Tindell Baldwin »

I sat with my brother and sister in law, Kristian and Kerri, last night after a wonderful night of babysitting and talked about the trials of ministry, the ups and downs and the sheer weight of being in ministry. I am just beginning, I barely have my feet wet so I was gaining some much needed advice and something Kristian said is still ringing in my ears.

He said, “you know Tindell I can stand on stage and lead worship, and do a great job because that’s my gifting, and I can play the right songs and say the right things, and I can even cause hundreds to come to Christ through my music but if I don’t know God personally then I’ve missed the point of life. Even after all I’ve done for God if I stand at his throne at the end of my life and he says, “but I never knew you personally”, then my life will have been a total waste”

This is why knowing God is so key in ministry, because at the end of the day its not about how many teens I reached and its not about how many people bought my book (which still isn’t out) it’s about the fact that I ooze Jesus. My number one job in life is to know and fall in love with my savior. My gifting can show others Jesus but if I’m not so deeply in love with him myself then it’s all a sham.

So here’s my question for you, do you really know Jesus or are you just doing his work? What is he going to say to you at the end of your life? Will he be proud of what you accomplished but know nothing of you personally or will he be thrilled with who you are and what you’ve done with his name?

I have to say this gave me a real gut check, I’ve gotten so caught up in this whole work God has been doing that I have forgotten who gave me the gifts in the first place. My number one goal is to fall in love with Jesus anything after that is just his blessing.

For Kristians Ministry visit www.kristianstanfill.com

And….. For a fun clip from babysitting watch this Jumping Norah Bean

When I was in high school my mom taught abstinence. I first had sex when I was 17. I knew lots of facts. I knew about STD’s and I knew what God said about sex but what I didn’t know was a real life story. I didn’t know the after math of sex. I didn’t know the destruction, the pain, and the sheer heartache that came from pre-marital sex. See this is what abstinence class never taught me. (not that the government would let them but that’s a whole other issue)

When I was seventeen my greatest worry was where the next party would be, how I would get my next high, or where my next handle of vodka was coming from. I wasn’t worried about STD’s. I was worried about my boyfriend leaving me if I didn’t have sex and I was worried about missing out on what everyone else was talking about but when I thought about Sex my mothers talks of abstinence got lost in the clutter. Now don’t get me wrong I am a full proponent of teaching abstinence I just want parents to take another step that school can’t provide.

Forget about the stats for a minute and focus on their heart, their vulnerable, questioning, want to right now heart. Think about where you were at seventeen. Think about the butterflies of your first love or the way it felt when you had your first kiss (ok we can all agreed that sucked but you see where i’m going with this). Kids want feelings not facts. This is why my mission is to show them the bad feelings, the painful ones that come once he has loved you and left you. These are the feelings that aren’t shown on TV. This is what Katy Perry doesn’t sing about. Because your teenage dream might involve your skin tight jeans but tonight is gonna remain on your heart forever.

So my mom was an abstinence teacher and where did that leave me? 17, broken hearted and no longer a virgin. 17, and wishing I had known the true depth of the word heart ache. 17 and wishing abstince could have conveyed the tear that was left when he did. A little piece of me was missing and I knew that I would never get it back. Here’s the problem. once the first piece is gone its easier to let the other ones go. Its easy to justify sleeping with the next guy because you heart is already torn. Thats a lie. Each tear is irreplaceable. Healable… yes! but replaceable.. No!

There is good news though, this pain is temporary and God can heal your broken heart but you have to stop giving your heart away. This is my challenge to you let God heal what is broken and move on. Don’t give any more of your heart away.

God has been very good to me lately and for that I am thankful. He is expanding my ministry to reach teens and for that I am thrilled. If you missed my two guest posts on friday here are the links

1. On Relevant Brokenness I talked about how we handle it when God says no

http://ht.ly/5Qw8t

2. On People of the Second Chance I was honored to share a story about one of my crazier memories from living an unsaved life. You can check it out at

http://www.potsc.com/testimony/one-night-in-aruba/

Thank you for being consistent readers and for letting me share my heart with you. I am continually blessed by your comments and words of encouragment. I can feel that God is moving in my life and I am honored to take these next steps of faith. For those of you who are interested in the book pre released copies will most likely be sold in the next few months otherwise it will hopefully be in stores by next may!

God Bless,

Tindell Baldwin

Standing up for truth will always face adversity.

Standing up for what is right and not what the crowd does will not make others happy.

Being wrong in the eyes of the world is not a fun place to be.

I faced my first backlash from my book this afternoon. It was surprising and painful, and I didn’t handle it well at all. In fact I ran out of the office, called my mom, and cried in the car (like every 24 year old would do). I didn’t take it well because I wasn’t prepared for truth to be spat at. I wasn’t prepared because I lived in a fantasy world where people would want to hear my story and didn’t care if it didn’t match up with their worldview. So I got upset, emailed everyone for support, and asked God if this was really all worth it.

Is it worth pissing people off if others get to hear truth?

YES!

As I sat in my car and cried, I realized that Jesus was a hated man. I realized he wasn’t welcomed with open arms when he gave sermons and told stories. Jesus was telling people what they didn’t want to hear, and he was hated. I know that some people will  hate me for my message. Some people will hate that I stand against lies and stand for the truth that will set you free. People will not like that my message tells them that their lifestyle is living in sin. I don’t care though. Because for every 1 bad email I have received I have gotten dozens more from people who have heard truth and are blessed by God’s word. For every one person who stands against me there are ten more who stand with me and will fight for the truth to be heard. It isn’t pretty, but as Francis Chan said at Passion a few years back, “if you’re not making people mad then you’re not doing something right.”

So today the enemy came for me with his teeth bared. He came to warn me that people won’t like me for what I stand for. He came to tell me that I might have to face this with only my savior at my side. I’m ok with that though because if one live gets saved because of my story then I am happy. If one girl doesn’t sleep with her boyfriend because I bared it all then I am satisfied, and if one more teen doesn’t end up in rehab because I talked about how addictive drinking can be then my mission is accomplished. God will be glorified and Satan cannot stop that.

Paul said it perfectly in 1 Timothy when he said “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the worst”

Someday’s I feel I should have that verse tattooed on my forehead.. God came to say the sinners… of whom I AM the worst. This is the truth about flesh and bone, its sinful. We can try to do good things but the truth still remains God came to save the sinners… of whom I AM the worst.

I am the worst because when he offered his love I spat in his face. I am the worst because when he called me near I ran far away. I am the worst because when he told me lovingly not to do things I did them anyway. We have all been the worst sinner… none of us can lay claim to being a non sinner. None of us can change what Paul said to, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.. of whom i’m not that bad. If you think you arent that bad then you have missed the point.

God called us to be blameless in his sight and none of us can claim that today. So just how bad of a sinner are you? I can tell you how bad you are, bad enough to deserve the death of a King. Your sin was so bad that a sinless man had to die in his place. You are not a good sinner, you are not occasionally bad, you are inherently bad. You are the worst sinner.

I don’t tell you this to feel bad. I tell you this to realize how much you deeply need a savior because if you grasp just how bad you really are then maybe you will grasp just how wide the arms of grace really are. If you can believe that you are the worst, just like me, then you can start to see just how great the sacrifice was that Jesus made that day. Here is my come to Jesus talk. You are a sinner and you need a Savior. The end.

I’m just a girl. A girl who made a lot of mistakes. I’m just a girl with a normal story who made a lot of mistakes. I’m just a girl who loved a boy and had sex and then got her heart broken. I’m just a girl who turned to drinking to heal my broken heart, only to find the bottom of a bottle and an empty heart. I’m just a girl who turned to drugs to numb the pain, only to find that the high faded and the pain remained.

I’m just a girl who started searching. Looking for something that could heal all my broken pieces. I looked in my friends, and found comfort but not healing. I looked in family, and I found love but not healing. Then I looked in grace, in the loving arms of a Savior, and I found healing.

He found me broken, humbled, and licking my wounds created from years of sin. He found me in a desperate place, running to anything that promised gratification. He found me crying out for help.

Aren’t we all the same? We all have a story. We are all looking for someone to take our hurt, heal our pain, or give us joy. We are all searching for something that gives us hope that this isn’t all there is.

So what’s your story? What are you running from, and where are you running to? When will you accept the grace that is so freely given?

I got the final copy of my book in last night. It was an exciting thing to see all the kinks worked out and realize this is actually going to become something. I felt a lot of things at the moment but one that stood out was utter fear. The first line in my book after the dedication states,  “I’m gonna give all my secrets away” and I mean every word. I air all of my dirty laundry for my readers to see but why? Why do I dredge up the past, one filled with a lot of unpleasant memories, why do I tell my story without hesitation and there is only one reason.

Because I wish someone had told me.

Because I wish someone would have been honest about sex, drugs, and alcohol. I wish someone had told me their story with none of the gory details left out. I wish someone would have showed me the true side of sin instead of letting me believe what MTV had to say. I wish someone had told me the truth about my Savior instead of finding him in my darkest moment.  Don’t get me wrong my parents did their best but  i’d like to think I would have changed my mind on a few decisions if i had heard a story like mine.  I’d like to think I would have had a prettier past but I don’t.

However, lots of girls have the chance to live differently and its my honest opinion that unless we start being real about what they are facing then we will never get through to them. Unless we talk about the real side of sin they will never want a Savior. If teens think that life is really like Katy Perry’s song “Last Friday Night” they are in for a rude awakening. There is much more to Friday night than getting drunk and having sex but how will they ever know if they don’t hear the truth about getting drunk and having sex.

One of the things my editor said to me at the end of this process is that I will face adversity in the midst of getting this book published but i’m OK with that. I’m OK telling every side of my story if a few lives get saved. I’m OK being real because in the end the glory will be to God and that is all that matters.