Up Close and Personal . . . A Conversation with Nancy

Nancy responds to several questions regarding how this ministry has impacted her life, some of the challenges and struggles she faces, how she finds encouragement in the midst of those challenges. She also shares the vision God has put on her heart for the future of ROH, and tells how caring friends can support her and the ministry in prayer.

 

1. How has your life changed since starting ROH radio five years ago?
2. How do you decide what to teach on ROH ?
3. How do you go about developing new series?
4. What are the greatest challenges you’ve faced since starting ROH radio?
5. What are some of the greatest personal battles or temptations you face?
6. What are some of the things God uses to encourage you?
7. How would you like people to pray for ROH?
8. How do you want people to pray for you?
9. What do you want to see God do through ROH in the next five to ten years?

• How has your life changed since starting ROH radio five years ago?

  The requirements of coming up with 260 programs every year, meeting publishing deadlines, developing new resources, and leading a growing ministry have forced me to be more disciplined.

  I have a constant, conscious sense of my need for the Lord—that I can’t make it apart from Him (that’s a good thing!). I have seen more of my weaknesses and experienced more of His strength . . . more of my sinfulness and more of His grace. I’ve learned a lot (and am still learning!) about relinquishing control and letting the Lord and others manage things.

  As a result of seeing Him come through on my behalf and the ministry’s behalf again and again and again (we call them “Red Sea moments”!), I have even more reason to trust Him and less reason to doubt Him or to panic or be anxious in the midst of storms. Not that I never doubt or panic—I do! But my heart is steadied as I remember His faithfulness over these past five years.
  

• How do you decide what to teach on ROH?

More often than not, I select topics or Scripture passages based on either what the Lord is teaching me and how He is working in my own life, or an issue I sense needs to be addressed as I listen to other women share their struggles and burdens or read letters and emails from our listeners.


• How do you go about developing new series?

  Some of the richest series for me recently have been birthed out of a change I have made in my personal devotional life. For many years I made a practice of reading consecutively through the Bible, at least once or twice a year. This approach has been of great blessing and benefit to me—I love getting a panoramic view of the Scripture and seeing how each portion interrelates with other parts. I still recommend this type of reading, as it gives an overview of God’s ways and is a good way to get “mega-doses” of the Scripture into our hearts.

  However, a couple years ago, I felt the need to slow down in my personal quiet time and spend more time meditating more deeply on smaller portions of Scripture. So I have spent months at a time pouring over and pondering individual passages such as Psalm 23, 2 Peter 1, the book of Habakkuk, the Lord’s Prayer, etc.

  I get immersed in the passage, reading it over and over and over again, memorizing it, meditating on each word, phrase, and verse (not only in my quiet time, but often throughout the day), cross-referencing to other portions of Scripture, journaling, asking the Lord to work that portion of His Word into the warp and woof of my life.

Once my mind, heart, and life are saturated with one of these passages, I usually end up developing a radio series based on the overflow of where I have been living. After spending extended time doing personal meditation, I will pull out other commentaries to shed additional light on the subject.


• What are the greatest challenges you’ve faced since starting ROH radio?
  
  

• Maintaining a “quiet heart” and personal intimacy with the Lord, in the midst of the rigors of my daily schedule. Several things have helped greatly in this area:

1. Maintaining computer-free Sundays.

2. Determining not to check email in the morning until I have spent quality (and quantity) time with the Lord in His Word.

3. Journaling in my quiet time. I dropped this habit when we began radio, but picked it up again about a year ago—it has been a great blessing and help in focusing my heart on Christ.

4. Friends who love me enough to ask how I’m doing in my personal spiritual disciplines and where I am in my relationship with the Lord.

• Managing my time effectively around His priorities and agenda. Far too often, I look back at the end of a day and realize I was busy all day with “urgent” demands, but did not accomplish the “important” things that most needed to be done.
  
  There are always more opportunities, requests, and demands than can be humanly fulfilled. I have to keep reminding myself of what I have said to others many times over the years: “There is time in every 24-hour day to do everything that is on God’s agenda for my life this day.” That means I need to be prayerful, tuned, and sensitive to the Spirit, so I can know what is on His “to-do list” for my day.
  
  
• I struggle with the reality that in so many areas of my life I know I am not consistently living up to the biblical standard to which I am calling others. To be honest, sometimes I don’t even want to live up to that standard—I get weary at times of always being spiritually vigilant and constantly waging war against my flesh, the world, and the devil. But in my heart I really do want to be like Christ and to glorify God. So I seek to be responsive to the conviction and the work of the Spirit in my life, and to walk in the light—confessing and repenting of sin as He reveals it, receiving His forgiveness, and pressing on by His grace.
  
  
• There have been significant changes in the Christian radio industry in the past five years (reflective of a drift in the evangelical world as a whole). Though there are exceptions, it seems that much of the industry has become more “market-driven” than “message-driven”—i.e., many decisions are being made based on the question, “What do people want to hear?”, rather than asking: “What do people need to hear? What is the message that needs to be communicated to this generation?” As a result, there has been a sizable shift to more music programming and less proclamation of the Word.
  
  I have to wrestle with these pressures in my own teaching. I know that certain topics are “guaranteed” to generate greater response (and contributions!). But I have to be sure I am willing to teach on unpopular subjects or take counter-cultural positions as the Lord leads, even if that means we pay a price in terms of audience response.
  



• What are some of the greatest personal battles or temptations you face?
  
  
  • When I feel overwhelmed by deadlines (writing a book, preparing for radio recording sessions, writing ministry communication pieces, etc.), I easily fall prey to discouragement and doubt. In those seasons, I wrestle a lot with a sense of inadequacy and feelings of inability to do what I have been called to do.
    
    
  • I am prone to focus more on the challenges and “hardships” in my life and ministry, than on the Lord. I have to consciously “counsel my heart” according to His Word and choose to look at those difficulties from His perspective and to embrace them as a necessary part of the process of sanctification in my life and a means through which He can be glorified.
    
    
  • Lack of self-control in my use of time, physical disciplines (diet and exercise), my tongue, etc. I have been studying this whole topic and asking the Lord to develop this fruit of the Spirit in my life. Someday I hope to be able to teach on this subject on ROH—and have a life message to back it up!
    
    
    
    
• What are some of the things God uses to encourage you?
  
  
• I’m amazed at how the Lord will sometimes prompt someone to send a note of encouragement just when He knows I need it most. Sometimes it is from a dear friend, other times from someone I’ve never met. I think my “love language” must be “words of encouragement”! They mean a lot to me, whether verbal or written.
  
  
• Hearing about people who pray faithfully for me and for the ministry of ROH. My heart is infused with fresh faith and grace when someone says, “I’d like to pray for you”—and does it right then and there--whether in person or on the phone.

• Hearing testimonies of hearts that have been revived and lives that have been changed as a result of the ministry. Receiving letters and meeting people who share how their lives have been impacted and transformed.

• Relaxed meals (or phone conversations or walks) shared with close friends—sometimes women, sometimes married couples—who know me well, care for my soul, know how to ask the right questions, and don’t think of me as a “public person”!
  
  
• Sometimes what encourages me most is just getting out of myself and reaching out to someone God puts in my path who needs a listening ear, a caring heart, or a helping hand.
  
  
• Listening to the preaching/teaching of the Word—whether at church, in my Sunday school class, through CDs, or at conferences I am able to attend occasionally. I sit and listen with a hungry, needy heart and am never disappointed—Christ-centered preaching fills my cup and fans the flame of my devotion for Him.
  
  
• Reading biographies of godly men and women and classic devotional books is also greatly encouraging. George Mueller’s Autobiography has been an enormous encouragement to me over the past couple years. This year I’ve been reading through Charles Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening, as well as using the journal version of My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Andree Seu, columnist for WORLD magazine, is a woman whose writing has challenged and blessed me in recent years.
  
  
• I have learned to encourage myself in the Lord by meditating on specific promises from His Word and affirming that they are true, regardless of what I may feel at the moment. I carry a list of some of those promises in my Bible and often turn to them to strengthen and encourage my heart.

Wow . . . making this list has reminded me how many means of grace the Lord has provided for me! My heart has been encouraged as I’ve stopped to “count my blessings”!

• How do you want people to pray for you?
  

  • Pray in relation to the specific challenges, battles, and temptations mentioned above.
    
    
  • Pray that I will serve the Lord with gladness.
    
    
  • Pray that I will walk by faith, that I will choose to believe His truth, rather than being driven by my emotions or my circumstances.
    
    
  • Pray that every part of my life will be consistent with what I proclaim to others.
    
    
  • Pray for “fresh oil”—for divine anointing of the Spirit on my life and ministry. Pray that I will be filled with His Spirit, will manifest the fruit of the Spirit, and will walk and serve in the power of the Spirit.
    
    
  • Pray for spiritual protection in the battle, for endurance in the race. I want to run well for His glory—all the way to the finish line.

• What do you want to see God do through ROH in the next five to ten years?
  
  
  • I want to see a grassroots movement of Christian women who are committed to live out the implications of the Gospel—in their homes, churches, workplaces, and communities. Women filled with the Spirit—women of purity, humility, love, faith, and wisdom. Women who reflect the beauty of Christ and who are intentionally involved in training their children and other women.
    
    
  • I want to see many thousands of younger women embracing a biblical perspective on every aspect of life (e.g., beauty, marriage, child-bearing, vocation) and living counter-cultural lifestyles, rooted in the Scripture and the Gospel, rather than drifting with the current of the world.
    
    
  • I want to see women whose hearts have been revived, actively involved in ministries of mercy and compassion—both in local, hands-on efforts, and in ways that minister grace to needy and oppressed women around the world.
    
    
  • I want to see thousands of local church women’s ministries structured and equipped to nurture and train godly women using biblical models and principles.
    
    
  • I want to see an intentional, integrated effort on the part of biblically-grounded female authors and speakers to shape and influence the lives and thinking of Christian women.
    
    
  • I want to see a vast network of women praying faithfully and earnestly for a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit in revival in their homes and churches and throughout the world.