First, as important as this post is to me, this is still not the big announcement that is coming. Very soon. I promise we are all working hard to get it ready to share with you.

A few years ago I was invited into the enormous board room at the headquarters of a publisher. I didn’t have a brilliant proposal or a big platform and yet dozens of important people stood around the room to consider partnering with a girl nobody knew, who had never published a book. God brought me there that day and gave me unearned favor- not so I could get published, not so I could build a big ministry, but so that He could have one more way to get to his people.

Many other teachers and writers have found themselves with similar opportunities and most of us feel this way about our job of teaching and writing about God. We do our best to allow him to take our words to get to his people. And that is one method God has always used, from Moses to the prophets to the apostles to the church. However, it isn’t enough.

It turns out, when people are hurting maybe even hurting for God, they rarely go to a book store or even to a church.

So that day as I nervously and very unimpressively shared my vision with the room full of important people I knew I could never get to the people who most needed God- I would need your help. This was the simple terribly unflashy vision I shared with that board room 2 years ago:

“I picture huddles of hungry hurting women gathered in living rooms, dorm rooms, cubicles, neighborhoods safe enough to share their souls and consider God. I picture women giving women God.”

I held my little studies that had been accomplishing that goal in my small community and said,

“Maybe these are just some of the tools that could help women feel brave enough to do that.”

Summer is a unique season, people feel a little more relaxed, a little less stressed so I gathered a few of my writing friends with the same mission and together we ask if you would be brave enough to take these little tools we have built and gather 3-8 women in your workplace, neighborhood, or on your campus to consider God.

Some of the women you ask may ask know Him well and just need friends to go deeper with. Others that come to mind may clearly be running from God. But… what if they came? What if you asked them courageously and they said, “yes”?

So we are asking you to dream about who needs God around you and invite them to join you for several weeks to talk about God.

Mark your time and place, ask your people, and grab a study.

Today over 7000 of you all over the world, thanks to generous translators are beginning this vision here. Maybe you want to join that awesome tribe. But pray and dream- life is short and if we believe heaven and Jesus aren’t pretend, we should seize every opportunity we have to give him away. What on earth do we have to lose?

Some of my writer friends with the help of our publishers have graciously assembled
15 copies of our studies to give away here. So share this post, invite your friends and leave a comment about who you will be gathering. One week from today we will announce the winners.

Stuck: The Places We Get Stuck & the God Who Sets Us Free – by Jennie Allen

Chase: Chasing After the Heart of God – by Jennie Allen

The 7 Experiment: Stage Your Own Mutiny Against Excess – by Jen Hatmaker

Nehemiah: A Heart That Can Break – by Kelly Minter

Gideon: Your Weakness, God’s Strength – by Priscilla Shirer

*** Congratulations to the 15 winners we will send you a study soon! ***

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As Billy Graham once replied to a question about regret, “As I come to the end of my life, I don’t regret the speaking opportunities I didn’t take or not building a bigger ministry. I regret that I didn’t spend more time alone with Jesus. I regret not studying and praying all that I could.”

At the end of our lives, the measure to which we know and love Jesus is all that will matter to us. A lot of people know and love God more because of you Zac Allen. And I am certain many more will love God more in this next season of your life as well.

Where do you see people loving God more around you?

Nearly 10 years ago my husband looked at me from across the living room of our rented house in Dallas, TX and bravely said,

I believe God is calling us to plant a church. It wasn’t full of clarity, only just enough.

And yep a real life church was born…

with real life awesome, change-your-life, know-your-soul, spoil-your-kids kind-of people…

and together we found more of Jesus and gave more of him away than we’d ever before.

Today I watched as my husband bravely told our church, I believe God is calling me to minister in the marketplace.

My husband is officially leaving church staff on June 1 with the same calling on his life that he has always had: Make Disciples.

My husband pastors- that is what he does and that is who he is.

And callings like that, transcend vocations.

So the book….. The word Calling has always seemed to tease me, like a mysterious secret containing the answer to my ridiculously restless spirit. We wonder if we are missing some mystical great noble purpose that was supposed to squeeze into the holes of our ordinary lives.

We feel numb.
We feel bored.

Let’s assume that if we are breathing, then we have a purpose for being here. Every one of us with breath in our lungs still has something left to do.

I want to dream of what our purposes may be.

The conviction to write this book was born out of conversations with many of you. Since writing the first book, Anything, the most consistent thing I have been asked is some version of this question:

“I am in. I am all surrendered to God. But now what? I don’t know what he wants me to do?”

This is a book about God.

And this is a book about us and God. And this is a book about the moment we close our eyes and see God. This is a book about facing the God of the universe and answering to Him about the life and the resources that he gave us while we were here.

And because I think we all want that moment to go well, this is a book about discovering ourselves and getting over ourselves all at the same time. This is a book about being brave enough to imagine a better world and how we may be used to make it that way. This is a book about changing the world and changing diapers. This is a book about fears and suffering and joy and gifts.  This is a book about all that lays in our control and how nothing is in our control. This is a book about vision and obedience.

I feel a weight.
An indescribable burden.
A holy God given passion burning in my soul for you, for us, for our time here. Because I know we will blink and be together with God forever and there is life to be lived here, in our generation, on this earth, for our breath.

So I humbly ask you, dream with me.

We will lay out the unique threads of our lives that feel random, potentially even tangling us up, but we will lay them out and dream about eternal purposes for seemingly mundane moments and consider that it is possible to waste our lives.

And then let’s not.

I’m not good with catchy titles. I just name projects based on how I feel… so here it is- here is what I feel and I have a hunch I am not the only one:

RESTLESS  …because you were made for more

I believe this is from Him and I pray it will spark something in you… a vision perhaps of the unique reason God keeps issuing you breath.

A few more things… About the job change:  we aren’t leaving Austin or our amazing church.

About Restless: For the first time I will be releasing this project as a a book and a Bible study based on the life of Joseph. I tackle no project lightly, God seems to have me live, breathe, bleed whatever it is he wants me to give away. A slew of us went through this project this spring and I feel giddy thinking of you all dreaming and uncovering your unique threads with your friends the way we did. It was life changing. I think this is going to get fun. Both release Jan. 2014.

You in? Do you feel restless? Want to dream?

Cooper Coming Home from Jennie Allen on Vimeo.

I still can hear God whisper occasionally, “…look at what you could have missed Jennie.”

I miss you guys. I am coming back with so much to tell you. So much coming. I can’t wait. But I am working on all of it right now. So don’t go anywhere!

It was October 2001 and 9/11 had just changed the world and we all wondered if it would ever be the same again.

My 2 year old son was asleep as I ran my hand up and down my stomach holding my unborn child, nuclear war didn’t feel impossible and for a minute I wondered if it was even wise to have children. Terrorists had brought terror. Our generation hadn’t known real fear until that day. We had imagined real fear as we read about genocides and Hiroshima and Civil war and watched the famines of Ethiopia. But we had never feared for our lives as a nation.

Would we ever feel safe again?

We did. We probably felt safe within a few months… but it wasn’t because we were more safe, it was just too cumbersome to live so afraid and so we all stopped.

At the end of the day we just aren’t safe. You can live in a gated community, with a fence and an alarm but if you don’t have the gas mask on at the right moment…..Safe is always an illusion.

But just because we aren’t safe- doesn’t mean we have to fear.

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can mere men do to me? Psalm 118

If you don’t fear death- life gets a lot more fun.

My friend Julie, may die at any time. Her heart has stopped 3 times already and it may again at any point. She is my age with 2 young boys, we were together this weekend and she teaches me to not fear death. She is not afraid to die.

People who have died get to tell us to be afraid or not…

And this is Julie and I doing a lousy job of taking a selfie… where are we looking?

All of our prayers are with the people of Boston. We hurt with you.

Are you afraid today? And share the things you are telling your children or each other.

The day I was about to finally jump, I was sitting on an old red couch decorated with little brown horses, at my sister’s ranch. It was time to see if anyone else would be insane with me. I had procrastinated and we couldn’t wait any longer (My teammate and dear friend in this Lindsey Nobles was about to beat me up if I kept waiting), so I sent the texts and emails and waited.

As I stared at my phone waiting for anyone to reply, I felt myself falling fast…. I was in the frantic moment with the ground inching closer and the pull string on the chute not working and  just stuck in the silent wait. This was years of preparation and now finally on a red couch with horses on it… I had decided to jump. Of course my head wasn’t silent….

God, is humiliation part of your will for me?

I feel alone.

Did I make this vision up in my head or was this really you?

Don’t answer that, I just sent a load of texts….

Then in the quiet just before replies began to chime back, as my public sanity hung in the balance, I closed my eyes and I prayed, asking God to hold me as years of vision crashed or took flight. This is what I knew in that moment:

Faith is the is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

I was launching something into motion out of sheer faith, an assurance that my God was real and in this. I was convicted that this vision was not tainted with self-confidence or established as a rationale solution to a problem. It was a result of foolishness or faith. And I knew which one it was. My unseen God had given us more than enough evidence to trust this was from Him and for Him.

And rather than hate how ludicrous it could all appear, I embraced it. My fear shifted to gratitude because I was tasting the surrender of free falling into more of God. Because actually I want more moments in my life…

that I’m living stupid for things unseen.

that I risk my reputation for His.

that others’ needs matters more than my comfort.

that I feel inadequate because the dream is too big to accomplish alone.

that I am so terrified that I actually pray without ceasing.

And for just that brief moment I didn’t care if He let me hit the ground. I was in. The risk felt worth it. Surrender.

Chime. The texts started coming in… and reply after reply read something like this:

“This is crazy. I am in and I think God is all over it.”

Not 1, not 3 but so far every response has read… YES. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only stupid one who was hungry to see God move and it looked like with all of us united- we may just get to watch him show off. One of the crazies I texted that day was Rebekah Lyons who wrote about her freefall in the most beautiful book and it comes out this week. I am giving away two copies of Freefall to Fly today. Go order it now. It will move you and you will want to live stupid with us.

Soon we will tell you more about our crazy dream and we will ask you to join the whole lot of us- because it is no small thing.  We live once and then we meet God. I think we should live it banded together and running brave for things that last. I think it actually could turn out to be crazy fun too. Soon.

Tell me about a time you have felt a freefall in your life or with one word describe a place you feel afraid right now. We can all pray for each other as we jump scared. We will choose two of you to get Rebekah’s book. Thankful for kindred friends- that make us more brave. You all are in this category for me. Thank you.

*** Congratulations Misty and Shari we will send you Rebekah’s book soon! ***

Today Sarah visited home for the first time since the stroke. If you are not familiar with Sarah’s story read here and here.

I plopped down beside her and I watched her eyes dart back and forth, they always seem shockingly peaceful. She seemed settled in the place she had last felt normal. Her feet kicked up on her coffee table and her kids running around laughing and wrestling, completely at ease with the new normal, their silent present mom and her wheel chair off to the side.

I remembered the last time we sat together in her living room but it was too unthinkable… all that had changed, so I quickly pushed the memory away.  Sarah used to lure me over to her house at the witching hour with the promise of a deep talk and a glass of wine, while our kids ran in and out the back door fighting over nerf guns. And for just one second today it all felt eerily normal again… minus the wine and her words and her hair…. (we all miss her hair, though her Ann Hathaway pixie is sassy and right for now.)

I’ve been waiting to write this letter to her, until she could read it for herself. But today, seeing her at home, it feels right.

Dear Sarah,

While you were gone… we all changed. And you need to know us now on the other side of all of this.

Your Mom:

The day after hell broke loose in Austin, I picked her up at the airport and she said these words, “Maybe Sarah will let me take care of here now.” God had prepared her to sit in lonely rooms and hold your hand while she waited for your eyes to open. She tasted life without you and wanted nothing more than for you to come back, even if that meant you would never be the same. She fought for you. She wanted your little independent spirit to rest while she took care of you and we all watched and worshiped as a momma took care of her girl. She was proud and sure and never one day quit trusting God. The day we thought you would die, she stroked my hair and said, “Jennie- you trust God. He is in control and if he wants to take Sarah then He has a plan.”

Your Dad:

Your daddy was brave. He held his place in waiting rooms and over your bedside and with lawyers and doctors. He cried because it was right to cry. And then we watched him fight for you. Every hard dark part of this war- he has been your protector, quietly standing guard, lest anyone not care for his daughter in the most noble ways.

Your Brother:

Joel took his place beside your Dad. He prayed and wept. He promised to take care of you and part of that promise  is why he is moving his 4 kids and wife to Austin to be close to you. Your brother, who none of us knew became family outside of your hospital room.

Your Kids:

No children should have to suffer the way that they have. But Sarah, you want them to know God and so often it is through the darkness that we find him. Will has an inner strength and the first time he saw you after the stroke, when you could not move yet or speak, he told you about his day at school and he looked you in the eye and he brought you a flower… and beside him, Ava painted your fingernails purple. Ava has your independence and spunk and she announced at school that God is healing her mom. She is brave and strong and deep. And as Halle learns to say Mama and turtle and outside… she looks at your eyes to watch for your cue. She can read you. They are learning to trust God when all hell has broken loose.

Jan (your mother-in-law):

Jan stopped her life on that day and took her place to care for the kids beside Greg. She kept saying, “I know this is where Sarah would want me.” And she stayed and stayed and stayed until you could get back close to them. Her surrender to God and to her grand babies was perhaps the most sacrificial love we had ever seen.

All who knew you:

prayed and served and read and waited and cried and loved. The world will never again see meal calenders fill up faster and prayer spread further. It felt like the whole world was praying and cooking and cheering with us through the darkest parts.

Your best friends:

became best friends. You had picked up quite a few of us and we were all so different and while you were gone we fell in love with each other. We’ve been to war now and there is no breaking us up. Barely a day goes by without dozens of texts to each other- mostly about you but our little text sisterhood has adopted a baby, and almost adopted another, walked through job changes, shouldered difficulties in marriage, written a book, weathered ER trips and on and on.

And every one us tasted God and death and fear and hope and joy and pain like we’d never tasted. And no one is the same. We love God more and want heaven more and seek deeper friendships and more purposeful lives… all because of you. No one has ever preached a louder sermon without saying a word, my friend. Your courage and peace still moves us every day. And it seems none of us are going anywhere. So you are stuck with the new “us”.

We love you friend.

As we were settling into our less expensive but plenty nice and comfy home in the suburbs, Perry and I were catching up on our lives outside of church. Perry described that their family of 4 recently moved from their remodeled awesome house in central Austin to an apartment.

I said,  “Wow! What was behind that?”

Perry said, “We read this book called ‘Anything’.” She winked but she was serious. The apartment was a step in the path of obedience for their family as they had prayed the prayer that jacks with your life.

I celebrated with her the new dreams they were dreaming and all that God was doing in and around them, the apartment only a tiny symbol of God moving their souls.

But I felt sick. If I am really honest I was sick because I began to compare and rather than an apartment or a mud hut- we had just found the perfect paint color for our house.

It had been over a year since I had written the last word of Anything and over 3 years since praying the prayer for the first time. And the radical chaos was ebbing and our lives were feeling in some ways settled and comfy again.

Disclaimer: I NEVER imply in the book or in my theology that God requires the selling of possessions or sheer martyrdom. God is after our unreserved surrendered obedience. Of course often He takes our plenty and portions it out, if we hand over everything.

But for a minute I was feeling like if my life wasn’t hard and stretched out to the point of possibly ripping in two was I even still living “anything?”

And it had me feeling like a hypocrite.

I shouldn’t mislead you…. our lives are far from simple. We are juggling lots of demanding ministry, 4 kids, one nearly 13 (enough said there), in the last months we have fought depression, wrestled as we chose to hold back one of our kids because of learning difficulties, attachment issues with Cooper, a demanding move, walked through some of the worst kinds of death and darkness with two of our best friends…

but talking to Perry outside of church for just one minute life was peaceful… for a moment we weren’t jumping off any big cliffs.

BUT this isn’t a game, a competition of sorts. Dare we create a new legalism where we compare and compete to suffer most for Jesus. We will have enough hard without chasing it.

But the message of our generation is “live radical.”

And while a good number of us need to be pushed off high cliffs because we weren’t living our stories because we were numb or afraid… we need to move to apartments, adopt children, change careers, dream big…

most of us are obediently staying,
obediently leading 15 year olds every sunday at youth group,
obediently cooking for our friend who just had a baby,
obediently grabbing Starbucks before a mundane day at a job we don’t love,
obediently inviting coworkers into our homes that may be a little too big,
obediently dropping our husband’s shirts at the dry cleaners,
obediently taking care of sick kids or deeply sick parents,
obediently living without fanfare,
obediently cheering for someone else’s more radical God ordained adventures,
obediently joyful with easy and thankful for days that don’t hurt.

Go ahead and read anything, pray anything and receive anything God has for you.
Even if it is blessing. Even if it is quiet. Even if nothing on the outside changes.

“What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering…” 1 Sam. 15:22

I am reposting this because of reading a thought provoking article in Christianity Today. All of us- as writers and prophets and teachers are doing best to call out sin and move our hearts closer to the heart of Christ. But as with all teaching taken to an extreme- we become focused on outward signs of inner realities. Christ was and is always most concerned with the inner realities.

I think this is a terribly important conversation in our generation in the church. What do you all see as the tension?

Hungry….numb….bored….excited….confused….afraid….content.

….the fluctuating feelings of a soul in a given month or day, at least my soul. I can’t keep up- barely anyone can. But I’ve learned that a few people need to know. I need to be known and I need to know and I need kicks in my hiney when I’m out of line and I need a safe place to be imperfect and I need to laugh and eat too many french fries and forget that I’m afraid and then remember I’m afraid and have someone tell me to stop being afraid.

We all do.

And I have my share of great friends that do every one of those things. But sometimes ever so sparse gray hair has it’s place in life. I keep a friend, always at least one that I call mentor. Each of them has been unique, nothing has ever been very formal, but I have intentionally sought them out for coffee or french fries and asked them things like….

 Am I doing enough?

Am I doing too much?

How do you submit to your husband when you disagree?

How do I balance ministry and 4 kids?

What are you making for dinner?

I have to have this. I have to have it. And whether you know it or not- you do too.

Meet Diann Cotton. Diann and Larry (her husband) grab pizza with us- because they can and because we ask. Zac disciples their grown twin boys (who are quite famous) and those two boys invest into our son and given their unique profession- even as a brilliant 7th grader, he listens to every word they say. It is the most inbred beautiful mentoring relationships of all time.

We adore the Cotton’s and they tolerate us!

So you may be feeling a twinge of jealousy reading this with my french fries and cool awesome wise people in our lives… good. Feel jealous and then call a woman 15-20 years older than you this minute and ask her to coffee.

My very strict and important rules of mentoring
(I have none by the way but here are my thoughts)

1. Don’t be so picky. No mentor is perfect. If they have lived longer- they have things to add to your life.

2. Gain different things from different people. Keep several relationships that can invest in your life in different ways- no one mentor will be the end all to all needs and subjects.

3. Keep it informal. We don’t meet every week- we meet every time we can- usually spontaneously. High commitment can wear out the relationship.

4. Don’t be arrogant. Realize we need the generation above us and accept that we may have different values. Instead of looking down on that, let it intrigue you and uncover the source of unshared values.

5. Take initiative. I don’t think one woman has ever asked to mentor me. You seek them out and if there is no traction- seek someone else out.

But make this a priority and here’s why- we need people who have perspective that is bigger than our own. We need to be reminded that the mundane jobs are building our character. We need to be reminded that our husbands usually have a point. We need people that inspire us and believe in us, but not so much so that they won’t beat us up if we get arrogant or out of line.

Now. Go. Pick up the phone and call the first woman that comes to mind. We want to bridge the generational gap… let’s start with coffee.

Tell us about your mentor or why you don’t have one?

Out of respect for Ash Wednesday… I remind myself today of words I wrote years ago- but still very much mean.

I am truly fascinated by people’s souls. It seems that I relate in some way with almost every soul I have ever really known.

I was visiting a house full of men who had all recently been released from prison. I did not know what to expect but as we walked in with a few insignificant gifts for them to open around Christmastime my heart melted.

I saw an older man with his worn shirt tucked in, pouring lemonade, the grainy kind that you add water and stir, and cookies that looked store bought, but were arranged in a pattern on a plate. The other men were there to greet us with smiles as if they were welcoming the president. I had rushed getting there that night with sitters and carpools and wrapping but at the sight of these humble joyful men, my heart slowed and I wanted to be no where else. We went around the room and each man shared a little about his life.

Men with tears confessing with true ownership their weaknesses and mistakes. Hearts bleeding for the damage they had brought to those they love and hearts gushing at how God had forgiven them.

I wanted to be like them- these men recovering from the consequences of sin. I wanted to need God like them and feel broken like them and be transparent like them. It is as if they were already exposed…. already caught. Screwed up was written on their forehead- no need to act like it wasn’t. And something about that brought freedom.

And my soul resonates with that- blond, mom of four, pastor’s wife connecting with criminals fresh out of prison…. I am a human… and humans arrive with “messed up” on our foreheads. We come that way, somewhere between toddlerhood and grown-up we learn to put away our forehead sign. Sit up straight. Be good.

But before God I am no different from these men… my forehead is clean- my soul certainly is not. That day on an old beat up sofa with some old beat up guys, God showed up. God shone more through those accused and hurting men than through me… I’m getting more comfortable with messy forehead signs.

I am screwed up.

And Jesus is my hope.

Maybe my little protestant, evangelical self will start celebrating Ash Wednesday.