Grateful for Forty-Five Years of Ministry

Dannah Gresh: Sometimes Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth feels overwhelmed with the burdens she carries. She says it helps her to pray the words of a familiar children’s hymn.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I am weak, but You are strong. The Lord then gives a fresh infusion of grace. It’s grace! It’s daily, tailor-made grace.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, for November 8, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Don’t forget about the upcoming online event in our Biblical Help for Real Life series. This one is all about “Enduring Trials and Suffering.” And our guests Colleen Chao, Katherine Wolf, and more have had more than “their fair share” of trials and suffering. 

It’s happening online this Tuesday evening, November 12. Now, if you have other plans and can’t watch it live, you’ll still have access to it until May of next year . . . if you sign up! For more information or to register, check out ReviveOurHearts.com/help, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

You know, one of the things I so appreciate about Nancy is her vulnerability. She’s not trying to manage or maintain an image. She’s transparent about her struggles. That takes humility. 

Well, can I take you back to last May? The Revive Our Hearts staff gathered for what we called a Staff Summit. This was a time to bring all our remote staff, our international teams, and many spouses together for a good time of prayer and hearing from God’s Word. (We also ate some delicious food and visited plenty!)

Most organizations do something to show appreciation for tenure. During that staff gathering, there was time set aside for honoring individuals who’ve served at Revive Our Hearts, and Nancy was one of them. This year she celebrated forty-five years of ministry! 

The chairman of the Revive Our Hearts Board of Directors, Bob Lepine, asked Nancy to come to the platform.

Bob Lepine: It’s appropriate that we can honor you tonight. You mentioned earlier this is your spiritual birthday. This is your 105th “month-a-versary.” 

Dannah: For many years, Revive Our Hearts existed as an outreach of a revival ministry calledLife Action Ministries. More about “revival” in just a moment. But in the seventies, eighties, and nineties the Life Action Singers used to travel and sing in churches around the country. 

Even though the Singers went the way of records and tapes and CDs, Life Action Ministries still sends teams around the country, conducting gatherings focused on seeking the Lord and personal revival. So when you hear Bob and Nancy refer to Life Action, that’s the organization they’re referring to.

Bob: There have been significant milestones for you along the way. When you came to Life Action, what was your initial role, your job? Do you remember?

Nancy: Well, I’ve done a lot of different things, including picking team clothing—which was not one of the things I’m most proud of. (laughter) If you look at the old pictures you would think it was good they replaced me in that role! (laughter)

I did a writing project. I was in and out doing women’s seminars, doing women’s prayer times in the revival summits, publishing, directing publishing—the Revive magazine—and a lot of things related to that. I led children’s ministries for a while.

I led HR for a while. Thank the Lord that Monica came into our lives! So I have been able to serve in a lot of different roles, but mostly in writing and publishing and doing women’s ministry.

Dannah: Also up front with Bob and Nancy was the Executive Director of Revive Our Hearts, Martin Jones. 

Martin Jones: When you came here, how long did you think you’d be here? Because, you came on loan. 

Nancy: Well, like a weekend? A week, I think.

Martin: Yes. You didn’t anticipate that this would be forty-five years!

Nancy: I had no idea what God would have. But I did think that I had, like, landed in heaven, or something! I thought I had died and gone to heaven because I’d had a burden for revival since I was a young girl, and I did not know that a ministry existed for that purpose.

So I met Byron and Del, our founder ofLife Action. I had the joy of just seeing there was another ministry that existed for that purpose. So that ministry provided for me—and Revive Our Hearts has provided for me—an incredible place to serve, to grow, especially for those many years as a single woman, to find community and family. But also, it has been a place where there was a kindred spirit of what we were about—believing God for revival, for movements of revival. 

So, yeah, I had no idea how long it would be. It really didn’t matter to me. But it does seem like those forty-five years have gone very fast! It’s hard to believe.

Bob: And when you talk about a “burden for revival,” before Revive Our Hearts . . . It’s part of the fabric of what we’re all about at Revive Our Hearts. But because that word can be easily misconstrued or misunderstood, just explain what that burden is. What is it that God stirs in you that you long to see happen?

Nancy: I remember reading as a kid, like twelve/thirteen years old, some of the historical accounts of how God moved in great awakenings and revivals, and how the church was alive with the power of God. You can read these in Scripture, too, in the book of Acts and other places in Scripture. How the church was in love with Jesus, having the fear of the Lord, being fruitful, being bold witnesses for Christ. You see the kingdom being advanced. That was something that had been in my heart. I just knew that wasn’t what we were seeing in most of what I was seeing of Christianity.

I had grown up in Christian school, Christian church, with good people . . . but not life!, not the power of God being visible, things that couldn’t be explained by human or natural dimensions. I longed for that!

As I became involved in revival ministry, I came to see myself . . . I’ve called myself sometimes a “wedding coordinator,” helping the Bride get ready for the wedding. And knowing that Jesus is coming for a pure Bride, for an in-love Bride, I felt that was my task. I still do. I’m a wedding coordinator, just pointing people to the Bridegroom, and helping the Bride get ready for the wedding, so that when He comes, she’s ready.

Dannah: Earlier that evening, Nancy spoke to us about serving the Lord.

Nancy: There’s a special group of servants in the Scripture that I have always admired. I’ve been thinking about them recently as I’ve been teaching through the books of Leviticus and Numbers. 

They’re highlighted in the Old Testament, but I think they foreshadow something of what it means to be a servant of Christ, in the New Testament sense. So tonight, I want to take some moments to look at these Old Testament servants, and as we do that, to ask the Lord to remind us of His calling in each of our lives. I think you’ll be encouraged with their example, as I have been. 

Dannah: She was talking about the Levites, members of the Israelite tribe of Levi. God had set them aside to serve as the priests, the worship leaders, the tabernacle administrators, if you will, for the ancient Hebrew people. 

And lest you and I think, Oh, this doesn’t really apply to me. I’m not called into full-time Christian ministry, Nancy had this to say, as she quoted pastor and author Paul David Tripp.

Nancy: He said, “God calls all of His children into His service. That call is one of His means of rescuing you from your bondage to self to experience the huge and ongoing blessing of living for something greater than you!” That’s the calling of every child of God. All believers, we’re told in the New Testament, are priests unto God, servants of the Lord.

Dannah: Nancy went on to give us an overview of the responsibilities and privileges that fell to the Levites. She showed how they applied to all of us. Here’s just a portion of that message.

Nancy: The priests and the Levites were camped immediately around the four sides of the tabernacle. You’ll see this in chapter 3 of Numbers. I won’t read it, but here’s the tabernacle. It’s an oblong building, a rectangular building. Around all four sides they are camped in their tents (because they were going to spend forty years in these tents).

Each time the tabernacle would move they would reset in the same order: the priests and Levites would be camped immediately around the tabernacle. And then all the other tribes, all the other people—men, women and children—would be camped around the Levites and the priests.

And you think about what an incredible privilege it was! Some people lived way far away from the tabernacle. But for those Levites to live right next to the presence of God! What an incredible privilege it is for us, as servants of the Lord, kind of New Testament Levites.

I said to Robert, “Do you think it’s okay to talk about the Levites for a women’s ministry?” 

He said, “We could talk about “lady Levites.” (Sounds like a softball team or something.) 

But as New Testament Levites—in a manner of speaking—for us to have a front-row seat to God at work among His people,we don’t ever want that to get old! We don’t ever want to lose the wonder of what that means, to have proximity to the glory of God! 

There was another privilege that they had, and that was provision from the hand of God. You see, each tribe received a portion of the land as an inheritance. This is how they were sustained.

Land was everything in that economy, and would be as they went into the Promised Land. That’s how they made their living; that’s how they were fed; that’s how they were supplied. And every person and every family and every tribe would have a portion of land, an inheritance that they would receive . . . everyone except for the Levites!

Numbers chapter 18, I’ll just read it to you here, verse 20: 

The Lord told Aaron, "You will not have an inheritance in their land; there will be no portion among them for you."

He’s speaking of the Levites. Aaron was of the tribe of Levi. Of the portion that all the rest of the people get, there will be no portion for the Levites. But look at this: 

“I am your portion and your inheritance.” 

The Levites were sustained by God Himself! Now, they were all sustained by God, because He’s the One who caused their lands to be productive—or would when they got to the Promised Land—He caused their land to bear fruit.

But in a direct way, God provided for the Levites. They were sustained by Him; they trusted in Him for their provision and their sustenance. How did that happen? In a practical way. You remember that they were supported by the tithes and offerings of the people.

There were multiple tithes that the people gave at different times of the year for different reasons, but most of those tithes and offerings went to support the work of the Levites. Now, lest we think that the Levites were only on the receiving end of those tithes and offerings, the book of Numbers also tells us that the Levites were to tithe out of the tithe that they received. They were to be givers also! 

I love seeing how our staff not only receives a paycheck, receives ministry support—many serving as volunteers—but also are givers! And that’s as it should be. So, God provided for their practical needs to be met, how to live, how to subsist. But God also provided everything they needed, all the resources they needed to do the work that He assigned to them.

So for example in chapter 7, one of the family lines of the Levites were responsible for transporting the tabernacle when they would tear it down. They’d move into the wilderness, and they needed wagons, and they needed oxen. Chapter 7 tells about how those supplies and resources to do their work were provided by God through His people. 

When I read that, it makes me so thankful for all those who give to make this ministry possible! They make it possible for us to be Levites, in a sense, to serve the Lord, to be provided for, the resources to do in this ministry, to be in a place like this, to bring in a speaker and a music leader. God provides through His people all that is needed for us to do the work of the ministry. 

And sometimes when we feel like the resources personally or for the ministry are getting a little thin, we can be reminded that God can be trusted to provide all that is needed. So there are privileges: proximity to the glory of God, right next to the tabernacle, and then provision from the hand of God. 

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth helped us see that there’s a lot to learn about serving the Lord from the Levites in the Old Testament. It’s something she’s put into practice in her forty-five years of full-time Christian ministry. Here’s Bob Lepine again, speaking at a gathering of Revive Our Hearts staff as we honored Nancy’s tenure.

Bob: As I listened to you talk about the Levitical call tonight, and the burden that comes with that, and the blessing that comes with that, how have you counseled your own heart in the midst of the burden? . . . because the burden has been heavy in seasons.

It feels to me like it gets a little heavier and a little heavier, your shoulders get a little broader, then it’s a little heavier. I know there have been times when you have thought, I don’t know that I can bear this burden. What do you do when you feel like, I don’t think I can go on.

Nancy: Well, there are lots of things that the Lord has used as means of grace, but two of them come to mind immediately. One is the people of God. I lived in Little Rock for the first eight years that we recorded Revive Our Hearts.

Bob and Mary Ann live in Little Rock and had helped in the birthing of the ministry, but also were just such pastoral friends and a shepherd. So to have not only them but people here at the home base and others. I have a sisterhood of praying friends and other praying friends who just “lift up your hands” and “strengthen your knees” when they’re weak and remind you of what I reminded all of us of tonight—that this is a privilege, that these burdens are momentary and light (see 2 Cor. 4:17). Bob has quoted that passage to me many times through my tears.

You need people who, when you can’t hold your own hands up, will hold them up for you and with you (see Ex. 17:12). I have been so blessed to have people like that! But when it comes down to it, it’s the presence of God and the Word of God, if you don’t have anybody else.

Remember in Samuel how the Bible says that Jonathan encouraged David in the Lord—that’s the other people. But then when Jonathan wasn’t there and David got into that hard place again, Scripture says, “David encouraged himself in the Lord,” (1 Sam. 30:6) because he had learned from somebody else how to encourage himself in the Lord.

Bob, I don’t call you and Mary Ann crying as often as I used to. 

Bob: No, you don’t, that’s true. 

Nancy: I call Robert now. (laughter)

Bob: I think that’s true! I’ve wondered this at times when I’ve quoted 2 Corinthians 4 to you. 

Nancy: Did I ever wish you wouldn’t have said it?

Bob: Well, you know, you wonder when somebody is under the weight of the burden and you say, “You know, these are light and momentary afflictions,” are they like, “I’m never calling you again!”?

Nancy: I’ve had those thoughts occasionally. So we have to say it, it’s a “word in due season” (Prov. 15:23). You have to know that you’re loved, and there’s lifting. “I’m going to get under that burden with you,” that’s what intercession is, that’s the ministry of it.

So, we can’t be flippant with just throwing out the Scriptures, “Oh, this is a momentary and light affliction.” We need the whole counsel of God’s Word, and to know that our heavenly Father is a comforter. Those words of Spurgeon encourage my heart, that “He always carries the heaviest end of the cross.”

Dannah: Over the years Nancy has had plenty of times that she felt like the burden she was carrying was too heavy—times she had to rely on God’s strength, moment by moment. She gave an example of a recent one. 

It has to do with a mammoth recording project she’s in the middle of right now. She’s working on teaching through the Bible in a year’s worth of Revive Our Hearts programs that we plan to broadcast, Lord willing, in the year 2027. That’s 260 weekday episodes. It’s a massive amount of work. Internally, we’ve been referring to it as “Bible 260.”

Nancy: Yes, there still are days—Robert can tell you—when I think, I can’t do this! After the first recording day on the Bible 260 project, I quit! I didn’t write anything down or turn anything in, so nobody knew, but Robert knew.

I just said, “I cannot do this! It’s too much!” But you go before the Lord, and you try to recalibrate, and you say, “Okay, Lord, did we hear You right?” You get counsel from people that you trust and you seek the Lord together. I don’t make those decisions on my own. But you seek the Lord together and if, together, you sense, “God is in this . . .”

Then you say, “Lord, I need faith for this. I need courage. I need strength.” In our weakness He is strong. I have said it hundreds of times—as I said to the international team members yesterday. Hundreds of times running through my mind has been that little phrase from “Jesus Loves Me” . . . We are weak but He is strong. I am weak, but You are strong! 

So the Lord then gives a fresh infusion of grace. It’s grace! It’s daily, tailor-made grace. I’m not going to lie and say that this is not like a joy ride. There is joy that is set before us, and we serve the Lord with gladness. But a cross is a cross! 

Dannah: I hope you’re encouraged as you face seemingly impossible tasks in your own life. Remind yourself: 

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so,
Little ones to Him belong, [little ones like me!]
They are weak, but He is strong.

Another way you can be encouraged is by seeing the results, the fruit of God at work in and through you. That happened for Nancy in a conversation she had with the woman who records Nancy’s parts in the Spanish language version of Revive Our Hearts, Aviva Nuestros Corazones. 

Nancy: Patricia Saladin came to me yesterday. She remembers a letter that is framed in our living room, a letter I wrote to my parents when I was seven, telling them that God had called me to be a missionary, a missionary for Him. It was very over the top, but that’s what He put in my heart!

Patricia came to me yesterday and she said, “God put that desire in you. Look around here at what He is doing in the world. He has answered and fulfilledthat calling He put in you to be a missionary for Him! And here they are, being the missionaries!”

My heart has been so encouraged, so filled, so grateful, and I’m going, “Okay, Lord!” 

When I was young I used to ask the Lord to let me serve Him with everything I could until I was eighty-five years old. 

Bob: So I’m doing the math, and we’ll be doing this again in twenty years.

Nancy: Now that I’m sixty-five, eighty-five seems really old! (And if you’re eighty-five, I’m sorry, I don’t mean it in a negative way). But however many days God gives us life and strength, this is a lifetime calling.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be in this role or doing this same kind of work. By the way, the Levites (I didn’t put this in here, because I didn’t want to get any resignations turned in) were actually only allowed to work as Levites until they were fifty. It started at twenty-five, then went to fifty, then mandatory retirement. 

We always say retirement’s not in the Bible. For the Levites, actually their retirement was. But they didn’t stop serving. What they did was, they kept coming to the tabernacle and helping their brethren. There was a different role for them.

At some point there will be a different role than what I was doing twenty years ago . . . there now already is. And at some point it will be a different role than this. Other people will be doing much or all of what I’m doing. And in God’s time and way that will be sweet, and there will be grace for whatever He has for me in that season, too.

Bob: Two decades ago we looked around and said, “Who is shaping the hearts and the souls of women in America?” And we said, “It’s Oprah.” I mean, she was “discipling” millions of women. And we started thinking, talking about “project Oprah.”

Would that God would give us the opportunity for Revive Our Hearts to have a deeper, longer-lasting impact than Oprah. I’m thinking of future generations of young women who are . . . I don’t think the Oprah moms are discipling their kids in the ways of Oprah, but I think that there are Revive Our Hearts moms who are teaching their kids to follow the Lord. It’s not Revive Our Hearts, it’s the Bible, it’s following Jesus. There will be generations that will continue because of your faithfulness in all of this.

It’s good to honor you at forty-five years in this. We want to thank you, and we want to pray for you. Let’s thank first, and then we’ll pray. (applause)

Dannah: Wow! Forty-five years of ministry is definitely something to give thanks for! And as we heard Nancy say to Bob Lepine and the Revive Our Hearts staff, all the glory goes to God! 

We’ll close with that prayer in just a moment. I want to remind you quickly that our donation-of-any-amount resource this month is the new 2025 Revive Our Hearts wall calendar. The theme this year is, appropriately,“Choosing Gratitude.”

Every year our ministry calendar is by far our most popular resource. Make sure you ask for yours when you make a donation, and maybe buy a bunch more to hand out to your friends and family members that are just really hard to find gifts for.

You can make your donation when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate, or call us at 800-569-5959, and request your calendar. It’s just our way of saying, “Thank you for giving!”

Also, today Nancy mentioned the international teams of Revive Our Hearts. Content from Nancy and Revive Our Hearts is being translated into at least nine different languages as we speak. That is so cool! I’d like to invite you to check out ReviveOurHearts.com/International for a great summary of what’s going on internationally here at Revive Our Hearts.

So, it’s ReviveOurHearts.com/Donate to give, and ReviveOurHearts.com/International to see some of the ways God is at work around the world through this ministry. And at the very bottom of the page, if you click on “Contact Us,” you can leave a message of congratulations to Nancy for forty-five years of ministry. Let her know a specific way that the Lord has used her in your life.

Have a wonderful weekend! Hope you can worship in church this weekend and go to church if you’re able. Don’t just watch it online. It’s not quite the same! 

On Monday, we’re going to hear the powerful story of a family who chose gratitude even in the midst of some horrific and heartbreaking circumstances. David and Ciara Dierking will be with us to share their story. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Now, let’s pray with Bob Lepine.

Bob: Father, we thank You for how You have worked in and through the life of Your servant, Nancy. Thank You for the call that came at an early age. Thank You for a life of faithfulness. Thank You for her parents and for how they pressed her toward You. Thank you for her dad and the significant influence he had in her life.

And Lord, thank You that she has continued to keep her eyes fixed on You and that for the joy set before her, she endured suffering, and continues to do that, so that she can see a fruitful harvest for her labor. And Lord, we pray for that. We pray that there would be a deep, long-lasting revival in our nation. We need it desperately!

And so we ask, Lord, that not just here, but around the world, Your Spirit would be poured out on all flesh and that we would see Christians who would come back to their first love; that we would see people who believe they’re Christians wake up from the reality of their sinful stupor and see that they really need Jesus. We pray for the lost who have rejected You and hate You. Open their eyes! Bring them to new life, we pray.

And, Lord, thank You for how You have used Revive Our Hearts, how you are using Revive Our Hearts, and for the months ahead as Nancy continues with this Bible project. Lord, give her the strength she needs, the grace she needs. Continue to pour out blessing. I just pray that she would know the joy of the work that she is doing, even in the midst of the work, even on the hard days, she would know the joy deep down in her soul, of what she’s doing. We thank You for her forty-five years of faithful service. Bless her, we pray! Amen.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.