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Meet Tracey Mitchell
I am so excited to introduce you to another Brave Strong Girl Mentor, Tracey Mitchell
Entrepreneur | Author | Traveler
I heard about Tracey Mitchell long before I met her. I knew we attended the same church - even the same campus. Women kept mentioning her name to me and pointing out her resources and I kept wondering why we never met.
Now I know.
As a leading Bible teacher and conference speaker,
Tracey and her husband, Robby, travel about 40 weeks a year, ministering to people all over the world. They live a life on the road, coming in out of Dallas almost on a weekly basis.
When I finally met Tracey it was because of her generosity. She invited me to be a part of her vendor fair at her bi-annual women's conference called Thrive. I had just written Women at War and I appreciated the opportunity to reach a new audience.
I would soon discover that Tracey was blessing me with one of her strongest gifts.
Tracey is a developer, promoter and friend to women.
She's not afraid to share her influence or her platform with others. As I participated in the conference and heard Tracey preach for the first time, I knew she was an anointed minister. But it was what I found in the vendor hall and during the breaks that really blessed me.
Every woman was there because Tracey had personally invited and invested in them.
Countless women have become brave enough to share their story because of her encouragement. They have developed a ministry or dared to write a book. So many more were sharing and encouraging one another.
Tracey Mitchell
This is why I'm so excited to introduce you to Tracey as one of our featured Brave Strong Girl mentors. She is one of the strongest developers of women I know. She's also a prolific entrepreneur, always having her hand in multiple businesses, ministries and service organizations at the same time.
For example:
Tracey is a serial author having written or contributed to many books and resources. Her latest books are Downside Up, Becoming Brave and The Invitation - to mention a few.
She is also the Founder & CEO of the Thrive Conference. This bi-annual gathering trains and equips leaders and entrepreneurs and is held in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In addition, she is Vice President of Christian Women in Media and CEO of The Winning Woman, a ministry-based consulting firm.
Tracey has compiled over 20+ years of on-air experience having been both a programmer and guest on many Christian media outlets. In addition, she and Robby are currently the Executive Producers of a television program called Life From DFW. They reach millions via satellite, cable television and internet.
In 2016, Tracey was nominated for Texas Women in Excellence and in 2015 was awarded by the GSWB Chamber of Commerce with the "Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur Award." She also was awarded "The Excellence in Communications Award", given by Women in Media and in 2006 she received an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity degree.
Tracey really enjoys mentoring in the areas of:
Public Speaking
Personal Development
Publishing
I'm excited to introduce you to Tracey's latest book from Thomas Nelson called Becoming Brave.
Becoming Brave: How to Think Big, Dream Wildly and Live Fear Free
Are You a Good Listener?
Intentional listening offers many benefits, especially when you listen to God.
I’m not sure how I developed the habit of being a poor listener.
I have several theories:
I am an only child, therefore I have a life-time habit of listening to myself before I pause to listen to anyone else. (This should explain so many things about me.)
I am selfish. Although I am an enthusiastic listener, I am often eager for you to get to the end of your point so I can tell you about mine.
I am impatient. I enjoy conversation so much that sometimes I fall into a dream state where I think we are in perfect step with one another, and that I intuitively know what you are about to say. In eager confirmation of my mind-reading skills, I will burst forth, interrupt and complete your sentence. (I almost never get this right, but somehow I keep right on trying.)
It’s taken me a long time (and a lot of awkward moments) to understand the finer points of conversation and just how far I tend to drift, but it wasn’t until I began to listen to the voice of God that I began to grasp the true value of intentional listening.
Do you need to work on being a better listener? Then sit down with me and we can learn together.
Mentoring Is About Trust
Mentoring is fundamentally about building trust in a relationship.
When I began to dream about the founding of Brave Strong Girl I was in a particularly weak season of life. I had a strong passion to mentor others in the Spirit-filled walk, but I lacked the capacity, time or resources to do it.
Every example I could imagine wasn't really a fit for me.
I didn't have the capacity to engage in much one-on-one mentoring.
I didn't feel I had the expertise to really become some form of a life coach.
I felt limited by the idea of becoming a traveling speaker.
It felt like I lacked time, energy and resources. (Can you relate?)
On top of all that I had (and still have) other priority responsibilities - wife, mom, daughter and employee.
Yet I longed to form relationships with many others. I guess it's the mom in me - I wanted to help so many be strong and brave when they felt weak and afraid.
Eventually, I changed my focus from what I lacked and decided to move forward with what I had - faith, friends and some real-life experience.
As I pondered what to do, I thought a lot about how mentoring is fundamentally about building trust in a relationship. It is often accomplished through an informal network of connections and needs. It naturally bridges gaps in relationships, seasons and even interest. I wondered how I could build greater trust into my relationships.
Brave Strong Girl is a mentoring platform where you can meet, follow and receive from some of the most trusted women I know. As you become familiar with the community, I hope you will expand your expectation of mentoring from just one form of relationship to the possibility of many. If you allow us to encourage you through wise counsel, great resources and models of excellence, you will be able to glean richly from this platform.
You'll soon begin to be more formally introduced and hear from some BSG featured mentors that have impacted my life richly. You may not get to meet them personally, or engage in a relationship where you visit one another or talk on the phone daily. But none the less, you can draw from their well to water your garden.
The same is true of our collection of blogs and resources. There is so much wisdom here for those who are willing to seek it.
We aren't yet ready to form community at BSG that is based upon a face-to-face gathering. (Don't worry - I've got dreams in my heart for this and I am prayerfully deciding how to make a way for us to gather - both digitally and eventually, in person.) We have so much to look forward to.
So here's what I'm asking you to do now:
1) Subscribe to our community. (You will receive free gifts to get your started and you will be among the first to know about new content, upcoming events and anything new related to BSG.) I promise not to spam you and I will not share your contact information.
2) Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest and share, share, share.
3) Join our new Facebook Group. This will be our first "meet up" location. This is simple, easy and fun. If you join the group you will be much more likely to see BSG in your feed and you will help us by getting the message into the feeds of others who have not even heard about our resources yet. I'll be asking you for feedback and insight. We will help one another.
So for now, I hope you will trust me and take advantage of this on-line community where you can begin to form a sense of belonging right here in the midst of your digital world.
Together, we can mentor thousands of others, one brave strong girl at a time.
Why We Love to Gather
After all these years of serving the local church as a women’s pastor, I still get excited as the cars begin to stream into the parking lot.
I admit it. I still love to gather women.
After all these years of serving the local church as a women’s pastor, I still get excited as the cars begin to stream into the parking lot. A smile breaks across my face as they line up at the door, waiting for them to swing wide. My heart skips a beat and my palms sweat a bit as they pour into the lobby. And as the opening moments of our gathering draw near, I feel a deep satisfaction and a realization that all the hard work is worth it.
I’m definitely not a traditional pastor, as I would define it. I don’t prepare a weekly sermon, conduct many funerals or weddings, or even walk around with a robe or collar. But I do care for, think about, and gather the female members of our church with the intention of shepherding them into greater faith and stronger community on a regular basis.
In my early days of serving women, my “pastoring” looked more like friendship and a face-to-face conversation across my kitchen table. With our Bibles opened and a cup of coffee in our hands, we’d begin to share our lives. As I welcomed her into my own home, I created a sense of warmth, hospitality, and beauty. I thought about her needs and what would make her feel most valued. I prayed for her and hoped that our time together would be an encouragement for her heart and a catalyst for spiritual growth.
Soon I wanted to reach more women, so I opened my home to a small group who began to meet on a regular basis. Every week, I was excited to welcome them into my home and into my life. Here I learned a lot about what makes a woman feel cared for, heard, empowered, and loved.
Eventually we started hosting events at the church or retreat centers, building getaways, larger Bible study groups, and training opportunities for leadership development and evangelism. I discovered the joy of being a part of a larger community of believers and experienced the empowerment of a corporate gathering.
Today, I am privileged to serve as a part of a team that is committed to the value and vision of gathering women. For the past fifteen years, we’ve gathered women countless times for all kinds of reasons: conferences, women’s nights, global trips, leadership development, small groups, community service, prayer events, and even just for fun.
Regardless of the size of the gathering, I still fall back on the essential building blocks I first learned around my kitchen table. I still think about every element of the gathering and ask myself what is required to get her interest and how can I create a gathering place that is beautiful, safe, and honoring to God.
Today, my “kitchen table” is a bit larger and my bringing many friends together a bit more complex. My pastoring must look like a strange mix of corporate representation, relationship building, and party planner.
Although gathering women is a ton of work, it is essential in order to build the local church. Women often represent 60% or more of the local church membership and are the primary volunteer force. In addition, if you can capture the interest and heart of a woman, she will bring along her family. She sets the emotional environment of her home and is often the person that draws her family into a deeper investment in spiritual life.
This is the whole reason that most women’s ministries are birthed.
Generally, there will be a couple of women who want to get together to encourage each other. They want to study the word, share life, and pray for one another. Out of this healthy desire, more formal and broader reaching gatherings naturally occur. Before you know it, someone’s gone to the leadership of the church and asked to do a thing or two to gather women, and suddenly, another women’s ministry is launched.
Other ministry leaders often ask me questions about gatherings. How do you get women to come? How do you decide what to do? What kinds of things should we include? When is the best time to gather women? How do you know if a gathering is successful? Although these are goods questions, I don’t think they are the most important.
The question I’d rather you ask is “Why?” Why gather women?
There are many reasons to gather but there are two primary reasons that motivate me.
First, it is important to create a place of safety and belonging where a woman can effectively experience the presence of Christ and secondly to fulfill the mandate of Titus 2: teach the younger. This used to happen naturally in homes, families, and local communities. Several generations often lived in the same home and if not in the same home, most certainly in the same community.
Our mother and grandmothers taught us the basics of our spiritual development, our family relationships, and our sense of belonging. Today, the average woman’s life is much more complicated. She is far more likely to live in a different location than her parents or siblings. She usually works outside her home, is involved in some type of volunteer organization, and still manages to care for her family and home. She has aspirations for her life to be purposeful in many ways yet often feels isolated and alone.
The sense of community and camaraderie that were common for our grandmothers is unusual for us today. We now form community around social media tools and depend upon the worldwide Internet for our counsel and education. Don’t get me wrong! I love the generation in which we live, and I think that women are in the midst of the most empowering, meaningful season of any prior generation. But no amount of on-line community or education will replace the sense of belonging that happens when you are a part of something bigger than yourself.
We have an inherent need to be a “living stone” in the house of God. Women are natural gatherers. If you leave them alone, they will intuitively form clusters and groups. They tend to find someone they can relate to and who shares a similar passion or life season. They gather around all kinds of issues and topics, from workplace interest to PTA; from life stage or personal interest; and even from passions for music, movies, books, or videos. Without intention, she will search for and relate herself to others for influence, relationship, and fun. T
his tendency definitely makes the work easier, but it doesn’t make it simple. The church is competing with thousands of voices and opportunities for women. If we want women to develop a healthy, Bible-based, God-centered world view, and healthy relationships to boot, we’ve got to create gatherings that are varied and interesting enough to draw them into our circle.
Just consider these questions:
To whom is she listening?
Where is she getting her counsel?
Who is helping her to grow as a woman, a leader, a wife, a mother, a daughter, an employee, a friend?
Why would she add a church gathering to a long list of life demands?
What do we offer that she can’t get anywhere else?
How can I provide a gathering that will draw her attention from so many other voices and bring her near to experience a divine connection, a spirit-led inspiration, a unique gathering that will meet her needs?
If you ponder these types of questions until you begin to find the answers, then you will build a gathering for women that are based upon the “why.” All the other questions about how, when, what, or where will naturally fall into order and clarity.
So go ahead.
Invest the time, thought, and energy into building, stewarding, and enjoying gatherings for women. Your work will be rewarding, and the Kingdom of God will be expanded. The women you serve will grow healthier and more confident. Your own heart will overflow with joy at the work of your hands, and the church will fulfill its mission. Christ will be lifted high.
Thrive with Strengths
Discover and invest in your innate talents and strengths so you can develop healthier relationships, make better decisions and grow into a more effective leader.
This week I had the best experience.
I had a Strengths Coaching Session with Dr. Joanna Wiesinger of Thrive with Strengths.
Joanna is a Gallup Strengths Coach, speaker, author, and PhD chemist. She’s not only smart, beautiful and creative - she’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve worked with. She is a passionate, insightful teacher and mentor.
Joanna is helping me discover and invest in my innate talents and strengths so I can develop healthier relationships, make better decisions and grow into a more effective leader.
I find I am able to grow faster, wiser and with greater impact, when I’ve taken the time and money to invest in my personal growth through a coaching experience.
Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about mentoring. When you connect with someone who is an expert in their field, has a passion to help you go to the next level and is trustworthy, you have found a treasure.
Do you want to be a more effective leader?
You too can schedule an individual coaching session with Joanna or a workshop for your team here.
You can connect with her on LinkedIn and you can also watch her recent TEDx talk on the topic of attracting and retaining best talent in the market place here.
Joanna helps leaders and their teams find the right conditions to THRIVE WITH STRENGTHS daily for greater impact.
What are your strengths?
What Great Leaders Do to Win the Fight for Talent.
“When working with individuals, I design sessions to help my clients see the power of their inherent talents and how they can grow them into bona fide strengths. Once they recognize their unique “superpowers,” I help aim their strengths for greater contribution to others .”
Here are my CliftonStrengths Top 10 Results
Strategic
Relator
Individualization
Maximizer
Activator
Belief
Futuristic
Positivity
Empathy
Ideation
Empowering Women in Leadership
Sometimes I wonder if the topic of women in leadership is the “final frontier” of our day.
Sometimes I wonder if the topic of women in leadership is the “final frontier” of our day. (Now just for fun, imagine my best Star Trek voice.) These are the voyages of women everywhere. Their lifetime mission: to explore strange new worlds of authority, to seek out new leadership opportunities and communities, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Seriously, sometimes it feels like we are forging territory we’ve never crossed before, as if an empowered woman was something to view as a strange phenomenon, something heroic and daring. Yet the truth is women have been in positions of authority and influence since the beginning of time. Remember the quote “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”? Mothers raise their children with the intention of empowering them to grow strong and mighty. Her greatest desire is to teach them to walk confidently into their destiny.
We can easily scan the Scripture and find example after example of women who used their influence and their position to positively influence the next generation. There are many empowering and empowered women in our presence today; they simply are appearing in bold and new ways. You and I live in a generation where women can be a mom and CEO; a pastor or president; single and a leader. This shift in opportunities for women has left many confused or fearful about how to navigate in our generation.
The real question is how do we empower women in a way that releases the very best of their strength, gender, and compassion?
The answer is grace.
If you and I could learn to become “grace-filled” leaders, we would naturally become empowering leaders. Grace is not leniency, indulgence, or even acceptance of bad behavior or sloppy work. It’s not about softly coercing others into following. Rather grace is the key to power. So what is grace? Grace can be defined as unmerited favor. We can’t earn it, and we don’t deserve it. It is the gift of the unearned kindness and favor of God toward us. We first experience the grace of God at the moment of our salvation.
“For by grace (unmerited favor) you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (NIV, Ephesians 2:8-9).
Once we know Christ, grace overflows into all aspects of our lives, giving us a divine ability to compassionately accept ourselves and others while releasing a confident expectation that we are becoming more and more like Jesus. Grace drives out judgment, condemnation, and belittlement. It destroys hopelessness and is essential for real transformation in our lives.
That is what grace is, but what grace does is the key to empowering others.
Grace is power – a divine power to “will and do” (NIV, Philippians 2:13) according to God’s purpose.
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them” (NIV, Acts 4:33).
When we receive grace, we are empowered. When we give grace, we empower others.
Grace enables us to change, to become like Christ, to mature, to dream, to experience revelation, to become something and someone more than we have ever been. It involves the tenacious belief in the best version of who God created people to be, and it refuses to allow those we lead to live beneath the vision of God’s highest dreams for their lives. When we lead by grace, we demonstrate a courage and confidence in how God created us – and we naturally extend the same grace to those who follow.
People follow leaders who exhibit a compassionate understanding of where they are right now while empowering them to make courageous, faithful choices that help them become successful.
I personally experienced grace in a transformative way when I was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer in 2009. I was already working as a part of the women’s ministry team at Gateway Church. We were in a particularly busy season with lots of ministry projects that required attention. Soon after I was diagnosed, I began to think about how the team would need to shift or change in order to continue with the forward momentum we needed.
I am naturally strategic in my thinking, and, as an only child, I am also pretty practical. In addition, I tend to be performance-driven. Because I have a strong gift of leadership, I can barrel through and make things happen. I thought I knew what needed to be done. I needed to step aside, and others would need to step up. Ministry deadlines would not yield to my circumstances, and as a result, I would need to drop out or move to the side. I was very unhappy that cancer would steal my involvement in a team and ministry that I loved.
Yet, when I visited with my friend and boss, Pastor Debbie Morris, she had a different strategic vision in mind. Rather than sitting me down, she stood me up. She recommended that we wait and see. “Let’s see how you handle the treatments and then determine how it will impact your work. We can stop ministry and wait until we know more.”
We can stop? We can wait?
At that moment, God released a sweet, sweeping sense of grace. She was telling me in my weakness – at the moment I could not perform or lead – there was still a place for me. She valued me over the work of the ministry.
This changed my life.
I approached treatment with a desire to keep working. Pastor Debbie gave me permission to attend to my medical needs and to continue to work as I felt able. Over the next 18 months, I experienced 19 rounds of chemotherapy, a full regimen of radiation, and a lumpectomy. I did not work everyday, but I did work consistently.
And somehow, all the ministry moved forward. God graced me with the ability to accomplish more with less. I learned that my weakness was not a disqualification but rather an opportunity to rest in grace.
That experience changed how I lead. Now I want to pour out grace on others. I want them to feel the sweet, sweeping impact of grace and how it makes us feel valuable, empowered, and blessed. When grace is poured out on our weaknesses, we will experience the beauty of a powerful leader and become empowered to move forward.
Now that we’ve established how powerful grace can be, let’s think about the concept of leadership.
What is leadership?
Leadership is not control, manipulation, coercion or the use of might to motivate others. “
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead you must be a servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, for even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (NIV, Matthew 20:24-28).
So much of the leadership we see in the world looks like “lording it over others.” There are plenty of opportunities to practice this style of leadership. It’s full of selfish ambition, desire for control, and is rooted in forcing others into cooperation. Apparently this has been an issue for a very long time because Jesus clearly felt the need to redefine leadership as servanthood. He didn’t just talk about leadership, He modeled it. His whole leadership development program was based upon a “come, follow me” style of compassion and service to others.
'Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (NIV, I Peter 4:10).
When we set out to serve one another, to share the gospel, or to offer encouragement, God bestows a divine authority on our work. With that authority comes an equal measure of responsibility. We are responsible to steward our authority for the good of others and for the destruction of darkness. Leadership is also about teamwork and partnerships. You and I partner with God and one another to accomplish a divine purpose.
This is at the core of Godly leadership.
The church is a team. Our families are a team. Our circles of influence are a team. Leadership is service in its purist form.
It’s more about our willingness to take the lower, more humble position than it is about our ability to lead the charge.
If we want to be a better leader, we must become a better servant.
So, what’s empowering you?
If you are empowered by pain, fear, selfish ambition, or lack, you will be a leader that struggles to empower others. But, if your power comes from Jesus Christ, the source of all authority, you will lead with grace empowering others and producing a beautiful array of fruitfulness in your life and in the lives of others.
The Blessing of a Provider
I want to leave a legacy of faith, family and love.
I’m honored to be part of Jen Weaver's blog tour for her book club– be sure to join us on Facebook to discuss today’s post about Chapter 5, The Blessing of a Provider. If you haven't followed the tour so far, no worries! Order on Amazon now and you can catch up quickly.
It's been a long time since I sat in an economics class and studied the basics of supply and demand, but it hasn't been very long since I felt its effect in my own home. Supply and demand are pretty basic concepts. The more you want something, the more you are willing to pay for it.
For years, my husband has wanted to own some land. Not just any land, but land spacious enough and varied enough that he and our children to explore, hunt and fish. He's planning ahead for a place where he can share his love for the outdoors with our grandchildren.
I have not been very interested in owning some hunting property. It wasn't that I didn't want him to have land, I just wanted him to provide some other things first that I perceived as more important.
Over the past year or so, I've begun to ponder the kind of legacy I hope to leave. I want to leave behind something great and sustainable - a legacy of faith, family and love. I'm suddenly obsessed with the preciousness of the time we have together and hoping we are building something real and transferable for those we love.
For the first time I can see Mark's desire for land from his perspective. He too hopes to leave a legacy - a real and tangible one complete with trees, ponds and wild animals. All along, he's wanted to provide for us the answer to my dreams, but I thought it was only an answer to his dreams.
Suddenly our supply and demand are beginning to correlate.
I'm finally understanding God wants to provide for my desire through my husband's heart.
In Chapter 5 of A Wife's Secret to Happiness, Jen really challenged me to consider how God cares for me through my husband's hands.
We complain because we have not received what we feel entitled to. So we seek it out ourselves, for our pleasure. In pride, we align with our own agendas and put ourselves in direct opposition with the blessings of God.
How about you? Have you ever rejected the greatness of your husband because it didn't come in the package, plans or dreams you desired? Maybe you focused on what you perceived as lack, rather than on what God gave as provision.
Whether you are a young bride or a seasoned wife of many years, I hope you'll spend some time opening your heart to an expanded perspective. Jen even offers a Wifestyle Quiz to personalize the themes of this chapter and help give us insight into our own hearts. She helps us evaluate if we are a wife of demand or a wife of supply.
Let's talk:
How's the "supply and demand" in your marriage? In what ways can you transition from a demand wife to a supply wife?
Are you open to advocating for your husband's dreams rather than competing with him for your own? Talk with God about your needs and ask him to provide you with what he wants for your life.
How is God using your spouse as a source of blessing and protection?
PS - Mark and I will celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary on June 25th! Here's to a lifetime of love and a legacy to come!
