Anne Marie Miller

Blog

  • pantyhose and elevators and my own skin

    pantyhose and elevators and my own skin. those are three things i’m uncomfortable in. (oh, wow. that rhymed!)

    why the pantyhose? should be obvious. elevators? not a fan of getting stuck in a big metal box.

    my own skin?

    it has to do with my heart and my brain and my aspirations and dreams.

    women-ministryministry is a fairly male-dominated game. and that’s cool. drill it down even more, when you have a heart for encouraging and equipping and dreaming with other pastors, well…as a girl, that can be tough to do. as a 20-something year old girl, perhaps even tougher.

    most male leaders i know aren’t playing any kind of chauvinistic or age-hatin’ cards. so it’s not an issue of disrespect that i feel like i’m up against. there are just differences in guy leadership and girl leadership. the ways god has gifted us and crafted us.

    most (but not all) women in ministry feel led to work in children’s ministry, education, women’s ministry…but i don’t. i know my calling…and it is working with pastors.

    most of whom are men.

    this is not a women-in-ministry debate. i just know that sometimes, i have a hard time wondering how it will all work out in the end. how does this look in my daily life? in my job? in the world…?? writing a book is pretty universal. and that’s a good start…but i know there’s more…

  • if celebrities lived in oklahoma…

    brody had this on his blog.

    since i am a dallas-girl-moved-oklahomian, i found this ever so appropriate and dare i say, modestly true?? (grin) i kid.

    jennifer-aniston

    CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM ALL!!!

  • resolving my dual personalities

    a few people have recently brought to my attention a disconnect between my blogging personality and my in person personality. on my blog, i use phrases like “shut yo mouth” and “turn it up, baby!” which i would never, ever say in person.

    unless i was heavily medicated.

    it’s true – it’s super easy for me to write using lots of !!! and CAPS and i am certainly a blog extrovert. as shaun said in africa, “you’re much more reserved in person…” and it’s true.

    i took the myers-briggs test today (like the official one) and i ended up being an INFJ, or Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging.

    i’m not that introverted…it was almost split down the middle. my two strongest characteristics were judging (90%) and feeling (70%).

    FEELING? WHAT? did you NOT just say you were a thinker?

    yeah…so i thought. i guess i was in denial.

    anyway…since i am beginning to meet more of you in person, i just thought i’d give you a heads up.

    if you want to know the details of my personality, this page right here pretty much sums it up 110000%.

    have you ever taken the myers-briggs? what were your results?

  • that tithing thing

    so, the post from the mailbag stirred up lotsa lotsa good discussion. i think, after reading through it today, i am going to separate out a few topics which brought out some great chit chat.

    one of those things – tithing.

    some people said it’s not necessarily biblical to tithe at all. some people said 10% wasn’t required. some people said it should be given to the church. some people said the church is hard to define, so who’s to say the bible doesn’t just mean THE CHURCH?

    what do you think…and why?

  • the brazen spinach dip and fear

    i’ll be honest. i didn’t know who penelope trunk was a few months ago. a friend said she was a fab writer, and as an aspiring fab writer myself, i figured i should click on over.

    hooked. on. sentence. one.

    imagine my delight when i discovered she was going to be speaking at south by southwest. imagine my heartache when i discovered she was speaking at the same time as kathy sierra.

    oh well. i could get the kathy podcast later.

    after an amazingly brutal career advice conversation with the crowd (i love this woman even more now) i stood in line to bid a fond (and admittedly nervous) hello. something she had said earlier about people being afraid to be amazing and great really resonated with some things i’m internalizing at the moment.

    so my question for her at the end?

    “what would you say to someone who’s afraid to be great?”

    “well, uh, you have some food in your teeth.”

    lovely. bloody spinach dip. $^@%#!

    “you need to surround yourself with people who will tell you that you have food between your teeth.”

    she encouraged me to find people who fail, so i can learn. she inspired me to set huge, ginormous goals. to find people who dream big too.

    **
    now, i know i am not the only one who’s struggling with that fear – the fear of being great. and if you have asked the why and the how of overcoming that fear…

    don’t worry.

    the fact you are asking that question in itself means you care.

    and you will be great.

    (that’s the last little bit she told me).

    and with the smallest little bit of oomph in my heart, i said thank you, we said goodbye, and i scurried off to the bathroom to pick the spinach out of my teeth.

  • from the mailbag

    i am sitting on i-35 in austin right now, very grateful for the 3g wireless card plugged into my mbp. traffic is a little better with a litlte wifi.

    occasionally i get emails that i think can provoke some awesome discussion.

    “what’s the deal with most modern churches? i understand the idea of local churches, but doesn’t that mean a body of believers within a community (not necessarily a “building”)? and with technology the way it is nowadays, can’t a community be practically anywhere? why do i feel guilty for not serving in my local “building” when i know i serve others daily in my life. why do i feel guilty for not being in a small group or always going to a service that my local “building” coordinates when i know i hang out with other believers regularly? why do i feel guilty when i don’t tithe to my local “building” but i give money to other believers and causes that i feel led to give to? is the culture of the modern church one that is so singularly focused that the local church has become an institution and not a lifestyle, which i think is the way the new testament intended it to be? i know there is a need for churches in our culture, but why do those churches make other ways seem unacceptable?”

    any takers?? let’s discuss…

  • road trips with ninjas

    tomorrow, terry, zach (our digerati ninja) and i will road trip down to austin and meet up with bobby for the south by southwest interactive festival.

    (yes, i wish i could stay for music and film. i really, really do)…

    anyway, we are having an open, meet up type breakfast sunday morning at 8 am (yaaaawwwnnn!!) at las manitas in downtown austin. if you are going to be at sxsw or you just want to hang out with a bunch of techies, feel free to join us.

    if you are planning on dropping by, can you email me here?

    otherwise…i’ll try and get a little video going…these little road trips can be fun…

    question to keep you busy over the weekend: what is your favorite blog (other than mine, of course…ha! just kidding!) and why?

  • the necessity of rest and the necessity of god

    After three solid days of intense experiences in Africa, we took a small plane (which was an intense experience of itself) to a spot about 250 miles away from Kampala, the only city in Uganda. The lodge we were staying at was powered by a generator. The nearest medical facility was six hours away on unpaved and potentially unsafe roads.

    We were in the middle of nowhere.

    And it was time to rest.

    nileOne afternoon, we took a ferry across the Nile River and then hopped in a small bus. We drove half an hour on the bumpiest dirt road one could ever imagine to Murchison Falls, one of the many wonders of the world. We then hiked another half hour to the very top.

    Slowly we progressed on a narrow, rocky trail, dodging tree branches and mosquitoes along the way. We occasionally stopped at the most beautiful parts of the rapids, taking each other?s pictures, but for the most part, the hike remained quietest part of the trip.

    As we reached the top of the falls, we passed several signs warning us of the steep cliffs and the danger that awaited. Nobody was scared. Everyone was in awe. We helped each other over the slippery rocks and finally reached the very top.

    Our guides told us many people have died at Murchison Falls. There are no rails to stop you from falling over. It?s you. The rocks. And the falls. The beauty of water is transformed into something breathtaking. People become mesmerized by the unique blend of tranquility and power. Some to the point they lose footing and fall over.

    Standing as close to the edge as our leaders and guides would let us, we let the wind carry the spray and slowly drench us. Any fears of falling, of accidentally swallowing the parasite-infested water, of getting ravished by malaria-carrying mosquitoes?had all vanished.

    The hardships of the trip ? the pain we saw, the poverty, the brokenness?those things didn?t disappear or float away in the rapids of the Nile. But taking that day to rest?to go to a quiet place and be reminded of the incredible power of the Creator, if anything, more tightly knit His sovereignty and hope to the terrible things we did see.

    Rest bound together the incomplete to the complete.

    We cannot be dependent on ourselves and dependent on God at the same time. When we consider the practice of rest unnecessary, we also will inevitably lose sight of the necessity of God.

  • i’m curious – what does going to church look like?

    barna released a report recently identifying five segments of church attendance.

    from the report,

    “The fact that millions of people are now involved in multiple faith communities – for instance, attending a conventional church one week, a house church the next, and interacting with an online faith community in-between – has rendered the standard measures of “churched” and “unchurched” much less precise.”

    so, out of the following…which segment do you identify with more? if you would rather remain unidentified, just type in anonymous for your name and don’t link back to your blog.

    Unattached – people who had attended neither a conventional church nor an organic faith community (e.g., house church, simple church, intentional community) during the past year. Some of these people use religious media, but they have had no personal interaction with a regularly-convened faith community. This segment represents one out of every four adults (23%) in America. About one-third of the segment was people who have never attended a church at any time in their life.

    Intermittents – these adults are essentially “under-churched” – i.e., people who have participated in either a conventional church or an organic faith community within the past year, but not during the past month. Such people constitute about one out of every seven adults (15%). About two-thirds of this group had attended at least one church event at some time within the past six months.

    Homebodies – people who had not attended a conventional church during the past month, but had attended a meeting of a house church (3%).

    Blenders – adults who had attended both a conventional church and a house church during the past month.     Most of these people attend a conventional church as their primary church, but many are experimenting with new forms of faith community. In total, Blenders represent 3% of the adult population.

    Conventionals – adults who had attended a conventional church (i.e., a congregational-style, local church) during the past month but had not attended a house church. Almost three out of every five adults (56%) fit this description. This participation includes attending any of a wide variety of conventional-church events, such as weekend services, mid-week services, special events, or church-based classes.

    what does going to church look like for you? how do you think “going to church” will look over the next ten or twenty years as our world gets smaller with technology?