Having never heard of Luna Moths before, I had to find out more.

"​He has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

“For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light” (Psalm 36:9).

“You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thoughts afar off” (Psalm 139:2).

“You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5).

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6).

As a matter of fact, this morning before I left my house, I was thinking about how through Jesus we have a sweet friendship with God the Father. He wants us to know Him and His great love. I know the primary way God reveals Himself to us is through His Word. But, He also reveals Himself to us through the wonders of His creation. ​I remembered Romans 1:20, which says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). ​ This idea was still in my mind as I came upon the Luna Moth on the ground. It was as if God was showing me His love by stopping me in my tracks and allowing me to see something special from His hand.

It's our responsibility as parents to teach our children to be more like Christ.
We need help with this daunting task. Proverbs is God’s textbook for that task.

"The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.... Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart." Proverbs 29:15, 17

Join the Movement and download The Ultimate Guide to Praying Proverbs Over Your Child printable today!

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REBELLION Proverbs 29:1 RESPECT FOR PARENTS Proverbs 20:20   SCHOOL WORK Proverbs 1:7; 3:13-19; 8; 9:10; 16:16 SEX EDUCATION Proverbs 2:16-22; 5:1-23; 6:20-35; 7:1-27; 9:13-18; 23:26-28      Specifically Girls Proverbs 2:6-19      Specifically Boys Proverbs 5:8-13; 6:23-29 SHARING Proverbs 11:24-26; 22:9; 28:27 SNEAKY Proverbs 5:21; 15:3 & 11 STEALING Proverbs 15:16; 21:7; 22:22 & 23; 29:24   TATTLING Proverbs 11:13; 18:8; 20:19 TEACHING YOUR CHILD Proverbs 4:1-27; 22:6 TEASING Proverbs 11:12; 14:31; 15:1; 17:5 THOUGHTS Proverbs 16:3 TRAINING Proverbs 22:6 TROUBLEMAKERS Proverbs 24:19 & 20

Are you longing for a more meaningful life? Start here.
​Learn how to love and be loved right where God has placed you.

"If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me. 'I will be found by you.' says the Lord." Jeremiah 29:13-14

"I went about my life believing God had more plans for me, wrought with mystery and nuance, hidden just outside my line of vision. Quite honestly, it was easier to soldier forward in my pursuit of being a good, Christian woman and just hope it would all shake out in the wash.

Somewhere on the path toward the weird way of Jesus, where conventional wisdom is replaced with foolish love and unpopular alliances, I uncovered my calling. It wasn't new. It had always been there. But now, I was ready to see it. And because I'm your friend to the end, I'm here to save you the trouble: It's your calling too.

As Christ-followers, we are called to be long-haul neighbors committed to authenticity and willing to take some risks. Our vocation is to invest deeply in the lives of those around us, devoted to one another, physically close to each other as we breathe the same air and walk the same blocks. Our purpose is not so mysterious after all. We get to love and be deeply loved right where we're planted, by whomever happens to be near. We will inevitably encounter brokenness we cannot fix, solve, or understand, and we'll feel as small, uncertain, and outpaced as we have ever felt. But we'll find our very lives in this calling, to be among people as Jesus was, and it will change everything. The details will look quiet and ordinary. They will exhaust and exhilarate us. But it will be the most worth-it adventure we will ever take." —Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

"We believe God hasn't forgotten us and that He has a plan to renew the beauty lost in the weeds. We are mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. We want the younger generations to thrive in a new way. We want the older generations to feel seen, heard, and valued." —Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

"Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, 'It is not necessary to take on the whole world at first. Just take the three square feet of earth on which you are sitting, paying close attention to everything that lives within that small estate.' Simply put, we cannot love what we do not know. We cannot know what we do not see. We cannot see anything, really, until we devote ourselves to the lost art of paying attention....

Slowly, I began to understand that what God was asking of me was indeed a very small thing. In His kingdom economy, most great things are. Today, in a small city in Indiana, I continue to be schooled in the ways of seeing—really seeing—my place and her people. This unlikely education is born of repetition, hyperawareness, and the audacity to believe God is already at work around me in the shadows and cracks." —Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

"...we have to reimagine ourselves as students of the invisible practice of mindful hearing. We have to reacquaint ourselves with quiet and minimize distraction so that our ears can be tuned. Here's how I try. I make space each day to intentionally choose silence, going about my business without the drone of music, podcasts, or television. I also leave my phone at home whenever possible, particularly on walks. It seems like such an unremarkable choice, we're tempted to dismiss it. There are times I suffer a wave of lowest-grade panic that I'll miss out on capturing a beautiful moment without a camera in my pocket. Yet what I lose in my ability to document the visible I gain in the audible, that vibrant world that blends os seamlessly into the physical, waiting to be heard. There, in the quiet, my place comes alive. It's priceless."​ —Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

"In the book of John, as through all the Gospels and the entire New Testament, Jesus promised the opposite of what the world offers like a prized show pony. He held up things like smallness, humility, suffering, poverty, and the guarantee of outsider status, as though they were His best offerings..." ​—Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

"Here's what's hard to understand about us humans: Jesus couldn't have made Himself clearer about the inevitability of hardship, yet we are shocked when His promise rings true. When one of the gifts I'm handed looks like sadness, a lost opportunity, or something much worse, like suffering....

Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief (Isaiah 53:3), yet Western Christians, on the whole, remain emotionally allergic to sadness and discomfort. We do anything we can to avoid it....

All throughout His time here on earth, Christ camped among the hurting. He didn't flee discomfort. He walked straight into it, then took off His shoes and stayed, accepting all of it as gift and nourishment." ​—Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Where do we even begin? Shannan Martin offers a surprisingly simple answer: uncover the hidden corners of our cities and neighborhoods and invest deeply in the lives of people around us. She walks us through her own discoveries about the vital importance of paying attention, as well as the hard but rewarding truth about showing up and committing for the long haul, despite the inevitable encounters with brokenness and uncertainty. With transparency, humor, heart-tugging storytelling, and more than a little personal confession, Martin shows us that no matter where we live or how much we have, as we learn what it is to be with people as Jesus was, we'll find our very lives." --goodreads

Who is your neighbor?

"I have long understood the American concept of neighbors. They are the ones who live next door. The ones we wave at, now and then. The ones we might gift with cookies during the holidays. They are the nice people who keep a comfortable distance. It's likely we might never learn their names. But maybe the American idea of neighbors doesn't match God's idea. He invites us to something deeper, calling us to join Him in loving each other and promising it will be worth the vulnerability it's sure to cost us. He points us to the heart of the matter: aligning with our neighbors will change our lives if we let it. But before we can offer them anything, we first have to be mindful students in the uncomfortable art of receiving." ​—Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

What people are saying about The Ministry of Ordinary Places

“In a world where hope seems dim and solutions feel complicated and partisan, Shannan Martin offers us a starting point that is as radical as it is domestic: widen your circle, hush your mouth, and pay close attention. This book is the right book for this moment in time and I simply cannot get over it. I either laughed or cried on almost every page. We need these lyrical, prophetic words now more than ever before.” —Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Simply Tuesday “This is a message the world needs. So often we overcomplicate service or this elusive call to ministry when all the while ministry is right in front of us. Shannan reminds us of the simple, yet beautiful call to love our neighbor and what that could really look like today. We are reminded that extravagant love in ordinary moments does indeed lead to an extraordinary life.” —Katie Davis Majors, New York Times bestselling author of Kisses from Katie