If there’s one thing I’ve learned over my many years of walking with Jesus, it’s that life is a journey. Even though quite often you never know where it’s going to lead, whenever you give Jesus full control over your life it’s almost a guarantee that it will never be boring and rarely be stagnant. It's always an adventure.
Today I am excited to share with you an exciting new part of my journey and the journey of 4One Ministries.
After months of prayer, seeking advice from trusted friends and the 4one Ministries Board of Directors, and a lot time searching my own heart, we believe that the Holy Spirit is leading us to make some changes in the structure of the women's side of the ministry. Starting next week, we are changing the name of A Wellrounded Woman Ministries to Adessa Holden Ministries.
Honestly, just typing that out is a huge step for me.
Why? Well, I’ve never wanted ministry to be about me. I simply want to share my love for Jesus and pass on what He’s done in my life with the hope of helping other women. That’s who I am and what I love doing.
And yet, as my personal journey continues, and the theme and mission of our ministry continues to change, the name A Wellrounded Woman no longer fits. Nine years ago when I started the blog, my life was completely different---centering on taking care of my Mom and brother’s physical issues, loving and serving them, and taking care of our home. From this perspective, it seemed natural to blog about cooking, cleaning, canning, and things like that. At the time, that was my calling and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
And then my Mom passed away and life slowly began to change. Even though I didn’t think it was possible, God opened doors for Jamie and I go to into full time ministry. As He healed our hearts and helped us recover from my Dad’s abuse, our message began to change. The Holy Spirit led me to write Finding Significance and Finding Healing---and now to produce the Finding Healing Curriculum.
And now, the Holy Spirit is leading us to change the name of the ministry to reflect where we are today rather than 10 years ago.
My first thought was, “Let’s name it Finding Healing.”
The reply of friends (again way too honest) said “What about when you write another book? What about when the Holy Spirit leads in another direction? Why not just call it Adessa Holden Ministries?”
(And then the panic attack began.)
And yet, after spending time with Jesus and struggling with my own comfort zone, I have decided to obey the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of friends and make the change. To go with a generic name so that the Holy Spirit is free to lead me and our ministry in any direction that He chooses in the future. Rather than boxing Him in and saying, “We need to stick to this theme”, I’m letting Him out of the box and saying, “Wherever you lead---that’s where I’ll follow.”
Whether it be comfortable or not---it’s been a journey of faith all along, and this is just another twist on the adventure of following Jesus.
Now that the decision is made, I’m actually really excited—so excited that we’re making the change THIS WEEK.
Over the next week, you’ll start to see changes. Both A Wellrounded Woman Ministries and For a Single Purpose Ministries will rebrand under the new name Adessa Holden Ministries at www.adessaholden.com. To make the transition easier, for the next few months if you go to either of our current sites, it will connect you to the new site. We’ll also be changing the names of our Facebook pages.
Even though we’re changing our name, our content and purpose is still the same, to help women know Jesus and become who He designed them to be. We’ll be talking about Finding Significance, Finding Healing, and growing in our relationship with Jesus. This is your invitation to join us on this new leg of our journey as we grow together as women of God.
Personally, I'm really excited to see where it will lead. As I said, if there's one thing I've learned in my walk with Jesus it's that following Him rarely means stagnation. There's always another mountain to conquer, and His plans for us are always bigger and better than anything we could dream or imagine.
This week we're taking another step into His plan and His purpose.
I hope you'll come along and see where He leads.
