Jen Smith

Just sprayed perfume in my left eye. Would appreciate your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

Sadly, this is just normal life with a narcissist. Apologies to the world.

We are in the dumbest possible timeline.

I'm in the same boat. With 2 kids in college and 4 still at home, this is the year my youngest finally starts kindergarten and we had planned that I would begin to pursue my own education. If Pell grants are gone, all 3 of us will be making really hard decisions.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed, making widows their prey and robbing the orphan.” -Isaiah 10:1-2

Accurate. This is exactly it.

Millennial math is knowing we're doing well when we can put all of our bills straight to auto-pay. That's *real* wealth right there.

Hi! I met you when you spoke at Restore last year and am happy to see you made the jump over here!

Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) saying "I am old, Gandalf. I know I don't look it but I'm beginning to feel it in my heart."

when you're old enough to have had a xanga and myspace and you're starting over on a new social media app in the year of our lord 2024:

We ended up in a church where our pastors have experienced spiritual abuse and know what it's like. The random person in the pew still comes at these issues with trite answers, but I'm able to give people the benefit of the doubt, at least. There are very few churches I'll go to at this point.

Daniel Nayeri, Wade Mullin, Diane Langberg, Jemar Tisby, Philip Yancey...

You're welcome! We're all doing the same thing, trying to find and add all the people we had elsewhere. Very relatable!

Maybe Rev. Benjamin Cremer?

❤️

🧵When you listen to proponents of Christian Nationalism, one of the things that will almost always be promoted is "ethno-nationalism." Let's look at that for a second. 1/

Sometimes, it’s the faith of someone else that keeps your faith in tact.

Until this week when our family was connected locally with a new Southeast African church (comprised largely of refugee and immigrant families in our area.) He makes all things new.

I spent the last decade sitting at the feet of some abusive men and contrasting their leadership w/what I saw in simple, faithful Indigenous churches in our ministry context. I miss being the outsider, quietly watching the Holy Spirit move in these congregations, and I didn't even realize how much

Trusting Jesus, and also wondering if you're the only sucker still actually *doing* this love and justice thing that it seemed like we all used to agree on.

Related: Maybe a moratorium on exporting this globally through missions would be wise?? White evangelicals in America need to take a minute.

The "No matter who's President, JESUS is King!" crowd fails to see what the election of this president says about the Kingdom. It's more than anger over values we won't see reflected in national leadership- We're also seeing the loss of those values in the church, and looking for a place to grieve.

Yes! People who claim to support abuse survivors, wondering how Christian churches and orgs could prioritize a church or a mission over human beings... Just turned around and voted those exact values. Yet another win for abusive men in leadership, on a national scale. Nowhere feels safe.

Shhh, Scott. He might hear you. This is the Good Place.

I'm interested in collaborative efforts to empower and support the marginalized, and I love to follow what others are doing to make a difference! Hope is contagious ❤️

Our friends in the Indonesian church are proof that what we see here in America today is not the only expression of faith, and that there's still hope. Clinging to that and looking for ways to move the needle towards justice. I'm happy to find remnants of a like-minded community here.

Now living in the Chicago suburbs, looked around for a ministry job and... things are pretty bleak out there. It was freeing to just embrace secular work and prioritize health and wholeness for our family as we work through the grief of losing our lives in Asia. Happy to be FREE in spite of it all.

Hey everyone! By way of introduction: I'm a mom of 6, married to Andy for a couple of decades at this point. Until last year we served as missionaries in Indonesia. We were forced to resign over "differing values" after we went forward about abuse cover-ups and a drunken leader calling me at night.