Continuing in our Advent series, Brian Delamont returns to the podcast to explore how our longings shape the way we live. Don’t miss how our families coordinate gift-giving, a number of Christmas carol quotes, and Brian’s monthly reflection question!

• Draw Names App
• “What you hope for shapes what you live for.” - The Bible Project
• “Anticipation ignites a thrill in the present caused by nothing more than a possibility in the future.” - Erwin McManus
• 1 Corinthians 16:22
• “[The Gospel] is about the power that Jesus gives us to live our hope right now and to long for what He will do in the future.”
• 1 Corinthians 15:58
• “The object of our desires is usually closely related to a change in our lifeworld. Either we desire something to be added or something to be taken away.” - Geoff Beech
• “The long-expected Jesus is the answer to [our] longings. In anticipation of Jesus’ rule in all our hearts alone and by Jesus’ all-sufficient merit, we are raised to God’s glorious throne.”
• “Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.” - James K. A. Smith
• “What I want actually tells me an awful lot about who I am and who I am becoming.”
• “We’re expecting whatever it is we’re hoping for or longing for [...] to satisfy us, to fulfill our cravings, and to meet our needs. And anything less than God will leave us disappointed.”
• “[Jesus] is against our longing for the wrong things in the wrong place in the wrong way. We can have a wealth of things, yet have poverty towards God. It’s because our longing, our hope, our desire is misdirected.”
• Luke 12:30-34
• “What do I treasure? What am I prepared to do so that I long for the best of all possible treasure?”
• “Much of what we hope for will remain out of our grasp until Jesus comes and makes all things new. This is the hope, the good news of the Gospel.”
• 2 Corinthians 5:1-2
• “We long to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling. In this Advent season, we long and we groan. We hope for the future, and we stand firm in the present.”

Advent Reflection: What are you longing for today, and how is that longing shaping you?

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Sickness in the family
• Heather: Coffee beans from Papua New Guinea
• Brian: Watching his son experience joy after a difficult season

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/ 

What is Christmas really all about? How are my practices in alignment with my beliefs? In this conversation, Clayton Greene shares the story of how Advent Blocks came to be and challenges us to consider how our celebrations point us to the coming of Christ.

• GoodKind Shop
• “You say that Christmas is all about Jesus, but it feels like Christmas is all about presents.”
• “How much inconsistency is there in my intention to walk with God and practice my faith, and my actual ability to do it?”
• “Holidays and annual rhythms have an insane amount of power on what we do in a year and [...] in shaping who we are.”
• “A lot of the excitement you feel in December is actually not pointing you toward the coming of Christ.”
• “Slowing down and having an analog relational conversational moment about God and what He has done with your family is both being present in that moment and an anticipation of the future moment.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Snacking on carrots
• Heather: Seeing David at Sight and Sound Theatres
• Clayton: Playing in the front yard

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

We’re kicking off our annual Advent series with Amanda Bible Williams, co-founder of She Reads Truth! Amanda shares about keeping Scripture central, holding the tension of joy and longing, and how her family celebrates the season together.

• She Reads Truth | He Reads Truth
• “We exist to help women and men and families to open their Bibles every day.”
• “The Advent season is the season of preparation to celebrate the birth of Jesus and to understand why we’re celebrating.”
• “When Christmas day comes around, we’re not taken by surprise or struggling to remember what this day is really about, but we’re ready and we’ve been spending weeks pondering the manger.”
• Isaiah 9:2
• John 1:14
• “Though the story is the same, we can approach it from different angles in different seasons of life.”
• “Aren’t we all longing for something, for someone? As Christians, we believe that our longings at their deepest are only met in Jesus.”
• She Reads Truth Podcast

Check out the Advent collection at shopshereadstruth.com and use the code AMANDA15 for 15% off!

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Thanksgiving road trip and family time
• Heather: Navigating flight changes
• Amanda: Voice messages

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Dayne Smith shares how he was led into missions and how God is at work through TeachBeyond South Africa.

• TeachBeyond Sparrow Project
• Open Schools Worldwide
• “You can get caught in a trap of thinking that you can and you are supposed to do so much in your own strength and by yourself, but that’s so far from the truth. I think God wants us to lean on Him and trust in Him and rely on Him.”
• “He’s working, and it’s His plan for our lives, and we need to be really sensitive to what He is doing.”
• “Listen to God more; do less.”
• Pray for TeachBeyond South Africa: Healthy ministry rhythm, open doors of opportunities, funding, entrepreneurship training, health in their family

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: NFC tokens
• Heather: Getting photos printed
• Dayne: His daughter’s expanding vocabulary

Weekly Spotlight: Bucharest Christian Academy

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Dr. Kristi Smith shares practical tips and suggestions for building bridges between school and home, partnering with parents in the educational process, and specifically navigating conferences with parents.

• “I am here to share my context and my experiences, and to network and partner with educators in what they are doing. It’s through that partnership and that interchange of information that we become stronger as a whole.”
• “A parent is a child’s best teacher.” -Dr. Brazelton
• “Outside of school and church, most children and adults spend the majority of their time in small group settings instead of large group instructional settings. People behave differently in large groups than they do in small groups.”
• “[Parents] know their child better than I can ever know them, and it’s important for us to work together in partnership.”
• “Partnering with parents is helping us to come together to help the children become independent, successful future learners.”
• “If we approach it as a relational event versus telling them what their child is doing or not doing, then it changes this to a conversation instead of a lecture. We have to remember that this is a partnership to train a child in the way that they need to go.”
• “When a parent finds someone reaching to them to try to meet them at their point of need, relationship gets built and barriers start falling down and positive steps go forward.”
• “Any partnership is better than none at all. How can we meet that parent where they’re at?”
• “We need to have constant communication with accurate information.”
• “I’m seeing XYZ. What are you seeing at home? Do you have any tips for me?”
• “Stay strong. It takes time. Bridging home to school actually takes time, but in the long run, it pays off. It pays off not only for you in the class, but it pays off for that child and for that family.”

Join TeachBeyond’s Day of Giving here!

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Unlock Game
• Heather: The Cost of Control
• Kristi: Doing bucket list activities with others

Weekly Spotlight: Faith Academy

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/ 

How do we define the term “missionary”? How can churches send missionaries well? President of Sixteen:Fifteen, Matthew Ellison, helps us wrestle with and navigate these questions from a Biblical perspective.

• Sixteen:Fifteen
• Mark 16:15
• “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” -Mark Twain
• When Everything Is Missions
• “It is a well-intentioned idea to call everyone a missionary; I think it has unintended consequences.”
• “If we are sloppy in our definitional work of what missions is and who’s a missionary, I think invariably, it is those outside the reach of the Gospel that get disenfranchised.”
• “When everyone’s a missionary, no one’s a missionary.”
• “Biblically, missionary’s not a rank, it’s a role. They’re not super spiritual people, they’re not super apostles, they’re broken people like everyone else but they have a specific calling to take the Gospel cross-culturally.”
• “In the New Testament, this is someone who is sent out to cross cultures with the Gospel.”
• “God’s ‘all peoples’ mission is an all-hands-on-deck effort.”
• Acts 13
• “Not everyone is called to go, but everyone has a role to play.”
• “Missionaries are those who do Kingdom work in a cross-cultural context in support of the Great Commission’s fulfillment, which is making disciples of all nations.”
• “We should be discipling people into a global worldview. We have divorced missions and the mission of God to make disciples of all nations from our identity as followers of Jesus.”
• “The living God is a missionary God, and if we’re going to be like Him, we’re going to care about the things He cares about, and He cares about His mission [...] Every child of God should be a part of the story of God’s redemption.”
• Philippians 1:19
• Philippians 4:17
• 3 John 1:6
• “Send your missionaries in a manner worthy of God’s Name.”
• Philippians 1:5
• Perspectives on the World Christian Movement
• “The calling and appointment of the Spirit will be confirmed in the context of a local body of believers.”
• “It was a broken heart that got him to the mission field, but it was a love for Jesus that kept him on the mission field.”
• “I think the only thing that can keep us persevering in the mission of God is a love for Jesus.”
• “Where zeal for worship is weak, zeal for mission will be weak also.” -John Piper
• “If we want to see that missions flame burn in our lives until Jesus takes us home, we’ve gotta stay close to Jesus.”

To learn more about reaching the least-reached, listen to episode 74 with Steve Johnson.  If your church is interested in learning more about TeachBeyond, contact [email protected].

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Hummingbird feeders
• Heather: Timeshifter App
• Matthew: Recent change to plant-based diet

Weekly Spotlight: Black Forest Academy

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/ 

As followers of Jesus, we are called to follow the example of Jesus - the downward way.  Brian Delamont returns to the podcast to unpack what it means to be a leader who follows the model of Christ rather than the way seen in the rest of the world. Listen to our conversation as we are challenged to re-think what it means to lead.

• In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen
• “The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”
• Matthew 20:20-28
• John 13:4-7, 12
• “The downward way of Jesus, this upside-down leadership, is not a concept, it’s not a theory; it’s praxis.”
• “Transformed and transformational - we want to see the application of this, the transformation that God offers us, to be lived out in our lives.”
• Philippians 2

October Reflection: What does loving Jesus look like right now? How can I follow the example of Jesus?

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Raised bed garden
• Heather: Autumn bingo board
• Brian: In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen

Weekly Spotlight: Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Paulo and Juliana are the first guests of the season for our monthly “Work and Calling” series! Work and Calling episodes feature TeachBeyond missionaries sharing about what they do and how God led them to missions. Listen in to hear their hearts for Brazil and how God led them to serve in Brasilia!

• “God is opening the doors in several ways that we have been praying [about] for so long!”
• “Although we didn’t know the next day what was going to happen, we knew that we had this sense of the Holy Spirit giving us comfort and confirmation.”
• “Those [moments of feeling alone] were the most crucial moments when we really learned how to depend on Him more than anything else, more than any other person, and that really shaped what we do today.”
• “We were reminded of the Lord’s prayer: Pray against the evil one, confess your sins, be more consistent.”
• “If God puts a desire in your heart, a ministry, He will fulfill it later on.”
• “When we walk in life as educators, as missionaries, as Christians, we need to live a confessional life, a life that is committed to dependence on the Lord as citizens in this world. We also need to have a deep sense of compassion for people.”
• “God is unlimited! I am limited, but God is not.”
• Isaiah 40:3-5
• Pray for Beyond Ingles and Brazil: Election, Connections for Beyond Ingles, integrating art into the English program, difficulties with families in Brazil

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Compost
• Heather: Read Aloud with Aunt Heather
• Juliana: Swimming classes for the kids
• Paulo: Beginning family Christmas celebrations

Weekly Spotlight: Beyond Ingles

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/ 

Where have you seen the hand of God at work in your life? TeachBeyond President David Durance returns to the podcast to talk about intentionally reflecting on God’s faithfulness, stewarding what we have been given, and looking for evidence of His presence.

• Learn more about TeachBeyond here!
• Psalm 24
• “There are seasons where we can see the visible hand of God. We see the undercurrent, the silent hand or the invisible hand all the time, but there are seasons, there are moments in our lives where the visible hand of God is present and evident.”
• Daniel 4
• “Why don’t we start our planning season with reminding ourselves that it seems good to us to show the signs and wonders of the Most High God?”
• “It’s good for us to remind each other of God’s presence and His faithfulness and His being with us.”
• “The Bible isn’t abstract and irrelevant, but relevant and speaks into the daily things of our lives if we just take a few minutes to read and understand and know.”
• Romans 12:2
• James 3:17-18
• “Where are we going to reap the most harvest for God’s Kingdom? Are the actions we’re going to take going to be peace-loving? Are they considerate, are they full of mercy and good fruit?”
• “As we go into each season, we can take a moment to take a look at what God has done.”
• “These moments of reminding and being faithful to retelling the stories of God’s hand in our lives are the foundation for us to then launch into all that God has for us next.”
• “We live in this world, then, where God is asking us to do the mission that he has, this redeeming work all around the world, and yet He’s never asking us to over-own this.”
• “Father, I’m always willing to ensure that You stay as the owner, and I will steward whatever mission You have in front of me.”
• “What do you want me to do about this, God?”
• “God, I want You to do all that You can, everything You desire here, to make this right, and Father, I’ll be whatever You need me to be to help You accomplish whatever You’re desiring.”
• “If we’re running so hard and fast, we can sometimes miss what God is saying.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Having both kids in school
• Heather: Returning from sabbatical
• David: Leaf blower

Weekly Spotlight: Arbor Christian Academy

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast  Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

It’s Child Sponsorship Month at TeachBeyond! Listen to the conversation with Maria Berezny as she discusses the pressing need for Child Sponsors and the impact that it can have on their life. Learn how not only are children's physical needs provided for, but their spiritual and education needs as well.

• Child Sponsorship Website
• “From a young age, whenever somebody would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would answer that I wanted to be a Musician-ary, which of course is a word that I had made up. But in my mind, it perfectly encapsulated everything that I wanted to do. It combined my three main passions and loves, to combine music and children and ministry. And so in my mind, I just wanted to be a music teacher, missionary.”
• “I got to see firsthand that it doesn't matter how good of an education you provide a child if their most basic needs aren't being met, if they're hungry, if they don't have a sufficient shelter, if they don't feel safe, if they don't truly deep down know that they're loved and they belong, then the education is ineffective. They won't be able to receive and learn and apply all that they're being taught.”
• “What that does is, it shows the child you're seen, you're known, you're loved, you're worthy, you have potential, you have a future ahead of you, and you have a destiny and a God given purpose.”
• “…what really makes [TeachBeyond Sponsorship] unique is that although we, of course, recognize and meet the physical needs of our children, our focus is primarily education because we believe that students are made in God's image and they deserve an opportunity to be equipped and empowered with the knowledge, skills and tools that they need to become dynamic leaders within their communities and therefore to break these generational cycles of poverty that we're seeing.”
• “Beyond that, the kind of education which communicates to students that they're loved by God, gives them dignity. And of course, there's many reasons that we chose to focus on education. But I think kind of a nutshell reason is the potential for a long-term impact. We believe that by equipping and empowering these students, it's not only going to transform the children, but it's going to transform their families, and the families will transform their communities and their communities will transform their countries and so on. So, as we holistically train these students for life, we desire to instill in them an authentic vision of their calling within the Great Commission, and to raise them up to be ambassadors for Christ and reach their full God given potential. You know, the word says that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Swimming
• Maria: Her garden

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected]
Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast 
Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/