Momma Theologians | Christian Motherhood Ministry Momma Theologians

“Are you truly praying for thy will to be done,” the preacher asked a rapt congregation, “Or for my will to be done?”

My church recently hosted a missions conference where our international and national partners shared their work for God’s Kingdom around the world. For five days, I listened to stories from missionaries and church planters about smuggling Bibles into closed countries, preaching the Gospel to those who had never heard it, and experiencing persecution for the Christian faith. I sat on the edge of my seat as they recounted God’s faithfulness to them in suffering, needs, and endurance. Their testimonies both encouraged my own faithfulness, and yet, caused some discouragement to rise up. I wondered how serving my own little community in the center of the Bible belt could make the same difference in the Kingdom of God. How could I, a mother who works in the home, make an impact on the Kingdom?

On the final Sunday morning, one of our international church planters shared an exhortation for our faith family to live on mission wherever we are. He ended with the question above, challenging whether we truly were living our lives for the Kingdom of God. He encouraged us to submit our will to the Father’s by daily praying, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

We’re all kingdom builders. In my home, my primary mission field, I often want to build my kingdom, rather than God’s. I build routines that protect my own comfort rather than provide opportunities for Gospel proclamation. I use my discipline to point to my own control rather than God’s sovereign rule. I create all day long—meals for my family, words for others, activities for my children—expecting to receive glory rather than point to my glorious Creator. I steward my home and family to establish my own kingdom, rather than to further God’s Kingdom.

The question is not whether you and I are building a kingdom. It’s whose kingdom are we building? Because we all are part of the story of the Kingdom.



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Practical Takeaways


Begin memorizing the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. You can even invite your children to join you!
Brainstorm different ways you can go out of your comfort zone to share the Gospel with others. It might be inviting your children into your Bible study time or striking up a conversation with another mom at the park.
Read through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 where he describes what the Kingdom of God is like.

Prayerful Takeaways

Begin each day by praying Matthew 6:10 over your planner and to-do list—that God’s Kingdom would come to earth through your work that day.
Pray through the different areas of your life and ministry right now. Ask God how you can join his Kingdom work in each of those areas.
Confess ways that you have been seeking to build your own kingdom rather than God’s.









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Momma Theologians Contributor

Bethany Broderick

Bethany Broderick lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, three-year-old daughter, and one-year-old son. A recovering perfectionist, she writes about resting in God’s grace in the everyday moments of life as a woman, wife, and mother. She is on the blog contributor team at The Joyful Life and has featured articles at Risen Motherhood, Coffee + Crumbs, and Kindred Mom. You can find her words on her personal blog (dwellingword.com) and on Instagram (@bethanygbroderick).

Responsibility, exhaustion, and distraction often overshadow the joys of motherhood. Quiet and solitude remain as elusive as the Loch Ness monster. As we pour ourselves out for our children, we struggle to find more to offer our spouses, friends, and God.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if the solution consisted of doing less rather than more? What if being mindful of each moment enabled us to refresh our souls and glorify God?

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Please read the Biblical truths behind this message and declare the awesomeness of our God:

As he was now getting near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees from the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
He answered them, “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.” – Luke 19:37-40 WEB

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Momma Theologians Prayerful Takeaways:
1) Start your morning by reading Psalm 148 and 150 and carry that spirit into your day. Actively look for moments of beauty, write them on your heart, and give praise to the Lord.

2) Read and meditate on Psalm 103 and/or 136.

3) Find a few moments to marvel at God’s creation around you. Consider these songs to accompany your solitary worship:  Chris Tomlin’s “I Stand In Awe” featuring Nicole Serrano or “Beautiful Beyond Description” performed by Soul Survivor and Momentum.

4) Challenge yourself to spend time outside each day this week. Try to experience God with all five senses and turn the time into a prayer of praise. If you can’t go outside, marvel over prerecorded sights and sounds from nature.

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Momma Theologians Contributor

Leslie Klosterman

Leslie Klosterman has savored more than a decade as a stay-at-home mother and volunteer. However, she recently took a leap of faith and completed her master’s degree in Christian Spirituality and Formation at Regent University. God has blessed Leslie with three lively sons (a teenager and twins who are eight). Leslie loves God, reading, writing, K-Dramas, dessert, and taking pictures. She also has a passion for ministering to women and children. You can find more of her writing at her personal blog. 

My parents modeled spiritual disciplines, read to us, taught us how to think, and demonstrated repentance. They did this in small, daily moments of faithfulness as well as after intentional planning. It wasn’t complicated, but these four areas became powerful patterns in my life that shaped me and are now shaping my parenting.



Momma Theologians Practical Takeaways

What are some of the things your parents did well in how they raised you? How might you implement them in your own life?
If your parents were not believers and/or didn’t raise you well, how has God led you in your parenting already? How can you grow still further in these things?
Brainstorm ways you might apply my four points in your unique family circumstances. Select one or two ideas to try out this week.



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Momma Theologians Contributor

Kyleigh Dunn

Kyleigh Dunn is wife to Ezra and mother to three young girls. She reads obsessively, enjoys playing oboe and piano, and seeks to spread awareness of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders in the church and apply theology and biblical encouragement to moms experiencing them. Kyleigh blogs at www.thesojourningdunns.wordpress.com and can be found on Instagram @kyleighrdunn or Facebook @thesojourningdunns.

I’ve come to realize that most of my identity crises - both regarding  to motherhood and with my spiritual growth - start with comparison.

Momma Theologians Practical Takeaways

Which one of the verses above speaks most to you? Try to memorize it and use it to protect your mind against destructive thoughts.
Is there anyone you especially compare yourself to? If so, how about taking a break from following that person on social media or hanging out? Use the time apart to readjust your expectations of yourself according to God’s Word.
You might not be exactly where you want to be yet, but I am sure God has already taken you a long way from where you started. Make a list of things God has done in you and through you

Momma Theologians Prayerful Takeaways

Pray the verse you memorized daily, asking the Holy Spirit to permanently mark it into your soul.
Pray for the people you compare yourself with, blessing them.
Pray for a deeper understanding of who God called you to be and for alignment with Him.



SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DEVOTIONAL NEWSLETTER TO STAY CONNECTED WITH OUR MINISTRY

Go to www.mommatheologians.com 

Find articles and essays written by mothers just like you as they share stories and reflections about how they grow spiritually in Christ in the midst of motherhood.

Join our community on Instagram @mommatheologians

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Momma Theologians Contributor

Denise Assis Dos Santos

Denise is a pastor, wife, and mother of two boys who wake up way too early every morning. She is a Brazilian living in Oslo, Norway, and speaks Norwegian and English in addition to her mother language, Portuguese. Denise has a burning desire to serve Jesus and to manifest His Kingdom on earth, all while juggling motherhood and a full-time job. You will find her writing, drinking coffee, listening to worship music, and working up the courage to do the dishes.

If you’re anything like me, you probably start your day with hot coffee and short prayers.

Lord, give me strength, help me wake up, please make the baby sleep a little bit longer, please be the patience I come up short with. You might be mentally reviewing and ordering your tasks for the day, or you might prefer to wing it. You might be readying children for school or gearing up for “long days of small things” with your littles, as the author and theologian Catherine McNiel so aptly phrases it in her book of the same name. Whatever season of mothering you are in, I imagine your plate is full and your capacity for care might be waning. You are doing all that you can and trusting that God’s grace will provide for all that falls through the cracks, and these days, it may feel like pretty much everything is.



Momma Theologians Practical/
Prayerful Takeaways

1.  Ask Holy Spirit to show you if there are any areas in your life where you could more wholeheartedly support the wellbeing of your family?

2. Do something out of the ordinary for your kids—bake them a batch of chocolate chip cookies on a Wednesday afternoon and tell them (and yourself) how delicious God’s love is!

3.  There are 221 references to the word “build” in the ESV translation of Scripture. Spend some time on biblegateway.com reading through the verses referencing this word. Pick one Scripture to re-write in your own words, and meditate on what God is showing you through this verse or passage.





SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DEVOTIONAL NEWSLETTER TO STAY CONNECTED WITH OUR MINISTRY

Go to www.mommatheologians.com 

Find articles and essays written by mothers just like you as they share stories and reflections about how they grow spiritually in Christ in the midst of motherhood.

Join our community on Instagram @mommatheologians

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Momma Theologians Contributor

Kelsi Folsom

Kelsi Folsom is a poet and singer making her home in beautiful Kansas City with her husband and four young children. She navigates the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood with black coffee, her library card, and a no.2 pencil. Her essays and poems are published in Motherly, Coffee and Crumbs, Grit and Virtue, Verily Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Kindred Mom, and elsewhere. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Breaking the Jar (Finishing Line Press, 2022), Buried in the Margins (Finishing Line Press, 2020), and Words the Dirt Meant to Share (Desert Willow Press, 2018). Having lived in multiple countries and moved fourteen times since getting married, Kelsi loves encouraging women to find refreshment and comfort in the moment-by-moment friendship of Jesus Christ. She firmly believes in the power of true worship to foster healing through the embodiment of God’s unconditional love. When she isn’t cooking for family and friends, she enjoys thrifting, reading Bible commentaries, and occasionally putting her B.M. in Voice Performance to good use. Connect with her on IG @kelsifolsom and sign up for her quarterly newsletter The Shameless Beauty Digest.

None of us would admit we view God as a cosmic vending machine who will dole out blessings if we only insert the right coins of our good works.  Yet, here we are, living as though this karma ideology was the gospel truth.



Momma Theologians Practical Takeaways 


Read Matthew 11:28-30 and praise God for the truths of Jesus’ promises found there.
Confess belief in Karma Christianity and pray that God will show you His nearness through your current difficulties.
Journal about a difficult time in your past while paying special attention to God’s presence with you and your family.
Think of another mom in your life that may be having trouble and pray for her. Ask God how you might support her well during this time.



SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DEVOTIONAL NEWSLETTER TO STAY CONNECTED WITH OUR MINISTRY

Go to www.mommatheologians.com 

Find articles and essays written by mothers just like you as they share stories and reflections about how they grow spiritually in Christ in the midst of motherhood.

Join our community on Instagram @mommatheologians

Our team consists of fifteen writers and Momma Theologians, plus myself,  but it is always a joy to host and steward others’ words in this space to encourage you on in your spiritual growth.

If you are a writer and would enjoy the opportunity to be featured on our podcast, just like Elena Limoges is featured on this one, or to have your essay published at Momma Theologians, check out our writer’s and submissions guidelines at: mommatheologians.com/writer



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Momma Theologians Guest Writer

Elena Limoges

Elena Limoges is a registered nurse turned writer living on the West Side of Chicago. She is passionate about telling stories of God’s goodness, even in difficult situations. She draws on her experience to write in the spaces of mental health and also justice. When she is not caring for her two small sons, you can find her making delicious food, delving into audiobooks, and discovering new coffee shops around the city.