What’s God saying for Edward Thomas Hewitt Linda Blackwell Gilliam Ty Buchanan Madison Bass Michael McIntyre.
What’s God saying for Edward Thomas Hewitt Linda Blackwell Gilliam Ty Buchanan Madison Bass Michael McIntyre.
29: Walking in Your Purpose with Jon Fuller and Jody Holland
Today’s episode is a unique one. We’ve switched roles and Jody Holland (a fabulous guest from ep. 2) has returned to interview Jon about his journey of faith and how he has been able to follow God’s calling in his life. Jon shares how the podcast started, why he started a podcast and some exciting things that are in store for the future.
Jon Fuller lives and works in Amarillo, TX. He’s a Contractor/Builder by trade and he’s also a leader in his local church. Jon has a heart for service and for bringing others to Christ. Jon is married and also spends his time trying to be the best Father he can be.
What are you willing to give up in order to get the very best things God has in store for you?
Listen to the episode as Jody Holland interviews Jon and they discuss:
- Why in the world did Jon start a podcast
- What is the “voice of manifestation”
- The “Ah-Ha” moment he had about his platform
- How Jon provided for others what was never provided for him
- Jon’s favorite story in the Bible
- Jon lost a million dollar company overnight… find out how God used it for good.
- The shift from “Honor’s Reward” and reaping and sowing
- Ask and receive in action and experience
- When you step into God’s purpose, doors begin to open
- Recurring theme – obeying God
- Why you should “just do it”
- Jon’s biggest strength, and why it can get him in trouble
- Whackadoodle – if the shoe fits!
- Jon’s book and how it’s coming along
- Life is like the remodeling process in construction
- There is a price to be paid for remodeling – it’s time or money
- Book releases in Feb 2017!
- Our job is to speak to the gold in other people
Download an audio book from Jody Hollands for FREE on Audible.
Resources:
28: Serving Outcasts and Offering a Bridge to Life – Tac Buchanan
Tac Buchanan is the Texas Panhandle Regional Coordinator for Bridges To Life, the mission to (BTL) is to connect communities to prisons in an effort to reduce the number of crime victims, and enhance public safety. The spiritual mission of Bridges To Life is to minister to victims and offenders in an effort to show them the transforming power of God’s love and forgiveness.
If you are uplifted by the works of people who live to serve the Lord, or you struggle with anger or resentment towards anyone and battle to forgive, listen in and gain inspiration from Tac Buchanan, as he shares his moving story with Jon Fuller on today’s episode of “Are You Real”.
Open your heart and listen as he talks about the hard knocks he has had in his life and how he has managed to overcome and serve.
Download a FREE Audio book today with Audible.
Today, Tac talks to Jon about:
•How Bridges to Life was started in 1998.
•How the success of BTL has inspired other states and even other countries to use their model.
•The impact that the program has had on both victims and offenders.
•The HUGE impact that BTL has had with preventing past offenders going back to prison.
•The POWER of forgiveness.
•Why BTL is different to other similar programs.
•The tragic story that resulted in Tac being saved.
•How Tac finally managed to forgive himself.
•Tac’s greatest strength in his ministering.
•Tac’s advice to “a younger him”.
Links:
BTL website : www.bridgestolife.org
Tac’s email : tac@bridgestolife.org
27: Hearing God’s Voice in Life and Business with Shawn Bolz
Shawn Bolz is an author, a TV host (see him on Season four of Dreams & Mysteries on Daystar!) spiritual adviser, producer, and minister. He is passionate about seeing individuals and groups learn how to be the most connected best version of themselves through their relationship with God.
Shawn has been a pioneer in ministry including the prophetic movement since he was in his teens. His focus on having a genuine relationship with God, creativity through entertainment, & social justice have brought him around the world to meet with churches, CEO’s, entertainers, and world leaders.
Shawn’s style of speaking & coaching accompanied with his unique expert perspective on the issues of love, creativity, and justice, have kept his calendar full. Shawn lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Cherie, and daughter, Harper. He is an author of several books, including best-selling Translating God & Keys to Heaven’s Economy.
Shawn Bolz is also the founding pastor of Expression58 Christian Ministries, a ministry focused on the entertainment industry and the poor in Los Angeles California where he lives with his wife, Cherie and their two daughters.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- Author, TV host, speaker, and consultant
- Shawn’s faith-based ministry to the entertainment industry in Hollywood
- A mindset to transform culture with kingdom principles
- Transition from business to ministry
- The broken church model
- Changing models that are working today
- The role of public platform prophetic ministry
- What the Old Testament proves
- The New Testament paradigm
- The NT mandate to hear from God
- When God prompts you
- NT prophetic and what it looks like
- His gifts for today
- Shawn’s new book, coming out next May
- Shawn’s new TV show, interviewing people about their God highlights
- Shawn’s hard seasons of life and feeling connected to God’s tenderness
- Shawn’s advice for hard times: “Try not to be in performance. Be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to heal.”
- Trusting God as a Father
- Shawn’s advice to his younger self: “I would go to myself at age 12-13 because there was so much confusion. I was figuring myself out. I would say, ‘You’re enough. Just wait and see what your life’s gonna be like’.”
- Favorite resources: The Translated God by Shawn Bolz and Daring Greatly by Brene’ Brown
- Shawn’s parting advice: “Go after hearing God’s voice. Anything you’ve ever seen that is spectacular and awesome was a prototype of what you can have with God.”
Download a FREE audio version of Shawn’s book “The Translated God” on Audible.
Connect with Shawn:
Use What You Have, Where You Are
When some stories are told, we laugh, have a good time, and walk away no worse or better for telling it. Other times, we hear a story, and it lingers on the soul. Something strikes our spirit and we know that, somehow, we have heard something deeply true from our Creator.
Dianna Bautista’s story struck me in that way. Just to hear the passion in her voice and her anger at the state of the world was enough to want me to jump right in with her mission. I hope by the end of this blog and the accompanying podcast, you will be too.
Her heart for the voiceless women trapped in the sex trafficking industry has led to a lifetime of daily surrendering her gifts and talents to Jesus. Those gifts and talents just happen to be hairdressing.
A Staggering Problem
By conservative estimates, at least 45 million people in the world have been trafficked into the sex industry. For many women in developing countries, selling their bodies for money is the only means by which they can support their families. To make a shocking statistic even more staggering, many of these women were also sexually abused, exploited, molested, or sold into the industry as a means of paying debts. Still worse is the culturally accepted nature of sex trafficking amongst men in these countries.
Yet, the world has allowed this cycle of worthlessness and hopelessness that leads to a need for fulfillment in the sex industry.
There are approximately 2.1 billion people professing Christianity globally. We have the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We know that there is freedom in forgiveness. Of those 2.1 billion, how many of us have thought about a sister in another country being broken at the hands of broken people. For them, there is no hope.
Until people like Dianna step in, refusing to allow sex trafficking to continue.
How can a hairdresser change the world?
Dianna has been dressing hair since she was five. Her whole life was spent with the knowledge that she wanted to grow up to be a hairdresser. It wasn’t until a mission trip to Africa that she realized that specialized skill could have a global impact.
Now, Dianna runs a cosmetology school out of Thailand designed to teach vocational skills to women vulnerable to the sex industry, or who have escaped sex trafficking. By teaching women how to cut hair, Dianna and her team at Shear Love International are giving women a practical means of escape, but also the spiritual and emotional support they need as they exit a season of life filled with fear, shame and suffering.
Finding a Bigger Purpose
Shear Love International is about more than taking women off the street and giving them a pair of scissors. In Dianna’s words, their ultimate mission is to “teach life lessons as we do hair.”
Dianna’s purpose is to use her skills as a hairdresser and her calling as a Christian to not only teach practical skills, but also repair a lifetime of damage—emotional, physical, spiritual—through daily devotions and unconditional love and support. Dianna mentioned her greatest strength was actually her ability to be strong for her women coming out of poverty, brokenness, and shame! I was inspired by her passion to end sex trafficking and to free women from abuse and shame. What a perfect example of someone who has identified the gifts and skills God has given her, and putting them to a globally worthy use.
How can you jump in?
Shear Love International is a NGO, meaning that none of the money raised is for a profit. Salaries for their instructors, tuition and supplies for their students, and any other incidental costs are covered entirely by donations and outside support. I’ve already bought into the mission that Dianna and her team overseas has begun with my own financial support, and a pledge of donations from future sales of my book.
If you believe there is freedom in forgiveness, and want to see an end to sex trafficking, you can go online to shearloveinternational.org to sponsor a student, buy a new set of shears, or help support the salary for a woman while she is completing her education.
Dianna also mentioned a huge needing hairstylists, makeup artists, English teachers, and Counselors to support all of the efforts Shear Love International has going on globally,
Maybe God has also gifted you as a hairdresser? Maybe you’ve been given the ability to apply makeup well, or teach in a way that people just get. You have been given a gift so it can glorify God! Prayerfully consider joining Dianna on this practical, and yet extremely impactful mission in Thailand and across the globe.
For many women, the world has told them only one story: “You are worthless. You are nothing.” Let’s be a part of changing that narrative to, “You are worth everything to Jesus.”
To hear the full story, listen to the Are You Real? Podcast, and hear for yourself the passion Dianna has poured into the lives of her students.
