christ.

{#5} “Your mission is to be His witness and disciple-maker wherever you live and move and have your being. This mission does not change when you become a mother… Although the circumstances of our lives change when we become parents, our calling remains the same… Our mission remains to ‘bear witness’ and ‘make disciples,’ both activities requiring our continuing participation in the world.”

It’s easy for moms, especially those of us with young children at home, to become closed off to the outside world. I know this is one of my biggest struggles with being a stay-at-home mom. On average, I have very few interactions with those outside of my household during the week. This is definitely an area that I need to work on – I need to be intentional about connecting with others and being involved in how God is working in the community around me.

{#6} “Our lives are full of secondary callings, and being a mother is just one of those secondary callings… In various seasons of our lives, we may only focus on a few of these callings, and other times we’ll focus on others. But none of these secondary callings are more important than the unchanging primary calling – not even motherhood… We always need to put our role as mothers in the right context and never prioritize our secondary calling as a mother over our primary calling to know and love God.”

This seems to fly in the face of what is being taught to young moms in Christian circles today. So much of what we read and see and hear about motherhood is that it is our most important calling in life, and yet, if we think about it biblically, we soon realize that it is indeed a secondary calling. Do our lives reflect the priorities of this statement? Do we live as though our relationship with Christ is of the most importance?

{#7} “Making motherhood your primary mission could potentially backfire and give your children the wrong message about what our essential life priority is meant to be.”

What a warning! What example are we setting for our children if we make our lives centered around them? We need to be centering our lives around knowing and loving God, letting our motherhood (and all other secondary callings) flow out from our connectedness with Christ.

{#8} “Sometimes, we get stuck trying to figure out what we are supposed to do with our lives, when all we have to do is pursue God’s mission with intentionality right where we already are.”

Guilty as charged! I’m so often searching and seeking what’s “next” in my life that I forget to live fully in the moment – in the place where God has me right now.

{#9} “One way to adopt a missional perspective is to think of our homes as ‘missional outposts’… [striving] to train our children with the purpose of preparing them to accept their own calling to be God’s missionaries in whatever way He intends… When you see your home as a missional outpost, your role as mother becomes clearer: to prepare and release the people inside for a lifetime of participating in God’s mission to the world.”

{#10} “As mothers demonstrate this [missional] lifestyle, their children learn that their lives are supposed to be about something bigger and better than themselves… children are not the center of a mom’s life, but… moms, too, are colaborers in God’s mission, the primary purpose that can give their lives true and lasting meaning.”

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{My Review}:

What an encouraging and challenging book! Helen Lee did an incredible job of bringing together the truth of the Word of God, real life examples of missional moms, and challenge and encouragement for all moms in this eleven chapter book. The quotes I shared above are only from the first chapter… and the following ten chapters are just as full of challenge and encouragement.

If you are looking for a book to grow and challenge you as a mom, I would highly recommend The Missional Mom. It has already impacted how I view motherhood, and more importantly, has challenged me to be intentional about being a part of God’s work in my community.

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Thanks to Helen Lee and Moody Press, THREE of you will have the opportunity to win a copy of this incredible book!

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How do you win? {Leave a separate comment for each of the following tasks you complete.}

• (Mandatory) Share with us which of these quotes struck you the most and why.
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Three winners will be chosen from the comments below on or after 4/3/11 using Random.org. Winners must live in the 48 contiguous US, for shipping purposes, and may not have won anything from this blog in the last 30 days. Winners will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to respond. Thanks to Helen Lee and Moody Press for providing copies of this book for review and giveaway. All opinions expressed in this review are mine. Links to the book on Amazon.com are affiliate links.

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This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday hosted by Oh Amanda.

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