Spread the Love: Valentine’s Day Giveaway!


love

VALENTINE’S DAY GIVEAWAY: It’s impossible to love someone we do not know. And sometimes – when we meet the right someone – the more we know, the more we love. So what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by getting to know the lover of our souls even better?

We are giving away Who’s Your Daddy? A Glimpse Into God’s Character and a bag of Dove chocolates to THREE (3) WINNERS on Valentine’s Day!

Jesus and chocolate, people!!!

If you are currently doing WYD, enter to win for a friend! Dudes, you can enter to win for your special gal! Or yourself!

Here’s how to enter (by 11:59 pm on 2/13):

1) Like the Tenacious Grace FB page (if you haven’t already)

AND…

2) Leave a comment on the giveaway post there answering the following question – What do you envy most about the opposite sex?

Let’s have some fun this week, friends! <3

[Image: THOR]

Let’s Get This Party Started…

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Happy New Year, friend!

It’s time to get this party (and 2016) started.

You can now kick off your day and new year with the first Who’s Your Daddy? video. Grab your workbook, 20 minutes, a pen & journal, and head here to dive in.

*Read the introduction in the workbook, so you’re familiar with the format.

*The video password is on the first page in your book.

*Each video is about 20 minutes in length.

*You will need an internet connection to access the videos, but you can download them and watch them anytime, anywhere.

*The Group Discussion Guide is a free downloadable pdf, with all the info you need to lead an effective WYD group.

If you have friends you want to join you in your WYD experience, they can test-run the study with access to all of Week One (video & workbook pages). Encourage them to take it for a spin before purchasing the rest of the content.

If you have any questions or issues, please email us at howdy@tenaciousgrace.cc. It is our absolute pleasure and honor to serve you.

Know that we are praying HUGE prayers that God reveals Himself in a crazy powerful way during your time with Him.

Massive love to you,
Cookie

PS – If you haven’t ordered your copy of WYD and would like to, you can do that here, and we’ll stick a copy in the mail to you tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to get started with Week One.

12 Days of Giveaways!

santa

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love sent to me

a partridge in a pear tree…

It’s the happiest time of year! And we, at Tenacious Grace, want to share some Christmas love and loot with you during the first 12 days of December.

Our study, Who’s Your Daddy, will be available for purchase at tenaciousgrace.cc this Tuesday, December 1 [insert freakout moment/happy dance combo].

And we want to lavish the spoils of our celebration on you – our favorite people.

The giveaway will be hosted on the Tenacious Grace Facebook page, and we’ll feature a different giveaway package every three days. The packages include a free copy of Who’s Your Daddy? plus items from Thistle FarmsThirty-One, Mainstream Boutique, Rodan + Fields, Jubilee Farms, and Cashua Coffee. Not to mention, adult coloring pages, custom stationery and prints designed by the uber-talented Lindsay Haselden, fun apparel, and more.

Here’s the 411 on how you can enter & win…

  1. Like the Tenacious Grace Facebook page (If you’ve already done that, you’re golden on #1. Now, make sure you complete #2).
  2. Like and comment on each giveaway package separately (These will be posted on December 1, 4, 7, 10).

We will announce the winner on the evening of the third day of each package.

What a fun way to kick off the month! Join us & score the good stuff – for yourself or someone on your Christmas list.

And you have my word, there will be no swimming swans or laying geese or French hens or calling birds or turtle doves amid the packing peanuts of your prize. This is a fowl-free giveaway.

Merry Christmas to you, friends!

[Feature Image: David Melchor Diaz]

Who’s Your Daddy?

who's your dad

I grew to anticipate the inquisition.

Any time I met an adult man in my charming hometown, I was asked the same question. Invariably.

“Who’s your daddy?” asked with a tilted chin and through squinted eyes. Thick with a drawl and steeped in suspicion.

Because in the tobacco farming days of Marion, South Carolina, everybody knew everybody. Families had cultivated the same parcel of land for generations, and familial connections granted a wealth of information.

Once said-sir had my father’s name, he would proudly tell me where I lived, who my grandparents were, and recount a tale involving one of my family members. It was a beautifully odd interaction.

Years later the same inquiry enjoyed smack-talk popularity and was used to denote ownership:

“Who’s your daddy?” asked with an arrogant sneer.


At that point the question cycled through my psyche and stuck. I internalized it. In a different context. Without conscious effort it became a common query of myself. Because I wanted to know him.

To know why he allowed bad things to happen to good people.

To know why some people enjoyed his protection while others did not.

To know what pleased him and why his kids were often exclusive and rigid.

To know what he expected of me and why he seemed so angry all of the time.

I wanted to know God. 

In hindsight I see this has become something of a theme in my life. So much of my growing as a human has been the result of reconciling my conception of God with my life circumstances or those of others. A lot of “What kind of God allows this?” for both the awe-inspiring and the awful.

Through my own thirty years with him, I have discovered two life-altering truths he has hammered home like tent pegs:

  • EVERY misstep I have made has been a result of an inaccurate understanding of who he is.
  • He is so confident of his own goodness he knows that if I know him better I can’t help but love him more.

He walloped me with these principles so steadily that I wrote a Bible study sharing what I’d learned. You know, trying to spare others the walloping if possible.

That was five years ago.


Who’s Your Daddy? A Glimpse into God’s Character.


It was actually the second study I had written (the first had been a women’s study that accompanied a sermon-series entitled Five Lies of the Devil).

Who’s Your Daddy? was a six-week study taught at Bean Groovy coffee shop to 50+ women. Bean Groovy closed for us for six Monday nights, and the ladies enjoyed coffee and dessert while I taught an hour or so each week on a different attribute of God’s character. The gals followed along in a workbook designed and formatted by Lindsay, and our ministry partnership was born.

There was no content other than the weekly teaching sessions and a general homework assignment to be completed before our next gathering. There were no slides to accompany the listening guides. We didn’t film the sessions; heck, we don’t have one single picture from the entire study.

Primitive though it was, it was an absolute blast. And – in the five years since, even having written and taught another study, Tell the Truth – people still share how God revealed himself to them through the content of Who’s You Daddy?

So.

As God has given greater definition to the ministry of Tenacious Grace, he has also pointed us to revamp Who’s Your Daddy? (#WYD) and offer it as an online study.

WhosYourDaddy

And that’s what we’ve been getting after for the past few months. This go-round the study will feature six video teaching sessions (offered online) plus a workbook with listening guides and 24 daily devotionals. Each teaching session will tackle one attribute of God’s character (4 attributes from the original study and 2 brand new ones) and then the workbook will feature four daily devotionals that support that week’s character trait. More than 85% of the study is brand new content.

When you purchase the study, you will receive the workbook (locally or we’ll ship) with an access code for the video sessions printed inside.

whosyourdaddy


The study will be available for purchase here on our site and possibly in a couple of local venues [details pending, fingers crossed].

All parts of the study are still in production but the workbooks will be available by the end of the year (Christmas shopping time) and the videos will be accessible on January 1. So you can purchase the study in advance, enjoy the crazy of the holidays, and be set to begin on New Year’s Day. We can’t wait to kick off 2016 with you!

The beauty of an online study is the freedom that allows you to participate anytime, anywhere. The teaching sessions are a little under 20 minutes each, and you can watch from your phone in carline, in a coffee shop, or as a group. The possibilities really are unlimited.

The videos will continue to be available online until Jesus comes (and then the study will be pointless 🙂 ), so there’s no date by which you must start or finish.

We live with our feet on the ground, usually stuck there by spilled juice and syrup from our kiddos’ breakfast, so we’re all about making things easy around these parts…

We haven’t nailed down pricing just yet because we’re talking through an early bird price, a group rate, and other fun options, but we’re in the $20 range (with some options coming in at a little less and some shipping options coming in at a little more).

While it has been incredibly painful to watch and listen to hours of video of myself, it has instructed my prayers.

It has helped me know where to ask God to use my unintentional repetition of a point to drive it home for you, to ask him to magically unstick that piece of hair from the side of my face, and to beg him to give supernatural effectiveness to our best efforts.

Listen.

I know I bring nothing to the table but muddy fingerprints that mar the message, but my Daddy……

But.

My.

Daddy.

Can run a river through a desert.

So I’m praying he can use this study to draw us all closer to him. That – for some unexplainable reason – he’ll reveal himself in a way that leaves us smitten and awe-struck.

I’m praying for you. On my face this morning, urging him to ready the soil of our hearts for an encounter with him like we have never known. For eyes to see anew. For ears to hear with fresh understanding. For him to unzip the atmosphere and allow us to experience his presence with such power that we are never the same again.

Ever.

I hope you’ll join me.

Here’s how I would love for you to join this conversation:

  • Complete our contact form if you would like to be notified when the study is available for purchase.
  • Leave any questions you have in the comments, so I can answer them for everyone’s benefit.
  • If you have participated in any of the three studies from the past, share a memory (on FB or in the comments) from the content, a funny, or a food review from the desserts we offered at the first WYD :). Since we don’t have pictures, I’d love to have you help me capture those early days…

Friends, we can know him in a way that changes EVERYTHING!

[Feature Image: Dani Vasquez]

Who’s Your Daddy?

I’m back at it and would love for you to join me!!!

I am going to be teaching a six-week study (for gals only) beginning September 13. Six Monday nights in a row. 7-9 pm @ Bean Groovy (in the shopping center beside Swamp Fox Cinemas).

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This study was born from my own journey. I was tripped up for years and years by an incomplete, skewed, and inaccurate understanding of His character. We are incapable, in our human skins, of completely “getting” Him, but by studying who He is in His Word and who He has been and is in our lives, we can know Him in a way that completely revolutionizes how we live our lives. Seriously!!

We cannot allow negative church experiences to define who He is to us. I remember standing – as a nine year-old – crying with one ear pierced. I was certain that I’d be most unwelcome in my grandmother’s church with pierced ears. I also wore pants and had divorced parents. Three strikes against me then. I knew I was out for sure.
We cannot allow other Christians to define who He is to us. I have met some pretty cold and mean-spirited folks in churches. I was abused as a child by a man who was highly esteemed in his church. I have seen church families ripped to shreds by dissension. That stuff will mess you up – if you allow your view of God to be wrapped up in all of that human yuck.
We must allow Him to define Himself through His own Words and His own faithfulness in our lives. And when we do, we will discover that He is more attentive and communicative than we can grasp and far greater than we ever imagined. We will discover that His healing is complete and useful and His love is tender and astounding. He’s everything that a girl longs for… Come discover Him with me!

You can register online here or in the left sidebar. It seriously pains me to charge anything for the study, but I need to help defray the cost of the location and the materials. I will not profit from one cent, I promise! The study is $10 and can be paid online via Google checkout (see left sidebar), or you can email me an address request to mail a check. You are successfully registered once your registration and payment are received. Registration will be capped at 50 participants due to limited space.

Finally, I give monster props to my friend, Lindsay Haselden, who designed the logo, the video, the online registration form, the online payment option, etc… She has mad skills, and I am soooo grateful for her encouragement and her creativity!