Christina Fox, Author at Women.pcacdm.org

The River Approach to Women’s Ministry: Part 1

STEPHANIE HUBACH | CONTRIBUTOR In recent weeks, since a tragic mid-air collision over the Potomac River in Washington DC, I’ve heard many people say, “I don’t want to fly again anytime soon!” I can understand that sentiment. We become aware of our human frailty in bold relief at times like this. However, I’ve flown into Reagan National Airport many times over the years. Some of those flights are quite memorable to me, especially when we landed at night. Reagan National Airport sits right on the banks of the Potomac River, and often the planes follow what is called “the river approach” when landing. On a clear night, passengers have an astonishing view of our nation’s capital from the air as the plane winds along the twisting path of the river. With each building lit up at night, one can see how the Washington monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Capitol, and the Smithsonian Institution are all arrayed in relationship to each other. It is a stunning perspective! I’d fly it again in a heartbeat—just to take in the view. In a similar way, when we take an aerial perspective to the Scriptures—through the lens of biblical theology—we can suddenly see how all of the parts relate to the whole. We can see—lit up, if you will—how the major themes of Scripture tie together the grand story that God is authoring. What is that grand story—the “meta-narrative” of Scripture? And how does it relate to how we pursue women’s ministry in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)? What is the “River Approach” to Flying Over Scripture? The “river approach” to flying over Scripture—or the aerial view—helps us to step back and see the sweeping themes of how God is at work in the world, and where things are headed. This is often described as the Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation (or New Creation) paradigm. Think of the Bible as describing a great drama that is unfolding—and God himself is the playwright. The first act of that drama is God’s Creation of all things. The second act of that drama is the Fall of humanity and all of its consequences. The third act of that drama is the unfolding of Redemption that comes through Christ. And the final act of that drama has yet to be revealed to us: the Consummation of Christ’s already-not-yet kingdom, also known as the New Creation—when heaven comes down-to-earth and all things are made new...

The River Approach to Women’s Ministry: Part 1Christina Fox2025-02-17T19:52:03+00:00

Thriving in Women’s Ministry Leadership

KENDRA KAMMER|GUEST As I drove home from a women’s ministry meeting with a friend one evening, tears started running down my face. All my fears and frustrations burst forth in a torrent. I kept thinking: Does anyone think I can do this job? Am I going to get the hang of it? Why is it so much harder than when I served in women’s ministry previously? As the new Women’s Discipleship Director at my church, I craved wisdom. Suddenly, I understood why Solomon asked for wisdom above all riches when he took on the leadership of Israel. In 1 Kings 3:7-9, Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant Dad my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you… And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.” Solomon felt ill-equipped to fill his father’s shoes. His greatest concern was to be worthy of the great calling he had received. Two years ago, God called me to be his faithful servant in a job that was too big for me. Since I had served in women’s ministry leadership for over twenty years, I thought the job would be an easy fit. But instead, God had a challenge for me. By the third month on the job, I was already burned out. A surprising (but not unexpected) gift came in the form of a two-week sickness, which slowed me down enough to reorient my priorities and recommit to my calling...

Thriving in Women’s Ministry LeadershipChristina Fox2025-02-12T16:58:30+00:00

Love is Patient

KIM BARNES | CONTRIBUTOR Today I had an early breakfast meeting and left while my husband, Robert, was still in bed. When I got home, our bed was made. Later he noticed that the floor was dirty, so he mopped it. This afternoon, when I burned something in the oven, he came to my rescue, not only soaking the very messy pan but scrubbing it clean an hour later. My husband is not the man I married nearly 35 years ago. A Lesson in Early Marriage We were newlyweds—married just a few months—when I came home from my stressful job to find our apartment in chaos. Robert worked as our church's youth director, which meant he worked many nights and weekends and was often home during the day. That afternoon, I arrived to find dishes piled up, an unmade bed, and beard trimmings filling the bathroom sink. It wasn't the first time, and something in me snapped. I lost it. I went on a rant about my husband's slovenliness and his lack of regard for me. Obviously, I posited, if he really loved me then he'd understand that I value a tidy space, and he'd want to please me by cleaning up before I came home exhausted. I jumped to all sorts of conclusions and made wild accusations about his character and attitude toward me. Robert listened to my tirade with remarkable composure. When I finally paused for breath, he looked me straight in the eye and very calmly asked, "Did I mislead you? Are you surprised that the guy with the messy, disorganized apartment that you fell in love with continues to be messy and disorganized after getting married?" His question stopped me in my tracks...

Love is PatientChristina Fox2025-02-06T20:07:51+00:00

God’s Faithfulness in a Winter Season: The Gift of Witness

MARISSA HENLEY|GUEST “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” (Habakkuk 3:1-2) Have you ever found yourself in a winter season of suffering, when your world feels dark and cold? My winter season started 14 years ago when I found a lump in my breast. The lump led to tests, which led to a biopsy, which led to a phone call on the day before my 34th birthday. The doctor said the biopsy revealed a rare and aggressive cancer in the lining of my blood vessels called angiosarcoma. A quick internet search informed me that I was statistically unlikely to live to see my three young children reach adolescence. I started a treatment plan of high doses of chemotherapy, covered by the prayers of thousands of people and supported by the most amazing community of family and friends. After two rounds of chemo, my situation got even worse. My platelets were dangerously low from the chemo, and the only way for me to continue treatment was to start a clinical trial at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, 700 miles from my home in Arkansas...

God’s Faithfulness in a Winter Season: The Gift of WitnessChristina Fox2025-01-28T19:09:55+00:00

Ambassador for Christ: An Occupation with No Early Retirement

ELIZABETH TURNAGE | CONTRIBUTOR Missionary Rose Marie Miller turned 100 years old on December 23, 2024. In an email update on January 1, 2025, she reflected on highlights of the previous year. Chief among them was a two-week trip to Southeast Asia, where she taught missionaries. In her teaching, she shared with the missionaries insights from Scripture, focusing on familiar characters like Adam and Eve, Sarah, and Hannah, demonstrating how “the gospel pervades all of Scripture.” After returning home to London, Rose Marie fought a chest infection for the next two months. She wrote, “I was weak in body and soul and wasn't sure I would make it to 100.” Describing this as a “time of testing,” she humbly explained, “I would not take credit for what God did.” Few of us will live to be 100 years old; even fewer 100-year-olds will have the energy to travel internationally to teach the gospel. Yet, we will always be ambassadors for Christ; this calling comes with no retirement age. The Role of Christ’s Ambassadors By definition, an ambassador represents a country or organization and is tasked with creating relationships with foreign entities, promoting the interests of the home entity, and engaging in diplomacy. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, the apostle Paul describes himself and his fellow believers “ambassador(s) for Christ.” As Christ’s ambassadors, we represent Christ’s kingdom, our heavenly homeland, to those outside it. As Christ’s ambassadors, we promote the interests of our heavenly country by sharing its beauty with citizens of the world. As Christ’s ambassadors, we engage in diplomacy to advance the purposes of our heavenly country...

Ambassador for Christ: An Occupation with No Early RetirementChristina Fox2025-01-28T19:05:22+00:00

Trading Striving for Rest in Motherhood

GRACE THWEATT|GUEST Six months after my second child was born, both kids were sleeping through the night. I, however, wasn’t. My body exhausted; I’d lay my head on my pillow only to find my thoughts racing: I haven’t spent enough quality time with my oldest since the baby came. I wonder if he feels neglected. Goodness, I wish I hadn’t yelled at him when he disobeyed earlier. I really need to work on having more patience. I’d begin to drift off to a restless sleep, only to have a stressful dream wake me and leave me with an urgent sense that a child needed me or that I had forgotten to do something important. I would check the time, and my heart would drop with despair at the glaring number, 3am. I needed sleep to have energy to face the next day! My worrisome thoughts continued: Should I reset my alarm to get a little more sleep and just skip having an early-morning quiet-time? But I’m already feeling distant and lacking in my relationship with God… Anxiety and striving had grown to characterize my life, and they were eating away at me. I imagine I’m not alone in this. As moms, it seems we often strive in response to the anxiety we feel about our parenting. We worry: Are we teaching our kids the right things about God? Should we be memorizing more Scripture with them? Are we praying with them enough? And discipline… are we doing it right? Are we really helping facilitate heart change? We move through our days trying to do it all and do it all right. Our striving often comes from a good place: we desire to be good moms and godly individuals. But our striving ultimately leaves us feeling burned out and in bondage to our finite strength and capabilities...

Trading Striving for Rest in MotherhoodChristina Fox2025-01-20T19:13:31+00:00

What Does God’s Protection Entail?

AMY SANTARELLI |GUEST I pushed my 4-year-old granddaughter on the swing while she chatted away. My attention was suddenly piqued as she ended her ramblings with the words, “But I know that God will keep me safe.” I was happy to hear her talking about God, but I also found myself pondering the accuracy of her theology. Is it true that God will keep us safe? What does God’s protection entail and not entail? How do we properly understand this ourselves, as well as teach it to our children? We don’t want to tell them God will keep them safe and then when difficulty strikes, they feel God abandoned them, think He doesn’t care about them, or that He couldn’t or wouldn’t come through for them. The Importance of Biblical Context In the Bible we find many wonderful passages describing God’s care and protection of His people. But it is crucial that we practice good hermeneutics as we interpret those passages. We need to look at the context of the verses, who they were originally written to, and for what purpose. Here’s an example from Deuteronomy 28:7: The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. To discern the context here, is it helpful to understand biblical covenants...

What Does God’s Protection Entail?Christina Fox2025-01-20T18:59:38+00:00

Parenting is Hard

LISA UPDIKE | GUEST Parenting is hard. I mean really hard. I know. Of course, parenting is rewarding, wonderful, and awe inspiring. I’m not denying any of that. In parenting, we experience a depth of love that we never knew we could fathom. In parenting, we catch a glimpse of our Heavenly Father’s great love for us. In parenting, we begin to understand just a wee bit of why Jesus laid down his life for us, his beloved children. Still. Parenting is hard. Some days more than others. I’m right, and you know it. It’s important on those difficult days to remember that hard isn’t bad; it’s just hard. In fact, hard might even be good. It’s funny. We think if God calls us to do something then He will make the path clear, straight, navigable. Somehow, we actually believe that if God calls us to something, and we obey, then it should be easy. But somehow life just doesn’t work that way, does it? You see, God calls us to the hard. Jesus promised that we would have tribulation in this world (John 16:33). Paul even said that Christians rejoice in their sufferings! (Rom. 5:3) And sometimes, parenting is definitely full of both tribulation and suffering. I wonder if, when God told Eve there would be pain in childbearing (Gen. 3:16) if He meant the whole experience of raising children would increase in pain. We parents are so vulnerable. After all, we love these children of ours and want to protect them from all the difficult things that can happen: rejection, failure, sickness, disability, temptation…on and on the list goes. When our children suffer, we suffer. But our job isn’t to protect them from suffering, is it? After all, God loves us far more than we love our children, and He actually brings suffering to us for our good. Our job is to point our children to Jesus in the midst of it all...

Parenting is HardChristina Fox2025-01-18T15:06:55+00:00

Wrestling With God in Our Suffering

JULIANNE ATKINSON |GUEST As soon as I saw the area code of the phone call my husband was receiving, I knew something was off. I was pregnant with our first child and set to move for his job to Nashville, TN at the beginning of my third trimester. This was a city I had friends in, I knew there were good churches there, and it was a city we both liked. After a short conversation, my husband conveyed the news that there was a post they hadn’t accounted for in rural, northern New York state and he was now at the top of the list to take it. I was disappointed, but it wasn’t my first move and I hoped that God would have a good church and community there waiting when we arrived. Instead, I found a desolate place I never grew to love. I had left a large church in San Antonio where I was on staff and knew and loved each family and their kids by name. In New York, there were a handful of families hoping for a PCA pastor to come and pastor them. Church members brought meals when I had my son, but it felt more like they were checking off a box than done so out of friendship. I gathered the women of the church and started a Bible study in hopes of fostering fellowship as we studied God’s Word together. I ended up spending the study time preventing my son from climbing sky high, getting into people’s desks, and drinking bathroom chemicals. My husband worked long hours, weekends, and sometimes over an hour away. I was more lonely than I was during the Covid lockdown. It seemed like every hope I had for our move was dashed. The depths of disappointment I felt contrasted with the hope of change and led me to wrestle with God through it. Here my head-knowledge intersected with my very real and difficult circumstances. Were my toes digging into a sandy beach as the storm swirled around me or were they resting on the solid rock of the foundation of God’s promises? If everything around me fell down, I knew He would not. As believers, sometimes we suffer pain and loss so deep that we come to a crossroads in our relationship with God and who he is. Some might respond to that pain as though with a finger in his face saying, “How could GOD do this to ME?” Our hearts are hardened. We feel bitter. We struggle to forgive God. And we turn and run FROM him. Others might ask the same question, but with trust in God’s faithfulness to his promises—that he really is who he says he is. “How COULD God do this to me?” In that moment, we run TO Him and His Word. As we wrestle with his Word, we will find rest in the midst of our pain and rock under our feet...

Wrestling With God in Our SufferingChristina Fox2025-01-08T18:35:45+00:00

All We Can Do Is Pray: Prayer for California and the Wildfires

SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR This year, more than one illness spread through our extended family, hampering most of our plans for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. It seemed like we missed so much of the fun we normally associate with Christmas time that I left our tree up a little longer than usual in an effort to hang on to the season. To extend some of the festivities, I even went with a friend to see the Rose Parade floats that were lined up for viewing on Jan 2nd. I usually just watch the parade on TV, but this year I felt the need to make the drive to Pasadena and smell the roses for myself. Who could imagine that less than a week later, I would be watching some of that same area go up in smoke as wildfires spread across southern California. Our local news is full of stories about individuals who lost their homes and businesses. Many left their homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Yet as I have listened to the live interviews of people who escaped and who are waiting to hear if their house is still standing, or of those who have lost it all, one theme surfaced. They shared the perspective that they had lost only things. They had their lives, their loved ones and their faith. The subject of prayer came up often as newscasters casually ended their reports with the phrase “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” One commentator reporting the devastation as the TV cameras panned block after block of scorched homes even stated in a resigned tone, “All we can do is pray.” All we can do is pray? All we can do is pray!...

All We Can Do Is Pray: Prayer for California and the WildfiresChristina Fox2025-01-18T15:03:18+00:00

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