A Heart for Those Nearby

Dannah Gresh: Jennifer Slenk grew up in the church and heard a lot of truth in her childhood, but she says:

Jennifer Slenk: I don’t know that I had had somebody to paint the picture, so to speak, of the beauty of being a daughter of the King! When you realize it has just become the DNA of who you are, and you’ve experienced God in such a sweet way, you can’t keep it to yourself, and you want others to experience that.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for February 8, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So Dannah, do you ever respond to those customer satisfaction surveys they send to you after you’ve bought something online? 

Dannah: Of course I do!

Nancy: Well, then you know there’s a question they often ask in those questionnaires: “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend this business, or this product,to your family and friends?” 

You see, they know that if you’re really happy with them as an organization or if you’re really satisfied with the item you just purchased, you’re going to tell others about it, and that’s good for their business!

Dannah: It sure is!

Nancy: Well, think about this. Christianity is about a relationship with the most satisfying Person in the universe, Jesus Christ! So it makes sense that followers of Jesus will talk about Him to others.

Dannah: Yes, because we naturally talk about what we love.

Nancy: And that’s how good news spreads! This week we’re going to hear from women who have experienced the transforming power of Jesus firsthand, and now they’re on a mission to recommend Him to others!

Dannah: Today we’re going to hear a conversation Nancy had with a special group of friends of Revive Our Hearts. They each have a heart for women in their cities and in their states. Tomorrow through Thursday she’s going to talk to a missionary woman who has a heart for the nations.

And then on Friday we’ll hear about some amazing things God is doing in the country of Thailand in Southeast Asia. But first up, the Revive Our Hearts Ambassadors.

[The Ambassador ladies begin introducing themselves in turn:] Connie, from Canada; Linda, from Wisconsin; Sonya, from Minnesota; Elena, from Oklahoma . . .

Dannah: Angela Temples is on staff here at Revive Our Hearts. 

[Ambassador women continue:] Kim, from Indiana; Jennifer, from Michigan; Margaret, from Ohio.

Dannah: Angela heads up this group of Revive Our Hearts volunteers.

Angela Temples: Our Ambassadors are women who have been impacted by Revive Our Hearts and have a desire to come alongside women’s ministry leaders, pastors’ wives, Bible study teachers, women’s ministry directors, small group leaders, to connect, encourage, and equip them to build up the Body of Christ.

[Ambassador ladies continue to introduce themselves:] Jeannie, from New York; Debbie, from Indiana; Meta, from . . .

Dannah: At a recent Revive Our Hearts recording session, Nancy explained the Ambassador program is one way God is helping fulfill a dream.

Nancy: This is part of our original vision for the ministry, that there would be women, in an appropriate season of life, in their area, their church, their community, who would be representatives of this mission and message: calling women to freedom and fullness and fruitfulness in Christ!

Dannah: You remember that customer satisfaction survey question? According to Angela, each volunteer would say she’s very likely to share her excitement with others!

Angela: These Ambassadors who are serving with Revive Our Hearts have seen what God has done in their own lives, especially in the roles of revival and biblical womanhood, of reviving their hearts, so they can serve in the places God has them: at home, serving their husbands, serving their kids, serving their communities. In turn, they then want to see the same thing happen with those that are in their area. They want to see them experience a revived heart.

[Ambassador ladies continue their introductions:] Denise, from Puerto Rico; Mary, from Guatemala; Myrna, from Mexico.

Angela: Without pretense, without fanfare I guess is a good way to say it. They just want to see these women being successful in the places God has placed them.

[Ambassador ladies continue introducing themselves:] Linda, from Indiana; Barbara, from Texas; Liz, from Texas; Donna, from California; Diane, from Oregon; Ann, from . . .

Angela: They just come alongside from their area of the United States or world and say, “Who are the leaders in my area that I can serve and just encourage them to continue on in ministry?”

Dannah: Angela says that she can look back at her own story and see how God was preparing her to lead this group of women.

Angela: I grew up in a home where the Bible was taught, walked the aisle when I was five, and was baptized. But I did it because my friend was doing it. Not until after college at a Bible study, when somebody was sharing about them making the decision to really follow Christ. 

I talked with a friend for several hours and couldn’t justify [my experience] with Scripture. I knew Scripture. It was in my heart. I had served on leadership councils. But at that time I surrendered fully into, “This is mine. My relationship with Christ is real now!”

Dannah: Now, don’t let that fly past too quickly. According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, in that moment God made Angela into a “new creation! The old passed away and the new came.” Or to borrow from Colossians 1:13–14, “He delivered Angela from the domain of darkness and transferred her to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom she has redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Hallelujah!

Angela: Fast-forward to 1995 or ’96, I went through a study called Experiencing God, and God really captured my heart! I think knowing what it was to have a real and personal relationship with Christ . . . to know that He speaks and that He cares. Even though He’s a great big God, He is intimately acquainted with me!

And through that, I just had a desire for others—for other women—to know what it was to really know God, whatever stage of life—those that had lived in the church, but had missed what it was to have a real personal relationship with Him.

Dannah: The groundwork was laid. God then used the Old Testament story of Abraham to challenge Angela’s thinking. Just as Abraham had to be willing to leave home and family, she felt God calling her away. She took a six-week trip teaching English in Asia. Then, back home in Dallas, she says God was at work.

Angela: Through a building program at church the question was presented, “What are you going to give?” And on the commitment card I put, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to give, but I’m giving my life!”

Dannah: Angela quit her job, sold her house, and she left her friends and family. God was calling her to be a missionary in the faraway land of . . . Michigan! . . . at a ministry called Revive Our Hearts!

Angela: In 2010, as I was travelling on the road promoting the True Woman conference, I was studying the book of Nehemiah, and through that book I saw how desperate Nehemiah was to see his homeland changed. He hadn’t been there, he had just heard about it from his family. 

In those times when he began to build the wall in that area, God gave Nehemiah the wisdom for people to work on the wall in front of their house. Like twenty-five times in there Scripture says, “So-and-so worked on the wall in front of their house” or “They worked on the wall beside their house” or “They worked next to somebody.”

So not only were they working on and securing a wall in front of their house, they took great pleasure in doing that, because they wanted to protect their family. It was important to them. They knew the area; they knew that part of the wall.

Through the study of Nehemiah, God gave me the idea of having women come alongside other women in their area to connect, encourage, and equip to help them continue on in the way that God has called them, in the role that God has called them. And that is why we developed the Ambassador program.

Dannah: It’s so encouraging to see what God does when one person makes herself available to be used however He chooses! You know, not only has Angela been changed, but God is multiplying her efforts as He works in and through the Revive Our Hearts Ambassadors.

In fact, not too long before the coronavirus pandemic, we held an Ambassador training session here at Revive Our Hearts. The ladies attended a recording session when Nancy was teaching, and Nancy took some time talking with some of those Ambassadors. Let’s listen.

Nancy: I’m going to just start . . . can I start with you right here? 

Kisty Huffman: I am Kisty Huffman, and I am from Princeton, West Virginia.

Nancy: I have to ask, how did you first encounter Revive Our Hearts? Do you remember what connected you first? 

Kisty: Yes, to be honest, I used to listen to Elisabeth Elliot. And you know what’s coming next . . . (laughter)

Nancy: I do, because I’ve heard this a few times! But go ahead, say it; it’s good for me.

Kisty: I was in a season of my life where I had four children and they were little, and I was going crazy. So it was kind of like when Elisabeth was signing off I was like, “Wha-a-at?!” 

Nancy: You and a million other women!

Kisty: Yes, so it was kind of like . . . Now I know this is not true, I’ve come to realize that. It’s just that because you weren’t married and because you didn’t have children doesn’t change the fact that you understand what the Bible says about both of those. 

That was something I learned later. But about seven years ago, I kind of reconnected. I don’t know, I think I had quit listening to that particular radio station.

Nancy: And let me just clarify for those who aren’t aware. Elisabeth Elliot had a radio ministry called Gateway To Joy that she didn’t start until she was sixty-three years of age. She did it for thirteen years, and it was a tremendous ministry. She was writing and speaking and doing this radio broadcast (fifteen minutes).

And then when it was time for her to finally retire from that ministry, she continued ministering. Through a series of events—some of you have heard this story of how Revive Our Hearts became the successor program to Gateway To Joy.

Her last program was on a Friday at the end of August, and our first program was on Monday, Labor Day, September 3, just after that weekend. I had to really walk through the feeling that hers were extremely “large shoes” to fill and knowing there was no way I could fill those!

For one, I didn’t have a husband—much less three, much less having lost two of them. There was no martyrdom in my family. She was just an unusual woman—now in Heaven—but I had to realize that God has given me a message. 

And He’s given all of us His Word, so that’s we’re going to focus on. That’s kind of the transition that Kisty’s referring to. So now, seven years ago . . .

Kisty: It was primarily through the website that I connected. I realized as I listened to more programs (gave you a second chance) that everything I was hearing, I was like, “Yes! Yes! That’s what we need to hear! That’s what I’ve studied for years in my Bible, and that’s what young women and women of every age need to hear reiterated!” 

So I became kind of an authorized promoter of Revive Our Hearts. I kept going back to those resources and saying, “Hey, do you listen to Revive Our Hearts?”

When I realized that there were conferences, a friend and I were very quick to sign up and start attending those.

Nancy: As you think about the messages you’ve heard at True Woman and Revive and through the broadcast . . . do you listen to it or do you read it or get the podcasts? How do you get the program? 

Kisty: I hate to say this, but a lot of times my husband would travel. He’s a pilot, so he travels for a living. Those nights when I was having trouble going to sleep—not that you were putting me to sleep!—I would just listen, keep listening to the archives. Everything that was pertinent to me. 

Nancy: In that season . . .

Kisty: What I needed to know to be able to share with other people, I would hit that category and listen to that until I fell asleep. Which was a great way to fall asleep, actually, with the Word on my mind.

Nancy: Another benefit of Revive Our Hearts. It will put you to sleep! (laughter) So it sounds like you’re connected to women, and you’re investing in their lives. As you think about that, what are some of the themes or topics that you have found particularly helpful to share with them?

Kisty: It’s just amazing to me that the shift in the topics lately, within the past few years, that we’ve been confronted with as Bible teachers and women’s leaders, are the questions that people come to you with. 

You don’t always have that ready access to answer those questions, and you want to be very careful. So whether it’s about marriage or same-sex attraction or how to raise your children in a godly manner, there have just been invaluable resources.

Nancy: This is one of the reasons, by the way, there are not a lot of programs that have both teaching and the interview format. Usually they’re one or the other. Conventional wisdom is that it should be one or the other. 

But we have been really intentional about, “We’re going to be a Bible teaching ministry.” That’s what I believe God has called me to do. But we’re going to interject interviews with women who have different life experience than I do to talk about how this Scripture applies in the context of marriage or parenting or other issues that may arise. So we’ll get the Holly Elliffs and Kim Wagners and others on the program who have experienced things I haven’t and can talk about that. I feel like it’s made the program more helpful to more women.

The Word of God is helpful to all of us, but then how do you apply that to different seasons of life? I interviewed a couple of young moms recently and it was so sweet to hear from them, their perspective on how to apply the Word in that season of life.

I interviewed recently a couple of women who are Lyme-disease infected women and have been dealing with this in a hard, hard place. It’s not like they’ve been healed, so talking about dealing with chronic pain and sickness. 

I’ve not experienced that. I can talk about it from God’s Word, but then to have them show how they live that out in that context I think has been really helpful. So that’s why you can go back to the archives and find teaching and life messages and programs on a lot of those different topics.

What’s on your heart, Kisty, as you think about going back to West Virginia and being an Ambassador? What would you like to see God do through you? 

Kisty: I think just the past few years, the biggest burden on my heart has been for the younger generation of women. They are hearing a very contrary message to what the Bible teaches. And it’s the subtle way that’s being done that women are being pulled into this.

I would just love to see the younger generation really have the support that they need to make the right choices, to hold their marriages together, to depend on the Lord in the midst of situations where the world would have them just give up!

Nancy: You have a burden for mentoring younger women, discipling younger women.

Kisty: I do!

Nancy: Have you been the recipient of that? 

Kisty: Oh yes, absolutely! A lot of that has really been through resources, informally, but I’ve also had quite a few women throughout my life that just took me under their wing—whether they were Bible teachers or just ladies in the church. I have been blessed to have benefitted from that and have tried to pass that on to other people.

Nancy: Sweet. Great! Jackey, hi! 

Jackey Geeslin: Hello. 

The journey with Revive Our Hearts has really been a process for me. Years ago, God called me to mentoring and discipleship. I have just had a burden for mentoring and discipling women. For years I’ve been doing that, all different ages.

I’ve got a couple of groups going. He just really burdened me, gave me a passion that I needed to invest my life in this generation, as well as passing it on to the next generation. I’ve been using a chronological Bible process, where we just went story by story through the entire Bible.

I had not been connected to Revive Our Hearts until probably about two years ago. We had Life Action Ministries at our church three times, and I was exposed to Revive Our Hearts through them. I had always known of Revive Our Hearts, but I had just not been real connected. 

And, then again, through Life Action, through coming to the pastors and wives retreat last year and talking with Gayle Villalba—who I just love!—and her telling me about Revive Our Hearts. She heard me talking about discipleship and said, “You know, this would really minister to you.” So through that and then going to a conference . . . I went to my first conference last year.

Nancy: A True Woman conference, Cry Out?

Jackey: Yes, I loved it! 

Nancy: What did you love about it?

Jackey: I loved just meeting women and seeing women from all over the world having that much of a hunger and thirst. We take it so for granted in the Bible Belt. Women were coming from all over the world to hear and to be part of this gospel, and to hear the gospel. I think we had about twelve ladies from our church come. 

Nancy: Neat!

Jackey: We also did the simulcast at our church. And then, I’ve read a couple of your books. I love A Place of Quiet Rest, and this year I’m teaching Seeking Him. So it’s just been a process of how God is drawing me to Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy: I heard that the message of Adorned is really on your heart.

Jackey: Yes, that’s really what was kind of a turning point. When I first heard about the Ambassador program last year . . .

Nancy: How did you hear about it?

Jackey: Through Gayle. I thought, Wow, that sounds great, but I have enough on my plate! Like I said, I teach multiple discipleship classes. I’m fixing to start another one for newlywed girls. I also adopted two children—at the age of fifty. 

When I adopted them, they were really young—a baby and two years old. Now they’re six and seven. I have four grown children and two grandchildren. My husband’s a pastor. So I began praying, “Lord, if being an Ambassador is something You would call me to do . . . There are so many good things out there; I don’t want to just do good things. You’re going to have to make this very clear! It’s got to be a God thing and not a Jackey thing.” 

Listening to the series, “God’s Beautiful Design for Women” on Titus 2 . . . So I’m out walking one morning, and as I just continued to listen to those messages, it just resonated so in my heart, that I knew! 

I ran back home and immediately joined the Ministry Partner Team, because I wanted to financially support the ministry. I also contacted Angela and asked, “What is the next step to becoming an Ambassador? I truly believe God’s calling me to do this!”

Nancy: You’ve been in the first time of getting together with some other Ambassadors this week and some training. What has stood out to you about that?

Jackey: The sisterhood. I already have new friends. Even before I got here they were contacting me and checking on me. My husband and I were out eating dinner, and I said, “Wait, my new friends are calling!” (laughter)

Nancy: And we’re blessed today to have Jennifer Slenk and Kim Zolman, who have already been a part of the Ambassador program, and are here this week helping with training this week. Just tell us a little bit, maybe Kim first, about your journey, how you became a part of this and why.

And then I want to hear from any of you what you see God doing through these women.

Kim Zolman: The Lord started working in my heart back in 2008, after the True Woman conference. I just really had to go home after that conference and apologize to my husband and kids for not living out the role that the Lord intended me to live as a mom and a wife.

Through all of that, I was so excited about the message and the freedom that it gave after going home—knowing that I needed to work out that role in a more biblical way. I wanted to share that with others. I was like, “Everyone needs to hear this!” I was just so excited when I left that conference!

Then 2010 came around, and I invited ladies to go. Then 2012 came around, and I was like, “Okay, now I need to help at this conference! I don’t want to just go and soak, I want to go and help!” And then, through all of that, I got to know Angela. I just really surrendered to Him.

I just sensed the Lord calling my husband, Tad, and me into ministry. Angela started sharing with me her vision for the Ambassador program, and I was like, “I’m on board!” I really sense the Lord has been preparing me and working in my heart and my life, “for such a time as this.” It’s just amazing!

I sent an email to a leader, and she had never responded. But I kind of kept encouraging her through emails. She finally responded a year later. She said, 

Dear Kim, 

Thank you. I really appreciate your prayer ministry!

Here’s what’s on my heart. I am a seasoned pastor’s wife of a small church, struggling with discouragement in ministry. I long for God to be glorified in our church and in my life, but I do not see much fruitfulness despite our efforts and dependence on God for direction. We need revival! Looking forward to the conference.

I had sent her an email and said, “I just wanted to let you know I thank you for signing up to go to the conference, and we’re praying for you.” And here’s what she had sent back.

God is answering so many prayers! People are digging into the Word.

She used True Woman 101, and she said, “I’m going to take a step of faith and order twenty books.” It wasn’t enough! She needed thirty books! 

So she was thanking the Lord for the answer to prayer for revival, after crying out to Him, and just the amazing work that He is doing in that church now!

Nancy: Wow! Very sweet. Building up the Body of Christ, the people of God. And when God works in the hearts of these women, then there are men that get impacted, and children, and whole churches and communities and schools and workplaces. Women have a lot of influence!—for evil or for good.

In fact, when Revive Our Hearts started, there was one of our Advisory Council members at Life Action at the time; he’s now with the Lord. But as we were praying about whether God wanted us to do this, he said (some of you know the name T. W. Hunt, longtime Southern Baptist leader), 

My wife and I have been burdened for years about the increased widespread corruption among prominent women and we believe that God wants to raise up some women who will be a whole different kind of movement to counter that. I believe that may be what God wants to do through [what became] Revive Our Hearts.

When I hear this happening, I say, “This is the fulfillment to the prayers of those who have gone before us,” and to see that happening is so encouraging. I hadn’t heard that story; thanks for sharing that, Kim.

Jennifer Slenk, you live in Holland . . . Michigan, that is. You and your husband, Ben, are on staff here at Life Action Ministries. What got you connected with the Revive Our Hearts part of it?

Jennifer: Well, it’s interesting, because Holland is only about seventy-five miles from here. But honestly, I had never heard of Life Action and never heard of Revive Our Hearts until 2006. A Life Action team came to our church, and God used every division of Life Action in the subsequent year to totally transform my family!

It started with a Life Action Summit, moved to Revive Our Hearts and a conference. Then you came to Holland that fall in 2006, and then the Family Camp. God just continued to peel back the layers of me, individually, my husband. It literally transformed our life, to a point of coming to work for the ministry as well. So we’ve had the privilege of doing that.

As you share about that counter-cultural message, that’s what totally attracted me to it. I grew up in the church. I had heard a lot of the truths, but I don’t know that I had had somebody to paint the picture, so to speak, of the beauty of being a daughter of the King the way that Revive Our Hearts does! 

After that first exposure, I felt a little like a Revive Our Hearts “groupie.” I had podcasts going all the time, reading every book that I could. It was like a spiritual IV drip. My heart so needed that to be recalibrated and to change my thinking, to change everything about me!

As we fast-forward several years after that, that heartbeat just continued to stir in my heart. When you realize it has just become the DNA of who you are, and you’ve experienced God in such a sweet way, you can’t keep it to yourself. You want others to experience that. 

I live in a community that has such a rich spiritual heritage, which is wonderful. At the same time, we’re at great risk for spiritual complacency, and that’s a burden of my heart. We have so many churches and pastors’ wives and women’s ministry leaders. It’s like little silos: everyone is doing their thing and not linking arms.

Just to have the privilege as an Ambassador, now, to gather those women together. It’s like their eyes are being opened. Typically every three or four months, we invite a large group of women from the general Holland/Grand Rapids area to come together for an informal time to pray together, to share ideas, just to connect and encourage each other. These women are just delighted! You bring them together and you just sit back and you watch God knit their hearts together. They realize, “We are not in this alone!” 

Because there are so many pastors’ wives, women’s ministry leaders, women of influence who are weary and feel like they’re swimming upstream alone, this gives them the opportunity to look around and say, “We’re in this together!”

Nancy: Yes, wow! Again, from the earliest days of Revive Our Hearts, our burden was that it would not be (then it was Nancy Leigh DeMoss, now I’m) Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth Ministries. But that it would be a movement of revival and reformation in the hearts of women around this country and around the world who would experience, first in the vertical, in their relationship with the Lord, a right relationship with Him. That they would deal with issues of surrender and brokenness and humility and holiness and intimacy with Christ.

Then that the overflow of that would impact on the horizontal level their relationship with others, their family, in the workplace, in the church. That women would experience freedom in Christ by dealing with forgiveness issues and things we heard talked about here this afternoon—freedom from sinful bondages, from self, from deception that is so rampant in our world today.

And not only freedom, but also fullness—the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing probably more counterproductive to the cause of Christ than women who know the right thing but have a lousy attitude or who are proud about it or self-righteous. That’s not helpful!

We wanted women who are filled with the Holy Spirit and experience the fullness of life in Christ! That doesn’t mean they don’t have problems; it doesn’t mean they don’t have challenges; it doesn’t mean they don’t fail. But they’re experiencing freedom and fullness.

And then we said, “This is not just for our freedom and fullness; we want these women to be fruitful—to be impacting and investing in the lives of others around them. So, the idea of the Ambassador team was born. 

We have other women who are volunteering in other ways, but this is just a way for women to connect with local pastors’ wives, women’s ministry leaders, other people who are doing women’s ministry in their community. They are part of the vineyard. We say, “How can we come alongside of you? How can we encourage you? How can we bless you? How can we serve you? How can we resource you? How can we pray for you?”

It reminds me of Johnny Appleseed planting these seeds across the country that ultimately grow up into a great orchard—a harvest of righteousness. I believe that as these Ambassadors and others who will come along behind them . . .

We don’t want to grow faster than we can effectively shepherd and encourage and resource these women. But also, if God wants us to be hundreds of women, thousands of women maybe someday, doing this in communities all around the United States, in His time and as He provides the means to do that and shows us how to do that; we just want to see the freedom and fullness and fruitfulness in Christ multiplied in the lives of women in this country and around the world!

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth in conversation with a few of the Revive Our Hearts Ambassadors. Now, there are three possible applications for you today. Let me take them in order, from general to specific. 

First—and I think this applies to all of us—if God has rescued you from sin and self, how will you respond to that? He has left you on this earth for a reason! He has a job for you to do. Your circumstances won’t look exactly like Angela Temples’ or Jennifer Slenk’s, or any of the other Ambassadors. But take some time today. Ask God to show you what’s next in your walk with Him and how does He want you to serve Him? 

Now, second, if you’re a woman involved in some sort of leadership role—maybe you’re a pastor’s wife or you help the women’s ministry in your church—can I encourage you to connect with the Revive Our Hearts Ambassador near you?

Now, if you’re thinking, “How can I do that?” I’m so glad you asked! Go to this website: ReviveOurHearts.com/Ambassadors, and you’ll be able to connect with an Ambassador in your area. I’ll give that address again in just a moment. 

Before I do, let me tell you the third thing that’s on my heart. Maybe you’ve been listening today, and you’re feeling God tugging on your heart. You have a desire to be used by the Lord, to bring that message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ to the women in your area.

You’re ready to take the next step, I think. Friend, maybe God is leading you to apply to become a Revive Our Hearts Ambassador! If that resonates, I want you to go to that same page on our website, ReviveOurHearts.com/Ambassadors, and click where you see the word, “Connect.” That’s just a simple way for you to contact us for more information. And you can always call us at 1–800–569–5959.

Today we heard from women who have a heart for those nearby. Tomorrow Nancy talks with a missionary who has a heart for the nations. I hope you’ll join us for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you help others. This program is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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