Out of the darkness and loneliness of her new home on the mission field in Nepal, Jenn Hand hears God whisper to her heart,
“Come alive, Jenn. I am a God that is Alive. In fact, I am the only God that is truly alive. I overcame death to come alive and bring life.”
That night Jenn began her journey of Coming Alive by walking day-by-day, moment-by-moment with God. <<Click to Tweet
In 31 Days of Coming Alive, Jenn takes us on a very personal journey of coming alive in Christ. Each day, Jenn combines the truth of God’s Word, with Biblical stories, and real-life experiences to reflect on a different aspect of how God is alive and active in our lives. Laced with funny, moving, poignant moments and recollections, Coming Alive spotlights how God can be found in the ordinary. As Jenn says,
“I began to find God in secular everyday moments, which turned them into sacred moments.” <<Click to Tweet
Taking each lesson a step further, Jenn invites us to make the principles personal. Through what Jenn refers to as Heart Work, we read and reflect on scripture and on our own stories, helping us to answer the call to a rich walk of faith.
Topics include Come Alive in the Common, Coming Alive Clean, Coming Alive Loved, and Living Alive.
If you’re wondering where God is in the day to day, in the mundane, 31 Days of Coming Alive will give you a new revelation of God’s presence that will encourage you and build your faith!
I’m fortunate to have met Jennifer Hand through Holley Gerth’s You’re Made for a God-Sized Dream book launch team, and then in-person at a celebration for the success of the same book. She was my roommate, which makes for fast friendship and quick sharing of our lives. You can’t help but be instantly at home with Jenn’s welcoming smile and engaging laugh!
So thanks, Jenn, for joining us today at Circle of Faith, Where Faith, Life, and Community Intersect. We’d love to hear more about you.
Faith
COF: Tell us about your ministry.
Jenn: Hand: Coming Alive Ministries was birthed out of a God-sized dream and calling when I returned home from the mission field, where I served in Nepal for two years. I came home and was saddened to see so many in America who know the living God,yet were living dead inside. Coming Alive was formed in May of 2012 and has been an incredible adventure ever since. We provide an invitation to come alive through conferences, retreats, and written resources. My favorite part of ministry is speaking God’s Word in such a way that the hearers laugh, are drawn into Jesus, and connect their hearts to Christ, coming alive!
COF: Do you have a faith principle that is a guiding force in your life?
Jenn Hand: John 10:10 is a promise that Jesus came to give us life and life abundantly. This is not a promise of a trouble-free life, but a promise of abundant life. I want to live every day so ALIVE in Christ that people want to accept Christ’s invitation to come alive for themselves.
Life
COF: What do you do day-to-day? Work? Play? Family?
Jenn Hand: Every day looks a little different for me, but one thing stays the same. You will find me with a cup of warm coffee. Where I am drinking that cup of liquid gold, which cup I am drinking from, and what flavor differs, but the daily coffee lover in me does not. I spend my days having a blast juggling a few different roles: Executive Director of Coming Alive Ministries, speaker, author, life coach, Director of Groups for the amazing church plant I am blessed to be involved in (www.2rc.org), and selling awesome kitchen products for Pampered Chef on the side. I am known to often steal my adorable 6-year-old nephew and 18-month-old niece for a donut date--- giving them lots of sugar then sending them home. I am blessed with a best friend and former “womb mate” in my twin sister Michelle and my amazing parents Vicky and Mike Hand. I am also known to go to a playground and swing on the swings even without any kids.
Community
COF: What community circles foster your faith?
Jenn Hand: I love LOVE my church Two Rivers of Chattanooga. It has been so fun to be on the ground floor of establishing a new church, making me a missionary in my very own hometown. I also love my online community of fellow God-sized dreamers. I believe real Christian heart growth happens in community where we are BOLD and take the risk to love each other so well people want to know the God who loves us.
COF: How does community fit into Coming Alive in Christ?
Jenn Hand: Coming alive in community with other believers is worth fighting for. On Day 25 in 31 days to Coming Alive it says, “Authentic Christian community gets messy sometimes, but when the message is the center of the mess it magnifies the Messiah and redemption comes.”
Intersect
COF: How do you experience the intersection of faith, life, and community?
Jenn Hand: Faith and life are about living well in community by loving well through community. The times I have been blessed to see the most people come to know Christ is when a Christian community is doing such a great job loving one another inwardly and pouring the love of Christ outwardly that people want to come know this God of love.
COF: How does your book/ministry foster the intersection of faith, life, and community?
Jenn Hand: 31 Days to Coming Alive will take the reader on a journey to living ALIVE, escaping the mundane of life to come alive even in the everyday. As the reader connects their hearts through each daily devotional and lives alive, it encourages others to live alive.
COF: What is one thing you’d like our readers to know about you?
Jenn Hand: Find what makes you come alive. Psalms 139 promises we are each fearfully and wonderfully made. God put something in you that makes you come alive…do something to foster that every day. This turns normal everyday moments into sacred moments. Every night when I go to bed I ask, “Did I do something that made me come alive today?”
How about you? What makes you come alive?
Let’s talk about it in the Comments and you could win a FREE printed copy of Jenn Hand’s 31 Days of Coming Alive.
Jenn Hand is Executive Director and Founder of Coming Alive Ministries. She holds a Masters Degree in professional counseling. If she could, she would have coffee with you and ask you what makes you come alive. She is a Jesus-loving, strong-coffee-drinking gal who speaks nationally and internationally to audiences, inviting them to come alive in Christ.