Helen Lee, The Missional Mom: Living With Purpose at Home and in the World. Moody Publishers, 2011.
Referenced in: Missional Lifestyle, Discipleship, Spirituality – Children’s Spiritual Formation Through Missional Engagement
LifeandLeaderhsip.com Summary
This is a one-of-a-kind resource to inspire and mobilize mothers into missional living, not only in terms of how they raise children but also get involved in their communities. Most Christian leaders have experienced how the significant majority of the “volunteer” misisonal energy of their churches comes from committed mothers, some who are stay-at-home moms and others who juggle both professional and family responsibilities. Here is a resource that will help these dedicated servants mobilize themselves into a more meaningful and purposeful engagement of the call of God on their lives.
Helen Lee writes with the passion and connectivity that can come only from an experienced mother. She knows firsthand the unsettling mix of intense frustration and deep fulfillment that many Christian mothers feel. She admits to her own questions:
- Was this the life God intended for me?
- Was losing myself in my home life – leaving behind all semblance of the person I used to be – what motherhood was all about?
- If motherhood was supposed to be a high and holy calling, why was the daily experience so often draining and joyless?
- What I supposed to do with my pre-motherhood experiences and education, with the gifts and talents God had given me, which I never seemed to use anymore?
- Was I just not be sacrificial and loving enough to my kids?
- Was I a bad mother to be asking these questions? (10-11)
She says, “typical, modern American mothers often feel overwhelmed by these questions of identity and purpose, none of which seem easy.” (11) What makes this even more difficult is when many of these mothers feel enlivened by the missional conversation and want to make their lives count for the kingdom of God. Something inside them says, “If the missional movement encourages all believers to adopt a mission-oriented perspective, that includes moms.” (13)
Believing there were many moms out there who felt this way, Lee began a search for “mothers who lived with God-directed intentionality and purpose, in their family life as well as in whatever other context God had placed them.” (13) The resulting interactions changed her life, and she writes in the hope that what she shares to expand each reader’s understanding of motherhood exponentially.
The Table of Contents provides a taste:
- The Missional Mom Embraces the Call of Her Missional God
- The Missional Mom Resists Cultural Pressure
- The Missional Mom is a Cultural Rebel
- The Missional Mom Engages in the Needs of the World
- The Missional Mom Doesn’t “Do Evangelism”
- The Missoinal Mom Loves “The Least of These”
- The Missional Mom is Third-Culture
- The Missional Mom Creates Missonal Families
- The Missional Mom is a Culture-Maker
- The Missional Mom Needs Missional Community (and Vice Versa)
- The Missional Mom Surrenders All
- Appendix A: A Tale of Two Mothers
- Appendix B: Accountability Questions
From the Publisher
We all must seek to be missional in our life journey. The evangelical subculture, however, tends to reduce the domain of the Christian mom to that inside the walls of her house. But the reality is that today’s Christian moms come from a full range of personal and professional context, whether they are homemakers, full-time in the marketplace, or somewhere in between. Numerous Christian mothers today are living missional lives, using their gifts and abilities to further God’s kingdom by engaging the world around them. They artfully, passionately, sometimes messily, juggle multiple callings and demonstrate in their modern day contexts how they are emulating the woman of noble character in Proverbs 31.
The Missional Mom will affirm Christian mothers who desire to not only to build their homes in a Christ-like way, but engage the world with their skills, abilities, and interests. It won’t minimize the importance of a woman’s role in her home but it will encourage her to not ignore the stirrings God has planted within her to extend her influence.
About the Author
Helen Lee is an award-winning freelance writer and editor with nearly two decades of experience publishing in the Christian market. She is the co-editor of and contributor to Growing Healthy Asian-American Churches (IVP, 2006) and co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces Institute, which runs the annual “Best Christian Places to Work” survey. Helen has written numerous articles for publications such as Christianity Today, Today’s Christian Woman, re:generation quarterly and Leadership Journal (LJ). In both 2008 and 2009, her articles for LJ earned Higher Goals awards in reporting from the Evangelical Press Association. As a former editor and writer with Christianity Today, she has worked with or interviewed a wide range of evangelical luminaries, such as Michael Card, J.I. Packer, and Chuck Colson. She is married to classical pianist and Moody Bible Institute professor Brian Lee; together they have three young sons. Helen is also a homeschooling mom and seeks to provide her sons with a classical Christian education; she and her family reside in Chicagoland.
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