A note from Wendi: I am incredibly excited to add a new Blogger to my rotation. I met Shelby Mathis while our husbands were stationed together in the Azores, and she has also come and worked on our farm!
I have done IF:Gathering, a women’s faith conference, in some fashion since its formation in 2014. I watched two years alone in my home in the Azores in the middle of the night because of the time difference. I was a new Christian totally overwhelmed by grace, so captivated by women leading on a big stage who clearly didn’t have it all together and were making it up as they went along (SAME!) I was also very sure I wasn’t supposed to watch it by myself. Something was missing.
The next year, I went to the live conference in Austin. I was so excited to see the live event and be surrounded by thousands of women from all over the world doing it with me. It was a huge production with lights and cameras, so fun and cute, but incredibly busy, impersonal, and fast-paced. I felt alone in a crowded room. I decided then I wouldn’t return to the live one the following year. I wouldn’t waste another year on keeping this experience for myself. I didn’t know where I’d land, but it wouldn’t be home alone or in Texas again.
However, God has a sense of humor and rarely goes along with my plans.
The next year, we were moving. Again. And I didn't have a home church or a local gathering to attend, so I flew back to Texas and took my sister to a local event in her town near Houston.
For the fourth year in a row, God reminded me of what He put on my heart the very first year I watched alone, unable to name what was missing. The gathering near Houston was the intimate, overwhelming experience like at home. It was fun and cute like Austin.
Except with women in their own place.
So the next year, in the fall of 2017, I told my pastor I wanted to host an IF:Gathering. Just a small one. No big deal, 20 women or so. At a friend’s home. That was my plan, and we’d name it after our church, and was that okay?
“Dream bigger”, said my pastor. “50 women. We’ll help.”
I am unqualified. I am inexperienced. I am unprepared. I am afraid.
I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to throw an event for 50 women. I didn’t know where I’d get the money or the venue or how I’d make it look like it did in my head. Which was 20 women in jammies in a living room.
This wasn’t my plan!
I hadn’t lived in Denver long. I’d been at my church less than a year and was still trying to find my footing, where I fit in there. I was used to being “the new girl” and putting down roots as soon as I got someplace, but this felt way outside of my comfort zone and seemed to require much deeper roots than I’d established.
Unqualified, inexperienced, unprepared and afraid, I said "yes" in obedience to what I know without doubt God called me to in 2014, which was simple: bring IF:Gathering to your people.
I said "yes" when I meant "God, help me, I am in over my head already." I said "yes" when I knew I’d have to risk a lot, be uncomfortable and make it up as I went along. I said "yes" to not my plan!
And so, I leaped.
A couple months later, I watched from above myself — like a hovering, out of body experience — my fifth IF:Gathering. I saw myself still unqualified, still inexperienced, still unprepared, still afraid and shaking in my boots. I was busy running to the tech station and running through the production schedule and running back to my table and running on empty but so, so entirely full. Only with God is that possible.
For two days, I got to witness women being vulnerable, speaking publicly when they typically kept to themselves. Women sharing their hearts and struggles with near strangers. Women reclining around tables with women they have very little in common with but a common faith and savior. Women letting down the drawbridges to other women instead of reinforcing their walls.
And you know how I feel about walls.
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Sometimes I write to know what I think. Sometimes I write to remember. Right now I need to remember because I’m
And I’m still learning. Honestly, just last week I was an actual mess.
I am unqualified. I am inexperienced. I am unprepared. I am afraid.
I wallowed for a bit. I called on a friend to affirm my calling to this ministry and admitted I didn’t know what to do. And she asked the hard questions. "What can I do?" "What do you need?" I didn’t know, but she refused to let me continue on. I called another friend who reminded me of the One Who Called Me. I confessed where I was struggling. She refused to let me continue on. She reminded me of what God did last year. When I was unqualified, inexperienced, unprepared, afraid then too.
I counted all the ways I could recall when God seriously, truly, kindly, faithfully provided. I named all the ways He took my desolate places of weary from moves and leaving "my people" and brought a multitude of new people and fed them with my few loaves and couple fishes. Not as a test or a comparison, but a reminder to myself and to the enemy who would love to see this thing fail because I believe I was more unqualified, more inexperienced, more unprepared, and more afraid than I am loved, chosen, and provided for.
Here's what I know to be true: we can lead and leap in faith with what we have and where we are, because God provides. We don’t have to fixate on numbers and budgets, dwell on tasks and to-do lists. We just need to be still and surrender.
What a God.
I weep at the mercy of a God who would have me not miss what He wants to do in and through the women in my community by moving me to say “yes” to this crazy dream and I crumble at the goodness of a God who would put friends in my path that would refuse to let me beat myself and commit to perfectionism when I need only to be reminded that I am who He says I am.
I am forgetful sometimes. When I forget who He is, I forget who I am.
He is the One Who Called You to This Messy, Incredible Ministry.
He is the One With Whom You Can Be Still and Surrender.
He is the One Who Knows and Has Taken Care of Your EVERY Need.
He is the One Who Is Wowed By Production of Fruit and Not the Production Value of Your Event.
He is the One, The I AM, Who Says Who You Are When You Feel Unqualified, Inexperienced, Unprepared, and Afraid.
I am surrendering control.
I am surrendering tasks.
I am surrendering busyness.
I am surrendering expectations.
I am surrendering performance.
I am surrendering production.
I am also a Type 9 (Peacemaker) on the Enneagram. I have a friend who asks the hard, simple questions: "what was the best part? what was your favorite thing?" Jet-lagged and culture-shocked from a return trip from a land that turned my perspective and world upside down and they ask about my favorite part. Where do I even begin?
As much as those questions prick me, I’ve trained myself to have an answer instead of a verbal processing session where I say the food or the landscape -- which are usually highlights, don’t get me wrong -- but they're never the actual best part.
IF:Gathering 2018 was amazing, but IF:Embassy and the miracle it was has my heart and my attention. Those 50 women who said "yes" to something unfamiliar that I could hardly explain. And the teams of dedicated people that showed up -- not for me -- but to be hands and feet. Being the Church in Denver and also saying "yes" to this vision.
And honestly, that's all I did then and all I need to do now. Surrender my plans, my time, my expectations.
My plans didn’t include IF:Embassy with those women and that incredible team on those snowy days in that packed room with those tech issues and changed schedules and those vulnerable confessions and that sweet time of sharing how we persevere in the faith. But how I’d have missed it.
My plans didn’t include friendships with people who stretch and grow me to be a better disciple of Jesus. But how I’d have missed it.
I want to produce real fruit that points people to Jesus.
I want to run in faith toward the things He knew I’d miss.
I want to be a prayer warrior who prays like she means it and like God hears.
I want to catch glimpses of myself catching up when the Spirit runs ahead.
I want to live a life surrendered to His plans for my life and His Church.
I want to make God famous to the people in my world.
I want to say “yes” to things I’m utterly unqualified, inexperienced, unprepared, and afraid for where the fruit of the Spirit is unbelievable sweeter than anything I could possibly produce.
I don’t want to produce an unforgettable weekend for the approval of the 50 women in the room. I don’t even want to run a perfect event, though it would be nice. I want earth as it is in heaven.
Climb on,
Shelby
P.S. If you’re in the Denver area, would you consider being a part of this adventure with me this weekend (February 8 + 9)? Doing this with women has been my heart’s desire from the very beginning. It’s happening, and I want you to me one of them! Register here: ifembassy.iflocal.com.
If you’re not local to me but want to watch the IF:Gathering livestream this weekend, sign up at iflocal.com, grab some friends and let’s do this together!
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