Titus 2 Minute: A bite-sized podcast for Christian women

Do you ever struggle getting into God's Word more? It can be a tough habit to cultivate, especially if you've been out of practice for a while!

As a busy woman, it can be so tough to cultivate the habit, or know where to start! In today's episode, MacKenzie shares how to get in God's Word more with some very practical parts!

Do you ever struggle trying to get your kids to play outside? Do they get bored and want to come back in to soon? Do you want to get them to love learning in nature more?

I've got a very inspiring episode for you today! Amy Roberts from Raising Arrows is joining us to talk about nature bags and how to use them in your homeschooling and/or in getting your kids outside more!

"For the mama who wants to encourage her kids to get outside and play more (regardless of whether they homeschool or not) can you share a little about your idea of a nature bag, what you put inside it, and how it helps your kids discover and play outside more? (I LOVE your blog post and podcast you did on this topic. So just a quick overview would be awesome!)"

• You can find Amy over at Raising Arrows
• Check out her very own podcast: The Raising Arrows Podcast (it's one of my FAVORITES!)
• Article by Amy: How I occupy my busy toddler
• Podcast by Amy: Occupying a Busy Toddler

This is the perfect time to start talking about this. The month of February for me is all about my spiritual disciplines, especially Bible reading and prayer. In the last episode of TTM, I talked about how to keep better track of your prayer requests.

And now this topic is coming at the perfect time, since Valentine's Day is right around the corner and marriage is a hot topic.

One of the very best things we can do for our marriages, is to pray. Pray for peace, pray for unity, and pray for our husbands.

All too often, I completely forget to pray for Jason. I'll pray for our family's immediate needs, or I'll pray for Jason if something big or unusual comes up. But far too often, I don't pray on a regular, consistent basis.

I forget to pray for things like: Jason's ability to lead our family, peace for his busy work day, wisdom as he teaches our kids, love and kindness in his interactions, and so on.

One of my favorite books on the subject of marriage, When a Woman Inspires Her Husband she has a chapter called Easing His Burdens. In it, she shares a few quotes from the man's perspective that I wanted to share: Pages 59-60.

As I work on the discipline of praying more throughout my day, one thing I want to be way more intentional about is praying for Jason and praying for my marriage.

So whether you find yourself in a season where your marriage is hurting, or you feel like there are a few things that could be improved, or you have a great marriage but want to make it more Christ-centered...no matter where you are with marriage, we could ALL use more time spent in prayer and remembering to keep Christ center.

If you want to focus more on prayer right now, I have an awesome FREE printable pack for you! It's called 14 Days of Praying for your Marriage and Husband. It includes 14 days worth of scripture and prompts to pray for that day. If you do this for 14 days, you are well on your way to making this a habit!

How many times have you said, "I'll be praying for you"? But then you carry on with your busy day and never think to pray for them again?

I know this happens all too often for me! So I've been trying to make a concerted effort remember these prayer requests more and actually follow up with them! Listen in today as we discuss the topic:

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

1. Write it down right away
2. Keep it with me or near me when I'll hear prayer requests (church, bible study, family gathering, etc.)
3. Get the prayer list out during your scheduled, daily prayer time.

Hospitality, inviting others in your home, and serving people with your home and heart is a powerful way we can serve in many different seasons.

But hospitality can also be awkward and nerve-racking if we are not used to it. Today's episode comes from a girl who wants to know how we can go deeper with hospitality.

"Questions: How do you go deeper, what questions do you ask? How do conversations differ between believers and non-believers?"

I think the biggest thing is just having that intention that you want to go deeper. The thing is, if you leave it at surface level topics the entire time, it will remain at surface level topics the whole time.

It's easy to talk about the weather, or your local sports team, or your kids soccer game. Obviously, it's okay to start with small talk, but the sooner you can get to more personal topics the better.

The way I see it, there are two main purposes of hospitality:

1. Get to know someone/a family better so you know how to love and serve them
2. Share the Gospel and let Jesus shine through you

So when we are extending hospitality, love should be the first thing on our mind. Love for our neighbor, learning their story, finding out how we can love and serve them. And love for God, showing Christ to our neighbor, letting the Gospel reflect in our life.

So when you really think about these goals of hospitality, it gets easier when you think about where to steer the conversation. My favorite thing to do is think about how you can get to more personal topics naturally.

So asking things like "So how long have you been going to this Church?" "Oh where did you go before that" "Where did you two meet?" "Where you a Christian in college?" etc can start to open up deeper conversations!

Questions to ask Christians:

• How did you come to know Christ?
• What have you been reading in the Bible recently?
• Has there been a sermon or message that has impacted you recently? What was it and why?

Questions to ask Non-Christians:

• Do you have any sort of spiritual beliefs?
• What do you think about Church? Have you ever gone before?
• Do you believe in a god? If so, which god?