You Are Not Alone

I have the incredible honor of being on staff here at Summit and to be a part of reGROUP. reGROUP was there for me when everything was falling apart in my life and I truly believe that God has me exactly where He wants me. The most recent blessing this ministry has bestowed on me is the opportunity to serve at the Sixty Minute Seminars. If you have not attended one yet I strongly encourage you to check it out. At the risk of stating the obvious, some of these subjects are really hard to talk about. (This is partially why we brought in other people to do the talking!) All kidding aside, these topics can be daunting. This is more than a hunch; it is an observation. I have been blessed to personally oversee how the Sixty Minutes Seminars play out at Herndon, Waterford, and Lake Mary.

For the record, these topics were not picked out of a hat or chosen for some sort of ‘shock value’—they were thoughtfully and prayerfully selected because they matter and the people that struggle with them matter even more. Our hope and our prayer has been that these seminars would be a safe place to come and learn; a place where one can walk in and feel no judgment; a place without stigma, shame, or fear. At the bare minimum these seminars are meant to be informational, but at their best they might also be a light in the darkness and a voice calling out to someone that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Maybe that person is you.

There can be shame attached to the simple act of walking into a room to hear an hour-long talk about any of these topics, leaving others to wonder if YOU struggle with it yourself. In that very same breath, I am fully aware that walking into a seminar that is focused on topics such as these may prove to be just too personally painful to hear. I get it. Yet, I truly believe that no one comes through the doors of church, reGROUP, or even these seminars by accident and that God may have only prepared one person with ears to hear in a room packed with people. There is no shame in leaning into a conversation about brokenness. My continued prayer is that these seminars would create the necessary space for the gift of vulnerability to grow and allow shame to be washed away by grace. Luckily for all of us, the topic for the next week’s seminar is vulnerability and shame!

Next week, Debbie Miller will offer us more categories around how to talk about our shame and what to do with our vulnerability. She will do this in a way that integrates current psychological research with a healthy Christian theology. This is no small task and I am excited to hear what she has to say. My sincere hope is that if coming to the Sixty Minutes Seminars is your next right step you would know that you are never alone in taking it. Never.

Find out more about Sixty Minute Seminars here.