Beth Moore was called into ministry from a young age and led a Christian aerobics class for twelve years. But when a mentor told her she’s meant to be a Christian communicator, it changed her life. Now, we might not all be Beth Moore, but we’re all called to be Christian communicators.
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The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
I’ve talked in previous Bible studies about my mentor, Marge Caldwell, and how she guided me through so many of the landmines around the whole thing of ministry and family. And I was thinking about her and something that she said early on. It was one of my very first encounters with her.
At that point, I had been doing whatever I could do to minister since I’d been about eighteen years old when I really sensed the call of God. I’ll get into some of that with you through the series, but for now, just keep in mind that it had been several years and whatever was next I tried to do that. I taught children in Sunday school. I taught sixth graders in Sunday school.
I had been asked by my church if I would teach an aerobics class to them. It sounded fun to me. It was a big deal. It was huge. It was the early eighties and this was the thing to do. And I thought, “You know, I’ve got this in me. I love to dance as much as any baptist ever dreamed of wanting to dance.” I mean, all it took was somebody to tell me that we weren’t supposed to to make me want to. Somebody understands that with me.
I just thought, “This could be fun.” But I told them, I said, “Listen. I’ve already committed that everything I do, I’ve got to do as ministry. So I’ve got to find a way to do that.” So I started collecting all sorts of music from Christian contemporary artists and started choreographing routines to it. And we had a blast! Ended up doing it for twelve solid years.
But pretty early on in it, I had been asked to come to a retreat that my church was giving. And there was a keynote speaker. I certainly was not that. I was asked to do a breakout session where I would talk about Christian fitness. And so I did that and we had such a good time doing it. This had never occurred to me. I was just doing what was next.
And so [Marge] waited for me after that class. And she was the keynote speaker. So she asked if she could talk to me for a couple of minutes. I was so overwhelmed I hardly knew what to do. She said to me, she said, “Young lady, I think you are called to be a Christian communicator.”
I had given my life and my future to Jesus when I was eighteen. I had received Jesus as my Savior as a child. I had received the best as I knew how, “Lord, I feel like You’re telling me that You want my future. Here it goes. I’ll do anything You call me to.” But I had no idea what it was.
Now this is somebody in the know and she has just told me, “I feel like you’re called to be a Christian communicator.”
So I walk to my car going, “You are called to be a Christian communicator.” What was I to do next? Because the thing of it was, nobody else knew it.
You know what you have to do after a while? I had to get me one of those little ads or a little sheet, an announcement. I even got two colors and paid a lot of money to get it two colors, run off card-stock so that I could send it out and announce. And it said this: “Elizabeth Moore is a welcomed edition to the world of Christian communicators.” But you need to understand that I wrote that myself and no one else had welcomed me. I welcomed myself to the world of Christian communicators.
I’ll never forget it, because it kills me every time I look at it. It’s perfection. Because I wrote it myself! What occurred to me to write down that I had been welcomed? No one had welcomed me! No one had welcomed me.
But I can tell you this, here is what I know and believe to my bones and I ask you, go study it for yourself. Go see for yourself. Study the Word of God. Study the New Testament. Study our covenant. Study what we’ve been called to. Study the book of Acts. Study the rest of the New Testament and see if this is not so. That every single one of us, all of us, are called to be Christian communicators. Every single one of us across the board. Whoever you are.
You may say, “Listen. I don’t ever say a word to anyone in public. You cannot imagine how shy I am.” I get that in every way. Not everybody is called to be a teacher or formal speaker, but if I know Matthew from Revelation, if I know the Old Testament from the New Testament, if I know my right hand from my left hand, I know this: Every single of us is called to share our faith. Every one of us is called to be able to just share in a way that is not stiff, in a way that is flooded with the Holy Spirit. To share what Christ has done for us.