Go Make Disciples: Living with Everyday Gospel Intentionality

Growing up as an Air Force kid, Lauren had to pull up roots every two or three years, but God used her exposure to different countries and cultures to give her a love for the nations. When God saved her as a freshman in high school, Lauren began to realize all the ways her global church family had invested in her and grown her faith.

When she moved again for college, Lauren got involved in ministry as a freshman Bible study teacher and a summer camp worker. As Lauren grew in God’s word and found ways to serve, God directed her heart for the nations toward missions.

When she graduated, Lauren knew she wanted to be trained to study the Bible, so she started researching seminaries. What excited Lauren about Southeastern was its heart for the Great Commission and for training missionaries to make disciples of King Jesus.

Training to Make Disciples

In 2013, Lauren started classes at an extension center of Southeastern in Birmingham, Alabama, while still serving with a nearby missions organization that had sent her to Uganda the summer prior. Even before moving to Wake Forest to study on campus, Lauren found herself being deeply formed by Southeastern’s culture and by her professors’ passion for God’s word.

“I’ll never forget my hermeneutics class with Dr. Shaddix,” recounted Lauren. “It was my first seminary class, and I remember before we dove into talking about God’s word, Dr. Shaddix had us place our Bibles on our desks, get out of our chairs, and kneel on the floor. He asked us to remember this posture towards God and his word — not standing above it but kneeling under it, submitting to it.”

“That class and that moment shaped my very understanding of God’s word,” added Lauren. “We look to the Bible itself to shape our understanding of it. We don’t come to the text with our own preconceived notions, but we allow it to define itself and speak for itself — for God to speak through it. This class gave me confidence in reading the Bible for personal study as well as teaching it to others.”

That class and that moment shaped my very understanding of God’s word.

After Lauren moved to campus the next semester, she had even more opportunities to learn from professors and fellow students, who encouraged her and helped her walk closely with Jesus. For Lauren, this community was deeply formative in her life, as her passion for God’s word and God’s mission grew in a community committed to a common goal of making disciples.

Living on Mission in the Mundane

During seminary, Lauren worked nearby as a nanny, at a popsicle shop, and on a snow-cone truck. She often felt frustrated and struggled with the idea that her jobs were getting in the way of ministry, but God helped her realize that being faithful to Jesus and obeying the Great Commission means living all of life with gospel intentionality.

“I began to see that all our work has worth and value and that our faithfulness even in ‘mundane’ work is just as important as our faithfulness in the more ‘holy’ work,” recalled Lauren. “The people I engaged with while mopping floors or changing diapers were eternal souls, and the conversations I had with co-workers about life and faith were so important, even if we were sitting at a popsicle counter waiting for customers.”

I began to see that all our work has worth and value and that our faithfulness even in “mundane” work is just as important as our faithfulness in the more “holy” work.

This realization — that everyday mundane moments of life are opportunities for worship and ministry — took root in Lauren’s heart and gave shape to how she would later think about work, motherhood, and difficult seasons of waiting on the Lord.

At the same time, God was also using Lauren’s seminary training to develop her voice and skills as a writer and to refine her desire for theological accuracy and clarity in writing. This growth led Lauren to start a blog as a platform for ongoing ministry.

“My time in seminary was really the impetus for my love of writing about faith and theology,” commented Lauren. “I found a deep joy in writing my seminary papers, and I was shaped in the process of articulating my faith. As I grew in my understanding of God’s word, I started publicly sharing my writing and what I was learning to encourage others in their faith. This started as a personal blog and in time shifted to sharing articles more publicly with various publications and websites.”

When she graduated in 2014 with her Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies, Lauren pursued opportunities to serve internationally as a full-time missionary, but God closed each door one by one. Discouraged, she returned to Birmingham with more questions than answers. In this difficult season of waiting on the Lord, Lauren learned that he was calling her to make disciples and serve the nations right where he had placed her.

“In so many ways, these plans falling through were a gift,” recounted Lauren. “In time I realized God was refining my calling. All this time I thought he was calling me to a place: serving him overseas. Instead, he was calling me to a specific role: making disciples and teaching his word wherever I was. I realized I was already doing this through my writing and through serving college students at our church in Birmingham, some of whom have gone to the nations themselves. I began to find deep joy in the work itself.”

Sharing Real Stories of Jesus’s Nearness

In 2017, Lauren married Matthew, who shared her heart for making disciples and teaching the word. During the early years of their marriage, Lauren and Matthew learned that it would not be easy for them to have biological children. Over the next four years, Lauren and Matthew walked the difficult journey of infertility, praying, grieving, and wrestling with doubts and confusion while learning to trust the Lord to provide.

After three years of failed fertility treatments, Matthew and Lauren decided to pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF) with a commitment to protect life throughout the process, which for them meant more waiting, more money, and more procedures.

Even as they were grieving and bringing their pain to the Lord, Lauren began to write about their journey in hopes that others would learn to walk with God through their own doubts and pain.

“It wasn’t until about two years into our infertility journey that I felt comfortable sharing about it publicly,” recalled Lauren. “One of the hardest aspects of infertility is how lonely it is, and I knew if I was feeling that way that there were probably countless others who were too, and if my words could remind them that they weren’t alone, and — in fact — there is one who is near to them in their pain, then it would be worth it to share.”

“Being able to share my experiences and what the Lord was teaching me really propelled my writing into a place it hadn’t gone before,” added Lauren. “I felt more of a calling to use my words and my writing to serve an audience — even one I didn’t know through the internet and social media — and to press them to know and love God more, no matter what they were walking through.”

Stewarding her gift as a writer, Lauren was able to share her story of pain and faith as a way of making disciples and inviting others to draw near to God in their hurt.

During this season, God gave Lauren more opportunities to use her gift and story for ministry through a new job at Journeywomen — a podcast and resource hub designed to disciple women and encourage them to serve the Church and live on mission. As a creative content manager at Journeywomen, Lauren’s role in shaping content allowed her to grow her ministry of writing and editing even as God was growing her faith and dependence on him.

In God’s kindness and after years of praying, Lauren was able to get pregnant, and in April of 2023, Matthew and Lauren welcomed their daughter Charlotte as God’s precious gift born through adversity.

Equipping Women, Reaching the Nations

Now as a wife and mother and a creative content manager at Journeywomen, Lauren is helping other women to walk similar journeys of faith and to wrestle deeply with the truth of God’s word in the face of doubt, pain, and unyielding questions. God is even using her passion for writing to fulfill her longtime desire to serve the nations through the global impact of Journeywomen.

“One of the coolest things to me has been to see the global reach of the Journeywomen ministry,” noted Lauren. “Through my work, I am able to play a part in reaching people with the gospel whom I would never have been able to know through my individual overseas ministry as a missionary. Through my words and work at Journeywomen, I can have a small impact on places I long to go to but will likely never get the opportunity to see. The Lord is gracious to reach so many countries and cultures through our humble ministry, and it is a joy to live out the Great Commission through my work for Journeywomen.”

As she writes with gospel intentionality, Lauren is also committed to making disciples in her everyday relationships and in her daily rhythms at home with her daughter Charlotte.

“My disciple making looks a lot different in this season than it has in other seasons when I was serving as a college minister or as a church-planting wife,” Lauren reflected. “Most of my time is spent at home with my daughter, writing to help others, and the occasional opportunities to engage with the college girls who babysit for us or the women in the Bible study I lead. I’m so grateful, though, to know the incredible impact that even an intentional investment in one life can make for the Kingdom, and I am deeply rewarded by that work.”

I’m so grateful, though, to know the incredible impact that even an intentional investment in one life can make for the Kingdom.

As Lauren leverages her work and relationships to make disciples, she is grateful for her training at Southeastern, which taught her to love and teach God’s word and to use her gifts to fulfill the Great Commission.

“I thank God for my time at Southeastern,” reflected Lauren, “because it grew my view of the Great Commission and my role in it — which right now looks like my ministry of writing, discipling and teaching women in my local context, teaching my daughter to grow in a love for God’s word from an early age, and supporting several friends who are doing incredible work for the gospel overseas — one of whom was a freshman college girl I discipled to the faith who is now serving in Jordan. I am so grateful for how Southeastern cultivated in me a theological discernment and a love for God and his word that now impacts every facet of my life.”

Would you join us in praying for Lauren to be refreshed in God’s word, to nurture Charlotte toward faith in Jesus, and to be faithful to make disciples where God has placed her?