Ditching Perfection

For our last Europe trip recap, you get to hear from my daughter, Lulu, about her experience.

She shares about:

🎵 her favorite memory of the trip — seeing the musical, Wicked,

☔️ the several times we got drenched in rain storms,

🍪 where we found the best macaron in France,

💡 and how God helped her have new perspectives on fear during our trip.

I also answer some of your questions that you submitted on instagram awhile back, like:

❓How did you afford this trip,

❓What would you do differently next time,

❓Is there a location you’d skip in the future, and

❓What did God teach you about yourself that you’ll carry with you for the rest of your life?

Thanks for celebrating with us as we went on this adventure of a lifetime. What a gift it is to discover God’s goodness through people and places all around the world. 🌍

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✨ If there is any way that I can support you in your Ditching Perfection journey, feel free to reach out to me on instagram @carlycommunicates.

🎤 If you are looking for a preacher for an upcoming event at your church, organization, or university, I’d love to hear your ideas and talk about how we can partner together. Reach out to me at https://carlycommunicates.com/contact/

Join Mike and me as we reflect on the last leg of our trip—three weeks in England! We spent a week in the lovely city of London and then two weeks in the picturesque rural countryside, the Cotswolds. If you haven’t seen photos, google “Cotswolds” ASAP and you will see baby sheep that will make you weep with joy. 🥹

Some of the highlights that we talk about in the episode include:

🎵sitting in the front row for Wicked in London,

🍰 meeting a winner of the Great British Baking show and eating at her restaurant,

⛪️ wandering through the Gloucester Cathedral—which was my favorite church of the whole trip,

🐴 befriending George, the horse, at our darling farmhouse Airbnb, and

🚗 Mike learning to drive on the other side of the road. *Thank goodness he drove and I did not! 😂

It has been so fun sharing about our trip with you! If you have any questions about time in Europe, send us a DM. We’d love to chat. 💛

Highlights of our second leg of our European adventure was full of fairy tale vibes… and a few mishaps. 🤪

Today on the podcast Mike and I are sharing about:

🏰 Visiting Neuschwanstein Castle — the castle that served as the inspiration for the Walt Disney’s castle,

👀 How we found a super affordable Airbnb with castle views,

🍫 Our delicious tour at the Lindt Chocolate Factory,

🏔️ And the magical town of Hallstatt, which influenced Disney imagineers as they dreamed up Frozen’s town, Arendelle.

On this portion of the trip, we also ran into a major mishap with our rental car reservation—and it was our fault. It was definitely stressful, but before we left, we had told ourselves this: “At some point, things won’t go as planned. So, *when* that happens, we will know we will be okay and we will be equipped to figure it out.”

It was anticipatory grace, and when the mistakes happened, we were able to be patient with ourselves more quickly, and trust that we’d be able to navigate the challenge in front of us.

So, as you listen to this episode this week, we hope that you give yourself anticipatory grace too. You will make mistakes. Things will happen that you didn’t plan. Instead of beating yourself up, normalize the experience of being imperfect and then trust that God will help you weave your way through the unexpected. 💛

Hope can feel elusive. Sometimes we chase after it, only to feel like it is out of our reach. Other times, we feel like we have a little hope, but we don’t feel like we can share it. What if there isn’t enough hope to go around?

In this sermon from Ezekiel 37, we will be reminded today that God’s hope is most clearly experienced in community. God’s hope is for the whole neighborhood.

This sermon was originally preached at Nampa College Church in the summer of 2023.

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I’d love to connect with you throughout the week on instagram @carlycommunicates. If you'd like to learn more about my speaking ministry or access my Bible study resources, visit carlycommunicates.com

I am convinced that security and joy are connected. So, what do I mean by joy? From my perspective, joy is a SETTLED GLADNESS— rooted in finding our security and our identity in God, who is trustworthy, faithful and unchanging. But this whole thing isn’t easy right? So, in today’s sermon, we are talking about the invitation to travel light so that we can make room for God to bring deliverance, peace, righteousness, justice, light and joy in ways we don’t expect.

This sermon was originally preached at Northwest Nazarene University in the winter of 2022 as a part of their Advent series.

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I’d love to connect with you throughout the week on instagram @carlycommunicates. If you'd like to learn more about my speaking ministry or access my Bible study resources, visit carlycommunicates.com

In today’s day and age, a teeter-totter mentality dominates our culture and can even weave its way into our closest relationships. We buy the lie that “when I go up, you go down” and “there can only be one winner.” This breeds habits of hostility, but when we follow the example of Jesus, we are empowered by the Spirit to cultivate habits of humility. When we live that way, we move from self-promotion to asking the question, “How can I lift others up?”

This sermon was originally preached at Eagle Nazarene Church in the fall of 2018.

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I’d love to connect with you throughout the week on instagram Carlycommunicates. If you'd like to learn more about my speaking ministry or access my Bible study resources, visit carlycommunicates.com

We all long for peace… especially in times of uncertainty and waiting… but what if what our heart longs for isn’t found in convenience and comfort zones?

What if true peace is found not in spectating… but through fully participating in the new thing that God is doing?

This sermon was originally preached in December 2023 as a part of the Advent series at Nampa College Church.

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I’d love to connect with you throughout the week on instagram @carlycommunicates. If you'd like to learn more about my speaking ministry or access my Bible study resources, visit carlycommunicates.com